Fallen Enchantress at two weeks
Fallen Enchantress has now been out two weeks. So far, we’ve sold about 50,000 units (give or take). This is somewhat below Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion but, obviously, far far ahead of War of Magic during the same time frame.
The biggest obstacle has been reviews. It’s hard for niche titles (and make no mistake, fantasy turn-based PC games are niche) to get coverage. There’s only so many reviewers to go around and the last thing we want is a drive by (i.e. rushed) review.
Tomorrow or Thursday we expect to release v1.01 which has a long list of fixes and tweaks that we’ve found. Probably the most obvious change will be performance which dramatically improved.
The Map Pack
We will be releasing our first-ever DLC for a Stardock game. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see what the demand is. Paul Boyer and I have designed a series of hand crafted maps that will be going up for sale in a week or two for $4.99. If sales of this are strong, we’ll look at doing additional DLC packs. A game like Fallen Enchantress lends itself to content centric DLC and so we’re anxious to see what people are interested in.
The Expansion
We have an expansion planned for early next year. I won't spoil it except to say that it’s going to re-design the way champions are handled in the game. We want the game to generally move towards the power of your champions be a reflection of the power of your civilization.
After the expansion, Stardock will look at where things stand. We have 3 game development teams at Stardock. One is on “Game X”, One is FE related stuff, and one is on mobile game development. Since we’re not likely to get as many reviews as we’d like, we’re going to be relying heavily on word of mouth.
Version 1.1
We very much want to do a pre-Christmas update to FE. That version will be heavily AI and balance focused based on player feedback. We’ll have more details of that as we get closer. Right now, we’re focusing on getting v1.01 out the door.
The day that additional spells, monsters, items, abilities, races or rulesets cost money to purchase after release is the day that I will stop being a dedicated fan of Stardock Entertainment. I honestly hope that this is not the path Stardock will take. I want to purchase a vision, an entire story, when I purchase a game, and do not want to spend money on microexpansions or things that simply didn't get done in time to make it into release. I am saying this as a dedicated fan of many years, and while I respect the opinions of those who differ, I do hope that my minority voice does not get shouted down.
I was thinking this too. However I think there is a logical reason for charging for DLC's in FE unlike GC2. GC2 has a much bigger fan base and audience, thus they can potentially make more money from it, and can afford freebies. Also, a larger base, means more attention from the media, and more word of mouth advertising that FE may not be able to match.
Although I hope that the DLC's they release are fairly "meaty"...
im more then willing to buy DLC...but map packs...no never not for any game.give us real content and i will buy it.new quests,events,spells,enemies..stuff like that.
Is it really that good a guide though? Looks like many people won't buy this not becaue they don't want DLC, just that they don't want this kind of DLC.
Hmm, can someone tell me are 50,000 units sold for cash or is within that number a certain number of free elemental:war on magic copies included?
of course I wish those were only sold for bucks...
I don't play pre-mades.
I would sooner invest in additional stamps that update the random map generator instead of map packs.
$5 is also very steep for something as simple as map packs.
I'd be open to DLC that expanded factions, etc...but not maps. Part of the fun for me with a TBS 4X is the randomly generated map. Different every time.
Brad said in another thread that the map pack would include new stamps (link). For all of you complaining that random maps are the only way to go, stamps add to the variation of random maps.
Brad: I'd make sure that's clear when the DLC actually goes on sale. People need to know that the map pack benefits random maps as well.
Forgive my ignorance, but what's a stamp?
I've come late to this thread and am not going to read through five pages to see if my question has been answered, if somebody knows the answer and would put a quick reply then cheers to them
How do people who got the game for free get DLC?
No, you can't really. Users can create their own maps just as easy. There is no market because it is not a limited resource. As a strategy gamer, I understand that content has value relative to rarity. For example, putting some Metal out on the market does not even come close to testing the waters for Elementium. One is available everywhere and one is impossible to get.
Stamps would sell. They are harder than heck to create. Wildlands would sell. I currently have to use the XML, not the map maker, to edit them. New art assets would sell. Maps are maybe worth a dollar for 100. Stamps would be about the same. And this is only even marketable to regular users who would notice a difference.
The best strategy for DLC is going to be giving us things we can't make ourselves. You can't compete with free content. But anything you can give us that we can't get from the modding community is worth alot. Hell, making new tools and polishing the old ones would be worth something as well. If people are going to give you 5 dollars for DLC they don't use simply to support the company, make that 5 bucks for modding tools and ask everyone to chip in. I'll make it worth their while.
And of coarse more races and factions would be nice
Stamps are pre-designed chunks of a map. Think of the Wildlands. The random map generator uses stamps to build the random map. So more stamps means you have more possible combinations for your random maps.
THAT I would support! Thanks for clearing that up.
I can understand the goal, but I don't think you'll be able to accurately judge general interest in DLC with maps pack because, as I mentioned earlier, the randomized nature of maps makes a more interesting game overall. Besides, don't we have mod tools to make custom maps anyways? I'm not sure why anyone would buy them unless it was done mainly to support stardock, which is probably a much smaller subset of the total interest in a DLC that would actually make SOME difference.
Brad, make a poll. See how many people would pay $5 for a map pack DLC and how many people would pay $5 for a content DLC.
Seriously, releasing a map pack DLC is like opening a donations account. Perhaps some people would play the maps out of curiosity, but that's not why they would pay.
While I'm generally against this DLC trend, releasing interesting content in them will justify their purchase. But I prefer the approach you took with GalCiv 2: lots of patches packed with stuff and some huge expansions, which were both very successful. But I guess we'll see...
If I bought the map pack it would be more out of a desire to support the FE project than because I want hand-crafted maps. I like to play the game highly randomised tbh.
I would be far more interested in extra quests, equipment items, spells (although probably better suited to expansions tbh) and character customisation options (faces, hair styles, clothing..).
I am assuming that you will buy it through SD's site and it will be there next to your FE download.
I agree with this. I'm all for supporting Stardock, but I'd hate to see SD go down the road that the major developers and publishers have of releasing a few pieces of content every few weeks and charging $5 for it. I'd rather see a situation like Galciv2.
I generally prefer random maps. I don't recall ever playing one of the included maps so a $5 map pack do does not interest me much. I would be far more interested in new quests, items and random events. If you had DLC with all of these things and it included the maps I would consider purchasing it.
If anyone wants a really good look at some absolutely awesome DLCs, look at Panzer Corps by Matrix Games/Slitherine. Each DLC covers a year period of WWII from 1939-1945 so seven differnt DLCs that total over 70 scenerios. And this is just for the Eastern Front lol. They are doing the same thing for the Western Front too from 1943-45. Talk about hours and hours of play. To me this is the Gold standard of DLCs.
So if Stardock wants to go down this path, then rather than just maps, I would suggest taking a faction and creating a series of linked scenerios using that (similar to what HoMM V and VI did) faction. Or if that seems to be too hard, create a special map and situation for each faction, i.e. one map/faction (where only that specific faction can be played by a human) with special challengies. It would be even better if those challengies would be things that are rare (or not even in) the normal game that the player would have to overcome.
As much as I like FE and Stardock, I have no interest in a mappack without something else included. Even with the DLC map pack that Civ 5 sold at least had another Civ included with it.
Frogboy - Just out of curiosity, how much more than those 50 000 sales do you need to turn profitable (Elemental costs excluded, just FE development). I understand that it may be a confidential piece of information, but still, I am curious.
I completely understand the rationale for creating map packs (they're easy to produce and can be taken to market rather quickly). I just hope that you do not count tepid sales of map packs that add no new additional content against the release of future DLC. I would like to reiterate that I would be interested in content (which includes scenarios instead of hand-placed-old-content maps) releases for DLC.
I've honestly never heard of anyone who plays 4x games wanting preset maps. You remember one of the four Xs is "eXplore" right?
If the map pack includes several new stamps, maybe. Otherwise, I agree with the above. Right now, I'd buy DLC for any of the above without hesitation (though no need for sovereigns unless part of a new faction, IMO). Like many others, I play random maps almost exclusively, so a map pack has very little value to me.
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