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Tried writing it, but had to go off for a long time because of necessity. I had spent an hour writing....and someone turned the computer off, inadverdently destroying my work. I should have posted the early stuff....well I'll try again later, don't have the time at the moment. Sorry all.

Demigods FAQ

v.01

General Section

1. What is Demigods?
   • Demigods is a game developed primarily by Gas Powered Games. The netcode was written by Stardock. Distribution in North America is covered by Stardock. Distribution in the rest of the world is covered by Atari.
2. What is gameplay like?
   • Game play is similar to Defense of the Ancients a popular mod of Warcraft 3. Players are divided into two teams that fight for map dominance.  In the game, players take on the role of powerful hero units, called Demigods. Victory conditions include killing enemy demigods, destruction of the enemy base, and map control. The players are assisted by AI controlled lesser units spawned from portals. Control of portals is vital for winning. 
3. Why were there such terrible reviews on release.
   • Demigods was plagued by three major problems on release.
     1. Gamespot released the game before the official release date. The game servers were not yet online and this cause many people to be unable to play. Stardock employees came back in over the Easter holiday to get the servers up and running.
     2. Demigods were heavily pirated. There were many more (by an order of magnitude) more pirated versions than official versions trying to access the servers. The servers estimated required capacity wasn't nearly enough to handle the load it took.
     3. The netcode used in the 1.0 release of Demigods just didn't work. Stardock rewrote their own netcode after the fully functional licensed netcode failed to work for Demigods.
   • See: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/352561 for more details.
4. Who is Frogboy?
   • Frogboy is Brad Wardell, owner, operator, CEO, and big cheese at Stardock.
5. Who is Draginol?
   • See Question #4.
6. How many people are playing Demigods?
   • A decent number
   • To check current game status: http://www.demigodthegame.com/opengames.asp
   • To check population statistics: http://dgstats.insidesupcom.de/
7. Why are the numbers for people online with Demigods listed as being so high?
   • The numbers include people logged into Demigods directly through Demigods as well as those running Impulse with Demigods on their accounts.
8. What are common terms, acronyms, and abbreviations used in Demigods

BoF: Blood of the Fallen, favor item
BoS: Blade of Serpent, Assassin favor item
Ent: Shamblers, Queen of Thorns Minion
QoT: Queen of Thorns, Demigod
P2P: Peer to Peer, the type of connection Demigods uses between players
UB: Unclean Beast, Demigod
Vamps: Night Stalkers, Lord Erebus Minion

Network Issues

1. Why does Demigods use Peer to Peer instead of server based play?
   • Demigods is based on the engine used by Supreme Commander, an RTS. Traditionally, RTS's have utilized peer to peer connections instead of server based play. Peer to peer is not inferior or superior than server based, both have strengths and weaknesses. One advantage of peer to peer networking is that cheating is very, very difficult. One disadvantage is that it is more susceptible to game desyncs.
2. Why do I lag to some players and not others?
   • Demigods is uses Peer to Peer networking. This means that your computer is connected directly to the computers of the other players. Network latency, or lag, is a direct result of the quality of the network connecting your computers and the distance involved. The closer your computers are to each other, generally the less lag you will experience.
3. Why do my commands take so long to happen?
   • Demigods uses peer to peer networking. Each computer simulates the events that occur and the results of these simulations are compared between computers. To accommodate lag, every command you issue takes 200 ms to resolve. (This might be 250 ms). Additionally, your computers computational power (processor, RAM, video card, and other hardware) will effect your simulation rate. This manifests as your Sim Speed.
4. What is sim speed?
   • This is the speed at which your computer is able to run the simulation (see previous entry). As long as your sim speed at least 1, you can play the game without slowdowns.
   • Please consult the following thread for more details: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/348247
5. What are game desyncs?
   • Game desyncs occur when the simulation data sent from one player fails to match up (after several tries) with the data sent by another player. When this occurs the game has reached a state where is cannot decide which state is the correct state. This results in the game terminating.
6. Why does the game desync so often?
   • Game desyncs are primarily caused by players attempting to disrupt the game. If your Demigod files change while playing, your version of Demigods will then conflict with the other players, causing a desync. This prevents cheating, but also always players to crash the game at will.
7.  Why do players cause desyncs?
   • There are two main causes for players desyncing. 
   • The first is that players want to obtain an high ranking on the Demigods ladder. Games that are desynced do not count towards your stats and therefore do not affect ranking. Dishonest players that want to achieve high rankings will desync when they are losing.
   • The second is that players want to grief others. Griefing is a term created on the internet that describes a behavior performed to cause distress to others. Some players consider Griefing to be a primary goal while playing any game. Griefers are typically found in populations where players can remain anonymous and hide their behaviors amidst other players. Griefers are characterized by emotional swings and bursts of anger where they take out their anger on others.
8. How can I play games where desyncing is less frequent?
   1. Desyncs are unpleasant for two reasons. The first is that they end a game prematurely. The second is that they affect your Demigod ranking.
   2. The solution to the second is easy. Demigods is just a game. Ranking in playing this game isn't important, especially with the flaws in the current ladder.
   3. Another solution is to find or join an active Demigod Community. In such communities players are no longer anonymous and bad behavior in a game is punished by players avoiding those who demonstrate such behavior. Please consult the Demigods Community for details on such groups. 

Game Play

1. What the the power ranks for the Demigods?
   Tier 1: The Best
       Lord Erebus
       Unclean Beast
       Oak
   
   Tier 2: The Average
       Sedna
       Occulus
   
   Tier 3: The Bad
       Queen of Thorns
       Rook
       Regulus
       Torch Bearer
       Demon Assassin
2. Why are your power ranks so wrong?
   • Each of the Demigods is useful in different situations. The above list was created in mind with novice skill levels on Cataract in a 3v3. The ability of a demigod to contribute in the hands of a novice player was weighted more than its potential in the hands of a skilled player. If you have sufficient knowledge to demonstrate why a Demigod should be at a higher tier, you should also be able to validate why I placed it where I did.
   • 
     Short descriptions of Each of the demigods.
     Example:
     Unclean Beast. A melee master. High damage, good speed, great skills the Unclean Beast is a monster. Stack HP. Oooze, Ooze/Spit hybrid, and Spit builds are
     
     very popular. Only get the first level of his stun skill at level 5.
     
     Builds that do not work in high level games
     Auto-Attack Regulus
     Shambler focused Queen of Thorns
     Dodge and Critical hit Demon Assassin
     
     

Demigods Community Issues

1. Where is a good place to find an active community?
   • The official Stardock Demigods forums contain many active players. You may also find communities that are active on ventrilo.
     • Please consult the following threads for more details:
     • Clan Pacov: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/374774
     • The Gentlemen: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/374855

Why do people 

Favor points?
Offline are separate from online.
Online games are only gotten in games with human players on both sides.

Achievements?
Broken

Pantheon?

How do I deal with Spit?
Run away earlier, teleport back to base, Sedna Heal, Orb of invulnerabilty (get the real name),

What demigods have stuns?

What demigods have slows?

What demigods have good spike damage?

Why are Stuns soo important?

Why do I keep dying?

So, that's another bit. I'm sure someone out there can help out with this. All contributions will be rewarded with free uninteractable internet cookies....

Anyone...?

Pacov has to do it if no on else speaks up. And you saw how he didn't want that to happen. Isn't someone going to save him?