Okay, I now feel confident in publicly saying that I think that the connectivity issues some have had is going to go away next week.
Here's what we've built:
1. If you open ports 6112 to 6200 and port forward them to your IP on your router (this is for people who are familiar with this stuff) you'll get what is called direct connect.
2. If you don't do this, we will try to do a quick NAT connect. This takes longer but works for most people.
3. If NAT fails, you will be connected to our Proxy server system. This is not going to be super desireable at first because the physical location of the Proxy server is going to make the difference between a good and a lagfest. When the proxy server is nearby (east coast US player for instance to the east cost proxy server) it's perfectly good. But, for instance, if you're in Japan and it uses a proxy server in Singapore, you're adding 200ms to your latency which can make the game a total lag nightmare. so this is clearly your last result.
...
Now, right now, the current version of Demigod uses a connectivity server that ONLY does option 2. That's because it was decided early on that users shouldn't have to open ports. This, IMO, should NEVER have been the first option because when you force even technically sophisticated users into this system, you end up having a LOT of unnecessary connections to these NAT servers.
So, I feel confident that this next week is going to be the turning point for those people who have had connectivity difficulties PLUS the whole range of stat stuff, pantheon stuff, etc. will all come into line as well because, as I've said elsewhere, because the connectivity thing was our #1 priority, everyone, including the people who would resolve favor items and favor points and accurate win/loss stuff have been pulled onto this.
Heck, this past week, I had the ART team from Elemental working on doing benchmarks for speeing up NAT (That's where we finally concluded that NAT, for P2P is just feasible when there's thousands of players, it would simply require so many NAT servers, located around the world, to make it not totally awful that it wasn't financially logical - we'd be better off just hosting all the traffic which is better anyway).
..
We absolutely do not want to do any more "betas". The betas don't really solve our problems. We're getting rave emails from people in support today saying how this beta "totally fixes connectivity". NO, it doesn't. The only reason it seems that way is because there's so fewer people using the beta servers. If you check impulsereactor.dll, it's still the same one from day 0. So the betas don't really help because it gives us the same false sense of success that the actual open beta had.
The other problem with the beta is that it splits the multiplayer community which is really a problem. Right now, the Demigod MP community is fragmented. You've got a ton of people on Game Ranger. a Bunch of people on Himachi, others on Demigod release and some on the beta. And you get some very poor results hwen you play Skirmish or Pantheon or just find games.
Now one of the things that I've always been painfully aware of in online games is that you need a critical mass of users to make it work. With Demigod, we have some plans on how to make sure there's always lots of people to play with once the MP is bullet proof both in terms of connectivity and stat tracking. As someone who has been ejected from a pantheon game during connection, I know we have to do some QUICK changes to some of this stuff in order for the MP experience to have any integrity.
First, one of the things we did is we have everyone's email address who has updated the game. When we start the next-gen pantheon with favor points, achievements, favor items, stat tracking, disconnects dealt with and of course bullet proof MP (all of which I expect to be done this week) we will email everyone letting them know where we are at.
Second, the Stardock marketing push will actually begin. After that day 0 debacle with the MP connectivity being so crummy, I made marketing halt all Demigod marketing efforts. Those will go into high gear probably in the third week of May.
Third, and this is where we need your help: The demo. We will be working with GPG on the demo but I was thinking of proposing that the demo for Demigod be multiplayer ONLY. Moreover, I would like the demo players to be able to play online with legitimate players. Here's where we need your help: What do you think would be a good way to limit this demo then in order to get people to still buy the game?
Fourth, we plan to start formal Demigod tournmants with cash and prizes for the winners.
Fifth, Stardock is working on an update to Impulse Reactor that will allow people to have more control over the types of people people are matched up with. Think of it being like eHarmony but for gaming. You'll be able to describe the type of gamer you are and the match making system will pick out people for you. This feature is actually being developed for Elemental but because Demigod uses Impulse Reactor, it'll get that for free.
Sixth, Stardock moderators will soon be introduced into the online community. This will probably happen in mid-May. The idea is, if we have forum moderators, why not multiplayer ones? Their job will be to provide enjoyable multiplayer experiences (i.e. good sports, skilled player, etc.) PLUS they will be able to add or subtract in-game karma from players. People who are just nasty or horrible to other players will lose karma points. People who are good sports and good citizens will get points. Those with higher karma will tend to get matched up. Yes, we know this is controversal. Players will see the karma as part of their account and there will be a way for users who feel they were unfairly negated to appeal.
Seventh, all people who have bought Demigod at retail or direct up May 10th (and didn't return the game obviously) will be getting a coupon that will let them purchase a second copy of Demigod for 50% off for a limited time as a way for us to show appreciation for this community that has put their faith and trust in us.
Thanks everyone!
You mean Blizzard works now after several years of tuning. Blizzard's service was crap when it first came out. And the bugs, dear God. Anyone else remember the Finger of God cheat for Diablo? World in Warcraft was a terrible launch too. We all hope that Stardock / GPG can get this game working, but they have gone above and beyond in terms of communication. That counts for a lot in my book.
Last game I bought was Total War: Empires. That's another game that was just plain broken at launch. I still don't think the AI can launch an amphibious invasion. But the difference there is that the community is clueless whether the developers even know of these bugs and how soon they are going to be addressed.
Here are my ideas. You want the demo to entice people to buy the game and to try out all the heroes/maps. Four demigods is way too much. People could play it free and have an amazing time indefinitely without buying.
I suggest a maximum of two demigods. 1 assasin and 1 general.
1 or 2 maps to play on.
A favor point cap of say 500.
Everything else in game will hae to be available to the player. Limiting items are artifacts will lead to a disadvantage in mp games.
limiting the number of demigods for demo without seperating them from the rest of us will totally screw up the balance.
Let people use one of each kind of demigod, and let them play on one map.
Make the chosen demigods the easyest to use and make the map a medium sized one with lots of options.
For what it is worth, all things considered (if I really thought the game was something special) if I were the owner of DG I would consider a fully functional multiplayer demo with one thing locked out - no stats at all.
Can I nominate Myself and my fellow dota players for some of the online in-game mods =P?
I don't know if this has been suggested yet but Battle.net I feel uses a VERY similar system to what Stardock is trying to apply with Demigod. A key difference: regional servers for people to paly on. I.e. Azeroth is US East, Lordaeron is US west which greatly reduces the chances someone from Singapore will play with someone from Canada and the like.
Have you guys considered splitting up servers into these types of regions so people in North America can connect and play with other people in North America, and the same for Europe with Europe etc?
I think people randomly quitting cause they are loosing a match would not be solved by a chat ignore feature... which is what I think will be the biggest nuisance as this community grows... random quitters/feeders...
Best possible option I would say is limit the characters someone can play as a demo, but let them match up against any player so they would see the other characters (which might influence a purchase).
This may lead to people cracking the game, BUT since they have to go through Impulse to play online, you should be able to see if they have a legit purchased key (not a generated one) and not allow them to pick another character if it's a generated key right?
My votes for how to configure a Demigod demo:
2 arenas - 1 symmetrical, 1 asymmetrical
3 Demigods, including at least 1 General (this worked well for the OMF:BG demo, and prevents a bad matchup from ruining your entire demo)
Very limited access to artifact shop and favors (say, 3 items from each are available)
Multiplayer with retail users, so they can see what they're missing
Single player, skirmish mode only, with all the demo restrictions
A tutorial to familiarize people with the controls
Thanks for asking our opinion on this!
I feel like the 50% off is a bit of a kick in the teeth to be honest.
Let me explain my point of view:
I bought 3 copies of Demigod on day 1. I bought 1 copy from gamestop, and I bought 2 from impulse, I gifted one to my girlfriend and it was assigned to my email address, therefore it was flagged to my account along with the physical copy of the game, so considering the situation (we wanted to play and not screw with waiting on customer service) I bought a 3rd copy of the game. Later I was told I couldn't be refunded but they were able to unassign it from my account (which is fine it was my screw up) and as such I gave it to a friend(keyword is gave, i did not sell it to him).
Demigod is a really fun game and an excellent team game, to this end I spent the past weeks after release convincing my friends to buy the game. So now I have convinced 3 people to buy the game and have bought the game 3 times myself. So now my "reward" for generating $240 in sales is the ability to generate an additional $120 in sales.
Now I don't want to give off a false sense of entitlement, in buying 3 copies of Demigod all I am entitled to from Stardock and GPG is the ability for me and my girlfriend and our friend to play Demigod. However, if there is going to be somekind of "reward" for purchasing Demigod while it was still have technical issues I only request that a little more thought be put into it other than just 50% off Demigod. Even if its just a dollar off any game on impulse (so $3 for me woohoo!) it would still be better than feeling obligated to buy yet another copy just to take advantage of savings.
Thanks and Demigod rocks!
While the half off coupon is a good gesture, how is that going to help?
The people who would get it already own the game, so how does it benefit them? If they're not liking it, why would they ask their friends to pay $20 for it when they don't think it's worth that? If they do like it, they're satisfied and wouldn't need a perk/apology offer.
You're prettty good at business, so I try not to criticize your business model too much, but this just doesn't seem like a good idea from an economics/marketing perspective.
Why not just have a half-off sale one weekend? Seriously, I'd look at this game for $20 right now, but not $40. (To be fair, I wasn't going to buy this game at $40 no matter what, as I am getting Elemental when it comes out, but $20 I'd give it a shot, like I did TF2)
I'll be getting it for my brother. That's one sale they would not have otherwise had. Now where is my coupon!
Firstly, let me say I love the game (when it works) and the very regular contact you have made with us gamers (0although that is pretty well a necessity otherwise I guess most people would have returned the game by now). The 50% discount off Demigod you are planning to offer doesn't really suggest a thankyou or an apology at all. How about 50% off a game we haven't already purchased instead off 50% off of Demigod? 50% off Demigod just comes accross as a cheap marketing ploy for you to make up for the lost sales due to the fact that things basically haven't worked with multiplayer since day 1 - the main purpose of the game is multiplayer for goodness sake. I don't just mean the connectivity problems either, it's a team based game and you neglected to include team based joining which is quite simply bizarre.
Sorry for repeating what a lot of people have already said, but I'm at the office and I'd really hate to be caught with the Demigod forum page on computer (i.e., I've skimmed the entire thread).
-----------Demo ideas-----------
Do 8 demos; one for each hero. It's only playable online and you get to test all heroes. Maybe 4 demoes, with General Assassin's packs. Sure you can download all demos, but if you're going for a full download, that mean's your so much closer downloading the full game. You could even make it an evolving demo, the update locks/unlocks heroes/items/maps every month so people still on the fence can get a full taste.
Similar to Starcraft's Spawn, demo players must look for a Sponsor, meaning you'll get as many Favor points as your sponsors. This will help promote interaction with other players and knowing you have friends online ready to play could lower the barrier for people to spend the 40 bucks.
Do a Demo Tourney. Which ever commercial model you decide for the demo, make a tournament each month and the first places get a free copy. People that join a tournament, mean a. they like the game enough to compete, b. like to play by the rules. Sounds like a customer to me.
The game is great, still getting the hang of it, but look forward to playing A LOT of MP soon enough!
Random demigod. They can't pick which demigod they use. Given enough plays, they'll be able to use them all. To prevent them just making/joining games over and over again, make it so it uses the startup time of their computer or something, so they only get a new demigod when they next restart their computer. That should provide enough hassle that they are unlikely to abuse it.
Demo games should disable artifacts and favor. Demo games should be marked as such, and retail players can choose to join them or not, which is good for people who may want to play with friends, but for people who don't want to play a more limited game they can avoid them.
Maps should at the minimum have one of every size/player size. Otherwise if they get stuck with an unfun map, it will sour the experience.
For the demo:
You get a free week of full play. Anyone who cares to do so can already pirate it (we know this..) so there's no loss to the game simply going BUY ME NOW I WON'T PLAY ANYMORE after a week. If you don't give people the entire access, they'll wonder why. There's no loss to releasing the entire game for free for a limited period, because people can actually base an opinion on it.
For the demo.. have the person register at a site and allow a 7 day trial period. Make it a bit hard for them to create another email and play another 7 days. There has to be a server client verification process.. otherwise the pirates are going to create a crack/patch that will allow all demigods to be available. Have the programmers rip the other demigods out of there (not just hide them) to avoid anyone trying to unlock all the demigods or the full functionality of the game.
Disable Favor for Demo as well.
demo: 2 maps playable with 4 demigods playable. Considering how much content is available in the game that is reasonable. Lock out favor points and favor items from demo players.
at least this guy knows how to stop pirates, Its obvious they will try to unlock and rip otherparts.
The demo ideas for only a few DGs is a great idea, I'd also consider putting an expiry on the demo so people don't just happily sit back only playing the demo online forever.
amazing! willu be making a demo soon? i wanna get my buds to try it, and see if its something we all would like
I'll be using that 50% rebate to get a friend of mine to pick this fabulous game up. The fixes are fabulous, and the rebate idea is just icing on the cake; Stardock are truly my favorite PC game developers!!!
You could make the single player demo unlimited time, but the multiplayer of the demo only available on weekend or something - maybe analyze your data and pick the night with the lowest population to allow people with the demo to join normal multiplayer games.
This will allow retail people to have more people to play with as well.
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