On September, if you have not yet been informed, is the official launch date of what many consider Demigod's main competition in the strategy-action genre, League of Legends (yes, I'm aware its acronym is LOL). Some of us, from what I'm hearing round these forums, are just transiently playing Demigod to fill the void until the release date of League of Legends. I can see that many demigod players currently frustrated by issues with Pantheon, Skirmish, buggy netcode (although semi-fixed), and overall small player base will be extremely tempted to make the switch between games. Although these players may, in actuality, be few and far between, I can easily see a couple hundred US Demigod regulars transition into LoL. This will further increase the problem of Demigod's shrinking fan base (most games that pop up on Customs are EU/RUS/FR now), causing more people to switch. Essentially, what may start out as a relatively small, low-key transition may acculmulate in magnitude, which does not bode well for us Demigod stalwarts here.
Personally, I believe that we (not us, we, grammar nazi here) fans here on the Stardocks boards should push for IGN, Gamespot, 1UP, and PC Gamer (the biggies in PC gaming media) to conduct a post-mortem on the state of Demigod after the massively improved multiplayer experience in Demigod. Mobbing a decent amount of well-written, paragraph long suggestions to these websites' inboxes should generate a response of some kind. Hell, maybe we should even get the good folks at SD to submit a few requests for a post-patch summary. I honestly believe that anything SD asks for the gaming media will oblige to, since EVERYBODY loves SD so much . Honestly, that 65 from GS, C from 1UP, and 75 from IGN were totally not fair, and advertising Demigod's awesomeness on PC Gamer won't hurt much either. To all IGN readers out there, maybe we should get Matt Casamassina to beg his readers to buy the game again.
So, in short, break out your typing hands and get writing! A letter to Gamespot, 1UP, IGN, and PC Gamer are in order, for the good of Demigod and the entire world! (No, that was not a joke) Maybe a letter to Frogboy as well to also encourage him to follow suit, because hey, who doesn't worship him?
Let's go out and help Demigod!
Btw, Dota (as a mod) was developed by 2 people...And look where it is today. And one of those two people works now on LoL.
Oh, and SoaSE is not made by GPG.
Even if what you said were true, why is that depressing?
Personally, I wish there were more small developers out there making games worth playing.
According to Gamefaq it seems like League of legend: Clash of Fate is a action rpg more so than a Strategy Action genre if what gamefaq say is right then LOL is a total different type of game to demigod and it cannot be compare to demigod as both are different typr of game.
close enough for me.
It's just like Dota and DG. Same genre.
Also, watch this interview about LoL: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-league-of/51435
and this one: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/legendary-interview-league-of/46466
IMO LoL is either going to completely nail the DOTA gameplay style and be a fantastic game, or is going to be completely crap. It's graphics are pretty distinctly inspired by warcraft 3's and I am not completely sold on them yet. I suspect the full product will either look superb or like something from the 90's.
I think it is going to need to be a very very good game to beat Demigod in the DOTA stakes though one thing i think it will have in its favour are maps. One of the things i loved about DOTA was the map, it was interesting and perfect to fight on, where when you extended forward in the enemies half you were really really forward. It was risky. Demigod doesn't really capture this part and I cant see it ever capturing this part as it's arena mapping style is really quite average. While some of Demigod's maps are great(my favourite being 3v3 or 4v4 on Cataract or whatever it's called) I still wish it had a Dota'style map with neutral creeps, places you can ambush from etc etc. Demigod takes a step towards the arcade direction here.
On the other hand I think Demigod's upgrade systems are great, though could use as many Demigod's again to keep the diversity fresh.
It will be interesting to see how LoL does. I'll be checking it out and will likely end up playing either/or, whichever ends up the best at the end of the day. I do have a feeling that if LoL really does capture DOTA goodness, already having something like 20+ heroes to choose from, IF it captures it, it will be huge. If it manages to have lag free 6v6 gameplay, it will grab a huge following. I cant even play Demigod 5v5 as while my upload bandwidth more than supports most, most others cant.
i think that what has made me more annouyed was the one thing that frog diddn;r't even hint at the new demis not even a small sentence about them
come on most of the people who have been talking in this forum were talking about the lack of demis
Sure you will get one ASAP the next time I get one in the email, i'll just forward it to you...
It will take 2 weeks the most since all the ones I got so far have been given to all my friends so sorry I can't get it too you faster than that...
Unless...wait...I might get one...
I hadn't heard of League of Legends until this thread. I looked it up... I see LOL as very different than Demigod. If they are comparable, Demigod is chocolate ice cream, and LOL is bubble-gum.
My bet is that LOL will get lost among an ever-expanding pile of lousy anime type games.
And I agree with all those that said an expansion pack is the best way to get Demigod back into the reviewer's hands. But that better be an inexpensive expansion pack or stand-alone done in the model of the Dawn of War series. Also, the execution has to be damn near flawless. This isn't just about Demigod, it's about Impulse and Steam.
Again I apologise for the double post but I had to after seeing the following post:
Riot Games who are the developers behind LOL are industry veterans even though the company is new, the devs themselves have years of experience behind them...
Zileas AKA Tom Cadwell was lead balance engineer for Blizzard during WC3 TFT and took over development for the initial stages of SC2, the first 2 years...
Steve 'Pendragon_' Mescon is Riots current head of community relations, also he owns and operates the now unofficial DA forums, official forums is now playdota.com
Steve 'Guinsoo' Feak was the original creator of the dota allstars map, now the rediculously popular MOD that is shaping genre's...
Hokyo Kim is head of art directions and worked as head of all the Sly Cooper series...
There is also a whole bunch of guys from TA, Blizzard, EA.etc Can't remember all their profiles by heart...
so basicaly they have pros
I wasn't referring to you.
I don't think people realize thought that game developers and publishers aren't cut throat.
I always see these Steam vs. Impulse threads, for instance, where people don't realize that we play each others games.
Someone buying Leage of Legends isn't a lost sale. Heck, I'd love to see League of Legends on Impulse. Or have it support the Impulse MP listing so I could pick and choose which games to join in the Impulse MP list.
The point being, there's no need for people to see it as us vs. them.
I think I have a pretty good handle on what Demigod needs to stay relevant in the long-term. The real question is merely whether I can convince GPG to invest in doing those things and that will depend on a zillion factors not the least being sales.
I know some people don't like talking about that but how substantial after release updates are always based on sales. They were for Galactic Civilizations, Sins of a Solar Empire and yes, Demigod too.
Demigod is the 8th best selling game in North America which is saying something given we have to compete against Sims 3 and WoW and such and took a beating in reviews (quite deservedly IMO) because of the crappy MP experience when the game first shipped.
You want Demigod to have a long-term user base? Here's what you have to do:
Great post! Totally agree.
Excellent, excellent post. Whilst it is clear you guys would obviously know what the game needs to succeed in the long term, it is still nice to hear you say it anyway. That's exactly the stuff we want to hear. What some people don't realise is that (as you said) all games updates are based on income, at least you guys have been honest about that eventhough it may have rung some peoples alarms prematurely. Yeah it's brown-nosing but hey, it's really nice to see you take part in these discussions FrogBoy.
With regards to the growing vs shrinking thing balancing out, I'm quite sure that if 1 and 2 and 4 continue the game should have a very long lifespan indeed. I believe it will.
The Impulse v Steam thing has never bothered me in the least, I use both, I don't see the problem. The DG vs LoL thing also doesnt automatically spell doom and gloom, as I posted earlier I think competition is always in the consumers best interest anyway (I'm sure most people think that too). It's a shame that forums are such a tiny % of a player base and almost always the most outspoken by nature, and a shame that its easier to be negative than positive. My own opinion is that whilst you're absolutely right many people may have both games and enjoy them both, I'd personally like to see Demigod completely dominate lol. Too many people talking doom and gloom.
The effort that has gone into the game thus far is applaudable, we'd all like to see some more content and I think once we have these next two DG's and clan/group support people may relax a little about seeing the effort shift from behind the scenes fixes which were so important at the start to visible features.
As for 30+ Demigods? Hey I'd LOVE that lol, but I do prefer the DG complex heroes to Dota/LoL's simple style, and whilst many heroes is an impressive and grabbing feature, it's definitely better to slowly add awesome heroes than flood us with crap.
this.
I agree, you dont need 30+ demigods, but for varieties sake the more the merrier. IMO you need at least twice as many as there are now. Hell i'd be even looking at adding model variants to the existing ones so we have different looking players with the same abilities- ie maybe a female oak, another variant on oak etc - all do'able, just a similar model and associated animations.
Variety is the spice of life
I have been wandering why you did that, it seems silly to try and remake something that already works.
I am glad to read that post though. I think its exactly what the comunity needs to hear
if you want to keep people playing longer i would say there should be a map a month and a demi every 2 months
but if the new demis arn't out soon people will think that it is pointless and hopeless
not like cars? What about blizzard's MMOs?
Let's say Demigod was more popular, it had more sales, and more developers, it would probly gain momentum and player base pushing other games out of the way.
This is exactly like the auto business...
GPG/Stardock just didnt invest enough in Demigod and rushed the product it seems..
Frogboy, excellent post, all i can say is good luck trying to convince GPG to support this game in the future.
But one thing i don't understand is what you say about sales. You expect sales to grow without releasing additional content (ex: at current time), and only after you are happy with the sales, you start releasing content. I'm no marketing person, but as far as i know, games get their big sales in the first week/month, after that, without support (not bug fixes, but content and new features), the only way is down. So you got to release stuff fast, in order to keep sales up and maybe even grow them. Convince GPG to put more manpower into this game, to release updates more often and quickly, because the clock is ticking for this game, as you have said it yourself.
And I should mention that all 8 of those things have to be done before the natural ebb and flow of the game's lifespan puts its window of opportunity behind it.Right now, the community is growing faster than people are leaving (despite the occasional European who feels compelled to come on and say there's only 4 games avialable and therefore it's dead despite not realizing that the metric for determining whether a game is alive or not is how LONG it takes to get a game going not the number of games sitting there open).But in the next 60 days or so, Demigod will reach that balance point where the # of people coming into the community will equal the number of people leaving. At that point, the 8 things I mention above have to be met or else the community will start to shrink.
Items 1 and 2 are the ones that worry me the most. The production values GPG put into the demigods is significant. One thing that's nice about LoL is that the production values on its heroes are much lower. I dont' think we need/want 30+ demigods. But I do think we need a reasonably consistent stream of demigods and/or maps to keep things growing and moving.
The most worrying part of the above post ?
"Now, will Stardock and GPG able to do the 8 things I list above? I don't know."
In my opinion, you need to get a timetable down pat and get working on it quick. Frogboy, what you had wrote was definitely proomising, but you have to convince Chris Taylor and the folks over at GPG to get moving on Demigod.
IMO it's both a good and a bad design decision putting so much into the existing demigods. On the good hand they look fantastic and have terrific animations(despite imo some of the worst voice acting ever). On the other hand as you have demonstrated you cant easily add new ones. Same deal with the maps, you have severely limited yourself by creating them on basically 3d backgrounds etc.
New things are the lifeblood of games with online communities nowadays. I think League of Legends is going to totally own you in this regard, this and this alone might be the deciding factor.
Frogboy ding ding fantastic post. You have a gem of a gem but this is exactly what needs to happen. DG's and Maps are key to keep players interested. Of course you need a rock solid mplayer platform as well.
It was interesting reading this thread after my most recent one 'Is DG dead' I should have read this first... most of everything I was talking about is posted here.
Like most new games in new genre's I'll probably pick up LoL out of curiosity, I must agree that the art style is like needles in the eye, but it might look a lot nicer in motion. Game play is always the most important thing...
If LoL isn't very good then I won't be bothered, you win some you lose some. Where Demigod is a sore point for me is I looked forward to this game for so long. You could almost say my love for DG goes alllll the way back to playing Total Annihilation, still one of (if not the) best RTS ever made. SupCom generated a level of excitement for me that was profound. Luckily SC was a brilliant game that I still pull out now and then to play as I love it, it wasn't everything that TA was but it was damn close.
Upon hearing about DG - the next big GPG title I nearly wet myself with excitement. I followed this game and when it finally was released it was like a slap in the face... don't get me wrong, I really love DG but I really, really hate how badly it's been executed. The game was released half finished, there is no denying it. I commend Brad (frogboy) on his efforts to engage the community but at the end of the day, it's not what you say Brad, it's what you do! I know from reading your posts that DG is a sore point for you and you are probably pretty pissed about how it's turned out.
There are so few developers that actually get me excited, Valve, Stardock, Treasue (love SHMUPS) and GPG... after the treatment that the community has from GPG with DG I'm seriously re-evaluating whether I not only care about Supcom 2 but if I really give a toss what GPG does in the future.
This is not how you treat a game, its fans or its community. GPG have seriously disappointed me...
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