Ladies (I hope there are a few) and Gents,

My friend Sturmadler and I spent a few hours before the release of the new update today playing the older version so we could best identify changes and bugs.

After a handful of games - some issues I found are below and many, as you can see, are identified with screenshots. I made my notes and cut/pasted a few things in Paint - I don't have photoshop in windows.

If it helps up front, I'm playing on the most recent (Feb08) Mac Pro (I'm a filmmaker - Be nice, mac haters). Dual quad cores, 8 gigs of ram, 8800GT 512. On my windows partition of course, Demigod runs like a dream at 1920x1200 with everything set to high and 16 (and 16Q, I tried both) AA.

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Screenshot 1

1. Overlay Highlight Glaze: I immediately noticed this when I got into the game. If I highlight anything, whatever it's highlight color is, the entire screen gets a transparent "glaze" over it that is the color of whatever I highlighted. This is demonstrated above in a screenshot from the end of the game - striped into sections. This may not be a bug, but it felt jarring to me and I wanted to point it out for feedback. Sturmadler said it didn't happen for him. This was not an issue for me in Beta 2a. Followup: This appears to be related to Aliasing. If I turn AA off, it goes away. I tried setting it to 16, 16Q, 8, 8Q, and 1 - all had the issue until I turned AA off altogether. I then noticed that when it doesn't happen to the whole screen, it does happen to just the highlighted Demigod or structure, which I'm sure was intentional.

2. Offside Awards: When you win, if you pwn (and Sturmadler did, too, but this is the screen I took of me during one particular game) all the awards have two issues. One, they fall off the edge if you get more than it can display. Two, the window they should fit into is bound further out than it should be, and overlays the graphical edge of the end game window. This is indicated in the picture as well.

3. Offside Minimap: If some of you didn't notice or haven't played yet, when you rotate your camera (hold spacebar to do so) your minimap turns, keeping the angle mutually oriented between your camera and minimap. When I rotated to certain angles, the edges of the minimap go off the side of the screen.

4. AI Codenames: The AI shown here do not have character names, but what you can see as coded placeholders of some sort.

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Screenshot 2

5. AI Codename In-Game: The AI highlighted here does not have a character name, but what you can see as a coded placeholder of some sort - this time during gameplay.

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Screenshot 3

6. Death Stuck Progress Bar: First of two issues in this shot. When I died this time, I had been in the middle of attempting to teleport or heal (can't remember which). Normally this interrupts any process that hadn't completed, however this time the progress bar didn't go away, and stayed for the duration of my death. Although I managed to grab it in this shot, this only happened this one time and in the following two games was not able to replicate it.

7.* Death Overlay End Pixel: I noticed this when I died - a thin pixel line all the way around the screen edge did not have the death overlay look and appeared to be showing the normal screen colors in that one line pixel around the edges. This may be best seen around a black edge if loaded into photoshop. I believe when I tried adjusting Vsync and AA, this went away, however I did not do redundant checks of this yet. Followup: I confirmed that this is also effected by aliasig (AA). When any aliasing was off, it did not happen.

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Screenshot 4 - *Problem 7 can also be seen here

8. Tab Time & War Rank: When holding Tab (not just during death) the Time and War Score are offset (or so it seems to me). This is assuming that they were both mean to be overlayed on top of the Tab Window, and not as they are (alternatively, this may not be an issue).

9. Tab War Score: When holding Tab, the War Score for each team was not updated during any game in Beta 2b that I have played.

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Screenshot 5

10. Health Color Mismatch: Again, possibly not a bug, but a color mismatch that may or may not generate discussion. The color the player sees on their health bar isn't matching what you see when you overlay (to the lower right) or above the character.

11. Health Decimal Craziness: How can we all NOT notice this. I find it hilarious/cool and don't mind it at all, but I have to assume on some level this was not intended. Discuss?

12. No Player Icon: Self explanatory. I don't know when this started or when it ended. I noticed it late in the game and don't recall paying attention if it was there or not at the end. This may be explained if the Uncle doesn't have an avatar in this build (this shot taken during the last game I played - haven't double checked yet)... Followup: In my next game, with the rook, the same thing happened - so it's not related to just the Unclean Beast. Could it be related to how the avatar is rendered and it gets reset/removed if I change graphical settings during gameplay?

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Other Bugs Without Screenshots

13. Delay on "In-Game Announcements": (ie: "Godlike," etc) where you see "Godlike" on the screen but do not hear the audio for some time. Sturmadler and I experienced this on both ends. I would get an Announcement award, see it on the screen ("Godlike"), then not hear it audibly for some time (5+ seconds after the fact). This happened with many such Announcements. This did not happen every game (even though it happend for me when I got the award... possibly lag related?).

14. Enemy Announcement Taunts: Somewhat related to bug#13, possibly - We would hear the verbal announcement when an enemy Demigod would get "Godlike" (or other announcement awards) as if we were on their team. This may not be a bug, but it felt disorienting when I heard it for an enemy player. Perhaps they could be more of a direct taunt when we hear the enemy team get an announcement award (unlike in Unreal, where I feel like it's clearer)? There is a chance I may have misinterpreted what was happening here, perhaps due to lag, but I believe what I'm stating was the case.

15.  Middle Flag Delay: I experienced, only once, the inability to retake the middle flag from the opposing team when no other Demigods were present at that flag. While I do not believe this was lag related, I was not able to replicate this issue.

16. Bought Item Points: I didn't experience this myself, but Sturmadler reported having bought a reward item at the beginning of a round with Regulus, then the following game that item was no longer selectable (or "bought") and the points were no longer available to use again (as if it did indeed know he had previously bought the item). The item in question was the speed ankle.

17. Name Cut Off in Tab/Endgame: I didn't note this in the images, but you'll notice in screenshot 1 that the names that are too long also do not show in full (ie: "Rackjabbit" got cut down to Rackjabb"). Note that in screenshot 4, this did not happen.

18. The voice for Regulus is obnoxious: No offence to the talented voice actor... especially if you're a GPG/Stardock employee. Like any good character you love to hate, I know this means you did your job well.

19. Where the F is the Torchbearer?!?!: Seriously.
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Final Thoughts:

18 and 19 aside, overall I feel like 2b has a great polish and is a wonderful step towards completing the game! The level 15 skills are a nice touch and the tweaks for the Generals really feel like they work well.

Thanks to Sturmadler for his help, and thanks to Stardock & GPG for all the hard work!

Best-

Note: Followup thread with more bugs located here: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/336756