Dominions II - Low Budget and Overpriced? I think not. - Page 4

Gandalf Parker · #31 January 9th, 2004, 02:59 AM

Well it was cheaper (at least Dom1 was). I dont think UI and tutorial would be enough difference to reflect the sales differences.

Dom2 went with a publisher, which means it goes with publisher pricing.

Maybe if Dom2 sells enough we will see the things you want with Dom3. Hmmm no that one may go to shelf-ware which means it will go with shelf-ware pricing.

onomastikon · #32 January 9th, 2004, 08:52 AM

Well I just ordered the game, but it took a while to make the decision because of the price, but mostly because of the price *for what you are getting*. I know nothing of its budget, but one can certainly tell that it is a "cheap" game (or appears to be so) in at least this sense: (it appears that) all design work went into game balance, none went into sound, graphics, interface, support or manual. The designers get credos for intelligence and creativity, but nothing for investment, or "dedication" (in a sense I will mention in a moment).
Balance can be done by smart gamers testing, the rest requires artists, programmers, voice editors, speakers, modelers, etc.

The graphics are abominable. Together with the sound (which I must turn off, especially if I ever "view battle" (I cannot stand the Commodore 64 squeak of serpents in battle)), this makes the excellent gameplay much less enjoyable. This also gives the impression that the team had little "dedication" to its target group. By dedication, consider games where (it appears that) a lot of "love" has gone into the game. Think of Deus Ex I (the attention to detail) or Warcraft III (the cute voices, excellent graphics, extreme customer support (battle.net).) The designers obviously love the concept, but it appears they did not want to invest in a finished product for a larger target group. And that is why the price seems so high.

So for the price, Dominions II *appears* to be either very low-budgeted or shoddy.

Don't get me wrong: it is a good game and well thought-out, but I would not have released it for this price. I purchased it because I am an idealist, but I bet most people arent.

[ January 09, 2004, 06:59: Message edited by: onomastikon ]

PvK · #33 January 9th, 2004, 09:15 AM

Deus Ex? Warcraft? Those games had art budgets measured in hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars! The people who did the art were professional game artists. None of the folks at Illwinter are professional game artists, nor did they have a megacorporate (or perhaps any) budget.

PvK

liga · #34 January 9th, 2004, 09:20 AM

I think taht the problem is that for making good the details (graphics, sounds, interface, ...) yuou really need a team of programmer ... Blizzard has a huge team of people working on each game (they are looking for sculptist to realize the models of the units in the game! ... understand what it means?) ...

Little company needs to focus on the main things of a game (idea, mechanics, AI) and obviusly they lack in graphics and sounds aand similar ...

I think that to reduce the price is possible if you change not the nubber of copies you sold but the order of magnitude of the copy sold ...

So what I pretend by a game of little company is just that is funny, work good, playable and have a minum level of graphics (that was the reason why I never been able to play dom1) ... about the price I want is it not more than othe games ... of course in the moment the game start to sell well probably the designer could start to have enough money to conider making game a job and could try to hire someone to have a better graphic and music in the next realese ...

good play
Liga

Leif_- · #35 January 9th, 2004, 10:56 AM

I'd just like to point out that in other areas of the entertainment industry, there's no correlation between budget and the final price of a product. You pay as much for a DVD of Evil Dead or El Mariachi as for Waterworld or ID4. Why should computer games be any different?

Graeme Dice · #36 January 9th, 2004, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by onomastikon:
The graphics are abominable.

Not really. They tell you what's going on, and that's all that's needed. They could be labelled rectangles and it wouldn't make much difference to the gameplay.

Quote:

This also gives the impression that the team had little "dedication" to its target group. By dedication, consider games where (it appears that) a lot of "love" has gone into the game.

You seem to have no understanding whatsoever of what is difficult to do in a computer program, or what is time consuming. Creating a complex set of interacting game elements is every bit as difficult as creating lots of art.

Quote:

Think of Deus Ex I (the attention to detail) or Warcraft III (the cute voices, excellent graphics, extreme customer support (battle.net).)

So where are the two programmers going to get the money to do this, and why should they waste their time on mostly irrelevant eye candy? There's really no need for graphics to be any better than those in the original Civilization for a strategy game, and much effort is wasted by companies in making them better.

Quote:

The designers obviously love the concept, but it appears they did not want to invest in a finished product for a larger target group. And that is why the price seems so high.

I think you need to get a reality check. Deus Ex and Warcraft III had million dollar budgets.

Gandalf Parker · #37 January 9th, 2004, 05:54 PM

Just in case you are interested in what might be reality to some of this let me make some comments here....

Quote:

The graphics are abominable. Together with the sound (which I must turn off, especially if I ever "view battle" (I cannot stand the Commodore 64 squeak of serpents in battle)), this makes the excellent gameplay much less enjoyable.

While the things you say might not be untrue, who are you comparing it to? Are you comparing to windows games on the store shelves? Are any of them other games being offered here at Shrapnels site? Are any of them games that run on so many widely different operating systems? Again I say it doesnt make what you said untrue but it is a touch of reality here.

Quote:

This also gives the impression that the team had little "dedication" to its target group.

Hmmm I think there would be a disagreement on who you think their target group is if you think graphics and sound rated high.

Quote:

By dedication, consider games where (it appears that) a lot of "love" has gone into the game.

??? These are two guys who have real jobs with real familys. I think I would love to hear their Mrs comment on things like how much budget and time and love was put into this project of their husbands.

Quote:

Think of Deus Ex I (the attention to detail) or Warcraft III (the cute voices, excellent graphics, extreme customer support (battle.net).)

Wow. These are games where alot of "love" went into them? I'm not doubting that but they seem like games where alot of money went into them. Its like you are compairing jet planes to the Wright brothers. No offense to Illwinter but I think the territory you are referring to is more like Dominions 9. If you look at the products produced by those companys before they had full-time programmers and artists and writers and web people etc etc etc then things might be alittle more fair.

Quote:

The designers obviously love the concept, but it appears they did not want to invest in a finished product for a larger target group. And that is why the price seems so high.

That I can agree with. But I would have to say that they may have wanted this but at least part of the blame for this would have to lie with me and other Users of Dom1. If you look back to the conversations in newsGroups such as comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic you might see that pushing Dom toward a publisher and wider distribution was a common Users comment. And as with many things in Dom2, they did exactly as we requested with all the Pros and Cons involved.

[ January 09, 2004, 15:56: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

johan osterman · #38 January 9th, 2004, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by onomastikon:
The designers obviously love the concept, but it appears they did not want to invest in a finished product for a larger target group. And that is why the price seems so high.

Eh, no one at illwinter have had any significant amounts of money for they 6 or so years dom1/dom2 has been in the works. No one has invested anything but time and effort in dom2 ( apart from the small compensation paid to falsobordonne), this is not due to lack of 'love' or 'dedication' to the target group, but due to that nobody has had any money to invest. If you are willing to invest a few hundreds of thousands of dollars no one at illwinter would object.

Gandalf Parker · #39 January 10th, 2004, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
If you are willing to invest a few hundreds of thousands of dollars no one at illwinter would object.

LOL good response.

onomastikon · #40 January 10th, 2004, 07:09 PM

Excuse me, please dont misinterpret me. I love this game. Yes, I was comparing it with high-budget projects. That was the title of the thread! Please dont be offended. Someone said they found it bizarre that people refered to the game as having a low budget; that simply doesnt seem bizarre to me. No need to get angry because it does not have that budget. Still a great game!