Reply With QuoteAny word on whether Gamestop broke the release date out of incompetence or greed? I'm just curious.
Clever idea to stop the pirates. Are you able to track server hits to try to get a count on who is trying to play with an illegitimate copy?
Hi guys,
Just a quick update. So here's the situation:
Gamestop released Demigod last week instead of waiting for the street date which is tomorrow).
We had only kept up a single Demigod server for the Easter holidays because the only people who would be playing would be a few partners, reviewers, etc. So no biggie.
But the early retail release not only resulted in thousands of customers we weren't expecting but also tens of thousands of pirates (there's no copy protection or DRM whatsoever on the retail DVD). So that 1 server has become horrifically bogged down.
So what we've been doing tonight is setting up the day 0 servers but doing something a little extra: We're also updating the game to make use of the new servers exclusively so that people with the older version (the pirates) will be left with the old version and customers will update to the new version (the download will be like 5 megs or so via Impulse).
And, because we're updating it, we're rolling in some new features based on feedback from reviewers (like how the friends stuff works and a connectivity status dialog that shows who's connecting to your game even from within the lobby of a custom game).
So all that should be up and ready in the next hour or so. Then we'll be all ready for some Demigod on Demigod action! (well not me, I'm going to bed). :)
Any word on whether Gamestop broke the release date out of incompetence or greed? I'm just curious.
Clever idea to stop the pirates. Are you able to track server hits to try to get a count on who is trying to play with an illegitimate copy?
BTW, there's a video tutorial on the home page of http://www.demigodthegame.com given by Mike Marr, the lead designer.
We can't identify individuals. The game has a "check for updates" call at the menu so we can see how many people are playing. We also know how many copies Gamestop ordered and how many beta testers + pre-orders we had.Originally Posted by Tim James
Suffice to say there are a lot of warez copies in use right now. So this will be an interesting experiment of the effect of piracy on sales. I still maintain that while piracy is a major issue, one shouldn't treat a pirated copy as a lost sale.
Man. Generals are HARD. I played as Erebus and totally whooped ass, then tried my first Custom Game as Sedna and got utterly destroyed.
I have a real hard time trying to figure out how the game wants me to control a Demigod+Minions. If I hit "N" for everyone and then Alt+Click for attack move (I'm going to have to remap this stuff to RTS controls) my General tends to just run past any bad guy they encounter along the way while my minions engage them. This only seemed to happen with Sedna and not Erebus, though, so maybe it was a bug or something?
Anyway - I think Assassins are more my speed anyway. I had a real fun time as the Torchbearer.
Sedna does seem hard, but I get the idea that she is more like a Priest in WoW. So you are really playing a support role, which can be hard to wrap your head around in this sort of game (supporting your own minions, but also the enemy demigods). I feel like I'd like more feedback on my pets (minions), though. A row of icons for current minions and their health, MMO style, along the top of the hot bar would be ideal. You can toggle on health bars, but they are small and hard to see in a swirling melee. Targeting healing spells is also a pain when you have to click on moving targets manually.
I like the various upgrades, and the few demigod types that I tried (Queen of Thorns, Sedna, the fire/ice assassin guy) seem cool. Game times seem a bit... variable. I played two games on the 2v2 lava map, one with the fire/ice guy that lasted 19 minutes, and another with the queen of thorns that lasted an hour and ten minutes. Yikes! The 19 minute game was a whole lot of fun, though.
BTW, I guess my name for Impulse/friend purposes would actually be "Felderin", which is my Impulse user name. My game profile is Ben Sones, though.
Maybe I missed it (it's possible), but is there a link on Impulse to buy the (retail) Demigod:CE direct, rather than having to deal with dicks like EB/Gamestop?
Yay, sanity. Keep us updated (maybe start a new thread for that when you're ready? or maybe that's suicide around here).
Chris
How come I have five friends in Impulse, one of which is online, but when I'm in the game and I hit shift-tab and bring up the friends list it tells me I don't have any friends?
I DO TOO HAVE FRIENDS! They're just not from here you don't know them LEAVE ME ALONE!
Edit: Wrote that before I saw Brad's note above. I suppose that version/server mismatch is responsible for my friends not showing up in-game.
That is true. What I don't think the game industry business people understand is just because some kid on the internet pirated a copy of a game, doesn't mean if he wasn't able to pirate it (which he inevitably will since no DRM system really seems full proof), he would pay the full amount for it. More often than not, I think if someone thinks a game is really good, they would pay for a legitimate copy.
The world you live in sounds awesome.
The targeting is the only complaint I have so far, sometimes it's hard to pick the bad guy demigod out of the melee (unless that guy is rook, heh).
Oak is awesome, though.
Peacedog, hold down CTRL while you click on the mass of units. It'll essentially magnetize the cursor to the nearest demigod.
-Tom
Brad, is there a way to change your nick in Demigod? I've changed my Impulse username, but in Demigod I still show up with my old TotalGaming.net name. I'm apparently not the only one with this problem.
Anyone know what the 1.0 patch does?
Rad. Thanks.
Here you go.
Nope, that's the 0 update which was in the pre-order download. There was a new update this morning.
I think Lorini's referring to the small update that wasn't identified as a non-v1.00 update. That is, even though Demigod was updated this morning (for me), Impulse still shows it as:
Demigod v1.00
Updated: 4/14/2009
Size: 2.82 GB
If so, here's what that small update did:
Gamestop, the company that refuses to sell Steam bundled games, "accidentally" pre-released the hit game that is supposedly to push Impulse.
What is next?
Delay of retail release, forcing early adopters to purchase online?
Dramas aside, the game will suffer the same problem with Left 4 Dead. People expect a full Singleplayer campaign. The marketing needs to work on identifying the game.
Last edited by thinkingork; 04-14-2009 at 05:55 AM.
I sort of think that publishers would be best served by giving Gamestop the finger and cutting them off altogether. They barely push new products, anyway--that store is much more of a used game swap meet than anything else. They seem to view new games as loss leaders--just a way to get you into the store so they can peddle their used crap. And they often don't order enough to cover more than preorders, so even that is a bit of a bait and switch.
So, fuck Gamestop.
BTW, I have changed my Impulse user name to Ben Sones, to make things easier.
Well said. I was thinking the exact same thing.
What? First I request Ben Sones as a friend, then your Impulse ID, and now I'm supposed to request Ben Sones, again? Dude, you're killing me! Just add Vindicator to yours if you haven't already, mm'k?
Is anyone else running this on Windows 7? I'm getting unexpectedly low performance to the tune of 15 fps at 1280x800 with all settings at their lowest. My video card is a 512mb 7950GTX, which is well above the recommended specs. Latest drivers, etc.
No, I saw your request and approved it. I don't think changing the account name affects pending friend requests. Hmm... although now it doesn't list any pending friends, or any current ones, either. Weird. I'll try adding you again.
It does seem to have caused some sort of weird error, though. When I launch Impulse now, I get an error that says "Could not log in. Invalid Stardock.net account. A Stardock.net account does not exist for "Felderin." You must register the account first."
Felderin was the old account name, but I'm not sure why it's trying to log in as that. On my login page in Impulse, it lists "Ben Sones" as my username. And after I get the error, it seems like it has logged in correctly anyway. So I'm not sure what that's all about.
Is anyone else having trouble registering their account for the stardock forums? I am trying to resend the account verification email so that I can click on the link and register, but it gives me a System.net.webexception error. Thanks!
The manual is now available in the /bin directory btw. Thanks for the 1.0 info, I thought maybe there was more.
I'm playing this and I'm winning as predicted, but there are a lot of things I'm not understanding. First off, can you directly control your other Demigods without also controlling your own? Do your other Demigods buy stuff? (I sometimes see them going to the item store). It would be awesome if they listed which Demigods you get in the tournaments because it appears to be completely random and I have no idea what they do.
In skirmish, is there a 1v1 map somewhere? I haven't played any skirmishes because of previous trauma in other games having to trust AI team players; is this game any better with that? If I do play 3vs3 or whatever, will my team player be better if he is a Nightmare AI or an Easy AI?
There is a tremendous amount of information you have to process quickly in this game (SupCom has a nice progression in information so they really can't be compared) and I'm still overwhelmed with it after 8 games. Maybe it will get better in the future but I just don't know what to choose and with the time pressure, it makes it even worse. Oh well I've bought it now :)
Ahh ok sorry, I didn't think the 0 day patch had been implemented yet.
As far as I know Lorini.
-No you can't control other Demigods than your own, each one is a player so they can do everything you can do.
-I think you can turn it down to whatever xVsx you want it to be, though some maps might be better for that. Nightmare AI is harder, so an AI on your team with nightmare AI would play better.
Yeah I'm still overwhelmed with info too, time to experiment.
That recent patch seems to have cured my inability to connect to games, now it only appears every 5 games or so and it pops almost instantly. Connecting to a game turned out to be a problem I hadn't encountered before but port forwarding fixed that in a jiffy.
Also it would be nice to get a way to kick people that are trying to connect to a game. We had to disband a match earlier because someone was trying to connect to our last open spot but couldn't. We gave up after a good 5-7 minutes of just sitting there and left.
Ah, crap--I think I know what happened. I seem to have already had an old (like, really old--pre-GalCiv 1) Stardock.net account registered under "Ben Sones", with the same password. Now when I log in, that's the account I am on. I noticed this when I looked at the account info page, which listed my old address and email from when I lived in Vermont. The catch is that I don't have any registered games under this account--those were all on my other account, which I can apparently no longer access because it now has the same user name and password as this old account, and when I log in with that user name and password, it logs me onto to the old account and not the new one.
Whoops. And also: help?
AFAIK you control one demigod only.
My AI buddies have definitely invested money upgrading the Citadel - and done a pretty decent job with the upgrades. I thought they were neglecting the reinforcement troop adds too much in my first game, but one need not go that route to win.
I assume they're buying weapons too.
why not play 1v1 on a 2v2 map? You have that option.In skirmish, is there a 1v1 map somewhere? I haven't played any skirmishes because of previous trauma in other games having to trust AI team players; is this game any better with that? If I do play 3vs3 or whatever, will my team player be better if he is a Nightmare AI or an Easy AI?
I think the AI is pretty good so far. I've seen my buddies chip away at enemy defensive structures and fight hard to contest points. When it was feasible, he even jumped in to help me in some harder engagements. I've see the AI buddies double team a lone enemy demigod as well.
I don't know how much the difficulty affects the teammate AIs though.
I don't find it overwhelming at all, and I tend to suck at RTS games.There is a tremendous amount of information you have to process quickly in this game (SupCom has a nice progression in information so they really can't be compared) and I'm still overwhelmed with it after 8 games. Maybe it will get better in the future but I just don't know what to choose and with the time pressure, it makes it even worse. Oh well I've bought it now :)
It's simplistic at the high level - money spent on items is good for your demigod. Money spent on the citadel will benefit the whole team. The actual choices are more complex of course, but you can look at the citadel like this:
1) Offensive boosts (both increasing reinforcement effectiveness *and* adding to the spawns with new and more powerful creatures).
2) Structural boosts - e.g.. improving health/defense/regen of all structures (towers inclusive, I think)
3) Demigod boosts. Reductions to the death penalty, xp gain boosts, I think there are others.
And there's an economic boost but it's hard to say how much it matters. Figure a plan and stick to it. My team was out leveled last game ~5 levels demigod versus demigod, but we held the majority of the map out of the gate. I spent alot of money ensuring our reinforcements kicked ass. I then made sure we captured and held all the portals we could. It made a big difference. We didn't need to fight demi vs demi confrontations.
But that's not the only way to do it, of course.
For individual items, there are many choices to be sure. I tend to see similarly priced equipment of a given type (e.g. two 5k armors), and they tend to offer a tradeoff. One boosts armor, the other adds health + I think a small regen boost. Knowing what to use and when comes with time; obviously knowing how you want to build the demigod will somewhat dicate these chocies.
Oh, and I believe this is generally true:
Armor - good for health and protection
Helmets - mana boosts and possibly other side benefits (buff stuff).
Gloves - combat boosts (e.g. damage, and the high level gloves offer some neat proc effects).
Boots - utility? I felt like I saw the most variety there (one pair was a walking speed + dodge boost, another health boost, etc).
But I'm still learning. As Oak, I tend to use a goodly amount of mana, making a good helmet something of a priority. After I get my minions to a good place, anyway. I bought the helmet as my first EQ last game, and it really helped (a somewhat pricey one).
In case you weren't aware, the rollover help text on the item tabs will tell you at what each class of items excels.
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