I suspect there will be some kind of ratings system (ranking and/or evaluation score from other players). The problem with DotA is that games aren't played on the official ladder so there's no rating and no risk of losing anything.

damn PP'ers

Actually, the AI that has been developed for DOTA is better than most of the leavers.  It carries a couple of healing potions (flasks), knows when to back up and use them, knows when to run, and does pretty well pushing.  Not bad considering it was independently developed for an online only game mod. 

Now Demigod will come with its own original AI built from the ground up specifically for this game.  If you combine the AI with some form of direction from the players, it could be a good candidate for saving a game where players leave.  For example, the player that was playing a Demigod leaves the game or gets disconnected.  The AI picks up where he left off.  Any player on his team may select the AI controlled Demigod and choose from a list of general commands (i.e., push X lane, Defend X lane, Defend Base, Kill Demi, push objective X).  His items/gold will stay with him (no more hording/arguing over the leavers items) and he will continue to level buy items.

Thumbs up keeping record of your wins/losses/Losses from leaving a game early/disconnects.  These should be visible or accessible in the game lobby where all can either boot that player (host) or choose to play in a different lobby (other players).

Based on wins/losses/leaves there could be some titles. Kinda when you look at someones profile in the game lobby. Have something kinda cool for people to work for wins and when you have to many losses you lose winning titles and for people with alot of leaves just the title of "LEAVER" in be red letters.

I like both of these.  Sometimes I stay for a busted match in COD4 simply to get the bonus points at the end. 

Again, I'd like to see leaving a game be a different trackable stat then lost a game.  Likewise, disconnect would be another stat.

I like the sound of this one, but make some for getting a kill streak or some other accomplishment of killy doom for those of us who like team games but don't want to stack our teams. The problem with team achievements is that they rely on the other guys pretty heavily, and kill streak achievements and the like are soly about your contribution.

Love rewards.  Long after you've mastered the game, know what to expect from a match, and have fun playing, rewards keep pushing us.  COD4 did this well with 10 ranks of prestige with 55 levels each.  Additionally, there were rewards and unlockables for completing in game challenges.

I always liked the avatar options in WarIII Bnet.  However, I really only play DOTA which never counted towards wins meaning I never got beyond orc worker.

damn you people

DEMIGOD =/= DOTA...

Until beta we don't have anything else to go on!  Jeez.

The devs, such as Tyo, are the ones that read this and can think "i see what he's saying, but that doesn't apply to Demigod in this case because that part of the gameplay is quite different."

The devs aren't going to think "OMG SOMEONE HAS A PROBLEM WITH GAMES DRAGGING ON IN DOTA.  ITS NOT A PROBLEM IN DEMIGOD BUT WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. PANICK PANICK PANICK."

I think how they're going to do it is: Quit = Disconnect, and to lose you actually have to stay till you lose, at which point because you lost, it officialy gets tallied for your achivements and what not.

I agree with Odit on this one; both of his/her posts. And, on the note of the last one:

Demigod is not the same game as DoTA, but it has some similar core mechanics, at least in this early stage. There are quite a few problems that people have seen with DoTA (and this type of game specifically), and we're voicing our concerns so that GPG can make this game surpass those flaws. Games have a ton of UI and Server-side stuff that, in DoTA, was simply handled by Warcraft III. We have the ability to change that, whereras many of us DoTA players had (and still have) to suffer through it.

I like where GPG is going with the AI-swapping route. Perhaps there should be an unintrusive box that asks the remaining players whether to vote the leaver down? Sometimes people are disconnected by accident, and people can generally spot a leaver from a crappy-internet-connection victim.

Love it. That would make people think twice about leaving, and still be fair.

if we get an option to surrender (all of your team must do it)  the problem mentioned by Innociv (winning team not finishing the game to harvest achievements) is solved.