I'll Never Buy GPG Again

Vanadrom

Join Date 07/2006

+70

I'll Never Buy GPG Again

I'm very dissapointed in how quickly Gas Powered Games gave up on Demigod. In my opinion, they didn't even try. Once Demigod was done, they just moved on to several new projects and didn't give the kind of baby sitting and support this kind of product demanded. The obvious signs of GPG's short comings are highlighted by a smaller, yet more successful take on the genre by Riot Game's League of Legends. But even Riot isn't quite giving the game everything it needs, but they have a considerable advantage in support because it's their one and only flag ship title. GPG suffers from a complete lack of interest in their own game, which makes me very sad.

I really would like GPG to just sell Demigod to someone who will actually continue support of the product and produce new content to bring the game back to life. It still has potential and possibility, but all of that remains simply 'What if' until someone actually devotes a lot of resources into finishing Demigod. I keep my eye on this game, but honestly I haven't played in nearly a whole year because of lack of interest from the game's developer. If they don't care, they should just give it up to someone who does.. and I don't mean simple 'Mod Tools' either, I mean fork over 'everything' even the IP.

Just my random thoughts. But the fact still remains, I'll never buy GPG again. Then again, this was the first GPG I bought since Dungeon Siege, which suggests that GPG didn't have much of a track record on my pocket book in the first place.

demigod

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Please. I had more lobby crashes than anyone mostly playing 5v5s. I know what it was like.

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Open mod tools, we (the community) could easily chunk out models and abilities. I think animations and voice would be the hardest to get to professional quality. Then again, you never know. Somebody here may have a rich voice and someone else may have L337 skills with a mixer/editor. Animations would suck to do, but still possible.

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I honestly just want the damn supreme command engine....gimme gimme gimme!!!!!!!

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I understand how frustrating it must be to sit there and read these threads for Brad without being able to say very much. I can also understand how unbelievably frustrating it must have been to see Oculus without the debuff remove functioning (I've played more games than anyone as Oculus, and by a long shot if you exclude Celmare who is somewhat close to me).
However, I wasn't offered any explanation for why something so simple never got fixed. I don't blame Brad, infact I'm really happy that he
1) Took the time to post about it here and
2) Thought of the ability in the first place which is amazing (if only it worked )

Who do I blame? It doeasn't really matter anymore.

Ultimately Brad has a point that SD contributed to DG and it's much better off for it. That's great, but the final product is very lackluster. I'm glad you guys improved upon it but at the end of the day it just wasn't enough. A for effort I guess.

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If SD/GPG released Demigod 2, but changed nothing, they would make more money than they did in "the original" Demigod.

All that remains to be done is to fix the server issues and add a couple more Demigods, and it would de well if released. If Demigod 2 were to be released around the end of next November, it would sell like hotcakes.

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I agree with splitshadow, just make like an expansion or something that adresses all the bugs and adds a few more maps and demigods

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frogboy cant blame anyone publicly. well he doesnt _have to_ defend gpg either but he does so perhaps there really went something terribly wrong in the development phase. BUT i still think that it is gpgs responsibility to fix the lobby crashes and to implement some minor patches. with the full sourcecode available its certainly far easier for gpg to find the cause than for the community.

until gpg proves that they are able to support a game as they should i wont buy another one of their games.

nevertheless i trust frogboy when he says that demigod will receive at least one additional update. to hear that makes me happy and i personally still like stardock as a publisher.

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Quoting ErnieDavis,

reply 31

I agree with splitshadow, just make like an expansion or something that adresses all the bugs and adds a few more maps and demigods.

The community of active players isn't large enough to warrant an expansion pack which can only be marketed to owners of the original game. Doing something like Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance - a standalone expansion - wouldn't be a terrible idea, however they'd then need to provide the additional content as paid DLC to owners of the original. This still wouldn't be able to fix the engine specific problems. A sequel fixes all of these problems. I'll place the sequel to Demigod in the same basket as the sequel to SPORE: I'll buy it in a heart beat if they do it right, and probably copies for a few friends.

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f*** all of u (cept frogboy)

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LoL FTW!!!!!!!

ongoing support (patching, balancing etc), frequent new features (heroes etc), no real net issues (coz not P2P), community is great.... the list goes on with positives. Havent rlly come across any negative aspects about the game.

Demigod wouuldve still been my number one game if it had just 50% of what i wrote above. Unfortunately it covers only 10%

GG........................not!

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Quoting gkrit,

reply 35

LoL FTW!!!!!!!

ongoing support (patching, balancing etc), frequent new features (heroes etc), no real net issues (coz not P2P), community is great.... the list goes on with positives. Havent rlly come across any negative aspects about the game.

Demigod wouuldve still been my number one game if it had just 50% of what i wrote above. Unfortunately it covers only 10%

GG........................not!

SHAAAAWING!!!! he hits the nail on the head in a much more intelligent way ....

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pacov

Join Date 02/2008

+183

een awhile since a thread got shut down...

I wonder if there's a way to actually generate some positive feedback here from SD or GPG. What would it take to get a new build out that included bug fixes that the community has coded? The code is all there... it just needs added directly to dgdata.zip, bundled with Demigod, and released as a patch. I really don't understand what's so difficult about giving a direct answer about this shite. Let's be serious and quite realistic:

Brad - you know that demigod has a very small online community. You also know that of that small community, there are what, at most 50 individuals discussing Demigod as critics or supporters of the game on your forums. Less if we are talking about discussing this on a regular basis. I know about as much about your business model as you've disclosed. But you have indicated that your QA indentified bugs like I mentioned earlier re: occulus. And I do want to discuss this... here's what you said froggy:

f you think our QA didn't report these kinds of things you're mistaken.

It's a case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. How many times would I post "Patch this week" only to have BBQ'd when it didn't come out on time? And why was that? Because QA would find something that should take seconds to fix in LUA and assume that the next build would fix it. Then the build would come in and it would still be broken and eventually we'd just have so much pressure to release it by the community that we would do so.

*I* was the one who asked for the cleanse feature for Oculus's mana restore ability. So you can be damn sure that I was painfully aware that it didn't remove the debuffs. How many times did we delay the release of Oculus (and each time having the fans screaming for blood)? Eventually you just have to release the thing. It's March and it still hasn't be officially fixed.

And to really highlight 1 point you made:

Then the build would come in and it would still be broken and eventually we'd just have so much pressure to release it by the community that we would do so.

Now you are saying that your team identified the issues, but GPG couldn't get their shite right and release a build that fixed the changes you requested. I mean, even though you guys are friends and all, you are saying that SD reported the bugs, requested a new build. GPG didn't deliver a build that included the requested bug fixes. And then, you, Brad Wardell, owner of SD, not a publically traded company, felt immense pressure from the 50 of us loudmouths in the forum to release a bugged version. INCLUDING A CHANGELOG that indicated things that were fixed, but were not. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume your people at SD could have modified the change logs without requesting a brand new build from GPG. I really don't know what the fing deal is here, Brad. Your company made a strange deal (to me anyway) to handle QA for a game that you don't control the builds. You have also indicated that you are willing to publish builds that GPG has created knowing full well that bugs existed that GPG did not fix, even though you requested it. Furthermore, you didn't even update the changelog as the changelog is the ONLY REASON any of us know that Occ's ability had a debuff effect. Seriously.... if 1 guy at SD had to modify a text file and remove 1 line...

Anyway, in as much as it matters, I personally, feel that Stardock let me down as a customer in many ways. I know you are the publisher of DG and I know, without a doubt, MOST of the issues we deal with on a regular basis stem from problems with GPG. But to be honest, there are things you have done wrong as a company and have done wrong by your customers. Customers, I might add, that have supported the crap out of your product, recruited our friends to play your game, handed out your coupons to increase the player base and generate additional revenue for you. I just don't understand, honestly, how you tell GPG that you need a new build because of bug issues, get one back, and then go live with it knowing full well the issues haven't been resolved. I doubt the ravenous horde that is us DG players (the ones vocal on the forums) will storm your house and turn away millions of customers if you miss a release date because you cared enough about quality to make sure we got those bug fixes, even if it took a month more. Anyway, there are no more big milestones around the corner that I'm aware of for DG... no huge marketing push to be had (other than a weekend sale or something to that effect). Will we get the fan service we want in the form of BUG FIXES? If your QA team is taxed wtih other projects, can I or anyone else in the DG community handle bug testing when you get another build of DG?

All of that said, as negative as it may come accross.... because you are the CEO, Brad, you have also made Demigod so much closer to what it could be. You have personally taken a big interest in Demgiod and it made a difference to me personally. Thank you.

I know you are busy working on great games that I will enjoy in the future (like elemental), but I for one would be thrilled to see some fan service and even a simple bugfix release, based on code the community would provide (even if it was the entire contents of the dgdata.zip so little/no work would be required). Pie in the sky for me is new variations on current maps or (gasp) a single new map.

I know many of us have been shits to you Brad, bitching up a storm here and there about DG, but thank you again for what you have done for us.

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Enlightning how they would just obstinantly give you back broken builds. That seems like... really bad . Just wow. heh.

Well, Frogboy I do have to really appreciate you taking the time to post here. So let me just throw that out really quick.

It's sad that GPG pretty much threw the ball here. I was in a similar position with pacov: why hadn't QA caught the bug? Espiecially since the release would get pushed back or you would make a post saying it would be in QA on X date and then... silence.

Since it sounds like you did catch it and they were like lolololol~ that really bothers me. I'm really glad that I didn't support GPG anymore by purchasing SupCom 2, I think they probably lost a customer for life when I heard that.

RakNet was a sad disaster... but then again, you were really the ones who saved it and I've always appreciated that. Even if you are "to blame" for it because you were the ones who actually /did/ something rather than nothing at all and let the game die (literally) 2 weeks after it was released. I did like your analogy with the firemen.

At the same time, the new server issues would be "your" fault correct? I've noticed horrible lag issues logging in and out and I was actually unable to log-in to my main account for a 7 day period. Is this just because you're testing new servers or are you slowly withdrawing server support from Demigod as well and it's all just an "unfortunant mistake".

I guess it's just been a very frustrating trip for all of us.

Frustrating for you, having to deal with a broken game that you shouldn't have any responsibility to fix and almost never IS actually getting fixed, even when you tell them to fix the damn thing.

Frustrating for us with the numerous issues, and at one point a very toxic community that I know pushed you over the edge at one point. Luckily I think the majority have left.

I am very glad to hear that you'll be pushing out future releases, I did read that one "small fix" request you made for Gal Civ over that one weekend, and also your post saying you'd like to incorportate UberFix into the actual build. I know that 1.3 probably won't ever come and be awesome but at least you're sticking to it, so good for you!

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Quoting gkrit,

reply 35

Havent rlly come across any negative aspects about the game.

I've been sitting at this dang Prepare yourselves! the battle is about to begin screen for 15 minutes but whatever.

Edit: 30 minutes AND if I leave I get a time penalty WOOT go LoL this is SO epic.

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Quoting Shiro_Sol,

reply 39

Quoting gkrit, reply 35Havent rlly come across any negative aspects about the game.
I've been sitting at this dang Prepare yourselves! the battle is about to begin screen for 15 minutes but whatever.
Edit: 30 minutes AND if I leave I get a time penalty WOOT go LoL this is SO epic.

U lieing piece of shit shiro, 30 minutes my fucking arse it never takes more then 2 mins u stupid fuck. your such i lier anyone who ever layed LoL knows it takes 2 mins 3 mins at the most in the que to get a game. and the time penalty for que skipping is 3 mins u fag munch. its a good feature to stop people from leaving.

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ummm ... a bit of overexaggeration. if ur gonna counter ... counter properly or with facts. btw, you wouldnt leave a game for no reason. What, you leave coz theres a noob on ur team? you get the exact same shit in demigod. So, your argument has no ground watsoever... actually i wouldnt even consider it an argument.

Ur biased atm, but u wont be for long when u realise what me and many others have when playing demigod.

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Quoting MixMagic,

reply 25

Quoting Polynomial, reply 24Whatever, MixMagic.

I'm going to hold you to that post you made about Demigod 2 as much as I do Society Frogboy =P

I really miss the sense of communication we got over the summer with Demigod. You don't get that with any other company. Demigod 2 would be incredible. I think both GPG and Stardock know exactly what would need to be done.
comin from a american or euro who has no problems getting a game.

Did you know that there are lots of regions in the world where there isn't available drinking water or food? If I lived in one of those regions, i would GTFO and go somewhere that had plenty of water and food. (Especially food, im not skinny anymore).

Now, do you know what more important to me than food? A great internet connection and the ability to play games. If i didn't have those, i would GTFO and move somewhere where they were available. (I have actually based decisions on where to live based on the type of internet connection available). So Mix, i personally think you need to quit the "oh poor me" argument because you live on the west side of australia. You're young, set some priorities in life and go after them. Just think, if you moved to the US you could have easily saved $50 on Demigod. Thats FIFTY DOLLARS! That's enough to by another game!

On top of that, you'd have an Australian accent in the US which is desparately sought after by the opposing sex. Carry a big knife, wear a brimmed hat, say Crikey a lot and you would be famous in no time. You could even throw in a bad temper and throw phones at hotel clerks and you would still be loved. People would be like, is this guy crocdile dundee, Steve Irwin or Russel Crowe, and US magazine would be like, he's all 3 mofo's!

On another note though, demigod is still in my top 10 favorite games of all time (and i started gaming on an atari). Yea there were and still are problems but it's still a fantastic game and the overall best in the dota-esque genre. I'd love to see a demigod 2 but it will suck unless it is heavily influenced by SD and Brad. Can SD buy the IP from GPG?

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Quoting jongalt26,

reply 42

Quoting MixMagic, reply 25
Quoting Polynomial, reply 24Whatever, MixMagic.

I'm going to hold you to that post you made about Demigod 2 as much as I do Society Frogboy =P

I really miss the sense of communication we got over the summer with Demigod. You don't get that with any other company. Demigod 2 would be incredible. I think both GPG and Stardock know exactly what would need to be done.
comin from a american or euro who has no problems getting a game.
Did you know that there are lots of regions in the world where there isn't available drinking water or food? If I lived in one of those regions, i would GTFO and go somewhere that had plenty of water and food. (Especially food, im not skinny anymore).

Now, do you know what more important to me than food? A great internet connection and the ability to play games. If i didn't have those, i would GTFO and move somewhere where they were available. (I have actually based decisions on where to live based on the type of internet connection available). So Mix, i personally think you need to quit the "oh poor me" argument because you live on the west side of australia. You're young, set some priorities in life and go after them. Just think, if you moved to the US you could have easily saved $50 on Demigod. Thats FIFTY DOLLARS! That's enough to by another game!

On top of that, you'd have an Australian accent in the US which is desparately sought after by the opposing sex. Carry a big knife, wear a brimmed hat, say Crikey a lot and you would be famous in no time. You could even throw in a bad temper and throw phones at hotel clerks and you would still be loved. People would be like, is this guy crocdile dundee, Steve Irwin or Russel Crowe, and US magazine would be like, he's all 3 mofo's!

On another note though, demigod is still in my top 10 favorite games of all time (and i started gaming on an atari). Yea there were and still are problems but it's still a fantastic game and the overall best in the dota-esque genre. I'd love to see a demigod 2 but it will suck unless it is heavily influenced by SD and Brad. Can SD buy the IP from GPG?

j

wow thats just so fucked...im 24 years old married have 2 kids and half a million dollar mortgage.... ill leave it at that fucknuckle.

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Uhhh i thought the outlandishness of the post would have revelaed that it was in jest. I apologize if i offended you.

However a semi decent mortgage like that means you could afford to move elsewhere

what exactly is a fucknuckle?

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rofl...giggity, i was starting a game of lol so i was quick to type it lolz. its a word thats commonly used ~

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I have to say, I have left the majority of my games because of baby crying, wife needing help, or business call rather than any ingame reason. The real world does still take dominion.

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Quoting Pfizzyhead,

reply 46

I have to say, I have left the majority of my games because of baby crying, wife needing help, or business call rather than any ingame reason. The real world does still take dominion.

ahh yes, this is why league of legends rox...u can leave they get more xp, then u reconnect when baby is in bed i had 2 kids my self (4 years girl, and 19 months boy)

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The logging in issues of recent weeks is on our end. It is an ongoing mystery since there's no technical reason for it to be happening. But it is something they've been on top of.

I don't think anyone should come away with the impression that GPG somehow abandoned Demigod. They didn't. They haven't.

The difference is more akin to the rapid response times that we are used to versus the traditioanl studio model.

That is, in a typical AAA title, you release a couple of updates early and then maybe one more many months later where you just take as much time as wanted.

The fairer option I think would be to blame me for setting expectations on when the next update would be out. It's VERY common for reported bugs to not get fixed even when the developer thinks they're fixed. It happens on our own games internally all the time -- even I've been certain a fix I made to GalCiv's AI would work and it turned out not to.

The next time there's a Demigod update there won't be any warning. It'll just happen and be announced then.

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my issue is the fact that the games still broken 1 year after release and i paid near 100 aussie dollars for the game it should never have been released. until it was ready.

if you bought a remote controle car for your son and the antenna was broken so it only worked in a 2 meter radius would u take it back or would u keep it and solder it on ur self?

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Dude, gtf over it.

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