@Decepticats said: @Gorb you're definitely right about that. My armchair quarterbacking on it is that they made the choice that will ultimately hurt them more in the long run. Of course this is subjective, can't be proven, and won't change what happened. But allow me to make a few points in support of this, academic though it may be:
The preponderance of people who posted hate at DoW3 did so with a seeming lack of experience with the game. Meaning their hatred was for its own sake or because the product delivered didn't match up to the nostalgia they had for the franchise. These people by and large could never be reached.
The people who disliked the game for valid reasons are persuadable, but only if you keep working on the product and showing them adaptation.
A lot of people liked the game, but the game didn't have "their" faction or didn't have enough factions to make the way they like to play tenable. These people could have been won over and turned into long time fans by working on the product further.
Abandoning the game only served to vindicate the people from point 1 and burn the people from 2. and 3. as well as those who sincerely like the game for what it is but just want more people to play with. This breaks trust with the last three groups of players for credibility on future products and encourages the folks from point 1. to behave the way they did here again in the future to flex their e-power to bully a company into pooping the bed.
Anyway, just some wednesday evening analysis from the comfort of not being in the thick of it and with the benefit of hindsight. My candle eternally burns for more DoW3 content and patches, however in vain that may be.
Your points are amazing and I really wouldve expected a AAA company to acknowledge these points. Do you think yhey might return to the game after the hate train cools off?
@gorgos said:
Your points are amazing and I really wouldve expected a AAA company to acknowledge these points. Do you think yhey might return to the game after the hate train cools off?
This game is done for, exactly for being a triple A. They all have contracts and terms within it, so production is supposed to be well-organized process. I mean, you could read news tab in Steam on Act of Agression hub - it showcases how they contract specific voice-actors, how long would be the term, what are estimates for aniamtion production and so on. That's not something a single man can manage, so once this cycle breaks, it has to overcome a ton of attrition to start over again.
At any rate, this game was sentenced to death since they recycled Skulls. There was no mean of delivering "fair" (purchaseable with in-game cash) premium-content past that time = no money from premium-content sales = no prospect for further expansion. Anyway, the game was on the skeleton-crew support since the release - I think it's in OP of current thread - so Relic was more concerned with sales rather than development of DoW3 all that time.
Oh, and, if anything, Relic started that "train" themselves.
First, they were forcing DoW2 on playerbase that didn't want it, second they were forcing CoH2 on the playerbase that cursed it.
It was either publisher or playerbase that payed for their incomptiance in both cases. To be 100% honest, one of the reason why I've pre-ordered DoW3 was how stubborn Sega was with CoH2, WH:TW and Endless Space 2. They never left their developers so far. Up untill DoW3, well.
With my personal experience with the game I feel that bad PR is what brought the game down. That might not be the best way to word it but for example when I first heard of the game and watched videos about it the game was brought to my attention from people I had played the previous as well as other rts games with. I saw more of the game and read about the hate due to the gabriel doing a flip and the new art style. I have to admit all the negative opinions on the unreleased game did affect me and I was very disinterested considering it was a new dow game but it was the only rts coming out that the people I play these games with had expressed any interest in so I tried the beta when the time came.
I went in with a very bad opinion of the game and then had a TON of fun in the beta and was ashamed that I let the mob of hate affect my opinion so much.
Then when I checked in on the people I usually play rts games with since I had previously pointed out the overwhelming criticism of the unreleased game they apparently had checked in a little more and heard the criticisms themselves and were no longer interested. Prior to that they had only seen videos from the developer or neutral publications so they were excited about the game.
Now even though I loved the game I couldn't get the people I play rts games with to even try the game for themselves because of the overwhelming hate for the flip and the art style which resulted in people being affected by mob mentality before ever trying the game for themselves and truly giving it a chance.
In the future developers will have to take even silly criticisms like those of angelos's flip more seriously if only to attempt to prevent bad sentiments about their product from spreading because its more important and powerful than even I realized before watching what happened with this game.
If there is a way to placate the nitpickers early while still maintaining your creative direction take that route.
@Wardemon agree 100%. Relic didn't even have to capitulate to the demands of the people who didn't like the snow and lava contrast on the level they showed or the gabriel flipping. They just had to take it seriously and address it. Not just in videos with already supportive youtubers. But head on on their own social media.
Their twitter account is so underused. They never post anything except team events and team vacations on it really. And they never engage on Reddit. I understand the temptation to avoid these pits of vipers (personally, I'm not on any social media, I'm a dinosaur still posting on these dusty old forums). But unfortunately, the reality is that most people are on social media now and never visit forums like this. That is where you will meet them and take control of the narratives surrounding your title.
I'll point to it time and time again, but Creative Assembly faced almost identical backlash to Total War: Warhammer and from the same agitators on youtube and reddit as well (plus all their historical fans who didn't want a fantasy game). The primary reason that game got to enjoy a different outcome to DoW3 is because they had a very good team of people posting youtube videos, doing Twitch live streams, posting on twitter, facebook, and reddit. Responding DIRECTLY to people's concerns. Shutting down people that were trying to spin propaganda. Etc.. They didn't really change anything (except making Chaos Warriors Day 1 DLC free for the entire first week of release instead of just preorder bonus) but that engagement made all the difference.
Relic did a good job enlisting InControl (and the three hats studios whatever that youtube is called I forget, those british guys with the cool sets and whatnots but they only ended up making like two videos for dow3) but he's just one guy and they only got him going AFTER the hate had started. Plus they had him playing alone without their devs there to address concerns in chat and boy was his chat full of all the same hate from the same people. Ultimately, that's wasn't enough to turn the tide of ArchWarhammers and others who thrive off of the clicks and views delivered by the hate train.
Unfortunately, this is a lesson hard learned. I hope Relic has grasped it and their next launch won't be railroaded by internet parasites.
@Wardemon said:
With my personal experience with the game I feel that bad PR is what brought the game down. That might not be the best way to word it but for example when I first heard of the game and watched videos about it the game was brought to my attention from people I had played the previous as well as other rts games with. I saw more of the game and read about the hate due to the gabriel doing a flip and the new art style. I have to admit all the negative opinions on the unreleased game did affect me and I was very disinterested considering it was a new dow game but it was the only rts coming out that the people I play these games with had expressed any interest in so I tried the beta when the time came.
I went in with a very bad opinion of the game and then had a TON of fun in the beta and was ashamed that I let the mob of hate affect my opinion so much.
Then when I checked in on the people I usually play rts games with since I had previously pointed out the overwhelming criticism of the unreleased game they apparently had checked in a little more and heard the criticisms themselves and were no longer interested. Prior to that they had only seen videos from the developer or neutral publications so they were excited about the game.
Now even though I loved the game I couldn't get the people I play rts games with to even try the game for themselves because of the overwhelming hate for the flip and the art style which resulted in people being affected by mob mentality before ever trying the game for themselves and truly giving it a chance.
In the future developers will have to take even silly criticisms like those of angelos's flip more seriously if only to attempt to prevent bad sentiments about their product from spreading because its more important and powerful than even I realized before watching what happened with this game.
If there is a way to placate the nitpickers early while still maintaining your creative direction take that route.
@Wardemon said:
I went in with a very bad opinion of the game and then had a TON of fun in the beta and was ashamed that I let the mob of hate affect my opinion so much.
That's all well and good, but most of the people who tried the beta AND most of the people who bought the game were either disappointed or disinterested with the end result. Negative PR or not, the game didn't manage to satisfy the majority of people who DID give the game a chance. The fall-off post release was remarkably heavy (as in way worse than usual), and negative PR can't explain that.
@Wardemon said:
In the future developers will have to take even silly criticisms like those of angelos's flip more seriously if only to attempt to prevent bad sentiments about their product from spreading because its more important and powerful than even I realized before watching what happened with this game.
If there is a way to placate the nitpickers early while still maintaining your creative direction take that route.
This is tired and poor argument and demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the nature of the complaints. It wasn't nitpicking. Nobody was saying "Back-flipping Gabe = Bad Game". It was just the clearest and most meme-worthy example of the larger problem, which was the shift to a more MOBA-style game. What Relic should have understood, LONG before the game ever released, was that nobody wanted this. The basic game design concepts were dead-on-arrival.
@Amoc said:
This is tired and poor argument and demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the nature of the complaints. It wasn't nitpicking. Nobody was saying "Back-flipping Gabe = Bad Game". It was just the clearest and most meme-worthy example of the larger problem, which was the shift to a more MOBA-style game. What Relic should have understood, LONG before the game ever released, was that nobody wanted this. The basic game design concepts were dead-on-arrival.
Hahaha, ah, come on Amoc.
Plenty of people said "back-flipping Gabe === bad game". There was a push to claim it was such an egregious lore violation that it showed by itself that the developers had no respect for 40k, and there were endless threads on lore-appropriate actions for Terminators and Chapter Masters to take in battle.
@Amoc your lack of appreciation for the power of group-think (and therefore PR/CM or the lack thereof) does not stack up against historical evidence to the contrary. Humans aren't all always rationally and intelligently evaluating everything for ourselves. We are mostly emotionally reacting to things and clinging to our group identities, whatever those may be.
We have to because life is exceedingly complex and most people don't have the time or energy to get into an objective mindset and critically analyze something as trivial as a videogame for themselves. The vast majority of people just look for a shortcut to make most decisions they make. Whether that's what food to eat, what music to listen to, or indeed what games to play.
I'd write you an essay on the subject, but I think I've done so before.
@Decepticats said:
Unfortunately, this is a lesson hard learned. I hope Relic has grasped it and their next launch won't be railroaded by internet parasites.
As far as I'm cocerned, learning process involves planning ahead and reviewing your own mistakes, but, somehow, I don't see much of it coming from Relic.
That was quite a revelation for me that MOBA games are being treated as "rather bad" by some people, because I never played them for years. It was another discovery to learn that some part of Dawn of War playerbase actually cares for WH40k setting: I always saw people making fun of how inaccurate DoW games are, but never saw anyone complaining about jumping in terminators' armour or the size of planetary fortress being treated somewhat seriously.
I didn't know that, but Relic PR department should have. They are profeesionals, they are, kind of, getting paid for their effort, and the best thing they did was to outsourse some other company to commit a marketting reasearch for them, excluding countries like Italy, Sweden and Canada, which may or not content considerable part of Relic's devoted playerbase, if they ever knew who is devoted to their cause
To the very least, they had mr. Boulle untill July. Yes, he did say that DoW3 was inspired by MOBA games to Eurogamer, but he was also one of the leads for DoW2. Couldn't they arrange another interview for him to casually notice that DoW2 was inspired by the same MOBAs at that time?
But they would rather arrange some PC Gamer reviews incrusted with "Paid" in red ink over them. Seriously, I didn't miss how Eurogamer was harsh on DoW3 lately. Yet they give it 4,5 out of 5 on release. Because Relic\Sega obviously compensate them their review, but would never think that the great difference between Metacritic score and Steam user reviews, for example, may set back someone from buying their game on release.
They were never engaged with community properly, like:
Da boi A: Oi, Relic, you promised to fix DoW1. When's?
Relic: Silence
Da boi B: Nothing came to my mail and I have pre-ordered the game. Where is my beta-key?
Relic: Silence
Da boi C: You've removed Skulls - how are you going to add premium content nao?
Relic: Silence + post removed
To the very least, they could apologise for missing beta keys and explain that Open Beta would work without them. I had to contact Sega support to get this cleared out and I can only wonder how much people actually refunded the game on release just because they were treated like that.
All of those were terrible marketing mistakes, just as terrible as CoH2 balance on release. And what would they do: create an official discord server for CoH2. Discord, which is supposed to accomodate 2 waves of newcomers from when the game went free... That's not the response - that's an excuse.
No, Relic should invoke some drastical measures to improve their public standing. Bad reputation isn't something that would go away by itself. And most of their PR actions is only adding to it. If Relic can't manage it themselves, then Sega should commit CoH3's marketing. Because DoW3's marketing wasn't just bad - it was attrocious.
@Amoc said:
That's all well and good, but most of the people who tried the beta AND most of the people who bought the game were either disappointed or disinterested with the end result. Negative PR or not, the game didn't manage to satisfy the majority of people who DID give the game a chance. The fall-off post release was remarkably heavy (as in way worse than usual), and negative PR can't explain that.
Lol, that was an exact bad PR move. Because they missed quite a number or people (including me) who had pre-ordered the game on the closed beta, because, ololol, there was not enough disclosure to it. Serioulsy, the digital code on hard copies and Steam-token for digital buyers and proper e-mail\Steam tab notification and they could win some intial loyal numbers, even if those were to engage the later, comming from Open Beta, ones.
Instead they let in all the... people, who was reading videogames-related feeds a lot, and was forcing the same registration process on pre-purchasers as well. That's not the coolest move from the marketing perspective, to my mind, when all you give to early digital buyers is a sack.. with 3 skins, and that's it.
No pre-load, no time-limited sneak peaks, no early\exclusive access to closed beta. I mean, even games like Danganronpa was doing this much earlier. And without that terrible registration, when you has to beg for closed beta of the game you have already bought.
Also, they failed on Open Beta as well, because not everyone received their keys for technical reasons. But instead of clearing the situations up and explain that those codes were for pre-load and apologise, they just did nothing. Always avoid your playerbase, because people are scary. Way to drop a soap before you even entered the bath.
most of the people who bought
Nobody was saying "Back-flipping Gabe = Bad Game"
nobody wanted this
Well, somebody did say "Back-flipping Gabe = Bad Game" in the closest terms to the original. Also, the game was at 64%(mixed) in Steam reviews since release and kept around that untill 2018's Febraury, when it was abandoned.
It wasn't been "the most people who bought" judging by that very "mouse" icon on Steam or joining date in Reddit. It was the loudest and less understanding people of them all, because the moderate detractors was more about "Hey, not enough content, SP is lacking, Relic, when's? Relic? Relic? ok.." and that's it. People discussing that Fortress of Redemption or Gabe were the strong minority on release.
Yet, it was another PR-related miss, because the best argument you can use with these people is STFU, but DoW3 has "proper" in modern terms moderation, which, sadly, can't prevent vocal minorities from growing in numbers and decline any possible means for majority to confront them, but to leave.
At some point, CoH2 steam community became unmoderated, because Synthia restored close to everyone against Relic. It was a great hate-factory, which Kyle didn't even try to moderate (Imperial Dane tried it once, but resigned in just days). Yet, my opinion toward Relic within it changed from "hateful" to "neutrally-agressive", because I had my STFU with me and thus was right. [and game was getting new updates, maybe]
It didn't work the same way for DoW3. I saw a lot of people being shot in the back by the G-man, and became quickly discouraged by the task. It would have been great if it was less votalite or less controlled, but the community was both at the same time, so I had to move to the more pacified place. Which is sad, because Flipping Gabe Sect only rose by the time. I even casted a vote for Steam-community to become "owners-only locked", but the thread was closed. There is no sense in posting, if there are just about 4-7 individuals unfit for the open discussion and there are no means to silence them for majority. So, I think @Wardemon is right, after all.
Plenty of people said "back-flipping Gabe === bad game".
No, plenty of people were not saying that. I challenge you to find some quotes, since apparently I'm being "revisionist". Should be easy, right? There are "plenty" of people who were saying it...lol!
Still, even almost two years later, you have absolutely no clue and literally zero insight on what went wrong with this game. Back-flipping Gabe didn't make the game bad, or unpopular. If the game was good, people would have let it slide. Sadly, the game wasn't good.
Back-flipping Gabe was merely a symptom and the most obvious sign of the underlying problem, which was that the devs or the publishers or whoever was in charge with the fundamental design were completely out of touch with the fanbase (both existing and potential) and what they wanted.
They delivered a game that nobody wanted and nobody asked for, ever, anywhere.
Challenging people to find quotes of behaviour we all know happened, two years later in 2019, is the pinnacle of trying to drag something out that isn't there.
I fully respect your belief that you know what went wrong with the game, @Amoc. However, I think you're just as wrong as you think I (and others) am, because there is literally a post on Steam that was made overnight that directly quoted a backflipping Terminator as one of the reasons that put them off of the game. The major thing was the lack of DoW II / CoH cover, which would never fly with the vDoW fans that wanted a remaster of that game.
Relic weren't out of touch with the fanbase. Problem is, there's more than one fanbase. And certainly, you don't seem to be in touch with them either.
It's the classic problem that a number of vocal fan critics have had, on here and on Steam. Presuming your singular opinions are the natural and obvious argument, and calling anyone who disagrees out of touch or having "zero insight".
Another fun observation is that tons of people actually asked for almost exactly what DoW3 delivered both during and after DoW2's peak: DoW2 + DoW1; DoW2 heroes but with DoW1's bigger armies and base building.
Relic just needs to learn to talk to their fans. That is their number one problem. Their number two problem is menus. DoW3 has crazy menus.
Another fun observation is that tons of people actually asked for almost exactly what DoW3 delivered both during and after DoW2's peak: DoW2 + DoW1; DoW2 heroes but with DoW1's bigger armies and base building.
Relic just needs to learn to talk to their fans. That is their number one problem. Their number two problem is menus. DoW3 has crazy menus.
Hmmm.........There was even actually a news about Dow3 having both Dow1 and Dow2 traits before original THQ's bankcruptcy for what I remember.
Too bad to me that some or maybe even more people seems to be closed minded. Everyone has a own tastes and free speech, yeah, but I wish if people could be more open-minded about games and overall (at least legal ) stuff and more respectfull to each other about tastes nowadays . Like enjoying both RTS and MOBAs or even Soccer and Basketball for example.
Of course I agree that Relic should comunicate more with fans.
Some interesting anecdotes around the fanbase, and what people do and do not apparently post, given that the whole franchise is on a flash sale of sorts on Steam at the moment.
I woke up to a page of new threads, some of which were asking about the game. One was attacking the developers for "trying to scam users". Perhaps they were unaware the whole franchise was on sale. There was no thread similar to this in the other DoW Steam discussion hubs that I checked (which was DC, SS, CR and Retribution). There was another poster spamming all the threads with vitriolic content despite not actually owning the game. There was no account doing this in any of the other DoW hubs mentioned.
Additionally, a bunch of critical posters I recognise came out of the woodworks, after some weeks (at minimum) of no activity to try and dissuade people from playing the game. This only happens at times when the game is being sold at a discount, or some other event is on, regardless of how convincing that discount may be. I find this interesting because a lot of moderate criticism comes from a content argument, which a price drop normally makes palatable. Apparently potential buyers must also absolutely be convinced to not even give the game a try, which given the existence of refunds seems a bit of overkill to me.
It's doubly interesting because these are people not normally interested in talking about the game. They're not contributing to any other discussion, and they're not active in any other Dawn of War discussion hub (at least, by general recent activity). They solely turn up to disparage DoW III (and / or break the hub rules, but this isn't usually the case), and then vanish again for a while.
@Gorb Something similar seems to happen on the general DawnOfWar subreddit (and to a lesser extent the DawnOfWarIII sub that was created expressly to escape these people BEFORE the game's release) and on twitter. Any time anyone asks about DoW3 however innocently, the thread is filled with the most aggressive vitriol and anyone defending it even moderately is attacked.
It's one of these games that has somehow been trapped in the sunken place. I maintain that it is largely because Relic was unprepared for the kind of CR they would need to do to pilot this game through all this crazy. But after over a year since it was announced support for the game would be ending we're still getting these flare ups from the same handful of clowns that make it seem like EVERYONE hates the game.
Their existence and continued malevolence is just another reason I really want Relic to come back to supporting this game (I maintain @dullahan 's mod is a good starting place for where to go with the game next). These villains "winning" is unconscionable.
@Gorb said:
Challenging people to find quotes of behaviour we all know happened, two years later in 2019, is the pinnacle of trying to drag something out that isn't there.
Gorb you use anecdotes when it suits you, and then condemn the anecdotes of others. The amount of time you spent on this forum criticizing people for saying "XYZ" because they didn't have "proof" demands that you hold yourself to the same standard. It was unfortunate for the forum that you never held yourself to that standard, or anywhere even close to it.
@Gorb said:
I fully respect your belief that you know what went wrong with the game, @Amoc. However, I think you're just as wrong as you think I (and others) am, because there is literally a post on Steam that was made overnight that directly quoted a backflipping Terminator as one of the reasons that put them off of the game. The major thing was the lack of DoW II / CoH cover, which would never fly with the vDoW fans that wanted a remaster of that game.
The major reasons were myriad. The lack of cover wasn't the reason, because DoW I was and always has been the most popular game in the franchise. It may have been a reason that CoH and DoW II fans were disappointed, but it's certainly not the primary cause for this game's failure. The one thing that you and I were able to agree on (and it was precious little) was that there are a LOT of reasons why this game failed. I hold that it boils down to a number of fundamental design problems. You, on the other hand, have settled on a bizarre tale of nefarious internet trolls, unreasonable fans/expectations and some conspiracy to destroy the games reputation for motives unknown.
@Gorb said:
Relic weren't out of touch with the fanbase. Problem is, there's more than one fanbase. And certainly, you don't seem to be in touch with them either.
Sorry Gorb, but you can't externalize the reasons for the game's failures (blame it on the fans/critics) and then presume judgment on who is or isn't "in touch" with the fanbase. You were never able to relate to or acknowledge ANY of the criticism for the game as valid, and from start to finish you were in denial about where the game was headed. As the user reviews came in mediocre and as the player base immediately evaporated, you railed against them. As the game died and the community crumpled, you sat here saying "Everything's fine. The game is good. The fans are wrong."
It would be hard to find ANYONE more out of touch with the greater fanbase than you. At least Relic, for all of the flaws with DoW III, understood after release that the game wasn't going to work and that they'd (as the developer) missed the mark. You STILL cling to the ridiculous idea that it was somehow the fans that got it wrong.
@Amoc, I don't think you understand. Despite my reservations, I still quoted content from a literal post made on Steam in the night / day or so before I made that post you're quoting.
Besides the endless, actually-searchable evidence on these forums alone (you should put the legwork in yourself, at this stage in the game, really. There aren't many of us here anymore), you go for the old usual attack on me. I'm used to it, I don't mind it. All it does is demonstrate that that's all you have. An attempt to bait an emotional response, or something similar. It's a complex issue. I believe your disdain for me real, and rooted in things you consider actual problems. But I disagree with what you perceive to be problems, and you don't generally break the actual forum rules, so, eh. Whatever.
For the person I referenced, the lack of cover was the reason. What you're doing is exactly as I said - dismissing other players' concerns in favour of your own. With a dash of dismissing my own apparent reasoning thrown in for good measure. I wasn't talking about the primary reason for the game's failure. We were talking specifically about what things people vocally disliked about the game. Or still dislike about the game, even. Drawing a straight line between this and the game's failings is difficult, because it's not just any one thing.
I mean, the end of your post is you in a nutshell. I've recognised criticism of the game a thousand times. I disagree with it. That doesn't mean I don't recognise it.
You even reference "the fans" as an entity separate to me. I'm a fan. We're all fans, or at least I'd like to assume we are. What you don't seem to understand is that this is primarily an exercise in opinion, which is partly why it's increasingly hard to design a game that resonates with an established franchise. There are of course, good central tenets to design. But satisfying the personal urges of every single individual fan isn't one of those things.
You don't get it. That's fine. You believe that games live and die on the merits of their design, and that alone. Certainly, that's the impression you seem to give. I tend to the more complex, perhaps even convoluted view, that there are a great many moving parts in games development, but a lot of them come down to profit margins. And certainly, a game doesn't have to be good to sell well, or bad to sell badly. There's a lot of bad entertainment that sells well, and a lot of great entertainment that doesn't. Video games, in my mind, are no different. That doesn't mean bad games can't fail, but that's besides the point. The point is that you think you've got it sorted, that you've figured it out. All I've been saying, this whole time, is that the reality is more complicated than you think it is.
@Gorb said:
I mean, the end of your post is you in a nutshell. I've recognised criticism of the game a thousand times. I disagree with it. That doesn't mean I don't recognise it.
Recognize it!? Haha. You spent so much time arguing against it that there was never any question whether you recognized it. What you were never able to do was acknowledge any of it as valid and that the folks who didn't like the game had fair and legitimate reasons.
That doesn't mean you had to agree with their reasons or feel the same way, but at least take some perspective and acknowledge that some of it might be valid, if not for you then for other parts of the fan base. Instead, you spent all of your time on this forum trying to discredit all of the criticism. Your efforts were focused on trying to tell people their criticism was wrong, and that they just couldn't understand how excellent the game was. The worst part was that you literally couldn't give ground on anything. NONE of the criticism, it seems, was valid in your mind...unless something's changed?
@Gorb said:
There are of course, good central tenets to design. But satisfying the personal urges of every single individual fan isn't one of those things.
Which is pretty much where DoW III went wrong, but we've been over that.
@Gorb said:
You don't get it. That's fine. You believe that games live and die on the merits of their design, and that alone. Certainly, that's the impression you seem to give.
Nothing else matters unless the fundamental game design is sound, though that's a broad topic in itself. Clearly your view is more convoluted, with your ridiculous hate-train conspiracy theory, and the limp anecdotes you use to support it. As I said, those anecdotes are apparently super-compelling when you're using them, but apparently all of the Steam Reviews and the poor user statistics never were. Talk about cherry-picking your "data"!
A&E is certainly subjective, and each person is going to have his or her reasons for liking or not liking something, Notice I say "reason(S)", because it's rarely any one thing. Sometimes it's just a matter of taste, but then other times the content so wildly misses the mark that practically nobody likes it. DoW III didn't fail because nobody knew about it. It didn't fail because there was no desire for a DoW game. It had a huge beta test where tens of thousands of folks tried it, and then a quarter million bought it within the first few months of release. They almost all bailed immediately, and around 50% of the folks who bought it in the early days said they didn't like it. That's pretty self-explanatory.
Rather than take that at face value, however, you've conjured up an insane narrative where some mysterious, nefarious parties have (for motives completely unknown) endeavored to ruin perception for the game by buying it (in the hundreds and thousands) and leaving bad reviews, and then refunding it. I don't know what to call that other than insane, because the supposed trolls who are doing it would have to be insane to go through that effort.
That's where your argument falls apart. It relies on large scale insanity on the part of the mysterious "trolls", while also on the fan base being naive and easily duped (read stupid).
Do you want to know what REALLY happened on 9/11? The sheeple believe what the government tells them, but I know better!
Let's take this to a rather simple conclusion. I recognise valid complaints about the game. If you didn't see that, then the lack of reading is on you. If you don't want to because it's inconvenient, then that's also on you.
I'm not here to defend my excessive and lengthy posting history for the sake of someone that likes to describe the things I post as "insane" and who has admitted numerous times that they have zero faith in the things I actually do post. It's a lost cause.
@Amoc
I've linked this to you so many times so at this point I feel like you're either arguing in bad faith or in denial of the limits of human intelligence. It doesn't require people to be "stupid" to be vulnerable to manipulation, only that they be people.
The things inherent with being people, the proven time and time again psychological and emotional weaknesses are all it takes for us to form opinions that we sincerely believe that are founded on nothing and ultimately wrong. To err is human.
Marketing people get paid a lot of money for a reason. Look at it this way: If you have the potion of immortality and you're willing to sell it for free. Nobody will drink it if you go around shouting "TASTE MY POO! IT'S FORTIFIED WITH SPACE LASERS!"
In that hypothetical you have a very highly desired product, but very poor marketing. And the result is nobody buys your product because nobody wants to take a chance (even for free!) on drinking what you're selling.
This is an extreme example to illustrate a point you seem to have long missed: Humans don't operate with omniscience. And as such, we don't make fully rational choices, we make choices based on the limited information we have but also based on emotion. If someone scares us away from a very alluring product by shouting gross or hateful things about it, we're going to veer away.
Many people dislike DoW3 for reasons that are valid and are their own. I contend many many more either never tried it or got a bad impression of it due to overwhelmingly loud voices in the community spouting hate and negativity about things such as back flipping Gabe or "colors" or "grimdark" or "esports" or "MOBA." And if you did a word bubble on the various DoW3 communities this would probably bear out.
Interesting to see heated discussion to this very day, even though by just a handful of people… But yeah, there's no denying it, peepz were flippin' hard over Gabe doing flips in his Terminator armor, and made a big deal of it, ever since the very first gameplay video. Me? I was just enjoying the music from it.
@Gorb said:
Let's take this to a rather simple conclusion. I recognise valid complaints about the game. If you didn't see that, then the lack of reading is on you. If you don't want to because it's inconvenient, then that's also on you.
No you didn't. If you did, then you wouldn't be still be spinning sad, myopic stories about the game being toppled by nasty trolls. You're STILL trying to find someone or something to blame for the game's failure other than the game itself, despite the MOUNTAINS of documented criticism against it.
@Gorb said:
I'm not here to defend my excessive and lengthy posting history for the sake of someone that likes to describe the things I post as "insane" and who has admitted numerous times that they have zero faith in the things I actually do post. It's a lost cause.
Defending your posting history is most certainly a lost cause. Your hypocrisy and denial has never wavered. If nothing else, I can at least say that your commitment to shouting down all the criticism for the game was impressive.
@Decepticats said: @Amoc
I've linked this to you so many times so at this point I feel like you're either arguing in bad faith or in denial of the limits of human intelligence. It doesn't require people to be "stupid" to be vulnerable to manipulation, only that they be people.
The things inherent with being people, the proven time and time again psychological and emotional weaknesses are all it takes for us to form opinions that we sincerely believe that are founded on nothing and ultimately wrong. To err is human.
I know you think that you've delivered a real zinger here, but listing psychology terms and then trying to tie them vaguely back to the argument at hand isn't as effective as you think. There are so many holes in this argument that it really doesn't merit much discussion. When folks buy a video game, they're doing it with the intention and the hope of enjoying it. You can't adequately explain what made the hundreds of thousands who bought the game walk away from it because of "herd mentality". It's easy for you to say that's what happened, and to presume that you're smarter than "the others" and that they all naively and ignorantly fell victim, but you should probably read about:
I can believe there were other factors at play, and also believe that folks had legitimate criticism of the game. Even if I disagree with it personally, there's a wide gulf between reasonable criticism, and toxicity. But like I said, your lack of reading is on you.
Feel to throw more digs my way, I won't be posting my opinion in this thread any further.
@Amoc I'm not smarter than anybody. Once again, psychological weaknesses are not a sign of stupidity, just a sign of humanity. We ALL have them, that's the point. And part of the reason we have them is that life is complicated and we need shortcuts. But those shortcuts inherently come with flaws. I fell prey to the same herd mentality as everyone else at first after release and I was joining in on the "Here's what they have to fundamentally change about DoW3 to make it what we want" train.
But I was wrong. And the only thing that shook me out of that was just playing more DoW3 and pushing out of my mind all the times I'd have a reflex that echoed something I'd read online. Instead just trying to experience, enjoy, and improve at DoW3 for what it was not for what the internet voices wanted it to be.
The "hundreds of thousands" that bought it and then didn't play again should tell you something. They weren't buying the game in good faith to give it a fair shot. They bought it to put in a tiny bit of time, write a negative steam review, and then refund it before they crossed the two hour played threshold on steam. It takes more than two hours to have a reasoned opinion on the ins and outs of a strategy game. That should be pretty obvious.
As to why many others stopped playing, well you can peruse here, reddit, and twitter and underneath the loud layer of people screaming vitriol about the game you'll find people saying things like "Sad they stopped supporting it, I was just waiting until [my favorite race x] was released." or "I was just waiting until there were more maps/better balance." So a lot of people stopped playing not because they didn't like the game at its core but because they wanted more game before they dove into it heavily. Still, there is a not insignificant group that sincerely disliked DoW3 for a variety of reasons that don't have to do with herd mentality but could largely be summed up as "This isn't the game I wanted." That's totally legitimate and I'm not trying to say those people don't exist. But despite what AAA companies seem to think, a game can be successful without attracting all the users. It can make money without making ALL the money.
DoW3 could have been successful (and may yet be in the future, the RTS market is starving). But it needed more time and support form Relic, an unshakeable determination, and a foresight that would make Cassandra blush.
@Decepticats said:
The "hundreds of thousands" that bought it and then didn't play again should tell you something. They weren't buying the game in good faith to give it a fair shot. They bought it to put in a tiny bit of time, write a negative steam review, and then refund it before they crossed the two hour played threshold on steam. It takes more than two hours to have a reasoned opinion on the ins and outs of a strategy game. That should be pretty obvious.
If you actually believe that, then there's really nothing else to say to you. I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not sure I can with you.
@Decepticats said:
The "hundreds of thousands" that bought it and then didn't play again should tell you something. They weren't buying the game in good faith to give it a fair shot. They bought it to put in a tiny bit of time, write a negative steam review, and then refund it before they crossed the two hour played threshold on steam. It takes more than two hours to have a reasoned opinion on the ins and outs of a strategy game. That should be pretty obvious.
If you actually believe that, then there's really nothing else to say to you. I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not sure I can with you.
I too had some doubts about Dow3 success, but still hoped for more new content with each update. It isn't a shame to have some hope either.
Of course, I agree with what Decepticats said earlier.
If you actually believe that, then there's really nothing else to say to you. I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not sure I can with you.
Indeed I do believe what I said. And since Valve has recently had to implement automated and manual review bomb blocking, I think they noticed it was a bit of a problem too.
Keep your "benefit of the doubt," I don't need your faith because the only faith you post here with is bad.
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gorgos
Your points are amazing and I really wouldve expected a AAA company to acknowledge these points. Do you think yhey might return to the game after the hate train cools off?
Ololo111
This game is done for, exactly for being a triple A. They all have contracts and terms within it, so production is supposed to be well-organized process. I mean, you could read news tab in Steam on Act of Agression hub - it showcases how they contract specific voice-actors, how long would be the term, what are estimates for aniamtion production and so on. That's not something a single man can manage, so once this cycle breaks, it has to overcome a ton of attrition to start over again.
At any rate, this game was sentenced to death since they recycled Skulls. There was no mean of delivering "fair" (purchaseable with in-game cash) premium-content past that time = no money from premium-content sales = no prospect for further expansion. Anyway, the game was on the skeleton-crew support since the release - I think it's in OP of current thread - so Relic was more concerned with sales rather than development of DoW3 all that time.
Ololo111
Oh, and, if anything, Relic started that "train" themselves.
First, they were forcing DoW2 on playerbase that didn't want it, second they were forcing CoH2 on the playerbase that cursed it.
It was either publisher or playerbase that payed for their incomptiance in both cases. To be 100% honest, one of the reason why I've pre-ordered DoW3 was how stubborn Sega was with CoH2, WH:TW and Endless Space 2. They never left their developers so far. Up untill DoW3, well.
Wardemon
With my personal experience with the game I feel that bad PR is what brought the game down. That might not be the best way to word it but for example when I first heard of the game and watched videos about it the game was brought to my attention from people I had played the previous as well as other rts games with. I saw more of the game and read about the hate due to the gabriel doing a flip and the new art style. I have to admit all the negative opinions on the unreleased game did affect me and I was very disinterested considering it was a new dow game but it was the only rts coming out that the people I play these games with had expressed any interest in so I tried the beta when the time came.
I went in with a very bad opinion of the game and then had a TON of fun in the beta and was ashamed that I let the mob of hate affect my opinion so much.
Then when I checked in on the people I usually play rts games with since I had previously pointed out the overwhelming criticism of the unreleased game they apparently had checked in a little more and heard the criticisms themselves and were no longer interested. Prior to that they had only seen videos from the developer or neutral publications so they were excited about the game.
Now even though I loved the game I couldn't get the people I play rts games with to even try the game for themselves because of the overwhelming hate for the flip and the art style which resulted in people being affected by mob mentality before ever trying the game for themselves and truly giving it a chance.
In the future developers will have to take even silly criticisms like those of angelos's flip more seriously if only to attempt to prevent bad sentiments about their product from spreading because its more important and powerful than even I realized before watching what happened with this game.
If there is a way to placate the nitpickers early while still maintaining your creative direction take that route.
Decepticats
@Wardemon agree 100%. Relic didn't even have to capitulate to the demands of the people who didn't like the snow and lava contrast on the level they showed or the gabriel flipping. They just had to take it seriously and address it. Not just in videos with already supportive youtubers. But head on on their own social media.
Their twitter account is so underused. They never post anything except team events and team vacations on it really. And they never engage on Reddit. I understand the temptation to avoid these pits of vipers (personally, I'm not on any social media, I'm a dinosaur still posting on these dusty old forums). But unfortunately, the reality is that most people are on social media now and never visit forums like this. That is where you will meet them and take control of the narratives surrounding your title.
I'll point to it time and time again, but Creative Assembly faced almost identical backlash to Total War: Warhammer and from the same agitators on youtube and reddit as well (plus all their historical fans who didn't want a fantasy game). The primary reason that game got to enjoy a different outcome to DoW3 is because they had a very good team of people posting youtube videos, doing Twitch live streams, posting on twitter, facebook, and reddit. Responding DIRECTLY to people's concerns. Shutting down people that were trying to spin propaganda. Etc.. They didn't really change anything (except making Chaos Warriors Day 1 DLC free for the entire first week of release instead of just preorder bonus) but that engagement made all the difference.
Relic did a good job enlisting InControl (and the three hats studios whatever that youtube is called I forget, those british guys with the cool sets and whatnots but they only ended up making like two videos for dow3) but he's just one guy and they only got him going AFTER the hate had started. Plus they had him playing alone without their devs there to address concerns in chat and boy was his chat full of all the same hate from the same people. Ultimately, that's wasn't enough to turn the tide of ArchWarhammers and others who thrive off of the clicks and views delivered by the hate train.
Unfortunately, this is a lesson hard learned. I hope Relic has grasped it and their next launch won't be railroaded by internet parasites.
charlando
Couldnt agree more.
Amoc
That's all well and good, but most of the people who tried the beta AND most of the people who bought the game were either disappointed or disinterested with the end result. Negative PR or not, the game didn't manage to satisfy the majority of people who DID give the game a chance. The fall-off post release was remarkably heavy (as in way worse than usual), and negative PR can't explain that.
This is tired and poor argument and demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the nature of the complaints. It wasn't nitpicking. Nobody was saying "Back-flipping Gabe = Bad Game". It was just the clearest and most meme-worthy example of the larger problem, which was the shift to a more MOBA-style game. What Relic should have understood, LONG before the game ever released, was that nobody wanted this. The basic game design concepts were dead-on-arrival.
Gorb
Hahaha, ah, come on Amoc.
Plenty of people said "back-flipping Gabe === bad game". There was a push to claim it was such an egregious lore violation that it showed by itself that the developers had no respect for 40k, and there were endless threads on lore-appropriate actions for Terminators and Chapter Masters to take in battle.
Let's not be revisionist, now.
Opinion (not moderator) post.
Decepticats
@Amoc your lack of appreciation for the power of group-think (and therefore PR/CM or the lack thereof) does not stack up against historical evidence to the contrary. Humans aren't all always rationally and intelligently evaluating everything for ourselves. We are mostly emotionally reacting to things and clinging to our group identities, whatever those may be.
We have to because life is exceedingly complex and most people don't have the time or energy to get into an objective mindset and critically analyze something as trivial as a videogame for themselves. The vast majority of people just look for a shortcut to make most decisions they make. Whether that's what food to eat, what music to listen to, or indeed what games to play.
I'd write you an essay on the subject, but I think I've done so before.
Ololo111
As far as I'm cocerned, learning process involves planning ahead and reviewing your own mistakes, but, somehow, I don't see much of it coming from Relic.
That was quite a revelation for me that MOBA games are being treated as "rather bad" by some people, because I never played them for years. It was another discovery to learn that some part of Dawn of War playerbase actually cares for WH40k setting: I always saw people making fun of how inaccurate DoW games are, but never saw anyone complaining about jumping in terminators' armour or the size of planetary fortress being treated somewhat seriously.
I didn't know that, but Relic PR department should have. They are profeesionals, they are, kind of, getting paid for their effort, and the best thing they did was to outsourse some other company to commit a marketting reasearch for them, excluding countries like Italy, Sweden and Canada, which may or not content considerable part of Relic's devoted playerbase, if they ever knew who is devoted to their cause
To the very least, they had mr. Boulle untill July. Yes, he did say that DoW3 was inspired by MOBA games to Eurogamer, but he was also one of the leads for DoW2. Couldn't they arrange another interview for him to casually notice that DoW2 was inspired by the same MOBAs at that time?
But they would rather arrange some PC Gamer reviews incrusted with "Paid" in red ink over them. Seriously, I didn't miss how Eurogamer was harsh on DoW3 lately. Yet they give it 4,5 out of 5 on release. Because Relic\Sega obviously compensate them their review, but would never think that the great difference between Metacritic score and Steam user reviews, for example, may set back someone from buying their game on release.
They were never engaged with community properly, like:
Da boi A: Oi, Relic, you promised to fix DoW1. When's?
Relic: Silence
Da boi B: Nothing came to my mail and I have pre-ordered the game. Where is my beta-key?
Relic: Silence
Da boi C: You've removed Skulls - how are you going to add premium content nao?
Relic: Silence + post removed
To the very least, they could apologise for missing beta keys and explain that Open Beta would work without them. I had to contact Sega support to get this cleared out and I can only wonder how much people actually refunded the game on release just because they were treated like that.
All of those were terrible marketing mistakes, just as terrible as CoH2 balance on release. And what would they do: create an official discord server for CoH2. Discord, which is supposed to accomodate 2 waves of newcomers from when the game went free... That's not the response - that's an excuse.
No, Relic should invoke some drastical measures to improve their public standing. Bad reputation isn't something that would go away by itself. And most of their PR actions is only adding to it. If Relic can't manage it themselves, then Sega should commit CoH3's marketing. Because DoW3's marketing wasn't just bad - it was attrocious.
Lol, that was an exact bad PR move. Because they missed quite a number or people (including me) who had pre-ordered the game on the closed beta, because, ololol, there was not enough disclosure to it. Serioulsy, the digital code on hard copies and Steam-token for digital buyers and proper e-mail\Steam tab notification and they could win some intial loyal numbers, even if those were to engage the later, comming from Open Beta, ones.
Instead they let in all the... people, who was reading videogames-related feeds a lot, and was forcing the same registration process on pre-purchasers as well. That's not the coolest move from the marketing perspective, to my mind, when all you give to early digital buyers is a sack.. with 3 skins, and that's it.
No pre-load, no time-limited sneak peaks, no early\exclusive access to closed beta. I mean, even games like Danganronpa was doing this much earlier. And without that terrible registration, when you has to beg for closed beta of the game you have already bought.
Also, they failed on Open Beta as well, because not everyone received their keys for technical reasons. But instead of clearing the situations up and explain that those codes were for pre-load and apologise, they just did nothing. Always avoid your playerbase, because people are scary. Way to drop a soap before you even entered the bath.
Well, somebody did say "Back-flipping Gabe = Bad Game" in the closest terms to the original. Also, the game was at 64%(mixed) in Steam reviews since release and kept around that untill 2018's Febraury, when it was abandoned.
It wasn't been "the most people who bought" judging by that very "mouse" icon on Steam or joining date in Reddit. It was the loudest and less understanding people of them all, because the moderate detractors was more about "Hey, not enough content, SP is lacking, Relic, when's? Relic? Relic? ok.." and that's it. People discussing that Fortress of Redemption or Gabe were the strong minority on release.
Yet, it was another PR-related miss, because the best argument you can use with these people is STFU, but DoW3 has "proper" in modern terms moderation, which, sadly, can't prevent vocal minorities from growing in numbers and decline any possible means for majority to confront them, but to leave.
At some point, CoH2 steam community became unmoderated, because Synthia restored close to everyone against Relic. It was a great hate-factory, which Kyle didn't even try to moderate (Imperial Dane tried it once, but resigned in just days). Yet, my opinion toward Relic within it changed from "hateful" to "neutrally-agressive", because I had my STFU with me and thus was right. [and game was getting new updates, maybe]
It didn't work the same way for DoW3. I saw a lot of people being shot in the back by the G-man, and became quickly discouraged by the task. It would have been great if it was less votalite or less controlled, but the community was both at the same time, so I had to move to the more pacified place. Which is sad, because Flipping Gabe Sect only rose by the time. I even casted a vote for Steam-community to become "owners-only locked", but the thread was closed. There is no sense in posting, if there are just about 4-7 individuals unfit for the open discussion and there are no means to silence them for majority. So, I think @Wardemon is right, after all.
Amoc
No, plenty of people were not saying that. I challenge you to find some quotes, since apparently I'm being "revisionist". Should be easy, right? There are "plenty" of people who were saying it...lol!
Still, even almost two years later, you have absolutely no clue and literally zero insight on what went wrong with this game. Back-flipping Gabe didn't make the game bad, or unpopular. If the game was good, people would have let it slide. Sadly, the game wasn't good.
Back-flipping Gabe was merely a symptom and the most obvious sign of the underlying problem, which was that the devs or the publishers or whoever was in charge with the fundamental design were completely out of touch with the fanbase (both existing and potential) and what they wanted.
They delivered a game that nobody wanted and nobody asked for, ever, anywhere.
Gorb
Challenging people to find quotes of behaviour we all know happened, two years later in 2019, is the pinnacle of trying to drag something out that isn't there.
I fully respect your belief that you know what went wrong with the game, @Amoc. However, I think you're just as wrong as you think I (and others) am, because there is literally a post on Steam that was made overnight that directly quoted a backflipping Terminator as one of the reasons that put them off of the game. The major thing was the lack of DoW II / CoH cover, which would never fly with the vDoW fans that wanted a remaster of that game.
Relic weren't out of touch with the fanbase. Problem is, there's more than one fanbase. And certainly, you don't seem to be in touch with them either.
It's the classic problem that a number of vocal fan critics have had, on here and on Steam. Presuming your singular opinions are the natural and obvious argument, and calling anyone who disagrees out of touch or having "zero insight".
Decepticats
Ahh, Feels like 2018 again.
Boy would I like more DoW3 content.
Another fun observation is that tons of people actually asked for almost exactly what DoW3 delivered both during and after DoW2's peak: DoW2 + DoW1; DoW2 heroes but with DoW1's bigger armies and base building.
Relic just needs to learn to talk to their fans. That is their number one problem. Their number two problem is menus. DoW3 has crazy menus.
Draconix
Hmmm.........There was even actually a news about Dow3 having both Dow1 and Dow2 traits before original THQ's bankcruptcy for what I remember.
Too bad to me that some or maybe even more people seems to be closed minded. Everyone has a own tastes and free speech, yeah, but I wish if people could be more open-minded about games and overall (at least legal
) stuff and more respectfull to each other about tastes nowadays . Like enjoying both RTS and MOBAs or even Soccer and Basketball for example. 
Of course I agree that Relic should comunicate more with fans.
Gorb
Some interesting anecdotes around the fanbase, and what people do and do not apparently post, given that the whole franchise is on a flash sale of sorts on Steam at the moment.
I woke up to a page of new threads, some of which were asking about the game. One was attacking the developers for "trying to scam users". Perhaps they were unaware the whole franchise was on sale. There was no thread similar to this in the other DoW Steam discussion hubs that I checked (which was DC, SS, CR and Retribution). There was another poster spamming all the threads with vitriolic content despite not actually owning the game. There was no account doing this in any of the other DoW hubs mentioned.
Additionally, a bunch of critical posters I recognise came out of the woodworks, after some weeks (at minimum) of no activity to try and dissuade people from playing the game. This only happens at times when the game is being sold at a discount, or some other event is on, regardless of how convincing that discount may be. I find this interesting because a lot of moderate criticism comes from a content argument, which a price drop normally makes palatable. Apparently potential buyers must also absolutely be convinced to not even give the game a try, which given the existence of refunds seems a bit of overkill to me.
It's doubly interesting because these are people not normally interested in talking about the game. They're not contributing to any other discussion, and they're not active in any other Dawn of War discussion hub (at least, by general recent activity). They solely turn up to disparage DoW III (and / or break the hub rules, but this isn't usually the case), and then vanish again for a while.
Decepticats
@Gorb Something similar seems to happen on the general DawnOfWar subreddit (and to a lesser extent the DawnOfWarIII sub that was created expressly to escape these people BEFORE the game's release) and on twitter. Any time anyone asks about DoW3 however innocently, the thread is filled with the most aggressive vitriol and anyone defending it even moderately is attacked.
It's one of these games that has somehow been trapped in the sunken place. I maintain that it is largely because Relic was unprepared for the kind of CR they would need to do to pilot this game through all this crazy. But after over a year since it was announced support for the game would be ending we're still getting these flare ups from the same handful of clowns that make it seem like EVERYONE hates the game.
Their existence and continued malevolence is just another reason I really want Relic to come back to supporting this game (I maintain @dullahan 's mod is a good starting place for where to go with the game next). These villains "winning" is unconscionable.
Amoc
Gorb you use anecdotes when it suits you, and then condemn the anecdotes of others. The amount of time you spent on this forum criticizing people for saying "XYZ" because they didn't have "proof" demands that you hold yourself to the same standard. It was unfortunate for the forum that you never held yourself to that standard, or anywhere even close to it.
The major reasons were myriad. The lack of cover wasn't the reason, because DoW I was and always has been the most popular game in the franchise. It may have been a reason that CoH and DoW II fans were disappointed, but it's certainly not the primary cause for this game's failure. The one thing that you and I were able to agree on (and it was precious little) was that there are a LOT of reasons why this game failed. I hold that it boils down to a number of fundamental design problems. You, on the other hand, have settled on a bizarre tale of nefarious internet trolls, unreasonable fans/expectations and some conspiracy to destroy the games reputation for motives unknown.
Sorry Gorb, but you can't externalize the reasons for the game's failures (blame it on the fans/critics) and then presume judgment on who is or isn't "in touch" with the fanbase. You were never able to relate to or acknowledge ANY of the criticism for the game as valid, and from start to finish you were in denial about where the game was headed. As the user reviews came in mediocre and as the player base immediately evaporated, you railed against them. As the game died and the community crumpled, you sat here saying "Everything's fine. The game is good. The fans are wrong."
It would be hard to find ANYONE more out of touch with the greater fanbase than you. At least Relic, for all of the flaws with DoW III, understood after release that the game wasn't going to work and that they'd (as the developer) missed the mark. You STILL cling to the ridiculous idea that it was somehow the fans that got it wrong.
Ooookay.
Gorb
@Amoc, I don't think you understand. Despite my reservations, I still quoted content from a literal post made on Steam in the night / day or so before I made that post you're quoting.
Besides the endless, actually-searchable evidence on these forums alone (you should put the legwork in yourself, at this stage in the game, really. There aren't many of us here anymore), you go for the old usual attack on me. I'm used to it, I don't mind it. All it does is demonstrate that that's all you have. An attempt to bait an emotional response, or something similar. It's a complex issue. I believe your disdain for me real, and rooted in things you consider actual problems. But I disagree with what you perceive to be problems, and you don't generally break the actual forum rules, so, eh. Whatever.
For the person I referenced, the lack of cover was the reason. What you're doing is exactly as I said - dismissing other players' concerns in favour of your own. With a dash of dismissing my own apparent reasoning thrown in for good measure. I wasn't talking about the primary reason for the game's failure. We were talking specifically about what things people vocally disliked about the game. Or still dislike about the game, even. Drawing a straight line between this and the game's failings is difficult, because it's not just any one thing.
I mean, the end of your post is you in a nutshell. I've recognised criticism of the game a thousand times. I disagree with it. That doesn't mean I don't recognise it.
You even reference "the fans" as an entity separate to me. I'm a fan. We're all fans, or at least I'd like to assume we are. What you don't seem to understand is that this is primarily an exercise in opinion, which is partly why it's increasingly hard to design a game that resonates with an established franchise. There are of course, good central tenets to design. But satisfying the personal urges of every single individual fan isn't one of those things.
You don't get it. That's fine. You believe that games live and die on the merits of their design, and that alone. Certainly, that's the impression you seem to give. I tend to the more complex, perhaps even convoluted view, that there are a great many moving parts in games development, but a lot of them come down to profit margins. And certainly, a game doesn't have to be good to sell well, or bad to sell badly. There's a lot of bad entertainment that sells well, and a lot of great entertainment that doesn't. Video games, in my mind, are no different. That doesn't mean bad games can't fail, but that's besides the point. The point is that you think you've got it sorted, that you've figured it out. All I've been saying, this whole time, is that the reality is more complicated than you think it is.
Amoc
Recognize it!? Haha. You spent so much time arguing against it that there was never any question whether you recognized it. What you were never able to do was acknowledge any of it as valid and that the folks who didn't like the game had fair and legitimate reasons.
That doesn't mean you had to agree with their reasons or feel the same way, but at least take some perspective and acknowledge that some of it might be valid, if not for you then for other parts of the fan base. Instead, you spent all of your time on this forum trying to discredit all of the criticism. Your efforts were focused on trying to tell people their criticism was wrong, and that they just couldn't understand how excellent the game was. The worst part was that you literally couldn't give ground on anything. NONE of the criticism, it seems, was valid in your mind...unless something's changed?
Which is pretty much where DoW III went wrong, but we've been over that.
Nothing else matters unless the fundamental game design is sound, though that's a broad topic in itself. Clearly your view is more convoluted, with your ridiculous hate-train conspiracy theory, and the limp anecdotes you use to support it. As I said, those anecdotes are apparently super-compelling when you're using them, but apparently all of the Steam Reviews and the poor user statistics never were. Talk about cherry-picking your "data"!
A&E is certainly subjective, and each person is going to have his or her reasons for liking or not liking something, Notice I say "reason(S)", because it's rarely any one thing. Sometimes it's just a matter of taste, but then other times the content so wildly misses the mark that practically nobody likes it. DoW III didn't fail because nobody knew about it. It didn't fail because there was no desire for a DoW game. It had a huge beta test where tens of thousands of folks tried it, and then a quarter million bought it within the first few months of release. They almost all bailed immediately, and around 50% of the folks who bought it in the early days said they didn't like it. That's pretty self-explanatory.
Rather than take that at face value, however, you've conjured up an insane narrative where some mysterious, nefarious parties have (for motives completely unknown) endeavored to ruin perception for the game by buying it (in the hundreds and thousands) and leaving bad reviews, and then refunding it. I don't know what to call that other than insane, because the supposed trolls who are doing it would have to be insane to go through that effort.
That's where your argument falls apart. It relies on large scale insanity on the part of the mysterious "trolls", while also on the fan base being naive and easily duped (read stupid).
Do you want to know what REALLY happened on 9/11? The sheeple believe what the government tells them, but I know better!
Gorb
It's like travelling back in time.
Let's take this to a rather simple conclusion. I recognise valid complaints about the game. If you didn't see that, then the lack of reading is on you. If you don't want to because it's inconvenient, then that's also on you.
I'm not here to defend my excessive and lengthy posting history for the sake of someone that likes to describe the things I post as "insane" and who has admitted numerous times that they have zero faith in the things I actually do post. It's a lost cause.
You do you, Amoc.
Decepticats
@Amoc
I've linked this to you so many times so at this point I feel like you're either arguing in bad faith or in denial of the limits of human intelligence. It doesn't require people to be "stupid" to be vulnerable to manipulation, only that they be people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality
The things inherent with being people, the proven time and time again psychological and emotional weaknesses are all it takes for us to form opinions that we sincerely believe that are founded on nothing and ultimately wrong. To err is human.
Marketing people get paid a lot of money for a reason. Look at it this way: If you have the potion of immortality and you're willing to sell it for free. Nobody will drink it if you go around shouting "TASTE MY POO! IT'S FORTIFIED WITH SPACE LASERS!"
In that hypothetical you have a very highly desired product, but very poor marketing. And the result is nobody buys your product because nobody wants to take a chance (even for free!) on drinking what you're selling.
This is an extreme example to illustrate a point you seem to have long missed: Humans don't operate with omniscience. And as such, we don't make fully rational choices, we make choices based on the limited information we have but also based on emotion. If someone scares us away from a very alluring product by shouting gross or hateful things about it, we're going to veer away.
Many people dislike DoW3 for reasons that are valid and are their own. I contend many many more either never tried it or got a bad impression of it due to overwhelmingly loud voices in the community spouting hate and negativity about things such as back flipping Gabe or "colors" or "grimdark" or "esports" or "MOBA." And if you did a word bubble on the various DoW3 communities this would probably bear out.
Renner
Interesting to see heated discussion to this very day, even though by just a handful of people… But yeah, there's no denying it, peepz were flippin' hard over Gabe doing flips in his Terminator armor, and made a big deal of it, ever since the very first gameplay video. Me? I was just enjoying the music from it.
Amoc
No you didn't. If you did, then you wouldn't be still be spinning sad, myopic stories about the game being toppled by nasty trolls. You're STILL trying to find someone or something to blame for the game's failure other than the game itself, despite the MOUNTAINS of documented criticism against it.
Defending your posting history is most certainly a lost cause. Your hypocrisy and denial has never wavered. If nothing else, I can at least say that your commitment to shouting down all the criticism for the game was impressive.
Cheers.
Amoc
I know you think that you've delivered a real zinger here, but listing psychology terms and then trying to tie them vaguely back to the argument at hand isn't as effective as you think. There are so many holes in this argument that it really doesn't merit much discussion. When folks buy a video game, they're doing it with the intention and the hope of enjoying it. You can't adequately explain what made the hundreds of thousands who bought the game walk away from it because of "herd mentality". It's easy for you to say that's what happened, and to presume that you're smarter than "the others" and that they all naively and ignorantly fell victim, but you should probably read about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Gorb
You still don't get it, @Amoc.
I can believe there were other factors at play, and also believe that folks had legitimate criticism of the game. Even if I disagree with it personally, there's a wide gulf between reasonable criticism, and toxicity. But like I said, your lack of reading is on you.
Feel to throw more digs my way, I won't be posting my opinion in this thread any further.
Decepticats
@Amoc I'm not smarter than anybody. Once again, psychological weaknesses are not a sign of stupidity, just a sign of humanity. We ALL have them, that's the point. And part of the reason we have them is that life is complicated and we need shortcuts. But those shortcuts inherently come with flaws. I fell prey to the same herd mentality as everyone else at first after release and I was joining in on the "Here's what they have to fundamentally change about DoW3 to make it what we want" train.
But I was wrong. And the only thing that shook me out of that was just playing more DoW3 and pushing out of my mind all the times I'd have a reflex that echoed something I'd read online. Instead just trying to experience, enjoy, and improve at DoW3 for what it was not for what the internet voices wanted it to be.
The "hundreds of thousands" that bought it and then didn't play again should tell you something. They weren't buying the game in good faith to give it a fair shot. They bought it to put in a tiny bit of time, write a negative steam review, and then refund it before they crossed the two hour played threshold on steam. It takes more than two hours to have a reasoned opinion on the ins and outs of a strategy game. That should be pretty obvious.
As to why many others stopped playing, well you can peruse here, reddit, and twitter and underneath the loud layer of people screaming vitriol about the game you'll find people saying things like "Sad they stopped supporting it, I was just waiting until [my favorite race x] was released." or "I was just waiting until there were more maps/better balance." So a lot of people stopped playing not because they didn't like the game at its core but because they wanted more game before they dove into it heavily. Still, there is a not insignificant group that sincerely disliked DoW3 for a variety of reasons that don't have to do with herd mentality but could largely be summed up as "This isn't the game I wanted." That's totally legitimate and I'm not trying to say those people don't exist. But despite what AAA companies seem to think, a game can be successful without attracting all the users. It can make money without making ALL the money.
DoW3 could have been successful (and may yet be in the future, the RTS market is starving). But it needed more time and support form Relic, an unshakeable determination, and a foresight that would make Cassandra blush.
Amoc
If you actually believe that, then there's really nothing else to say to you. I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not sure I can with you.
Draconix
I too had some doubts about Dow3 success, but still hoped for more new content with each update. It isn't a shame to have some hope either.
Of course, I agree with what Decepticats said earlier.
Decepticats
Indeed I do believe what I said. And since Valve has recently had to implement automated and manual review bomb blocking, I think they noticed it was a bit of a problem too.
Keep your "benefit of the doubt," I don't need your faith because the only faith you post here with is bad.