It Has Potential

yes it has awesome potential. The main problem I see with the networking code is the packets must be bloated to an extreme. I know of no other game that requires 384 upload for a decent game experiance more if you want to get into 4vs4 or 5vs5. Thats just insane to ask that much. Standard upload for a dsl connection is 384, for cable its 128, unless you purchase higher end packages. I have a cable connection with 128 upload and I have no problems with other games including mmorpgs and fps. I also do a lot of p2p torrenting with over 1k concurrent connections. I do not do gaming and torrenting at the same time of course that would just be stupid on my part.

Connectivity is actually really good since they fixed it.

If you still have problems it might be you and not the game.

Quoting Schobbo,

reply 2

Connectivity is actually really good since they fixed it.

If you still have problems it might be you and not the game.

What problems have you been experiencing with your connectivity? I have experienced zero issues, so perhaps there is something wrong on your end which we can help to solve?

I think the game's easily worth it, despite connectivity issues, and this is coming from the guy who can only play 2v2's

I have a lot of hardware experiance it was my profession for 5 yrs. I been in software QA/ Build Engineer for over 12 yrs. Been playing games since the 80ties, also had my own bbs for many years, configured many professional webserver environments. I admit that I there might be something I am missing, but I just wanted to let yall know I am not a inexperianced in these things.

I have 100 ports open and ran the utility to configure demigod for them (6100-6200) and I still think that something is defiantly wrong with the network code to require that many ports. But that is just my opinion and I don't care that I have to open 100 ports if the game works. Torrenting software just requires 1 port for 1000s of concurrent connections. Gaming of cources requires more directx and so on for all the different 3rd party utilities.

This is my main issue I think there are still connection issues:

In patheon or skirmish I have never been in a game with more than 3vs3 and that only happened 1 time. Most of the time its 2vs2, sometimes even 1vs1. I have not played patheon since before the last patch, but the last patch didn't have any connection optimizations as far as I remember, but I could be wrong. How many ppl can play patheon with more than 2vs2 (this seems more common for most) or 3vs3? I don't know many ppl that can and I haven't heard of anyone but a couple of ppl that can play 4vs4 or 5vs5. To me that is connection issues.

I was thinking about installing a couple of packet sniffing software and bandwidth monitors to test my theories, but I decided against that. I went on to other games instead and check back every now and then at the forums and to check out the new patches and content, so far only 1 patch since I went on to other games.

I have a netgear gigbit network card latest drivers installed and a WNDR3300 netgear router latest bios updates applied. I am hard wired and wireless is disabled when I play games online. Any help would be appreciated, but connection issues are only 1 thing on my list of why I am not currently playing demigod. Attack bugs (including the flee bug where dg stops to attack random things instead of doing what I said), ladder, achievements (I don't really care about these just kinda of annoying been broken since release and they are pretty much just counters or should be), ect..

Pantheon doesn't make 4v4/5v5 matchups because it would frequently lag due to the large number of customers with insufficient upstream bandwidth.

Thats my point if the network code was done correctly 5vs5 wouldn't cause lag... I tend to buy 3 to 4 games a month when there is good games out. I have played tons of fps, rts, rpg, mmorpg.. I don't have a single problem with any of them online with only 128 kb upstream. Which is pretty much the minimum you can get with a cable or dsl line and from my experiance majority (not everyone) of ppl have no more than 384 kb upstream minimum dsl upload, at least in the US (my experience outside of the US is nil). You can not expect a game to be coded in a way where majority of the ppl buying it will not be able to play the game to its full potential. And who is going to upgrade their connect what spend another 30 dollars a month just to play one game.. Makes no since at all. And many ppl have stated is because of p2p, I beg to differ since I am sure from reading the forums for the last 2 to 3 months that other games have been made with p2p network connectivity and this has never been an issue. Just my 2 cents.

Most RTS games don't do very much simulation, take for example Starcraft where things always hit rather than simulating the projectiles. Compare this to Supreme Commander (which Demigod is based off) where by dancing units from side to side you can dodge incoming fire, I would imagine the extra bandwidth is coming more from the simulation requiring it than anything else.

I haven't been able to play anything higher than 2v2 since two patches ago and 2v2s are 50% chance if i'll disconnect or not, so only thing i can play for sure with only 5% chance of disconnects are 1v1s.

When i first got the game and started playing it online it was a bitch to get connected to everyone before the game started, but when the game did start i never got disconnected during games. Now it's been the other way round with 2v2s and up...

But somehow the problem is on my end when i never changed a thing and i can play other games online with no problems at all and you have others that posted in the connectivity forum with the same exact problem.

Demigod is a Great game, but the connection for multi = Fail.

I have no connection problems after the patches. My 512DL/512UL DSL is absolutly enough.

The problem with Demigod is it's upload requirement for the amount simultaneous connections. It's higher than other games of this type - a way around this is to force yourself to connect to the proxy servers which lowers the number of connections you need to play as you connect to the proxy server, who then connects for you to everyone else. It doesn't magically make 5v5 playable, however I've seen it raise a game from only 2v2s to being able to play 3v3s. Perhaps it's worth a try?

My connection speed isn't the problem with using comcast cable an upload for 1.90Mb/s.

I've tried proxys, direct connect to my pc from modem, ports forward, made sure have latest drivers, reinstalled the game, checked and played with firewall few times, and other things after this started to happen.

As i said before if you check the connection forum others have the same exact problem two patches back about a good 5 topics with the same deal just different wordings. I also said before it started to happen i could play just fine with no auto d/cs when the game started. I've played plenty of 3v3s wtih my two teammates and now it's down to 1v1s only with a good chance i won't disconnect from all when the game starts.

I was hoping to really get into demigod some more even with some of the other major flaws in the game it's still fun to play, but the line is getting cut short being able to play 2v2s max and lucky if that which isn't enough... need 3v3s from time to time

Definitely agree that is has potential. Potential kickass fun everyday I potentially will launch the game, that is.

itsmevic: what connectivity problems do you have with the game?

I can't really help you there NoW^AMPs, I can only suggest making a very details thread about this and trying to get the issue solved that way. With your upload, you shouldn't be seeing any problems. Does your ISP throttle P2P traffic by any chance?

No, my ISP dosen't throttle p2p traffic and i've tried a few test not to long ago just to make sure and all is good. I don't think my ISP would start doing something like that just out of the blue anyway, but i guess with some ISPs you can never be to sure.

Lots have posted it started two patches ago pretty bad, so i would asume they changed something to cause this to happen. The odd part is two patches ago this problem just stopped after 4 days with no d/cs happening and just came back with the latest patch again.

I'm so sad with this

quoting post

For example, SOSE no problems, connects wonderfully and tons of other online multiplayer games adapt, over-come router/firewall issues and any other network roadblock there is. . . .

SOSE was plagued with connectivity when it launched because you similarly had to open up ports and no one knew what they were doing. I bascially quit playing MP due to all the connectivity issues in SOSE. I'm sure that SOSE eventually ended up with good connectivity because the player base is tiny (statistically fewer people will have issuse) and the ones that stuck around obviously knew how to open ports.

Quoting woppin,

reply 9

Most RTS games don't do very much simulation, take for example Starcraft where things always hit rather than simulating the projectiles. Compare this to Supreme Commander (which Demigod is based off) where by dancing units from side to side you can dodge incoming fire, I would imagine the extra bandwidth is coming more from the simulation requiring it than anything else.

Yeah, I thought about that myself.

But Demigod doesn't need any simulation... ie it's not like u can dodgy a Reg snipe if u do a bit of dancing. Pounce hits 100%, spit hits 100% etc.

So in this respect, it's no difference to any other RTS... SC, AoE. AoM.

Not only that, compared to other RTSs, the unit count is ... 10%?

If the engine is still taking simulation into account and passing that info around all players, then that's pretty stupid (whether you can switch it off or not is another matter).

I would bet my bottom dollar that if this game had some 'standard' connectivity and 3v3 (and beyond) was easy to achieve, the player base would be substantially higher than it is now.

The missed opportunity makes me mad. Altho prolly not as mad as SD/GPG who could've made shed loads of more cash.

Saying that, god knows how u play a 5v5... you'd have to have limits on how many of the same classes you can have in a team... 5 regs on one team would be stupid obviously.

Quoting MrBoingy,

reply 19

But Demigod doesn't need any simulation... ie it's not like u can dodgy a Reg snipe if u do a bit of dancing. Pounce hits 100%, spit hits 100% etc.

There are other weapons and spells too, you know

. Arrows from the Rook's tower don't track (= have no guranteed hit), projectiles from Trebuchets don't track either, hammer slam can be avoided, reign of ice can be avoided, etc.

Well, I don't think that's true.

eg

With hammer slam, it just looks to see what's in the range of the slam when it hits the floor.

Things don't get hit as the hammer is going to the ground... for example, a flying angel gets knocked out of the sky.

Same as Rain of Ice.

What's in it's radius when it hits the ground? ie the whole falling ice bit is just animation... there's half a second of some nice pretty animation and then a check is made to see what's in it's circle and gives out damage.

With supcom, u fired a shell and it checked if it hit anything while it was travelling to it's target. ie it checks to see it's relative position with other objects constantly.

DG:

1) The user initiates a move.

2) Does the player cancel this move during it's wind up (eg a hammer slam is just a move with a delay)

3) After that delay time (ie it looks like the hammer lands), is there anything in it's range?

Same as trebs. It nevers knocks anything out of the air as the projectile flies. It flies and then damages something on impact.

It might as well be purely graphic animation whilst the timer is counted.. it already knows where it's going to land... 1 second after the animation starts, it's made to look like it lands... is there anything there? If yes, damage it.

Yes, but the engine still has the simulation and technically some spells like the Fireball or snipe are just projectiles, that only collide with the target, have tracking and have a big or infinite lifetime. And arrows and trebuchet are still simulated.

Yeah, so, the engine has the ability to do it but the game doesn't use it.

How does it affect the bandwidth?

If bandwidth is affected for something that's not used, that's a bit silly.

Saying that, I had my first 4v4 last night.

It was pretty slow but playable (actually, it started really smoothly and started to slow down.. cos of the increased number of units... altho compared to other RTSs, it's stilll a TINY amount).

The upshot of this:

If SupCom could EASILY manage a 3v3 with it's huge amount of units, why does DG have a higher bandwidth requirement?

ON a side note, the whole thing with SupCom where u could dance your commander/units to avoid projectiles (taking advantage of the physics engine) was really stupid in my opinion.

The whole thought of a megaton Commander dancing around to avoid bullets and microing your mega army takes away from the big scale battle feeling SupCom was supposed to encourage.

The engine does use it... for arrows and trebuchets . And Demigod has a lower Bandwidth requirement than Supreme Commander, though it's still pretty high, considering the lower amount of units and thus lower amount of information that you need, at least in theory.

Quoting MrBoingy,

reply 23

ON a side note, the whole thing with SupCom where u could dance your commander/units to avoid projectiles (taking advantage of the physics engine) was really stupid in my opinion.

The whole thought of a megaton Commander dancing around to avoid bullets and microing your mega army takes away from the big scale battle feeling SupCom was supposed to encourage.

That's only a muzzle velocity issue. The 4th dimension mod uses a higher muzzle velocity across the board, which looks and feels a lot better. I don't know why the devs only used low muzzle velocities for so many units. Maybe for balance.

i cant speak for the demigod code but forged alliance's bandwidth is tiny. ive played games when my bandwith was shaped to 56K modem speeds and noticed no difference at all.

Quoting MrBoingy,

reply 23

ON a side note, the whole thing with SupCom where u could dance your commander/units to avoid projectiles (taking advantage of the physics engine) was really stupid in my opinion.

The whole thought of a megaton Commander dancing around to avoid bullets and microing your mega army takes away from the big scale battle feeling SupCom was supposed to encourage.

there are only two units that dance in forged alliance, the ACUs and the mech marines, and you're ignoring all the benefits to gamplay that a simulated projectile system brings.

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