What the hell is up with Dominions 3???

[PDF]

Well, I'm quite puzzled at the lack of any communication effort by IW and SG about Dom3.
This game should be SG workhorse as sales and buzz go, yet in the last 3 months we had to ask for an interview with KO (that he ans SG gently agreed on) to have news and screenshots for Cyberstratege (the french mag I write for...).
IW site is a polar desert, the latest journals should have more than 6 months, and SG don't even assure they'll publish it now (or is it a joke ?) !
Well, I suppose it's a try to get buzz through silence

[DominionsFan]

PDF said:
Well, I'm quite puzzled at the lack of any communication effort by IW and SG about Dom3.
This game should be SG workhorse as sales and buzz go, yet in the last 3 months we had to ask for an interview with KO (that he ans SG gently agreed on) to have news and screenshots for Cyberstratege (the french mag I write for...).
IW site is a polar desert, the latest journals should have more than 6 months, and SG don't even assure they'll publish it now (or is it a joke ?) !
Well, I suppose it's a try to get buzz through silence

Exactly my point!! Also, if I remeber correctly the release date for doms 3. was 2006 Q1, no? Ok I can understand that a company is pushing back the release date, BUT! Months passed, I havent seen screenshots, or not even a real feature list. No news since months. Why? The devs are coding and stuff, thats ok, but they have no time to release any informations, screenshots or a planned release date? I think all fans of the game would be excited if Illwinter would release infos so the players would stop to worry that whats going on with the game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well everything has its pros and cons.

Illwinter is two guys with jobs and familys and lives who also happen to be programming our absolute favorite game. I cant feel right about pestering them to come here and give us a heads up also if it knocks out another item in the update list for Dom3. I guess that a second-hand post saying that they are deeply working on it in the beta will have to keep my fingers from twitching

The PR side is probably more Shrapnels thing? But since I do see them stepping in to calm us, and I do see articles appearing on the net about Dom3, then I guess something is being done. Any more would probably cost us. Any company with a stronger PR push tends to pay for it out of the sales profits somewhere so Im also not going to push to have more of that.

I could probably help abit. I have seen a number of sites that have a Dom3 page with no info other than "its coming" so maybe I will do my little bit to go there and post some excitement building comments. Im not saying that its the prefereable choice but at least its something I can do.

Gandalf Parker

[Agrajag]

Gandalf Parker said:
I could probably help abit. I have seen a number of sites that have a Dom3 page with no info other than "its coming" so maybe I will do my little bit to go there and post some excitement building comments. Im not saying that its the prefereable choice but at least its something I can do.

I think that if you can help generate "buzz" for the game, then do it.
Even though we would like to hope otherwise, dominions is not a strong and major title, and I think its loyal community (as is often the case with such games) is one of its prime assets. And if we can help "spread the word" in order to help such a small game, then we should.
I know I use every chance I get to tell other people about Dominions. (Sadly, I think the vast majority of people that hear about from me either don't check it out, or don't enjoy it. But that has more to do with the gaming demographic here in Israel than everything else :\)

[Nerfix]

I've been tinkering with the idea of a website with some basic Dominions info such as nations etc. then some of the key concepts explained. This could provide some "noise" and info.

But I've been occupied with other stuff and I sort of forget HTML... =/

[Morkilus]

My one rant for today:

I've made dozens of attempts to get my friends to download the demo, all without any success at all... the only person I've gotten to play the game is my brother, as I actually installed the game on his computer so I could play during vacation. This is one of those games that can't be sold by graphics or a flashy website, or even by name alone (Civ IV, ahem)... just by gameplay and flavor. Maybe my friends think I'm full of it, or maybe there simply isn't enough coverage for them to believe me. I have a hard time believing that someone so disappointed in Civ IV and so into fantasy stuff like M:TG wouldn't give this game a chance. But there needs to be a critical mass of buzz to get this game out of the "elite strategy/niche" category. I never would have seen this game nor forum if I hadn't been following GoGamer specials.

[NTJedi]

I completely agree the developers/publishers should be focusing on creating a huge buzz for this game... instead it's dead silence.
Dead silence never brings as much sales as good advertising for a game. The game should have developer diaries every two months, screenshots, chat rooms with the developer answering questions to gaming fans, and brief 20MIN interviews with gaming websites. The total time investment for what I listed is only about 1_hour a month, which is small potatoes for increasing game sales. Instead of generating a hype for the upcoming game, many publishers are using a dead-silence... which only confuses/upsets the fans of the developer.

WHY the Dead-Silence?? We all wonder why... well my theory is the dead silence was placed into the contract by the publisher. The publisher is afraid some other game maker will try stealing ideas.... thus they place a "NO COMMUNICATION of any kind until 3 weeks before the games release." The publisher fails to see the negative side effects of dead silence and the game and its sales suffer in the long run.

WORD OF MOUTH is one of the main ways for a game to increase in sales... but if gamers don't hear anything they equally cannot promote the game via word of mouth. I'm sure we'll eventually hear something... let's just hope it's not too late.

[Tim Brooks]

Dominions 3 is on track, in beta, with alot of effort currently going into getting marketing up and running. Shrapnel Games has a signed contract with Illwinter to publish Dominions III. With a game of this scale, we can't guarantee a release date, so we have been waiting until we are closer to completion, and can at least give a reasonably close schedule, before we announce.

Now, having said all that, look for more infromation, MAJOR information before the end of March.

Has not anyone wondered about the Awakening ads?

See you soon.

[Endoperez]

Now, that's some news. I'd just like to hear the rest of them as well...

Other than that, I don't really have much to say. There have been no news in these forums to post, unfortunately. Except that the developers have been (somewhat) more active lately - encouraging comments on mods, on certain threads, etc.
Oh, and Illwinter site isn't a polar desert - last update is "only" from the end of December. That's actually moderately active for that one...

[Tyrant]

Tim Brooks said:
Dominions 3 is on track, in beta, with alot of effort currently going into getting marketing up and running. Shrapnel Games has a signed contract with Illwinter to publish Dominions III. With a game of this scale, we can't guarantee a release date, so we have been waiting until we are closer to completion, and can at least give a reasonably close schedule, before we announce.

Now, having said all that, look for more infromation, MAJOR information before the end of March.

Has not anyone wondered about the Awakening ads?

See you soon.

I saw the Awakening ads and took them for an Omen!

But...you guys really do need to be more forthcoming. The post i have quoted above is perfectly sufficient. Put up a sticky thread and have someone post "there, there, it's ok, we are making progress" every two weeks just so we are reassured.

We live in the Age of Noise, there are 15 gillion new entertainments coming out every week and ADD is epidemic.
Out of sight is out of mind. Your hardcore fans will wait, but you will lose casual customers if they check in once and don't see something. Everyone who plays these type of games has been burned by vaporware at some point, (Matrix ticked me off so badly I won't even buy their games anymore) so you need to be carefull.

Thanks for your post Tim!