http://www.edge-online.com/blogs/the-gamers-bill-rights
To uphold these rights, Stardock and Gas Powered Games decided to put together the Gamer's Bill of Rights, which we present before you today.
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
So I ask you Stardock and Gas Powered Games do you think your game is in a finished state?
Can we claim our money back based in this Stardock?
I really feel screwed with this game. I bought Gal Civ 2 an was pretty happy with that game and the dedication that Stardock showed for that game, and I was confident you would maintain the same level of dedication with Demigod, but after the release I'm pretty dissappointed. Unfinished product with low content. This game doesn't worth the 40$ I paid for it.
What exactly is your problem?
You're not going to get any help/sympathy if you don't explain what your gripes are.
The totally crap mp system?, unable to kick non connecting people, zip feedback in automatch, so you have no idea if its trying to connect, connecting, or about to load.(after awhile the connecting page vanishs while it still says searching for players)
Often people all connecting to each other but lobby not loading, etc etc etc
The few games i've played have been fun, but taking 4+ hours to get a game working isn't really imo a finished game when its so focused on mp, this feels more like a mp beta then most beta's i've played.
Frogboy commented some time ago that solving MP connectivity issues prior to launch day was critical to DG's commercial success. Well, I'd have to say that GPG/Stardock missed the target. I was having much greater success with connectivity with the final beta version. Since launch, I've been able to connect 4 times after 50+ attempts. This is a frackin disaster. So much for the Player's Bill of Rights when the document's drafters cannot honor those promises.
Sincerely Aggrevated
Let us distinguish Demigod from the NAT fascilitator which is not part of Demigod for a moment.
Is Demigod finished? Absolutely. Are we happy with the state Demigod is in? Definitely. Are we happy with the performance of the NAT fascilitator? Clearly not. But the NAT fascilitator isn't part of the game. Its failings certainly impact the multiplayer aspect of the game to be sure. But a person playing Demigod could replace the NAT fascilitator with Hamachi or various other services and still play the game as designed.
However, bearing in mind that the game has only been officially available for 20 hours, I think you will find that the server problems will be resolved very quickly.
We apologize for the inconvenience but I think it's important that people make some distinction here. We understand people's frustrations. We're frustrated as well. We are working very hard on the server issue and expect a resolution very quickly.
I don't think Stardock could have possibly taken this into account when they were planning for it, I can't imagine now that I've really thought about it, though anybody who heard me in the chat last night might have seen me be a little peeved off. The game is practically finished, except from these multiplayer flaws.
Yesterday, with the current code, I was getting games, I tried to join about 3 games and got two in the process, on the Pantheon, so I don't think the code itself is inherently flawed to the extent some of you will be thinking, it's got more to do with the fact that it has not been tested with this sort of load before, plus they moved to a different server, to help cope with this amount of load. The server migration was messed up due to GameStop releasing early (which is no fault of Stardock, it is to be said). As they've said elsewhere, they've tried to code as well as they can before release and try and take as many different configurations into account, but they just can't take it all into account until it actually comes, sadly by the time this comes, when they can truly see .
No game is going to be perfect when it's released, there's a difference between a full apple and a perfect apple for example. If we are to look at a fully grown apple, which has grown from a tree and is ripe to eat, it may have blemishes, marks, scuffs and the like, that is not to say it is not a full apple though, but rather just an unperfected apple. Stardock/GPG have tried to release Demigod in a finished state, i'm sure, but there was always bound to be things they'd have to release post release, like with all games. It's not like they've promised you 8 charachters, given you six, said "We'll give you the other two in another five months when we bother finishing them and we may or may not charge you for them as an 'expansion." We've gotten pretty much what we've been promised, the features, the game play, it's all very well balanced, it's just that there have been unforseen consequenes of the launch/multiplayer/sheer amount of people trying to play.
The coding required to fix this bug is probably not going to take that long to complete, it's just the problems are were it really hurts. I've seen very few bugs outside of this compared to other games at launch, suprisingly few actually. It runs quite well, once you get in a game, it runs quite smoothly for me and is quite stable otherwise (the only bug i've seen apart from this multiplayer mess-up is that the GUI occasionally dissapears but only when not in game, when I minimize the game and then bring it back up and then do some other stuff, don't ask. ). Other games I've played at release in the past few months have had pretty bad bugs of their own. Empire Total War, for example, had serious Steam problems, where Valve's servers were overloaded for a day or two, leaving people unable to start the download at all or left downloading at single digit kbps speeds, it also had huge problems when alt tabbing for example, as well as many other bugs. That's not to say it was a bad release, it's just quite typical. If anybody really wants to see a bad release, see the Merchants of Brooklyn (a post apocalyptic game based on the CryEngine 2 platform about genetically engineered neandethal ring fighters) release for reference (not a very big game I must admit, but this is just to give you a comparison) . They said it was coming out sometime in 2010. Ended up being released in March this year. For the first hour of trying to play once it had downloaded I wondered why the hell I kept dying at spawn, then the screen kept going randomly black, on top of that it'd crash in certain places, the triggers would go off at the wrong time, i'd get locked in random places, the NPCs when you walked near them would fall over and then just slide across the floor for the rest of the time etc. I once got punched through a solid wall and ended up outside of the main map miles away in randomly generated water, unable to get back.
Saying Demigod is unfinished would be like saying World of Warcraft wasn't finished because it had server problems when it first released.
Have some perspective.
The truth has been said.
I hope by NAT problem you mean that the problem is on your side and not on ours.
Also the users won't see the difference since they press multiplayer and then it doesnt work, so regardless if the error is in the game or in something external users will see it as a problem with the game.
Other then that i really hope you are right about the quick fix, i really want to start playing this.
Also people whining should be taken as a compliment to stardock, since it means they care enough to take the time and effort to complain (maybe not the most rewarding kind of compliment, but still).
Good to hear your working hard to resolve it as well
The NAT facilitator is a piece of the software used to negotiate connections, Odeus. They're unhappy with it--not with the users who are having problems.
Yes.
See, what a lot of people don't understand is why Stardock tried to do this. When Sins of a Solar Empire launched, multiplayer was 100% functional. But a lot of people were complaining that they couldn't host because they didn't read up on what ports to forward on their routers and how and thus the MP was "broken" according to them. Ironclad and SD got understandably fed up with that, and included a similar method of connection in a patch that allowed hosting/connecting without needing to mess with router settings at all.
It was simpler there of course because Sins Multiplayer doesn't use Impulse Reactor or auto-matchmaking or anything like that.
If you look back on most RTS games which are P2P, most always have people complaining about router settings, and some simply can't change their settings even if they know how (dorms, stingy net admins, etc). So, Stardock decided to create their own method of NAT-T that can tunnel past router settings and allow P2P gaming without needing to mess with any ports.
This is, of course, a pretty new thing and complicated by the Reactor in the middle of it all, so it's getting a rough start. SD in beta admitted that it was tougher than they thought it would be. On the one hand it sucks that it wasn't perfected by the official launch, but as is usually the case with things like these - the beta had much fewer people actively testing the stuff. Once the floodgates with the release opened, new problems crept up.
The good news is that SD is different from the many faceless corporations that release a game and forget about it, so they *will* fix this and here's the neat thing - once this technology is perfected, it can be applied to other games. It's a step towards making P2P games easier to deal with. A shaky first step, to be sure, but that's usually the case with prototypes.
Ok, cool, thanks for the clarification.
this should be shouted by all who know the backstory. people forget why this nat connector was made in the first place.
This technology has been going on since Relics CoH:OP (i mean ranks mixed with P2P multiplayer games) and it's been proven unstable and not very user friendly (most of the games dont need no ports open) plus the ISPs are in the middle of everything and they pretty much decide wheter these systems works or not. Even after Dow2 relic didnt manage to get this P2P system working right so i guess this is not the way to go. I've read stardock crew explanations on why they decided to go P2P instead of Client/server but it isn't working and it won't work anytime soon for a lot of people.
I also feel the game's incomplete, the UI seems a bit weird it does strange things, AI pathfinding is ridiculous, unbalanced characters, etc; so your left alone trying to connect somebody on the CUMSTOM matches, take a chance on the pantheon and end up playing 3 players against 1 (+2 retarded IAs) and nothing else. I know you've read this a thousand times already but all i can say is i'm sorry.
And you played how many games come back in a week
So what? THis system is used by A LOT of RTS and it always works painfully BAD. Now tell me how many games have you played at Dow, DOW2, CoH or COH:OP or Command and Conquer (all p2p RTs)?
But lets see what happens... this is not gonna be fixed in a week (and for some people its never gonna work).
Guys I hope you fix the online problems. There is a great game here!
sorry but that is complete horseshit! the avarage user doesn't know what a NAT fascilitator is! we bought the game for you and that makes you responsible for it's state incl. network issues!
If you bought a new car and discovered that the engine didn't work after half a day going back to dealer and having him say ohh that isn't part of the car but it sure impact aspects of the car to be sure, wouldn't you feel screwed over?
Analogies are awful... If buy a car and it turns out to be broken, you take it back and they fix it, for free. Most dealers are even willing to give you a loaner for the time being. Stardock is working to remedy the problem just as your car dealer would... For now you'll just have to settle for the loaner (single player) or public transportation (shotty multiplayer)... I hate analogies.
Honestly. If it takes them until the weekend to get the servers to work correctly, what of it? It's two days you have to wait. This might not have happened if the game hadn't been sold several days before it was supposed to be. Just be patient.
Now that you bring that up, I'm disappointed. The game still feels like there's something missing, it's still buggy (can't play multiplayer!!!), and the Demigods are not, as Stardock promised, very customizable. Does anyone know if generals' minions are still worthless?
-----
Do you have a right to be pissed when a product you paid money for doesn't live up to expectations, sure. If a product is good enough for them to take your money it should be finished.
Thing is, Stardock has been brutally honest about the fact that the networking is screwed up to an unacceptable level and are fixing it. Give the game a week before you consider it dead in the water.
I've been telling people who ask that the game doesn't work, but they seem to be making an honest effort to fix it quickly, give it a week and if it isn't fixed by then forget about the game.
Clearly you intended for people to be able to use the networking code as shipped in the box. It's bad enough to force people to learn the ins and outs of networking, port routing, etc, but then to turn around and say that the networking code that you shipped in the box isn't part of the game is really demeaning to us.
I am very tech savy. I know how to set up my router/firewall/virus, etc. I got Supreme Commander to work reliably for pete's sake. I also know from that experience that most people have a very hard time figuring this stuff out and setting it up correctly.
Peer to Peer is technically superior to client/server, but if so many people can't do it for themselves and you can't automate it, it's time to find another solution. It sounds as though you are doing *something*, and that is good. In my opinion, the early networking bugs and the NAT problems are what kept Supreme Commander from becoming the hit that it should have been. I hope that Demigod does not suffer the same fate.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." - Scotty
This sums up my feelings fairly well. This is my first Stardock game, and the "tone at the top" from Stardock is the only thing delaying me from making the phone call to return the sale. In addition to not being able to launch the game consistently (see other threads) my friend and I were unable to play a single online game in nearly an hour of trying. You know it is a sad state of affairs when you shrug your shoulders at a new game and load up Dawn of War II and are grateful for the GFWL matchmaking.
Stardock earns lots of points for candid communication with us, and I honestly believe they care and are doing their all. The issue really becomes how long and far that can carry you. I'm in the same boat of giving a week of leeway before I call it quits. It would be an unfortunate turn of events that the first game I have bought in recent history without playing a demo or waiting for the reviews to come in remains unplayable.
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