Ok, after playing several days of single player battles with the AI on hard, I decided it was time to go multiplayer.
So, I decided to host a battle called "3x3 Seattle - Noobs Welcome"
I forwarded my router's port and started the game. The first minute nothing happened. I thought something was not setup properly. Then one person showed up, we said hi, then several others. We waited and about after about 2 minutes we had all six. However, one of the players was red and his computer would not talk to another. He logged out and back in. Same problem. Finally the second person said it must be on his side, dropped out and the slot was filled within a few seconds. Within 3 minutes We had six players, all with pings less then 150ms. I was very happy, because the game reviews said getting a 6 person game started was very difficult.
The game went smoothly. The only major freeze in the game occured when my Steam popup announced my friend started L4D. {Note to self: Turn off steam popups when playing Demigod}
One player disconnected after first blood. He either logged back on or was replaced. I don't know if it was a bot or another player?
The follow are my observations.
1. HOW COULD YOU RELEASE THIS GAME WITHOUT VOIP?*
Yes, I used all caps. It was a great game. There was a lot of teamwork between players. The final battle was epic, both citadels were under attack. Two of use hung back to stop a big push from the other team while the 3rd player kept the pressure on. It would have been so convient to hit a button and say why his teammates couldn't help him. Text chat does not work in this type of fast paced RTS. I play TF2 and L4D and love the team VOIP. This entire game was too quiet. Finally at the last few seconds one or two players typed GG then... (see #2)
2. GAME END = WTF (Please read this twice, it really needs to be fixed)
Ok, the announcement comes up and states that our team won the game. Then, flash, its back at the main menu. WTF. Look, I just spent 40 minutes playing with these people. I would like to see the stats and chat with them. I know that one player killed me a few times and I would like to congratulate him (well sort of - grrr). Anyway, I do not even know who I played against. You need to show the stats and keep the endgame screen open until everyone logs themselves out. People could comment about the game, say their GGs, and maybe add one or two to my friends list.
I like this game a lot. It's got great potential. I wish that you set up the multiplayer as a client/sever type. I do not know how difficult it would be to add dedicated servers. I would not have even minded renting server slots on a game server than deal with this P2P stuff. I understand that decisions were made and this game proves that P2P it does infact work. Please just give us in-game VOIP and fix the end of multiplayer.
*I know about Vent and Teamspeak but not everyone wants to to through the trouble. In-game VOIP is better.
