What the hell is up with Dominions 3???

[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.

[Endoperez]

Sorry, but I must disagree. Going for that much publicity would be hard, and expensive, for a game so little known as Dominions. And it would certainly take more than an hour in a month. It'd be nice to have something. However, it shouldn't be off from the actual developer time - I think we all agree on this. Thus, the "big news" must come from Shrapnel's side. They have already said that big news will appear this month.

It is pointless to discuss "what they should have done" now. It's a pity this discussion didn't appear two, three months away - we might've gotten something very juicy for Christmas, instead of the annoyingly teasing one-sentence update on the Illwinter site.

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:
Sorry, but I must disagree. Going for that much publicity would be hard, and expensive, for a game so little known as Dominions. And it would certainly take more than an hour in a month.

Everything I listed can take ABOUT an hour each month. Exactly where do you see LOTS of time being spent?? Each event I listed can easily be set with a fixed timeframe which totals about one hour.
Chats in a chatroom = zero cost
Screenshots to fan websites = zero cost
One developer diary every two months = 15mins... setup on a fans website is zero cost.
interviews with gaming websites = some charge and some don't

--not sure why you see these as expensive.

Endoperez said:
It'd be nice to have something. However, it shouldn't be off from the actual developer time - I think we all agree on this. Thus, the "big news" must come from Shrapnel's side. They have already said that big news will appear this month.

I agree it shouldn't cut into actual developer time, but 6 months before the games release the buzz should be started. One hour each month is small potatotes.

It is pointless to discuss "what they should have done" now.

I strongly disagree... it's never too late to educate the developers/publishers what should have been done because in the long term it's better for everyone on future games.