I have yet to play a game of Demigod online that did not involve either my teammates rage quitting or the opposing team rage quitting. Personally i do not care if i am doing particularly bad in a single game, i just want to play the game to the end. Hell, after waiting 20 minutes to find one game people should realise that it's more worthwhile just to finish the current one they are in.

Now it is quite amuzing to me to see so many rage quitters in this community so soon after the game is released. So many people here have been insulting the DotA community for being elitists and arrogant people yet 100% of the Demigod games that i have played online have contained people rage quitting. This game has only been out a few weeks and yet is full of so many "professional" players who are able to judge a game as a loss 10 minutes into it, whereas myself who has been deemed an Arrogant DotA Elitist has not left a game, ever, even when the teams are left 1v3 against me.

Hypocrits, keep it up.

Hi, I used to be a on pair player in the national youth chess league, I feel I can draw similarities to your argument, when I would compete in national tournaments I would play against players with alot better trainers than mine(my dad), so they knew tactics I did not, I would make stupid moves that would make most people throw in the towel, but I stuck it out and more than once that error caused them to missjudge my level of skill, in the later parts of the game I would wreck them.

So I do not understand the need to leave untill your base building is on say, 100 health and getting pounded.

I've left more than a few games because of the extremely wide skill range since a lot of DG players have never played a game like this, as well as some really awful connections.

Rage quitting simply because of a death was dumb in DotA, and it's especially dumb in DG where it doesn't matter as much.

Replacing quitters with a elite or nightmare AI is an option.

If that's unfair, then another interesting idea I had would be to leave the AI as it is, but not give xp or gold for AI kills.

I think the "weakness" of the AI in map control would be roughly balanced by the hassle of having to kill him without getting rewarded for it.

As for penalizing players who leave, remember that there are those that disconnect. Maybe theres an argument that they should still be penalized to discourage them from playing the game (and disconnecting), but that's probably a controversial subject.

I think one of the most beautiful things about the way this game is balanced is that it's possible, even somewhat common, for the team with higher level characters to loose the game.  I'm a bit of a rusher myself, and I find that I die first in probably 25% of the games I play.  But honestly, who cares?  Oh darn, I've got to wait like 25 seconds and spend 250 for a teleport scroll to get back to the front line.  Big whoop.  The maps aren't big enough to complain about having to walk "all the way over there" like some games.  And seriously, if you die on level two or three, the bonus for the other team isn't that large, especially on maps with more than a few gold mines.  Being five levels behind everyone else doesn't make you worthless, it simply means you can't tank other demigods.  oh darn, you have to play intelligently for a few minutes to bring your level up a bit.  

On the subject of waisting time, this isn't civilization.  these games take all of a half hour to an hour, maybe more on a large map on conquest or with two very even teams.

I understand if you're playing Civ 4, where games tend to take 10+ hours to play on a normal map, or even 40+ on a huge map with 10+ players, and you are down to three cities clustered together on hills each with level 23 mechanized infantry lead by a general and you have no allies, yeah.  surrender, quit whatever.  You're screwed, but you COULD wasit an hour or two of the other players time as they have build up a hugely massive force to whittle down your units and finally take them all in one turn.  But don't.  It's not fun. 

I also understand if you're playing starcraft, and both players have just hit the top of the tech tree, but your defences have just been overrun.  Yeah, you could sit around and wait until those guardians mop up the last of your scv's and supply depots.  heck you could even stop a zergling rush by lifting off your barrax and forcing them to build a hydra layer and run some ranged units over there to kill it slowly.  But you shouldnt, because you can't win.  

This game, however, has tug-of-war style gameplay.  it doesn't matter how close to the line you are, you can still use the allied chat and organize a takeback, and drag the other team facedown in the mud going "what the heck just happened?!" as you all spawn and smack the crud out of the attackers (who may happen to be sitting on your health regen crystal... fail), and suddenly control the map by the time they get respawned and organized again.  Falling behind sucks.  So you loose your defensive towers.  Big whoop.  Most games seem to have very few players willing to put any money in the defense upgrades (except the first regen), and rightfully so, as the towers are pretty much just there to stop some rushes and give quick players a line to fall back to early on when nobody has health regen items.  I played a conquest game yesterday where I blitzed their defences after loosing most of mine (with judicious use of health potions, i will admit), and stole their reinforcement flags.  they were like "what?!  our citadel is under attack?!  omg go back and defend!!!!" at which point my allies pushed the line back through the map, and we came through for the win.  Yes, I died a lot.  Yes, I ended up with the lowest level character and less favor points than anyone else on my team.  But we won, and being a team player made that round hecka fun and quite exciting.   

But I digress.  This game is not DotA!  It's MUCH easier to come back from a near loss to wipe them out in Demigod.  So, don't quit because you think you've lost.  You haven't lost unless your citadel is at like 2000 health and everyone is dead.  At which point, you may as well just wait all of a second and a half as they finish it off.  And ESPECIALLY don't quit just because you died a few times.

And yes, a penalty for quitting would be cool.  Or you could set up the character stats to record the win/loss whether you quit or not.  I played another game that did that... I don't remember what.  But in any case, if you are in the game for long enough to get killed, the loss should be recorded on your stats if you quit.  "But what if I have an IRL emergency and have to quit?!" Well life happens.  Sucks to be you.  That happens to everyone now and then, and so the stats would balance out.  So your wife gets home and has a fit that you haven't done all the stuff you promised her you'd do while she was out.  Oh darn, that's one loss on your record of like 500+ games.  It doesn't make that much difference unless you're start scumming (an old roguelike term for starting new games over and over until you get the perfect start so that you can get maximum points instead of just playing through the good and bad like was intended).

Thanks zkythen, i hope this moves everybody's heart

(though i dont think many have read this   )

edit: mistype

Thanks.  That seems to happen a lot.  On the other hand, I've won loads of awards in essay competitions...

For those who didn't read the essay a few posts up, here's a summary...

<flame>Don't quit Demigod games.  It's dumb, annoying, will drop the w/l of your team, and probably mess with your score because you COULD be winning these.  Or not, because you fail, in which case you should go play games where people want you to quit.</flame> LoL

This pisses me off more than just about anything right now. Which means I am going to stop playing and get some perspective back lol (breath damnit).

After reseting everything because the connections were being flakey, got into a 3 v 3. One player failed to make it into the match and so it was 3 v 2 (my side). Sure we are going to lose already but so what, lets make them work for it. The other player quits within about 5 minutes and then it is 3 v 1. I wouldn't mind but the other side farmed the AI relentlessly and ended up tripple teaming me in front of the crystal then never bothered giving a "gg". Insult on top of injury!

GPG or SD, whomever, either REMOVE AI FROM ONLINE PLAY TOTALY or at least make the AI less of a hinderance. As right now, this situation just is not fun. I still wont quit a game but I really felt like it tonight!

social side of a online game:i find quiting in the middle of the game similar to urinate in the pool sure you feel good short term but it has a habit of spreading. start going this kind of thing and soon all the other pool users will do the same and nobody will want to use the pool.

this is not a solo game and should not be treated as such, real life sports and games generates a code of conduct invariable its part of human nature. currently online games is a social wasteland completly wild and free of rules and consequences.

black listing: it is fairly common players of online games develope a "black list" of people they refuse to play with, while i personally find this practice fairly untasteful it is in use and one should be aware of.

"Replacing quitters with a elite or nightmare AI is an option." vladeshk, a few days ago did not have the patience to wait for a 4th player (low user time) and started a 2v2 with a nightmare ai replacing a real life player. i have not done much ofline gaming and did not know how good how good a nightmare AI would be, it only toke me 1 mintue to get first kill on the AI nightmare player without 5 mintues i had 3 kills on it. i fealt sorry for the opont who turned out being better then the nightmare AI but not much me and my teammate continued to kill the nightmare ai over and over making the win a forgone conclusion independant of the real oponent as me and my team mate was getting a steady stream of gold from the AI.

surrender option: this game needs a surrender/give up button. so far not one person that left in middle of the game has typed anyting before leaving (in my personal experince) not sure what this indicates, if i were to guess it would be that the average player feels no need to treat other players as real people and not like computers.

And while I agree with this, many times it is taken from "Know they will lose with 99%+ certainty" which is a good way to play, to "The first move of the match went poorly," which is terrible.

To use a chess analogy, I'll tip my king when I can read ahead to a checkmate, but I won't tip my king upon losing the first pawn, which I have seen PC gamers do. It's honestly pathetic and rude in a team game, as much so as throwing a tantrum on a softball team when striking out would be.