By RPS on April 15th, 2009 at 5:28 pm.
Gas-Powered Games’ (with a little help from Stardock) Demigod enjoyed an unexpected early release yesterday, thanks to a silly snafu by Gamestop. Jim’s feverishly working on a full verdict on it to be posted in a few days’ time, but unfortunately it’s been held up by the release version suffering some pretty flaky netcode. It wouldn’t do to judge a game that’s almost entirely multiplayer only on the strength of its offline skirmishes, so while we wait and pray for an ultra-patch, Jim and Alec had a brief chat about their impressions so far… If they both seem a little surly, it’s because their clever brainwave to try and get the damn thing working in LAN mode over Hamachi had also just failed miserably…
Alec: So: Demigood or Demibad?
Jim: Hmm, well, I’ve spent the best part of the last hour looking at “connecting to” messages in Demigod multiplayer. I finally got into a lobby, and someone dropped. I could have cried
Alec: Aye, there are some ‘orrid netcode problems. But then it has been released early
Jim: Well it was due this week in the US even without the Gamestop randomo-release
Alec: I’m finding it’s a remarkably fun time played singleplayer, at least
Jim: This is one reason why the multiplayer problems are so frustrating: single-player has been a ball
Jim: Assassin or General?
Alec: Initially I was all about the Plague Dog Assassin, but I seem to have settled on the Oak general now
Jim: Yeah the Oak feels heroic to play
Alec: He seems a really good mix of crowd control and mega-biff. And about the closest analogue to the all-conquering Rook, in terms of being self-competent but also helping out the entire team
Jim: the sort of base-level presentation of everything from the menu onwards is really good
Alec: some of the UI and voicework falls a bit flat, I thought. Like that giant icon of your character, which doesn’t do anything. It’d be better to use all that wasted screen space for something like health bars for the other demigods on your team, or some comparison of your guy’s stats to whoever you’re fighting
Jim: yeah that’s a bit odd, a couple of the voices don’t ring true either
Alec: The Archer character is the worst for that. He sounds like an extra from a Saturday morning cartoon. I can’t stand playing as him, either. He needs more range, really.
Jim: I mean from a purely critical point of view, i want tear into the game for everything from the hands-off strategy to the lack of tutorial, and yet it’s really engaging, and beautifully /immediately/ playable. Going back to The Rook – icon of the game as a whole – it seems they missed a trick by only putting one giant god into the game. That said, i believe there are more gods coming as DLC
Alec: almost inevitably. Yes, it needs more giants and more building characters. I feel a bit too abstracted from the turrets when I’m playing as as any other Demigod. In fact, I wonder if those turrets are too key to the game generally. They’re really damaging and take a lot to pull down, which means a lot of the fight focuses around them – but they’re an element the player has essentially no control of
Jim: the towers are just a device of attrition aren’t they? They mean there can’t be an early rush – the game is essentially a slow back forth of massive assaults on the enemy front
Alec: True. It’s just not as much fun to spend five minutes hitting a tower as it is to tangle with a demigod. They’re necessary, but possibly a bit too fundamental
Jim: Yeah, you’re probably right – the architecture of the levels would have to be quite different without them. Anyway, we wanted to keep this brief, so any concluding thoughts?
Alec: As you say, there’s a lot of things to snipe at Demigod for, but crucially it works, it’s fast and it’s enormously entertaining. Though I’ve never played DOTA, its similarity to which is one of the key complaints
Jim: I was wondering about the DOTA thing. I mean – is the real issue that there’s nothing else to compare Demigod to? Much like any military mod for an FPS was compared to Counter-Strike a few years ago? Or perhaps, more accurately, any multiplayer FPS was compared to Counter-Strike…
Alec: Yes – if there was a commercial game along the lines of DOTA already, it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s the concept of a business profiting from something that’s free. And I can see why that rubs some people up the wrong way, but I think turning that great concept into something slicker is to be celebrated
Jim: Well some of the DOTA team are making a commercial game now. which makes for an interesting scrap between that and Demigod if/when it finally hits
Alec: Indeed – it’d be fascinating to hear what those guys think of Demigod. Hopefully, though, Demigod will open doors for other studios to take the concept further
Jim: yeah, absolutely – there’s no reason why the “one powerful being” strategy subgenre can’t expand enormously
Alec: I’d certainly rather someone rip off and riff off DOTA than get yet another C&C clone
Jim: Yeah, i mean people need to start copying things that haven’t been plagiarised properly
Alec: Historically, that’s led to stuff like Battlefield and Portal.
Jim: absolutely – commercialise those offbeat ideas
Alec: Anyway, hopefully we can play the damn multiplayer some time soon, as right now I have no idea if I’m any good at the game or not.
Jim: yeah, we’ll get some multiplayer under our belts and deliver a more comprehensive verdict
Alec: Okay. And your favourite Demigod?
Jim: Hmm. Actually I think I’ll go Oak too. The Rook is the standout idea, but he’s not quite right
Alec: He’s not quite powerful enough, is he? He was an odd choice to be the hybrid builder unit – really he should be all about the ultra-smash
Jim: I expected more of a tank
Alec: And on that note, shall we retreat back to our sadly solo Demigoddery?
Jim: I’ll keep trying on the multiplayer – you never know…
15/04/2009 at 17:33 Jajusha says:
Had a couple of mutiplayer games since release. Stay away from the pantheon atm, try your luck in the custom games, no more then 4 players for now.
When you actually get it to work, multiplayer games are alot of fun.
15/04/2009 at 17:51 PlayNoEvil says:
I thought I missed something that there was no tutorial. Who builds a professional game without something to get you started?
Also, some Impulse comments:
1. I had to update my video drivers myself – no warning that there was a problem.
2. Impulse doesn’t seem to allow me to put the game where I want on my hard drive – which is more than a little annoying. I had a temporary problem with the drive being full and the game downloaded, started to install, and then gave up… and then I had to start the 1.8GB download again – ARGH!
This makes the game feel very unfinished and Impulse increasingly disappointing.
15/04/2009 at 17:56 (fish) says:
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346463
I dont have time to try this before the foot-to-ball but if any other RPS-ers are keen please let us know if it works!
Its really sad that the multiplayer lobby servers are so stuffed, the beta was an enormous amount of fun and there were far less connectivity issues.
15/04/2009 at 17:57 Zyrxil says:
“2. Impulse doesn’t seem to allow me to put the game where I want on my hard drive”
It does. By default, it uses a set path like Steam does, but you can set it to ask you where to install every game in the options.
15/04/2009 at 18:00 viper34j says:
I actually think that the lack of tutorial is refreshing. I don’t need some thirty minute walk through to explain to me concepts that I probably won’t grasp until I actually play the game. However, a tip system that pops up every now and then hinting at upgrading your citadel or purchasing armor would be nice.
About the multiplayer issue, I’ve actually had a pretty easy time getting into custom games. The p2p connection has been slow but steady. I’ve yet to have one player drop and the latency has been negligible.
15/04/2009 at 18:10 MrMud says:
@PlayNoEvil
You can configure the install path by clicking on the impulse icon in the top left corner of the app.
15/04/2009 at 18:15 Flappybat says:
I think it says a lot that Impulse says I have started the game seven times but only played one multiplayer game.
The best is when you go through the whole matching making and loading gauntlet and then hear “player dropped, player dropped, player dropped” as the game starts. Always check the scoreboard for 0 ping as it will helpfully not tell you the player has become a bot.
15/04/2009 at 18:20 Pete S says:
I’m disappointed in the game, but mostly its my own fault. I got hyped on some of the ‘backstory’ stuff that was written and bought into it without realizing there’s no real single player game. And my god, do I hate the Unreal Tournment style announcements during a match.
The little bit I did play felt pretty bland to play. Fun to *watch* but not really to play. But maybe I’m missing stuff. No tutorial, the manual is ass, you can’t pause and futz around to figure out how things work, the skill icons are generic as hell and don’t give much indication of what a skill does.
It just doesn’t feel like a complete game to me. Feel’s like an early beta.
15/04/2009 at 18:22 Pete S says:
Oh, and does anyone else have the problem with the game locking up when you try to skip the opening movie? I hit Escape (Space and Return did nothing) and the game stops responding.
15/04/2009 at 18:31 PlayNoEvil says:
@MrMud – Thanks… I wish that was easier to find. Impulse did hang when I moved the default folders, but it seems OK when I restarted it… I hope this didn’t hurt any of my existing games.
15/04/2009 at 18:51 unclelou says:
Bought this last night seeing how the digital download on Impulse is comparatively cheap – the lack of a tutorial isn’t a real problem, I thought. One look into the manual, and two games to try out, and there’s not much left to figure out, really.
Had quite a blast with the one campaign I finished, but despite what I said the other day, I guess I’ll try to take it online.
If anyone’s up for a casual game online, I am here. *waves*
Hm. I actually have no idea if Impulse has a friends list like Steam?
15/04/2009 at 18:53 Serondal says:
Broke down a baught the game. Sadly my computer aparently isn’t hefty enough to run it smoothly. Even with all the settings at low the game is EXTREMLY slow when you get about half way through a match. I have to say the game is a lot of fun and I imagine it would be a lot more fun if it weren’t for the lag I get even off line :P My favorite demi-god has to be Unclean Beast, I just low mauling enemy demi-gods and he is actually VERY good at taking down towers if you upgrade his damage and beastial fenzy attack.
15/04/2009 at 19:11 Flappybat says:
Pete S – I have the game keep freezing up on all kinds of screens.
15/04/2009 at 19:15 Philip says:
So I storm through a Normal tournament with Oak no problem. His targeted attack becomes a great anti-Demigod weapon.
Try it on Hard and I get whooped every time. Seems I’m always against the archer guy, who blatantly cheats.
15/04/2009 at 19:25 Butler` says:
so they made a multiplayer centric game with awful net code? :/
15/04/2009 at 19:28 Blather Blob says:
@PlayNoEvil: I haven’t tried the new Impulse, but the previous version also let you set the path where the downloaded copy goes, and the path for the extracted copy (yes, it require(d?) 3 copies of the game on your hard drive while installing). And I too experienced the “I’m defaulting to your C: partition which doesn’t have enough space, but I’m going to try anyway and then force you to start over from scratch when it fails!” problem last time I tried it.
15/04/2009 at 19:37 Matzerath says:
The excitement for this game is not palpable.
15/04/2009 at 19:55 Optimaximal says:
Well, they did manage to make an RPG with out any sort of RPG in it (Space Siege).
15/04/2009 at 20:03 Psychopomp says:
If the game seems to hang up after the intro, or on any creen for that matter, wait 100 seconds. It’s trying to contact the server, but it gives up after 1 minute and 40 seconds.
15/04/2009 at 20:14 g-ej says:
@Butler
They were trying to make really amazing netcode where being P2P would really reduce the lag… they just ran headfirst into the hurdles which are the reason everyone else uses a server-client method
15/04/2009 at 20:27 DMJ says:
I’m fighting this on the grounds of advanced poverty.
I could have this, or lunch for a couple of weeks.
RPS, you’re not helping my abstinence. Kindly cease all coverage of interesting potential purchases immediately. Your cooperation is appreciated in advance.
15/04/2009 at 20:28 Serondal says:
the archer guy is da cheat master. He gots a long range snipe attack that, when fully upgraded, can shoot REALLY freaky far. I used him a lot to destroy towers from a safe distance. Of course I have no idea how this would work out against other players as I stated the game is so laggy for me single player I dare not try multiplayer ever.
15/04/2009 at 20:43 Proxii says:
I’ve come to love the game, but that doesn’t stop it being poor value – only 8 main characters, not that many maps, no tutorial, no single player campaign – all for a full price PC game (£26 digital download is the same price as most boxed PC games from internet retailers).
15/04/2009 at 20:56 Gott says:
@serondal
I’m really having fun with the archer as well and in the tournament his range doesn’t seem to be an issue and with the aoe wings seems to be able to outkill anyone else on mooks and thus outlevel the opposition. Some potentially nice abilities like mark, but I never really use the bombs. Range, Wings stats and a couple in snipe and maim seem to be the way.
15/04/2009 at 21:55 Serondal says:
In the trailers and stuff they showed another giant with a huge club fighting with the ROOK, where is this character? Is this one of the upgrades you can get for your home base? Most of my games end far before I get enough money to get fully upgarded. I get the priests and the angels and then I normally win :P
I’d be interested to have a new class of heros that can help win the game without ever leaving the base. Like logistics heros
About the archer – the range is an issue at first when you gotta get REAL close to use your normal attack but you can upgrade it to be pretty good. I used the mines every now and again but I focus on sniping and rasing my over all stats along the bottom so my guy can stand toe to toe with enemy demigods longer and getting speed boots and heavy armor.
15/04/2009 at 22:00 Gott says:
The giant is the final upgrade on the priest —> angel —> catapultisaurus —> giant chain of base upgrades.
I prefer the attack speed/dodge boots and plenty of crit gear on the archer. Couple that with aoe basic attacks and weapon damage+ and you start doing silly damage.
15/04/2009 at 22:00 unclelou says:
- all for a full price PC game (£26 digital download is the same price as most boxed PC games from internet retailers)
It cost me something like € 28 off Impulse, which is significantly less than a full price game here in Germany. I guess the weak pound together with the fact that boxed PC games are as cheap in the UK as nowhere else makes for different point of views, as I’ve seen similar complaints about Tales of Valor.
15/04/2009 at 22:04 psyk says:
tales of valor pricing is screwed.
play.com £17.99 Free Delivery
amazon.co.uk £17.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK
steam £29.99
impulse £27.99
15/04/2009 at 22:18 unclelou says:
Yeah, that’s just what I meant, though. Seems likeretailers still stick to the pricing scheme UK customers are used to, while the digital download services simply do exact currency conversions based on the US$ or €.
£29.99, converted to € at the current rate, is the typical addon price in most European countries.
It’s an annoying situation either way. At the moment, you people obviously complain about the inflated DD prices from your perspective, but I guess the rest of the world would complain if Steam sold games significantly cheaper in the UK.
15/04/2009 at 22:24 Serondal says:
I got 2 Gigs of ram , 100 Gigs of hard drive space, Nvida GT 7600 graphics card with amble power supply and a single core process around 2.5 GHZ and I can’t run this game with all the setting as long as possible : ( Me very sad because I actualyl do enjoy it. I guess I’m going to have to go get WC3 again and play DOTA lol.
15/04/2009 at 22:30 EtsSpets says:
Start rant: this is released by GPG (gas powered games) isnt it the same team that released the SupCom. Do you guys know that SupCom is probably the buggiest multiplayer game ever, i felt like was crawling through a mosqitos butt to join a game. And the hell to go through before i even got there, i spent couple of hours every week configuring and reconfiguring my router ffs. And GPG sucks donkey balls, for not resolving the SupCom issues and taking on Demigod. And if you look at it, the strategy is the same, hype the game, release it, say “never mind the little net bug” live on the hype, sell 1 expansion and then dissappear and leave the gamers hanging. So GPG youd better not do that, or ill find out where you live, take my copy of SupCom and come stick it up yours, ill even add a copy of demigod while im at it: End Rant
15/04/2009 at 22:33 EtsSpets says:
To Serondal: GPG is famous for writing pointlessly un optimized code.
15/04/2009 at 22:33 bookworm8at says:
I saw amazon.de selling the game for 50 Euro today. I wrote a review containing 6 paragraphs describing the game + 1 paragraph mentioning that it’s only 30,- on impulse.
Amazon posted the first 6 paragraphs :(
15/04/2009 at 22:50 bookworm8at says:
@EtsSpets
The net code for demigod was developed by stardock, not by GPG. At least that is what they say.
And the last thing you can say about Demigod is that is was “hyped”.
15/04/2009 at 22:51 Heliocentric says:
You mix statements like that into the text so they require editing to remove.
15/04/2009 at 23:07 Philip says:
I managed the first hard game in a Tournament.
The trick is to not let them out-level you. (which is bloody difficult) so you have to go looking for battles/flags to capture. That sometimes means ignoring Demi-gods and going for the minions for some free XP.
It seems the friendly AI is turned down a bit because, at the end of the game me and all the enemy AIs were at level 20 and all of mine were at 16.
15/04/2009 at 23:08 jackflash says:
@Serondal : A GF 7600 is also a pretty old card at this point, though.
15/04/2009 at 23:19 Serondal says:
It is yah, my computer in general is old :) It is 8-10 years old. I’m thinkin about finally getting a new comp, I know getting a multi-core machine will go a long way to getting me better game play and also getting PCI-express on a mobo! LOL STill I can play most of the games I want. Men of War runs fine even in giant battles and FO3, CoD4 ect Crysis on the other hand chewed my computer up and spit it in my face :P
15/04/2009 at 23:42 Tei says:
/me tried to play a skirmish
/me have fun but lose, because the AI demigods where not defending
/me try the MP part
/me try the “idiot button” matchmarking.. don’t work
/me try the custom games don’t work.
I have not tried hosting myself a game, but my experience is that will also fail.
Can I say this game is good, but there are more FAIL than win on it?
15/04/2009 at 23:47 Serondal says:
In my experience with Star Dock if something is wrong with will fix it, period. It may not work now but it WILL work soon.
16/04/2009 at 00:15 Drifter says:
@Serondal
Yeah, that 7600 along with your revelation of the computer being 8-10 years old is probably why you’re having issues with playing the game. I have an older computer as well (although probably not as old as yours – I at least had a PCIe slot, lol) and had a BFG 7600 GT OC card. I honestly felt that it got the job done just fine with all the games I’ve played. However in preparation for The Last Remnant and Demigod, I replaced it with a 9600 GT card. Let me tell you, it’s a major improvement! Saying that everything ran fine on a 7600 card, we were only fooling ourselves. :)
Seriously, it’s a good card and still gets the job done, but it won’t do justice to games being released today.
…back to Demigod.
It really looks like fun but I haven’t been able to spend much time with it. The few games I’ve had time to play have been a lot of fun and very easy to lose track of time. The game is very easy to pick up and learn.
The one thing I wish I had (and hopefully they add it to the site) is a list of all the choices (skills, items, etc) so that I could review them outside of the game. The game doesn’t pause so I always feel rushed to make a quick decision and get back into the game. Although playing vs. the AI on normal it’s not critical to micro manage 100% of the time. I know the more I play this game, I’ll know exactly what options I want to choose.
16/04/2009 at 00:52 Evangel says:
@EtsSpets
GPG didn’t get to patch up SupCom because THQ where a bunch of dicks who withheld funding for a patch.
16/04/2009 at 01:32 IvanHoeHo says:
Some impressions from several skirmishes with my not-so-moral friends:
- like you guys said, Rook’s not quite strong enough for a dude made entirely out of stone
- the frost torchbearer is utter crap – mostly due to the next to useless stun effects that wear off the second it gets attacked
- some truly useless yet overpriced items, like that dagger that does 300 damage, then takes about 15 seconds to recharge
- it only takes 2 upgrades for the archer dude to out-range the towers, enabling him to just slowly wear them down. Seems massively over-powered in general
- default creeps are just an annoyance after lvl. 3
Verdict so far: I’m crying myself to sleep while my friends lauhg at me for spending money on any game that doesn’t have demo. Needs 4 more months of rebalancing.
16/04/2009 at 01:48 malkav11 says:
Turn off reverb. I’ve got a computer that can handle Crysis fine (albeit not at the very tippytoppest settings at the very largest resolution) and Demigod would slow to a crawl midmatch. Turning off the reverb solved this immediately. Something is Not Right ™ with that particular feature.
16/04/2009 at 02:01 no says:
I spent $40 on this and am sort of regretting it. I played through a full single player tournament and I’m not sure if I’ll ever play it again. There just isn’t very much to it. You really don’t control anyone except your own main character. All of the other characters in your army do their own thing automatically. You just upgrade your guy and buy him stuff and send him out to destroy one thing after another — hopefully faster than the opponents do.
The game is very attractive and perhaps mutli-player – assuming there is voice chat in this game – would be more compelling. As it is, this seems more like it should be a $10 casual game than a $40 full fledged title.
16/04/2009 at 05:12 Stromko says:
IvanHoeHo: Any ‘General’-type demigod can outrange towers, just by buying the ranged summonables at the shop. The Rook can get a trebuchet that can wear down towers at range as hell, and at higher levels his structure absorption power makes him the ultimate siege engine. Oddly not that great in a stand-up fight, yes, he’s actually fairly squishy for a giant stone thing.
Really though the towers are just to stop early game rushes and slow down the pace of conquest altogether. At mid/high levels they’re pretty easy to destroy. Catapaultsauri and Giant creeps are designed for just that, but most of the rounds I’ve played (all singleplayer) we’ve already broken through the defenses and are wailing on the enemy stronghold before these high-level reinforcements are available.
I’m finding the Oak to be my all-around favorite as well. His spirit-summoning and heal-on-kill powers mean he’s best on the front lines where the action is, and these mix very well with his later area-of-effect and self-buff powers. Just march in and plant the raise dead banner, fire off the area-of-effect and gain a big allotment of spirits that boost your weapon power, give additional offensive punch on their also, and also heal the surrounding reinforcements + your own retinue of summons up to full. So he hits quite hard, has an army of many spirits + the six General summons, and can heal himself and his allies every time he kills something. It’s a good mix of epic + win.
16/04/2009 at 05:12 (fish) says:
“default creeps are just an annoyance after lvl. 3″
You can turn their strength up in the game options menu when you’re in the lobby. I tend to put them to low, exp rate high, tower strength low, death penalty draconic for a nice quick game. The later upgrades will hurt you, especially giants.
16/04/2009 at 05:39 Serondal says:
will try turning reverb off
16/04/2009 at 06:44 Stromko says:
After spending one hour on a single match vs Normal AI, which has never been close to really beating me before (I was just trying out a new Demigod and wanted to get a feel for his power), I’ve learned something about team balance. Essentially if your team are all Assassins and the other team are all Generals, you will lose.
The Beast, Rook, and Regulus vs Sedna, Oak, and Erebus never stood a chance. Sedna would regularly walk right past our defenses and her healthbar would barely budge thanks to her massive (and area effect!) heals, the Oak would throw dozens of spirits at us, Erebus had his own hordes. They’re strong enough on their own, but only Generals get minions and minions are also rather durable and hard-hitting.
I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of the Assassin demigods is. Even Sedna was utterly shredding The Unclean Beast in melee combat, while the Oak is of course very strong when he has a full complement of spirits as I already knew. By the end of the round I’d gotten to level 20 and had the best armor I could get, but I still couldn’t get Sedna’s health bar to move with a fully powered-up spit attack, even when she was getting smacked by my citadel’s Finger of God and several light towers!
I think possibly this early release has caught the game in the middle of a massive rebalance. I should hope so at least, because you’d think there’d be more room for skill to make a difference. Maybe they were planning to give all Demigods the ability to buy Minions, as it seems Assassins and Generals are already equal in power and adding the quite strong Minions to the mix just pushes it over the edge entirely.
16/04/2009 at 07:27 EtsSpets says:
Good points Evangel and Bookworm, and im not saying that the game is crap, it obviously has value. The thing is i sort of hate that developers are releasing “immature” games that are buggie and get away with it, even if its the 10th game they have released thats full of bugs and left a trail of miserable and frustrated gamers behing. They almost remind me of politician, who promise you a good thing then when its time to do something eg game launch they say “oops, didnt work out guys, but we will fix it later sometime”. And sure its hard to get some code to work on gazillion differently speced systems but cmon, networking is the most uniform section ever i mean TCP/IP protocol is just that, no matter is it Realtek or Nvidia who made the chip.
I think the developers need to take pointers from the likes of Valve and lets say Blizzard, they always release almost buggless code and its always fun to play and even the major updates dont create a “bug wave”.
So my suggestion, test the code until its “mature” and then release it.
16/04/2009 at 07:38 Tei says:
Networking has to deal with NAT, that is a ugly hack, poorly programed routers and other anoyances, so is not easy. Or that is what I have read.
16/04/2009 at 09:31 MeestaNob! says:
Released before finished?
Demo before purchase. See you in a few months.
16/04/2009 at 09:36 Melf_Himself says:
No tutorial/bad documentation, hard to figure out how to play… sounds like they emulated DotA quite well then…
16/04/2009 at 09:52 SwiftRanger says:
“I think the developers need to take pointers from the likes of Valve and lets say Blizzard, they always release almost buggless code and its always fun to play and even the major updates dont create a “bug wave”.”
I consider Left 4 Dead the best game of 2008 but it also had the most buggy matchmaking system of that year (and what about WoW or Diablo II the first few weeks huh? :) ). It took several months to ‘fix’ that (read: not waste half an hour teaming up with 7 other friends to find a decent server via the atrocious lobby…) and even now we still don’t have a standard server browser unless you activate it through the console. Did early reviews mention it? No, I don’t think so either.
It’s too bad about the Demigod network problems but it’s just out and to be expected. If most writers would have bothered to incorporate the same problems DoW II or Empire suffered right after release into their reviews then those games should have scored 65% as well (isn’t it, Gamespot?). Hell, many people couldn’t even start a new singleplayer campaign in DoW II for several days because it bugged out at the first in-game cutscene. That got fixed fast but even now the multiplayer is still riddled with all kinds of bugs (also those of the NAT negotiation and CTD kind, even in v1.2.1). Still loving it though.
And SupCom online is decent, GPGnet still has some bugs (patch your game first before you connect to it!) but it also has a very extensive feature list for a matchmaking service with the integrated map/mod Vault and Tournament scheduling thing (next to achievements, stat-tracking, clan and PM support). Something like Live looks like a ‘solution’ from the Stone Age compared to it. The nill-ping problem isn’t so much of a deal-breaker anymore as well, just play Forged Alliance instead of vanilla though to get enough players (and the best experience). A balance patch for FA should come out ‘soon’, after Demigod work has cooled down.
PC gaming, man….
16/04/2009 at 10:24 DMJ says:
I was weak. I gave in. I bought it.
A shouty man regularly declared things like “WRATHFUL!” and “GODLIKE!” for no discernable reason. Hundreds of little creatures ran all over the place looking impressive but they were annihilated by what appeared to be indestructible fixed defences without even managing to scare the paintwork. These same apparently feeble hordes shredded my mighty stone Rook with contempt. I clicked on a random structure, and it appeared to be a shop, so I bought two breastplates and three helmets to wear simultaneously. I levelled up every now and then, I’m not sure how or why. Occasionally shouty man would declare that one citadel or another was apparently stronger. I was baffled. I still won against the AI.
Then it slowly started to make sense.
By my third game I had worked it out. I got into the swing of things. I shepherded my fragile demigod carefully until he levelled up into a rampaging fortress-monster capable of slaughtering entire armies and flattening the previously terrifying defensive towers almost effortlessly. I levelled our citadel, I levelled my demigod carefully into different roles. I started to appreciate the game properly. I stayed up late and completed the tournament as Rook, enjoying it immensely.
Tonight I pick a different demigod to play, a General I think.
16/04/2009 at 10:48 DK says:
@Ivanhoeho:
“Some impressions from several skirmishes with my not-so-moral friends:”
All of your impressions are 180° removed from what is actually the case. You’ll see that first impressions lie after a few more games.
16/04/2009 at 13:56 kr8 says:
I understand that journalists feel the need to be fair on the game and the overall experience. But if they release a game where the basic functionality doesn’t actually work and half of the content is to be put in at some unspecified later data wouldn’t it be fair to deduct some points?
I just got really annoyed at l4d’s matchmaking system last night and it occurred to me that nobody had told me beforehand that it would be like this. They’re all like “it’s a great game” “cool maps” “zombies!” but I spent 30 minutes finding a game, then in the 4th act my internet connection went down and there was no way I’d ever find that game again, since none of the players where on my friends list. That kind of soul-destroying experience is what can turn a good game into a source of stress, and I really wish it would be pointed out more. A good game isn’t really a good game if you spend most your time fighting with it before you can actually start playing.
16/04/2009 at 14:02 Jim Rossignol says:
If I was giving points to Demigod, I would totally deduct.
16/04/2009 at 14:31 DK says:
“I understand that journalists feel the need to be fair on the game and the overall experience. But if they release a game where the basic functionality doesn’t actually work and half of the content is to be put in at some unspecified later data wouldn’t it be fair to deduct some points?”
You should really read Stardock’s CEO’s statement on this. He pretty eloquently describes why you can’t deduct points for this, because the average user will not have those problems (they’ll be fixed in a few days/weeks) yet the review is permanent.
16/04/2009 at 14:35 Jim Rossignol says:
Which is a reason why standard moment-in-time reviews with a numeral on the end aren’t such a great idea, and ongoing constantly update blogs are the future.
Okay then!
16/04/2009 at 15:15 Tei says:
Warcraft 3 is a community, where people make maps, people use maps, test ideas, etc..
Demigod seems like these type of games where you have to wait for the dev’s to release a patch, to have One new map, for a total of 11.
In this sense, Warcraft 3 is more “web 2.0″ than Demigod.
16/04/2009 at 16:48 (fish) says:
If anyone is still checking here, there is a new patch fixing a few of the network issues. More feedback when you try to join a custom game telling you who can/cant connect and allowing the host to kick people who are failing to connect to others.
See you in game :)
16/04/2009 at 17:34 EtsSpets says:
@SwiftRanger
Agreed. For the networking though, why invent the wheel every time, there plenty of systems that work, use those.
16/04/2009 at 18:29 DK says:
“Which is a reason why standard moment-in-time reviews with a numeral on the end aren’t such a great idea, and ongoing constantly update blogs are the future.”
But it’s not something that’s being done now – ergo, you don’t deduct points in your permanent review for something that won’t be present for the majority of people that’ll read said review.
16/04/2009 at 19:27 Serondal says:
@Stromko I played with Unclean beast versus Oak, the lady on the lion thing, and the archer versus Me as the unclean beast, the vampire, and the lady with the plants :P Archer and Oak were no problem to maul to death but the lady on the lion was a huge problem, mainly even when I did start to kill her she’d run away and was a bit faster than my unclean beast. I upgraded his speed and damaged, gave him attack that lets him suck life from enemy for 2 seconds to delay her and maxed out his bestial frenzy or whatever it’s called and killed her over and over again the rest of the match, even standing right next to their home base she couldn’t stop me ^_^ So I don’t think things are unbalanced I just think you’re going about it the wrong way. Ranged attacks like that are probably best left for creeps while the things that upgrade damage/attack speed and stall/slow/debuff the enemies are good against enemy demi-gods. It even says in one of the tips bestial fury or whatever it is called is good for mauling enemy demi-gods. Also good for tearing down towers in a flash.
17/04/2009 at 01:07 OJ287 says:
I have a vague idea of what a god is, but whats a demigod?
Whats half of ‘all powerful’? Half powerful? Sounds average. Or maybe there’s two gods that share the omnipotency on alternate days of the week.
17/04/2009 at 02:43 Ginger Yellow says:
I have to say that given the lack of tutorial, the manual is outrageously light. Here’s what it has to say about Citadels:
Why is upgrading key to victory? How do I do it? Wouldn’t that be useful information?
At the very end of the manual, it tells you a little bit more about what upgrading does for you – one whole sentence!
17/04/2009 at 03:03 JKjoker says:
You know, even the most basic of tower defense FREE mods in war 3 had more gameplay than this game, also war3 has just as good graphics than this game without the unexplained slowdowns that cause Demigod to be unplayable
in fact the only advantage DG has over war3 mods is the zoom out feature, the “gods” are not even that original or interesting
17/04/2009 at 08:43 catska says:
Annnnnnnnnnnd here it is:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/46194/102-000-Pirates-Overload-Demigods-Online-Infrastructure
Guess pirates really are a problem, huh stardock?
17/04/2009 at 10:56 MeestaNob! says:
That is very sad.
Devils Advocate time: A demo would have potentially converted a sizable portion of that thievery into money for the devs.
Should also be noted that the Demigod network was not even remotely capable of handling that volume of customers even had they been paying ones, and further to that the in-game network code is a disgrace (judging from comments), and has been so since beta.
Piracy = bad etc, but no one is without sin in this scenario.
17/04/2009 at 14:26 JKjoker says:
if they had allowed peer to peer multiplayer without having to log into their servers (like almost every game had a few years ago, a lot of games these days dont even allow lan play without a lot of tweaking here and there) im pretty sure the pirates would have chosen that method to play the game
its funny how the most criticized part of the game always ends up being “the pirate’s fault” and never the dev’s fault for not preparing for the most obvious of problems or crapping out the code
17/04/2009 at 18:41 Gorgeras says:
Well GameSpot has never been good and just about every complaint they have can be more aptly applied to Left4Dead.
Stardock don’t do demoless games, or at least don’t like not having demos. The reason why there isn’t one can be put down to the release date being forced to move forward. I expect the piracy is almost entirely people trying to try before they buy rather than playing without paying.
17/04/2009 at 19:57 Serondal says:
The release date wasn’t moved forward but by a few days right? I don’t think that would effect a demo release, there still isn’t one btw.
Sins of a Solar Empire did well even though there was a lot of pirating going on there, lets see how well Demigod can do. Sins constantly had people bitching about it in forums saying this isn’t balanced and this sucks and this and that and the other but it was still a success, lets see if the same is true with Demigod eh?
BTW A Demi God is a super human that is not a God but is not a mortal. A good example would be Hercules , he is really powerful but he’s not a God.
18/04/2009 at 09:16 Serondal says:
Strange news! I turned reverb off like suggested above and now I get no lag what so ever! Even with stuff turned all the way up, I guess my computer isn’t done for after all.
18/04/2009 at 14:05 Scott Kevill says:
A quick heads-up. I’ve just added Demigod support to GameRanger, so you should be able to play online without problems until the servers are restored.
18/04/2009 at 15:25 Léon says:
Like said, its a rip off from dota and the first commercial game in this genre, it only seems logical youd get to know dota before reviewing this game, if you didnt theres nothing that gives the wall of text any meaning…
to Sorendal: in the end of the myth, hercules becomes a god…
18/04/2009 at 15:31 Léon says:
Reading and trusting this is about the same as asking a kid who only ever played age of empire if red alert is good
19/04/2009 at 21:20 alseT says:
@Leon
Or maybe they have both been reviewers for a long enough time that they can recognize a good game and judge it on its own merits, without having first played some WC3 mod that loosely
resembles some of its gameplay elements.
You know what? I’m glad the Demigod community doesn’t yet resemble the one you are such a proud member of.
20/04/2009 at 22:50 Serondal says:
Demigod doesn’t “loosely” resemble DOTA, it is a LOT like it. The heros have been skills I supose but the items they buy and the creeps ect are mostly the same feeling.
After having played it for a while I have to say I like it a lot I just wish there were more demi-gods to choose from. I don’t have any demi-god that I really LIKE to play as, all the generals have weird minions that I don’t like, the assassins are okay, I think my favorite so far is the torch bearer if I had to choose one.
I like his fire skills quiet a bit and if you time them correctly with the usage of some of the special items (The cloak that lets you teleport and do 200 damage to everything) you can kill someone as they try to run away or use a recall scroll pretty easily. I’ve gotten up to highest kill streak level versus 3 normal AIs so I think I may be getting close to being ready to fight against real humans, probably not though lol.