How my "all-time" favorite Game died !!!

Supreme Commander

sorta

I haven't personally experienced anything like demigod's community/the game's current state.  Thanks for the history lesson on GC2.  Interesting stuff. 

same here.

"The new game Massive Entertainment did "World in Conflict" is state of the Art in terms of Multiplayer features, performance and long time support and development....shame i dont like the silly rushes there..."

Silly Rushes What?

I never played GC/2 but I know a few Vet players from it who Ive seen argue on which is the better game, I remember one key troll on the wic forums who'd troll every single thread about how GC2 was better, many facepalms were thrown,

Too bad wic has declined but im not suprised with the poor advertisement they used on release, if ubisoft were in charge from the begining it would of taken off so much more better. From what ive read of your post wic made significant steps forward from GC2, better leaderboards, perfect interface, excellent cw support (excellent support all round).  Wic blended skill and teamwork so perfectly.

Smurfing aswell kept the game alive until they implemented the smurf ban, some of us managed to get a couple of extra accounts but that was a real nail in the coffin. :/

*Heres hoping the rumours of the next massive game turns out to be Wic2"

The Demigod community does remind me of wic, CW crowd vs Public crowd,  Premade crowd vs Puggers. Shrinking and shrinking with individuals holding onto the bitter end.

 

Man now you made me want to play wic,

WiC rocks, still does.  One of the best games I have played and really damn stable right out of the box.  The debate there between CW and Public crowd is nothing like the debate here.  In WiC, the debate was really about smurfs.  Publics had their own servers and you can hop around all you like.  What ruined WiC's premade community were the smurfs that liked to stomp new clans, which resulted in those clans leaving the competitive scene.  In the end, all you had were the smurfs left.

I'm sure most people will disagree, but I thought Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was a great game. It was ruined for me by issues almost identical to DG. Everyone played the only one map (the one which resourcse were nigh infinite and rushing was easiest, of course), the ladder system was based almost completely on custom games, and there were major connectivity issues.

 

Melric your name sounds familiar, and wic does still rock , I really dont think smurfs had that much of an impact but the fact of the matter was that there was no auto matching system in place to prevent dodging, alot of teams needed to play and pratice for some of the major cash tournies, CPL for example.

Some people need to grow thicker skins when dealing with a horrific loss, I took my beatings, I learned from my mistakes and I got better due to them. The same with most of the players I know.

There were a few boon bashing squads and they were frowned upon (cough Face cough), but in the end you could choose your opponents, I always though it was obvious who were the smurfs . Smurfing didn't kill wic.

Command and Conquer 3 makes me cry.

Why isnt there an option to zoom in and out like SupCom or Demigod? Why???

Oh and I know what level your talking about. It really is awful with all that tiberium

spamzone noobrage!

lol its a fun map but it should not have been ranked !

i havent played WIC or C&C3. but i had played a little of Ground Control 2 and i left as soon as the cheaters started ruining my games.

Very interesting and sad at the same time how this game died but stayed alive until the very end.

Thank you for sharing Microstar

I have... The Game was Empire Earth: The Art of Conquest, an expansion for the game Empire Earth, the expansion was released in: 17 September 2002. 

The Empire Earth community was absolutely amazing, there was a lot of competition and people were generally pretty good to each other. The games consisted of Death Matches (10,000 of each resource) Standard High (~500 of each resource) and what were called "City Builders" (CBs) The first 2 are kinda self explanatory but the City Builders allowed players to play a game, where you built large cities, handled diplomacy with each other, and had massive scale wars. Basically, what you would see in a city builder is a massive build-up of resources, then an all out war between two nations...

 CBs were my favorite type of game to play because it took skill to amass the resources required to fight other nations, because you couldn't just throw away your resources. Everyone was looking to expand their territory, so you HAD to have a reserve army, as well as enough resources to replace your army... This created the perfect balance, massive fights, massive armies, resource management as well as the intelligence to balance them all! 

But perhaps the greatest thing about this game... Was the massive customization... You could choose what units you wanted to specialize in... Infantry, tanks, aircraft, swordsmen, spearmen, religion, battleships, frigates, transports... Anything! And not only that, but there were sub divisions such as Infantry - Sword, Infantry - Ranged, Infantry - Spear... Say you wanted a force of elite Marines... You should put your "Civ Points" into "Infantry - Ranged" With upgrades such as "+10% Range" "+15% Hit points" "+30% speed" and this allowed you to customize your army! You could have fast moving marines, long range marines, or juggernaut marines... Whatever suited your play style... And this customization was applicable for -every- unit in the game... It's just that sort of customization you don't see anymore

Alas, the community slowly started to die off as people didn't want to take the time to learn the game mechanics and fight other people... And although it was still ~150 people strong (The number of people on at any given time was around 150) Sierra shut down their last server (After being bought out by Activision)  

Yeah, at that point I hadn't played a game with that feature so it didn't bother me. I absolutely cannot play LoL/HoN now, DG ruined them for me and I wonder if it'll even bug me on starcraft 2.

Oh please lord let them have a zoom function. Ive never played Starcraft but I was going to give the second a shot

That said does Dawn of War have a zoom function like DG and SupCom?

Negative. I love the DoW games but it does take some getting used to when I go back to them after a round of SupCom.

DoW I doesn't, but you can zoom out a little bit. You can't see even a quarter of the map though, at the furthest range (well. Not even a tenth of hte map. DoW'smaps are much larger than Demigod's).

Never saw anything while watching the Battle Reports that would suggest they've implemented any sort of zoom function... and last I heard they weren't going to put in dual monitor support so as to try and keep things even between the Korean Pros and Haole Pubbers.

 

Remember when they just modernized the old Dune game into a Command and Conquer clone?  Seems like they're doing the same with SC2...

Judging from your post I can see some similarities with DG - and some differences. It will all depend on how GPG and Stardocks will go now. Agressivly pumping out coupons will probably prolong the sales a while, creating more interest - but what will decide if the online gamers will decline or grow is content driven. Thus, the two new demigods are absolutely crucial. When modding eventually hits I think it might create a real surge in interest too. But it all depends on how long it will take.

ya.. Starsiege Tribes (the original).  The game lasted almost 10 years.. but obviously had declined greatly.  It came out in 1998, yet had great connectivity (much, much better than demigod.. although it was a FPS not RTS.. w/e).  It had no official ladder or stats check of any kind.  You could smurf and no one would know.

 

Basically.. when the game started declining, starsiege released the source code so people could go mod happy.  This was amazing.  So much cool stuff was done.  Then cheating popped up.  People modded around the cheating.. but it was just another thing to have to download to play... and with no real community outside of the game (i.e. no actual game forums) people couldn't find this easily.  Some people encouraged the cheating and made it into a mod of its own, completely changing how the game was played, but it was still awesome.  Then people started spreading rumors of auto-aim and invincibility that were impossible to pull off without being part of the server mod blah blah blah.. ppl got paranoid, accused others of cheating, and left the game.

Starsiege gave the game out for free and let the game go on as long as it could... but they had stopped supporting the game (beyond hosting the master servers) when they released the source code.  No updates, nothing.  Game trailed off to 50-60 people playing it seriously.. but they were spread out in different mods... so really it was more like 8-10 ppl seriously playing.

Basically Starsiege couldn't afford to pay for updates to the game and the game died.  I see the same thing happening with Demigods tho.  If the connectivity issues and invalid game state issues don't get worked out.. people will leave the game.  Several people already have.

Same here. I myself just couldn't keep up with the game. I fell behind and went to demigod a much more forgiving and casual game. It was just too hard to stay up with the pros.

MAN, that game rocked. That was the first team based FPS I played.  I remember coming home from school, getting a hold of some friends, and rocking a server. 10 years is a long time for a game, though.  For me, the most disappointing thing about Tribes wasn't that the game didn't last more than 10 years... it was that the sequels sucked.  Tribes 2 was alright, but it lacked a certain something that the first one had. The rest after 2 were just awful.

I hate seeing total remakes of games (like EA loves to do), but Tribes?  I would cry with joy.  New graphics, new anti-cheat, new UI...  Yeah, I'd buy a reskinned remake of Tribes.

I was pretty excited for SC2, but after seeing all the stuff they were taking out, I lost interest.  I do like the story line, and I might pick the game up just for that reason, and the user created maps.

If you guys are interested in FPS games, check out Natural Selection 2.  Unknown Worlds is probably my favorite developer, along with Stardock. I still play NS1, which is a Half-Life mod.  There's a couple of servers up that are usually populated.  I've got high hopes for NS2, so if it comes out awful, that will be my disappointing experience.

I actually have a similar experience with a game/community. 

The game was Battlefield Vietnam.  And what a game and community it had in high levels of play.

It went through 3 very strong competitive CAL seasons and a 4th pretty good one.  For about 2 years I'd say after it's release the TWL ladders/leagues were hopping and the very pro CAL teams were hoppin.  I started a team first season of CAL with a few friends and we tried to find good players to join in the first season.  I think we only finished like 8th or something bad.  I got really fkn good at the game, in infantry.  My core teammates got really fkn good too.  We had the best chopper pilot in the game with us.  Our plane pilot was one of the best.  I was considered by some one of the best infantry in the game, one of my competitors turned out to be hacking : (.  2nd CAL league we got to the semi's as we got more serious.  I think the 3rd season we placed second and the 4th one we got 1st.  We held the TWL infantry 5v5 ladder at the #1 spot for a long time.  We battled up and down 1st-3rd in the TWL 8v8 ladder, but CAL was our main concern.  There was some serious competition.  During the CAL season we'd scrim like 7 times a week before the match, and have a pre game scrim every week on the day of the match.  We'd have practices on Sunday, work on strats all week on the forums, always be on practicing the map with each other.  By the end of our run we had formed a solid 10man team that was just amazing to be a part of.  We were all friends, always on vent, practicing, pugging, etc... and there was always room for improvement.  For games, you could roll out with a simple beginning strat and wing it, or get really in depth with all the variables that could happen on that map.

   The best part about the BF:V community was that it wasn't too too big.  You really knew most of the players from all the teams.  We were all friends outside of matches.  All the time, on a lot of nights, we'd have pick up games where we'd all get on vent, have 2 team captains, pick teams, and go at it.  Man, what a blast that was.  We'd do this for hours, talking shit to each other in vent, having a great time.  We could always find a scrim, be it 10v10 to work on strats, or my favorite 5v5 infantry only scrim to hone our skills on the city maps.  I had maxed out my xfire friends list within 2 weeks of joining CAL, I couldn't add anymore friends.

   What made the game such a great game, like demigod, and I'm sure GC2, is that there was a huge focus on individual skill as well as teamwork.  You had to have both to succeed, it was really about both.  Unfortunately, like GC2, in the end it just died.  It's amazing to me how dead it is now actually, it's quite depressing.  Nothing yet has taken it's place.  It's now near impossible to find a server with enough people for a good infantry game.  The Hastings air map server is still pretty hopping, but usually only 20-30 out of 40 slots full, which is fine. 

   Man, I have such good memories of my teammates, the matches we played in, the games we went in as the underdog and came out on top, going way above and beyond everyones expectations.  I remember the painful losses where one of our guys would make an unbelievable mistake and lose the game for us.  The CAL matches were so intense at moments, trying to get vent quiet was near impossible sometimes. 

   I haven't seen a community quite like this one since the game died out.  I had a go at competitive Battlefield 2, and it just wasn't the same.  Like GC2, there were leagues in the US, EU, all over the world.  There was even a world tournament that was very successful (but in my mind unsuccessful due to high pings in matches).  One of the big reasons to be honest, is World of Warcraft.  Throughout the end of BF:V, WoW slowly took away half our roster.  I think that game is pulling too many skilled players away from other, more pvp oriented games out there.  It's sad really.

   Unfortunately, Demigod has nowhere near the community that Battlefield Vietnam had in it's prime.  The community right now, and when you could consider it at it's prime, is quite small.  Very small, actually.  There are no competitive leagues, no ladders, no in game support for any of this either.  I think the game might be a bit more popular atm if it had been released with team support and a ladder, maybe with some tournaments along the way.

   Vietnam did have some problems with hackers, although not to the extent GC2 did.  The worst case of it was a guy from one of the top teams, although not the top one, finally got caught for map hacking in matches and out of them (people finally caught on, he was a little TOO good) by the 2nd or 3rd CAL season.  IMO, that was way too late.  He had already flipped games that they should've lost but won.  It was pretty easy to tell who was hacking to be quite honest, and all the guys we were skeptical of actually were and got caught/banned/e-smacked.

   I know how you feel about the demise of GC2, your game, and your community.  It'll never come back is the worst part about it .  TBH I would've like to see something of this sort with Demigod, but the game has already been de-populated to the point of no return.

thx for sharing ur experiences.....

 

it looks like that it needs 2 things to make a good successful long-term game....the game itself.....and the multiplayer support.

And as far as i can see from your comments its likely that a game fullfills one of these demands...but rarely both.

 

i totally agree with the "mmorpg" argument:  They took away loads of our rooster and addicted our youth to mindless monster farming.

so  games like demigod are a release to the mmorpg community..they can have their pvp and guildwars in here..without farming 11248415746942 Hobgobblinelvishdragonfairy´s  : in my opinion

 

boooyakka   da micro

 

To add to the list of great games with potend multiplayer that just...died out...

Unreal Tournament 3.
The history of the Unreal franchise is a tricky one. Despite often being referred to as tech-demos for the new Unreal Engines, the UT series actually have some really nice gameplay mechanics and a dedicated community. UT99 was a huge success and even featured at WCG two years in a row. Even though overshadowed by Quake3, UT99 survived the test of time and it's still played frequently online up to this day.
A few years later came UT2003, along with the Unreal Engine 2. I didn't care that much for UT2k3, and neither did the community. The whole game felt unfinished and served more like a showcase for the upcoming Unreal 2: The Awakening (shitgame). 1½ years later, UT2k4 came and changed the formula. The whole game got a well worthy overhaul, tons of new content, maps, modes and more. UT2k4 became one of the best FPS games during that time, and it got several Editors Choise and GOTY awards.

But then... Unreal Tournament 3... Something went horribly wrong.
UT3 is a very potent game. It's adorable to look at, it's fuid and fun. The maps are awesome, controls are great... Well, everything is awesome... But no one plays it.
UT3 got a very rough start. The early Beta footage didn't look promising at all, so the initial reception was horrible. Piracy struck hard as well, and the damage took a long time to fix.
UT3 also got releases on PS3 and X360, and even though it's all good and fun for the console users, it doesn't really serve the competitive playerbase any good. The community gets divided on several platforms (or, basically just PC and PS3, as the X360 didn't get any support from the developers at all), and that's not good for the mplay scene.
Epic, being to bussy handing out love to the Gears of War community, reject the needs and suggestions from the UT3 community, and before you knew it, the game was dead. Epic released a free expansion called "Titan Pack", but that didn't help anything. The community had already left.

UT3 was the first game in the Unreal Tournament series that didn't get a pro-scene. A few attempts have been made to host minor UT3 tournaments, but the scene is way to small and casual, so it often just fell flat. Most of the old UT99/UT2k4 clans that had their hopes up for UT3 snorted at Epic for their lack of dev-support, and went back to the previous installments of the UT franchise (or left for other games completely).

UT3 is a great game with shitloads of potential, but crashed down due to ignorant developers unable to give the game longterm support. Updates came to slow and to unfrequent, so Epic more or less gave up.

According to Tim Sweeney, CEO and founder of Epic Games, "Unreal Tournament is certainly a major long-term priority but we're planning not to release a major retail game in the series for several years,". Probably a decision based on the horrible blunder the presented with Unreal Tournment 3...

Tribes: Vengeance
Well, what can I say... Tribes 2 was awesome, Tribes: Vengeance was a good game on its own, but a horrible game compared to T2. For some reason, TV never got a fanbase attached to it, and so it just died out... I didn't follow the decay up close, but that's the general expression as I see it. Maybe someone else can expand this area...

 

 

Bad english, yadayada...

This is saddening.  All my life i've been playing Blizzard games and this never happened.   Only this year and last year did I try other games and witness they all eventually die.  

I think I know why most ppl stick with blizzard games now.

I really enjoyed your writing on GC/2 and I was thinking about picking it up for less than $10 from GoG.com when they had a sale. Might be inclined to pick it up even though the sale ended now that you put up a good word for it and see how things are.

In my opinion, Unreal Tournament 3 died out because of Epic's complete unwillingness to embrace the PC gamers that made them a top player. UT3 was pretty much Unreal Tournament for console n00bs. It was still UT and it was still fun, but the consolification of any game is just crap. Nerfed jumping, higher damage weapons, change in artstyle (Gears of War and UT3 combined? Didn't work), and developer focus in all the wrong places (War, singleplayer, and other gimmicks) really killed the series. Even console games suffer from consolification (Call of Duty series). If you want a UT fix, you can jump onto UT2k4 (which is still kind of active last time I checked).


One game that I really enjoyed but kind of died out was Guild Wars. There use to be many players doing all the quests with many guilds battling out in GvG and Hall of Heroes. Now? There are a handful of guilds doing tournaments and the rest of the players are soloing quests with their uber-heroes and henchmen. The player count has gotten so low that players can join the same team in Random Arena by just hitting find game at the same time. In its prime, I would say Guild Wars was one of the best games ever.