A different way to look at it, though, is that the 100 people have a hugely negative effect on the 1900.  So by addressing the needs of the 100, you get them out of the games with the 1900 and the 1900 remains content instead of dwindling to 1800 then 1700, etc.

Point in case, look at Pantheon.  Pantheon was ruined by a small number of premades and it doesn't seem to have recovered.

Another point in case, people that have been around the block recognize the premade games in the custom lobby and avoid them.  Not true with new or younger players.  Do you really want your first introduction to the game to be against a premade?  How long would you continue to play a game after 4 or 5 of those stompings - especially when one of your teammates that actually knows what he is doing is yelling at you the whole time.

From FB's posting the gameplay is pretty much set with minor tweaks coming down the pipe.  Fortunately, the gameplay is pretty solid.  Hopefully they can get some good bells and whistles to go along with the MP lobby.  If anything, they can translate them into the next game.

You inferred that.  The publishers never stated that.

If you're going to quote someone, quote everything relevant to the statement:

Arranged teams are a minority, which means it doesn't make sense to focus resources on appeasing them *first*; where resources are finite, it makes more sense to allocate them to what gives the most return - in this case, that would be players who don't have a set team to play with.  That is not saying "I give up on teamplay".  I don't think anyone doubts that a competitive matchmaking system is needed for arranged teams, but putting a high priority on a feature that would only be used by a minority of players doesn't make as much sense as putting a higher priority on features that would be more appropriate for the majority of players.

QFT

That's why I used the word similar.... It was not a direct claim, but that is how the people who play with friends are viewing this situation, somthing you don't realize.

 

Your entire claim ignores the fact that fixing the team matches fixes everything.

You're the one infering sir, that the community based players will get anything at all. My entire claim is the underemphasis these two companies have on people wanting to play together. This is the days of the internet people. Everyone is connected, it's silly to think we would limit that in gaming.

Here is what I wrote within a few hours after my original comment on 1900 vs. 100:

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/359613

The main point being lost here is that while Demigod will continue to evolve, the game, as released is the game.  We can talk all day about games that have feature X or Y that someone thinks "must" be in Demigod but the absence of such a feature doesn't mean that Demigod "must" have it added.  

What features get into Demigod are a combination of what the most active players want combined with how much it costs to put them in combined with what features the publisher (Stardock in this case) is willing or able to pay to have put in as part of its pretty well known post-release support.

Now, I realize there's a silent majority but I can tell you flat out that it gets pretty hard to get people to volunteer to stay late in the Summer when they feel like their sacrifices post-release already earned very little good will.  I mean, the game now has international proxy support that was developed entirely by the game's publisher. Yet we still get posts like "I'll never buy a Stardock game again".  

All we're looking for in the Demigod community is some semblance of constructive behavior with realistic expectations.  

Some people act like they're the only ones who have wish lists.  I have my own rather lengthy set of wish lists:

Brad's WANT list:

1. More Demigods. 

2. More maps.

3. Ability to let modders mod the single player AI.

4. A much bigger single player campaign.

5. Ability for players to have ranked or unranked custom games by their own choice.

6. Team Skirmish games.

7. Clan Skirmish games.

8. Clan Tournaments (seperate from pantheon)

9. Massive modding support so people can make their own maps, demigods, items, minions, etc.

10. Flags that give the side owning them active powers.

and on and on and on.

As the game's publisher, I can push on some of these features to get done as well as see what features Stardock can develop for the game itself.

But as a practical matter, a game, at release, is the game minus bug fixes.  That's the norm.  Stardock's philosophy of continuing to add new features to games and such is not the norm.  If you want a game that is going to keep getting lots of new features post release you should be picking games developed by Stardock but to assume other developers have this philosophy is not fair to the developer.  

GPG never signed on to make an expansion pack's worth of features available in a series of free updates. It signed on to release meaningful post-release updates.  

To illustrate what I mean: Having replays in an update is a perfectly reasonable thing. That replays weren't in v1.0 doesn't mean the game was "incomplete".  If I were a reviewer, I might take points off for not having it but it doesn't mean the game "has to have it".  

Replays will be in v1.2 (we're requiring it) but that's a big difference from developing some sort of in-game team-based system.

Now, that said, it doesn't mean a particular feature people want won't ever make it in.  But what I am trying to do here is set people's expectations so that they don't come back in 6 weeks yelling about how they were "promised" some big feature.

Stardock should develop Demigod 2. It would be the #^#*ing bomb.

Anyways, that's a great post Frogboy. Hopefully we'll be able to provide constructive feedback and people will cut down on the sharp criticism.

It is probably a good point that its not reasonable to expect developers to miraculously introduce a whole lot of new stuff within months of a game's release.  And yes, its probably true that a lot of the criticism on the boards the last few weeks falls into the cateogry of "frustrated venting" intead of "constructive criticism".

However, SD/GPG needs to take something important out of the frustrated venting.  Its just not acceptable to release a primarily multiplayer game nowadays that doesnt have features like clan support, proper stats, proper automatching etc.  Those things are standard nowadays and have been for a decade.

So I disagree with what I quoted above.  A game nowdays MUST have clan support and appropriate automatching (for example) if its primarily multiplayer and anything other than a bargain bin type deal.  A multiplayer game of this nature without those features IS incomplete to me.

Now I realize that at this point in time its something of a moot point.  The game was released before that stuff got put in, and now that the game is out it doesnt really do much good to harp on it too much.

The bottom line is that from your posts it seems like you are missing a really important message from all the frustrated whining that is going on: many people expected something much better from great companies like GPG and SD at release.  Your exemplary post release work doesnt completely make up for that.  What they are saying is that a multiplayer game without clan support (for example) IS incomplete in the eyes of many people.  And your refusal to really fully acknowledge this is making people nervous about buying future SD multiplayer games.

I know that I've been nagging at you quite a bit.  Its because I like SD's games and am really really looking forward to future games like Elemental.  I just think that it would be a real shame if you didnt learn from the lessons of DG's release.  And it seems like from some of your posts that you really havent grasped the message that I think many people are trying to send you.  Maybe I'm just not interpreting your posts correctly, but thats what is making me nervous as I read them.

Heck, most of what I'm blaming on SD is probably unfair.  I'm firmly in the "SD is doing a good job, GPG doesnt seem to be doing their part" camp.  But be that as it may, it would still calm people I think if you indicated that you had learned from GPG's mistakes instead of trying to get people to praise you for putting in features that should have really been in to begin with (even though GPG should have been responsible for putting them in and the fact that SD is doing what they can to get them in later is nice).

Frogboy,

You're dedication to the communities which spawn from the games you publish and develop is absolutely outstanding and without equal in this industry. I would like to personally thank you for all that you do. You certainly go above and beyond the call of duty each and every day.

I have been reading these forums for some time, without actually owning the game myself. I was very interested in it, for I love all of Stardock's games (and applications), and felt that reading the forums would help me get a sense of where the game is headed before I purchase it since, unfortunately, money isn't so easy to come by these days.

Upon reading these forums, it became clear that this game was not without its shortcomings. It was made clear that there are people here who are not satisfied with the game, and not satisfied with the support that it has recieved from either Stardock or Gas Powered Games.

Something else was made apparently clear to me, which I can't help but feel has been overlooked, taken for granted, and even abused by some members of this community.

Frogboy cares about this game. Frogboy cares about this community. Frogboy cares about Stardock.

To have the CEO of one of the most innovative software publishers and developers in the industry communicating with us at a personal level is a privilege and an honour. It is amazing that someone who is directly responsible to the development and sustainance of our beloved past time would take time out of their incredibly busy schedule to let us know what is going on, what they are doing for us, and what their plans for the future are.

It is upsetting to see that there are members of this community that would rather abuse this privilege than embrace it for what it is... a rare instance of a developer and publisher genuinely caring about the communities they forge and actively participating in the community with meaningful and insightful updates and discussion.

Frogboy, I would just like to ensure that yourself, Stardock, and Gas Powered Games know that there are many, many people out there that respect and appreciate everything that you have done to make this game what it is today and what it will become tomorrow. On Saturday, I walked out to the store and bought Demigod with the little money I had. I bought it because I want to support Stardock. I bought it because I want to support our beloved past time of PC gaming. I bought it because you have demonstrated that Stardock cares about it's fans, and that you are committed to your games and their communities.

Thank you for all that you do, it truly does make a difference to many of us here in this community.

Awesomesauce.

I absolutely have to interject the possibility that GPG simply did not envision Demigod as a "competitive" game.  While clearly inspired by DOTA style maps, some design decisions were made that clearly make the game more "casual".  The pace of the game is A LOT slower than traditional DOTA, for starters. 

It's entirely possible that the features you mentioned simply did not go along with the vision that GPG had for Demigod, at the time.

Sorry, I didn't see anything in any of his posts suggesting anything "similar" to the sentiments of them "giving up" on teamplay.  I think you're stretching to be victimized.

I wasn't searching for any claims you were making - I was pointing out how it's more logical to cater to the masses instead of a couple of vocal members of a minority.  Please, try to pay attention.

No, they wouldn't have, Mr. Hyperbole.

In ever RTS I've played, despite there being matchmaking for teams, there is *still* team stacking in custom games because not every team plays automatch all the time, in fact, not even a majority of the time.  I know you *think* team matchmaking "fixes everything", but that's because *all you want* is team matchmaking.  I agree that it is needed - I definitely want to see it implemented sooner rather than later - but it isn't the panacea you're trying so desperately to make it out to be.  There are other people with opinions as to how they want their game experience to run; your way isn't necessarily the best way for all parties concerned.

I know, it's silly for me to infer that they're working toward that goal because they've *already said* that they are working toward clan support and making it easier for friends to get in games with one another.  Such a large leap I took on that one.  

No, the problem here is that people assume that the publisher is the same as the developer.  

If Stardock had developed Demigod it would have been a very different game (for good or for bad).  

We are debating from completely different axioms.  

If you didn't like a Stephen King book would you be spending hours complaining that Bantom Books shouldn't have released his book that had (in your opinion) plot problems?

Demigod is the game that GPG wanted to make. 

We had an open beta program where people could have input during its development and much of that feedback was put into the game.

The game was released and has been generally very well received other than the network issues which was something the publisher could actively do something about and so we did.

People want feature X, Y, and Z. We, as the publisher, take note of those features and send it over to GPG for their evaluation. 

That's how it works in the real world.

Normally, people identify with the developer. I hear about Blizzard and Valve. Two great developers.  People don't fixate on Vivendi (Blizzard's owner/publisher) or Electronic Arts (Valve's publisher).  If people have a problem with WoW or L4D they talk to Blizzard or Valve respectively.

You guys talk about "lessons learned".  I'm not sure what lesson you would have Stardock learn from this.  We have our own vision of what games should or shouldn't have that aren't the same as Gas Powered Games or (in the case of Sins) Ironclad.  Every developer is different.

Games developed by Stardock like Galactic Civilizations had all kinds of statistical tracking, a persistent galactic map, clans (empires), etc. And this was back in 2003 and it was a single player game. Elemental is a single player centric game that has multiplayer and the way we're implementing it will be very different (good and bad) from Demigod. 

The point being, I don't expect (or even think people should) know the difference between a developer and a publisher. But at the same time, when they start shooting the messenger, I feel I should be stepping in then.

Demigod is the game GPG wanted to make.  I happen to think it's a good game. A lot of other people think it's a very good game.  

Is it the type of game Stardock would have developed? No. If Stardock had made it it would have had a lot more single player to it and multiplayer would have been substantially different.  It also wouldn't have had anywhere near the production values Demigod has (it's a beautiful game) as the exquisite quality of Demigod's visuals is something that few companies can match and GPG is truly awesome at that.

Think you might have just hit the nail on the head, Demigod was just too polished (something Chris Taylor is guilty of in ALL his games), this has done nothing but make it very inaccessible to the community.

DotA was just a simple way to waste time and have fun (at least at the time of its creation), taking the core ideals of the game, but shifting the emphasis to the technical aspects reduces that fun aspect. Sure it looks beautiful but many (even myself) might admit the more cartoonish style of LoL and HoN are more fitting for this genre. It also limits the modding potential as we are seeing with the issues you're having now with granny etc. Perhaps you can have too much of a good thing after all.

Lesson to learn (hopefully someone at GPG reads this!)...spend more time at the planning stage, focus on complimenting the core game mechanics rather than overwhelming them.

Hey Frogboy, what's the best route to pester GPG?

I want 50+ more demigods, or modding tools that allow the community to turn this game into Dota.

Kplzthx.

Love you brad,

-Slurple

No.  I already acknowledged that many of the problems are GPGs.

But, the thing that I quoted was YOU (as in the CEO of SD, not GPG) saying that a multiplayer dominated game is not incomplete if it lacks replays, clan functionality etc.  You were the one arguing that DG is complete, not GPG.

Thats why I was afraid that SD hadnt learned their lessons from this.  Because you didnt seem to realize why many people consider this game incomplete and were instead justifying it.

To use your analogy, if Stephen King released a book that was missing 3 chapters and Bantam Books chose to defend that decision, you can bet that people would have issues with both King and Bantam and it would be reasonable to suggest that Bantam should learn a lesson from the experience too.

Basically I'm strongly disagreeing with your notion that SD doesnt have anything to learn from this.

My definition of complete is when a developer believes that the game is done. GPG thought the game was done (features). This is the game they intended to make. Any other definition of "complete" is subjective.

Frogboy shouldnt have to deal with this community. its disappointing how much lack of respect is shown towards him in this thread. every post he makes is a privilege you know.

100% agree.

All I really want in the game is replay and class re-rebalance. Maybe my expectations are low, but the game is more than fine as is imo.

Indeed. As it stands, I believe the game is complete, and fantastic. Anything more - extra DG's, extra maps, team support, VOIP, modding etc - will just be an added bonus, and in my eyes that's awesome.

Agree - the game as it stands rates in my top 5 games of all time. If you added in VOIP/Team Support/Extra DG's/Maybe Maps/Modding and possibly a DoN type Lobby/Hosting then it would be undisputable no 1

I do also enjoy Frogboys posts - almost as much as the game;) hopefully he'll change his mind about posting in here

hmm stacked technically he does have to deal with the community  that is one of the jobs of the publisher

That's like saying the CEO of mcdonalds is responsible for giving you your coffee and egg mcmuffin in the morning.

He's responsible when the customers of McDonalds decide to boycott the company because their food is poor quality, in the same way Frogboy would be responsible if the forums were full of outcry at a poor product (which was the case on release with networking issues, but has since been remedied) that could lead to poor customer satisfaction or a bad reputation.

In any case I like the way Stardock interacts with its customers and it's disappointing that it's turned a little sour for this game in particular.