I already posted that as an answer in another topic, which is now locked. So I repost, because I really would like to know the point of view of the community over that question.
My impression is that we insist on bugs, lag, desync, or dg/items balance. But we almost never talk about the multiplayer experience in its wide sense, which in my opinion is the most important thing on such a team-oriented game.
A team game has to provide systems to make people meet, create teams, play competitions, etc. All Demigod is providing at the moment is a minimalist and laggy friendlist, individual stats, and a lobby. Ok, and a pantheon.
Demigod is not a 1 vs 1 game, when people play they are not playing for their own victory but for their team. The performance of a player depends a lot on his teammates. But Demigod's ladder make people play for themselves. Which creates a situation where friends cannot even play together.
But does anyone care ? Those questions about the multiplayer experience should be more discussed than technical issues. It is what makes people stay on a multiplayer game, definitely. Why do I have the feeling that it is not the main concern at all ?
I just read a topic talking about what GPG plans to do : new demigods, new maps, new etc. It is good and I will not blame them for their support, but there is so more crucial to focus on. Team-oriented ingame systems really are the most important sides of a team-based game like Demigod.
Some suggestions about what those ingame systems could be :
- Clan creation system, with clan members grades, custom clan banner, match request from clan to clan, and whatever anyone would imagine.
- Automatic matching system between teams (premades and clans)
- Automatic matching system for players alone
- Automatic tournament system (with rules variations)
- Team stats, or player level, instead of detailed individual stats, because this is not a single player game like Supreme Commander. And by single-player you know what I mean. It has sense on Supreme commander because people were playing 1on1, but on Demigod players are not playing 1on1 (most of the time).
- Calendar where you can find all events like tournaments, patch releases, or whatever useful to the community
- Chat channels where everyone is immediately put after having logged in. It is important to put people together, to make them know they are not alone. Seriously.
- Efficient friendlist with features like "join friend's room", "send offline message", "create group", etc
- Automatic saves of tournament matches replays, available from an in-game replay browser
- Etc.
All those features need to be available in game. A new player do not want to go on the forums, IRC, or any website to enjoy his new multiplayer game. Presently, he just feel alone and get kicked from rooms because of his stats. Demigod should not take example over first person shooters like Counter Strike or Quake, but other pvp games like Guild Wars where everything is done for team-play.
I know Stardock and GPG have other things to do, and that it would not be a quick little work to implement all those systems. Maybe the source code architecture would need too huge changes, maybe not. But let's not forget that this game is still young, and that each improvement can still potentially hook a lot of new players. Every day I see people with 0-10 games being politely asked to leave the room, when they are lucky. They deserve better treatment, and it is not a matter of players mentality, it's a matter of what the game provides to them.
Not with new maps, new demigods, new items, new balance, new blah. With a better multiplayer experience.
Here comes a wall. Let's say I am a new player and I login for the first time in Demigod's multiplayer mode. I am immediately teleported in a large channel where all players logged-in are put on connection. People are chatting about diverse qot builds, but I do not care, I am watching at the Stardock menu. There are a lot of options, but I see a "Immediate automatch" button. I click on it, and get a screen just like when searching a game in pantheon. A game is found, with people of my level, and I play it. I am bad, I play like shit and realize how bad AIs were. I keep playing some automatch, each time staying a few minuts in the chat to see what people are talking about. I noticed some guys are evocating a tournament. I go in the menu and find a "Free tournaments" button, which shows me a list of automatic tournaments scheduled for tonight. I subscribe to one of them, which is 3v3 conquest on Cataract/Prison with default settings. I keep playing that way during the next days, until I start knowing some players. I add them to my friendlist and use to join the rooms they are, sometimes. After having played a lot of premade automatch together, we decide to create a clan, in order to get in the competition ^^. We use to subscribe to clan tournaments where we can face very good clans. Now I stay longer in the chat, I have interesting conversations with people I do not know, and who I play with, sometimes. I have recruited some new guys, and we choosed to use the in-game voice chat in order to communicate more efficiently. I am enjoying good games, tough and balanced. Sometimes it crashes, sometimes there is a desync, sometimes I am upset because an item is op, but I do not care because it is not affecting some personal stats which will make people considering me as a bad player. Because my stats do not matter, I play for my team. Last night there were a great tournament where my team has been crushed by another team. I click on the "Tournaments" button and watch the replay of the final, so I can learn from better players. I quickly check the calendar - next tournament in 2 days ! Until this date, we will keep trying to improve the ladder rank of our clan, by playing ranked clan automatch games.
Well, back to real world, I go play Demigod. I try to convince people I am not a newb in order to be able to play an interesting game, because the joining guys see my low games count and do not want to risk their stats by playing with me. When I get a game, I am in a team with two newbies and nobody in the room want to balance teams. I leave, not because I fear for my stats, but because I do not want to waste 20 minutes of my free time to play a one-sided game. And when finally a host do not kick me without a word, I notice that I am in the good team, facing unexperimented players, and that I am just going to waste 20 minutes of my time in a one-sided game.
I am not writing this to whine/cry/ragequit or whatever. And I do not plan on quitting Demigod, because its gameplay is the best. Do not misunderstand me, I just would like to talk about all that.
Many thanks to Stardock and GPG for all they do on Demigod, especially the modding tools they are developing for the community. But aren't we missing the point ?
