PAX and nearing beta 1

Published on August 25, 2008 By Draginol In Demigod Journals

I write this from the plane on the way to Redmond which is where Gas Powered Games is located.

Normally, publishers and developers have very explicit division of labor on projects. The developer makes the game, the publisher takes that game and markets, distributes is, and supports it.

As people observed with Sins of a Solar Empire, you can get tremendous results when the developer and publisher combine their teams together into a single "big" team.

That means Gas Powered Games will be intimately involved in the marketing of Demigod and it means Stardock will be very involved during development. At GPG, I'll be sitting in the "bull pen" with the development team working on the game itself. And together, we will be able to tap into the combined team's resources to get things done much more quickly.

Of course, the crucial element that can't be forgotten is the public beta program. Here's how it works:

We get the first beta out to you sometime in the first week of September. The goal here is to just see how well the thing works on people's computers. It won't be anywhere nearly fully functional. But we'll rapidly be enabling features and getting feedback which we'll be able to address.

AI needs help? AI developers at Stardock (including myself) can help. Need more map elements? Let us know and we'll see who is available to help on that too.

Similarly, advertisements and promotions for the game will get posted here before they go live typically. Art work, ideas and concepts won't be from Stardock's marketing team alone but rather the Gas Powered Games development team as well as anyone else.

One of the reasons why the Sins of a Solar Empire ads came out so well is because Ironclad (the developer) was so involved in the actual creation of the ads. It also didn't hurt that we put out the ads on the forums before they went to print where fans could make suggestions on how the ads could be improved.

Right now, we're playing the internal beta. The part that we're most challenged by at present is how quickly we can implement the Hamachi-like multiplayer system so that players who don't know what router ports are and such won't have to worry about them anymore. The first beta won't have that in there (I'm not sure as yet how much, if any, multiplayer will be in the initial beta 1 engine test portion).

One other thing players may find interesting is that GPG and Stardock have nearly a full year of free updates planned for Demigod. While the single player portion of the game is very important, our hope is to make Demigod the preeminent multiplayer strategy game for tournaments and such since the actual game-play is supports a lot more team mechanics than the traditional Starcraft or even Supreme Commander model would.

We'll have a pre-beta 1 showing at PAX in Seattle this weekend. If you're in the Washington area, be sure to stop by the Penny Arcade Expo. Chris Taylor and I will be giving live demos.

-Brad Wardell = Frogboy = Draginol

Comments (Page 2)

innociv

on Aug 25, 2008

I think the plan is to basically offer like $10 or $15 mini-expansions every 2 or 3 months, instead of a $40 expansion every year.

But the thing I don't like about that is I generally wait for things to pricedrop, so really I'm paying $15 or $25 for that $40 expansion. :/

I hope if Demigod sells millions of copies that they change their mind about that and just do it free like TF2. :/

lprometheus

on Aug 25, 2008

First of all i cant wait for the beta and i am glad Stardock is going to patch and balance update for the first year. This is very important to the game development so that is fair to all players and the game over all gets better over time. I think that demigod is going to be huge if done right it is a great concept.

Gnats3

on Aug 25, 2008

The problem with lots of smaller expansions is that it can get confusing with all the "which players can use which stuff" issues. I'd prefer to just have a normal one eventually, and/or have TF2-style stuff.

Mighty_NJS

on Aug 25, 2008

@Gnats3

I Dont think it can get confusing at all really. It would be like a store, You see apples and oranges and watermelons you dont like oranges but like the other 2 so thats what you get but it would be different for other players.

As long as they keep the content within reason to pricing it will be fine. I try to promote the site and the game as much as i can and already have 3 people getting the game so i hope they sell lots and prices wont be an issue with me.

Its also great to know they dont plan on just booting the game out the door and one patch seeeyalatr Kinda like what they did with UT3 =\

SanChonino

on Aug 25, 2008

Its also great to know they dont plan on just booting the game out the door and one patch seeeyalatr Kinda like what they did with UT3 =\

That's never been how Stardock has done things.

I mean, hell, GalCivII came out in '06 and they're STILL updating that beast!

Even better - there was an update to GalCivI back in April, and that sucker came out in 2003!

Gnats3

on Aug 25, 2008

Yeah, but then what happens when you have apples and oranges and your opponent has apples and watermelons, and you try to use oranges in the game while your opponent tries to use watermelons? Will it be in like Supcom:FA, where the game data for the watermelons is there but you just can't select them in the lobby, or like other games where you don't have it at all and can't play against someone who tries to use watermelons?

ToxDrawace

on Aug 25, 2008

Well in games like Guild Wars and WoW when the expansions come out the game gets a patch also so you can see all the new characters and other new features even if you don't have the expansion. I'm sure that's' probably what's going to happen here too.

Lurkerh

on Aug 25, 2008

I think he just means that they will keep updating Demigod for at least a year, and entirely for free. It is probably to reassure all the Supcom fans (such as myself ) who were disappointed at the lack of updates for Supcom:FA.

I think you're right.

neogeo777

on Aug 25, 2008

wow i was just thinking today during school that you guys needed to post a new journal entry and voila! here it is. tizzight im so excited about the beta man its good to see in this world of ppl so concerned about just making money you guys are taking the time and doing what is necessary to make sure your game is awesome (so then you can make money and hopefully tons of it). best of luck at the demo

oh and having updates after the game comes out is a big plus just in case any issues arise after release

fR1Xi0n

on Aug 26, 2008

Well guys, for me, 1 year of free updates translates to expansion coming feb 2010.
Micro-transactions such as 2 heroes for 10 bucks translates to sucking off your player-base money. I'd still buy it though if the game lives up to my expectations.
Sometimes though, GPG did less than they could. I mean, what would they loose if they put some depth to DS series lore? Check out the warcraft series, they are RTS, don't need as much lore, yet the games start 10k years after a series of events!
GPG didn't even need a scripter, the devs could easily come up with lore. It would only need to be concrete (to not contradict itself) and fans would dig it. I'm not saying that it doesn't have lore. It just clings to a lot of details, and stays fairly linear, while it could have twisted the crap out of itself, and be presented 10 times better in the game. didn't they ever wonder why their expansions (Legends of Aranna, and Broken World) got less % than the originals?

..Because they lacked the depth that would prevent critics' eyes from focusing to how similar the expansion is to the original in all the other aspects.

At least that's the feeling I got left with after I beat it.

And I'm still left with this question: Why the fuck would the damned Crug only attack "the little house on the prairy" our hero lives, and the little villages in the first area, and why is our hero in a lonely house in the woods? Where does he get his supplies from?
They didn't sort out the world as it could have been sorted, people don't get the feeling of consistency in the DS world.

Enough with my ranting though, at least Demigod doesn't need that much lore

kryo

on Aug 26, 2008

Check out the warcraft series, they are RTS, don't need as much lore, yet the games start 10k years after a series of events!

Warcraft has also been accumulating said lore for nearly 15 years (most of it only having been released in the WC3-WoW period).

fR1Xi0n

on Aug 26, 2008

Warcraft has also been accumulating said lore for nearly 15 years (most of it only having been released in the WC3-WoW period).

I can't deny that, maybe it was a poor example. But that's the taste DS left to me, a 15 year old, 6 years ago. That is, that things weren't binding together 100%, but were there just for the sake of progress throughout the game.
In all other aspects, DS was a 10, don't get me wrong.

innociv

on Aug 26, 2008

$5 each per Demigod is a maybe..
Depends on the number of choices. I'd like to buy just which ones I like.

And if they are IMBA to get people to buy them so they can play the overpowered imba hero and pwn everyone, I'll boycott the DLC. :/
New Demigod's should be released free as Beta to balance them at first and then taken away and have to be paid for.. After the free updates of course.

No paying for new maps though. ~_~ Those should be free otherwise you can only play the game with people that bought them.
Just use all the Demigod DLC money to fund making the free maps.
Just like Nexon has 5-10% of people paying to keep the game up for everything. You sell the most appealing thing for people that'd buy them in order to keep patching up and running the game. New Demigods are probably more appealing than new maps to people that are going to pay for em.

Odit

on Aug 26, 2008

hmm... I know this thread is about DLC, but on a side, it'd be a fun option to be able to unlock demigods. As innociv said, they wouldn't be better then the default ones, it would just give you something to work towards.

I'd prefer unlocking be based on accomplishments rather than money (or some of both). Set up some challenges (single player and/or multiplayer) something like, winning 10 multiplayer matches unlocks Demigod X. Win 50 matches unlocks Demigod Z. Get 1,000 Demigod kills and unlock Demigod Y etc etc...

That way if you see X, Y, or Z demigod, you know that that player has completed that challenge to be able to play that demigod.

Again, the demigods should still be balanced even if you have to work to unlock them.

Kitkun

on Aug 26, 2008

it'd be a fun option to be able to unlock demigods.

It would be interesting as long as they're balanced like you said.

I personally prefer larger expansion packs rather than small pieces of material bought one at a time.

But what I really want, me being me, is some kind of fox in the game.

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