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Demigod: June FAQ

By on June 17, 2009 2:35:08 PM from JoeUser Forums JoeUser Forums

Greetings!

So where do things stand with Demigod as of mid June with our favorite action RTS/RPG game?

Let's dig into this with some frequent questions I get messaged.

Q: Who are you?

A: Frogboy  = Brad Wardell, President & CEO of Stardock

Q: Who makes Demigod?

A: The award-winning developer Gas Powered Games is the developer of Demigod. However, as some may have noticed from Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod, Stardock gets very involved in the games it publishes.  The most recent example being when Demigod's MP connectivity was problematic during the initial launch, we assigned our own developers to fix it. 

Q: What is the status of on-line connectivity.

A: Pretty much perfect now in custom games. I.e. as good or better than any RTS out there.  That said, we can't control what happens in-game with people who disconnect or have shaky connections. We take the data and send it to Gas Powered Games to see if there's anything that can be improved.

Q: How good is the online experience now?

A: I'm highly biased but I would say it's generally pretty awesome IMO -- now.  That said, I have a long list of complaints:

1. Rage quitting.  v1.1 will let teams concede and we're going to start rating people based on the % of games they complete/concede ([good],[fair],[poor]) so other people can choose to play with them and in pantheon/skirmish games it will be biased towards those who complete a game (or at least concede as a team).

2. "Random" disconnects. These don't tend to be as random as they look. There are people who have, to be put mildly, non-ideal Internet connections. I had almost forgotten the term "ISDN" until playing online.  This happens in every game but it is still something on our list to work with GPG in making better.

3. Pantheon / Skirmish quitters. Biggest problem here is where people quit pantheon games before they start. I mean literally quit. The solution I think here is to let people join as groups which is something we're talking to GPG about doing in a future update.

But as some have observed, I tend to be a glass is half empty guy. In all honesty, I'd say that Demigod is the funnest game I've played online in years - since Total Annihilation for me.  YMMV.

Q: How are sales?

A: Mixed.  Digital sales are great.  Retail sales need work.  We are hoping word of mouth on the game will encourage people to go to their local retailer and pick up the game. 

Q: Where are the two new Demigods?

A: We're still working out the details with GPG.  They're heavily into Supreme Commander 2 but they are working on more Demigods.  We are leaning towards having both Demigods being assassins since they are, statistically, the most popular. One good, one evil.

Q: When is v1.1 due to be released.

A: Next week.

Q: What are the next updates beyond v1.1 going to focus on?

A: Modding & clan support are at the top of the feature list. Beyond that, it will depend on how sales continue to be honest. 

Q:Why isn't Gas Powered Games on the forums?

A: They are reading the forums, I can assure you. They're just extremely busy working on the actual game. I don't code on Demigod so I have the luxury of being able to hang out with you guys and actually play on the game.

Q: I get confused over developers and publishers. Could you explain this more?

A: Sure.  Stardock develops and publishes games.  It developed, for example, Galactic Civilizations I/II and The Political Machine.  It published Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod. 

When we publish, we get heavily involved on the game design to a very large degree (in Sins we worked closely with Ironclad on everything from what each frigate and cruiser did as well as the economic system, in Demigod, we were heavily involved with the flags and citadel upgrade concepts) but we don't write any code for the game itself but ultimately (after the initial release) ended up writing a lot of the connectivity code to replace the licensed system we had used.

The next game we're developing ourselves is Elemental. That's one we're developing and publishing.

Q: When are you going to fix "the balance" in Demigod.

A: You losing a game to someone doesn't imply an imbalanced game. V1.1 will be tweaking things like Heart of Life and numerous other things but no, <Insert Demigod here that ticked you off in last night's game> is not over powered.

Q: How do you plan to keep the community growing?

A: We're now close enough that I can tell you have a new feature that will be going into beta. It's called ReadyToPlay(TM). It will help you get groups of people together for games.

We are also going to have official tournaments after v1.1.  The rankings you see today are going to disappear after v1.1 now that the early cheese issues and data reporting is taken care of better.

Overall, the community seems to be growing pretty steadily in terms of # of games played per day.

But the main thing about the stats is that MY stats will get reset because I can assure you any time I lose it's due to the other guy's demigod being over powered, the other guy cheating somehow, or some bug. There is no other possible reason as I think you would all agree...

+897 Karma | 84 Replies
June 17, 2009 2:58:00 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

nice FAQ. So I guess we can't get any more info on this ReadyToPlay(TM) thingy can we?

June 17, 2009 3:03:04 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Putting in 2 new assassins will only skew it more to assassins. I think it'd generally be a good idea to keep an even number of assassins and generals.

June 17, 2009 3:13:30 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

dito !

1 assasin and 1 general would be better !

June 17, 2009 3:31:09 PM from Stardock Forums Stardock Forums
June 17, 2009 3:34:27 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

woot rank/stat reset

June 17, 2009 3:34:51 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Beyond that, it will depend on how sales continue to be honest.

This makes me nervous.....

June 17, 2009 4:30:05 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Well... in  the beta they said they would support this game long-term and that the budget was already alocated for that.

Maybe they are thinking of taking this part of the budget back...

June 17, 2009 4:36:21 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Any idea when a demo might be released? Games on my PC turn out either horible graphic messes or a surprising success (Sins was the latter, works on the highest settings even with my low spec (but new) laptop. I won't ever go out and buy a game until I see the demo working on my PC, unless I'm sure I can get a refund.

Thanks for your continued posting on the forums, makes me a very happy gamer to see the people at the top care about the community.

June 17, 2009 4:37:08 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Only if the game decides to skydive. Because it's really not so smart to support a game that is bringing in $0 or costing you more than you gain, long term-wise.

Demo is ganna be released using the v1.1 patch. So probably 2 weeks or so after v1.1 comes out.

June 17, 2009 4:46:04 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Praise be to the Frog.

June 17, 2009 4:56:06 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I see Frogboy is ducking the most important question we on the forums have for him, it's a shame we should all send him mass E-mails asking the same question.

 

"What happened to the baby turtle?!?!?!?!"

June 17, 2009 5:10:35 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

1.1 next week!  Woot!

June 17, 2009 5:15:19 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

nice work, my online issues are mostly solved now.

thanks for the fixes

June 17, 2009 5:36:27 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Great FAQ.  Add the date of the demo and it is pretty perfect.  I would like to say thanks, the multiplayer connections for me and all my friends is now rock solid.  I also agree that connecting is currently better than any RTS I have played.

 

I want more details on Ready2Play.  (I give you permission to use my name instead of yours.

 

I just wanted to remind you that I was really hoping you/GPG could change the disconnect timer back to 30 secs.  Now with the option of endgame (and the upcoming team surrender), people typically use this to quit a game in progress (instead of the exit to windows).  I can't recall a single rage quit via physical line disconnect since v1.01 (when they were likely quiting to windows).  However since an ice storm in Jan., the cable in my area has an issue where at unknown random intervals, I will disconnect for approximately 21 secs.  It happens once every 10 games, sometimes 3 games in a row and then never for 20 odd games, but before I would be fine because I would reconnect in the 30 sec time span.  Now with the timer at 8 secs I am screwed.

P.S.  Before anyone asks, I can't switch providers and I have spent hours with tech support and they atleast appear to be working on the issue.  They have swapped modems, sent out techs, no one knows what the probem is.  Oh ans it isn't p2p issue, it happens on hulu too.

June 17, 2009 5:37:42 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Q: How are sales?

A: Mixed.  Digital sales are great.  Retail sales need work.  We are hoping word of mouth on the game will encourage people to go to their local retailer and pick up the game. 

 

I have noticed that the local computer game shops don't have Demigod on the shelves. You might want to get onto Atari in Australia Frogboy.

June 17, 2009 5:44:13 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

One of each sounds nice to me, but anything would be good.

June 17, 2009 6:14:58 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Finally a working stats, i was starting to worry about it, since only 1 of 3 games that i won appears in the statistics (hate leavers that fuck up the match and also mess with my stats )

I will be waiting for 1.1 ¡¡¡

June 17, 2009 6:28:53 PM from Stardock Forums Stardock Forums

Good except for the balance thing and lack of a demo.

I have to say that Demigod deserved a barely average reviews not for the whole MP fiasco but due to the lack of care used in forging the game last details before release (read as released too early) and the lack of content. Totally negating the need of balance it's really preposterous. The MP fiasco is only a thing that delayed the game's completation.

June 17, 2009 6:35:30 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

We are leaning towards having both Demigods being assassins since they are, statistically, the most popular. One good, one evil.

I think it'd generally be a good idea to keep an even number of assassins and generals.

or get rid of the ridiculous Assasin/General labels and just have "Demigods... some have minions, some don't and some are in-between".

June 17, 2009 6:45:02 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Putting in 2 new assassins will only skew it more to assassins. I think it'd generally be a good idea to keep an even number of assassins and generals. 

dito !

1 assasin and 1 general would be better !

 

agreed

June 17, 2009 6:47:32 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

This is just some idea that popped into my mind:

If you would upload the DEMO of Demigod onto p2p tracker sites like The Pirate Bay personally, that might just give you some more publicity. Just mention other Developers/Publishers who make exclusive deals with some gaming sites for their demos. We all hate that. Anyone else think this is worth considering? Has anybody done that before? Pros/Cons?

June 17, 2009 7:22:48 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting TheScottishAlien,

or get rid of the ridiculous Assasin/General labels and just have "Demigods... some have minions, some don't and some are in-between".

June 17, 2009 8:04:57 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I would like to see a new Assassin and General but apart from that its sounding really good.

Oh except for

Q: What are the next updates beyond v1.1 going to focus on?

A: Modding & clan support are at the top of the feature list. Beyond that, it will depend on how sales continue to be honest.

That is a bit scary...

June 17, 2009 8:23:59 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Thanks for the great work, but one thing I didn't quite understand was this.



Q: How good is the online experience now?
A: I'm highly biased but I would say it's generally pretty awesome IMO -- now.  That said, I have a long list of complaints:
1. Rage quitting.  v1.1 will let teams concede and we're going to start rating people based on the % of games they complete/concede ([good],[fair],[poor]) so other people can choose to play with them and in pantheon/skirmish games it will be biased towards those who complete a game (or at least concede as a team).

 

Why is players rating going to be based on concedes and not disconects/quits it is rather counter productive to the whole concede function. Or is the concede function not a team vote and idividual players can just concede at any time? and if so how would you determine a team concede?

 

Thanks again for the post.

Quoting Trigeminal,

 

I just wanted to remind you that I was really hoping you/GPG could change the disconnect timer back to 30 secs.  Now with the option of endgame (and the upcoming team surrender), people typically use this to quit a game in progress (instead of the exit to windows).  I can't recall a single rage quit via physical line disconnect since v1.01 (when they were likely quiting to windows).  However since an ice storm in Jan., the cable in my area has an issue where at unknown random intervals, I will disconnect for approximately 21 secs.  It happens once every 10 games, sometimes 3 games in a row and then never for 20 odd games, but before I would be fine because I would reconnect in the 30 sec time span.  Now with the timer at 8 secs I am screwed.

 

8 seconds isn't enough to fix random dropouts and I would much rather wait up to 30 seconds and keep the player then wait 8 and lose them.

 

 

June 17, 2009 8:34:24 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums



8 seconds isn't enough to fix random dropouts and I would much rather wait up to 30 seconds and keep the player then wait 8 and lose them.

 
 

Thanks.

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