So here it is Frogboy.
I'm sorry for what I said. I didn't intend for it to be hateful, despite how some of what I wrote sounds. I don't want you to quit posting here anymore then the next guy. And its the truth. All anyone else does here is b*tch and complain... even me. So I want to at least put one thing out here. Frogboy you deserve respect. You are the spokesperson on a hate forum for things gone wrong and you've stuck with it day in and day out. I know that you carry a huge burden. I know how much it could hurt to read some of this crap about your baby(stardock) and how much people hate ideas that you probably had a hand in implementing. I'm guilty sir, of all the things you hate this forum for, and I apologise. My only hope is that some of the people on this forum can man up to. I would hate to see you go. I apologise on behalf of everyone... because despite how much their sitting here complaining about the game... they are all still playing it, including myself. Apparently you guys did something right, right?
This is in response to my own misjudgement and poor choice of words used in this topic
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/359654
If you're referring to me, my post wasn't saying demigod sucks. My post just now was criticizing other people's arguments. I'd like the game to succeed, but I still can't stand crazy talk from either camp.
Damn...
I'd hate to see frogboy leaving this community.
I can't think of any other company where the CEO comes to the forums as often as you did Frogboy. But I see your point though.
People always complain. And to the guy that said SD support post release was mediocre ... come on man.
They're the freaking publishers, but still show this extremely passion and enthusiasm for a game they didn't even create.
And even promised new maps and demigods. I think it's incredibly support from their side.
I haven't been reading the forums for the past month or so, but it seems many people are just unbelievable ungrateful toward SD and Frogboy. Which is a shame.
I honestly hope you reconsider as you're pretty much the only reason I even come here to read these forums. This kind of trash talk happens in all competitive game communities but I hope you'll stick around.
You don't see me attacking every negative comment made about Demigod on the forums, becauses some of them are well founded well and constructed, and neither do you see me praising every aspect of Demigod or hailing it as a perfect game. Hardly 'Zealot' behaviour. It's interesting, then, that I've posted in many threads about ways to improve Demigod including my own immense Wall of Text, to which Frogboy actually responded. The difference between my posts and many of the posts here is that mine, as well as others, are completed in a constructive manner with realistic expectations backed up an understanding of how the situation between Stardock and Gas Powered Games works. My posts don't consist of "Stardock fucked up their game that they made and released a beta to the public to get money and now won't release patches because they don't care" types of arguments, and they certainly aren't still playing the same broken record of "Demigod didn't work at release". The complete lack of intelligence and understanding of the people who create these posts annoys me because here, on this very forum, the CEO of the Publishing Company was willing to talk to us - and not just Press Release kind of posts, he was actually wanting to be involved in the community and discuss and play the game with with us. This is the kind of interaction between the people 'In the Know' and the community that gamers the world over scream and pray for every day. And we had it. Right here. And people had to run him down and bitch, moan, complain and throw every idiotic thought that popped into their head at him until he couldn't take it any more. This is where my annoyance and anger comes from. We had what everyone else dreams of, and the childish and uneducated denizens of this board still weren't fucking happy.
It's nice to see that you have no understanding of the relationship between Gas Powered Games and Stardock what-so-ever in any way, shape or form. Gas Powered Games, as an independant developer, self-funded Demigod. They built it, and they called the shots. This is why Stardock wasn't brought into the project until near the end of the development cycle, which is why Impulse wasn't being upgraded before Demigd's release, which is why the third party connectivity system was used instead of Stardock developing one from the get-go, which is one of the reasons why Demigod has a terrible launch.When you're going to attempt to argue a point, please research the facts first as these type of uneducated 'blame game' sessions are a primary reason why Frogboy got tired of reading the rants this community posts.
Was demigod self funded by GPG or was it funded by Stardock? When a company A funds another company B to develop a game, company A is the publisher. When a company B fully funds the game but needs help from company A to print the discs/etc, company A is the distributor.
If the game was entirely funded by the publisher, the publisher has complete control over everything and the final say in any issue. They can even fire the developer and get a new one. They can even sue the developer if the developer breaches contract by not delivering at the milestones.
If the game was a jointly funded effort, than yes, the publisher has less say. However, the publisher can still excersice some of the above to a lesser degree if the developer isn't doing their job.
In either case, to say that the publisher is blameless is a fallacy. I'm not saying Demigod is a failure of a game or anything like that. However, what you're saying is that the blame for any and all problems Demigod has lies squarely on GPG's shoulders.
That's horribly incorrect.
If Stardock funded the project, they are responsible for the problems too.
If you've ever done project management, you know that you can't blame a subordinate for poor work when the project doesn't deliver. It is your fault if the project doesn't deliever, just as it's your success when it does deliever.
P.S.
You are welcome to believe whatever you'd like, however these are the facts and they are undisputable.
I love it when people use the words absolute words like "undisputable" in arguments and debates. If you want to look asinine, that's almost the fastest way to do so.
A slight correction:Stardock did not fund Demgiod, Gas Powered Games basically self funded Demigod.
There is no debate, he was wrong and I stated the correction. If you wish to discredit a person's statements, ensure that there is room to provoke doubt in other people's minds. In this case, there is no room to doubt because the facts are undisputable. If you were trying to insult me or my statements, you failed.
What I took from that link was that Stardock took over the project at some point, provided the capital to finish development, provided the capital to market and distribute the game, put their name on the box, took on the customer service and support, and gets a fat share of the proceeds. Stardock does not get a free pass for some one-sided vague contract references. I don't care to research the (non-public) intricacies of all the related contracts every time I purchase a game. Stardock is the publisher, their name is on the product, they are the ones ultimately responsible for seeing the product to fruition.. The publisher takes the risk, they have to fill in the gaps where the developer does not, and they get to financially rape the developer in the process.
While connectivity may be much improved from launch (ie not working), it is not nearly "Problem solved". How often do you get a 5v5 up and running smoothly?
Look at my profile and see.
http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/games/player/22215/
Hmmm. I would say pretty often
Firstly Trance, re-read the article and then read some of Frogboy's comments around these forums. You'll get the idea.
This is exactly why Frogboy stepped up and ensured that Stardock did everything possible from their side to fix the issues that players were seeing at releaase. He knew his company would take a bashing if they took too long to gete it sorted, and so they corrected the connectivity issues with little to no input from Gas Powered Games. The rest of the problems people have with the game are outside of Stardock's control. This is not a point for debate, this is fact. They simply don't have the control to make this happen any faster than it's already happening. You can say it's Stardock's fault and that Stardock should be fixing them till you're fingers bleed, this neither makes it possible for Stardock to fix these issues nor does it make it a higher priority for them. Your ignorance to the matter aside, you need a reality check on your expectations.
I'm not sure, how often do you find 10 people with sufficent upload speeds to get a 5v5 running? My connection speed limits me to 3v3 play only so I've never played a 5v5 game. In fact, anything above a 3v3 and I begin to see random Ping Spikes that ruin the game for all involved. This isn't a fault of Demigod's coding, this is a fault of my own connection.And since you're going to quote that paragraph and state that other games built around P2P offer 10 people connecting to one another at the same time with no problems of any kind, allow me to save you the trouble of writing a long, drawn out paragraph based of your incorrect assumptions. Refer to the first reply of this thread.
Fact is Frogboy doesn't have to take all this crap and he is no longer going to.
Technically they did fund part of it, part way through GPG decided they didn't-want-to/couldn't fund it all the way and got together with SD.
That interview almost makes it sound like only a tiny fraction, but that may just be careful wording. By earlier stuff and how early SD came in I suspect it could be more.
I've played quite a few 5v5 games. This only works when all the people you are playing with are from roughly the same region in your continent. It is not DGs fault if you chose to play with someone in the US when you are from europe. All the 5v5 games i've played (all on Brothers, for some reason) were at ping <150 which was not that bad. The only problem is, where there is more people, there is a greater chance you can run into rage quitters, trollers etc. That being said, if a 5v5 does not work it's because of someone's connection to the "interwebs" not a DG issue.
not always sometimes it is a bug in the game that cause a unhandled exception not most of the time but some
True. However, I have never had an error with the game. The thing is, you might say that it's not THAT hard to make a game when there are only Win xp and Win vista to make it compatible with. Every computer is different regardless of the operating sistem. The more it is used, the more it will be changed, either it's software ( installing all sorts of applications ) or hardware (changing some of it's parts). Even out-of-the-box computers are different from each other. Not as unique as people are, but still...
For DG to work on EVERY computer 100%, GPG and SD will need to go house to house, analyze a particular computer and make the game run perfectly on it ALONE. And even then, stuff can go wrong. Trust me, I know how hard it is. This only reinforces my point. These guys did the best they could trying to make the game work on as many computers as possible and are still working on it (Stardock, at least). It is not their fault that a PARTICULAR computer can't handle it. It's not the user's fault either. Stuff like that can't realistically be predicted.
That being said, my point remains the same. It is not DGs fault for _most_ (not all) of the stuff that happens. Neither did I say that it is the user's fault ( I appologize if I have implied it ). It's simply bad luck, or karma, or whatever you want to call it.
wraid they dont test every different type of hardware config that would take eyons and u were not here when it first came out so u can't say there is no bugs
Actually that is not true.
The forums for games like Civilization, GalCiv, Bethesda games (Morrowind/Oblivion/Fallout3), Sins and so forth are all very good communities. Sure there are a couple here and there that complain but overall the forums are all about the community coming up with new strats and helping each other out. They aren't out for blood.
But perhaps it's the nature of the *type* of game. Multiplayer games, shooters and RTS's tend to have more "toxic" forums while games more focused on single player (city builders, Civ, RPG) games have more of a true community.
This is probably why I have quit playing Demigod. I typically don't get into online multiplayer games because of all these things along with too many toxic people actually in game. I did give this game a chance and it just reinforced to me why online muliplayer games just aren't for me.
Any dev shop for any type of boxed software that is expected to run on multiple types of machines should have a systems testing team that tests the software against a myriad of hardware combinations..
.. and yet DG still crashes constantly for me..
By saying that every time the game crashes it is a hardware issue is making a big assumption. The fact that so many people are willing to let any company off the hook like this amazes me. No wonder they feel they can get away with it...
1. Yes, they aren't going to test every hardware/software config. That was my point. No one can. And as such, some sistems will have bugs that others do not. This is neither the producer nor the players fault. So a player should be thankful when the producer takes time to fix these individual bugs
2. Also true. No, I was not here when the game came out. As such I do not disagree when you or anyone says how horrible the connection issues and matchmakings were. I am here now, though. And I see the game as it is now. As I said in a previous reply, I love playing it. I do find myself to have problems which other people don't seem to have, and not have other problems that other people might have. What I am trying to say is that it's a good game. The bugs that it has are NORMAL. Just as you can't satisfy every person in the world, nor can you "satisfy" every computer. The bugs are going to be fixed, new content will be added. I am not saying that you or anyone else has too many expectations of the game. But just give it time. It's like asking a baby to do the dishes. Let the game develop a bit. I am a programmer so I can tell you from experience. No matter how much testing you do, how many scenarios you prepare for you are NEVER going to put out a decent enough product on the first try. All you can hope for is, that if you plant the seed, with the help of constructive criticism it will blossom into something great. Anything other than that is pure fantasy.
3. I am not letting them off the hook. I do hold them accountable for some of the problems here. I don't, however, hammer them constantly, insult or troll. I do my job posting the problem, if it has not been posted yet and let them do their job. If I keep nagging I won't accomplish anything other than piss a bunch of people off.
Well, of course it is.
As you indirectly noted, all of the games you listed are primarily single-player titles (Sins, I realize, does have a multiplayer camp but as I understand it, there not much competitive support and the vast majority of buyers prefer the single-player side). People can suggest changes, new options, ect. and whatever the devs choose to use typically won't have a negative impact on other players. Balance is pretty much out the window in single-player titles since no one player has to compete with another player's utterly broken setup so you don't have that camp getting terribly aggressive either. Agendas and ego don't have the same sway that they do in, say, Demigod which certainly seems like it's supposed to be a competitive team game.
Basically, when a player is only concerned with the content of the game, every player benefits from fixes, added material, and other dev. attention. Conversations tend to be more about "Wouldn't it be neat if we added X." When a player is competing against other people, a level field and stable infrastructure are going to be constant demands and there's going to be disagreement on what constitutes 'level' and how quickly that stability should come.
As am I, and I disagree with you. Proper QA allows just for this. At my past jobs when we had the best QA workflow I had ever seen. Very rarely did a customer complain to us (I can only think of one, and the fault was on her end). Did it come at a cost? Yes, money. However this game was tested, bugs were found, reported, and nothing was done while the game was still released. Normally bugs that aren't fixed, are bugs that are either A) too costly, or unknown. I know what reasonable expectations are in terms of development, and they had not been met. Is the game up to standard in the bug department now for how the game should have been released? I would say yes, and I respect them for fixing their messup. However, this game lacks lots of features that make it have a hard time competeing in this age.
Offtopic:
Kudos to you then. It seems you are very good at what you do. Maybe you did manage to kill every bug in the code. But sometimes when everything seems perfect, bugs are actually hiding, since the conditions for them to show themselves have not been met. All I know is that every damn time I manage to fix something, a bug always finds a way to turn around and bite me in the ass... MONTHS after a release. I think it's the natural order of programming. But if you did somehow manage to create something bug free -> hats off to you, sir.
Ontopic:
As always, I am not saying that the game doesn't have it's quirks. Some of them are GPG's and/or SD fault and they should be held accountable for that. But by holding accountable, I don't mean flaming "omfg DG sux azz, SD blows etc". That is the main issue here... that some of the comunities members make it "toxic" as frogboy said. And what I have insisted on is that no one pay attention to these people. I have seen lots of examples of constructive (negative) criticism (even on this thread). But that is all in vain if we continue to babysit everybody that has a problem and that can only express themselves with "l33t sp3@k" or whatever that is called.
Here is a link to a thread that stated a problem with the game and which I found most amusing. I am not saying that you should be funny when complaining. Just decent, no need for insults, flaming, trolling etc. I don't think it's too much to ask.
That has nothing to do with Stardock. It's call the Internet.
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