Niche game or undermarketed?

[turtlefang]

To Plant -

I don't appreciated being called a liar. And if you had actually PLAYED Medieval Total War you would know all the factions peasants were armed with spears, bows or crossbows and only urban militia had polearms. Second, if you played, then you would also know that the knights initially had an infinite charge bonus due to a error that had to be patched. Third, you would know that peasants were getting too many valor points for wins. Which made them unbeatable after A WIN. Since you don't know those things, its apparent you didn't play much if at all. And if you didn't patch, you sure as hell didn't play multiplayer.

Nearly all of the Rome Total War Patch 1.3 that changed units impacted the phalanx units. It also impacted other spear units, but it impacted the phalanx units the most. Especially for multiplayer as it changed their cost substantially. Again, something you would know if you played much - like I did. Especially if you played over 300 ladder games. Because phalanx units become much less common as they got much more expensive.

To Kayoz -

Try all the tactics you listed in a 12kDN game against Greek Arm Hoplites in a City and see what happens. You can purchase all the missile units you want - they will bounce. Cavalry simply will DIE in the streets against a competent player. And swordsmen attacking the front of an Armored Hoplite force backed by a couple of archers will simply melt away. And you WON'T flank. No competent human will let you flank him in a city. You have at best four ways to the square. Many city maps have less. Some have literally two. And the defender will see that coming and easily redeploy to beat you and set up a position you can't flank. And swordsmen WON'T reach Hoplites. The spears outreach them. In a city, Hoplites and Pikes dominate - against humans. Its why city games simply aren't played ladder games. Or very seldom played up to 2008. I admit I haven't played in the last four or five years so things may have changed.

In fact, the only tactic that you can hope that works in that situation is to play the Seleucids, purchase Kats and hope the maces will create a hole that you can rush through. Not much of chance, but it really all you got. You can't get siege equipment in to try and break up the ranks.

And if your auto-calculating or starving out the city - gee whiz, you beat the AI. Something that my 10 year son was doing after 2 weeks. Not exactly the mark of a quality player.

So based on your comments, it doesn't sound like either one of you two played much against real people. Unlike me. And you didn't spend much time with the game, especially if you didn't patch it.

[Talon_XBMCX]

And here I thought this was the Distant Worlds forums ...

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: turtlefang
Try all the tactics you listed in a 12kDN game against Greek Arm Hoplites in a City and see what happens.

I have no idea what you're on about. WTF is a "12kDN game"? I Googled it, and there's diddly on what it might mean.

I can't reply to gibberish.

Regardless of what your rant might mean, none of what you stated makes any difference. Multiplayer unit imbalances and the opportunity to exploit them in the game (eg: hill, river or red line camping) are irrelevant to the DW focus of this thread. DW is not multiplayer. It's player v. AI. Only player v. AI considerations are relevant. Your argument offers nothing to advance the debate of how DW is marketed and the sub-issue of Shadows' release quality.

Furthermore, the mistakes of other games on 1.0 release does not excuse Matrix for making the same (or worse) error. Matrix should have learned from these mistakes. But it seems they have not. CA and Sega had the budget and resources to make required fixes and massage over the critical media. Matrix does not, and should be wary of making the same mistakes which will impact their sales and marketing in ways they cannot mitigate.

I don't think there's anything to be gained by debating the minutiae of other games releases. My position is:

1. Matrix needs to improve it's marketing. Improvements to "social media marketing" seem to offer the greatest return on their investment - which thus far has been near zero.
2. Matrix needs to improve its release-day quality.
3. Matrix needs to be more open in documenting game mechanics, so that the community can identify flaws/exploits for removal in future patches.

If you have a specific retort to those 3 points, please chime in.

[Rabble]

A lot of russian and russian speaking players will buy this game if you translate it to russian.

Until that part of them play in non legal version - and all others - dont play because of language. [8D]

[Plant]

turtlefang, none of the peasant units are armed with spears, bows or crossbows. Urban militia and others are all peasants and all are armour piercing. Enough about RTW multiplayer. You know nothing about RTW multiplayer. For one thing, it has no ladder.

Kayoz I beleive DN refers to denarii, the currency in RTW, which funnily enough, nobody calls it DN in multiplayer.
Nor does anybody play 12k money. Or play city games, because it is stupid as hell to decide to play a match where one side has decisively massive defensive advantages. It's like playing a game where one side has a wall complete with arrow shooting towers because it is, and the other side doesn't. Don't argue RTW multiplayer with me please. Nothing you say is true. I highly doubt that you played against people in rtw to a high level.

Anyhow, we are digressing. The point is that the Original Distant Worlds had a bad release, and Shadows not as bad a release, but still had some game breaking flaws on release. That is relevent to the marketing this game has, though language issues sound like a barrier as well.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi everyone,

I've noticed in my recent browse through the threads a decrease in civility. Please keep your posts both to us and to your fellow forum members polite and constructive. There should be no need for ad hominem attacks of any kind. I can't imagine a topic related to a science fiction computer game that can't be discussed constructively.

I'll add in that while Elliot and I have been thrown a few curve balls by life lately that made us less available on the forum, we do read and take into consideration all feedback here as much as possible. Both positive and negative. We are always trying to improve Distant Worlds and make it available and accessible to as many gamers and as many playstyles as possible.

Regards,

- Erik

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
My position is:

1. Matrix needs to improve it's marketing. Improvements to "social media marketing" seem to offer the greatest return on their investment - which thus far has been near zero.
2. Matrix needs to improve its release-day quality.
3. Matrix needs to be more open in documenting game mechanics, so that the community can identify flaws/exploits for removal in future patches.

If you have a specific retort to those 3 points, please chime in.

I agree with this and further agree with the order in terms of priority. Indeed I would propose Item 1 is by far the most significant. I'm very prepared to be patient if I know there is good commitment to patch and the (very few) Shadows reviews around remained positive (i.e. influencing potential sales).

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Plant
Nothing you say is true. I highly doubt that you played against people in rtw to a high level.

Say what? Did I make any claims of that sort?

Personally, I didn't like RWT much. Chariots' ability to scatter formations was absurdly effective and had no basis in the historical record. That, and CA seemed to be fixated on increasing the graphics in RTW at the expense of game-play. MTW2 is still CA's finest achievement, imo.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
Indeed I would propose Item 1 is by far the most significant.

I don't think the importance of #2 can be understated. No amount of marketing can save a game that's utterly garbage on it's release day.

One only needs to look at the release of SimCity. They had no shortage of marketing and media attention, but turned out a substandard product which got roundly slagged off in nearly every review.

If reviewers wrote up their reviews based on Shadows 1.9.0, then all the patches in the world wouldn't make the game palatable to customers. Of those few reviews of Shadows that I've seen, most have reviewed after a week or two of patching was applied, which fixed most of the "game-breaker" bugs. But I don't think it's safe to bet on the continued goodwill of reviewers in applying patches before writing their reviews.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
I don't think the importance of #2 can be understated. No amount of marketing can save a game that's utterly garbage on it's release day.

One only needs to look at the release of SimCity. They had no shortage of marketing and media attention, but turned out a substandard product which got roundly slagged off in nearly every review.

If reviewers wrote up their reviews based on Shadows 1.9.0, then all the patches in the world wouldn't make the game palatable to customers. Of those few reviews of Shadows that I've seen, most have reviewed after a week or two of patching was applied, which fixed most of the "game-breaker" bugs. But I don't think it's safe to bet on the continued goodwill of reviewers in applying patches before writing their reviews.

I expect all games to have some level of problem on initial release and normally delay purchase until "enough" is fixed. In the case of Distant Worlds Shadows, quite unusually, I purchased immediately ... in full awareness there would likely be problems. I accepted the risk because I was prepared to be patient as I knew patches would be coming fairly quickly and I really wanted to play some Prewarp Empire games. The initial release for me was very playable.

Now I understand many wanted to play Pirates and clearly the initial release had some issues in this respect. So I actually don't intend to downplay Item 2, despite my positive experience with Shadows release above. It's clearly important. Indeed SimCity was one of the examples I had in mind where reading your post.

My intent is to emphasise Item 1 only. A game needs the awareness of potential customers to start with. Yes, you need Item 2 to help ensure awareness translates strongly to sales, but you need the customer base to start with, and Distant Worlds has a very limited base. With a larger base comes a larger group prepared to Beta Test and potentially additional resources within CodeForce/Matrix. Not only could this help assure release day quality for expansions, but add more features and hopefully a bigger and better DW2.

Hopefully it's not too late for this.

And in the meantime I say show people like Darkspire respect for their voluntary efforts.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Icemania
I expect all games to have some level of problem on initial release and normally delay purchase until "enough" is fixed. In the case of Distant Worlds Shadows, quite unusually, I purchased immediately ... in full awareness there would likely be problems. I accepted the risk because I was prepared to be patient as I knew patches would be coming fairly quickly and I really wanted to play some Prewarp Empire games. The initial release for me was very playable.

The key feature of Shadows was being able to play a pirate faction. This not being playable rather makes the "game is playable" argument rather weak. It would be like World of Warcraft releasing their panda expansion - but the panda race being unplayable.

As for trusting in Matrix to fix its games, that is well and good - but a consumer reading a review of a buggy game will be hesitant to buy it.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
With a larger base comes a larger group prepared to Beta Test and potentially additional resources within CodeForce/Matrix.

I haven't seen anything to indicate that Matrix made anything more than a cursory effort to recruit beta testers from their player base. There were dozens of posts from people who applied but never heard back from Matrix - their applications for beta testing disappearing as fast as Anthony Weiner's penis photos don't. Matrix had the resources for a wider beta test. They simply chose not to use those resources.

[Darkspire]

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Icemania
I expect all games to have some level of problem on initial release and normally delay purchase until "enough" is fixed. In the case of Distant Worlds Shadows, quite unusually, I purchased immediately ... in full awareness there would likely be problems. I accepted the risk because I was prepared to be patient as I knew patches would be coming fairly quickly and I really wanted to play some Prewarp Empire games. The initial release for me was very playable.

The key feature of Shadows was being able to play a pirate faction. This not being playable rather makes the "game is playable" argument rather weak. It would be like World of Warcraft releasing their panda expansion - but the panda race being unplayable.

As for trusting in Matrix to fix its games, that is well and good - but a consumer reading a review of a buggy game will be hesitant to buy it.

As I said I don't intend to downplay Point 2 ... despite my personal positive experience.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Icemania
With a larger base comes a larger group prepared to Beta Test and potentially additional resources within CodeForce/Matrix.

I haven't seen anything to indicate that Matrix made anything more than a cursory effort to recruit beta testers from their player base. There were dozens of posts from people who applied but never heard back from Matrix - their applications for beta testing disappearing as fast as Anthony Weiner's penis photos don't. Matrix had the resources for a wider beta test. They simply chose not to use those resources.

Look even if that's valid (I wasn't involved so will leave this to others) looking backwards you seem to have missed my point entirely. If the game has 10x the sales, and extra resources are committed, we are going to be way better off in this respect and many others, even if it they don't fully utilise available resources.

I worry this thread is not focussing on the biggest hitter. I've recently read through some of the Matrix posts on marketing elsewhere on this site and clearly Distant Worlds is being marketed like every game under the Matrix umbrella ... none of which I have the slightest interest in. To me Distant Worlds has a fundamentally different and much broader audience than the majority of other Matrix products (although I'm sure the war gaming market has an overlap) ... I'm an example.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Icemania
As I said I don't intend to downplay Point 2 ... despite my personal positive experience.

Just my personal gripe... If one doesn't grind one's axe, how can it stay sharp?

ORIGINAL: Icemania
I worry this thread is not focussing on the biggest hitter. I've recently read through some of the Matrix posts on marketing elsewhere on this site and clearly Distant Worlds is being marketed like every game under the Matrix umbrella ... none of which I have the slightest interest in. To me Distant Worlds has a fundamentally different and much broader audience than the majority of other Matrix products (although I'm sure the war gaming market has an overlap) ... I'm an example.

Sad, but true... I hadn't thought about it, but you're right - Matrix marketing for all their games is virtually identical. There seems to be little or no difference in the marketing methods they use to promote different games. I rather doubt that 4X sci-fi game demographics overlap greatly with historical simulation wargames - though if you looked at the marketing of games alone, you wouldn't come to this conclusion.

I'm not sure what Cookie Monster has to do with this, but I don't mean to denigrate Darkspire's contributions to beta testing. I merely wish to point out that the number and severity of bugs in 1.9.0.0 release, it should not have been signed off for release. Whether beta testers brought up the issues and it was pushed to release regardless or if they missed the defects entirely - I have no idea. Suffice to say, 1.9.0.0 shouldn't have gone gold.

[BlackAlpha]

I haven't read the entire topic, so sorry if this was mentioned before. Two things are worth keeping in mind that could explain why this game isn't more popular at this very moment:

1. The game is over 3 years old, and on top of that, the game is getting a bit dated. The game has probably reached the end of its life cycle. In other words, people in charge probably don't expect the game to make a lot of money in the near future. So on one hand, going to a new publisher such as Steam will cut into the little profits they are getting from this game, without really benefiting much from it. On the other hand, there's a risk they might lose money if the game doesn't perform well on Steam. Also, it seems to me that the game developers are chained to their current publisher forever. So if the devs go to Steam they would need to go through TWO middle men, which means they might get even less money.

2. The current publisher doesn't really seem to do anything with Steam (correct me if I'm wrong). Said publisher might be afraid of Steam for multiple reasons, or maybe they just don't see how to use Steam to make more money. Which is a shame because Steam can be turned into an opportunity for everyone involved. But good luck convincing other people how to run their business without knowing them on a personal level.

[pmelheck1]

The Steam argument doesn't fly as Panzer Corp has been on green light a long time and is still their. Steam users have shown they don't want war games. You might want wargames on Steam but the Steam community has shown that they do not. I'm not talking games with a military setting but rather wargames - WITP:AE, WITE and it's expansions, WITW and most any other game that isn't a shooter or RTS. If Panzer Corp which is a light war game (in a good way mind you) can't make it the deeper ones don't have a chance.

On the advertising front. I've remember seeing advertising for matrix products where they should be, in publications dedicated to history ect. Some 12 year old playing shooters in his parents basement who is reading PC games mags is UNINTERESTED in war games. I have younger folks I work with (not some of them, ALL of them - I've asked) and they view games like HOI3 as a waste of pages in the magazine.

[Santini]

I think the thing that saddens me most is the fact that DW is the best 4x game I have ever played (admittedly I really don't care about gfx), and yet having harped and flaunted and raved about to my friends, they either buck at the price or steal it.

DW is amazing, but that initial $100 sting is just too much

[buncheesy]

I just played a really basic strategy board game "Robo rally" with some friends last night. I found it immediately obvious strategy, fun and despite a hefty luck element I won 3 of 3 games. One friend plays "strategy PC games" as in "sword of the stars", the other 2 glaze over if they have to read more than 3 pages of rules (roborally has 5 pages). Sooo difficult to find people who like deep strategy!

.........................DW is niche...I love it!

I am starting to plug it wherever I can because it deserves maximum exposure regardless.

[Santini]

ORIGINAL: letmein

I just played a really basic strategy board game "Robo rally" with some friends last night. I found it immediately obvious strategy, fun and despite a hefty luck element I won 3 of 3 games. One friend plays "strategy PC games" as in "sword of the stars", the other 2 glaze over if they have to read more than 3 pages of rules (roborally has 5 pages). Sooo difficult to find people who like deep strategy!

.........................DW is niche...I love it!

I am starting to plug it wherever I can because it deserves maximum exposure regardless.

It doesn't have to be niche, at all though... with all the automation settings, I actually found it to be one of the easiest games to learn (easy to learn, hard to master)

[buncheesy]

Yeah but it's not flashy and story driven. Personally I like the graphical style (including the masses of tiny info /action tabs) and I can dream a massive space opera saga. But most people Need eye candy and/or rpg story.

Ican imagine you could design more info rich graphical overlays and intelligent prompts to some extent to allow people to get more "flash and story" without losing the nuances and variety?

[Icemania]

While I love the idea of a Mod enabling expansion, just how much interest will that generate, with a product at this point in it's life cycle?

Surely it's time to go bold on Distant Worlds 2. Prima facie the broader Strategy market is ripe for the taking. Stardrive ... meh. Endless Space ... meh. A new Imperium Galactica ... dead. Total War Rome 2 ... LOL. Everything else on the horizon ... meh.

Distant Worlds 2 can be designed to include both worlds i.e. the existing audience and the broader Strategy market.