Questions about the multiplayer community

[Bullock]

I was wondering why the players doing multi seems to be splited on so many different forums.

I found stuff like "something awful" which is currently hosting something like 27 games !
but the subscription isn t free ?!

or an other forum on invisionfree.com who seems quite popular too.
Found also others minor forums hosting games.

And only after a small search on google...

I don't get why people bothering themselves finding other forums or website to play multiplayer games, while it would be easier for everybody to go trough the official forum (especially with a community not so big).

[Foodstamp]

I noticed a pretty good following developing on the Elemental forums as well. There are even a couple of games going.

As far as the other communities go...

invisionfree: I think it is good for Dominions as the alternative would have been no forum interaction at all for some of the people.

Something Awful: I don't know much about these people, they may post on both forums but I've never bothered to check their forums out. Is it really pay to use?

This Forum: I've been hanging around these forums since 2001 so I am kinda partial to this community. I think it is the most noob friendly and there are always plenty of games starting and going.

[Soyweiser]

SA is a mostly different group from these boards. They tend to play more fastpaced games without CBM, with mods that just add more stuff. (Some would say unbalanced). Going AI is allowed there.

This board and the invisionfree one (The latter contains all the guys banned from the main shrapnel forum, for various reasons, mostly disrupting and disagreeing with shrapnel. Not the dom community per se), contain mostly the same people. Who tend to be a bit more serious about playing MP games. (Some would say, A LOT more serious, Almost anal even). Going AI without proper discussion first is not liked, and might even get you banned from games. Almost all games play with CBM here. Which is a more balanced mod, and it gives most nations a fighting chance, and it removes certain tactics that are totally overpowered.

There is a lot more drama here than in the SA forums. (Apart from general SA drama, which just costs money).

So there are two different styles. And the invision forum cannot be merged back into this one as the people that are currently banned do not want to be back as long as this forum stays under its current management. (The same **** would just happen again, and they would get banned again etc).

So sadly, you will have to do with two forums at the same time. (Or one if you decide to go for SA).

To make things even more complicated, there are also 2 game servers. And one functional wiki (http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Main_Page), and one retarded one.

[Bullock]

OK thanks a lot of your detailed answer , i don t think i would have figured out this alone ^^

[Gandalf Parker]

This forum: is actually fairly well known among the others for the amount of drama in the games. Of all of the forums I know that do Dom3 games I think the games here take the longest to setup, and the longest to play. The Chat (webbased IRC) here never quite seems to catch on but its pretty good for a meeting place to setup a blitz game without interference. (its that clickable link at the top of this page that says "Chat")

Invision or the Dom3Mods forum was started by people who were banned from here. Their forum and their #dominions IRC channel is well filled with veterans of the game who can discuss strategies and tactics of the game

SA the SomethingAwful forum: refer to themselves as goons. The have their own IRC channel and their own tracker server which is excellent. In general its more "play for fun" than "play to win". There is less response there if someone drops from a game or goes AI. Lately their games have also shown more variation than most in trying new things. Yes to play with them you just join the SA forum for $10

Wargamer: as the name suggests these are the "grognards" or wargame crowd. Dom3 is considered "not really a wargame in our usual style but still lots of fun to play". Almost everyone is a newbie to Dom3 but experienced in wargames. An interesting mix

GalCiv2: the StarDock forums (there are many of them) do have their own share of Dom3ers. Its only natural since Dom3 often comes up in comparisons which makes people curious. Their company and this company have always gotten along well. The games there tend to be private with a few example games. Many of the forums have these and they are usually called Lets Play, as in Lets Play Dom3. which is alot like our AARs. Lots of discussion about what is going on the game, usually in a story format, and lots of screen shots. They also have their own chat

Qt3 or QuatertoThree forum: these are more developer types and computer career people. They actually seem to have more fun RPGing the game than many do

RPGcodex: programmers and coders. They play Dom3 games but the discussions tend more toward HOW the game does things.

TheGaming Den: hard to define. small group, a few games, fairly standard. Lots of solo players.

Bay12Forums: same as above

There are others but many of them would not be thrilled at being mentioned here. They all know we exist.

[Gandalf Parker]

Also worth noting is that some of the forums such as SA and Qt3 do one Dom3 thread with multiple games in it. Some find that simpler, others find it confusing.

[rdonj]

Yeah, I'm one of those people who can't really deal with the one thread thing. It's too chaotic for me, I need some semblance of order and organization.

The only big omission I can see is that invision seems to host a significant amount of the noob games players from this forum get involved in these days. New players come in to ask questions on #dominions and when people start asking about noob games we get them a game set up.

This forum and the invision one are still very closely linked and there's lots of cross-posting of games, and both forums will hunt each other for subs for games. It's probably best to think of them as the same forum, for the most part. Just some people can't/won't post to the other forum.

[Soyweiser]

This place http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/IRC (the invisions forum chat GP mentioned, I disagree with him there btw, the irc channel was up long before the invisions forum was created) is a good place to ask for pretender creation advice and a good place if you need to contact some of the veterans. Try it out.

[rdonj]

He does technically have a point about it being the invisions board IRC channel though, because the regulars there started and were the first to join the invisions board. What's interesting is that the chat and the board have a decidedly different atmosphere despite having a very similar core group.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah he was referring to shrapnel's chat.