Cheers for the voice of common sense. Personally I hope you won't give up on the public betas because of reasoning like this. There quite a lot of doom and gloom for impatient people and there will certainly be some in the future even up to the very last minute the game is releases. Fortunately by now you know how to filter such negativity out while keeping the morsels of creative criticism which will make the game better.

It's also good to know that we're missing quite a lot of stuff for gameplay

Really? Has to be formed? If we say that Beta 1 = engine test and that beta 2 = engine test + internet connectivity and that beta 3 is where the gameplay elements get integrated that those statements mean nothing but that you have to help lead the way in making vocal pronouncements of what the final game is going to be like based purely because of time before release?

Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is less than a month from release and the currently available beta SUCKS. So does that mean the final build of Sins Entrenchment will suck too?

You say you were part of the Sins beta? I call shenanigans to that then because Sins of a Solar Empire was an awful game up until weeks before it was released. Go over to the forums and look back at the older posts just weeks before it came out. Not months. I mean literally less than 1 month before it was released and there were lots of people saying how awful it was (mainly because it WAS awful).

EVERY beta we do there's always a handful of... "players" who proclaim often and loudly the imminent doom of the game. It was particularly loud with Sins of a Solar Empire from people who demanded it play like Homeworld.

I mean, if it makes you feel good to complain about a beta then knock yourself out.  But all it means that yes, your feedback will get ignored because those of us reading your feedback know it comes from someone who clearly has interest in reading what has been clearly posted countless times.

Do I think Demigod will satisfy hard-core Dota fans? Definitely not. But I consider that a feature. Not a bug. People who like the hard-core Dota all-stars are not our target audience. People who like the general concept of games like Dota are. 

The Demigod betas are not a marketing experiment.  You'll have a much better idea of where the game is going after beta 2B.  Beta 2B is the first Demigod beta I didn't think was horrible.

 If you have constructive feedback, I'm all over it.  But that's not what I'm seeing here.

Yes, Brad...I was part of the Sins beta from about 2-3 months before it was out if I remember correctly...I didn't post much about it but I kept up to date with the updates, etc... I did enjoy it, funny enough...hehe. If you look at my forum-registration number, its fairly low at the 730k area... So i've been following Stardock for a long time .

Regarding constructive comments, your right that the last few posts in this thread definitely did not take that format...heh. Many of us *have* written constructive feedback in the past for the Demigod beta though. Maybe we view constructive feedback differently, though. If I see a player say "I don't think right now the skill level is impacting the gameplay enough, so that careful positioning and movement of the hero doesn't matter enough..." I see that as constructive in that it points out an area of gameplay that could use more work... So specific complaints can be constructive as I view it...

I definitely hope you guys aren't ignoring comments depending on WHO it comes from, never know when the wisdom of the gods will come from the mouth of babes... .

-Drexion

In project planning there are things called capacity plans.  Basically they're an estimation of the cost of resources needed to do something.  You can have a cap plan for a game as well as smaller cap plans for features.  When they state the cost of a demigod, it's the cost of paying those artists, programmers, etc to do their job for that time, plus other costs of operation (essentially a cap plan).

This is the same reason games cost millions to make and not $0.00.  The employees are being paid, but they're being paid to implement a section of the game.  Thus, that section of the game having a cost attributed to it.  

Another way to think about it is that a game's expense is basically the combined total of all the resources it took to develop, market, and ship the game.  The costs required to develop are basically operating costs, human resource costs (salary), etc.

Did that clear things up?

If they are significantly dependent of testers and have a considerably core of testers like you, I doubt it too. Hardly anyone will make a game to be a classic, they try to make a good game has they can. Many artists that did a painting didn't know it would be a classic, it's the public that chooses it; if it fall into their grace then you can call it a classic. Since you choose to be a tester and help, why don't you try to be a "classic" tester then, instead of the less than avarage that you are, and foccus on helping what is there to be great? Nothing is out of solution, that is a conformist thinking, because you don't really want to put efforts in helping, but instead sit down and tell them to make a classic.

Games like Dota, many say it's good... isn't it just a map and a mod much smaller than the original game? Despite that, some said to be better than the orignal game; that wasn't impossible, might look even simple, tought it most probably was not, but good ideas can look like that. They took what was there in the orignal game and turned into something else. I'm certain that what is there on Demigod, isn't to trow away; a true developer or tester may make what can be good of what is there to come out, like an artist with the worst or simplier pigments, like using eggs, can make amazing art.

Look at you and then other testers that are devoted in looking for ways to make it better and believing in the project. Hardly there is anything doomed and there is plenty of time for Demigod. It is easier to say something is doomed, than to stop to think hard about what is constraining your enjoyment and what should be modified to be more generally apraised by everyone and show that. If you people now don't want to help thats fine, just pass out; but you guys not only choosed not to really help but are using your efforts to pass poor visions that the game is doomed regardeless, when developers are working and expecting constructive feeback and ideas.

If it end up being a total waste, public will sure tell it. I guess they don't need testers right now, just saying the game is doomed instead of presenting hard thinking ideas to make the game better at anywhere it should be improved.

That apart..

I think that Stardock or GPG should let the game in it's gold stage to be more tested before release so it can be further improved, but I guess that is a time where they don't put new features and they rather prefer it to come with expasions, sadly. I think that for some of the last, yet important things, to be implement so close to release might also be some kind of strategy to prevent games leaking before release and all. That might contribute to make things harder.

If want to test, work and endorse what you see that would make it better intead of yourself dooming the game. Also if they don't want to listen to the ideas after efforts were used to show it could be nice. But nothing is doomed because it is, if you feel they don't use the good ideas then that should be told, there is always reasoning to use but you guys are just using the easy, confortable and ilegit way that is to say it will be bad, when there are months till the release. They also need help with bugs and balancing; balancing makes some big deal in gameplay too, this also includes how fast the game will play and how fast units walk, adding more or different strategies, not to mention skills and everything else.

Anyway many people get bored of any game after playing for a couple of weeks or so, and also don't have much patience, so to be a tester is not for anyone (that will last).

There is a big number of players that don't like games, or even computers in general. They play it because they are addicted or/and lack social skills in some cases. Some think they like games when in reality they don't. I'm partly like that, even tough I enjoy games I spent more time reading about them, and hardly will be enjoying a game more then 2 weeks unless is something exceptional (and long/replayability). It's pretty easy that some gamers will lose the interest in a game quickly, than if it's a Beta... I'm not saying is the case here, but some players are just bound to depreciate any game with given time because of uber genetic reasons. It's a true joke.

I liked Sins quite a bit personally, played it for months...had hundreds of online games from my multiple accounts. I had two big problems with Sins though: 1) The unit balance between races needed balancing for a "competitive crowd" to be interested. Attempts at this were made in patches, but I believe ended up failing. Balance in Sins was quite bad throughout all its iterations. Didn't stop it being FUN for awhile, but for competitive gaming? No way... 2) Partly due to #1 and partly due to "simple multiplayer support", the online community was never that large. Specially the "competitive" online community. When you have over 95% win ratios and there are only 5-6 people in the online community who can give you a hard game or beat you... You tend to lose interest after awhile. Those 3 vs 7 games got boring too, after the "wow we beat 7 people!" factor wore off...

One thing that FrogBoy said in his last post explains alot of it: "We explitcitly don't want to add features that largely favor the hard core player."  Which makes sense, since their a business and they want to widen their "customer base"... At the same time, such statements could very well explain why it takes a player-created MOD such as "Dota" to cater to skill-interested players...Or "Hard core" as he put it.

At the same time, if we look at something such as the Blizzard Starcraft game (and Sc2 coming out soon), it was obviously widely popular world-wide and yet it did cater to the "hard core" crowd...Can't get more hard core than the professional players in Korea . This tends to make me believe that it is NOT impossible to create a widely popular game, with a huge customer base...and STILL cater to the "hard core player". Of course, for such a thing to happen, we can't have the people in charge explitcitly say things like "We explicitly don't want to add features that largely favor the hard core player."... Ah well...

-Drexion

I'd have to agree 100% with you there, Frogboy. The multiplayer support for Sins was simply inadequate... Which makes sense, since it requires a good bit of effort to create this "support", and Ironclad was a pretty small operation. This is one reason I have been happy to see how Stardock has put forth a good bit of effort into developing this "multiplayer support" codebase since Sins of a Solar Empire. It is my hope that once this codebase is in place, this will allow you guys to delve much more into the "multiplayer scene".

It takes a lot of work to have all that statistical tracking / stable experience / ease of use code in place. Hopefully we will see a system that is easy to plug "mods" into also ... The community can at times save a LOT of work that the developers would have to do in a patch, but if there isn't an easy way to get a match started with someone who has the same Mod... It becomes very hard to gain any traction. People should be able to specify when hosting/joining a game if they want to play with the default game or "Mod A" or "Mod B", etc. The open-code-project Spring handles mods very well for example.

Regarding the whole "hard core" vs "casual" type player thing, I guess my biggest problem is that I do not believe that catering to the "hard core" hurts the "casual" players in any way...At least if done properly... The two gamer profiles just tend to care more about different things: The Hard Core might care much more about "unit balance" / "Tournaments" whereas the casual might care more for "Single player" or "Story"...

Taking DOTA for example, one problem casual players run into is that there is no type of "match-making"... So you have the casual profile players running into games with the hard-core profile players... And since one group is looking for simple "fun" while the other is looking for "challenge", you see sparks fly . It doesn't help that having 1-2 "feeders" can totaly destroy a 45minute game in Dota, so then the "hard core" people start getting really annoyed and tend to be rude to the "casual" profile players. Kind of like mixing oil and water...Just doesn't work.

-Drexion

I think Sins is a great RTS. I just got eyebrow raised at the whole idea it was somehow trying to spin a new genre: 4XRTS - which I actually consider a game like Europa Universalis to be a better contender for that. Although I guess it was a tool to peak curiosity since that was exactly what got me runnin'.

As for this Demigod beta. Totally dudes! How can we even consider the fun side when the focus of feedback should be on network issues, minion desynchs and stuff! 

Although what bugs me is that this forum is rarely looked at. When will we get the flash fix? I want an avatar!

I disagree frogboy, whilst you can defend your position that this isn't meant to be fun yet, you've given no indication of the changes that will make it fun.  So far it seems the direction demigod is taking is very different to initial expectations.  It's not a strategy game, It's entirely action rpg.  Had I known this was planned to be the "Counterstrike of strategy" I would've likely not preordered, and actually waited to see if i'd like it on release.  Don't be disheartened, I think you're making a great game, just perhaps not one I'll enjoy.

Yea for Demigod, Stardock itself is building the backend.

So you'll have ladder and tournaments and all that good stuff. That will go a long way to building a multiplayer community.

Plus, the single player game is shaping up pretty well.

(puts on his leather pants) (Hands Frogboy the whip)...

Lets get this Elemental party started! Just let me be able to run around with my own AI-Bot called "FiFo" and i'll be happy.

-Drexion

Demigod does have complex game mechanics.  Not having things like recipes ala Dota doesn't make Demigod less complex.

What one person calls complex another person would say tedious.

Clearly, we're listening to feedback. We always do. 

But that doesn't mean that we're somehow obligated to implement every beta tester's vision of what they think the game should be.

And I can assure you, there's always a few guys posting very long, very interesting, and very detailed suggestion posts that are simply not doable and when it becomes clear we're not implementing their features, they predict the ultimate demise of the game.  This was the case with GalCiv, Sins, and will be with Demigod and Elemental.