Going West

By Frogboy on August 17, 2009 4:07:54 PM from

Greetings!

I’m getting ready to get on a plane to go to San Francisco to visit with the media (gaming and non-gaming). It’s been a crazy week getting all the different things together. I was hoping to get the second Demigod preview ready this week. If there’s some down time during the week, I’ll work on putting together the notes on it.

Gas Powered Games is working on getting me some screenshots and such to begin showing them as we start to get near PAX (Penny Arcade Expo that’s in Seattle at the beginning of next month). As I’ve been scrambling around the office, I can say there’s quite a bit of activity both at Stardock (where I work) and at Gas Powered Games (the makers of Demigod) to solve a LUA decompression bug that causes the game to crash in MP. One theory is that it’s related to the concede code somehow but no one is quite sure but that’s one of the reasons why there hasn’t been another mini update – both teams feel that this issue needs to be resolved before more features get added. That said, I saw QA testing out the re-match code.

Rematching

So the way they’re implementing rematching is a lot like the concede. As a game ends, players can propose a rematch. If everyone agrees, the game starts again. It’s working pretty decently in LAN mode but there’s a bit of extra work for online MP because of the stats and there’s more timing robustness needed because of latency.

Other stuff going on

I’m not privy to everything Gas Powered Games is doing of course but besides working on 2 new Demigods, rematches, replays, balance and other goodies for Demigod players, they’re working on Supreme Commander 2 which is being published by Square Enix.

Over at Stardock, we’re working on Elemental which is a fantasy strategy game that isn’t due out until mid next year. I know there’s a lot of interest at both developer GPG and publisher Stardock to keep enhancing Demigod over the long-term. The view is that a game like this, being primarily multiplayer, can continue to grow over time. Obviously a big challenge is getting more content out there whether it be from GPG, Stardock, or modders. That’s where much of the future development will focus.

If any of you guys are going to be at PAX, please stop by the Stardock booth. We’ll be showing Demigod, Elemental, Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy, and lots of other cool stuff.

+912 Karma | 48 Replies

So rematch will only work if ?everyone? decides to rematch, and wont allow the players to get a game hosted in the lobby to be joinable by people who havent played yet?

Elemental and Supreme Comander 2 are both looking good. Hopefully, you can take lessons from those and add them to demigod. GPG should likely have engine enhancements and hopefully better mp connectivity from the work on SC2. SD hopefully can add more to the impulse overlay and other innovations with impulse phase 4. How is imulse phase 4 coming?

My biggest concern with rematches as listed, is what if one person dropped? If there is no lobby function for remtches, we have a progressive problem. It also takes away the ability to change maps between matches, as well as change other feature.

Any eta on the SDK for modders? The sci-fi mod seems like it has a lot of potential and currently has a number of professional artists (from major pubs and devs) doing art and animation. I think getting some info out for these guys would be helpful for the community as a whole.

Wait... Rematch doesn't toss you back to a lobby, but instead just instantly starts up a new game with same teams and same DGs? That's not exactly what I had pictured. If I'm going to want a rematch I'm also probably going to want to change DGs.

-- Tukulis

"new community features"....

will these features be intigrated in the game, or added to SD's DG-homepage ??

I agree with the others that "rematch" should take you back to a game lobby. That way, even if only a portion of the players want to play again, or if people left before the game finished, they can fill empty slots. This will also allow people to revise game rules, like Demigods and the map. If you make it an all-or-nothing rematch, then people aren't going to use it.

Yay! Finally something new about diplomacy!

Hopefully for dg in lobby stat pop ups are coming, otherwise looks great can't wait for the new demigods (though haven't mastered the current ones yet!)

All stuff I'm looking forward to hearing about.

Hopefully someone at PAX will be kind enough to make some footage/post details about what you're talking about.

Yeah I'm with everyone else on the re-match to lobby thing. I guess that'd be slightly harder for them to implement, (maybe more coordination between the teams?) but as a user I'd find it far more useful.

If I bring my copy of galciv 2 will you sign it? Because I know I'm going to PAX and I know I'm stopping by... so yeah.

THANKS FROGBOY your posts and journals are always welcome especially when they have talk of a new demigod

FB, you will be about 75 minutes away from me in SF. Your free to use the ratty hide-a-bed in my guest room if you get sick of those 5-star hotels. . .

Yeh a rematch thing that will put people who agree back in a lobby together with the same game name, I guess people won't always want to play the same map or same DG, or even want to increase the game size, it'd be easier if it just went back to lobby together.

yea it will be good coz then i can beat u twice in a row.

Lobbies are already in the game ffs. Why not send the players back to one when the game ends (no gui-modifications needed, yay)? This makes no sense.

Every time I think a solution couldn't be any more obvious, GPG goes and surprise me.

Thanks for another update - hope Pax is fun for you (outside of all the work involved for you). I hope to go some year. Let me know if you need a peon to man a booth for you some time so I have some sort of viable excuse to make an appearance (even if its now!)

Wish I could come and see you guys at PAX! I'd bring my copy of Demigod - well, I don't have a physical copy but I'd bring something Demigod related along - and rush up to Frogboy with puppy dog eyes...
"I love this game, easily your best work Brad, please sign it!"
and he'd say "Er.. well, technically we didn't make Dem--"
"SIGN IT!!"

quoting post

Another area we’re working on is improving the community features of Demigod. We’ll be talking more about that in a couple weeks (one of the reasons I’m going out West is to show these new community features). But suffice to say there will be a lot of good news coming in that area as we ramp up to PAX.
If any of you guys are going to be at PAX, please stop by the Stardock booth. We’ll be showing Demigod, Elemental, Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy, and lots of other cool stuff.

There is no need to work on a tool called "community tool" without a community - it´s so laughly, tools like that are normally inside the game at release not 6 months later. U guys weren´t able to include a functionally chat tool at the beginning, better fix old things and make them better as try out new stuff which wont work. This is still a beta.

When will be rematcing possible in SP?

Sins Diplomacy? Cool. Be nice to hear/see something on that one; should be some pleasant surprises.

Supreme Commander 2 has potential as well. Wish I could attend the PAX event. Oh well - this is the sort of thing multimedia is for (!)...

Rematching does seem quite odd... I doubt all 6 players of a 3v3 will often want to rematch... and assuming they do, would it imply no DG change?

Sending all players back to the lobby really seem to be the right thing to do, and not just b/c of re-matches, but also for another thing that the game should promote (for its own sake):

aLap

10. After-game socializing? [hindrance]

So, a game is finished and everyone gets booted to the main menu? That's it? No chit-chat about what happened? No chance to add newly met players as friends? Good luck at remembering the aliases...

(Original post: http://forums.stardock.com/353600/ )

In short, make it user friendly... litterally!

Not that I am saying that I disagree with rematch going back to the lobby, but by definition a rematch is replaying the game with teh exact same conditions as before. It wouldn't be a rematch if you could change your demigod or change the map. It would be a new match with the same people.

I think that after a game regardless if people want to play again it should go back to the lobby. If people don't want to play again they leave the lobby.

Quoting generalkazar,

reply 21

by definition a rematch is replaying the game with teh exact same conditions as before.

Noes... not the dictionary

Imho, rematch is about playing again w/ the same people, not necessarily in the same condition. That's why I tie this closely to "ingame socializing".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rematch

First definition "to match again, duplicate". If you change the parameters then it isn't a rematch.

Looking forward to hearing stuff on SoaSE: Diplomacy. I really do wonder to the guys at IC have in store for us sinners. All this stuff on Demigod is also interesting, but it seems to me that the game is still somewhat incomplete, otherwise I'd prolly own it right now.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rematch

Second definition "to schedule a second match for or between". If you change the parameters then it is still a rematch.

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Going West