Will the community grow, or shrink?

I'm not confident it will stay the same size without Pantheon/Skirmish/other networking issues being decisively corrected. 

Realistically, I'd bank on shrinkage at this point but I'd love to be proven wrong.  Since I don't care at all about Pantheon, I'm having a great time with my friends and would be thrilled to see new content and balance tweaks and such.

It's not often you get more than one chance to make a first impression, though.

The only way i see it growing is if they release an expansion(required to play online, no standalone), and have a commercial on tv or something. Most casual players wont look back at a game that didnt work when they tried to play it... and the casual gamer market is alot larger then us(the hardcore forum/ tourny guys).

If they:

* Get all of the community features done correctly
* Continue to improve their systems until downtime is well under 1% with no sustained un-announced outages
* Get their proxies rolled out properly throughout the world
* Get replays working
* Enable modding
* Do all of the above expediently and then spam the gaming press WHEN IT'S READY

I believe the community will stay healthy for a long time.

The only way i see it growing is if they release an expansion(required to play online, no standalone), and have a commercial on tv or something. Most casual players wont look back at a game that didnt work when they tried to play it... and the casual gamer market is alot larger then us(the hardcore forum/ tourny guys).

They release 2 demigods for free: baby boom.

They release 2 maps for free: baby boom.

They release a few more items for free: baby boom.

Expansion with a few more demigods, maps and modes is released: baby boom.

Other than that, every game has a natural descending trend of players, and it's up to the developers to offset it with care for the game.

A game like this? It's really, really hard to say.

At the very least, it needs the problems fixed and the new content already promised to have a chance for long-term survival. Needs a demo (With tutorial!) released soon after that, then SD can do the contact to the player base about the fixes. $$$ tournament will also help if it's a big enough prize. Needs mod support for sure.

If they pull that off, then they might just make it.

Yah forgot mod support and demo, theres alot of room for improvement.. they just havent done any of it yet.

If I were to bet, I'm going to bet it would stay the same. 

The current size community, people playing online, isn't large enough.  I think it needs to grow but I don't see how Stardock can fix the never ending network issue.  Atleast not within the next 3 months.  Yes I would bet my money on it not getting fix for 99% bulletproof multiplayer like other games.  I would like to be proven wrong so I can eat whatever.

So people will slowly fade away, yet there are new people who are buying demigod everyday.  So the community size will stay the same.  The new features like new demigod, new maps, clan wars, etc will be another 3+ months which by then might be too late. 

The community will only grow when the game gets to a frustration free state.  We have already lost a fair number of players that, irregardless of the merits of the game, just do not want to invest the time just trying to get into a game.  God knows the number of times I just want to throw my hands up and go back to a game that just works, like World in Conflict.  The game is such a gem, but it is plagued with technical difficulties.  It is still not in shape for me to recommend it to my more casual game playing friends.  They'd spend all of 30 minutes trying to get something like Pantheon to work and then return to their mainstay games.

Releasing this game w/o a map editor was a huge mistake. It would have given some folks something to play with while the online kinks were worked out. Releasing this game with only 8 demigods was another mistake. Variety is the spice of life and while Dota has many years to build their category, this type of game just isn't deep enough not to have released with double the number of demigods.

The longer they take to give the community the tools to allow us to mod, the greater the risk of a mass exodus.

The game is still relatively new and already I want to see newer towers to destroy, buildings to interact with, items to buy, newer troops to purchase (there really should be a tier of troops before priests and one between angels and catapults), higher war ranks (demigods level to 20, why not our citadel?) a CTF mode (never played a 3rd person CTF) and other ideas I've got floating in my head.

Don't get me wrong, I loooooooooove this game and thats the main reason why I hunger for more and only want it to succeed the way that unreal tournament and other heavily modded competitive type games succeed. I think its fair to say that a Stardock/Gas Powered games learn alot.

Demigod 2 is gonna be awesome and I have enough faith to say we'll see it one day.

This game can only decline really. I recommended to 1 friend, and he's been hounding me for $40 ever since. I'm certainly not going to recommend to any of more of my friends. I doubt I'm the only one in that boat.

In my experience an RTS/RTT game needs a solid competitive community and/or good mod community to increase and sustain a lage player base.  Demigod doesn't seem to have either of these things at this point.

The demo will be the crucial point. And sending mails to all the players when ALL the problems are solved to make those that don't play anymore come back would also help. It is up to them, but i fear that gpg has other things to do (i think they are focusing a maximum of devs on supcom2, it must be a very important project for them). You really can't tell at this point...

If the games price and marketing stay the same the playerbase will shrink some and they stay steady at a small dedicated following.

In my situation, I love DG, and wanted my friends to love it too.  But even with the 50% off coupon, nobody would buy it.  I kept trying to get them to "wait, it will be fixed, just give it a little time".  And they did, because it's Stardock.  But every week they came over and tried the game, and have so many problems, I could see they were about to give up. 

Then one of my friends finally got DoWII.  My other friends saw that game, and, sadly, are going to get it too.  I can't really blame then, since it has all the little goodies and extras I/we wish Demigod had from the start (not to metion, we've never had one problem connecting to any online games of DoWII).  So, I have no real "amunition" to get them to wait any longer for DG to be fixed/improved, and now I get called "fanboy" by them if I try to get them to keep waiting.

But hopefully; people that did buy DG, and put it asside will come back to it after 1.1 and any extras they add to the game.  And maybe people like my friends will give it a try later too, and the community will start to grow.  I hope so. 

I think the game will sell good over the course of a year

IF they

- add 2 demigods

- balance the existing demigods vs each other and balance the skills of each character intra-tree wise

- fix the connection problems so 5v5 is common & stable

- rework the items total + balance the favor items

But my prediction would be that the active player base will continous sink since the game, at least currently, lacks long term goals & fun.

Sorry to come with the demonic Dota but Dota and Demigod share the same faszinating gameplay but Dota has such a large heroe cast and so much versatility that you could play a year and still haven't played every heroe and could come up with totally new tem builds or team setups.

BUT I think Demigod will expierence a second Renaissance with the first addon.

To be honest I think Demigod will become only a complete game after the first addon if they double the character roster.

Only then would be double and triple usages of the same a rare situation and a real variety in the gameplay,tactic and item& skillbuilds develop.

Shrink of course, the game was released unfinished and not fully tested, and a lot of the updates coming out don't seem to be tested either (If they were how did a bug as obvious as the UB path finding one get released?).

An expansion pack that adds substantial content while fixing the numerous issues that still plague the game. Then start spending some money on marketing and you will be good to go.

Yeah in half a year or so. After all starting problems are forgotten. Like a new start with a refurbished game

I would be happy to spend some bucks for it.

You also have compeition coming out this year as well. League of Legends is slated for a September release. While it may not be everyone cup o' tea there may be some people who transition over or split their time between both games.

I will definitely buy League of Legends. They allready have 5 times as many Characters as Demigod. And they will constantly release new ones and stated that they will implement community heroe ideas.

Demigod has way more potential than LoL but currently little of that is used

But since I bought Demigod I can allways come back if a new patch is released

I really hope for an addon soon.

I think its going to shrink, GPG and SD kinda missed their window to get everything fixed, at this point they would have to do something amazing to overcome the stigma that this game has now, which suffice it to say is not good.

league of legends will be demigods down fall if they dont get it fixed

Starcraft2 will more likely be demigods downfall.