Conquest of Elysium 3 dev log

[Gandalf Parker]

Bringing up the same information over and over isnt likely to change anything.
The fact that Steam (or something like it) could sell more games to more casual users has been mentioned many times already.
Its recorded and acknowledged. Lets move on

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

On steam, yes. Steam is odd, it is the amazon of selling games. (What works, only works for them, and it works great. But copying their business model will fail, and if you compete with them you will always have to deal with them).

So if dom3 was on sale on steam it would sell like a ... thing that sells. Because steam has a huge impulse buying community. Sadly shrapnel doesn't have this.

Yes. Tenfold sales aren't impossible in any way. $5 is a price where people pick it up at the price just to try it and with Steam it's like three clicks for any Steam user to do that. $50 is a price where very few people buy it before trying it and even then it probably takes some consideration to pay the price of a full AAA game for it (yes, dom3 is better game than many of those, but those games did still cost a lot more to make so they do feel more entitled to get $50 if I happen to buy them in the first place). As a bonus buying from a random site usually requires you to do more than just click three or so times.

As for tenfold content, obviously not. Probably still more content than with $50 price though.

Minecraft is a good example of a game that got huge exposure with just spreading the game on their own site. It's not really something you can compare CoE3 with at all though. Minecraft was revolutionary in terms of gameplay. It's also very easy to access even if you aren't really a gamer. It also cost just 10 euros at start which is why I bothered to buy it in the first place back when I did. CoE3 doesn't have those selling points and is bound to be more of a niche game. The game mechanics aren't probably going to be revolutionary for more than small parts really, and more than that, it's going to be a turnbased strategy game. A genre that you need to streamline really well to appeal to casual gamers.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Bringing up the same information over and over isnt likely to change anything.
The fact that Steam (or something like it) could sell more games to more casual users has been mentioned many times already.
Its recorded and acknowledged. Lets move on

I'm not trying to change anything. Past experiences have made it pretty clear that it is futile trying to argue here. Just pointing out misinformation. Like Elmokki did.

[Jack_Trowell]

I'm just posting to signal a small error in the progress page: the dates goes from 30th December 2011 to 1st December 2011, looks like the month and year have not been updated in the changelog.

Oh, and happy new year eveyone ! ^_^

[Edi]

What misinformation?

Distribution channels were discussed and the Steam vs Shrapnel model has been discussed many times with regard to Dominions 3 and it is absolutely irrelevant to this discussion.

Of the online options I've tried, Steam is the one I detest the most due to the extra requirements (other software), so I would not personally prefer that, but that's basically the extent of what has been said against it. Availability also on channels outside Steam at the same time is a different issue. Given such options, I would choose a non-Steam option while someone else could go for the Steam version.

Steam or other such online distribution mechanisms are possible for CoE3 or it could be something more traditional, but the point of fact is that that decision is going to be made by Illwinter and nobody else and they have as yet said NOTHING.

The pricing of CoE3 has not been discussed at all, except by the non-beta testers who brought it up. And that's another issue where there is NO information whatsoever to be had, since it is another thing which is going to be up to Illwinter and whichever distributor they ultimately choose.

Now can we please bury this particular tangent, or would someone else like to flog that particular equine corpse some more?

[Soyweiser]

Misinformation about how steam works, (exclusivity). And how mass reduced pricing works for steam and non steam distributed games. And how cheap games have bad forums.

Sure the remarks have been made again and again. But people keep bringing them up wrongly.

I'm not trying to make Illwinter change pricing, distribution etc. From the beta testers remarks it is clear they do not value non beta tester input.

It is normal that in a discussion you sometimes go a bit offtopic, esp when people make remarks you think are wrong.

Also, reading back in the thread. Gandalf himself asked for reasonable distribution suggestions. So discussing them isn't that strange, and not really a dead horse.

[Gandalf Parker]

Soyweiser I dont tend to take offense to much (and experts here have tested that) but that post irritates me. Congratulations.

A) "not value non beta testers input" is probably purposely trolling. As beta testers BOTH Edi and I have made sure that all opinions get passed. We might not argue in favor of them but we do pass it and point out where the discussion is occurring so the devs can read it themselves.

B) stating your opinions, and me stating mine, is fine. But harping on the subject does NOT improve its chances with the devs. Are you new here or something? Havent you seen the result of please & thankyou as opposed to "idiots are missing the obvious" style of discussion in actually getting things changed as far as the companies involved?

[Soyweiser]

Sorry, but both of you are constantly are dismissive of any remarks made here. So as I cannot see into the beta forum, and a lot of behind the scenes stuff on this site has a questionable reputation. I'm skeptical. And never made it really clear that any information is passed along (Reading back, I see that I'm wrong it is mentioned that distribution suggestions would be passed along. My bad).

On the first page you already voice your opinion that releasing an open dev log is a bad idea. Not really something that fills me with trust. And first you ask for information regarding distribution channels, then both of you are very dismissive of any input. Most suggestions are either to expensive, creates horrible forums, or one of the beta testers detests the given option. Or it is just ignored. (How many times have people suggested that there are made youtube movies?)

Just look back at the thread, almost every suggestion is being dismissed by either you or Edi. Our (normal forumgoers) ties with Illwinter are not that close, we do not clearly know or understand what they want. (Actually, the times that I know it I do not understand it). And you made it pretty clear that even you guys have little influence in how it goes. So then it isn't that far off to think that I as a non beta tester have no influence whatsoever.

Sure it might irritate you, but this ivory tower dismissiveness of suggestions also irritates me. Especially when remarks about steam are being labeled as a dead horse just when there was a request for distribution suggestions.

So either we should shut up and not give suggestions (which are mostly dead horses anyway... this isn't meant as a troll, dom3 ai, and gui simply isn't that good. shrapnel pricing/distribution the same) or we should give suggestions which are then passed on to the beta forum (without being dismissed as irrelevant). There cannot be both.

I have no problem with the explanations of stuff and the updates however, those are nice additions.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hey I was trying to be supportive. Its not the suggestions being made. Its how they are being made.

Discussion here direct to the devs with no filtering I think has definite drawbacks. But so far the ones that I feel are being done wrong tend to shoot suggestions in the foot that I didnt want to pitch anyway. Im no longer a moderator. I can be selfish. I shouldnt have to try and be diplomatic and support things I dont agree with. So, fine. Go for it. I will back off and let it flow.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Even if it were $5 instead of $50 (and we pretended that was profit), do you think there would actually be 10x sales? And, would there be ten times as many content Dom players? I doubt it.

Fair enough, from replies it seems concensus [Edit: apparently "consensus", sigh] is that it would increase sales tenfold.

But the other bit of my post was that IMHO you would not get ten times as many happy Dom3 players. I just don't believe there are ten times as many people out there who would think Dom3 was great, or even playable. It's such niche audience.