Demigod Status Report

[Apr 29, 2009, 01:55 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Inside the sausage factory is a new status report from Brad Wardell on Demigod, Gas Powered Games' new action/strategy offering. Brad admits that after working on things, "the included multiplayer matchmaking is still flakey," and he goes into a good deal of detail explaining exactly what the problem is and why a complete solution has eluded them. His estimate is that 30% of their users are experiencing no issues, and 10% of players can't connect at all, but he thinks they are nearing a solution to help that middle 60% experiencing "flakey" connectivity:

And that is where we are on Tuesday with regards to the connectivity. Figuring out why the message is sent from the NAT but not received by the game. There’s a lot of thoughts on this. UDP (unlike TCP) isn’t guaranteed. You can learn more on this here. Another thought is that the NAT queues up its messages and that by the time it sends it back to the game, it has timed out. The team tells me they think they’ll have this mystery solved today. If so, I’ll report here on this. But this will put us up to 90%.

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30.

Re: BEWARE OF DEREK SMART

May 3, 2009, 11:44

Blue

I have no insight into the legitimacy of the complaint expressed here, but if you have a legal issue with 3000AD, posting links to contested game assets here is not the way to pursue it.




Stephen "Blue" Heaslip Blue's News Publisher, Editor-in-Chief, El Presidente for Life

29.

BEWARE OF DEREK SMART

May 1, 2009, 19:03

mediaramas

* REMOVED * This comment was deleted on May 3, 2009, 11:38.

28.

BEWARE OF DEREK SMART

May 1, 2009, 18:43

mediaramas

* REMOVED * This comment was deleted on May 3, 2009, 11:38.

27.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 18:51

Dades

At this point I don't want to get anymore status updates from Brad, I just want it fixed. The novelty of oh geez the president of the company is being straight with me has totally worn thin. Fix the damned game and shut up.

26.

Re: Weekend Sales

Apr 29, 2009, 16:32

Creston

Ah so you have good experiance with valve's wonderfully perfectly working Left 4 Dead matchmaking? What does that have to do with Demi-God's problems? Valve can release Gabe Newell's burito diarrhea on a roll and 5 million of their fanboi monkeys would buy it. Therefore they have zero incentive to bust their asses on making sure their stuff works well. GPG (and by virtue of being the publishers, Stardock) have no such leeway and as such, they should have made DAMN sure that at least the matchmaking was perfect. Sadly, GPG doesn't really seem to be able to do that part of their games at all well, and now Stardock is eating the bad press for it. Creston This comment was edited on Apr 29, 2009, 16:36.

25.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 16:29

Creston

For the vast majority of people, the game has worked very well since the initial overloaded server issues were taken care of. Stop being such a goddamn tool, LMN8R. If Brad himself says that 60% of their users are having flaky connectivity, in addition to 10% who can't connect at all, I would imagine he knows better how many people are having problems than you do in your rose colored imagination. Nobody here is slagging Brad for being honest about the problems, in fact it's much appreciated. All I'm saying is that GPG delivered another crappy multiplayer experience, this time in a title solely focused on multiplayer, and Stardock is eating the bad PR for it. Creston This comment was edited on Apr 29, 2009, 16:36.

24.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 16:21

Nate

Thats terrific! The CS of RTS titles. CS is a better comparison than TF2. DG is very unforgiving like CS. Also small teams, not like TF2 chaos.

23.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 13:56

InterFaced

You shut your filthy mouth and take that back right now! I know you mean it as a compliment, but the thought of the Demigod community becoming like CS....shudder Hah, I know what you mean... Maybe TF2 is a better comparison in the FPS world.

22.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 13:49

Bucky

Anyone can jump in and have a decent time, its like the counterstrike of strategy games. You shut your filthy mouth and take that back right now! I know you mean it as a compliment, but the thought of the Demigod community becoming like CS....shudder

21.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 13:24

InterFaced

I have seen an enormous improvement in connectivity since release week. I know there are some people who are still unable to get in a game but there's definitly progress being made. In fact, in my case I can usually get into a game of demigod faster than I can get matched up in DOW2. I'm having a lot of fun with the title. Its simple addicting action with some basic team play. I've never played a "strategy" title that has the potential broad appeal of demigod. Anyone can jump in and have a decent time, its like the counterstrike of strategy games.

20.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 11:56

Verno

Why not nin? What's wrong with it? I am curious as I haven't used it much beyond the basics.

19.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 11:35

nin

It got a decent upgrade in April in preparation for the Demigod launch. I consider it about even with Steam at this point, though each has areas where it is superior to the other.

It's an improvement, but I'm still not wild about it...




RollinThundr Apr 17, 2013, 12:25: Eh really tossing stuff like that in there only to get your panties all bunched up. If you really want to call that trolling sure. Mr. Tact Apr 17, 2013, 12:33: Pretty sure that's the definition of trolling...

18.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 11:34

Bucky

Impulse is kinda clunky and useless, but I haven't opened it since installing SupCom in December. So I guess it evens out. It got a decent upgrade in April in preparation for the Demigod launch. I consider it about even with Steam at this point, though each has areas where it is superior to the other.

17.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 11:10

Can Derek Smart even comment on fanboi adulation? Last time I checked, his games didn't have any fans. ZING See post #48 for Z900's eloquent response to Derek Smart's last smartass comment about Demigod. Impulse is kinda clunky and useless, but I haven't opened it since installing SupCom in December. So I guess it evens out. This comment was edited on Apr 29, 2009, 11:11.

16.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 11:01

Nate

I didn't have to use IE to purchase games on Impulse. Demigod Pantheon is working ok for me currently. The MP problems are Stardocks fault not GPG. They just learned why you need to do massive betas for new online stuff.

15.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 10:38

Grounded

Fuck just what we need Derek Smart jumping in here trying to tell us about game development. Derek do us a favor and go opine somewhere else, but not in a thread about a game that has more quality in its opening menu than any of your full titles. Secondly, I have used Firefox and IE 6 on Impulse and had no issues, sounds like a PEBCAK error to me, as is most of this thread.

14.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 09:58

InBlack

My guess is that they grossly under-estimated the popularity of Demigod at release, but that should never be the excuse for bad networking programming, hence the problems. Im going to wait for the European retail launch before jumping in, hopefully they will have sorted the problems by then.

This comment was edited on Apr 29, 2009, 09:59.




I have a nifty blue line!

13.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 09:33

Bucky

Multiplayer has worked pretty well for me since they got the overloaded servers taken care of a few days after launch. I can get into a skirmish match within a couple of minutes, though skirmish right now tends to set up 2v2 matches. Custom games of 3v3 usually work for me, though 4v4+ is hit-or-miss. It's a great game marred by a bad launch. I'm not really worried about it since communication like this lets me know it's being worked on, and prior experience with Stardock makes me confident that everything will be addressed.

12.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 09:21

Verno

Do you guys even play the games you bitch and moan about? These remaining connection problems (since a few days after release) are only relevant for a small portion of European ISPs Go have a look at the forums to get an idea of the scope of the problem which you are glossing over. There wouldn't be daily updates if this wasn't a big deal. It takes creating about 10 games to get one solid multiplayer game going (ie NO BOTS). Whether or not it will be stable is again a tossup. that use a different type of connection where IP addresses change rapidly, as opposed to North American ISPs where IP addresses only ever change on reconnection. This not only isn't true but also ignores the customers affected in the US. Some ISP's do this, not even close to a majority. For the vast majority of people, the game has worked very well since the initial overloaded server issues were taken care of. Did you pull that one straight out of your butt? I ask because it smells awful. I'd love to meet the person who claims every single MP game they've entered has had no bots and has launched successfully with no connection dropouts. Why? I want to photograph their giant fucking nose. This comment was edited on Apr 29, 2009, 09:22.

11.

Re: Demigod Status Report

Apr 29, 2009, 09:20

theyarecomingforyou

Uh.. I don't even think it's been released in Europe.. has it?

It's available on Impulse in Europe but not at retail. Regardless, it's still a pretty big oversight when developing a multiplayer game to not understand how networks and protocols are handled in Europe, especially when the population dwarfs that of the US (Europe = 730,000,000; US = 305,000,000) - it's not a minor territory. They've already admitted the beta testing was carried out under ideal circumstances, as any decent beta testing should have picked the issues up immediately. It would have made more sense to have an open beta period, as that would have a) picked up the issues, b) reduced piracy by giving people a demo, and c) given them the "it's only a beta" excuse.

Then again, the matchmaking with L4D and DOWII wasn't great either. Clearly it's not an easy thing to get right, though they've all made some pretty amateur mistakes (like L4D telling you the server is full when using Quick Match, instead of just trying the next server).




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