Okay, I'm starting to get excited

By Draginol on August 10, 2008 12:09:48 PM from

If you've ever worked on a game, you know that for 80% of the process, the game is little different from any other development endeavor. It's not "fun". You aren't "playing" the game, you are simply working on it in the hopes that it will be fun at some point.

Galactic Civilizations, for instance, was incredibly boring until the final months. We were starting to sweat it but then, like the flick of a switch, it came together and was very fun. Sins of a Solar Empire was extremely tedious until the last few months of development. But then, as players saw, it came together and started being awesome.

And so it's starting to come together with Demigod. We still have a lot of work to go. But even with lots of features not enabled yet, I find myself enjoying myself playing just against the computer players in a 3 on 3 game (all AI except me). I just love the various powers that the Demigods have, the items are really fun to mix and match. I'd say it's about 60 days away from being at that point where, like Sins and GalCiv before it, Demigod gets the critical mass of "fun stuff" in that it starts to become a problem internally (i.e. where we have to limit "testing" to non work hours).

-Brad Wardell = Draginol = Frogboy.

+83 Karma | 42 Replies

I think that those units are spawned by the AI, and may be bought by the demigods, and then demigods have their own unit(s) i.e.

Queen of Thorns: Trees
Vampire Lord: Vampire spawn (or was it undead?)

I just hope that the games gives us many different ways of using our gold(?).

Like; Equipment, units, unit upgrades, castle upgrades, building and tower upgrades, stats maybe?, a scouting thing of some kind?

It just gives more excitement and strategy to the game, in wich way youre gonna spend your hard earned money

Yays!

What worries me is the 60 days comment. I'm just hoping it reads as, "We'll be implementing most of the features over about 60 days, and then it'll get really fun."

I read it as Demigod becoming so fun they spend more time testing than developing.

I did read that part, which makes me eager to play. I'm just hoping it's not a subtle hint that the beta might be nudged back a little because it's not ready yet.

But as a word to the developers, keep testing on the clock, even towards the end of the development cycle. It's your job to test, test, test, so you're not really slacking on the work. The more you play, the more you'll notice that "hmm, this doesn't work right, I should fix that." Just make sure it's play with us so we can tell you when you guys might have spent too much time testing and not enough developing. >D

Looking forward to playing the Beta!!!

I'm also concerned a bit with the unit variety. I mean, wouldn't it get boring after a while just killing minotaurs? Why can't you guys have, like, humans as basic foot soldiers, then minotaurs as heavier assault troops, and also maybe some sort of archer as well? It would look nicer on screenshots at least...

There are sci-fi archer guys and angels, plus one screenshot showed some unclear murloc things, in addition to the larger units like fatguy, giants, and catapultasauruses. It's not all grunts

I'd say it's about 60 days away from being at that point where, like Sins and GalCiv before it, Demigod gets the critical mass of "fun stuff" in that it starts to become a problem internally (i.e. where we have to limit "testing" to non work hours).

ROFL

I can see that happening, the devs testing the game more than working on it.

Hey, it's still work, as long as they spend time recording (and fixing) bugs they come across in game play and listen to the people complaining about annoying issues in game. >3

Nice journal, and all in all much better work on the Journals for this game, Sins Journals were a bit scarce, there should have been a lot more than there were.

Man this game is gonna be so awesome I mean im not the greatest fan of RTS games but i really enjoy a good RPG

there should have been a lot more than there were.

I'll always trade more time spent building a cool game than writing journals. They can write as many "after-action" reports as they want AFTER.

I'd have to disagree. By interacting with the player base they're actually trying to enthrall, they're getting some insights into what they should or shouldn't put into the game. For instance we're all happy about fairy archers, so we may get more mythical based units since it seems to be a popular genre to build on. We're also making some observations about the game from the screen shots and the movie we've seen, which may already have changed their design (fog of war for instance, who's presence we were unsure of during the movie). In the end the game is improved by not closing themselves off from us.

In the end the game is improved by not closing themselves off from us.

This would be true if we weren't getting our hands on the beta. But the dev journals are a fun insight into game design, not really opening the game to us. That's what the beta is for

The game is further improved then. Like, if they say they're thinking about doing this and we react negatively to it (removing generals for instance and just having all encompassing role), they can reevaluate their ideas based on that. Even before we get to try the beta, the game is being altered by what we say here on the forums.

The Forums Are Now Closed!

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

Okay, I'm starting to get excited