DasTactic is doing the official Dominions 5 video guide.
Awesome!
He plays an awful lot of Dom 4 and DF. A really nice guy too.
Looking at all those improvements in motion, it looks like this is going to be yet another day-1 purchase of a game I will never play multiplayer, just like all the other games in the series!
With our Dom 4 MP game completed, I really wish Dom 5 was available this holiday morning.
There’s a Dominions 5?! That’s a pleasant surprise, this will almost definitely get me back into MP.
The real time battles are a good change I think, but it’ll be a while before I speed them up at all. It’s a lot going on all at once.
Das’s 6-part series started, worth checking out of this will be your first Dominions game, or if you need a refresher and haven’t been following the changes coming with the new version.
Manual is done. DasTactic has a set of five intro videos to ease new players into the game. Release tomorrow!
Very nice Bruce! I’m looking forward to reading it. Maybe even more so than playing the game… ;)
I see the Illwinter docs page has the manual link up, but currently gives 404 - I may or may not be F5ing this page for the next 23 hours.
Beginner videos are good and Das is well regarded, but for my tastes his stuff is too slow and waffley/unfocused, and these seem to fall into that template too. It’s been demonstrated that training videos should be under 10 minutes to better engage viewers, ideally closer to 6. Paradox’s HoI IV beginner series* did this well. Each is tightly scripted and finished teaching a concept while Das is still doing his intro. ;)
*here for interested parties
Yeah, it’s better than nothing but I would have done the videos in a different way. Don’t cram 25 minutes of talking half a dozen concepts that can result a bit abstract because you are still outside of a real game. Chances are people will get bored or confused upon reaching the middle point of the first video.
A tutorial should start with the basics. Skip the pretender creation, and go directly to the map. The map is divided in provinces, you recruit units, you move them as an army to another province to conquest it, you make a new fort to recruit even more units, repeat.
After that, basic army setup, and basic magic (build a lab, script a pair of spells, research, site search). And after that, you explain the bless spell and the effect in sacred units.
Once you have explained all that is then when you ‘go back to the beginning’ and show the Pretender creation, explaining the dominion, scales and blesses.
Did you watch #1? He did skip pretender creation and did go directly to the map.
I like Das a lot but I agree that tutorial videos should be in the 10-minute range and focus only on a few topics. Not an easy task with a game as deep as Dominions.
Frankly, I think the best tutorials are the ones where the player just starts up a new game and plays, breaking the series down into shorter, digestible episodes, walking the viewer through an actual playthrough. The Battle Brothers dev is a good example of this approach.
I’m also very curious about who is actually watching Dominions 5 tutorials. My guess is its mostly Dom veterans so I’d imagine there’s a lot of wasted breath on them. I doubt Dominions 5, at $30, is going to be bringing in masses of new players. I think a “Whats New” and maybe a “Tips and Tricks” series would be sufficient.
Of course there’s no harm in making a tutorial series for newbies and Das has done a good job at that, as long as you have the time and patience to watch!
JBrereton, Dominions veteran and beta tester, is doing a pack of pre-done Pretenders so new people can pick one and start playing. First pack, EA
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lovdgxlt9lv2f8w/newlords%20EA.zip?dl=0
Free DLC!
I like this; the game should have 1 or 2 ready-to-rock Pretenders for each race. Too many choices is a bad idea for beginners I think.
Its a good start, but I wish there was a community member who was thinking bigger. Why isn’t there a site where people can upload their pretender/nation designs into a shared browsable dbase, along with (Important!!) text advice about design intent, how to use it, what to research, summon, recruit, etc. Community ratings for people’s uploads, and shared discussion like “I used this pretender vs Marignon with a lot of summoned demons and got destroyed, make sure you prioritize this research first” or “This is a strong beginner nation design to learn vs <Hard AI, with an imprisoned rainbow pretender for mid-game forging and research boosting.”
I want to query a list to show me all the submitted pretenders for Mid-Arco using the Shedu, rated 7/10 or higher, and with Astral 9. Show me all the pretenders DPerkins has uploaded as Man with high Dominion. How many people have uploaded a Miasma design but forgotten to pick a pretender who is cold blooded? (Just me? No? :)
Shrapnel forums is what you’re looking for: Illwinter Game Design - .com.unity Forums
Hmm, not looking very active these days…
It’s actually six videos, and I linked the first one directly above you. :)
I finished watching them this afternoon, and while I agree with @Profanicus regarding his style (he does tend to ramble a bit and repeat himself a fair amount, and if you made a drinking game of him saying “precisely” you’d probably kill yourself) I’m really on the edge of my seat for this one and those videos made me feel ready to dive right back in. I’m hoping to get some time to play it tomorrow after work, anyone know when it releases and what the price point looks like?
Steam is saying 19 hours. No idea on price, maybe $39.99?
I just noticed that, probably the usual time tomorrow then (noon CST). I’m assuming $40 but I’m braced for $60, if need be. I want to support these guys - they do incredible work for the size of the team, and I love how they support their games post-release.