You can't complain that this game is costly

[Beorne]

Sometimes I complained for the resolution of big old bugs or for the introduction of some additional features, is 4 yrs I play almost only Dom and the support is never enough.

But you can't say (like often happens) this game is costly.
I bought EUIII. Very good game, veru few bigs, great support. But to complete the game you need the two expansions. You will then have a very good complete game for about 70-80 €.
I bought GalCivII. Very good game (the guys at Paradox rocks). But You will need the two expasions to complete it.
My friend bought CivIV. The same.
And don't tell me after some time the price will drop, after 3 yrs it will published GAlCivIII, EUIV, anf CivV. And the wheel of time will go around.
Somewhere a video game marketing specialist had this "three for one" great idea, like dropping 1 cent to have the 9.99 effect, but for me is like cheating.

[Gandalf Parker]

I agree with most of that. For a game like this one, the support will never be enough. As amazing as it is, people will always come up with things they want "fixed" or changed.

Definetly not costly. I get far more for my money than any other game I remember.

I suppose that Shrapnel could package 2 of their other games with it, but as you say it would feel like cheating if thats what it takes to get some people to buy it. As for the 9.99 thing studies have shown that people often make decisions based on even amounts. As long as $9.99 sells so much better than $10 then we will see it being done.

Gandalf Parker

[Sombre]

Yes I can. It's far too costly. I can't get any of my gamer friends to buy it and play MP with me, which is something we do a lot with other games. One of us really loves a game, so the rest of us buy copies so we can play it together online. This happens all the time. Console games, PC games,....

There's just no chance of that happening with Dom3.

Although I'm a huge fan of dom3 I'm not going into some kind of nutty denial about the price. People largely expect prices to drop and plenty of people just don't buy games at full price. It isn't going to happen with Dom3 and as a result these people won't be buying dom3.

Note I'm not trying to say what I think the price /should/ be. That's none of my business. Shrapnel do what works for them and know more about sales figures and costs and all that crap than I do. But arguing dom3 isn't costly is daft. Just compare it with similar games that have actually had their price lowered. Sure you can say 'Ah but dom3 is better'. And I'm sure you think that's true. But objectively speaking, if you want value for money (in terms of say,.. PC games) Dom3 isn't a game I'd suggest buying. I'd avise people to buy various similar, cheaper games. Some of which have even more user made content and more active communities.

But that's just me.

[Aezeal]

I'm not with you Sombre.

Yes the price is high bu saying teh value for money ratio (or whatever you should call it) isn't good is ridiculous, especially from you. Considering the time you must spend on these forum and the mods you must like the game and I bet that there aren't much games you bought that have kept you busy so many hours (in price/hours this MUST be one of the top 10 games for you) so the value for money is good.

considering all this I think it's strange you wouldn't recommend buying the game to others.

[Tifone]

Pardon my lol, messieurs. ^^ Another thread about the game price

Well the game isn't surely cheap. But the money are spent for wonderful quality, longevity, a 300 pages manual, years long devs support. So for me it's more than ok, it's great.

Peace ^^

PS. Oh I was forgetting. Being part of a great community

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

I'm not with you Sombre.

Yes the price is high bu saying teh value for money ratio (or whatever you should call it) isn't good is ridiculous, especially from you. Considering the time you must spend on these forum and the mods you must like the game and I bet that there aren't much games you bought that have kept you busy so many hours (in price/hours this MUST be one of the top 10 games for you) so the value for money is good.

considering all this I think it's strange you wouldn't recommend buying the game to others.

In a straight cost and time ratio it would lose by default to all the free games I've played. So that's not a sensible way of measuring the value for money.

Also my enthusiasm for dom3 isn't particularly rational and I'm aware of this. To me my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. Is she really? Should I be trying to convince oters of this? Of course not. It's the same with dominions. It's one of my favourite games, but objectively speaking it isn't particularly good value for money. I'd say Age of Wonders for example, which can be picked up for virtually nothing, is far better value for money. As are hundreds of other games which are incredibly good, but are now at bargain basement prices.

[Beorne]

To Sombre:
Al the other games I cited cost more than Dom3 if you take them complete (with the expansions) and they drop the price when there is a new version out, or when they can bundle it with the expansion (so the price remains almost the same) so it is a fake price lowering. I have observed that this is true for all the good strategic games (I don't play rt or fps). If I want to play a very good civ game I play freeciv, if I buy it I want the last polished and supported version (and for me the "one to last" version with dropped price has almost no value).
I agree with you that the community is not that big and active considering the potential of the game. The publisher could do something to encourage the community (and the modding and bug tracking), that for now is left to the back of you half dozen willing guys. A configured cms on a good domain name (like the mod site of paradox or the site of seV) could resolve almost all the organizing community issues of Dom.

[Tifone]

C'mon man, you know that indie developers have different businness models than the big companies ^^

And about free games, oh c'mon. ^^ Even if a free game gives you 1 out of a scale of maximum 10000 of fun factor, of course it's great compared to anything that costs money, becauses you didn't spend a penny for that. ^^ To me Dom3 is great value for money. I liked Age of Wonders very much, but there is no comparison with Dom3 to me

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Tifone

C'mon man, you know that indie developers have different businness models than the big companies ^^

And about free games, oh c'mon. ^^ Even if a free game gives you 1 out of a scale of maximum 10000 of fun factor, of course it's great compared to anything that costs money, becauses you didn't spend a penny for that. ^^ To me Dom3 is great value for money. I liked Age of Wonders very much, but there is no comparison with Dom3 to me

I don't care if they're indie developers or giant megacorps pumping out the latest in a series. It has absolutely no bearing on the value for money.

Is Dom3 20 or so times better than AoW? Because I've seen AoW for two quid down a local market. For me, no. Of course that isn't a sensible way of deciding what to buy, because you have limited time and you want to spend that time having as much fun as possible. So a game that's only slightly better than another but costs hugely more could be a much better buy for you.

But in the case of dom3 I feel there are plenty better, cheaper games. These I would advise people on a budget to buy before Dom3. In fact I would never EVER advise someone looking for real value for money to buy dom3. It's just too expensive.

-shrug- Sorry if you don't like what you're hearing. I believe this thread was made for people to express their opinions.

[Edi]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

For a game like this one, the support will never be enough. As amazing as it is, people will always come up with things they want "fixed" or changed.

I suppose that depends a bit on how you define support. Personally, I have found the support for the game exceptional, but that may be a function of my perspective as the person who maintains the bug shortlist and the modding wishlist.

The black section of the shortlist may still look pretty daunting, but compared to what (and what severity) has been fixed, there's not a lot left and relatively little of it is serious. The more recent slew of things we have gotten with the new modding stuff is humbling. So much more has been unlocked that enables mods to be much better than they used to be. The number of mods that have been updated to take advantage of that in the past couple of weeks is staggering.

That's not even going into all the other brand new content in the patches, such as 9 new nations to date. We may or may not get new nations with new patches. We may or may not get some other new mechanics such as new terrain types. We will probably get some more modding commands, depending on how easy they are to do and how enthusiastic Illwinter is about them.

Outside of this, realistically the only other things left are broadly two categories:

1) Network side for automating server setup and game setup and management somewhat

2) Altering, tweaking and balancing existing things.

Of these, number 2 is an endless bone of contention, because you can never satisfy everyone. Or necessarily even the majority. Some people will be ecstatic if certain things are altered, some will cry nerf an others will go meh, no matter what is done. This is the only place where the argument that support is never enough gets any traction and there it is by definition true, since there is never an end to wishes, desires and demands from players. And I'm not talking about just the people registered here at Shrapnel Games.

At the end, it boils down to what kind of support expectations are reasonable and what has been done, and in this regard I think Dominions 3 has been one of the best supported games I have ever seen. Best supported by far. On top of that, the value for money you get out of it in terms of replayability and the price per hour of gaming wrt initial cost of purchase is pretty eye-opening.

With that combo, Dominions 3 is hard to beat. Very hard.

Of course, this post expresses my opinion and is NOT some pronouncement of The One & Only Truth from on high. Your experience and mileage may vary, depending on your expectations.