I see the threads about: 'Where are the new demigods?' every week and there are a lot of people who are angry or frustrated because it takes so long. There are a lot of accusations, questions and misunderstandings on the topic. So I decided to gather all the available information and explain to you guys why we are still waiting. I'll illustrate my post with some pictures because... because it's more fun!
Let me assure you, I'd prefer nothing more than to play them right now and get a new patch every week. However, good things take time and here is why:
Who is responsible for what?
First of all, a common misconception of many players waiting for new content is that Stardock could speed up the process and Frogboy can miraculously deliver the Demon Assassin and Oculus by his sheer force of will. (I wish!) However Stardock is the publisher (although you could say Publisher ++...) and GPG develops Demigod.
Stardock can help with certain things like ingame overlays, new web designs, maintanance of the servers, basically everything that doesn't require any changes to the game engine and core game. GPG is responsible for new content and bug fixing and Stardock's responsibility is to test the updates and new content for bugs, gather information on new bugs and report them to GPG, customer support, maintanance and delivering the game and patches to you via Impulse.
Why is it taking GPG sooooo long?
GPG is working on the new demigods, bugfixes, SupCom2, Dungeon Siege III and maybe even thinking up a new project right now.
I'm sure they would like nothing more than to get the patch out as soon as possible but it takes a lot of work from many different content engineers, artists, programmers and testers to finish a new demigod. For more information on the topic I recommend reading Sorian's blog: http://soriandev.blogspot.com/
Sorian describes the work that goes into making a new demigod in a 3-part series:
part 1, part 2, part 3;
So why don't they just speed up the whole process you will ask. Fortunately they have already contracts for at least two new games and they have to meet their schedules (called milestones). I say fortunately because while it means we have to wait longer for the new demigod it also means GPG is busy and earning money. This means they stay in business and we will get our demigods eventually.
Why not hire more people then will probably be your next question. Well they did. They hired Sorian and he pretty much splits his work hours between Demigod and SupCom II. However, GPG is not Blizzard II and there is a limit to the number of developers they can afford in the current economic situation.
And you can't just add new people to a developer team and expect to speed up the process as many failed game companies have learned that the hard way. Two times the number of people doesn't equal two times the output!
A developer who is familiar with a game can create the same amount of content in hours that would take a team days. A bunch of developers have left GPG a while back, including the original fathers of Demigod Scathis and o and have formed a new company Uber Entertainment.
GPG is doing what they can and yes, we all wish it wouldn't take that much time but they have to make due with less developers on more projects and they have to fulfill their contracts at the same time.
So please be patient, check out Sorian's blog and play a bunch of games. I strongly recommend 'Crazy Cataract'. It's a 4v4 or 5v5 on Cataract (obviously) with high towers, strong creeps and fast respawn rate. It's insane fun, give it a try, why don't you?
"And Gnome Chomp how old are you have you actually worked on comparable projects?"
I used to work as a programmer for almost 2 years. I'm now in a different business in which I'm the line manager of around 50 people. At this stage, I wouldn't risk a business on Demigod (at which only about 150 are still playing) however I would like to think I wouldn't let it reach this point either.
The community for Company of Heroes went from strength to strength due to constant support from Relic. It got the most players it ever had online (over 10,000) after the second expansion was released in 2009 (game was released in 2006).
Demigod squandered its player base immediately due to reasons we are all aware of, a GPG has been very lackadaisical in doing anything to prevent the nosedive in players.
And GPG isn't securing its future at all. I'm not going to buy SC2 after Demigod, and I suspect many other people will feel the same way.
Fact is there's not a large commitment on GPG's side and after Oculus and the Demon Hunter we can't expect more than 1-2 extra DGs and possibly zero maps to be released in the lifespan of this game. When I read this post I got the impression that it was coming from a "don't lose hope, it'll get better" perspective, with which I disagreed.The standard for developement speed has been set and it will not likely be improved. If the only point of this post was to make people content with things as-is, then so be it. However, if it's to raise hopes for future development as I think it was, then it deserves crticism.
I think the key thing you guys are missing here is SD is the one paying for updates so they dictate when they happen.
As for the number of people working on the patch: Yes, I was the one who coded the abilities, but there were several other people who did work on other things like VOs, ability icons, lobby and victory movies, etc.
The desync problem had received quite a lot of attention, but noone had a solid repro, so it was like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. Log messages were added so that if people had bothered to send in logs in games where they had desynced we could have tried to narrow it down. We don't have a dedicated testing team to try to repro the desync either. Also, See first sentence of this post.
It is getting attention now because we do have a solid way to repro the desync, so it makes it much easier to track down.
*edit* Sorian posted while I was posting. I'll probably buy another GPG if it gets both great reviews and they are either able to show that they're committed to its continued development after release with or without continued payments from the publisher.
If that entails cheap DLCs, then so be it. I'm willing to cope with that model on Borderlands, but I'm tired of waiting for something that isn't even planned.
Really, thank you Sorian, can't wait to see your work in an official patch now.
So as far as I'm concerned I'm content with the development speed atm.
While that's a useful bit of information I'm sure you're not allowed to give out numbers (if you even are involved enough with that side of the business to know them) so it's impossible to critique either GPG's prices or SD's willingless to pay them.
Does this not settle it for everyone though? Unless we anticipate a major spike in SD's spending on GPG updates, the speed of said updates will not increase, aka it's silly to come here and post about how busy GPG is and how hard it is to make more DGs and get everyone's hopes up that if GPG just gets a little bit further along in the development of whatever other games they'll finally have more time for DG.
There is. Sorian and you are saying the same thing which is accurate. GPG signed on to support Demigod for long after release and Stardock is the one paying the cost to provide that support.
Alright, just got back from lunch so I'm considerably less cranky now. I also talked with a friend about video games in general and I think I have a bit better idea of what ultimately bothered me about the game and the post.
Basically it's become the industry standard to release games that are still in development and then patch them after release, Left4Dead was a perfect example. It was blatanly unfinished, in spite of being a major title from a premiere developer. I assume the earlier cash infusions are used to develop the game, or the lack thereof is used to justify its discontiunation. Whatever the reason, it's such common practice now that when you play a game and see something broken or incomplete you just assume it's going to be patched.
Anyway, when I really got into this game it was obvious to me that it was much more complete than Left4Dead, but it still had issues which it seemed would inevitably be patched. It's been quite a while now though and they haven't been, and when you look at what information we have as players it seems like there was a major lull in the post-release development of this game. We could call that time complete B.S. (Before Sorian).
Now the problem may very well have been that GPG decided to focus resources on issues which are not particularly visible to the players. Perhaps they resolved a lot of stability issues, hardware compatibility, or any number of issues which aren't even a blip on the radar to you if you're lucky enough to have a system that isn't affected by them, but are crucial nonetheless.
Regardless the result is that now when I think about GPG I simply do not view them as a company concerned with image maintenance. Even if they had no post-release development agreement with SD, I would think they'd be very concerned with the pereception of their products regardless. Instead they seem to view each project as its own seperate entity and not a part of their greater portfolio, as though it doesn't have the capacity to color other work, including upcoming projects.
Now obviously a lot of people probably don't care about that kind of company persona or they will simply not realize Demigod was developed by them. However, I will and I assume game reviewers and a decent amount of other vocal gamers do too. just wish that would light a fire under GPG's rears and motivate them to get more DG work out the door, regardless of whether the SD checks cash.
And then, of course, I see how developers could be tempted to disregard this kind of criticism. As I said, Left 4 Dead was woefully incomplete at launch. Only half the campaigns were playable in versus mode, which is the primary long-term draw of the game. Only one out of three finales actually feels complete (no mercy), a handful of crescendo events, the events that are supposed to be the climaxes of the levels, aren't actually the easiest and cheesiest parts of the levels. In spite of all that, I pre-ordered L4D2, so I can see the mixed messages that must send to these people.
However, while I was as pissed as anyone that L4D2 was announced before L4D1 was fixed, I was willing to take a chance on it because they marketed the game in a way which showed it was designed to fix all of the flaws with L4D1. From the mechanics of the spitter to the design of crescendo events which required player movement (previously you'd just all stand on stop of each other under a pipe where zombies couldn't get you), they showed that they understood exactly what was wrong with the first.
In that sense if six months GPG announced an expansion or even DG2 and it had a list of new features which showed GPG understood exactly what players took issue issue with on the first one, then I would buy it, but it'll take that kind of insightful marketing to pull me on board again.
Also I have to wonder if paid DLC was ever discussed if that's what it takes to get more maps and DGs out?
The only games i have seen receive constant major updates and even daily patches and hot fixes, are games which you have to pay monthly for e.g. WoW, EQ, Starwars Galaxies.
Coming from C&C Tibwars and Kanes Wrath, Demigod is amazing for its free support.
The only game i have played that has been pretty much bug free and the balance was good out of the box was world in conflict, damn that was a well made game.
Sorian: As for the number of people working on the patch: Yes, I was the one who coded the abilities, but there were several other people who did work on other things like VOs, ability icons, lobby and victory movies, etc.
Here is a list of different tasks that are typically performed by different teams/developers
[sarcasm]So yeah, it's appalling how small the number of people is that are working on a new demigod![/sarcasm]
You assume that Sorian pretty much did all the work by himself because he is the only one with a blog.
Make one single unit for SupCom without recycling existing stuff and you know what I'm talking about...
Well that pretty much cleared it up.
Thank you Colonel. Not everybody (including me, im just a gamer) knows this kind of stuff.
So apparantly the 2 new demigods arent as solo-work-done-by-Sorian as most people want us to believe.
from me
I think the easiest way to explain it is in term of the other post concerning the development of a HON character.
If a HON toon takes about 3 weeks for completion, then the much more complex and graphically demanding new Demigods should take much longer.It seems that sorian got the job, and the demigods seem to be coming out about 2 or so month after he was appointed? If 20ish days for HON to make a toon, that does seem like a pretty good timeframe for for 2 much more complex DGs. I dont mean any offence, and perhaps it is because he ventures on the forums, but the bad perception that is out there is that GPG weren't really allocating much towards DG before sorian got there. This, i don't really have an answer for. Serious milestones for Supcom 2 most probably i guess.can't wait for 1.2 and/or the new dgs. Any chance of a re-release speical edition for 20$? get more people in?
my biggest problem is that i dont know which problems are being adressed in the next patch. i can see in a post in the problem section which are known but which are they trying to solve?
especially i would like to know about the status of the lobby crash bug, what will happen with the stats and if the queen will get some buffs.
You were expecting a large scale commitment from an independant developer with multiple projects on the table? When I purchased Demigod, I expected technical support - which we received in spades after the 'amazing' launch from Stardock. I don't buy a game, betting on it receiving additional content. All the reviews for Demigod made a point of explaining that there wasn't much there - 8 Demigods and 8 Maps. Anything beyond that, as far as I'm concerned, is icing on the cake.
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