As Jim alluded to in the comments thread for our Demigod discussion last week, one of the many interesting issues around writing for the web instead of for print is that a verdict passed on a game doesn’t have to stay static in the event that game’s problems improve/worsen. Demigod’s a fine example – if one of us had written it up on compressed tree-matter and shoved a number at the end, that number would reflect its enormous netcode screw-ups, and would sit as a faintly damning judgement upon it for all time (of course, damnable parasite-site Metacritic means that problem still exists for a lot of web stuff too).
While releasing a game that was problem-riddled in the first place is scarcely something that should be condoned, as GPG and Stardock (I’m becoming increasingly confused as to who’s really in charge of DG now) have been frantically racing to patch the thing up over the last week, such a judgement would already have been innacurate. Especially as it appears – oh dear – piracy may have significantly exacerbated DG’s multiplayer problems….
According to one of Stardock’s ongoing status reports about Demigod, “The system works pretty well if you have a few thousand people online at once. The system works…less well if there are tens of thousands of people online at once. And if there are over 100,000 people, well, you get horrific results such as the game being incredibly unresponsive due to simple web service calls that were considered pretty benign during the beta that suddenly start to bring down firewalls and such due to the sheer massive number of calls that are being made. Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez. About 18,000 are legitimate.”
A result, it seems of Gamestop breaking Demigod’s street date early, and the DRM-free game rapidly showing up on slew of Torrent sites. Do bear in mind that copies without a valid serial number can’t actually play online, but that doesn’t stop them trying, attempting to download patches or the game polling them. And that’s key – every copy of Demigod, legit or otherwise, phones home – apparently as an update check. If that check wasn’t in there, apparently, the servers wouldn’t have been struggling so. So while the amount of pirated copies is causing the multiplayer problems, those problems mightn’t exist if Stardock/GPG hadn’t put that check in. That is, of course, presuming you take Stardock at their word as to why Demigod’s multiplayer was so torturous at release.
In a follow-up status report, we got more details:
The issue boiled down to us having put together a multiplayer infrastructure that was designed to handle around 50,000 or so connected users. If the game took off, we would simply add more servers as the load increased.
But what happened was that we ended up with 140,000 connected users, of which about 12% were actually legitimate customers. Now, the roughly 120,000 users that weren’t running legitimate copies of the game weren’t online playing multiplayer or anything. The issue with those users was as benign as a handful of HTTP calls that did things like check for updates and general server keep alive. Pretty trivial on its own until you have 120,000 of them. Then you have what amounts to a DDOS attack on yourself.
So the day 2 update we released basically made sure legitimate customers were no longer being affected by those users. As a side note, no we can’t just eliminate the infrastructure being used up by warez users because they’re running the unprotected retail version and we can’t make a distinction between retail and pirated since there’s no copy protection. It’s not a huge deal in the long run (except to our metacritic score), it was just an unexpected challenge that made day 1 a very bad multiplayer experience.
Another interesting element in the web vs print argy-bargy is that we now get this kind of transparency from developers/publishers – immediate word on exactly what’s happening with a troubled game, which can appease fans. Of course, the relies on the publisher/developer being prepared to be open and honest, rather than the cold, closed ranks and dismissive attitudes towards fans some outfits demonstrate.
Anyway, there’s King Fact – around 12% of Demigod’s first-week players were legitimate. As always, that doesn’t mean the other 88% are lost customers, but it’s forever startling to see these kind of numbers. More important, really, is the experience the genuine customers are having – have the couple of patches since launch fixed the multiplayer problems? What say you, faithful types? After a couple of days on the road I’ve not been able to stick my head in just yet, but hopefully it means Jim’s forthcoming full Wot I Think is finally all engines go…
While clearly piracy is the flashpoint to end all flashpoints on this site, do be grown-ups and human beings as you debate this in comments.
Oh, and if you want the more personal touch, here’s Stardock’s Brad Wardell recording a video diary for IGN wherein he looks into and explains the launch problems:
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One thing that has been really, really bugging me is the whole “they only have themselves to blame since they didn’t use DRM” statement that has been wildly proclaimed here.
Let me just ask one simple question. Are there pirated copies of DRM-protected games? To the same extent? Spore, Mass Effect, Bioshock all have DRM and all have been pirated. So then, would have DRM prevented this?
No.
When a pirate downloads a game off of the internet, it comes working. (For the most part) The DRM has already been cleaned out of it. That is why its a pirated copy. So then, with regards to the install limit of that Spore or Mass Effect has, who is more effected, the pirate or the customer. The pirate has a game without the install limit, the customer does not.
If Demigod came with DRM, would it have prevented this? You have got to be kidding yourself if you think it would have.
Also, the amount of people talking about this who didn’t rtfa is crazy. There is a cd-key. You have to be registered to get patches or to play online. The problems were caused by having over 100,000 computers checking for updates when they expected 50,000. So why don’t all those people asking why they didn’t use CD-Keys go rtfa…
The people I know who pirated this game did so because it isn’t that good.
A few hours in single player and you notice it has a steep learning curve, zero tutorial, no single-player campaign/story a la Warcraft or Starcraft, uninspired animation and level design, few characters to select from (very few useful characters), shallow character advancement/items and rapidly starts to feel like a repetitive clickfest. Note I haven’t even mentioned the multiplayer and netcode issues they should be able to fix in a few weeks.
In short, it’s a derivative RTS, and not worth $40. Test drive it and uninstall.
It really isn’t.
On the contrary, I found that it has a relatively easy learning curve. There’s no tutorial, but a few games against easy AI will teach you the basics of playing. All eight demigods are useful in different ways; none of them dominate, and all of them can contribute to a successful team. Each demigod has several viable builds which can change your playing style a great deal.
It is like a mod without a game O.o Did they charge full price for Red Orchestra when it came out or was it a budget title as this one should have been? I dare say there was more content in Red Orchestra than there was in DemiGod at that.
There is no learning curve, no tutorial is needed. Once you play the game a few times you know pretty much everything you need to know. A few more times you’ve seen all there is to see (unless they add more)
So unless you just love this exact Genre it is not going to be for you. Just like if you don’t LOVE WW2 eastern from FPS shooters you’re not going to play Red Orchestra for very long.
So in summation, wait 2 months after a game is released. Read up on the ‘official’ game forum about any complaints/praise. See if all patches fixing problems have been released. Then if you decided you may like this game, check prices to see if it has dropped to at least 2/3rds of MSRP. If not, wait another couple of months or until summertime sales begin…