How much did it cost to make Demigod ?

The maps for Demigod I remember being told were hideously expensive.

Thats wierd , wouldn't that mean Stardock would be losing money for this game??????? Maps shouldn't be expensive at all. Making a map is like going into an graphical editor and putting templates(items) into a geometrical entity.  Maybe the game costed 100k to make but the copies are like $10 to make.

No, every single map is it's on 3D model, which is incredibly complex and difficult to make (look at all the details that have to be put in).  (Not necessarily 100K$, that's absurd, but it would take many many-hours from a talented artist to put it together).

hmm  i agree with ron i know a bit about 3d modeling  and  the detail on some off the maps is a shitload higher then dow2  i have dow2 and the graphics are good  multi is so ubalanced though

but back to topic at hand 

lets take a example of a map hmm  cataract   highly  detailed  espically the water and the view of the buildings where u can't go

they had to make those buildings and  texture them and all that  but in dow2 map angus desert  there is a bit behind the base  that they did with  flat  model bit and added  textures to make it look 3d

and that is also the reason there are only a handful of maps  because they make them from scratch  but all the maps have a basic idea to them which i think is sweet

haha 100k  to model and skin a demigod don't make me laugh

Don't think that's unreasonable at all, there's just a bunch of steps need taking when models are this advanced.

A Demigod is it's model, sure.  But don't forget each skill, minions it can summon, special effects for each attack.   Unique skill trees, balancing speed/size/damage, sounds for each skill, effect, interaction with the world/other demigods.  Then the time it takes to balance each demigod against all the other ones.  Each modification to a demigod requires going back to the others for balancing... etc.

These demigods are more than thier models.  Each one is a picture into a mini-world within the game.

i think heaven is proberly cose to the number but i dont think it is that much i believe it is around 80k for all the maps they have done  because some of them  there was more detail then others

Well, I remember hearing that Sins cost about 2 million to make, so was a very cheap and profitable game for SD. I would imagine DG to be slightly more expensive, but that's just a guess.

100k for a demigod too much? dont think so. Why?

You have to pay...

designer/writer- for demigod designs, play style, balance, story

artist- texture, model, rigging, modeling, animation, character design, special effects (glows etc), technical art (make things engine friendly)... each part could be done by a different artist, if the studio use this style of production. I will be shocked if all those are done by 1 person (actually, I won't be shocked, because that finished product will suck hard... unless 1 person used 3~5 years to make it), but it is possible for 1 person covering 2-3 parts (you pay these kind of people more $$$ too, but it is usually cheaper than paying 2 people instead).

voice actor- voice acting...

sound engineer/composer- special sound effect of skills etc

programmers- need to put it in the game

network programmers/engineer- put it into a patch and release it

web site programmer/artist- put it on the web site.

producers/manager- to keep production on time

executives- i think their purpose varies

PR- tell people there is this demigod

===============

The nitpicking part

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time- time = money

food & drink- people got to eat and drink

electric bills

equipment for the production

I said enough

Around 100k can also mean 85+k or something less exact.

To actually count exactly how much each demigod cost, I think would actually be quite difficult.

Another factor is how soon you want to finish a demigod. The sooner you want it done, the more it will cost.

I regret their choice of using 3d models as maps. Yes they look nice but having so few maps to play on is a pain.

I WANT A FREAKING MAP EDITOR JESUS, THIS GAME WOULD BLOOM IF PEOPLE COULD MAKE MAPS! MAKE THEM PLAYABLE IN CUSTOM GAMES AND KEEP THE SKRIMISH AND PATHEBLABLA TO OFFICIAL MAPS.

/rant

I think it's a bit assasine for them to say the fans don't know how to use 3dsmax and tile textures.

Quake3, UT, hl where sucessful largely from this.

Its not so much the fans lack of talent when it comes to 3dsmax etc its the effect it has on fragmenting the community (which is made worse by matchmaking). In a large community thats fine...but a fledgling one requires cohesion.

Its fine when a map is a few MB, but we are taking possibly hundreds so p2p transfers are out of the window which means you will then have to have a dedicated online place to download them. You have to factor in code changes to make sure when you join a game without the map it tells you rather than just crashing, you have quality assurance (i have no doubt stardock will want to "vet" possible maps to make sure they are ok etc).

But yes...its a much more complicated picture than them saying, "You can't use 3ds proper hur hur".

You mean like FileFront, FilePlanet, Gamer's Hell, Atomic Gamer, etc. etc. etc.?

And that's ignoring the possibility that we will secure our own servers for use.

If this game does not have mod version checking, much less automatic mod downloading, then GPG and/or SD has failed horribly. This is a feature SupCom lacked that GPG has been getting screamed at to implement since day 1. This is a feature that multiplayer games must have. This is a feature that any competent development team would have planned for from the very beginning.

Are you really saying that this game doesn't have mod downloading? Really? I get that there are no mods out yet, but the capability isn't there at all? Wow. GPGNet at least had the Mod and Map Vaults.

It's none of Stardock's business whether our maps work correctly or not. If they don't, then that is on us. They can make suggestions and such, but modder maps are not Stardock maps. They are not going to officially support them. They are not going to pay for them. They are not the ones that bug test them. They do not get to say, "We don't like your map, so you can't release it." They have nothing to do with it.

We know the risks when we download user content, and the consequences are ours alone.

I hope you can come up with more concrete examples then those you have provided thus far.

THIS

oh come on, /b/, you'd just make maps full of hentai shemales and pedobears anyway

Stardock and GPG do have a responsibility to gurantee a certain baseline multiplayer experience. When you inject user content into the mix, you introduce a variable that can be good or bad. I prefer official filters of some sort - some sort of distinction - between the primary official Demigod experience and an 'other' Demigod experience that may or may not be welcome.

If user material is good enough to play, I say let it be adopted officially by the publishers/developers. But always have a distinction prior to that.

If the fanbase had to use horse poop and toothpicks to make the maps, they still would, and those fan maps would be awesome. The dedication of any fanbase when it comes to mapping is not up for debate, as there are people out there that are just incredibly talented with any SDK and engine that is released. If they want to make new maps, allow the fanbase to have some basic tools, some guidance and then let them build the new maps. They will do it for free. The could even host a competition to see who becomes an Official map.

I would much prefer maps have terrain which have a significant impact on playing rather than ones that have fancy effects. Although comparisons to DotA I feel like one here is useful to demonstrate my point: when you're running from a fight in Demigod, you basically make a beeline to the nearest towers. It's predictable and there's no thinking involved beyond perhaps casting your stun/slow on the enemies chasing you and continuing to run. In DotA, you can run up cliffs and dodge between trees, requiring both you and your chaser to try to predict each other's moves. If you have a short range teleport, you can use it to pass through obstacles and walls put lengthen your lead or catch up. I'm not saying that Demigod should necessarily adopt these mechanics, just pointing out that the maps themselves provide very little variety in depth beyond different flag/tower positions. Perhaps the developers/players don't want to have anotehr layer of depth to worry about in terms of terrain, but I personally hate the points where I'm just watching my character walk and not making any decisions.

How can they be more expensive than, say, DoW2 maps ? Terrain is completely non-reactive and flat 2-D, while in DoW2 almost everything is destructible, including explosions that make pits in the groud and create new cover points, and there are staircases allowing combat between varying heights. Just creating a static ( though more beautiful ) model viewable in 3-d should be less expensive.

And of course - no structures built, no air or naval units, much fewer units in general.

Who said they were more expensive than dow2 maps? Dow2 are also ludicrously expensive and difficult to make (hence so few).

you fail to realise that maps from the Essence Engine (of CoH and DoW2 fame) are traditional maps, where-as maps in Demigod are actual models just like the Demigod's themselves.

how much did it take to make the entire Space Marine faction in DoW2? surely not much at all considering most SM's are partially copy-paste jobs.

until you understand how Demigod works under the hood (and even i know only very little), please don't make a fool of yourself with an argument that is bad and wrong.

100k pffff, not even with cheap chinese programmers/artists would you achieve that. LOL. 

There are mobile game developers that spend on a mobile title more than 100k so a PC game that's been in production for at least 2 years (first screen from a playable version emerged an year ago) will go higher...

What's with maps being expensive talk? Are you guys blind? Artistically the maps look good but that doesn't count since much of the artistics in them do not have any gameplay interaction which is the hard part to design/test/fix/redesign.

Basically, maps in this game are 2D as far as gameplay is concerned, symetrical and that eliminates a ton of issues. Letting an artist imagine a guy holding a snake is just a few hours work. 

Yes, for you and me who have no talent it would take an year and it would look like crap, but not for an artist. 

I dunno about the maps being effectively 2d, there are flying units as well.