By Jim Rossignol on April 4th, 2009 at 12:02 pm.
The Rook is clearly going to be the first demigod that each of us try in Demigod. It’s a giant brick golem with castles for shoulder-pads. It also has a hammer. Lead designer Mike Marr shows it off in the walkthrough below, and although he cackles at one point, he doesn’t sound excited enough for me. Gas Powered should totally get the Black Prophecy trailer dude in to narrate their videos. THE ROOK IS DESTINED… TO SMASH!
Demigod is out soon, and we’re going to review the crap out of it.
04/04/2009 at 12:22 Heliocentric says:
The governments of ancient times must have been much more relaxed. No way you could get planning permission for something like that now.
04/04/2009 at 12:24 Tei says:
Rook is somewhat of a in soviet russia joke: You built turret on him.
04/04/2009 at 12:32 Sagan says:
The more I see of Demigod, the more I worry about it. They take a lot of their features from the Warcraft III mods that didn’t work.
The reason that DotA is so successful, and that all the other similar mods aren’t, is, that DotA went back towards being mostly a hero arena (team deathmatch), where the RTS parts only provide some context, and a dynamic playing field. DotA is primarily about killing enemy heroes, not about helping your army and destroying the enemy base.
And it seems to me, that the people at Gas Powered Games focus more on the strategy part. They are repeating the mistakes that have been made by a lot of Warcraft III mod developers in the past.
Maybe all those developers just lacked experience, and Gas Powered Games can get it right, but I fail to see the appeal if it’s not mainly about killing heroes.
04/04/2009 at 12:34 Morberis says:
Out of all the videos I’ve seen about Demigod this has been the one that convinced me to get it.
04/04/2009 at 12:58 Tei says:
@Sagan: So you don’t know that heroes can respawn in DG and that killing a hero is just a minor anoyance for the guy killed?
04/04/2009 at 13:01 Howard says:
eh? I just get a white square., no video?
04/04/2009 at 13:22 Howard says:
ooh. works now.
I still don’t get this game. As in I don’t quite get the fuss over it. Isn’t is just A.N.Other RTS with you in control of a central character (like Supreme Commander)? What am I missing?
04/04/2009 at 13:35 El_MUERkO says:
if people are looking for preorders i got it on shopto for 17.99
04/04/2009 at 13:41 Inferno says:
Well I haven’t played it yet but a bunch of my friends have been playing it and thoroughly enjoying the beta so I will probs pick it up on release
04/04/2009 at 13:43 Ceremony says:
@Sagan: I feel that may be due to the people playing in these demonstration videos. If you’ll notice, this last video was a 1v1. I assume the normal set-up for the game will be at least a 4v4 or something. I find that DotA being so focused on hero-killing is actually one of its faults in that it encourages only one type of strategy. That is, the aggressive ganking style of play has proven throughout most versions to be the most successful strategy. Every now and then a team uses a pushing strategy, and it may work, but its easily countered and simply not as effective as a tried-and-true ganking strategy. Hopefully that this game has more of an emphasis on being able to focus your demigod on destroying buildings and reinforcements means that we’ll be able to see more viable pushing strategies, and thus more varied gameplay and choices to make. Just looking at the footage so far, it seems to me that a ganking strategy would work great. You can push and specialize for destroying structures all you want, but if 4 enemy assassin demigods jump you every time you start to push, it won’t do you much good.
04/04/2009 at 13:44 SwiftRanger says:
I am picking this up even if it was only to give GPG a boost for finishing that SupCom patch faster.
04/04/2009 at 13:51 MeestaNob! says:
I’m gonna wait for a demo of this before I get excited.
Many of the DotA players in the beta say its horrible, but that could be fanboyism or overly high expectations. Previews seem to say it’s potential GotY material.
04/04/2009 at 14:49 DMJ says:
A slightly bored, slightly sarcastic narration does not help this video.
04/04/2009 at 14:58 roBurky says:
With the uncontrollable units moving along set paths, and you controlling a single powerful unit that’s moving around trying to clear a path for them, it sounds a lot like Future Cop’s multiplayer game.
Future Cop’s multiplayer was brilliant.
04/04/2009 at 15:10 Dominic White says:
The development of Demigod has been pretty interesting. From the moment they came out of Alpha, it’s been open beta (with user input actually getting paid attention to) for anyone who preordered.
They’ve been really open and honest. None of that keeping stuff under wraps and hush-hush until the 11th hour.
It’s not nearly as hardcore as DOTA. Think of this as the Team Fortress 2 of the subgenre. It’s fast and accessible, and new players can actually be useful. It’s also primarily a team-game. I think some maps go up to 8v8?
04/04/2009 at 15:15 Ubernutz says:
Demigod or beer….Demigod or beer….or maybe I could make myself a Rook costume out of beer cans and go smash a postbox with a sledgehammer.
04/04/2009 at 15:33 Crane says:
DOTA wasn’t so much “hardcore” as “hopelessly poorly balanced”.
Essentially, you had to pick one of a specific set of heroes, and ensure you were able to get a precise set of items, or you’d be utterly unable to compete with the opposing team. It wasn’t helped by the fact that death not only provided XP and Gold for the enemy, but TOOK Gold from you, AND lost you XP during the time you waited to respawn.
04/04/2009 at 15:34 Gap Gen says:
He reminds me of the puppet in Children’s Hour of Knowledge.
04/04/2009 at 15:39 Optimaximal says:
“…these portals are the source of new units that enter the area. These units are called *slight pause* reinforcements!…”
I feel sorry for the guy reading the script.
04/04/2009 at 15:46 underdweller says:
Looks kinda boring and uninspired to me..
04/04/2009 at 15:57 Lorc says:
I was really excited about this when I thought it was going to be the next Sacrifice.
Excitement level dropped when it becamse clear that it was a DOTA-like.
Dropped again when the characterful unit designs were joined by a naked elf babe.
Dropped again again when I saw the rook turning on the spot (why doesn’t anyone give characters, especially large ones, turning animations? It looks ridiculous!).
And yet, I’m still eagerly awaiting the demo. Because everything I liked the look of to start with is still in there. If it can make DOTA more accessible and forgiving then I’ll be all over it. Fingers crossed.
04/04/2009 at 18:12 Scandalon says:
roBurky – Someone else played futurcop!?! I only played it because it had a semi-secret mac version included, at a time when it was one of only a few games that had mac versions and took proper advantage of the 3D cards available. I don’t really recall the multiplayer though…did you have to herd some of the poor (squishy) un-armored humans?
04/04/2009 at 18:34 Rei Onryou says:
I only ever played Future Cop single player at my cousin’s house, but it was pretty cool.
Demigod just went up on my WANT list. The previous video didn’t really sell it to me. This one did. He siphoned life OUT OF A TOWER!!! Oh yes!
04/04/2009 at 18:43 Sajmn says:
I don’t see the fun in spending 30 minutes to conquer 2 screens worth of terrain. Futhermore using just one unit with an autoattack and a pair of special attacks.
I might be horribly mistaken but it looks shallow and repetative. Then again I could never get into DotA either.
04/04/2009 at 18:54 Dogby says:
all hail!
the first of the retail dota clones has arrived!
04/04/2009 at 20:04 A-Scale says:
As someone who was not a big fan of DOTA, I appreciate the creativity here but don’t think I’ll be picking up the game. I’m also underwhelmed by the scope (size disparity b/w demigods and regular units) shows due to the bird’s eye view.
04/04/2009 at 20:07 DK says:
“Dropped again when the characterful unit designs were joined by a naked elf babe.”
Don’t worry:
She’s one of the smallest Demigods, so you won’t see her.
She spends most of her time inside a plant, so you won’t see her.
You won’t have time to oogle during play, so you won’t see her.
04/04/2009 at 22:10 catska says:
I wonder how much more money Stardock will make before everyone realizes that they are just ripping off other developers. Their entire business model is finding niche communities that were built in other GOOD games like Master of Orion and basically copying that formula verbatim to appeal to that community (GalCiv). SoaSe? Homeworld says hi. Also it kicks the shit out of that crappy ripoff.
This game is basically DoTa gameplay with Shadow of the Collosus artstyle. It will be a pathetic display if it sells more than the game coming out created by the actual DoTa creators, league of legends.
That fantasy game they have coming out is just a master of magic clone as well.
04/04/2009 at 22:34 autogunner says:
catska, sins is absolutely nothing like homeworld so im guessing you havent even played it.
04/04/2009 at 22:36 Dogby says:
I finally did get around to watching the video. I like that they’ve probably ignored things the Dota community has made their own custom solutions for… always visible health bars, for one. Also, heroes that can build towers? Wow, there’s like 50 Dota ripoff maps for War3 that want to say hello.
How is Demigod any different than any DOTA clone in War3, other than now it costs money and requires a better PC to run?
04/04/2009 at 22:45 Mo says:
and the art-style doesn’t look like shadow, apart from that one demigod. I’m guessing you haven’t played that either.
04/04/2009 at 22:48 bookworm8at says:
“I wonder how much more money Stardock will make before everyone realizes that they are just ripping off other developers.”
Yeah, like Valve, who shamelessly release one Doom clone after another.
I say making stuff based on good ideas should be forbidden by law.
04/04/2009 at 22:52 Bremze says:
Dogby, this game actually has some balance and polish! You probably don’t know about them if you enjoy DOTA.
04/04/2009 at 23:47 Dogby says:
If you seriously think DOTA has no balance, I doubt you’ve played much more than some public easy mode games.
04/04/2009 at 23:54 Heliocentric says:
Lapd future cop multiplayer was brilliant. I need to play that against a person rather than the ai. But yes, lapd:fc multiplayer (and skirmish) was dota long before dota existed. This games design looks a little watered down on the smaller units but thats okay. I’d need to join a clan/team to really play it properly due to the nature of dota teamwork. Hope there is a demo, i’ve not joined the beta.
05/04/2009 at 00:37 Radiant says:
I have no idea want went on in that video.
And looking through these comments has helped compound my confusion even further.
What’s a Dota?
Is my brothers Dota my niece?
05/04/2009 at 01:54 Muzman says:
No, your Neets.
I liked the earlier ads with the ground level footage. That always seems like it’d be the best way to play most RTSs. This one, with all its groovy giants and lordy knows what, even more so.
It also reminds me of how much I wish Giants rts stuff was a lot more in depth and challenging (or had a huge mods scene with lots of maps and people writing in great enemy AI).
05/04/2009 at 02:44 Tertiee says:
“How is Demigod any different than any DOTA clone in War3, other than now it costs money and requires a better PC to run?”
It has a much better chance at sustaining a public community. I liked the variations to the formula, like tower building, in other maps but they never filled up the custom games list like DOTA and tended to die out.
@Radiant: The closest analogy is Dynasty Warriors. You are a hero unit leading respawning uncontrollable armies against the the enemy armies and opposing heros until you are able to destroy the enemy base. The gameplay mechanics make DOTA play a lot differently from DW but that’s the gist of it.
05/04/2009 at 03:08 Dogby says:
“It has a much better chance at sustaining a public community. I liked the variations to the formula, like tower building, in other maps but they never filled up the custom games list like DOTA and tended to die out.”
I think there’s a reason those maps tended to die out. Most of them were well made, but took the DOTA formula and just complicated it unnecessarily. Heroes being able to upgrade and build defense tends to lead to really long games, and DOTA games are long enough as it is.
05/04/2009 at 03:53 Rich_P says:
And looking through these comments has helped compound my confusion even further. What’s a Dota?
Yeah, I’ve never played DotA and have no idea of what to expect from Demigod. Every topic about it (on the boards I frequent) is full of minimal information…mostly commets about DotA in WCIII. And Stardock/GPG has done a relatively poor job of marketing the game, IMHO.
Guess that’s why they make demos :p
05/04/2009 at 04:03 Al3xand3r says:
Yeah, that giant looks like a rip off of the Alexander summon in FF9. I suck for knowing this.
05/04/2009 at 04:03 Al3xand3r says:
Though that was even cooler:
http://wpshrine.com/uploads/subb/wpshrine_Final_Fantasy_9_20_1280x960.jpg
05/04/2009 at 04:49 Muzman says:
I like how no one has actually said what ‘DotA’ means yet, even in explanatory posts responding to the question
(don’t look at me, I don’t know)
05/04/2009 at 04:53 Al3xand3r says:
Defense of the Ancients or something similar to that, I forget.
05/04/2009 at 05:05 Tertiee says:
That’s correct but I think Muzman was referring to how universally used the acronym is. It’s like BAR or scuba where the full meaning is not commonly used.
05/04/2009 at 05:24 Zyrusticae says:
DotA, or Defense of the Ancients, refers to a specific subgenre of RTS/RPG games where multiple players control a single unit that levels up and focuses on the use of that unit’s special abilities in tandem with the rest of the team’s in order to overtake the enemy team.
In other words, it’s a hero vs. hero game in an enclosed arena with lots of NPCs running around set lanes killing each other and a major emphasis on those choke points.
05/04/2009 at 05:25 Zyrusticae says:
Where multiple players *each* control a single unit, that should say. It would be weird if everyone controlled one specific unit at the same time…
05/04/2009 at 07:47 Radiant says:
But it would be an awesome game.
Like a Voltron rts.
05/04/2009 at 07:51 Radiant says:
But real talk I still have no idea what Demi God is doing.
He talks about cities and citadels but I can’t see it.
And is that floating shape really the entire map?
05/04/2009 at 09:35 Bremze says:
DOTA balance? Hehe, yea if you chose the right hero and level up his skills in the right order and give him just the right items then you probably wont be gimped! Also most of the 90 heroes aren’t really worth to play if you aren’t looking for a challenge and same with most items.
05/04/2009 at 10:26 Kommissar Nicko says:
DotA has its own kind of balance, but you have to be very well versed in order to know what that balance looks like. That said, I’d be interested to see if this improves upon the DotA formula at all; ” -water red” and ” -weather rain” can spice the terrain up only so much, and that’s just to start with. I’d like something I can sit down with people who don’t play a lot and have a rollicking good time.
Speaking of which, DEFCON time.
05/04/2009 at 10:27 Dominic White says:
Radiant: That looks like a 1v1 arena map. They go to up to 8v8. None of them are sprawling campaign expanses, but that’s the point of the game. It’s an arena action/RPG/RTS, rather than a traditional base-building, army-blobbing thing.
Also, not everyone is just controlling one unit. 4 of the 8 characters are self-contained fighting machines, but the other four can build their own small personal army which you can command like any other RTS.
The main thing is that each character has a lot of potential upgrades, and different skill trees picked within a match will result in a massively different character by match end. There really seems to be no ‘right’ way to do it.
05/04/2009 at 14:35 DK says:
It’s not a 1v1 map – there are none. Demigod is a pure teamgame. While you can set up 1v1 custom games, there’s no dedicated maps for it and there’s no official gametypes that support it.
That specific map shown in the video is a 3v3 map, IIRC, and one of the smaller ones too.
The maps aren’t too big, in terms of playable area (the background art is gigantic and really nice looking, thanks to the SupCom engine) but that’s intentional to keep the matchlenght low. It’s somewhere around 30 minutes, but mostly less.
05/04/2009 at 14:37 DK says:
Oh yes and:
“Also, heroes that can build towers? Wow, there’s like 50 Dota ripoff maps for War3 that want to say hello.”
Only one hero can build towers – and only if you skill him for it. How about you actually look into things before you make dismissive comments about it based on faulty assumptions?
05/04/2009 at 15:14 Paul Moloney says:
“Future Cop’s multiplayer was brilliant.”
Wasn’t it? I remember playing it years ago on the PS1; could never a PC copy working on a modern PC. Multiplayer was very different to single player, and quite unique.
P.
05/04/2009 at 15:36 Sagan says:
So I’m also going to try to explain what DotA is:
Basically the idea of these kind of mods is, that there are two armies fighting a war, and you play the hero that will lead your army to victory. So you play the equivalent of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies. Except that there are usually 5 or 6 heroes on each side, and every player controls one. And you play only the hero: You don’t control any units.
So it’s not an RTS at all. The armies that are doing the RTS part are computer controlled. I guess you can imagine it best, if you think of something like a team deathmatch RPG on a very dynamic playing field.
DotA is the most succesful of these mods, but there are probably hundreds. It all started way back in Starcraft, but has only really evolved when Warcraft III allowed proper heroes with level ups and stuff. The power and ease of use of the Warcraft III editor meant, that there are constantly new mods, or variations of old ones.
The genre went through lots of evolutions over time. There were more strategic mods, more casual or more complex mods, and lots of very gimmicky mods. But in the end it was DotA that dominated, with a very pure version, which is mainly about team deathmatch. The game does lots of things right, mainly that the armies are only there to provide a dynamic team deathmatch experience. They aren’t important enough to get in the way of the experience, but they are strong enough that it hurts when you don’t consider the current situation on the battlefield before acting. It allows for a lot of great moments, like hiding in the forest while the enemy army marches past you, then ambushing someone behind enemy lines, and finally barely escaping before his team chases you down.
So DotA is all about those great moments known from great team deathmatch games, and then lots more which are only made possible by the addition of the dynamic playing field.
05/04/2009 at 21:19 Adam says:
I’ll get it when steam does a 50% off weekend deal next year.
05/04/2009 at 22:55 bookworm8at says:
@Adam: demigod is very unlikely to be released on steam in the near future, since publisher Stardock is behind steam’s biggest competitor “impulse”.
Impulse, however, has special offers too sometimes – I got titan quest and space rangers 2 for 3 Euro each a while ago ;).
Impulse also has a very nice advantage over steam: all prices are in USD, so in europe you have a 26% discount on every game that impulse has to offer (hint: “braid”).
demigod’s price at release is 40$, which is less than 30 EUR. Which I think is a good price for a new released title.
That said, buying a game a year after it was released it probably always a good idea.
05/04/2009 at 23:39 Quater says:
I didn’t watch the video and I haven’t read any of this, I just wanted to say one thing:
DOUBLE SMITE
06/04/2009 at 01:23 dbg says:
i may actually play this game. i liked the basic idea of DotA but stopped playing it because the DotA community is a huge turn off.
i’ll at least give the demo of Demigod a spin to see if the community has some pleasant folks in it. if i have to deal with the “l33t gamer” jerks that populated DotA i definitely won’t bother with Demigod either.
06/04/2009 at 09:09 Catastrophe says:
I actually like the look of this. I like its artstyle and like the idea of more action based RTS beating down on the enemy rather than spending 2 hours+ turtling towards the enemy.
Future Cop LAPD was an awesome game. I played on the PS1 for many hours and loved its singleplayer + multiplayer.
It seems to be one of those hidden gems that many people liked but never realised other people even knew what the hell it was.
06/04/2009 at 19:35 Serondal says:
I don’t want to have to break out the obvious here but , not everyone has played WC3 and even those of us who have played WC3 havn’t all played DOTA. I have played both, personally, however this is the basic idea Stardock has.
MOST gamers have never heard of DOTA, these people will look at this game and say “cool, stardock and Gas powered games made this, I liked other games they made and I NEVER Seen anything like this AND it’s cheep, I buy it now!” Brand grammer indeeded ;P They’ll sell tons of copies of the game, probably mostly through digital downloads. They’ll make back the money they spent on the game and then some, success! This is how they made money on Sins and GalCIV
They don’t care of DOTA hardcore players like the game, that’s like a very SMALL amount of dollars there they can make and they also know they won’t be able to make you happy no matter what they do unless they copy DOTA exactly. For what it was worth I enjoyed DOTA as long as I was playing with other n00bs who just wanted to have fun.
06/04/2009 at 19:37 Serondal says:
BTW Future cop was awesome!
06/04/2009 at 21:50 Tei says:
I have waited a few days for this post to exit the frontpage. So almost everyone as read it and make his own opinion.
I don’t want to influence other people. And this guys proabably deserver respect, and interest on his works.
Is that clear?
Here comes my opinion:
This game is pure crap.
06/04/2009 at 22:27 Serondal says:
Don’t want to burst your bubble Tei but the post is still on the front page ;P Still that doesn’t make your comment invalid, if you think the game is pure crap so be it. The question is will it sell to the unwashed masses before they realize what kind of crap it is?
07/04/2009 at 18:44 bookworm8at says:
“I have waited a few days for this post to exit the frontpage. ”
I think you don’t really understand how the web works…
I also doubt that your judgment would constrain anyone from making his own opinion. It’s not as if there ever was a game without some guy who thinks it’s crap.