dsmart: “Fact is, I have never – ever – said those words about Demigod. Anywhere. Threads and posts are eternal. So I dare you to post them. ”

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/18/demigod-the-saga-continues/

“Yes, the game [Demigod] is going to fail to meet expectations, not because of pirates, netcode or anything – but because in general, GPG games are lifeless, souless repetitive stress inducing lessons in hype, flash and emptiness. ”

I fail to see how subedii is misrepresenting your words.

P.

He’s not catering to a particular market though as hes actively hoping for interest via RPS. Hes basically pushing the game to anyone who will listen and when people criticise his defense is “well you may not like it but i don’t care, my die-hard fans do”.

complete.utter.bollocks.

You know how many forums and groups discuss this game on the Internet? No? Go to Google. Or better yet, setup a Google alert.

I only come here because a) I like the forum b) they has a low tolerance threshold for crap – so I can discuss my game or anything else without constantly being subjected to wanton abuse by anti-social misfits trying to feel good about themselves and their less than ordinary lives.

I don’t come here to push or sell anything. To even assume that I would derive any results of such is the sort of thing that insanity is based on.

Gamers are gamers, no matter where they are or what they play. They go where the fun is. As such, if they hear about a game, see it posted about thus check it out, the end decision is up to them.

Comments like this are the reason that most devs don’t even bother to mingle with the likes of people they otherwise wouldn’t even talk to on the street. So all over the net, you find gamers being gamers and some anti-social misfits thrown in for good measure. Think most devs care? Fact is, we don’t. Our games speak for themselves and the proof is always in the pudding.

But other than that, I don’t have anything. I do think that AAW would be much improved with the inclusion of ponies, though.

You didn’t mention the outside people who did work on it like Matias?

I also made a bold statement that – as of that writing – there were NO bugs in the game. There weren’t. Not a single one. The original demo used the 1.18.15 engine. Everything that went in to the game engine since that build, was new as can be seen from the <a href="http://downloads.3000ad.com/aaw_dev_changelog.txt"online version control file.

This – like ALL my games – is a HUGE and very advanced game. This is not some cookie cutter fps hybrid game because we simply CANNOT compete in that space with likes of the gazillions that larger publishers put behind it.

TWO programmers (myself and Sergio), three if you count Nick who did some support stuff earlier on before going back to college. Anyone who has played this game and we tell them it took only two programmers, don’t believe it. And thats with me filling in ALL other roles. Go look at the credits section of the game’s manual.

We didn’t set out to compete with the likes of COD4, ArmaII and every Tom, Dick and Harry’s fps game thats coming out. For one thing, we set ours in a massive sci-fi would.

What I CAN tell you is that given our history, we’d probably sell more units than Bionic Commando on day one.

This is a huge game. And apart from our very good relationship with them over the years, there is a reason why my friends at IGN (our Direct2Drive distributor) helped us out with a closed public test between April 19th to May 20th. This was because I wanted fresh eyes on the game from outside our official and internal testing group. That move was invaluable in shaping what the game became since that April build.

When the demo was released and a few RPS gamers jumped in, again, fresh eyes – from what I call experienced fps games (Reverend, Serondal, Howard et al) gave us new perspective – along with the preresquisite aggro. They found new things that need tweaking and/or implementing. We did that almost IMMEDIATELY.

Heck, something as simple as what to do with the player being stranded out in the middle of nowhere after being shut down, survived and stranded, NEVER occured to me. What did we do? Implemented the ability to teleport to the nearest base rather than have the player start from scratch, restart or wait for a buddy to come rescue him.

Similarly, with a massive world and limited players, it takes time to get everyone together. What did we do – within that span of four days? We implemented AI bots in the standard (none co-op) multiplayer game and had everyone start at the same base.

We were comfortable with the controller (joystick, analog, Xb360) scheme. ONE person – who is obviously a console fan and who has an unhealthy love for his xb360 controller wanted it changed. We did that THREE times in the span of four days. Until we got it right FOR ONE PERSON who complained. Though it worked just fine for us, the testers, the THOUSANDS of people from the IGN test who tried it. ONE PERSON.

Reverend wanted to piss around with vehicles admiring the scenery instead of, you know, driving. Code (vehicular controls and dynamics) that hadn’t been changed in almost…..EIGHT MONTHS…got revised. He still bitched. It got revised again. He still bitched (we gave him mouse steer, he turned his nose up at it). He still bitched. In the end I had to explain to him why he can’t have mouse look in a vehicle as that would render the GUI menus inaccesible since you can’t use the mouse for mouselook and expect to use it on GUI menus. ALL fps games with that sort of controller, do NOT have GUI access in the game. None.

Someone wanted to be able to change multiplayer teams and class. It went in. Almost immediately.

EVERY SINGLE ITEM seen in the VCF from the demo’s 1.18.15 build to the 1.18.20 build released yesterday, came from DIRECT feedback as a result of the RPS folks playing the demo. And my testers reading this – or Howard and whoever else from RPS who now has access to our private Area51 forum area – can clearly attest to this fact.

We try. Sure we can’t please everyone but in my experience from building my games based on fan feedback and a small community has taught me that one person can make all the difference. If he has ten friends, its all good.

@ Lady Bobz

DRM dropping crap all over my system and expecting me to sign in every time for a demo? And who the hell still writes to win.ini?

Promptly uninstalled the lot.

Rubbish. But nice try though. Byteshield does not write a SINGLE file ANYWHERE. It uses MFC and thats the only reason that GUI position data is in the registry. Neither our game, nor Byteshield need nor write to win.ini. The DRM is non-intrusive, does not install any drivers and is the cleanest of the bunch.

Here is the test done by the P.R.I.S.M guys using our game.

So take that crap somewhere else and stop spreading illwill and lies.

@ Yarrr

Trouble is, he’s never made a good game. Dezza is all talk, the dude’s got a big mouth and a big ego to match but his brash, arrogant attitude isn’t backed up by actual good games. I like the concept of his games, but they’re always lacking in execution and I see no reason to believe this latest escapade will be any different.

The flamewars that mysteriously occur whenever he graces the internet with his presence have one consistent factor…Mr Smart himself.

Everything in life is subjective. Your idea of good is different from someone else’s. Obviously in my 20+ year history, fourteen games and almost $100m in revenue says you’re wrong.

There are obviously many (even 1% of 100% is good enough for me) gamers who share my vision for my games. Since my first outing, I have always said that I’m not out making games for the masses. I stay focused on my target audience – never losing sight of that because I know that I’m not going to win everyone over. In all my games, our install base has grown in leaps and bounds. And there is a reason that even with new games coming out, we still put resources behind improving our games for those who keep buying and playing them…and coming back to them.

While there are devs and publishers falling down like flies, good game or not, we’re pushing forward because our 1% of that 100% is enough for us to get by.

So, if you don’t think I’ve made any good games, thats fine by me. But I gotta ask. What have YOU done lately?

AAW was our first full-on fps game. I didn’t even want to make it. Sergio, Nick and I thought long and hard about it. Do we do KnightBlade (our upcoming Bridge Commander on steriods type space combat simulator) or go straight to our MMO? In the end, I decided that since we’d need a new fps engine for both of those games anyway, we might as well put the extra effort into a full-on fps game and tweak it from there. THATS how AAW came about after we finished Galactic Command Echo Squad SE (the original which was licensed exclusively to GameTap) and had started laying the ground work for KnightBlade.

We don’t care about that other 99% of people who aren’t buying our games. The 1% who help us recoup our costs and turn a profit are the ones who keep us doing what we love the most: MAKING GAMES

@subedii

Not that I’m supporting the guy on a personal level, because I really dislike the way he comes into threads and craps over people and other games. I mean let’s be honest here, as soon as someone raised the issue of crashing with his latest game, he said that it was absolutely impossible and had a go at the guy for not knowing what he was doing. Back in the Demigod thread he said it’d be nothing but a disappointment for Stardock, because GPG make “lifeless, souless repetitive stress inducing lessons in hype, flash and emptiness”. Which hey, it’s a valid opinion, but plenty of other people love the games, and it’s also pretty ironic when you take that into context with earlier statements about “catering to a specific market”, which is exactly what they’ve done.

This is how crap spreads and before you know it, there’s tracking. Fact is, I have never – ever – said those words about Demigod. Anywhere. Threads and posts are eternal. So I dare you to post them. My problem with Demigod is – and always will be – the shoddy launch. I have NO opinions on the game because I HAVE NEVER PLAYED IT AND HAVE NO INTENTIONS OF DOING SO

As to the flamewars, its not like I show up and start flaming. But of course it is people like you who use that nonsensical perspective. Someone comes at me with a knife, I’m bringing a rocket launcher and an ample supply of rockets. I’m a gamer and a game developer, not someone’s punching bag. It is easy to tell someone to turn the other cheek when its not your frigging face.

In any case, critical acclaim only matters if people buy the game. God knows how many excellent games were given vast scores but ignored by the vast majority of people.

That’s my perception of the game, after playing for a little. Is that invalid? On the hardcore sim scale, it would seem to be more Battlefield than Operation Flashpoint, but without using the conventions of those games (for example, you can’t easily change your seat within a vehicle by pressing 1, 2, 3, etc.).

P.

The people who hate his game are NOT people who don’t “understand his target market” they ARE his target market.

People who like Spacesims/Indie games etc. Its not like The 99% are all The Sims players who felt like trying out his game. They are his target market who tried out his game based on the games description and didn’t like it.

It makes business sense to create IP (look at Guitar Hero and The Sims and whatnot) but it’s corrosive in terms of making new and exciting ideas. I have absolute respect for Tim Schafer for always trying a new and interesting idea, rather than pumping out sequels and whatnot*.

* I understand there’s a reason for sequels often, such as expanding the technology and inching your idea closer to the original vision. But most sequels are about money rather than vision, I’d argue, in pretty much any genre.

@Steelfist again

Are you trying to tell me AAW is a unique type of game- the way a fudge, carrot, brocolli and maple syrup cake is to cakes?

Its an FPS with a large world and vehicles? Similar to Battlefield series, Planetside, Tribes etc? Its hardly a groundbreakingly new idea! Its the way its executed thats the issue, not because its a “niche” game.

Anyway, … discussing is one thing, taking the users feedback as the rules to govern a project is a different thing.

I know game projects that use player feedback as the rules to govern the project. I suppose is… kind of easy.. you open something like a forum, or a bug repository, and invite players to fill these sites with bugreports and feature request, and use it as your work plan.

My problem with this is the *type* of suggestions of a gamers. Gamers (or at least the type of gamers i know) are driven by incremental enhancements. There are different voices, some want more eyecandy, and others want something more “Pure” (faithfull) and others want something like a e-sport. So, with what camp you align? To me is easy, since I hate e-sport and faithfull followers, I aligh with the Graphicwhores camp, but a more sensible dev will have a great problem here.

Yea, one guy will tell you… “Just add a checkbox in options, to enable disable eyecandy/faithfull/esport”. But this is another design decission, because If you do that, and repeat this forever, you end with a very complex option window. Soo complex, that is the “default options” that matter. Also, these options often need to precache data, or precalculate stuff, or just take space in the CPU L1 cache for no reason, so make the program slower.. and you end with a “bloated” program.

Also, a application is like a person, have ages, born, grown… and will die as old. You know a app is old, wen it breaks easyly, but has a zillion of features. Applications age with changes.

So, IMHO, you have to chose, and make your decissions, and Keep It Simple.