Dominions 3, Peons!

[Edi]

Shrapnel Games has announced Dominions 3: The Awakening from Illwinter Games. It's scheduled to be published in June 2006. More nations, more units, spells, items and other goodness, plus some great improvements to ease of play and lessening of micro-management, it's going to be GREAT! Those familiar with Dom2 will know exactly just how much this game will kick ass, and those who don't know yet, hop over and check it out.

Shrapnel press release

Shrapnel Forums - Just scroll down until you find the Illwinter Games subsection, that's where the Dominions forums are.

Obviously, there goes my free time for the summer. Games to play, maps to make and damn but making the unit, weapon, magic site and other databases for Dom3 is going to be a bitch and half. Or more. The Dom2 ones were already bad enough with 17 nations, Dom3 has over 50 when you count all the Themes and Eras....

Edi

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Woot! I knew they were planning on releasing it this year, but I was getting real worried at the lack of news (same could be said for SEV actually, damn Shrapnel games and their stinginess). Only a couple short months before I'll be absolutely inundated with great games. I'd better find a way to get rich before then so I can quit my job and play games 16 hours a day .

[Stark]

Have they fixed the UI? There was a hilariously 'lolz it is teh PBEM we don't need information to be presenting in a sensible way' attitude about the previous game.

[Edi]

Have they fixed the UI? There was a hilariously 'lolz it is teh PBEM we don't need information to be presenting in a sensible way' attitude about the previous game.

If you'd bothered to actually state what your peeves with the UI were, I might be able to answer your question. Personally I only had a couple of minor issues with it, none of which were critical. Most info was easy enough to find and quite a few complaints about the UI that I've seen were nothing but whining.

Edi

[Stark]

Don't be obtuse. Maybe a player wants to separate wounded troops without looking at each one, or remove the experienced units. Perhaps they want to have a tiny bit of automation on any of the persistent orders. If you think the D2 UI provides you with all the info you need without clicking one million times, that's fantastic: however, given the extreme depth of statistics available, it's absurd that you're expected to manually check everything indivually.

Sorry for hurting your feelings.

[Edi]

Don't be obtuse. Maybe a player wants to separate wounded troops without looking at each one, or remove the experienced units. Perhaps they want to have a tiny bit of automation on any of the persistent orders. If you think the D2 UI provides you with all the info you need without clicking one million times, that's fantastic: however, given the extreme depth of statistics available, it's absurd that you're expected to manually check everything indivually.

Sorry for hurting your feelings.

If you're so fucking knowledgeable about the Dom2 interface, then how the fuck do you not know that selecting a single squad member and using the w key will highlight all wounded units in the squad? Then you put those in a separate squad and dump all the wounded from other squads there as well. Won't take too many clicks. Or did you perhaps want them to be sorted by specific type of affliction? Then you're shit out of luck and should stick to games that don't have such pesky things as battle injuries carrying over after the battle.

The e key works to highlight experienced units, by the way. Or did you again want the sorting to be by the number of experience stars?

So you're just being a whiny bitch as usual. Please, do us all a favor and just shut the fuck up, since you obviously don't have a fucking clue of what you're talking about.

Edi

[Stark]

Go fuck yourself. It's hardly my fault the game is horribly documented and gives extraordinarily bad feedback about anything. How about a quick rundown of wound severity? Impossible. Drag selecting anything? Impossible. The interface is stuck in the 90s: that's just the way it is.

I like the game a lot: it immediately impressed me with it's detail. However, it's a bitch to control, it's got virtually no automation of repeditive tasks (handling priests or searching for sites is a manual nightmare), and no flexible, searchable reference screens, no quick control of overall production, nothing. Without a UI overhaul and maybe a manual that isn't 95% useless item/spell reference, it's always going to be a niche game like SEIV. I don't even think my disc came with a printed manual.

[Edi]

Go fuck yourself.

I don't think so. But you should take your own advice in the matter, you shitlicking cum-guzzler.

It's hardly my fault the game is horribly documented

Hardly. The manual went into quite a bit of detail about many of the mechanics and had complete lists of the spells and items in the game (barring a few specialty artifacts that can't be forged). The mapediting and modding manuals had tons more info. When you add in the documentation produced by players, Dom2 is one of the better documented games out there, especially for such a massively detailed game.

and gives extraordinarily bad feedback about anything.

Apart from the annoyance of the "Go to commander" option not working when your commanders and troops getting whacked by spells or events, I don't see justification for calling it extraordinarily bad.

How about a quick rundown of wound severity? Impossible.

Tell me, doesn't carrying those goalposts get tiring? You whined about not being able to select wounded units, and when you were called on it you're whining about sorting by wound type which is an altogether different issue and which I already called. Fuck off.

Drag selecting anything? Impossible.

That'd be useful in some situations, mainly in the army setup screen, but is hardly a big issue.

The interface is stuck in the 90s: that's just the way it is.

I've found the interface quite usable, and I'd rather get a slightly clunky interface for an awesome game than a slick interface for something with no substance in it.

I like the game a lot: it immediately impressed me with it's detail. However, it's a bitch to control, it's got virtually no automation of repeditive tasks (handling priests or searching for sites is a manual nightmare), and no flexible, searchable reference screens, no quick control of overall production, nothing. Without a UI overhaul and maybe a manual that isn't 95% useless item/spell reference, it's always going to be a niche game like SEIV.

Then maybe you should have fucking read the Shrapnel press release and taken a look around the forums before you started bitching and whining. I already put the links there, so you don't even have the excuse of not knowing where to look. And if you had bothered to look around before launching into one of your trademark whines, you'd know the following about Dom3:

• Taxes are automated to eliminate unrest so ypu don't have to micromanage them every turn
• Spell lists are sortable by path, level and school if the screencaps are anything to go by and the devs have confirmed sortability by level and school
• Scout management through filters eliminates more micro

That's just for starters. As it happens, the UI was one of the things they have done some major improvements on.

And to top it off, considering that Dom2 was produced through the efforts of just two guys working on their spare time after their day jobs, I certainly can't find it in myself to whine about every single little thing. But since you seem to think none of that is an issue, why don't you fork out the money to IW to hire a dedicated UI programmer to implement all the shiny stuff you want for it? Though just getting some actually constructive criticism out of you instead of the whining of a puling snot-nosed assgoblin would be a major improvement.

I don't even think my disc came with a printed manual.

So you pirated the game, is what you're saying? Because Shrapnel did ship the game out with a 134-page printed manual, so I call bullshit on this if you actually do have a legal copy.

Edi

[Stark]

Deary, deary me.

I live in the world where GalCiv2s UI is regarded as sub-optimal, with unnecessary deviations from 'normal' window standards and unclear information. Do GalCiv2s fan cry like little girls? No. I will take my copy (perfectly legal, ordered off their website, thanks for baseless accusations, btw) and show a dozen people. What will they say? Will they say 'zomg excellent' or 'wow, obtuse'. Be honest. The game can be good - indeed, D2 is the best fantasy-themed strategy game out, IMO - and have a impenetrable interface.

Piss and moan all you like, but as I suggested originally, the game makes simple tasks 100% manual (the community is resistant to any degree of additional automation, which is absolultly damning), or conceal information without spreadsheets to display it. It's pretty funny that the game has functions for two of my most annoying issues, which isn't in the 'manual' (really, it's a spellbook and item list) nor did anyone on the forums seem to know it existed. Since you've accused me of being a criminal (I'm prepared to send you my order details, but you're too much of a cockhead to ever admit you're wrong) I think I'm going to assume you're lying about it.

Hey guess what? As a response to my first post, you could have said 'yes, yes they have'.

[Edi]

Deary, deary me.

I live in the world where GalCiv2s UI is regarded as sub-optimal, with unnecessary deviations from 'normal' window standards and unclear information. Do GalCiv2s fan cry like little girls? No.

I haven't played GalCiv2 and thus couldn't care less about its UI. What the fuck is your point?

I will take my copy (perfectly legal, ordered off their website, thanks for baseless accusations, btw)

Since the game comes with a big printed manual, what the fuck should I conclude when an asshat like you says he never did have a manual? Fuck off.

and show a dozen people. What will they say? Will they say 'zomg excellent' or 'wow, obtuse'. Be honest.

They'd probably say that the interface needs some work in some areas, but I hardly think they'd automatically go 'zomg suxx0r!' like you've been doing here.

The game can be good - indeed, D2 is the best fantasy-themed strategy game out, IMO - and have a impenetrable interface.

Yes, though the Dom2 interface is hardly impenetrable. Espeically if one takes even a casual look at the manual.

Piss and moan all you like, but as I suggested originally, the game makes simple tasks 100% manual (the community is resistant to any degree of additional automation, which is absolultly damning),

Yes, there is too much micro if you want to optimize everything, which you don't need to do unless you play competitive cutthroat MP. As for teh community, I hardly share that opinion. There have been numerous calls for lessening micro, and aside from a few people, that stance has received quite a bit of support.

or conceal information without spreadsheets to display it.

What do you mean? That the manual didn't contain data for all the units, weapons, armor and magic sites too? It'd have been 300 pages instead of 134 if that were the case, and it would have served no purpose because those things have changed quite a bit with the patches. The information is in the game and accessible when you encounter those things, except for the special properties of a few magic sites (such as the Hall of Flayed Skins) and the terrain restrictions of sites. The site DB is as complete as it is only because IW kindly gave me access to the relevant section of the actual source code.

It's pretty funny that the game has functions for two of my most annoying issues, which isn't in the 'manual' (really, it's a spellbook and item list) nor did anyone on the forums seem to know it existed.

I'm honestly curious now. How do you get these to appear?

Since you've accused me of being a criminal (I'm prepared to send you my order details, but you're too much of a cockhead to ever admit you're wrong) I think I'm going to assume you're lying about it.

You made a comment to the effect that you never did have a manual when the game ships with one, so it is not an unreasonable question if you pirated it. I asked if you had, and you said you had not, so that's good enough.

Hey guess what? As a response to my first post, you could have said 'yes, yes they have'.

And you could have asked 'Have they fixed the following UI issues: x, y, z?' instead of just bitching about the whole thing being broken. I asked what your complaints about the UI were, and you started whining and moaning, so you got exactly what you deserved with the following flames.

Edi