The Demigod demo has finally, suddenly emerged from the storm of patching that was post-release Demigod development. Siphon its 598mb from here.
While we’ve not been back in recent weeks, we’ve had a few reports that the connection issues are now largely solved, making the internet multiplayer of the demo a rather interesting prospect. Will the demo kick off a second wind for the game? I hope so, as it was a fun time. Anyway, this cut-down version of the god-thumping strategy features a single arena, called The Cataract, and four of the eight Demigods (Regulus, Rook, Sedna and Lord Erebus.) No Oak, alas, for he is a splendid being. Still, you’ll get a kick out of Rook and Erebus. Additionally, you can check out the four game modes (Conquest, Dominate, Fortress and Slaughter), which are all contained therein.
I’ll try and revisit Demigod over the weekend and see if we can’t get some more idea of how the battle for the pantheon is going, all these months on.
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The retail sales can’t be *that* bad, all the major retailers (Target, walmart, etc.) around where I live are still selling it. King’s Bounty, on the other hand, I was suprised to see at my local Walmart once, but then a few weeks later it was gone.
I get the same impression as Jens does about GPG’s support for the game. Stardock’s support for the game has been excellent, GPG’s has been less so. Hopefully now that the demo’s out we’ll see more new content. They’re planning to add modding to the game, so we’ll probably see some good maps come out of that.
Can everyone PLEASE stop playing as the Unclean Beast? He’s MY character and none of you know how to play him anyway.
I should have been clear those numbers I wagered for for Europe :P
Obviously worldwide it’s going to be more than that, hell even the worst of the worst games manage 125k worldwide.
I bet even Bionic commando managed that worldwide eventually. Hell Daikatana managed 200k.
So yeah 125k maybe 150k in the UK (2nd or 3rd biggest gaming market?)
I guess I forget you Yanks read this place too – but I’m sure you can forgive me after all it’s not like Americans ever think the world revolves around their country/continent, right? Just kidding, no offence intended.
Isn’t America a smaller market for PC games than Europe anyway?
In the UK, France and Germany even, damn inability to edit.
I am really curious to try this out, but Brad Wardell (Frogboy) commented on the state of the community and it has me a little iffy on if this game is worth a purchase or not.
http://forums.impulsedriven.com/359691/page/1/#2309777
Been playing the demo, enjoying it quite a bit. Not sure how much depth there really is to it mind.
The AI is truly pants – first few games were me + friend (on vent) vs AI. Even at hard, they posed us no problems. I just dropped into a 3vs3 game though, and it could have gone either way (and I got most of the awards for that match…). It’s not worth the $40 Stardock want for it. Maybe worth the £15 PC World want.
And actually, I found the network play really impressive. Zero setup necessary for hosting (I’m glaring at you here, Valve). No drop when players drop, etc etc. All pretty smooth.
Well I was never really sure about this, because it seemed such an odd game, so I played the demo for a bit, then I decided I liked it, and bought it.
The system works!
Seriously, demos are great, there’s little excuse for not having one.
I’m finding myself agreeing with the poster above who said they may have given too much away with the demo.
I’m enjoying it, and a few frustrations aside – like for example the damn game giving me a blue screen every now and again (page fault in none paged area) utterly unique to this game (I ran full stress tests, mem tests, heat tests and everything is fine). It’s a fun experience…
But – I find that honestly the Demo is probably all I’d ever need of this game, I’m not going to play it hardcore, I’m never going to get good enough to compete with top players, I honestly don’t much care about more maps or demigods. Out of the 4 given I only really enjoy the rook, though the sniper is okay – What can I say every game I play I always end up as the tank class/race.
3v3 is fine, often too hectic and apparently the demo has the best map in the game in it anyway.
Still I’ll probably pick it up when I can find it for under a tenner.
Its not that they are giving away too much, its that the game has so little content that its either that or no demo
i frankly dont know why ppl here in RPS care so much about this game, most DotA clones in Warcraft 3 are just as fun or better than this game and they are free if you have war3
Fun! But more the Peggle / Plants vs Zombies style of fun, not the $50 AUD style of fun.
Also – I’m guessing that there won’t be enough Australian players to be able to have low-latency games.
From the looks of the NPD numbers, I’m not sure where you guys are getting 100K sold numbers from. Thats just bollocks.
The game was a retail flop.
I remember playing dota and running a tactic where everyone goes as the hero that is invisible*optionally. Then forming a wall to block all exits to the friendly base. Well within the range of friendly turrets. The enemy creeps would also get stuck on the wall of heroes (without being able to fight them) and all true seeing skills were expensive.
The end effect was the walling team had the persistent cover of the turrets and could unleash a swarm of creeps. Was patched out days later.
I meant to add, the fun of dota was dicking around with where the layered systems met. Not actually playing the game. As soon as a dota had been over balanced the charm of the map was gone.
“I bet even Bionic commando managed that worldwide eventually. Hell Daikatana managed 200k.”
The difference being the budgets. Daikatana was notoriously expensive for its time, while I suspect Bionic Commando’s budget was around $10m. I’d be surprised if Demigod’s budget was 1/10 of that.
Been playing the demo a bit woth some friends. The conclusion was that it was fun, drop in very focussed “statergy” gaming, good for it’s short match times and straight forward but engaging play. It takes a small part of a larger genre and makes a whole game about it. Comparisons to Defcon were made, with the note that it really needed a Defcon-like price, no the madness of $40. Of course, play has it for less but still, not quite enough less.
Ginger the point was that Demigod was NOT worth full game price, it has no more content or deeper content than Plants Vs Zombies, or Defence Grid awakening – both games I enjoy immensely but games that are NOT worth full retail price.
They didn’t ask that so I happily parted with my cash.
They really should have set a RRP of £20 (It’s an online only multiplayer game with no single player content).
It’s got around the same content level as TF2, or other such online only (single player with bots does not count) multiplayer, full retail isn’t a fair price to ask, and the market told that to GPG and Stardock with their wallets.
As I said, it’s a good game, and I enjoy playing it, but it’s not worth more than a Tenner for most normal gamer who’ll not sink hundreds of hours into it.
Actually if anything I think Demigod would have been perfect for a Low sales price supported by Micro-Transactions.
Sell the game for a Tenner ($15) digital delivery only, then make the extra from players who get into the game deeply.
$1 for a map (which anyone can PLAY on, but only a host that owns the map can select it at matchmaking)
$1 for new items, maybe $1 gets you a new armour that has 400 health and 5MP/s rather than 5 HP/s, as well as 5-10 other items that are no more powerful than existing items, just offer slight variations to increase options for advanced play styles.
So on and so forth…