DEMIGOD: GAME of the YEAR or Spectacular Disaster?

You do realise this is in the beta stages... right? Connectivity will be much better at the final release.

Trust in Cari.  She will lead the faithful to connection heaven.

I think you have hit the nail on the head.  This game is one of the best I have ever played.  Online, the game is absolutely incredible.  However, when the connectivity fail, so does the game.  Connectivity is issue #1 and requires a big improvement in the coming 3-4 weeks.

I can usually get into games. It's completing games that's been a pain for me.

I think it'll be neither game of the year or disaster.  More like sleeper hit of the year.  kinda like sins

If you do not have connections down and friends lists in online play, your game will fail.

Yeah, this better be a VERY beta version of the online client, because it really offers very little (friends list just being one major thing that's missing). 

The fact that it's really tough to play a complete game (with the prevalance of "disconnects") doesn't help either.

I think you're exaggerating by saying it's such an amazing game minus the issues, though.  If it were possible to consistently play low-lag to lagless multiplayer games with no disconnect issues, then this game would be both addictive and fun.  But I'm not yet convinced of two very important things: competitive depth and long-lasting appeal (which is tied to the depth).

We'll have both.

If you can name a funner real time strategy game in recent memory I'd like to hear it. 

I've got Dawn of War 2 which disappointed. I've got Empire Total War which is a great game but still isn't as fun as Demigod.

I play an even split of strategy games and action games. There isn't much "depth" to Left4Dead or TF2 but I love them all the same. 

Demigod has the fun factory of a L4D/TF2 and the depth of a DOW2. That combination makes Demigod a very likely classic.

But I agree with the OP, they better make the in game stuff work like a charm. The NAT stuff also needs improving but has made it over that hump.

I have played nearly every RTS out for the past 10 years.  I also love RPGs, TBSs, and an occasional FPS (L4D,  TF2, and Stalker).  This is certainly an instant classic if they get NAT down better and tweak a very few number of things. With post release free DLC it will be amazing and have a ton of appeal.

Ditto.

that, sir, is a "shade of grey" and is absolutely, positively not allowed on gaming forums. its black and white only. please turn in your internet license.

Demigod as fun as blasting masses of zombies with random weapons?  That's just a bit optimistic.  Don't get me wrong, I think this game will be a lot of fun, but from the perspective of most people (who buy video games) any game with guns and zombies would probably win out.  Haha.

DoW2 having depth?  Hrm...can't really say that much there because I haven't played it, but I do know that like DoW it downplays economic management (a lot) and involves little to no individual-unit micro, which means any claims of depth, to me, are dubious.

Also, I'd point to Age of Empires 3 as being a really great competitive RTS (though with balance issues that ES wasn't very good at solving) in recent memory, but perhaps I'm biased since I love the Age series so much.

If you're talking in the last year or two then I agree...not so much on the RTS front.  Every RTS that comes out these days seems like it's meant to be very simplified, geared towards the casual crowd that enjoys playing the single player campaign more than anything else.

What I really want to see from this game is that when I play it, I never feel the urge to go play DotA....that I never ask myself if I enjoyed / would enjoy playing DotA more.  To a large extent, so far, that is true, but not nearly entirely so.  That, I think, is going to be crucial for a lot of the people who buy / try out this game, because it is the closest comparison that one could make.

I believe thats not all that important, as many people have never even heard of DotA, and most arent going to see if its a remake of an old favorite (which it isn't, but comparisons are drawn), but a completely new genre merging experience.

Unfortunately your blind optimism on the game is clearly that, blinded. Any experienced Dota player will find the game so shallow you are unable to drown in and that's what Demigod launched itself with, a comparison to Dota. Now i wasn't the one that wanted to say that Demigod will base it's gameplay from Dota, the developers did and that's what lead me into very high expectations about the game, but resulted in dissapointments all over the board (except graphics, which i personally don't base a game on but they are still very nice). It's good to see balancing working out well and the net connections constantly improving but when Demigod mentioned "DoTA" in it's own personal advertisement, it instantly put Demigod in the shadows of 1 simple modified map compared to a full joint production game.

Yes Demigod is fine in it's own rights and as a "casual" game or for those people who are not DoTA players but for me personally, once you began as a seasoned DoTA player, your view on Demigod can never as high as yours is.

Yeah, this statement sums up my concerns...they've intentionally placed themselves in comparison to DotA (even if they hadn't, it's a pretty obvious comparison).  One would think that a full production game would have the obvious advantage over a UMS from Warcraft 3, but I would be surprised if the majority of DotA players (who are a large part of the prospective market for this game, imo) don't lose interest after a short time and go back to DotA.

I'd love to be wrong.

Anyone has to realize that the Dota playerbase would hardly make any game a commercial success.

Considering we have a post on the frontpage of these forums asking for a "beginners guide" is kinda telling, no ?

Demigod is a quite bold experiment and in this time of sequels and 08/15 egoshooters it deserves merit for that alone.

I can't tell you wether Demigod will be a success or not, only time will tell.

What i can tell you for sure however is:

1. Dota, would fail as a commercial game so hard, it wouldn't even be funny.

(And since the Dota guy is making his own game now, you will be able to experience this first hand. Well, maybe the Dota playerbase will finally get their niche game, so have hope )

2. The Dota playerbase as a whole, will pretty much be irrelevant to the commercial success or failure of Demigod.

3. The connectivity issue at this point of time before release is most certainly much more critical than any pleased or disgruntled Dota fans could ever be. 

Just how it is.

Evanescent and PossiblyImpossible

Seriously guys, we heard you the first 5-10 times you told us "nothing against this game, any 5 yr old will enjoy it and that's fine (but it Sucks! Connectivity! DoTA! Rage! Internet!)"  

Since Demigod being the worst thing since bubonic plague hasn't kept you from checking the forums - come down out of your bittertree and help us balance as best we can for release, no? If you guys want to get a game tomorrow at 17.00 GMT or so we can explore some of the glaring faults together

Can't say yet, don't know what else comes this year.

But it will be in my top five, for sure.

@ Ke5trel: Wouldn't mind playing with / against you (though I can't guarantee you I'll give you good competition).  Also, bravo for intense exaggeration

Rage! Internet!  Demigod eats babies!

I don't know what posts of mine you've been reading, but I am not being unreasonably pessimistic (read: rabid and irrational) in my treatment of the game as it currently stands.  Perhaps yes, Evanescent and myself have not been as vocal about the positive aspects of the game as the negative ones.  Place us in comparison with a lot of people on here (DEMIGOD IS THE GAME OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!111) and that might make us seem unreasonable.  I think we're just trying to counterbalance some of the wildly inflated optimism and praise that gets floated around here.  In other words, this is just what happens in a Beta forum, you get doomsayers and you get starry-eyed fanbois.  I'd like to think that while I perhaps fall closer to the doomsayer portion, I am at least being reasonable.  I may sound like a broken record at times (gameplay depth, gameplay depth, gameplay depth, connectivity, connectivity, connectivity) but that's only because I want this game to succeed and I think it's extremely important that the issues I bring up are addressed.

If I seem to ignore what's best about this game, and don't go around defending it to my last breath at every opportunity, it's because I don't think that there is any point in doing so.  As Beta testers, we are not here to pat the developers on the back.  It's not our job to just be happy about everything.  This game will never improve if we aren't willing to point out what could be better about it, and adamant in doing so. A good Beta tester looks for problems, points them out, and suggests solutions as best they can in a constructive fashion.  I've done my best to do that.

@Mike: I think you severely underestimate the DotA playerbase; it's much larger than you think.  Apparently you have something against DotA, but I can assure you, given the amount of people that play it (and have played it) on a regular basis, there is no way that it would fail as a commercial game if it were given the same budget and development time that most commercial games receive.  That, I believe, was the idea in creating this game in the first place.  If what you say were even remotely true, this game would never have been made.

Actually, I think some doomsayers are alot more useful than most fanboys - accepting the game as perfect and untouchable will never make it better. 

I'm not at all questioning the validity of your points, it just seems to me that offering specific problems and solutions will always trump expressing general opinions.  We have some of the most responsive developers in the business working on this game and talking to us, and if we can change the way they look at certain things even a little bit then we are doing right by this game. 

To the person who said the dota fanbase won't make a game a comercial success - just an FYI but DOTA is among the top (or is the top) most popular mod in existence right now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients).  Saying that the userbase is insignificant is a little wee bit incorrect.

I'm also very dissapointed with the game's direction and design philosphy.  I knew the direction the design was going back in Beta 1 and that's why I wanted a refund (despite most apologists/devs saying I can't judge it since it's incomplete).  The absolute only reason I got interested in this is because they kept beating their chest on how it was like Dota and how the devs really love Dota.  The fact that it's missing a lot of crucial elements from dota makes me question that statement.  Now they've just come out and said that it's not for the dota "fanboys" (as Brad LOVES to throw that word around).  Intentional or not, those  marketing statements were bait and switch and I've learned to take any marketing/interview/etc campaign from Stardock with a dump truck of salt (and wait for a demo next time).

With the unbelievable amount of optimism in these boards, any critisicm/disdain for the game is generally met with wild flailing hands and gnashing of teeth.  To question Stardock's/GPG's design or policies is like asking to be lynched.  There's a real lacking openess in these forums where criticism, expressions of disapointment, and angry complaints are not tolerated.

With that rant out of the way, we need to just accept the game as it is.  It's in the same vein as DOTA, but it's considerably more casual with a lower barrier for entry.  Being published by stardock also helps it out, as the company has a good reputation with most people.  Ultimately, I believe it will be a success.  Maybe not a smash hit, but i think it'll be in the black.  Most likely, the general DOTA "fanboys" will not enjoy this game, but will buy it/try it because of all the marketing.  When this game goes gold, the board is going to have a lot more flamewars between the stardock "fanboys" (BEST GAME EVAR!!) and the dota fanboys (THIS ISN'T LIKE DOTA AT ALL - WTF!!)