what about the future?

[Gandalf Parker]

Oh they love the community in general. As a herd it tends to be wonderful.
But if they were to drop tidbits it would bring out some of the individual bulls which could quite likely knock them off course completely.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Ynglaur

NTJedi - I wonder if we should try to create a Dominions 3 mod for Elemental...

I agree it's a great idea, especially with all the modding options arriving with the game. It would take a large chunk of time for even the basics such as adding attributes like precision for all current game units.

[Foodstamp]

I've already got some plans for Elemental. I am not looking to do a total conversion, just translate all the nations over as factions (Graphics permitting), and add some of the spells and magic items from dominions, as well as some of the magic sites and the indies (Minor Factions)

I am going to use the existing combat mechanics in Elemental and try to translate the units over as best as I can.

Depending on the difficulty, I would like to make the magic system more like dominions/mom (number of books = access to better spells, add nature, blood) and even add scales to set for each sovereign upon creation.

This is all speculation until beta 4 though .

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by lch

You'd weep when I tell you the specifications about the file format for the sprites, and why they are saved in the way they are. The game still is a derivative of an Atari Falcon ST game.

I cannot guarantee weeping as I am not a programmer, but could you tell it? I like "programming archeology", as Vinge named it.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by DrPraetorious

The dominions codebase is really neat in a lot of respects - but it also shows it's age. I don't have access to the source code, but just from diving into the built-in tables you can see the accumulated cruft of ages, and a lot of things are hard-coded or messy hacks which will cause accumulated headaches down the line if they try to keep working on it.

That said, it is amazing how extensible and stable it is (and how small a footprint it has, which is really a hallmark of an earlier era), but I can see why they wouldn't want to add true scripting support - either for user-modded events, user-modded maps/scenarios, or user-modded spells.

I agree with what DrPraetorious said. Besides even if you would have an access to script language for the world building, events, et cetera, should you try to create really interesting campaign, I strongly suspect that severe limitations of AI would came forth with vengeance. You would likely require sophisticated dev-built tools to mod AI behavior, something that may be very difficult to retrofit into old clunky Dom3 source code. That's entirely different can of worms, especially for a game with such a complex ruleset as Dom3.


to be able to create really good compaigns,

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

That would depend on the developers.
Many of the suggestions for Dom3 were killed purely by the way they were discussed. No matter what the logic was, if it was demanded or belittled or sarcasmed then it could die. If Illwinter disclosed the details of their project to this crowd, Id suspect that the fun would go out of the development. Im not sure that it could survive us. Its better to get something than to chance getting nothing.

Everything has its pros and cons.

You seem to posses some degree of knowledge about this new project. Without revealing any project-related info or encroaching into NDA territory, what are you personal guts feeling - is it something that you think Dom1/2/3 players crowd might enjoy? Or is it so far away from the Dom style of gaming, that you don't think so, or perhaps it is simply too hard to predict?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Corwin

That's entirely different can of worms, especially for a game with such a complex ruleset as Dom3.

BINGO.
Early on I told people that if they wanted to come up with some AI changes they would be looked at. I provided clips of the debug code around ai actions and invited them to come up with some pseudo code. Some of the threads are still probably around. But anyone that tried found out that even the simplest complaint by the players tended to have a dozen IF this or IF that tied to it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Corwin

You seem to posses some degree of knowledge about this new project. Without revealing any project-related info or encroaching into NDA territory, what are you personal guts feeling - is it something that you think Dom1/2/3 players crowd might enjoy? Or is it so far away from the Dom style of gaming, that you don't think so, or perhaps it is simply too hard to predict?

Sorry. I have nothing to give that can tighten peoples impressions of it. If anything, all I have only increases it.

I would buy it today if it was pre-sold. But then I doubt that information tells anyone anything new (see title under login)

[Meglobob]

Have we any timeframe on when Illwinters new project will be completed?

1 year, 2 years, 3 years?!?

[WraithLord]

Funny, the other day I tried some extensive searching for some shred of info on the new project. I found absolutely nothing.