[rdonj]

Originally Posted by onomastikon

In all fairness, while "their" website does indeed contain a large number of rampant, vociferous fanboys, "it's" not terribly different from most game websites throughout the world. Sometimes I also "wonder" about the degree of harshness with which those who offer constructive criticism of Dominions are treated here on this website.

What's true is that Brad -- not unlike Johan et al. -- feels that he will and can end up doing his thing, no matter what, and that gives him a certain degree of immunity to criticism. Like Johan et al., Brad has a "real life" in a slightly different context, albeit one that is not quite so different than that a game developer as a schoolteacher is (he runs a software company which also happens to have a small gaming branch); while he has resources and gets paid for Elemental, his bread and butter is elsewhere (various Windows applications), allowing him to create a niche product, if he so wishes. For reasons much like these, the creators of Dominions 3 are also able to say, with a certain degree of reassurance, that if someone doesn't like what they are doing, then they might as well stay away. Unlike the creators of Dom3, however, whose main target group consist of people posting here (in other words, a small, vociferous, fiercly loyal (it seems to me sometimes to the point of being blind), frequently rampant fanbase) -- in other words, the nerds here like you and me --, the creators of Elemental simultaneously wish to be mainstream and reach a much larger target group. I think that is greatly inconsistent and self-contradictory, and I am currently writing a useless, somewhat acerbic post full of well-formulated rantings on their website, mostly because I still suffer from the common delusion that things people write on sites like these will be viewed with patience and goodwill and may even change things in the world. Look for my post there soon. Ah excuse me sidetracked.

I too was a member of the beta "team", and Megablob is more correct than he knows. What he doesn't know: We never actually tested the game. Never. We tested parts of it, but what you can purchase now was never played by a human being outside the laboratories of Stardock, and by them only minimally (by their own admission), before reaching your shelves. You read it here first. Ah excuse me again.

Wow, why are we coming down so hard on "meglobob's" spelling/grammar? I mean, I've been a bit of a spelling nazi myself, but this forum gets visitors from many countries around the world, and that means we have a lot of players here who don't speak english as a first language (which I'm pretty sure includes meglobob). Of all forums to attack someone's use of the english language, this one really isn't terribly high on the list. It doesn't add anything to the conversation and is kind of rude. I would kindly ask you not to do that again on these forums, please.

And otherwise, I completely agree with Wraithlord's sentiments. Are we reading the same forums here? The ones in which there are only a very few people that stand completely behind the devs in all things (seriously, other than gandalf, does anyone fit this mold? And he's at least quite open in admitting it)? The one in which, on patch days, we are likely to see more people complaining about the lack of cave darkness than we are people who thank illwinter for the extra work they've put in to make the game just that little bit better, years after getting it out on the market? The one where the vast and overwhelming majority of games are played using a mod that makes significant changes to the game due to perceived balance concerns that they devs don't really see as a problem for them?

You baffle me.