[SUGGESTION]My First Impressions

Demigod. What do I say about it? Well first things first, if people are going to compare this game to DOTA and judge it thusly, they will be sorely disappointed. While the game does borrow heavily from DOTA, and I mean HEAVILY, it is not exactly the same game.

Playing the Beta reminded me of WC3 maps that tried to be like DOTA, with different spells, different items, different everything, while good still came off as being a DOTA wannabe. To be fair, it's only a beta and there hopefully could be some major changes, but at the same time I feel that $50 price tag is a little too hefty. Graphics wise the game is amazing and perfect in every way, but the interface just rubs me wrong repeatedly.

I started up a quick match against computers, as there was a lack of players in the beta and was very amazed at how realistic the graphics were and how detailed. Then I was confused. VERY VERY CONFUSED. The user interface was very unintuitive, there was no mouse scrolling, you had to use the WASD keys to move your screen around. There is no attack move, just move. There is also a lack of Hold Position or any sort of command for your hero other than right clicking to move and right clicking to attack. If your hero is sitting around and enemies come by, sometimes he'll attack, sometimes he won't. It's a crap shoot.

While I was critiquing the bad points of the game, overall I enjoyed it. I just wanted to get most of the bad stuff out of the way, because it is a beta, and that's the point of beta testing, to work out all the bugs.

Back to my previous statement of interface, I didn't like having to scroll with WASD instead of just mousing to the edge of the screen. Also there is a minimap at the top left hand corner, but you cannot use it to navigate the map, which is a hassle when using items like Teleport Scrolls or Warp Stones. In Dota, you could use a TP scroll, and click on the minimap the general area of where you wish to port to, in Demigod, you actually have to WASD scroll your screen back to base, then use the scroll, and then target the specific building you wish to port to. In the heat of battle, or when you are running away this could mean the difference between life or death. Sometimes it lets me port using the minimap, most the time it doesn't.

Oh yes I almost forgot, my gripe about the General class Heroes. They summon monsters along with their normal retinue of spells and skills. Each General has their own specific summons, but they can also buy Idols that lets them summon Minotaurs (melee), Siege Archers (range), and Priests (Spellcasting/healing). The idols are on timers like your normal spells and can be upgraded a total of 4 times to get stronger versions of the troops. The problem is, you could sit in your base by the healing fountain and just summon, wait, summon, wait, summon, wait, and then attack with 30 troops behind you. You can't access any of the troops skills, they just either sit around following you, or attacking a specific target. If you leave them sitting there without a specific target, they will continue sitting there until they die or you give them an order, they do not auto fire, they do not cast spells, they don't do anything. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get my priests to heal. Also it's very hard to tell when you have the creatures selected, or your hero, because you can't really unselect your hero.

Another issue with the game is the graphics. It is simply amazing how gorgeous the graphics are, but at the same time, when there are significant troops on the field, it is nigh impossible to target anything accurately, even the giant sky scraping castle hero The Rook is hard to pinpoint in the melee frenzy of angels, orcs, catapults, giants, flying ghost things, yetis, minotaurs, and priests. They all just mesh into one big swarming blob and makes discerning differences a tad hard. On a similar note, it's impossible to what team each hero belongs on. It could have something to do with my colorblindness, it could be that there are no discerning marks on the heroes other than their player names when you hover over the character model. When I played, it was against computers, so I would have to spend time trying to remember Generic Fantasy name 1-4 are on my team and Generic Fantasy name 5-10 are on the other team, and when all the heat of battle, you see a giant walking castle coming from behind you, looking like your teammate, it's quite disturbing to have him slam his giant hammer on your head killing you. Maybe give each hero specific areas on their body that are colored or tattooed differently, like the shoulders, chest, helm, pants, and feet.

Getting past all that, overall I really enjoyed the game, I must have to have played it for over 5 hours against just computers. It was very simplistic consisting of "Capture this flag for buffs" and just played tug of war back and forth for 30 minutes until my armies wore down theirs. Even on Nightmare AI, they were barely much of a challenge, and I hope that issue gets addressed when the game hits retail. Also, I never felt that I did much to help my team, except using AOE spells every so often to kill an ENTIRE wave of soldiers at a time, but also even killing entire waves of monsters in one go, I never noticed any significant increases to my gold or income. Another thing that came to mind was just how simplistic it was. There were no neutral monsters to kill for gold, there were no alternate paths to take for flanking, it was just a big square with some pretty lights. Then again, it was only one map to test the game.

It's a great game, and I'm only nitpicking at everything because I want it to succeed, otherwise I wouldn't be typing this up. I've already shown my support buy prebuying this game, and I hope you guys will all give the game a chance too when it comes out. The beta has shown this game has a LOT of potential, I'm just worried that too many players might be turned away by how graphically intensive this game is.