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We need a Demigods FAQ

By on February 4, 2010 3:39:19 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Good Morning,

I'm starting to get really tired of some of the threads that reoccur. Some of my personal unfavorites include:

  • Is the Community Active?
  • I'm quitting the game, this is why...
  • Stardock is responsible...
  • Everyone kicks me from online games
  • Everyone cheats
  • My sound doesn't work
  • The unclean beast is overpowered

One solution to reduce the frequencies of these posts is to develop a FAQ that addresses all of the questions. This way at least the players who are willing to read the thread will have their questions answers. Those that don't, probably don't deserve an answer anyway.

Now, I could write the FAQ, but I'm working on bugfixing. I'm sure that people would rather me spend time doing that than working on this, so I'm going to put in some starting materials for a FAQ. I'd like the rest of the community to chip in and help to write parts. Rough outlines, whole sections, proofreading, whatever. If you have a minute and like to have people listen to you, this is the place to do it. Once we get a sufficiently developed document, a new thread should be created to be stickied in the main forum. We should probably also get SD to remove some of the out of date stickies while we are at it. If anyone wants to take charge of this and put in a lot of effort, they are welcome to it.

Initial Rough draft of a FAQ


What is the online population like?
To check current game status: http://www.demigodthegame.com/opengames.asp
To check population statistics: http://dgstats.insidesupcom.de/

Why are the numbers for people online with Demigods so high?
The numbers include people logged into Demigods directly through Demigods as well as those running Impulse with Demigods on their accounts.

Terminology, Acronyms, and Abbreviations
BoF: Blood of the Fallen, favor item
BoS: Blade of Serpent, Assassin favor item
Ent: Shamblers, Queen of Thorns Minion
QoT: Queen of Thorns, Demigod
UB: Unclean Beast, Demigod
Vamps: Night Stalkers, Lord Erebus Minion

Multiplay Demigod Rankings
Tier 1: The Best
Lord Erebus
Unclean Beast
Oak

Tier 2: The Average
Sedna
Occulus

Tier 3: The Bad
Queen of Thorns
Rook
Regulus
Torch Bearer
Demon Assassin

Short descriptions of Each of the demigods.
Example:
Unclean Beast. A melee master. High damage, good speed, great skills the Unclean Beast is a monster. Stack HP. Oooze, Ooze/Spit hybrid, and Spit builds are

very popular. Only get the first level of his stun skill at level 5.

Builds that do not work in high level games
Auto-Attack Regulus
Shambler focused Queen of Thorns
Dodge and Critical hit Demon Assassin

Why does the game desync so frequently?

Why does Demigods use Peer to Peer instead of server based play?

Why does my game lag?

What is Sim Speed?
Include link to Sim Speed Faq

Demigod Strategy and Mechanics
Include link to stickied thread about mechanics

Where is a good play to find an active community?
Lagwars Ventrilo channel, link to clan pacov

How do GPG, SD, and Atari interact with Demigods?
SD: Publisher in NA
GPG: Programmers
Atari: Publisher in areas not NA

Favor points?
Offline are separate from online.
Online games are only gotten in games with human players on both sides.

Achievements?
Broken

Pantheon?

How do I deal with Spit?
Run away earlier, teleport back to base, Sedna Heal, Orb of invulnerabilty (get the real name),

What demigods have stuns?

What demigods have slows?

What demigods have good spike damage?

What demigods have good pressure damage?

+89 Karma | 33 Replies
February 8, 2010 10:43:58 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I hate you all, lol

February 8, 2010 12:48:58 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Teseer,
I hate you all, lol

We love you too!

February 9, 2010 6:42:39 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I could write one. I have the patience for it, but I'm not the best when it comes to knowing everything about Demigod. I know most of the abbreviations, why Peer to peer is necessary, who the DG's are and what tier they are and so on. Still, I'd probably be wrong about some stuff. If I write the faq, please just inform me of mistakes (DONT PM ME!). I might start it now and see how much I can do. Wish me luck -.-

February 9, 2010 8:37:01 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Good Luck!

February 10, 2010 4:36:14 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Other questions to add

Why are Stuns soo important?

Why do I keep dying?

Why is that Rook/UB/Erb unkillable?1?11?

I reckon it should also have the tiers of strength and the difficulty level associated
For example, UB is Tier 1 and ranked: easy to learn to win
Rook is Tier 2 and ranked: very hard to learn not to die
Sedna is Tier 2 and ranked: medium difficulty

February 10, 2010 5:07:53 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Tried writing it, but had to go off for a long time because of necessity. I had spent an hour writing....and someone turned the computer off, inadverdently destroying my work. I should have posted the early stuff....well I'll try again later, don't have the time at the moment. Sorry all.

February 10, 2010 7:33:48 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Tried writing it, but had to go off for a long time because of necessity. I had spent an hour writing....and someone turned the computer off, inadverdently destroying my work. I should have posted the early stuff....well I'll try again later, don't have the time at the moment. Sorry all.

Boo... Windows XP with Microsoft Word 1997...

March 4, 2010 6:42:53 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

 

Demigods FAQ

v.01

General Section

  1. What is Demigods?
    • Demigods is a game developed primarily by Gas Powered Games. The netcode was written by Stardock. Distribution in North America is covered by Stardock. Distribution in the rest of the world is covered by Atari.
  2. What is gameplay like?
    • Game play is similar to Defense of the Ancients a popular mod of Warcraft 3. Players are divided into two teams that fight for map dominance.  In the game, players take on the role of powerful hero units, called Demigods. Victory conditions include killing enemy demigods, destruction of the enemy base, and map control. The players are assisted by AI controlled lesser units spawned from portals. Control of portals is vital for winning. 
  3. Why were there such terrible reviews on release.
    • Demigods was plagued by three major problems on release.
      1. Gamespot released the game before the official release date. The game servers were not yet online and this cause many people to be unable to play. Stardock employees came back in over the Easter holiday to get the servers up and running.
      2. Demigods were heavily pirated. There were many more (by an order of magnitude) more pirated versions than official versions trying to access the servers. The servers estimated required capacity wasn't nearly enough to handle the load it took.
      3. The netcode used in the 1.0 release of Demigods just didn't work. Stardock rewrote their own netcode after the fully functional licensed netcode failed to work for Demigods.
    • See: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/352561 for more details.
  4. Who is Frogboy?
    • Frogboy is Brad Wardell, owner, operator, CEO, and big cheese at Stardock.
  5. Who is Draginol?
    • See Question #4.
  6. How many people are playing Demigods?
    • A decent number
  7. Why are the numbers for people online with Demigods listed as being so high?
    • The numbers include people logged into Demigods directly through Demigods as well as those running Impulse with Demigods on their accounts.
  8. What are common terms, acronyms, and abbreviations used in Demigods
  9. BoF: Blood of the Fallen, favor item
    BoS: Blade of Serpent, Assassin favor item
    Ent: Shamblers, Queen of Thorns Minion
    QoT: Queen of Thorns, Demigod
    P2P: Peer to Peer, the type of connection Demigods uses between players
    UB: Unclean Beast, Demigod
    Vamps: Night Stalkers, Lord Erebus Minion

Network Issues

  1. Why does Demigods use Peer to Peer instead of server based play?
    • Demigods is based on the engine used by Supreme Commander, an RTS. Traditionally, RTS's have utilized peer to peer connections instead of server based play. Peer to peer is not inferior or superior than server based, both have strengths and weaknesses. One advantage of peer to peer networking is that cheating is very, very difficult. One disadvantage is that it is more susceptible to game desyncs.
  2. Why do I lag to some players and not others?
    • Demigods is uses Peer to Peer networking. This means that your computer is connected directly to the computers of the other players. Network latency, or lag, is a direct result of the quality of the network connecting your computers and the distance involved. The closer your computers are to each other, generally the less lag you will experience.
  3. Why do my commands take so long to happen?
    • Demigods uses peer to peer networking. Each computer simulates the events that occur and the results of these simulations are compared between computers. To accommodate lag, every command you issue takes 200 ms to resolve. (This might be 250 ms). Additionally, your computers computational power (processor, RAM, video card, and other hardware) will effect your simulation rate. This manifests as your Sim Speed.
  4. What is sim speed?
    • This is the speed at which your computer is able to run the simulation (see previous entry). As long as your sim speed at least 1, you can play the game without slowdowns.
    • Please consult the following thread for more details: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/348247
  5. What are game desyncs?
    • Game desyncs occur when the simulation data sent from one player fails to match up (after several tries) with the data sent by another player. When this occurs the game has reached a state where is cannot decide which state is the correct state. This results in the game terminating.
  6. Why does the game desync so often?
    • Game desyncs are primarily caused by players attempting to disrupt the game. If your Demigod files change while playing, your version of Demigods will then conflict with the other players, causing a desync. This prevents cheating, but also always players to crash the game at will.
  7.  Why do players cause desyncs?
    • There are two main causes for players desyncing. 
    • The first is that players want to obtain an high ranking on the Demigods ladder. Games that are desynced do not count towards your stats and therefore do not affect ranking. Dishonest players that want to achieve high rankings will desync when they are losing.
    • The second is that players want to grief others. Griefing is a term created on the internet that describes a behavior performed to cause distress to others. Some players consider Griefing to be a primary goal while playing any game. Griefers are typically found in populations where players can remain anonymous and hide their behaviors amidst other players. Griefers are characterized by emotional swings and bursts of anger where they take out their anger on others.
  8. How can I play games where desyncing is less frequent?
    1. Desyncs are unpleasant for two reasons. The first is that they end a game prematurely. The second is that they affect your Demigod ranking.
    2. The solution to the second is easy. Demigods is just a game. Ranking in playing this game isn't important, especially with the flaws in the current ladder.
    3. Another solution is to find or join an active Demigod Community. In such communities players are no longer anonymous and bad behavior in a game is punished by players avoiding those who demonstrate such behavior. Please consult the Demigods Community for details on such groups. 

Game Play

  1. What the the power ranks for the Demigods?
    Tier 1: The Best
        Lord Erebus
        Unclean Beast
        Oak

    Tier 2: The Average
        Sedna
        Occulus

    Tier 3: The Bad
        Queen of Thorns
        Rook
        Regulus
        Torch Bearer
        Demon Assassin
  2. Why are your power ranks so wrong?
    • Each of the Demigods is useful in different situations. The above list was created in mind with novice skill levels on Cataract in a 3v3. The ability of a demigod to contribute in the hands of a novice player was weighted more than its potential in the hands of a skilled player. If you have sufficient knowledge to demonstrate why a Demigod should be at a higher tier, you should also be able to validate why I placed it where I did.

    • Short descriptions of Each of the demigods.
      Example:
      Unclean Beast. A melee master. High damage, good speed, great skills the Unclean Beast is a monster. Stack HP. Oooze, Ooze/Spit hybrid, and Spit builds are

      very popular. Only get the first level of his stun skill at level 5.

      Builds that do not work in high level games
      Auto-Attack Regulus
      Shambler focused Queen of Thorns
      Dodge and Critical hit Demon Assassin

Demigods Community Issues

  1. Where is a good place to find an active community?

Why do people 

Favor points?
Offline are separate from online.
Online games are only gotten in games with human players on both sides.

Achievements?
Broken

Pantheon?

How do I deal with Spit?
Run away earlier, teleport back to base, Sedna Heal, Orb of invulnerabilty (get the real name),

What demigods have stuns?

What demigods have slows?

What demigods have good spike damage?

Why are Stuns soo important?

Why do I keep dying?


So, that's another bit. I'm sure someone out there can help out with this. All contributions will be rewarded with free uninteractable internet cookies....

Anyone...?

Pacov has to do it if no on else speaks up. And you saw how he didn't want that to happen. Isn't someone going to save him?


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