I wanted Demigod to be great...

I've always been a competitive gamer. Ever since playing Starcraft in middle school, I've always enjoyed competitive edge-of-your seat gaming in almost any genre. Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Halo, WoW Arenas, I played and enjoyed the heck out of all of these. I dabbled in DotA a bit, but was never way into it. I started getting a little more into it last winter, and that's when I started noticing all of these spinoff games coming out. Demigod caught my eye, and I had a real, sincere interest in playing this game. All of the videos and screenshots I saw looked fantastic. Release day came closer and closer, and I was excited!!!

Then it came, release day. I bought a copy after work, ran home, and installed it. I tried to play online but quickly realized the catastrophe that was the online play at that point... but it was fine, I looked past it. Over the next few weeks issues started to get ironed out. Online play slowly got better, bugs slowly started to get worked out, and there were a few tweaks here and there. I had a lot of fun with the game, but there were always glaring flaws. "They'll fix these soon enough" I told myself... but the updates started coming slower and slower. Eventually, the devs started talking about things like mods, replays, and new demigods. "That's all fine and dandy" I thought to myself, but the game still has glaring flaws! Matchmaking is horrible, the playerbase is shrinking, and the basic mechanics of the game feel buggy (Demigod movement, balance, desyncs, etc).

Eventually, I got bored. This shouldn't be surprising, I get bored with many of the games I play. I had come to the realization that Demigod wasn't going to be another game I play for years. It wasn't going to be a Starcraft, it wasn't going to be a Halo, it wasn't going to be a WoW. Demigod is going to be like any of those countless games I played briefly, but never really went anywhere. Demigod is going to be a Warhammer Online, or a Shadowbane, or a Hellgate: London. So, I quit, that was a couple of months ago.

I've hopped on to play a game here and there since. Sometimes I have fun, sometimes I don't, but never did I feel like "Oh my gosh I can't believe I ever quit playing this". More often it was a though like "Oh... now I remember why I quit playing this..." It's okay, I guess I had my fun and got my $40 worth, as much as any other game I buy and play for a little while and get sick of. Still, it's a shame, this game could have been great... but instead it's just another mediocre game.

demigod

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Why did you even post this?

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hmm, i think its getting better and better The last patch did allot of good for me, and i crashed allot less often.

YES there still are allot of anyoing things:

-Time outs to host in lobby

-Games nog showing up in general lobby while your in there waiting for people to come in.

-Pathing, in special priest, they are retarded, they always get stuck on the citadel and evertying.

-This new error, critial game crash or summin, happend 3 times now in i think 50 games orso and registers as a loss even when i was on the winning team.

But in general, its getting better, and i really really fell for the game beceaus i thinkg they got one thing right,

Balance

And that, imo, is rare. There is not one DG i can name that has a clear advantage over the rest. Yes there are 1 v 1 unbalances but that beceaus there are different roles.

If they fix these things, i think demi can become a classic game with a long future, since the basics, again imo, are good.

my 2 gold

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Before you get blasted, I have to say that I agree with you.

I play now and again, sometimes I have some great games and most times, it is just a frustrating experience.

The game is a fun casual game, however, I don't think it will become a huge competitive game, nor see a large community.

I am still impressed with Stardock though They have stuck through this and for pretty much their first big hyped release (Galciv and SINS I consider too niche to be mainstream) have coped well with the pressure. I look forward to when they finally strike gold and hopefully get up there with Valve and Blizzard.

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plz tell us something new

and Warcraft 3 wasnt the great perfect balanced MP-expirience before TFT arrived and some patches fixed the rest....same with StarCraft.

so give DG some months more... the release was a catastrophe, but with 1.2 and the new DGs I see light at the horizon !!

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Why did you even post this?

The guy can post it if he wants. If anything it offers feedback to Stardock on how their customers feel. Sure it is not saying how wonderful the game is, but if he feels he wants to tell the company that, then that is fair enough.

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Well the game wouldn´t be bad if not for three things:

1. Peer to peer instead of dedicated servers. Lag is so yesteryear i don´t understand how a company in 2009 thinks it can get away with this laggy mess of p2p netcode for a multiplayer only game.

2. Price. Lets be honest, a few maps and 8 demigods aren´t worth 40 bucks. This game should have been a 20$ title. I mean no single player, crappy netcode and small maps in multiplayer (in comparison to an FPS), the developement period surley wasn´t as long and costly as with a triple A title like Call of Duty so why is this not a budget game?

3. Not available on steam. Lets face it if in todays market you´re not on steam then nobody that buys digitally even knows your game exists. Its THE service if you want to reach your customers, they wont install a second wonky service just for one game even if they knew about the game they just do without it just to not have to mess with multiple download services, at least thats what i do. Not on steam? No money from me honey.

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Quoting Jaml1234,

reply 6

1. Peer to peer instead of dedicated servers. Lag is so yesteryear i don´t understand how a company in 2009 thinks it can get away with this laggy mess of p2p netcode for a multiplayer only game.

DoW2 is p2p. Supcom is p2p. CoH is p2p. RA3 is p2p.

I'm not sure when people started expecing that all games have dedicated servers. Hey, I'm not saying it wouldn't be awesome, because it would - but who is going to pay for the servers, and since when did dedicated servers for rtses become yesteryear?

Also, bigger maps does not equal better maps. Cataract is one of the smallest maps in the game, and is one of the most popular.

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Quoting Polynomial,

reply 1

Why did you even post this?

I posted this because I spent $40 on the game, and I feel like I have the right to express my opinion as a customer on how I felt about the product I purchased. I also feel like if someone is visiting the site interested in the game, they might like to see a viewpoint of someone who has been playing from release. I'm not trying to do harm to GPG or Stardock, I'm sure both of them want this game to be as successful and fun to play as possible. I'm just giving my honest opinion, no more, no less.

There was an alternate inspiration for this post though, one that I didn't want to include in my original topic, but I guess I'll bring up now just to give a little more perspective on all of this.

About a week ago I got into the League of Legends beta. Now, I don't want this to turn into a "OMG LoL is so much better than DG" thread or anything like that. This thread wasn't started with the intension of promoting any other game, just simply giving my impression of this one. I will say this much though:

Even in its beta state. Even with missing functionality. Even with a limited playerbase, many of whom are good enough to kick my butt up and down the field... I can already tell that this is a game I WILL be playing for years. It won't be for everyone, and even many Demigod players I'm sure won't enjoy it. Still, to me it has that intense, edge-of-your-seat, addictive, competitive gameplay that hooks you in and makes you want to play for hours and hours on end without even realizing how much time has gone by. It's a feeling I always wanted to get from Demigod, but never did.

There are a lot of replies so far basically giving this response:

"Well... you're right... but I think it's going to get better!" Honestly, I really hope it does. I have a lot of respect for Stardock, and think that Frogboy has done a phenomenal job communicating with the customers and being honest and straightforward. I don't think that any of the problems plagueing Demigod were intentional, and I'm sure they want this game to be great just as much as I do.

I guess I just made this thread because I was tired of waiting for this game to turn into something great. Instead I found something else that already is. Hopefully Stardock and GPG can take this feedback, as well as tons of other feedback on these forums (many of which I'm sure conflicts with mine), and learn from it to help improve Demigod and other games they may design in the future.

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i like soda

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They're both good games. They can co-exist with one another. I want to know why you feel the need to bash Demigod and imply the other game is strictly better.

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I get frustrated also. What I have done that has really increased the enjoyment for me of this game is to keep a laptop nearby and check the stats of the players in your lobby. That way you can make sure that everyone is around your skill level. Nothing beats a great game that goes back and forth when everyone is of the same skill level. As Twinsen posted in my frustrated thread, hopefully v1.2 will improve upon the matchmaking, which IMO is the greatest factor in this not being enjoyable.

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Great post OP. I feel 100% exactly like the OP. I wanted a competitive game that I can be playing for months to years. I'll still be around here and there to try out the new demigods, new maps, etc. I had fun in this game and it was worth the $45 dollars, cost me $5 extra for preordering. Like he mentioned it will be a game I'll remember playing for a few months.

The OP never bashed demigod. He was just praising the other beta dota clone games. I'm in the beta for the other games as well and then I realize how much better a dedicated server is.

I just started playing Demigod again this week and when it took 5+ minutes to create a 4v4 custom game, I remember why I quit.

As for some positive feedback, I hope Stardock lowers the price of this game soon to help grow the community. Visiting the stats page, I see that the number of players online have not shrunk or grown in July. Not sure if it is a good or bad thing.

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I agree with the OP.

But I'll be happy if the Goddamn pathfinding is fixed, that should be a priority.

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Quoting Polynomial,

reply 10

Okay. So go play the game you like more. Its that simple. I don't get the psychology that only one thing can be good. Only LoL can be good. Oh only HoN can be good. This is just kind of pathetic. There seems to be some pathetic level of insecurity that you cannot sit still with your own choice so you go bang on the other one.

They're both good games. They can co-exist with one another. I want to know why you feel the need to bash Demigod and imply the other game is strictly better.

I never said only one game can be good. I didn't mention any other games in my original post, specifically because I didn't want this to come across as a thread saying one game was better than another. Hell, I never even said Demigod was a bad game. I just said it wasn't great. If you disagree, you're more than welcome to come in this thread and tell me why. This post was made with the intent of being constructive, but apparently this somehow makes me "pathetic"? I'm entitled to my opinion, and you're entitled to yours. I never insulted you personally, please give me the same respect.

Thanks to everyone who posted constructively in this thread without insulting or trash-talking. I realize there are a lot of varying opinions out there about this game and they're all valid. I was simply trying to give mine and provoke some good discussion about it, which I think so far has mostly been the case.

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Polynomial: I don't get why u seem to be taking the OP's opinion so personally. Especially your last reply... he wasn't saying or even implying that only 1 game can be good. I've only had DG for between a month or 2 now, but I must say I agree in general with the OP, but solely for one reason:

DG's multiplayer matchmaking & connectivity is pretty sub-par & unbearable pretty consistently. I believe all the other issues the OP states stem from this one negative aspect. Better connectivity & matchmaking would decrease player frustration, increase games played, increase word of mouth, increase player base, increase community feedback, increase potential support from GPG/Stardock, etc...

I love DG, but coming off games like Guild Wars or Left 4 Dead (admittedly different types of games, & admittedly I never got into other online RTS games), it's a bit disappointing to wait upwards of 5 minutes to finally get into a match & discover it's 60%-70% AI due to lack of players; whereas I can hop right into GW & play a low-tier PvP match in less than 1 minute. In other words: when I 'play' DG, 60% of that time is simply trying to get a satisfying, all-human, lag-free, no-crashing game going, while GW or L4D is about 90% playtime at least.

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Quoting insidious420,

reply 15

DG's multiplayer matchmaking & connectivity is pretty sub-par & unbearable pretty consistently. I believe all the other issues the OP states stem from this one negative aspect.

I agree with this, but I don't think it's one specific problem with connectivity and matchmaking that causes this. The system just feels like it wasn't fleshed out as a whole.

Here's some major things I think the game is missing in this category:

Fast, easy to access matchmaking. Click a button, join a game with equal teams with a good gametype on an appropriate map.
Skill-matching. When using matchmaking, you should get paired up against players of similar skill level, and definitely not premades.
Stable connectivitiy. This encompasses desyncs, disconnects, and things of that sort.
Lag that punishes only the lagger. Right now if one person is lagging in a game it will often ruin it for everyone. This is probably one of the biggest nuissances in this game.

Once again, I want to reiterate that this is NOT a bad game. It just has a few glaring flaws which, in my opinion, either should have been worked out before release or definitely should have been tackled by now.

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I feel the same way... which is probably why I haven't played in several months.

Also attributing to that is I've been in the LoL and HoN betas for the last two months. For me, those games are a lot more in line with what I want. More competitive, more strategy, more heroes, more micro intensive, etc etc.

Demigod is a great game for some people, but it can't please everyone. Unfortunately, it would seem that I belong to the later group.

I still drop by the forums from time to time to see if anything new is happening... patches, content, and so fourth. My observation is that the forums have somewhat atrophied in that the same stuff is constantly getting posted without anything new. There's the praise threads, the complaint threads, the "how-to-fix-broken-stuff" threads, etc. None of them really contain any new ideas or subjects at this point. It's kind of sad really.

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Istari

Join Date 05/2001

+20

No game is all things to all people.

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to the OP, i feel the exact same as you do. the only difference is i have more patience

i am still waiting for more from this game.

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Though I disagree with your opinions, I respect and understand them.

In my opinion, even right now the game is pretty competitive, if stardock will make a cash rewarding tournament I bet we will se alot of good teams giving a good fight for the win, and you will see that this game can be very competitive.

about the problems this forum mentioned, you must understand there is a limit to how much stardock and gpg can do. If this game would have been relesed by valve or blizzard offcours there would be a budget to all of those fixes you want but that is not the situation.

In its core gameplay I think demigod is one of the best game I played in a few years, but lack of budget capt it from growing to a starcraft size game that we all want.

and even with all of those limitation, all of the problems you mentiond can be fixed, if the community will stay active and keep buzzing the game time will come and demigod multyplayer will be slick as all great multyplayer games.

So to end this note, I want to ask you to hold your leaving from the game until atleast 1.2 where we will have 10 demigods, modding that will add maps and all the good stuf and I hope a place for all competitive player to show their skills, and prove you this game can be a great competitive game.

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