Some kudos to Gas Powered Games

By Frogboy on May 27, 2009 10:56:36 PM from

Working late into the evening, GPG has sent us an updated v1.01 build based on recent feedback on the forums. Yes, GPG is reading the forums in case you were wondering and have put together some exciting stuff.

Here are some of the additional new features that will be in v1.01:

Here is a quote from the log:

· Fixed chat history and announcement text overlays interference with mouse clicks.

· Switched order of data calls after hosting.

· Teleportation effect failure handling.

· AI

1. Adjustments to caution and hazard detection and avoidance.

2. Adjusted health level flee percentage.

3. Demigods do not use minions when fleeing, may summon minions in combat.

4. Improved teleportation

5. Increased Demigod planning frequency

6. Improved item usage when endangered.

7. Tower tag improved.

And last but not least:..

· Moving targets in Ability task now properly handled (the famous “Sedna bug”)

This was finally isolated by bman654 who went beyond the call of duty to actually track down the specific lines of script that call the function. Special kudos to him.

Although we didn’t use his “patch”, we did edit the exact functions he had isolated, and cleaned up quite a lot of surrounding script. The forums are expecting this fix, and we would love to encourage more excellent sleuthing like he did.

We’ll be testing this tomorrow. I can’t promise we’ll be able to get it out tomorrow though (and there won’t be any updates either way on Friday as that’s just playing with fire). But we are going to try very hard and enlist extra QA from the apps QA team to expedite.

+912 Karma | 62 Replies

Hello Frogboy & forumites,

This is my first post, though I visit these forums almost every day. I haven't purchased this game yet, but I've been following it since before release. The main thing holding me back is the lacking single-player content (I almost never play online). It's a shame that there is not a real campaign--maybe this will be added with an expansion?--but I can personally get over that if the skirmish AI is good. If the improvements mentioned above do, in fact, make for a more challenging and sensible AI, I will promptly buy this game. I am impressed with the idea behind the game (I never played DotA, though) and would like to support Stardock and GPG as small companies. I am especially impressed with the open and regular communication that I have seen between Frogboy and the player base at this forum and the decision not to use some draconian DRM for the game.

Anyhow, I just wanted to say that as primarily a single-player gamer, I appreciate the attention being paid to the skirmish AI. I believe that for a lot of gamers, AI is very important, and I hope that GPG will continue to tweak the AI of this game.

Thanks,

the_hunger

Quoting Xan,

reply 24

I really wish all this including the multiplayer issues were fix before the game launched. I guess this is the difference between a small budget game vs. a big budget game.

The healing bug, movement bug, AI stupidness existed in beta before release. i guess time and budget was used up. you guys already paid the price... oh well, hope to see this release tomorrow.

Gee, I remember being in the beta and I don't remember you or anyone else posting about the "healing bug" or the "movement bug". Maybe you can refresh my memory and point to a post that includes it.

I also remember playing lots of multiplayer games in beta with others without incident.

So to sum up, being one of the beta testers, like you who always made announcements about new betas, there were remarkably few problems with it. I don't remember there being any rush and I don't remember budget.

I don't know why you even felt compelled to write such a shitty comment in the first place.

Here is a link to all the posts Blitz made:

https://forums.demigodthegame.com/posts/3318019

Goes all the way back to beta 2.

In fact, in your Metacritic guess thread you gave Demigod an 86. Seems to me you thought it was fine too. Must be nice to be able to give yourself retroactive hindsight.

According to the chart

OH SNAP!!

Quoting the_hunger,

reply 1

If the improvements mentioned above do, in fact, make for a more challenging and sensible AI, I will promptly buy this game. I am impressed with the idea behind the game (I never played DotA, though) and would like to support Stardock and GPG as small companies. I am especially impressed with the open and regular communication that I have seen between Frogboy and the player base at this forum and the decision not to use some draconian DRM for the game.

Anyhow, I just wanted to say that as primarily a single-player gamer, I appreciate the attention being paid to the skirmish AI. I believe that for a lot of gamers, AI is very important, and I hope that GPG will continue to tweak the AI of this game.

I'll keep an eye on it for you. I too am a single player gamer and play this game almost only SP. SP AI is certainly playable already, especially for the first period of your play, when you yourself are still learning. However they are currently lacking survivability, resulting in lots of AI kills when you know how to. However I am still playing new DG skill builds all the time and am still having lots of fun I hope the patch will improve the survivability a bit for AI players, making them more challenging and more sensible. However don't expect the skill and variety you will get with human players.

After the patch I will review AI again in skirmish and tell you what I find out.

@twifightDG

Thanks very much for your thoughtful post. I'll be sure to look for your review of the "new" AI.

(+1 Karma)

I will still give the game a review score of 86 Today. I never thought reviewers would take consider multiplayer issues in the review. I had to play the multiplayer connection game through out beta. It might be fine for you, but I remember there were still multiplayer issues even 1 week before release.

The healing and movement bug was there in beta and that's my opinion. If you it worked for you, then that's great.

No one raised the alarm louder than I did:

"Demigod: Game of the year or spectacular disaster"

But I was also one of the chorus of beta testers that felt that GPG and Stardock had nailed it well before release.

My gripe is seeing you act like there was a time and budget issue with Demigod. I never got that feeling. If there was a budget issue then they never would have gone through the insane efforts they've done to fix things that only really showed up after it was starting to be used by tens of thousands of people.

My own post is the closest thing you're going to find to a smoking gun of anyone saying that the game had problems in beta and even I agreed later on that those problems had been rectified.

If you have a different opinion, then show us where you voiced it. I think Stardock and GPG have taken enough of a beating for the launch problems as is. But one thing they don't deserve a beating on is the accusation that they rushed the game. They didn't.

Movement / skill bug has been there since the begeinning of the beta. IT has been reported by some people including me. And there is post on the forum about it and I know Ultime told Frogboy about it sometime in the beta.

I too am looking forward to the AI improvements! I can't wait to try them out.

No Favor points fix? Still can't get favor.

Quoting TenetGW,

reply 8

No Favor points fix? Still can't get favor.

Me neither. It's bugged: doesn't grow and/or doesn't remember the last favor item i've bought. And i've started to hate them, really. It's a PITA to get them, i wish there was a way to buy them more faster.

I'm hoping any day now they will fix the behavior using some items has on the action you are currently performing. Mainly the wand of speed. If I use the wand of speed continue whatever action I was previously doing, intead of, ignore what I was doing before and start attacking the closest target!

I was talking on the demigod IRC channel. IF the patch goes live today, it doesn't sound like it will anytime soon. So, that leaves a late night release or having to wait until Monday (as frogboy indicated there won't be a Friday release). Crossing my fingers for late tonight, but I'm guessing we might see some erring on the side of caution here. For some reason, I don't think the pubs really want to have to work a bunch of overtime this weekend if things crap out.

Thanks for all the hard work!

EVERY game is released with bugs. Every one. The reason GPG and Stardock deserve thanks is the big-time and (hopefully) continued support. No reason bitching about what shoulda-coulda.

Just a quick invite to those people posting about "only playing single player". Why?

Once you learn the game and start playing online, you'd have even more fun with the game. Multiplayer is just way more enjoyable. You should try it. Get online, be nice, host/join "noob" games ... and off you go. Making "buddys" and have more fun. Join in.

(unless of course, you have a crappy interwebz connection : ) )

The amount of effort put in after release by stardock has been substantial and constant. Haven't herd much from GPG though...Hopefully they have teams still working on the content. There have been many games launched with bad multiplayer and almost zero support, and the game died within two months. Stardock FTW, GPG step it up : ).

Quoting Baphonaut,

reply 12

Just a quick invite to those people posting about "only playing single player". Why?

Once you learn the game and start playing online, you'd have even more fun with the game. Multiplayer is just way more enjoyable. You should try it. Get online, be nice, host/join "noob" games ... and off you go. Making "buddys" and have more fun. Join in.

(unless of course, you have a crappy interwebz connection : ) )

I agree... playing with people can be alot more fun... but I am very excited to see some AI improvements. What happens if someone on my team rage quits, has a connection problem, etc, and an AI takes over... probably be better if that didn't guarantee a loss, eh? So, I am all for making the AI more intelligent. If the added result is SP games being more fun/challenging as well, then that is great.

Quoting Blitz64,

reply 25

Demigod is a great game and I'm a big fan. I'm complaining about all these issues that should have been fixed before release.

Quoting Xan,

reply 5

By contrast, you who only sang its praises during beta now that the audacity to retroactively complain about problems you never mentioned? I didn't know about the healing bug. I couldn't find any posts on it.

My gripe is seeing you act like there was a time and budget issue with Demigod. I never got that feeling. If there was a budget issue then they never would have gone through the insane efforts they've done to fix things that only really showed up after it was starting to be used by tens of thousands of people.

My own post is the closest thing you're going to find to a smoking gun of anyone saying that the game had problems in beta and even I agreed later on that those problems had been rectified.

No matter what you say Xan ... you might be right on the fact he didn't complain before yet complains now ... but still no matter what you say ... no one can disagree. It should of been taken care of BEFORE release. Now if you don't agree with me then idk what else to say because even Frogboy has mentioned it should been taken care of b4 release and there should of been an open beta.

So wrong or right you guys are aruging over him not complaining sooner. Regardless to the fact he is STILL CORRECT. And stardock agrees. Case closed?

Yes, yes, all software should be 100% bug free on release. Guess what? 0% actually is. Stop harping on about "should've been fixed before release", some things simply can't get fixed before release unless you want to keep the game in beta for several years.

Quoting Baphonaut,

reply 12

Just a quick invite to those people posting about "only playing single player". Why?

I play single player, because I don't want to deal with other people. *shrug* Playing against the AI, I can get an experience that I can define myself in terms of difficulty (some days, I want a challenge, some days, I just want to kill everything in site like some outraged, vengeful... Demigod ), I never have to worry about the AI calling me names or just being an idiot, I can experiment freely without ruining the experience of other people, and I really don't care how I stack up against others (so, rankings/achievements hold no real sway for me.)

Mainly though, the annoying people I run into ruin the experience for me, even though they're still outnumbered a hundred to one by the decent people. (This is also the reason why I tend to stay in stalker mode on most well-trafficed forums.) I deal with enough annoying people in the real world; why would I also deal with annoying people in the thirty minutes a day I have to game? We spend too little time with things we enjoy, as is.

I do enjoy LAN parties, but then there's no problem, because I know everybody in the room. So, for me, multiplayer is a function of the audience, not the game.

*shrug* Don't know if I'm an outlier or not, standard disclaimers apply, YMMV. And I'm certainly not stating that my viewpoint is definitve, or even completely rational (though it's rational enough to me.) But that's why I choose to spend my entertainment time playing single player.

JGH

And the key mapping for Azerty keyboard... Could be a good thing to correct this problem too.

Universal key remapping (including camera controls, ability to map something to CTRL, SHFT, any key or to mouse buttons etc) is a 100% necessity and I am saddeded it is not mentioned in this update. This cripples gameplay for left handed people and users of atypical keyboards.

On a positive note I cannot wait for the Ability bug fix, this induces more rage for me than the networking ever did and I am glad to see it will be resovled shortly!

So i take it there won't be a fix for losing targets after using any ability? It seems rather counter intuitive that actions like bite will stop you in your tracks.

Quoting AG3,

reply 16

True. I am a tech guy trust me i know how many programs come with bugs. IN FACT if it didn't id prob shit my pants....

Its just this game is pure mutliplayer. Offline is boring / no story. AI is lol easy to kill ... Its ... meant to be ONLINE.

And when you release a ONLINE ORIENTED GAME .... and the ONLINE FAILS. Thats a HUGE bug... not just like "oh this ability bugs on occasion" thats a bug..... "Oh the ENTIRE MULTIPLAYER is broken".... is fail.

Thx for trying to teach me .

So i take it there won't be a fix for losing targets after using any ability?

That's the 'Sedna issue' that everybody is talking about if I am not mistaken. It is going to be included in the next patch. Brad has said to expect to see this go live on Tuesday.

Edit: Oh wait... losing targets after using a ability. I read too fast. Please ignore me.

I think he was indeed talking about the "Sedna Bug"

Quoting Hanrow,

reply 17

Quoting Baphonaut, reply 12
Just a quick invite to those people posting about "only playing single player". Why?

I play single player, because I don't want to deal with other people. *shrug* Playing against the AI, I can get an experience that I can define myself in terms of difficulty (some days, I want a challenge, some days, I just want to kill everything in site like some outraged, vengeful... Demigod ), I never have to worry about the AI calling me names or just being an idiot, I can experiment freely without ruining the experience of other people, and I really don't care how I stack up against others (so, rankings/achievements hold no real sway for me.)
JGH

Quoting just the first paragraph, but I agree with pretty much all of it. Also, I usually don't have time to wait for other people and just want to squeeze a game in, so being well on my way within about 40 seconds is preferable.

Second, I do like to play online, but tend to stick with friends only (I did some DOTA via Hamachi with friends). I might throw in the occasional online match now and then, but sharing the fun with people I actually know if even better. In fact, call me a nerd, but often when I'm with them at parties we bring up the golden classic moments from games we played.

I'm pretty sure he

Quoting DalzK,

reply 23

Edit: Oh wait... losing targets after using a ability. I read too fast. Please ignore me.
I think he was indeed talking about the "Sedna Bug"

I'm pretty sure he wasn't. I think he was talking more of the issue that I was talking about or similiar to it. There is really bad logic going on when you use an ability or use an item. If you were performing action A when you use an ability why are you performing action B after using the ability instead of continuing to do action A? This happens all the time.

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Some kudos to Gas Powered Games