About Replays

By TheBigOne on August 7, 2008 6:31:45 PM from

While there hasn't been an official confirmation on the existence of replays in Demigod yet, it is very likely that there are replays and as I haven't seen a replay thread so far it's time to make one.

Before beginning to list up the features which Demigod replay system should have, I have to admit that I have very ambivalent feelings towards replays. I do enjoy watching replays of interesting matches, be it in Starcraft or Supreme Commander, however there are a few thinks which aren't so cool about replays.

The first, is that strategies spread a lot faster with replays then they did in the old times (for example in starcraft before they added replays), so the most exciting time period of any multiplayer game, the one where everyone is experimenting around and many divergent gamestyles exist, is alot shorter than it would be without replays.

Another thing I have seen very much and dislike is that newer players very often imitate the gamestyle of good players without even knowing what they are doing - some may say that the learn faster that way and it might even be true in some cases, but I think that it would be more fun for them and their opponents if they experiment on their own, rather than imitating a proven tactic and either failing badly because they didn't know what to do when something unexpected happened or winning because of imitating the strategy good enough and having been lucky that the enemy reacted as expected.

Please don't see that as a generalisation many new players take replays as a good inspiration and do explore the game themselves but especially in Warcraft 3, I noticed how many players, not even necessarily new players, imitated the style of the progamers and lost badly. On the one hand because they just didn't know what to do when I didn't play "standard" and on the other hand that they just can't execute a strategy of someone who is alot better and faster than them. Without replays more people would realize that a strategy which is very good at top level isn't necessarily a good strategy on their level.

Okay enough of this, nobody can deny the entertainment value of replays when you watch them solely or mainly for fun. So here are some things I'd like to see in:

Live Replays like we had in GPGnet, I do hope that Impulse is capable of that.

The ability to watch replays together (as in Starcraft, strangely enough Blizzard skipped that one in Warcraft III).

Recording Chat in replay , its fun on the one side and also reduces possible flaming as people know its being recorded. (it should be possible to turn that off though, especially for teamchat)

We all know why replays just can play forward and you can't just select any time, but having some "keyframes" every 5 or 10 minutes would be really cool. It surely should be possible to save all conditions of a single tick either in the replay itself (which surely would increase their size) or at least when watching the replay, so you can jump back 5 minutes rather then watching it from beginning on if you want to see a certain scene again.

A small replay manager where I can search through my replays using filters and sort stuff, should also display map, gamelength, players (including which demigod) and the winners. GPGnets replay vault had most of this stuff but I would like to have it locally for my own replay archive as well.

A way to quickly change the Demigod Version to an older one so we can watch old replays, even cooler would be if that happens automatically when trying to watch an older replay.

I doubt everything of that comes true but I hope at least some of it happens in one or another way.

+9 Karma | 39 Replies

Excellent news...replays are a key item to me.

its no news, its just a normal user made post.

I agree with all the suggestions except the replay manager. I don't watch replays more than once usually unless it is REALLY epic, so it would just be extra work when I'd rather have something else. If it is easy to set up than it would be fine though.

Savage2 has the best replay system..

And also, you don't need to buy the game to view them. Just download the demo client! (this is by design)

Demigod should autorecord every replay to their servers of every game, at least ranked ones.
You should be able to find people by their Impulse ID and search all games they've played..
Clicking on that replay should show info about it that might show it's interesting.. then you can click to view.

Like this =]
http://savage2.s2games.com/player_stats.php?id=40696
On the right side shows recent games. Clicking on one shows this http://www.savage2replays.com/match_replay.php?mid=54347

gpgnets is nice but.. don't think it's quite as good. Maybe it is, but it's just not as user friendly so I never noticed.

While replays could negativly influence stratagies, they could also encourage people too continullay change up their play style for fear of being predictable.

Well Supcom had a well rounded replay system. And while the meta game in supcom(and every game) will always be changing. Supcom's meta came changed the most when the vault was wiped. This is either because no one had replays to go off it or the fact that it was a patch that wiped the vault, and the changes in the patch affected the game play more. Now it's probably the latter, but there is something to be said for readily available replays dulling the communities creative process. Even in Vanilla supcom I was guilty of it when I first started out, but the more I played the more I just absorbed ideas and tactics to use them in my own ways, and now I never play a game exactly the same way twice.

I have to agree with Gnats3 here though, I never watch my replays more then once... err I never watch my replays. I only watch other replays once, so a replay manager doesn't seem worth the effort. Of course an aspiring community member could always try and create an external manager/player. that would probably see some success.

and yes innociv Savage 2 had a good system in that you could download and watch replays without having the game, and I'm sure it accounted for a decent portion of their sales. As far as finding a replay worth watching in their endless list of EVERY game ever played goes, that was a nightmare. Thats where GPG's system of Top 10 Top rated, etc... comes in handy.

All my games are worth watching to see my pwnage

That could increase the size of the replay quite drastically. Essentially, what you are asking for is a save game every 5 minutes. So the file size will increase by the size of a save game every 5 minutes.

Just did a quick test. In Sup Com, if you start a 4 player game on Open Palms and save it *as soon as you start*, the save game file size is a whopping 51MB. Now, I suspect that most of that is actually to do with the vast amount of trees, but even if it was 1MB, having a few MB added onto every replay would still be too much imo.

If they put a lot of effort in they could probably compress that quite significantly, but as I said, it would take a lot of effort. As long as you can speed it up, I'm not too bothered really.

[edit] Just realised you already mentioned the idea of setting then as you watch. I think that's the only viable solution to this.

probably you are right about the size Poita_

one more thing which I forget yesterday:

recording replays with all mouse movements and camera changes of yourself so you get some kind of first person replay. There is a 3rd party tool for Starcraft which does this and its really quite cool (and it shouldn't increased size of a replay too much, I think it was about 100-200kb more in a 20 minutes long match.)

Yeah they use that program in all the Starcraft tournaments and then you can find the First person replays online, it's pretty cool to see someone with like a 500apm go crazy with the micro

brn4meplz, don't mix it up with recorded videos (using fraps or camtasia or similar programs) from the 1st person perspective, they usually don't release replays of korean pros.

I never said they were pro's Just that I've seen it used in many tournaments(Foreign and N.A.). And it wasn't a recording software. I've used those before and these file sizes were nothing compared to what Fraps or similar programs put out-Not to mention I had to watch some of them through starcraft

ah okay, just wanted to clarify.

A lot of games have an option in replays to follow what the player was seeing and what they selected and etc, so it should be possible. It could be pretty neat

nobody can deny the entertainment value of replays

Entertainment by watching replays? Not really. Playing the game is entertainment, watching replays is just for those people who ... well, I will not comment on that

The ability to watch replays together (as in Starcraft, strangely enough Blizzard skipped that one in Warcraft III).

Saw it sometimes in Starcraft. If you are interested in watching replays it would be funnier I think.

Recording Chat in replay , its fun on the one side and also reduces possible flaming as people know its being recorded. (it should be possible to turn that off though, especially for teamchat)

I see this as a normal part of a replay

It??s like you??re saying the game must have a story or something like that. It??s just normal in my opinion and games which do not support such basic features are crap, sry.

A small replay manager where I can search through my replays using filters and sort stuff, should also display map, gamelength, players (including which demigod) and the winners.

If it??s ordered by map size (first the 2on2 replays, after that 4on4 etc.), it would be enough I think.

Lots of people watch replays for entertainment.

Chat in replays is pretty rare in my experience. Neither AoE3 nor Supcom has it, if I recall correctly, and neither is a crap game.

I used replays a lot in savage2 to show people how to play and to proove things.

i love s2's entire replay system.

Dawn of War, CoH, C&C3, RA2, All store the chat of the user who saved the replay(and anything he received) Even the C&C3 replay systems has a "Through the eyes" where it follows exactly what the player is doing-Like your looking over his shoulder. Granted the size of these games replays is larger then replays in supcom but I don't really view that as much of an issue. CoH replays still only take like 15 seconds to download.

If replays are included, they might as well go all-in. I don't think chat should be included (for privacy reasons), but I'd love to see someone's camera and selection actions.

Chat SHOULD be included. It makes people behave better when someone can spread a replay around of them being a douche.

Mouse movements + camera would be /drool

Seriously though, that would be such a great feature for the competitive community. If you add chat then you could even make tutorials just using replays (do the stuff and chat to yourself to explain what you are doing).

Please make this a high priority GPG. Competitive community is absolutely key to creating a lasting fan base.

If live replays are going to come back I either pray for a time-delay or an option to refuse your ranked games be live replayed.

RapierX, there was that option in supcom already, also given the nature of Demigod I think 20 to 40 seconds delay should be enough

If live replays are going to come back I either pray for a time-delay or an option to refuse your ranked games be live replayed.

I like the live replay what you don't want your gamestyle to be copied by noobs

It's far too late in the history of online gaming to expect to be able to keep your playstyle a secret. Deal with it--if a noob can be just as effective as you are by flat-out copying, you're not very good either.

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

About Replays