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.

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.

+912 Karma | 48 Replies

I think players in a Tournament should be locked into whatever Demigod they chose when they first entered. Likewise therefore for any rematches that occur in a Tournament.

maybe with the rematch option, there could be a "Lobby" option also. That way if everyone agrees that they want to keep demis, options, map the same itll just start the game again (without being taken to the lobby). "Lobby" will obviously take everyone in the previous game bak to the lobby to change up a few things.

that is the stupidest implementation of "rematch" i've ever heard. why bother?

rematch should take you to a lobby with the same host, with the same people in it, but then people can leave if they want, or new people join, or swap map and demigods etc. imho this should be the default behavior at the end of a game.

Quoting generalkazar,

reply 23

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

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

pendantic, stfu

On a sidenote, oes this mean that elemental has indeed been postponed until august 2010?

n/o but you have been talking about "new community features" for a long time, also 1 simple draft of a new demigod "on the horizon" is not really enough imo

I bought this game to have a 5vs5 skirmish without waiting 30 minutes in a lobby before a game can start.

This game had a lot of potential, but not in the way it's treated by the developers now... Everybody can see there is NO focus at all on Demigod. Instead of showing new games, you should fix this game first and then work on your new games. My guess is 1 developer is working on some small fixes after his workhours. Otherwise the patch with new maps and demigods would be ready for a long time already. I know a patch needs to be tested, but with the right focus it could be done within a week.

Same crashbugs since the beginning, still no pantheon working for 4vs4, still no new maps, still no new demigods, still not a lot of balance fixes, no new favor items since the beginning (got stuck with my 10K favor points), skirmish not working, ...

Also creating a game like you did was purposed to play 5vs5 (same as dota) and after the release an excuse like "people's internet connections are not fast enough" is a very cheap excuse.

What about all the other game that are played 10vs10 or even more. Yes they have dedicated servers to host the games on. This P2P was the lowest budget solution is my guess?

Some of us don't care about supreme commander or other games, fix Demigod first and give the features you promised from the start.

Section "top clans" on the site is coming soon. Well, that soon in your dictionary isn't really "soon" imo.

I could go on and on and on but imo you're too busy promoting new games instead of fixing Demigod.

Yes flame me, but read my post first and you'll notice lots of stuff is true.

PS : Demigod is an awesome game, I stick to that. But it's already dieing 3 months after launch. Take an example of Blizzard. (Starcraft & Warcraft III)

PPS : lolpatrol at rematch feature, it's almost a joke

regards

an unhappy customer

Quoting cornuu,

reply 30

n/o but you have been talking about "new community features" for a long time, also 1 simple draft of a new demigod "on the horizon" is not really enough imo

I bought this game to have a 5vs5 skirmish without waiting 30 minutes in a lobby before a game can start.

This game had a lot of potential, but not in the way it's treated by the developers now... Everybody can see there is NO focus at all on Demigod. Instead of showing new games, you should fix this game first and then work on your new games. My guess is 1 developer is working on some small fixes after his workhours. Otherwise the patch with new maps and demigods would be ready for a long time already. I know a patch needs to be tested, but with the right focus it could be done within a week.

Same crashbugs since the beginning, still no pantheon working for 4vs4, still no new maps, still no new demigods, still not a lot of balance fixes, no new favor items since the beginning (got stuck with my 10K favor points), skirmish not working, ...

Also creating a game like you did was purposed to play 5vs5 (same as dota) and after the release an excuse like "people's internet connections are not fast enough" is a very cheap excuse.

What about all the other game that are played 10vs10 or even more. Yes they have dedicated servers to host the games on. This P2P was the lowest budget solution is my guess?

Some of us don't care about supreme commander or other games, fix Demigod first and give the features you promised from the start.

Section "top clans" on the site is coming soon. Well, that soon in your dictionary isn't really "soon" imo.

I could go on and on and on but imo you're too busy promoting new games instead of fixing Demigod.

Yes flame me, but read my post first and you'll notice lots of stuff is true.

"frogboy is the best!!!" why? cause he posts a journal from time to time? Makes false promises? We are over 3 months after the launch now. No new content at all since the launch. gj

PS : Demigod is an awesome game, I stick to that. But it's already dieing 3 months after launch. Take an example of Blizzard. (Starcraft & Warcraft III)

PPS : lolpatrol at rematch feature, it's almost a joke

regards

an unhappy customer

i know i have some of the same feelings as you, but do you really need to take a swing at frogboy its really GPG you should be going after not frogboy its not really his job to do all this stuff. But i agree that GPG should be focusing on demigod more than supreme commander 2 because they kinda have to work out the kinks instead of just letting it sit there and hoping stardock will pick up the mess and take the flak for their mistakes

point taken Lavosking, I removed that part about Frogboy. Sorry about it Frogboy, it's wasn't personal meant.

But still, I'm very unhappy the way this game is treated by it's developers

cornuu makes some good points though. I won't flame you.

I for example can't help but wonder why Elemental dev journals are linked here.

Venting your frustration somewhere is fair enough, yet some of the comments are not nessecarely (sp?) so. We can for example not see what financial situation companies are in, therefore we cannot be the judge on what those companies need to do.

If a company has to choose between fixing demigod while going bankrupt or creating new games that will generate mor emoney then every CEO will go for the money option. No one will let the company go bankrupt on a matter of principle. Even if this is not entirely fair to the customer this is still how it works.

Now since we cannot see what is going on behind the screens we should refrain from mentioning arbitrary deadlines like 'it should be done in a week' and so on and so forth. If you have some inside info that you want to share with us then by all means, please share it. If you just want to vent your frustration then you can just say 'I am frustrated by the support for this game' and leave it at that without the unfair comments.

Quoting gkrit,

reply 27

Thats an excellent idea...

Quoting cornuu,

reply 30

words

I can only assume you don't really understand the situation, or how games as a whole function. Please do some research before you post this bitching session in an informative post.
Hell, make your own thread with a badly spelt Title, seems to be the trend these days.

bwahahahah.... zehdon. "Words"

That said, I haven't played with an Aussie in weeks... JOIN UP! You and your specical #au channel... meh.

I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of playing with you, Zehdon. I've played with stacked without Lag, so hopefully you as well. I don't give a rip about pings in the 320s, so we should be fine. I'll be playing quite a bit this weekend so look me up! I'll try my best to chat you up as well.

Oh, I'm gonna get getting chatted up by Pacov...

I'll see if I can find you mate, the time difference might throw us out a little.

nah - we'll be good. I'll add you as a friend as well and we'll hopefully play... end of threadjacking...

With everyone else on the rematch feature here. No one will ever use the feature as described here.

It just seems like everything goes wrong for this game, and at a point it gets a little bit annoying. I went on a vacation and to visit some relatives for close to two months, and I came back expecting at least two new demigods and some new maps, but it seems the product I bought is just now being polished to release-worthy quality. I defended this game for a long time but the demigods should have been released a long time ago. Where are the modding tools? Thats how DoTA is able to survive for so long. Just allow modders to make maps at the very least, and GPG would only have to make new Demigods.

Quoting Mike850,

reply 41

I defended this game for a long time but the demigods should have been released a long time ago. Where are the modding tools? Thats how DoTA is able to survive for so long. Just allow modders to make maps at the very least, and GPG would only have to make new Demigods.

The game is four months old. How long is a 'long time ago' in your world?
Side note: DotA is a free mod for one the most successful and popular RTS games in human history. That might have something to do with it's success too.

Gonna have to jump in and agree with everyone else about the rematch thing.

Thinking about it, though, I think having rematches work the way Frogboy said could be okay...if the default behavior was simply for all players to be sent back to the pre-game lobby after a game ends. That's how a lot of games with lobbies work, and it kinda keeps everything flowing, y'know?

Really, this seems like a no-brainer. Come on, GPG.

Quoting ZehDon,

reply 42

Quoting Mike850, reply 41I defended this game for a long time but the demigods should have been released a long time ago. Where are the modding tools? Thats how DoTA is able to survive for so long. Just allow modders to make maps at the very least, and GPG would only have to make new Demigods.
The game is four months old. How long is a 'long time ago' in your world?
Side note: DotA is a free mod for one the most successful and popular RTS games in human history. That might have something to do with it's success too.

having the same crashbugs for 4 months is kinda long, having to wait 4 months for the pantheon and the skirmish mode working is indeed a very long time

those modes (skirmish & pantheon) are original game features and even that is not working

not being able to play 5vs5 is even worse for me

and i'm not a noob fyi -> my demigod profle

this game is awesome, i hope it will survive for some time, which won't happen with the current support

cheers

Heh, I hope they show me fences pro at pax

Interesting Rematch Feature I hope we get to see the other new DG very soon

Without some major fixes to what is already broken (imbalance, server lag, server instability, etc), this will very clearly be the last time I spend money with either company. Its sad to see you talking about "future" enhancements (which by the looks of things could still easily be a year out) when there are enough things IN the game right now that need fixing to keep the GPG guys busy for 2 - 3 months.

Someone noted that you should take a hint from Blizzard, and I couldn't agree more. What made Warcraft 3 so replayable, and still so amazingly good this far out, is that it was well balanced, stable, and easily modded. Those are the 3 things that Blizzard ALWAYS does really well, and those are also 3 things that Demigod completely missed the boat on.

Someone mentioned SupCom 2???

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Going West