Wish-List for Dominions 4

[Xietor]

Kris,

we as fans of the game, do appreciate that you read and respond to the forums. As an attorney, I do not expect anyone to do anything without compensation. So major work should be done and sold as dom IV.

Unlike the robert jordan series, even if no more work was done, dominions is a complete and finished product. Of course as fans of the game, we will always be able to think of ways to further improve it.

Have you ever thought about posting an internet application for a coder? Explain up front that you can only promise experience in game development, and it may help them move on to an actual paying job in the future. Being a developer of dom IV would look good on a resume and summer is approaching, meaning lots of bored college kids.

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks for the insight, Kristoffer O.

I seem to be one of the last people in the USA who enjoys having a day off, relaxing, sleeping in, etc. more than I do making extra money that I don't really need. Maybe it's my extra-thick skull protecting my brain from the government lazer-beams, or maybe it's just that I've got enough of an imagination to amuse myself, rather than paying for my entertainment, if that's my only option. I don't need that much stuff. I like stuff, and I like to shop, but it's not a driving force in my life.

If I didn't get to work at home in my bare feet, and didn't love the company I work for, and wasn't trying to buy a house in a bloated real-estate market, I wouldn't work any overtime at all.

Hopefully, the good people of Sweden will retain a sensible approach to the better things in life.

Ok, one of the things I'd like to add to the list-so as to make this post on topic-is more graphics. I don't mean a new graphical interface, and I don't want everyone to have to run out and buy a new video card.

I'd just like to see every unit with more graphical options. What we have right now are two unspecified graphics per unit. I want many, many more.

I'd really like to see it expanded to 12 (ideally) specified graphics per unit. That's 2 for walking, 3 for combat, 3 for wounded/stricken/exhausted (so we can see who's in bad shape on the battlefield), 2 for casting spells, 1 for when the unit's just holding still, and one for when the unit is resisting spells.

Obviously, that will require a lot more graphics-and it'll probably take a year atleast to add them in for each and every unit. But it'd be a good improvement to the overall "look" of the game, and hopefully it wouldn't be hard for the Devs to patch in the ability, and then the community could do the actual additional artwork-in the process ending any *****ing about the graphics in the game, because, if you don't like them, you can volunteer time and effort into improving them directly.

I'll be among the first volunteers, especially if I get a scanner soon.

You wouldn't, ofcourse, *have* to add them, if you're modding in a new nation, for instance.

Ideally, there would be a graphic "pool" that would function as graphics currently do in the game. If you don't want to assign graphics to a specific task, then you just leave them in the pool and the computer assigns them as it does now. Ideally, you could even have more than one "set" of graphics in the pool or in slots, and the computer could then choose between "sets" of graphics for assignment-to simulate different looks for the same unit (Bob the Jotun has a forked beard, whereas Doug the Jotun has a big silly moustache. Tim the Jotun impersonates Elvis (the Jotun) on the weekends, and as such, is sporting sideburns and a black belt). Something very similar to this is currently being done in Total War 2.

Along this same line, could we (please! please! please!) get atleast some kind of screen-saver-type changing artwork during the calculation of turns?

Much preferrably, one that we can add to in mods.

I really feel silly as it is, sitting there staring at 2 little bearded busts for 10 minutes while the game calculates the other nations' turns (note: I usually play long games of SP).

I'd love it if I could look at some nifty artwork while I waited. It would really make the time go by, even if it made the turn itself objectively a little longer to process.

[Jazzepi]

Kristoffer O said:
> Exactly, I wish the devs would have spent whatever time they did on making the two new races on UI improvements instead (and fixing the awful temple dominion rate spreading bug). Every hour they spend fixing one thing could have been spent fixing something else.

As Gandalf said, we have different roles. JK is the code-guy and I make sprites and descriptions etc. I can fixe smaller bugs and change stats, but I can't code one bit (almost true). So every hour spent on new nations I could have spent on reading my students work or at quaffing beer .

> I personally would get infinitely more value out of a better UI then two more races.

That's OK. I personally like nations and content more than UI, but I have given up on games with lousy UI's. I would probably not get into dominions unless someone helped me. When I was 20 I wouldn't mind, but I think I'm growing ever more lazy.

> That isn't to say that Dom 3 isn't a great product. I think it was worth the money I spent on it, but I still bought it. I expect the game to receive support just like any other software product. Bug fixes, revisions to the code and interface.

We do fix the game occasionally with patches, but it is a matter of time and engagement. JK works full time as a computer engineer and I wouldn't expect him to work hours when he returnsd from work. After release we were a bit tired and prefered not to think about dominions too much. Important bugs must be fixed of course, but a bit of vacation from dominions was needed. Now we work on weekends when we don't have anything special to do, so It is mostly a matter of priority. Should I see my friends or should I add a new nation. At times friends get the longer straw, and vice versa.

> I read somewhere that the devs didn't know what to do with the income they were getting off the game. Well I have a suggestion. Hire someone else to help them code the parts they really don't want to. I think it would be easy enough for them to partner with a third party (who could be located anywhere internationally with the miracle of the internet) that could help them with the drudgery of UI improvements, while they focus on maintaining and improving the core of the game.

We don't get enough money to pay a full time job for one of us, so it unlikely that we will find another free programmer willing and able to get into the quite jumbled code of 10 years of ongoing programming. I don't think the cost of hiring a new programmer would be covered by possible sale increses.

About not knowing what to do applies to my normal salary as well. I sort of dislike money and don't like to do much, apart from games that is. I'm quite content with what I have.

I wouldn't mind to see a dominions totally remade by someone else (paying me for it perhaps). It would be fun (and possibly agonizing) to se a graphics heavy simplified RTS version of dominions

> Jazzepi

So it is unlikely that there will be big and ongoing UI-changes, but there might pop up things from time to time.

It might have been fair to go to greater lengths to let you and other customers know that we are a small company that have limited resources. Many on this forum and old dom2 players are probably aware of this, but new players might not know it and expect quick and ongoing work on the game. I think there is some info on the matter on shrapnels site, but I'm not sure if what is said there translates to how much ongoing support you percieve that you recieve.

Hope you are OK with this.

KO

Honestly, if nothing was ever done to Dominions 3 from this point on out I'd be pretty happy with the product I purchased. I'd even venture to say I'd go buy the next incarnation of the series when/if it came out. I was always a huge fan of Master of Magic, and this is the closest thing I've ever seen to it since then. The 4X games always were my favorite. Dom 2-3 have a thriving multiplayer community, and that's what really interests me.

Besides that, have you thought of trying to tap into other markets? I think that you could bring in a lot more people if you put your game up on Steam for distribution. I don't know what kind of deals they make with developers, but you'd be opening yourself up to a huge fanbase. I know they had a small company 4X space expansion style game on there a while back called Space Empires 5. I don't know how well it fared, but I checked just a moment ago and it's still up there for sale.

Anyways, I'd love to see you all earn enough profit from the game that you could farm out programming tasks to other people. Finding new methods of distribution besides just Shrapnel Games might be the way to go.

Oh, and I'm very happy with Dominions 3, it's a rich engrossing game and I've recommended it to a few of my friends. Most of them don't have the patience for the slow paced style games, so it's difficult to get them addicted, but I think I have one who might be susceptible.

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

Just a quick one here. I'd like the ability to auction off magical items in the same way mercenaries are currently auctioned off in the game. It'd be better than just having to throw them away (why would you throw a useful magic item away, ever? even if you didn't have a use for it at the moment) and it would make multi-player games that much more interesting.

[Olive]

Thinking back of the maaaaany hours spent on dom 2 & 3, I think it's really worth the price.

Kristoffer O said:
I wouldn't mind to see a dominions totally remade by someone else (paying me for it perhaps). It would be fun (and possibly agonizing) to se a graphics heavy simplified RTS version of dominions

Dominions Total War ?

Jazzepi said:
Besides that, have you thought of trying to tap into other markets? I think that you could bring in a lot more people if you put your game up on Steam for distribution. I don't know what kind of deals they make with developers, but you'd be opening yourself up to a huge fanbase. I know they had a small company 4X space expansion style game on there a while back called Space Empires 5. I don't know how well it fared, but I checked just a moment ago and it's still up there for sale.

Hmmmm... maybe... but keep the good paper manual + cd distrib...

[Cor]

How about ageing (natural or not) that can be benifical to creatures who grow stronger with age, Dragons, Krakens etc.

How about more than 6? size catagories. Like up to 12 in rare instances.

How about spell specific boosting magic sites. Like "Lava Vents" 1 fire gem, adds +100% damage to Fires form afar.

[HoneyBadger]

I want to see Dominions 4. On the other hand, I've heard rumors that the Devs don't want to make Dominions 4 because it would mostly involve work that would be boring and nasty and make them break out in hives in uncomfortable places.

So, here's my effort to find a way to make it happen, without driving poor Johan insane and forcing poor Kristoffer to invent Dominions-the pinball game.

How many people on these forums can write in C? I think that's what Johan uses, I could be wrong. How many of those can write in C would be willing to put in the time and effort (for free) to help create Dominions 4?

There's been a lot of talk about adding more people to the Dev team to help take the pressure off. So, since it's us-the rabid fans of Dominions-who care most about seeing a sequil, why not provide that workforce ourselves?

So, to give the Devs the option of adding more people to the team, without *hiring* more people, who here has the skills and time and economic stability to become slavish interns and do the boring, time-consuming work that would take the pressure off the Devs and lead to Dominions 4, purely for the thrill of the experience?

[Gandalf Parker]

It was originally written in Atari Basic if I remember right. C is a great cubicle language but only the major companies work in cubicles. Much fewer independent games are written in C than people think.

And Im guessing the spaghetti code might be something that Johan is not real interested in another coder commenting on.

Also there is the alpha-group language requirement (swedish?). I remember being in a programming project (a MUD) where one of the main programmers was russian and the only common toungue was C so I know that it can be done but it can be a hassle.

Since Dom4 would have to be rewritten pretty much from scratch to get any major changes, I foretell a future like other games. When Dom is dropped then an open-source project will recreate it with all new code which will be more efficient for having the end goals clearly in view. For not having gone thru the bit-and-piece growth that it has gone thru up to now.

[johan osterman]

Dominions 1,2 and 3 is all in C. CoE was in atari basic before it was converted.

I kind of doubt JK is eager to supervise other people messing around with the code. He isn't usually that keen on explaining stuff, even in person, and the code is not commented or structured to be easy for others to read.

[Failure]

Support for ogg and flac files (both free to implement).

I have a huge amount of thematically suitable music that I'd love to put into directories like...

Dom3\Music\Combat\
Dom3\Music\Mapview\
Dom3\Music\Mainmenu\

...and have it auto utilised. I would say this would assist with people who want to make big game modifications and distribute new music with them.