Frogboy

I wouldn't bother fixing the current game.

Demigod 2 would be the way to go imo.  a LOT of overhauling, and to emphasize that it's not just Demigod v1.5 with little fixed.. should draw more people in (with the hopes that there have been major changes).

Sometimes tough love is better than sugarcoating so here it goes:

1st:  the networking is still horrid even after the fixes a while ago.  Those made it technically playable, but at least some lag still occurs in ~95% of the games I play.  I don't know a whole lot about networking, but.. HoN / LoL / SC2 all seem to have that issue covered well last I heard.  Might be a good idea to start off w/ separate regions to minimize lag (better to prevent friends from across the world playing together than to make the game laggy for everyone).

2nd:  Just as important imo - Get a solid ladder system.  The current system was broken from the start, never got fixed, and wasn't even set up to be very good :/  I don't mean to be rude here... it's just completely awful.  For reference in creating a new ladder system:  Blizzard has made AMAZING ladders for both WoW and SC2.  Using something similar to how they do rankings for matchmaking would be great.

3rd:  MATCHMAKING.  And not just "light vs dark" "generals vs assassins" pantheon style.  Set up a comprehensive style that allows options you can check on / off (i.e. no doubles as default, option to remove a map or two from the pool SC2 style, other options that I can't think of atm).  Needs to match ppl based on skill level (requires decent ladder system), and provide options for teams to join together.

4th:  Larger playable map pool.  Cataract was very well designed, but it's not enough.  I realize that this issue can be solved with more revenue from sales / large player base.

5th:  More fixes.  Also more likely to happen with higher revenue from sales / larger player base.  But.. patches / hotfixes neeed to come out more often in the next game.  There will be bugs / balancing issues, and they need to be addressed as soon as possible, not 1 yr+ later.  I know there were a few for Demigod, but really not enough in a decent time frame.  If that means a longer beta period or more employees in the beginning, it's well worth it.

6th:  Absolutely cannot botch release.  Imperative that you don't simply rush to put it out to meet a deadline and then have the game fall to pieces.  If that means delaying your estimated release by a couple months, half a year, a year, so be it.  I recognize the deadlines haven't always been set by Stardock in the past, and it has been used as an excuse for a poor release iirc.  It's a bad excuse, and you need to acquire people who can allow you to release the game when it's ready, not when creditors tell you to release it.

I love the game play when we actually have a decent game going.  The look / feel / flow of the game are all great from my p.o.v.  Getting a decent game going is the hard part.  You have a fantastic concept on your hands, but it needs the support of the above.

edit - just to highlight the most important point, that I think everyone will echo:

FIX CONNECTIVITY ISSUES - people often can't connect to each other or get disconnected during game for whatever reason.  And the majority of all games are laggy.

That change in any update/expansion/sequel is pretty much the most important thing. 

For Demigod as it stands today, I would do the following:

1. Implement all of the fixes in the uberfix community package
2. Implement all of the coding changes for the AI found in the enhanced ai package
3. Implement all of the UI mods developed by the community
4. Add some additional items that would provide some more variety among item choices
5. Add some of the items/favor items already created in FavorMod
6. Change the dodge system so that all abilities can be dodged (otherwise the dodge mechanic is pointless).  This is fairly trivial to accomplish as well. 

That's for starters, and shouldn't be too laborious to implement. 

If Demigod was a "perfect" game, we'd be able to play most games without lag.  As it stands, 90% of the games I play have some element of lag.  We really need some sort of solution to this, but I have no idea how to accomplish that. Connectivity issues are easily the LARGEST issue with Demigod and I'm reasonably confident that it led to the decline of our game population. 

Cheaters, instead of being banned one by one, should actually not have the ability to cheat in game.  Exploits should be fixed.

I don't think there is a huge point in creating an expansion to demigod UNLESS we can see some improvement in connectivity.  If you could accomplish that, make the expansion.  I will buy it.  If you did an expansion, you could develop some additional game modes (enfo's mod, for instance, where all of the dgs fight waves of a creeps could be quite a bit of fun), add/rebalance some maps, add new flag types (like an evasion bonus flag, crit hit bonus, a flag that caused powerful units to spawn from the portals perhaps, etc), add 2-4 new demigods, remove useless skill trees and replace them with useful ones.  Increase the level cap perhaps and add a new skill tree per dg.

For Demigod 2:

If I was making Demigod 2, I'd consider the free to play model.  That would keep the community levels high and give you the opportunity for additional revenue through microtransactions.  I have no objections to the standard model, but if it was free to play, we'd see a substantial amount of support and patches, etc, as long as its profitable. 

Come up with a connectivity system that works.  Whatever system is required that could provide lag free gaming - even if that meant that we were restricted to region - would be ideal.  I assume any major change to connectivity will be outside of the scope of an expansion, so likely that would be the starting place.  Build it with multiplayer gaming in mind.  Assume that clans will be formed and that folks will like to play with each other.  Develop the multiplayer system so that folks can be "preferred" etc.  Build the system so that it is possible to reconnect to the game.  Only use granny 3d if it goes free to play and you'll be developing maps as time goes by.  Demigod is way too pretty for its own good.  The ability to make custom maps would have been a huge boost for Demigod. Anyway, building the game for the competitive crowd (good stat system with good match making based on rank) would be awesome.  With good matchmaking, the casual guys would generally end up paired with other casual folks and the hardcore folks would be paired against stronger opponents. 

Just a few thoughts.

Yeah - if connectivity is nailed in any model, I can't see sales being all that bad on a demigod 2.  Even if they just adopted a model like LoL where characters are rotated in or out... and then you can buy X dg if you want.  There's sooo many ways to come up with good sales in f2p. 

Anyway, we'll see what Brad might have up his sleeve at some point here. 

You guys had a potential gold mine on your hands, but any opportunity to make Demigod the huge success it should have been is long gone.  I would focus on just making a Demigod 2.

Anyway, should Demigod 2 ever happen, here are my suggestions:

-Make It Moddable.  For a genre born of a Warcraft 3 mod, its ironic and frustrating that it would take someone $15K? to buy a copy of Granny 3D and make models and new maps for the game themselves.

-Make Getting A Mod Or Using A Mod Easy.  Try and join a game... "You don't have the Host's mod.  Fuck off."  This is bad.  Try and join a game. "You don't have the Host's mod.  Would you like to download it?"  This is good!

-Improved Lobby Options.  Host should be able to move players onto different teams, make double demigod selection impossible to do, kick a trouble maker without having them jump back in the game a few seconds later, etc.

-Simple Solution To Stupid AI.  Make it an option to take control of an AI Demigod after another player drops and then you can switch back and forth between the two Demigods.  While the computer is controlling a Demigod, it just fights the best it can.  A player must take control to purchase upgrades, items, or skills to keep foolishness from happening.  You could do this to make larger games possible with less actual players.  4v4 with only 3 actual players on each team would help with lag issues.

-Demigod Specific Items.  Balancing items used by 8+ Demigods is hard so why not just let only some Demigods purchase certain items?

And one thing that might be going too far...

Add More Demigod Sub-Groups and Make Better Defined Roles.  For example, say you added Guardians and Champions.   The Rook would be an example of a Guardian... builds defenses, slow, good at holding territory or defending a portal... but vulnerable before he gets situated.  Champions would be the tanks that help augment your army and take on your opponents troops, but wouldn't be much good at dealing with static defenses.  Assassins wouldn't be able to take on a Champion on in a fair fight but would have stealth, maneuverability, snares, and escape options to better take down a General or Guardian.

Everyone should have some freedom to adjust to whatever your facing, but shouldn't go outside of the intended roles.  A General shouldn't ever be able to completely forsake minions and make themselves into the best 1v1 fighter in the game is what I'm saying... but he could put all his points into a uber-minion if the enemy had a lot of AOE for instance.

I know, I know... I should just go make my own game.  My point is I'd love to see a little TF2 put into Demigod 2 if it was made.

Couple more comments on new posts:

Excellent call about the mods.  Acquiring / installing a mod is a pain.  So many games have that feature already to auto download w/e you're missing (mods, maps, music, w/e)

Modding tools, especially map making: Excellent idea.  Agreed on $15k for new map ludicrous.

Excellent AI suggestion as well by Thundercles.  Some option to tab to the AI and control them.  Something to look in to at least, but not realllly necessary if networking issues are fixed.  Still, would be cool.

As for the novelty, meant to address that myself.  A working achievement system really helps.  Progressive achievements are nice as well, not just "kill 100,000 demigods with hammerslam."  Little progress marks that are achievable, and provide little perks (maybe XX hammerslam kills = Slightly different hammer graphic.  50 multiplayer wins = Regulus avatar).  Something people keep working on just to get them, and show off to friends.  Some people think it's stupid, other people really get into that stuff and just have to complete them.  The ppl who think it's stupid don't matter, they aren't going to leave over it.. the ppl who get into it are good for business

All I can say is YES!!!!

I thought you let this game die long ago and it was such a shame.  As much as Elemental should have been more fun and let down a lot of people (short term - we trust you), Demigod was just PURE fun and didnt seem to have the long term dedication and community.....no new maps, nothing to "freshen" it and bring people back online........

Please please, just revitalize this game, next to SOASE, its the best you've done and both are far and away more fun than 99% of games (I am not forgetting GalCiv but that is a different kind of endurance fun).

They developed a nice system for elemental that would likely lay the framework for them to implement something like this if they chose.

Yeah fair enough. I just see the fact that this thread was posted at all means there "might" be a slim chance that a few really effective changes could be made to the game before it  totally dies out.

I mean its great to talk about an expansion or sequel or any number of pipe dreams but don't you think it would be great to focus and implement things (like getting networking issues resolved) to let the current game reach a fraction of its original potential? This would ultimately be necessary for an expansion anyway as I doubt anyone would buy an expansion with more dg's, maps etc with the current bugs in the game.

If we had to do the networking over again we would probably use the full Impulse::Reactor setup like we did with Elemental.  With Demigod, we licensed a NAT facilitator which was eventually modded to what we have today.

In that system, what happens is that when a person "hosts" the game, a nearby CDN spawns a virtual machine running a server that everyone connects to. Hence, no NAT, no lag, no connectivity. You're never interacting with other players directly and if someone is running slow, too bad for them, doesn't affect others.

But is that something that's really feasible with Demigod as it is or an expansion?  Or is that something that we could only potentially see in Demigod 2?  I'm pretty sure anyone on the forums that loves DG is quite interested in this question and I have absolutely no idea how much work would be involved in changing over to something like impulse::reactor.  I'm guessing its a handful, though. 

That said... fixed connectivity in the existing demigod and relaunched as a STAND ALONE expansion with a few more dgs/game modes/maps, would get you reviewed again.  And I still maintain that Demigod could have been a AAA game with connectivity issues resolved.  Anyway, I'd wager that would be far cheaper than starting development on demigod 2, but heck if I know. 

I believe there is one of two things that can be done:

1. MAKE DEMIGOD FREE, ADVERTISE THAT IT IS FREE

The logic behind this move is to approach DG like League of Legends. The game is free but content can be offered for a fee to people that want a more robust experience. For this approach to work I would suggest a patch be realesed at the same time that DG is made free, it can be part of the advertising campaign to get players interested. The patch would include:

1. Fixes for all problems related with achievements not being tracked
2. Fixed host exploit, if a host leaves the game without waiting for his team to concede he recieves a loss 100% all of the time
3. New ladder system (one that accurately reflects skill, not cheating)
4. Stat reset
5. Connectivity between players is a huge issue, this game cannot be competitive in a laggy environment. A long lasting community equals a competitive community. I want to play with renz and orcun without having to worry about lag.
6. All uberfix mod changes need to be in this game, it is the way the code is supposed to look.
7. Improved pathing around corners, many a fine kill opprotunity has been lost to the damn corners!
8. Buff to Regulus and DA ( I wont get into this because this will just start a giant arguement that will get no where)

This patch would be enourmous but it is necessary to make us old folks happy and to get newcommers interested in the game. A patch like this would get rid of many of the issues that deter people from playing the game.

After a new happy player base is built add content to the game at first make it simple. For example take some of the items that have been put together in Favor Mod and release it in a small update. These items would need to be tested extensively before release to make sure balance is not upset. If these updates are well recieved think about releasing purchasable content, A new tab in the favor items completely full of new stuff, make it cost a couple bucks. If this is purchased like mad you will have some money to play with. Perhaps it time to start making DG's. Release them in pairs at a cost of 10-15 bucks a pair. Host tourney's that offer credit for future use on purchasable content.

If there is a significant enough player base to merit an expansion I believe it should be done here.

2. ABANDON DG IN HOPES OF A DOING BETTER IN DG 2

Learn from the mistakes made in DG. A better launch, more support, improved ladder rankings, achievement tracking, clan support, more 3v3 and 2v2 maps, better connectivity between players in other countries, I feel DG needs a beastly internet to not lag (lower this requirement), etc....................

After you have clearly thought over all of the bad things that happened in DG look at the good things and save them for DG 2. Once you have compiled a list of the good stuff look for ways to enhance it. More item selection, more consumable selection, better single player, more favor items, more purchasable minions, different flag types, explore dodge caps, speed caps, aa caps, maybe something that increases spell damage that could be purchasable. There are many way to make DG fresh.

I believe Demigod should be some where in the title of the next game but try to avoid simply calling it Demigod 2. Demigod: THE ASCENSION would be pretty bad ass. The deal is you kind of want to avoid 100% affiliation with demigod because of its issues. I don't know how many people would want to give it a chance after being disappointed the first time.

On a personal note If DG recieves a sequal I would love to see the original cast return with some new friends. I don't know what DG would be like without Rook and Torchbearer running around. Oh and hire exxcentric he has phenominal ideas for dg.

can I be on the "build a better DG" committee?????