Demigod Q&A With Lead Designer Mike Marr

By Island Dog on October 13, 2008 6:53:23 PM from

Mike Marr, Lead Designer for Demigod, sits down with a Q&A session with Gamezone.com. They cover a range of topics including character creations, overall game dynamics, and much more. It’s a great look into the “behind the scenes” work going on to create this incredible game.

"We begin by individually brainstorming what we think are the most compelling epic characters we can imagine," said Mike Marr, Lead Designer. "From there we all meet and discuss the ideas, narrowing the pool down to just a couple. At that point art works on concepts and design works on abilities and background information. At that point we’ll review and see which Demigod is speaking to us the most. The one that speaks the most to us is the one we’ll start actual creation of. The other ideas are filed away and reviewed again when we go to create a new demigod."

Read the full Q&A at GameZone.com.

+458 Karma | 34 Replies

I did not find this article all that informative myself. There was some talk about balancing etc. but since the beta testing has not included any real balance testing yet, seems to me what the devs have done in alpha may very well go out the window once beta digs into it...at least I hope they consider the beta feedback.

Finally a new journal entry and it's just an interview?

Anyways, I have a few thoughts on this interview:

1. What will the single-player campaign be like?
MM: Single-player will be a mixture of gameplay elements possessed by fighting games and racing games.

What the hell does that mean? Seriosly, I hope you play different types of racing games they I do, or your vision is crazy unique and it just works, or I hope this is a misprint. If it is not a misprint, let us know what you mean.

2. Answers seemed canned. I don't know how the interview went, but eveything felt stiff to me. Any one else's thoughts?

Perhaps the racing game comment was referring to the customization of the ability tree during game play...kind of like selecting tire pressures, trim outs, etc that may impact play. It seems like a stretch to me but I am just guessing. Like I said...the article was blah IMO.

Nevermind, if I can adjust the tire pressure of the Rook, I love the idea. JK.

I think if that is what they meant, the better term would be RPG. Maybe they want a wider audience, in that article they stated it is a hybrid RTS and RPG with single player elements of Racing and Fighting (arcade Fighter) games. That is truly something for everyone.

team death match? That doesn't seem to describe the game at the moment - there are more goals than simply killing the opponent team members

In the end though, it is you killing them.

this pretty much sounds like we don't get direct control over minions with generals :/

I took 'racing' to mean racing tower defense style, competing to get to enemy base first...

As TBO says, sounds like you guys are backing off of generals and just going straight assassins? And no, painting a target a la Bioshock doesn't count as RTS

Peace

well there is also the possibility to be able to give some general orders for all your minions or squads of them like , h + leftclick on a certain spot means "move there my minions", but we will see.

Quoting Ke5trel,

reply 8

I took 'racing' to mean racing tower defense style, competing to get to enemy base first...

As TBO says, sounds like you guys are backing off of generals and just going straight assassins? And no, painting a target a la Bioshock doesn't count as RTS

Peace

I personally will be very disappointed if no generals show up. Although the game is ok now, I NEED more depth. I also tend to play RTS games, and a major selling point for me was generals. PLEASE, keep the idea.

From this article I see that RTS idea is dead if I read the article right the rest of the Demigods will not be generals and the minions will not have any micro. Is this direction of STARDOCK or Gas Powered games? I don’t know about the rest of you but feel very upset right NOW!!!!!

If your surprized by this you shouldn't be from day 1 it looked like they would have a problem with generals because we never got 1 to try I saw this from day 1 when we got 3 assassins to try and no generals

we shouldn't jump to conclusions just yet I think, it may turn out cool and strategical.

MMO RPG PMS RTS

Quoting TheBigOne,

reply 13

we shouldn't jump to conclusions just yet I think, it may turn out cool and strategical.

I know but everything they have done has led us down this path

Quoting lprometheus,

reply 11

I am upset. I am still waiting for the official word, but for me that was one of the main selling points. RPG Hero game and RTS Hero game. You play with friends ho like different game models and work as a team. I want to be a general.

If generals is no longer part of the plan, they should have a long diary discussing why it won't work. Removing this, and other things like escalation, basically turns this into a tournament RPG hack and slask. And although that is fine, it is nothing I would really get excited over. I want my RTS elements.

Quoting TheBigOne,

reply 13

we shouldn't jump to conclusions just yet I think, it may turn out cool and strategical.

You're right, and this article does not seem to be well written. Unfortunately, there has ben no update in the official diaries. Even if they ditch generals, I think the game could be very cool, I just had my heart set on generals type character. That way me and my friend could play and both have a blast. He could hack and slash, and I could command and conquer (TM).

Someone quote the part that tells us that there will be generals? Oh wait there is NO part in that says that...really stupid assumption to make imo....

I don't see what wrong with the article that you flaming it like that.

He hasn't mentioned the generals because they didn't ask about them. its could mean tyo avoid speaking on them simply because they ditch the idea but it can also mean they doesn't release detailes about them.

Anyway achivments items is awesome and future update to more than 10 demigods on a map is even more awesome. I just imagine 10x10 game on a huge map in a year from release, now that what I call war.

Yeah, what is this nonsense about no generals? the fact that there are "demigods that focus on buffing and protecting their team-mates, shielding them from harm and empowering them to deal even greater devastation." makes me think that they also provide bonuses to creeps, very "general-like" abilities. Just because they didn't specifically didn't mention Generals, doesn't mean there won't be any. They didn't mention anything about the other demigods at all, including other Assassin type demigods. Because they didn't say they were going to be assassins, I could assume they aren't going to make any other Assassin type demigods. Isn't that a fair argument? Unless I missed something specific. Anyone want to take a quote from the interview that states this?

As for racing? Maybe he means like fighting through creeps, the first to kill 100 wins? or first to kill their way to the end of the path wins? I hope they don't get little go-karts cuz the Rook's would just drive over everyone.

I don't have access to the article right now, but the flavor was the interviewer confirming that no Demigod would be able to control any allied creeps on the map. Tyo's response was about how the DGs would be deep and polished, rather than cheap and shallow. The lack of disagreement seems like an indication that the "General" model talked about in previous journals is obsolete.

Confirmation one way or the other is always good, at least when the cat is already halfway out of the bag...

edit: my understanding of "General" type DGs was that they would create and have direct control of unique units, not just buff allied creeps. If you look at the LUA files you'll see a bunch of indicators in this direction. QoT's Ents, Sedna's Yeti's, etc..

Someone quote the part that tells us that there will be generals? Oh wait there is NO part in that says that...really stupid assumption to make imo....

Can you not read or does someone need to put some pictures to get to your level.

From what I've heard, only the Demigods are controllable. There are dozens of minions on the battlefield but none can be influenced by the player. What made the development team take this direction?

MM: We found the Demigods so compelling and interesting to play that we elected to play to our strengths and focus on what made the game fun and standout. Rather than go horizontal with our design, including tons of secondary features and methods of play which would “water down” the feel and design of Demigod, we elected to go vertical, striving for every aspect of fighting with a Demigod to be extremely polished and rewarding. The result is a game with epic feel and a level of polish that is true to its original design; fast-paced action combat with strategic elements.

Again Stardock we all were told from the start that this is a ground breaking game!!! With RPG and RTS however looks like you are going to stink up the show. Some one please just stay the generals are gone or not. Because this is a huge Deal!!!! Also we was told the first year is free and looks like if you want more than eight DG's then you will have to buy them. NO one wants a pay to play so keep that in mind or just release this to the bargain bin!!

I am almost 100% sure that by "racing games" they mean a sort of tournament-like format for singleplayer, where you go from arena to arena to take on the other Demigod(s), much like racing games where you race/fight on many tracks/maps. You won't actually race

I wouldn't say that Generals are out just yet; they might have more broad controls instead of specific commands for the minions, or "minions" might only refer to the auto-spawning creeps. We just don't know.

I guess my problem is with vagueness. General or no? Racing?

Nothing is really wrong with the article it is just way light on substance and can easily be misinterprated.

I think he meant the creeps that are spawned are not influenced byt the player, but generals will have their own to use. Or maybe that's wishful thinking...

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Demigod Q&A With Lead Designer Mike Marr