Your opinion which is what all your posts are as well are no less subjective than mine.  Please don't try to devalue my posts over yours, we both have opinions and we're both entiled to them.

Your repsonce shows you're a fan boy WAR3 and DotA.  Guess what, not everyone is and those that are not, I suspect will be more open to Demigod.

I bough WAR3, they got my money (hence part of thier monitary success) but even bliz devs will admit that they don't consider the game that much of a success. How can they, when the majority of players are not playing the game they made and instead playing a mod?

Do you remember the articles before WAR3 was released? When the game was not going to have troops at all?  How about when it was suppose to just be your hero and a small war band?  Or how about when a bunch of the developers left (I suspect in disagreement on the direction WAR3 was taking).  It's pretty obivous it went through a ton of revisions and I was not that impressed with the final result.

I'm a fan of RTS games but for me Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, Netstorm, Kohan and many others are all better games -- all of which I played and enjoyed a great deal more than WAR3. 

So yes, it's my opinion that WAR3 was not that good of a game.

Am I?  I don't see how either of my posts defended the game at all.  I implied, if not directly said, that I enjoy Demigod.  Its true.  But that is not me defending the game.  I haven't attacked your game.  Nor have I claimed either is better than the other.  Not a single second was spent trying to convince you that you of anything.  All I've done is dismissed your trolling and had a few laughs at your expense.  As well as questioned your motives, but you've, of course, ignored that as you have ignored any response that doesn't suit your purpose.  You pick and choose what you want to keep the thread going.  Pretty much textbook there, buddy.

This kind of post reminds me why I don't play Dota anymore. It was a fun mod but the people who played it were just total asses.

Anyone who claims Demigod is a clone of Dota hasn't played Demigod very much.

In Dota the skill revolves around getting the last hit on creeps and memorizing items to chain together.

In Demigod, the skill revolves around when to equip your Demigod with what for the particular circumstance as well as knowing when it's best to upgrade your citadel and when it is best to capture a flag versus going after enemy reinforcements.

Calling Demigod a clone of Dota is like saying World of Warcraft is a clone of Pac-Man because both have mazes of some kind in them at some point.

That's very good. Let me introduce you to two concepts I'd imagine your freshman english teacher will have introduced you to.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Sadly, you and your peers, are guilty of both. Not conducive to a grown-up discussion, I'm sure you'll agree.

It's a win/win situation. Either, I expose a part of your community as raving, hyper-emotional, white-knighting fanbois, or we have a civilised discussion about the game's issues and potential pitfalls. It is the most gentlemanly trolling you could ever hop to experience this evening.

Now to sound stupid, but what the heck is DoTA?

I think the main reason why the DotA community seems so filled with trash is that there's really only one manner in which to get a game, that is, going to custom games and looking on the list of publicly hosted games.  In most officially supported RTS now there's a variety of ways, matchmaking services, different channels and lobbies to chat in and meet people and so on.  DotA probably doesn't have a whole lot more trash than many popular games do, but the trash gets mixed in with all the rest much more easily in DotA. 

If you took any other popular game and forced all levels of the community to mingle and play with each other then you'd probably find a lot of detestable immature punks in your games as well.

Plus DotA has a very large playerbase and appeals to young teens so it's natural that the playerbase is the way it is.

The whole point of my saying this is to get across that it's not like the DotA community is unique or that all people from that community are the same.  There are plenty of games with annoying, rude, disrespectful punks who won't listen to a word you say and will twist everything to make their own point.

The case in point would be that there seem to be plenty of people on these forums who fit that bill, whether anyone would like to admit it or not; in fact, very often in my experience it has been the whole name calling business surrounding the supposed "elitist," "immature" DotA community that has brought such posters out in droves.

Ooh, he makes the classic mistake.

Logic and internet forums don't mix well, my friend.

It's DotA with improved graphics, persistent online stats and achievements, without the tedium of last hitting and the boredom of PvE gameplay. If you can't see why that's appealing, then you can't.

DotA is a Filet Mignon and a side of fish filets, with a turkey on top, drenched in ranch, and then with bacon on top. With a side of fries and a large coke. And a large Dr. Pepper. There is no doubt some people would enjoy it.

Demigod is a ginger-encrusted onaga.

I'm sure you'd find people who'd enjoy both.

Unfortunately this is clearly not the case. The difference between my posts and yours is your inability to stick to facts, reason and logic. Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one, they all stink, and none of them have any value unless they have a clear grounding in fact.

Another example of your subjective opinions. You have provided no evidence to back up this accusation and are engaging in mere strawmanning and ad hominem. 

Evidence please.

This is all very nice but it succeeds only in derailing the discussion. Your opinion of Warcraft 3 is of no consequence to the areas in which Demigod is comparatively lacking. 

Take a look at the significant post-release improvements in games Stardock has developed(GCII) or published(SINS) and combine it with the fact the Stardock and GPG have commited to at least a year of updates.

That depends. If one is looking to provoke an emotional and irrational response, then logic is the perfect weapon. There is little more frustrating to those who let their emotions drive their communication on the internet, as someone who exhibits none.

In my experience - having played both CS and War3 (and DoTA) relatively casually online, I found the DoTA community to be disgusting. It was an utterly elitist community that offered no help at all to less experienced players (nubs) and actively went out of their way to crush and humiliate them. Again, just speaking from my own experience playing DoTA online. I gave up trying to catch up and just played the AI version of DOTA maps with my friends via LAN.

The CS and War3 communitys could be the same, but you could also get around it and find friendly games. I never managed to find a friendly game of DoTA online.

DoTA was a fun map, but I agree with another poster that it did get a little stale. I haven't played it yet, but everything I've seen of Demigod indicates it'll be a fun way to expand the genre.

Exuse me for not reading all the posts, but thread starter is wrong in his very first sentences, and i rush to point his mistake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_and_Light_(video_game)

I would argue that Stardock has not published enough games to provide a sufficient precedent. GPG in particular, has a poor history of supporting their products after release. Supreme Commander is a prime example of that. I would hope that Stardock has sufficient muscle to convince GPG to provide updates after the fact and if they do, I will be happy. As it stands though, the game on release would appear to lack content and substance, which may not be easily solved by simply updating it.

I am going to half-agree with the OP.

I did not play DotA, I found it to be a bad mod relative to the mod I did play, which was Battle Tanks.  I think DG is absolutely more shallow at this point than Battle Tanks or DotA in some ways.  For example, while Battle Tanks had the ability to build towers out in the field upon the ruins of destroyed towers, or the ability to upgrade tanks as you progressed (instead of one character all game), DemiGod provides multiple maps and victory conditions, skill trees, and hopefully built in ranking and automatching.  I never have to search for a game of BT, and I think the extra features will come and eventually a standalone game will be able to surpass what a small modded map could.

Overall I agree that it doesn't offer EVERYTHING of the original pushmaps, I will gladly play $40 to convert to updated graphics, a varied experience, and the potential to expand to more.

Perhaps, in that case, you may wish to point out the actual mistake. Quoting it is generally a good start. I assume you are referring to this title as proof that Demigod is not the first attempt to monetise the push-map genre. Sadly, since DOL was a free MMORTS, you are incorrect.

Every community has jerks my point was DoTA just had the highest volume of them in comparison to my experiences in other games. Although you're probably right on the cause. It's a shame as it was kinda fun when I played it but I just couldn't stand the people anymore.

Defense of the Ancients.  A fun mod for Warcraft 3 that is very popular.  There are similarities in gameplay to Demigod, and indeed DG wouldn't exist without it, so DotA vs. DG comparisons are common.  There is another game by the same people who made DotA called League of Legends (I think) that will be like DotA.

second'ed. you seem way to entrenched in your arguement for anyone to really make any headway. therefore, enjoy the forums, while i enjoy my game.

B.Net DoTA is perhaps the worst thing that gaming has ever spawned and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Playing DoTA with friends or as part of a small gaming community, is a different experience entirely. This holds true for many other titles who's 'wider community' suffers from the idiocy of it's players.

Gal Civ 1, Gal Civ 2, and Sins.  Gal Civ 1 is still recieving updates and it was released 2003.  Call me crazy but there are 3 examples with extreme levels of comitment.

Why are you here again?

PS: I get it you're a paying customer. However, your initial post does not offer any constructive or thought provoking argument. To me, it is simply an opinion of one person who is trying to impress that upon others in his righteous views. I've played both DOTA and Demigod. And my experience with DOTA was on Bnet. I felt the people playing DOTA were a of bunch self-righteous a-holes who gave themselves the damn right to f**k new players and to screw others over by quitting halfway. I can't believe someone made a program to ban droppers.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt when you mention playing DOTA in small communites or LAN parties is much more fun because I have had not the opportunity to do that. I had not seen a good enough reason to attend or organize a LAN party JUST to play DOTA. Because the last time I saw, some kid got stuck in the back with a pocket knife because this kid killed some high level player during a LAN party.

I feel the DOTA community were A-Ok. It's too early to say. If they turn out to be self-righteous a-holes later, I won't think twice about uninstalling this game.

DoTA or Defense of the Ancients is a custom made map for Warcraft 3.  I don't remember the original creator but now it is made/updated by a guy named Icefrog.  From what I've heard, it is based off a custom map for Starcraft call Aeon of Strife. 

Basically, you control a hero unit with a set of 3 normal abilities and 1 "ultimate" ability.  There are two teams each with it's own base consisting of a main building (World Tree or Frozen Throne), defense towers, creep spawners, and a spawn point/shop area/regen point for the heros.  The creeps spawn at regular intervals, follow set paths, and try to fight their way into the enemy base to destroy their main building.  The heros try to tilt the balance in their favor by killing creeps, which gives them experience to buy new abilities and gold to buy items.  There are a few different shops with normal items and others which have recipies.  These recipies require that you have certain items in your inventory which will then combine into a much stronger item.

That's the basic idea in my experience as a decent DoTA player.  You can find a more complete description on Wikipedia.

Did I miss anything?

Seems to me that nobody has attempted to make any headway as of yet, or if they have, they have singularly failed to do so by not providing any counter-argument. The argument that people simply 'do not care' seems a little transparent. Indeed, people seem to care rather a lot. They care enough to post lengthy emotional reples. No, it would seem people do care... perhaps a little too much, allowing their feelings and emotions to cloud their judgement. That is understandable. Stardock is a great company, GPG has also, for all their flaws, made some great games and rooting for the underdog publisher can only be condoned. Indies should be supported. However, that status does not make them immune to constructive criticism and nor should it. One does not improve by being told that they are doing everything right, one improves by being told what they're doing wrong.

As much as I would like to enjoy the game, since the multiplayer does not actually work properly yet, that would be a little tricky. 

3 games does not a pedigree necessarily make. If anything, Sins is the strongest argument that Stardock has the sway to ensure proper support and development post launch, but that could also be due to the extreme dedication of Ironclad. GPG on the other hand are a much older developer with a much larger pedigree, who's post-launch support and development has been a little lackluster. Whether Stardock can keep GPG providing a steady stream of post-release content remains to be seen.

That said, whether or not post-release content will make any difference depends on whether or not you view DG's issues as being fixable by mere patches. The issue I have with the game, as my OP indicates, is that it does not offer anything that free pushmaps don't, indeed, it offers less. I would like to see some innovation and I'm not sure that will happen.

If you wish to carry on a Dota vs. Demigod discussion ad nauseum please find another forum. The issue has been debated endlessly here for months already.

Some people who like Dota will like Demigod. Some people who like Dota won't like Demigod. And vice versa.