Microtransactions? » Forum Post by RapierX

what are the programmers doing?

I'm going to go ahead and assume they're working on making the game as compatible, removing as many errors, and implementing as many features as they can.

But wait, this is as stupid as saying "in CoD4 there are 40+ weapons", how can you compare a pure RTS game with a "Revolutionary strategy/action game"

That makes no sense to me. There's certainly a lot more similar between Demigod and a RTS than a FPS.

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Good point wasn't thinking, then what are the designers doing? is what I meant.

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Quoting Kitkun,

reply 1

That makes no sense to me. There's certainly a lot more similar between Demigod and a RTS than a FPS.

Please tell me the things similar between Demigod and Starcraft.

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Point to click to control things, The camera, the way the mechanics work, the way the game's engine is made.

What about demigod and unreal tournament?

There are teams... any thing else?

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I see nothing similar between an RTS and Demigod really. About as far as you're going to get is control scheme and controllable minions for demigods.

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Damnit where's the edit button, I meant generals not demigods.

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Quoting mOoEyThEcOw,

reply 4

Point to click to control things, The camera, the way the mechanics work, the way the game's engine is made.What about demigod and unreal tournament? There are teams... any thing else?

Click to control is not a "RTS only feature", camera either, mechanics? Tell me more about these "mechanics", I don't see what mechanics can be similar to RTS more than hack&slash games in Demigod, game engine has nothing to do here and is not "RTS only feature" either.

If you tell me "Oh I loved this movie" and I answer you "I preferred this other book", will you find this stupid? But if you search for similar things, the book can tell story as a movie do, the book can show character emotions like a movie (can try to ) do, and more...

This is just stupid to call something by a name and compare to something different in most of the points.

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well i like the direction this thread went in. but I have somehting thats really eating at me. unique demigods is a game option(currently according to Tyo) but each demigods plays so differently and then again they play different depending on your skill and item choices. then why does it need to be Unique? ON Top of that how is a 5v5 supposed to use unique demigods with 8 avaiable choices? 2 players get to play as the wind? well 1 can be wind and 1 could be air. or maybe the invisible skill less man? Was that not something that jumped into the mind of anyone working on the game. That you have modes and options that limit the maximum of the game. Like a 5v5 with the ability to limit each demigod to 1 per but not have the 10 required.

The Demigod- Starcraft/Dota/any other game doesn't work. Most RTS games are balanced and scaled primarily off the 1vs1 game mechanic. Thats why they have always had a minimum of 2 races/factions to select from. The default avaiable options meet the requirements for the ideal game mode being designed. sure 2 people might both play Cybran in a supcom match but the option for UEF or Aeon still existed. What if you could ONLY play UEF in supcom. I'm betting the game would probably have recevied Honours in the top 10 worst of all time. Now I'm not saying demigod will. The game may pass critics with flying colours, but there will always be the underlying resentment that the ideal game mode is a team based environment that fails to provide the minimum requirements in characters to successfully meet the total players. EVERYONE who knew their ass from their face knows that Supcom was released way before it should have been. thats a universally accepted fact. I know stardock makes claims of for the gamers, for the designing of good games. But also here i feel a little let down. Sins to me was released early(and the people i know agree) but I jumped ship from the Sins community so I don't know how the majority feel.

I want demigod to succeed because I need a popular game to beat people at, I'm just concerned for the future... and my money.

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Go the above post. But on the other topic:

You guys asked me similar things between starcraft and demigod, not rts's and demigod:

Demigod uses a click and point control scheme, where you can select multiple units. (You can drag a multi selection box). The mechanics I talk about are the 'Health' 'attack damage' 'Mana' these are slightly rpg, but demigod is like an rpg, and not in fps's. The camera is from top down, seeing massive swaths of the battle field, not like fps's where you see one person's view.

I see more in common with demigod and an rts, than demigod and an fps (which was the original argument)

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Click to control is not a "RTS only feature", camera either, mechanics? Tell me more about these "mechanics", I don't see what mechanics can be similar to RTS more than hack&slash games in Demigod, game engine has nothing to do here and is not "RTS only feature" either.

Nobody said they were RTS only, and that's not the point in any case. Those mechanics of an RTS are more similar to how it appears to be in Demigod then those same mechanics in an FPS.

I honestly don't understand the point you are trying to make.

then why does it need to be Unique?

That's why it's an option.

ON Top of that how is a 5v5 supposed to use unique demigods with 8 avaiable choices?

Somewhere it was said that unique would only work up to 4vs4 until more demigods were released.

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The "would only work up to 4v4" part was in a different thread which was made around the same time, or i didn;t read it until i posted my part. but my argument as to why parts of the game are limited still applies. Why not release the 5v5 mode with 2 other demigods? That ultimately makes more sense. But judging from thsi current topic and argument Stardock hasn;t made very good public relations choices lately. Like announcing 1 week before the beta(and when people get charged) that there is only 8 demigods.

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... so make it only 4v4 until they add 2 more? No that's dumb.

unique option simply doesn't work past 4v4.

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Ok, maybe I´m really to focused on DotA

I will wait what is planned for the first patches after release and judge then again.

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It's a better solution to make unique demigods only available until you hit 9 players than to artificially cap the number of players. Give people the option to play 5v5 with duplicates. I'll agree it was kind of stupid waiting this long to say that there'll be only 8 demigods on release, but I'm hoping that they'll add some new ones relatively quickly, and it's better in my opinion for them to get a release than to postpone (again), and I think that if people know there'll be two more demigods soon then they shouldn't get too mad. Maybe some will wait until they are actually released, but the release will get a lot of sales to fund the extra demigods.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

I sure hope so, Id imagine that more demigods would be added just like PATCHES, it would really be a cheap move to sell them.
if 500,000 copies are sold... the companiy makes $2,500,000 thats a lot of money... even if it costs $10 per disc they still get $2,000,000... and that more then covers any cost paid to make the game! For example SOaSE has sold 500,000 copies, and IMO the campaign/storyline they gave is crappy, all it is is skrimish.

The budget of Demigod far exceeds $2.5M. In addition, if you consider something like a new Demigod as being like a patch then you'll be disappointed. That's like saying that Starcraft should include new races as a patch.

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Xan

Join Date 01/2003

+29

Wow what a sense of entitlement in this thread. Demigods released as a patch for free? We've gone from people wanting hoping that bugs will be fixed in a patch to expecting massive new content?

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Frogboy, I understand that you're part of the dev team for the game. Do you really think it makes sense to compare a single Demigod in this game to an entire race in Starcraft, as you're doing in this thread?

A race in Starcraft contains 12-15 units, 10+ buildings, many units have various powers, etc. A single race also contains an immense variety in ways to play. From what I've seen, each demigod is nowhere near this and is much more like a character in a fighting game or a hero in Warcraft 3. So the comparison to an entire race of units in Starcraft seems a little awkward.

If you make the more apt comparison to Warcraft 3, it shipped with 12 heroes, each with 3 powers and an ultimate, and a full-fledged item system, on top of a complete RTS game with 4 factions and multiple units a side. The expansion added 9 heroes and they added I believe around 3 or 4 more in free updates. And of course they had to animate each hero themselves and come up with the art assets.

If you're striving to match this level of content, it makes sense to ship with more than 8 demigods (the meat of your game), especially when you offer 5v5 as a game option. I'm not saying "this is a slap in the face" or "I'm boycotting GPG" or anything retarded like that, but this is a little disappointing.

Finally, if you are going to ship with 8 demigods, then hopefully you're making them as unique as possible, not just "AoE damage, single target damage, stun" etc. as appears to be the case in the Torchbearer. Since you guys are obviously familiar with DotA, if I had to pick 8 heroes I'd hope for heroes more like Meepo or Nerubian Weaver, totally unique heroes who play very differently from the vanilla heroes.

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I don't care, I've already bought this game, but I understand why people are complaining. 8 demigods are 8 individuals, and traditionally heroes only get a selection of abilities. From the perspective of somebody used to, say, sins, heroes (IE caps) are a big fancy unit with a set of abilities. I think that what the devs are getting at is that the demigods entail way way more than that. A bunch more abilities, items, potions and all in all depth more analgous to a race than to a single hero. The depth of the tree the various gods get will be telling, and hopefully the betas will bear the devs' arguments out. We shall see, but I remain hopeful.

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Quoting FieryBalrog,

reply 17

Since you guys are obviously familiar with DotA, if I had to pick 8 heroes I'd hope for heroes more like Meepo or Nerubian Weaver, totally unique heroes who play very differently from the vanilla heroes.

Signed.

If we will have 4 assasins, each one with nuke, aoe spells ... not a quite good reference to the creativity of those people who are creating them at your dev team.

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Quoting Draginol,

reply 10

I'm trying to understand this. 8 is a LOT of Demigods.

It's simple. We were told the game supports 5v5 matches, and that there would be an option to force unique picks. If there are 8 demigods, this cannot happen, and that option must be disabled in 5v5 games until at least 2 more demigods are patched. This brings us to your "Gamer's Bill of Rights".

2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.

So which is it?

+1

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Quoting brn4meplz,

reply 11

The "would only work up to 4v4" part was in a different thread which was made around the same time, or i didn;t read it until i posted my part. but my argument as to why parts of the game are limited still applies. Why not release the 5v5 mode with 2 other demigods? That ultimately makes more sense. But judging from thsi current topic and argument Stardock hasn;t made very good public relations choices lately. Like announcing 1 week before the beta(and when people get charged) that there is only 8 demigods.

I don't see the problem, it's not GPG or Stardock's fault if people have pre ordered a game they didn't know anything about. They would have released the beta, saying absolutely nothing about the game it still wouldn't be their fault if people are disapointed to have pre ordered. Moreover, one week is more than necessary to cancel a pre order if you want to.

Why not release 5vs5 mode when two other demigods will be out ? Because there are no reasons to, some people still want to play 5vs5 even with the same character multiple times.

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Yes but people can still give their opinions and arguments as consumers of their product.

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Of course, and in the same way I can give my opinion when I do or don't agree with someone.

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Quoting Karryle,

reply 24

That's fine for me.I simply hope you will not make the mistake of releasing booster-packs 1-2 months after the game ship(instead of delaying it). It would sound to me like an unfinished game that the company try to sell the game parts by parts.

In stardocks new bill of rights the gamers can DEMAND that the game be released in a FINISHED state

The Gamer’s Bill of Rights:

Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

The only downside is how you may interperet it, 8 demigods is a FINISHED state but not a COMPLETE, as in the game works and is successful but doesnt have everythingn that it can.

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Frogboy, I understand that you're part of the dev team for the game. Do you really think it makes sense to compare a single Demigod in this game to an entire race in Starcraft, as you're doing in this thread?

A race in Starcraft contains 12-15 units, 10+ buildings, many units have various powers, etc. A single race also contains an immense variety in ways to play. From what I've seen, each demigod is nowhere near this and is much more like a character in a fighting game or a hero in Warcraft 3. So the comparison to an entire race of units in Starcraft seems a little awkward.

OK. How many new Heroes has Blizzard given out in Warcraft for free?

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