Hi everyone!
So as some of you know, Gas Powered Games has sent us v1.01 of Demigod. We've been testing it for the past few days and sending back bug reports and such to make sure v1.01 is a great release.
The big things in v1.01 include:
- Reduced bandwidth requirements so people with ISDN and low end DSL have a better experience.
- A more robust system of handling disconnects
- Better system for detecting the difference between someone who quits and disconnects
- Significantly better computer AI
- Fix for the Sedna type multiple cast issue.
- More robust system for sending game data
It's the last item that we're still working the kinks out. One of our goals for v1.01 is to use it as the launch of Epoch 2 where user stats get reset.
Meanwhile, the team at Stardock is using that time to improve Demigod connectivity further. As some (many) of you know, when Demigod initially shipped, we relied exclusively on a third-party NAT fasciliator which had catastrophic problems when scaling to the number of users playing the released game.
So Stardock went and developed, with the help of GPG and Raknet, a largely new system from scratch that is much better but not yet perfect since, this is the type of thing that would normally take months not weeks.
Thanks to info from
this post we are hoping to have enough time incorporate changes from what we discovered in that post that should work out the last vestiges of pain. I am also *hoping* that the location-aware proxy system will be in place in time for v1.01.
So our current working date for v1.01 is Tuesday.
I can also say that we've been discussing what should be in v1.1 of Demigod - the first major update scheduled to be released in a few weeks. Voter-based conceding of a game will implemented that should change the "rage quitting" issue for the better. There's a bunch of other stuff as well but that was one of the things I thought people on the forums would like.
So that's where we're at.
