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Why Demigod matters to Sinnners

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Why Demigod matters to Sinnners

A unified match making system and more

from Sins Forums

Today Stardock and Gas Powered Games announced their partnership to develop and publish the much anticipated PC strategy/RPG game Demigod. Demigod is going to be a milestone PC game for a lot of reasons that will be made clear in the coming months.

So why should players of Sins of a Solar Empire care?  For one thing, it means that a sophisticated ladder, match making, account system will become a reality in the near future.  You see, Stardock, Ironclad, and Gas Powered Games are doing something that, to my knowledge, has never been done before. We three are combining our experiences and talents to build a unified multiplayer architecture.

That means your Sins of a Solar Empire achievements will become part of your account. Your wins, losses, and ranking (for those who choose to play ranked games) will be part of your account. You'll be able to find available games in Sins, Demigod, or The Political Machine (for starters) right from Impulse.  You'll be able to have a unified friends list, unified clan support, and much more that is supported by 3 games immediately and designed by 3 companies with a great deal of experience in this area.

Stay tuned, this is all going to happen a lot quicker than one might expect. 

72,818 views 72 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
Last I read, Atari had the rights to Total Annihilation (both Cavedog and GT Interactive no longer exist, after all). They don't seem to be actually doing anything with the rights though, from all I've heard.


Well, there were rumors of a TA2 a while back. But... nothing ever came of it.
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
So, what's the price estimate? If it's 50 dollars, I'll probably get it. If it's 40, like Sins, there's no question! Actually, I'll almost definitely get it. But if it's 40, I'll probably pre-order and get in the beta. It sounds like an absolutely wicked game.

Can't wait for some in-game videos!
Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
You see, Stardock, Ironclad, and Gas Powered Games are doing something that, to my knowledge, has never been done before. We three are combining our experiences and talents to build a unified multiplayer architecture.I understand that its three separate companies doing this, but please, battle.net did this a long time ago. They may not have had clan support but how useful will that be when a simple clan tag in your name will suffice already?Not to say this partnership doesn't excite the hell out of me, Supreme Commander and Sins are both high on my list of respected game titles.So how does this affect the updates for sins?Heh, I was thinking precisely that when I saw the 'big announcement' on the front page.


Sounds a whole lot different than battle.net even with those few words about it. Battle.net had huge problems anyways.
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
Sinnners, eh?
Crazy new words the kids are coming up with, these days.
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
This is exciting news indeed. I look forward to seeing what the 3 companies can achieve together.
Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
Seeing as single player campaigns are basically there to establish the lore for the universe, and since GPG seem to have set up single player as 'skirmish' based - has SD thought about getting community support to help formulate the lore and make a believable universe?

In other words, you could tap that resource of people who've been the traditional source of Total Conversions for every game supporting mods, and even some that didn't, and possibly improve upon any basic point by point universe outline you have so far.

You could get people to flesh out the details between any major universe centralities, and even do something like come up with an alternate physics system that would explain the use of 'technology' and 'magic' in the game universe.

Just a thought about community involvement above and beyond the normal beta testing of bugs, because you guys already listen to what your players are saying - even if it might happen to be inane. [OH NOES SIEGE FRIGS!]
Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
I wish Stardock would keep news items not related to Sins of a Solar Empire off sinsofasolarempire.com - when I first read that "epic" announcement it was a serious anticlimax. Won't even say about that Political Machine item from earlier. At least this time it has something that does affects this particular game so it's not all bad.
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
i think u guys just ended my life lol. Keep us posted and I can tell ya'll be puttin out a sweet kick ass game. Much Luve
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
Great news:) Combined with that "unified account and ranking system" sounds pretty nice. I would love to find out more about that how the DoTA game mechanics will be implemented in Demigod.
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
Not by much, I hope. DotA sucked bigtime, IMO.
Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top
{Demigod having only an SP experience that's intended to train for MP} was prior to our involvement. We're discussing a lot of things.
MADE MY FREAKIN DAY.  :) 

I do agree with bluedragon re the questionable placing of the PoliticalMachine "ad" which wasn't Sins-related, but the "unified MP architecture" and the focus of this post on specifically why this matters to Sins players makes it relevant to Sins, and I appreciate why Brad posted this specific message.

I'm also for anything that makes the Ironclad/Stardock relationship more long-lasting. It sounds from everything I've heard that their allegiance is a firm and well-feeling one with no bad vibes at all, not just the usual mushwords you hear from press releases like "oh, we're practically wetting our pants because we get to work with such a great and TRULY awesum publisher/developer" to disguise the usual adversarial stuff going on in the back closet.

Maybe Ironclad and Stardock should create a website for larger gaming announcements like, say, Starcladirondock.com or Stirclock.com or something. :D

-- Retro
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top
You fail at inventing Starclad :P
Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top
This troubles my little heart.I used to be a big fan of Gas Powered Games and had a prolonged love affair with Supreme Commander last year (which was released at about the same time as Sins of a Solar Empire, but a year earlier). But GPG's support really disappointed me, within 6 months of the game's release they were pointing towards Forged Alliance when asked if they were to fix the game's economy system or if there would be improvements and patches basically ground to a halt. It was just so sad that they were willing to abandon the game and the people who supported them so quickly. I understand developer's need for more revenue, and expansions do that, and I actually support them (and even, to some extent, booster packs and the like, whatever keeps the company going). But I think first thing is first, get all of the things that need fixing with the product currently on the market, keep it up to speed, and leave extra content for expansions.Forged Alliance is good from all I've heard, and improves much that just didn't work in the original, but I couldn't bring myself to purchase from them again. I don't trust them to stand behind the products long.I hope Ironclad doesn't take this route and keeps supporting both Sins of a Solar Empire and any future expansions they have in the works for at least a reasonable period of time before moving on. So long as they do, I think they deserve everyone's support.

The problem was not from GPG. They want to release patches but they can't because it's THQ, the publisher who decides the money they spend for post-release support.
I have high expectation that the things will change with this partnership and the futur release of GPG(and maybe the older like Forged Alliance) will have a real long-term support.
For more informations on the development constraint of GPG : WWW Link
Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top
i forsee the future *ironclad wil be the same in ten years but 10 times bigger then
EA if they keep this up
wil demigod be available on stardock??
and wil there be beta?
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
Heh, bit anticlimactic, but pretty exciting nonetheless. I'm excited for another game coming out DRM free, and from a pretty noteworthy developer. And if Impulse is going to unilaterally support the kind of multiplayer service you're describing, I might even consider playing some of these games multiplayer (esp. Demigod, since it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that'll have a lot of single-player longevity). Anyway, good news!

@Frogboy, does the "10x faster than Supreme Commander" quote refer to the pace of gameplay, or that the game will run very well on lower-end systems, like Sins? I hope Stardock continues its trend of releasing games with scaling graphics!
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top
@Frogboy, does the "10x faster than Supreme Commander" quote refer to the pace of gameplay


Good god I hope not... I like my games to last longer than 10 seconds!
I wish Stardock would keep news items not related to Sins of a Solar Empire off sinsofasolarempire.com - when I first read that "epic" announcement it was a serious anticlimax. Won't even say about that Political Machine item from earlier. At least this time it has something that does affects this particular game so it's not all bad.


Personally, I like their habit of doing that -- how do you think I found out about sins in the first place, just wandering in? No, SD made me aware of it.
Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top
Ron, pretty sure he's referring to engine performance, not length of game.
Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top
Appparently demigod will run better than supcom for 3 main reasons :
-There will be less units on the battlefield
-The maps are smaller
-They constantly work on the optimisation of the engine.

Reply #44 from Sins Forums Top

I wish Stardock would keep news items not related to Sins of a Solar Empire off sinsofasolarempire.com - when I first read that "epic" announcement it was a serious anticlimax. Won't even say about that Political Machine item from earlier. At least this time it has something that does affects this particular game so it's not all bad.

Not gonna happen.  Sins of a Solar Empire owes much of its success due to announcements of Sins on other Stardock sites (GalCiv, WinCustomize, etc.).  

We're a team.

Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top
Ron, pretty sure he's referring to engine performance, not length of game.


Note to self: smilies are required to indicate my humor.

That was meant as a joke / bit of sarcasm (sarchasm, apparently).
Reply #46 from Sins Forums Top
Just seems rather unusual and non-regular practice reallly. Isn't that what Stardock.com is for as an umbrella site? This particular announcement is ok since it does actually add something to Sins of a Solar Empire but, for example, The Political Machine really had nothing to do with Sins of a Solar Empire. It's like going to TheAllAboutFordCarsWebsite.com and they have news articles about bananas mixed in with their articles about Ford cars... well, it is Stardock's perogative, just an unusual one :)
Reply #47 from Sins Forums Top
Note to self: smilies are required to indicate my humor.That was meant as a joke / bit of sarcasm (sarchasm, apparently).


Sorry, my bad. I'm at work skimming the thread, so sarcasm is easily missed, especially in text :)

Reply #48 from Sins Forums Top
It's like going to TheAllAboutFordCarsWebsite.com and they have news articles about bananas mixed in with their articles about Ford cars... well, it is Stardock's perogative, just an unusual one

It's there is a public whose like bananas and ford why not?
I think Stardock/Ironclad are communicating enough about the respective games. That's normal they explain what are their other products sometimes, even if you are not interested.

Reply #49 from Sins Forums Top
well, so much for all the work I am doing over at thespaceponies.com

Being that I do not have a full 40 hours a week and massive resources to devote to this You will surly have a bigger and better system done before mine is even ready to unvail for testing.

 :SNIFF!: 

Hey, that means more time to play the game!  :) 
Reply #50 from Sins Forums Top
IMHO, and it's only my opinion, this is pretty crucial to how and what we play PC-wise in the future. If SD fails and collapses, it may be "the straw that broke the camels back" for the PC games industry.

With SD, we players actually have a *say* in things. If we do not support this model and let it die, then there is very little hope that the PC games industry will evolve. Big companies like EA go where the profit is, and shift platforms like changing shirts.

Granted, SD will have to continue to innovate, listen to customers and provide great games, so there's certainly no guarantee. So yes, Demigod is quite important, as the industry players and game players will all want to see how things unfold.

No pressure... LOL.