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As an avid PC gamer, I am frequently dismayed at the departure of polish and quality control from the industry, a change which has become increasingly evident in recent years. Unlike many of my peers, I refuse to grow numb to what many consider “teething” periods for new games shortly after their release, periods in which we pay retail prices for beta software. It’s a matter of principle that often casts me in the role of the hyper-critical curmudgeon battling off the mindless hordes of raving fanboys while reminding everyone that there was once a time before patches could be used to fix broken software after reaching the hands of the consumer.
While Stardock may have rightfully earned a large stock of credibility with PC gamers for its public stance on piracy and DRM, pushing Gas Powered Games’ Demigod out the door before it was ready on April 14th cannot and should not be excused. For those of you who haven’t picked up the game yet (or don’t plan to), an extremely large number of users are experiencing difficulty with the game’s networking which is unable to negotiate connections between different users’ routers properly, resulting in the inability to connect to games for which Stardock is squarely to blame (Stardock wrote the netcode for Demigod rather than Gas Powered Games).
Obviously the variety of networking configurations used by players is vast, however most other companies using similar lobby formats and Games for Windows Live have developed successful solutions (Relic’s Dawn of War 2, for example). Considering that Demigod effectively has no single player component, the fact that they didn’t perform adequate testing of the game’s multiplayer connectivity is an oversight of staggering proportions. Furthermore, there is a software bug in which players who actually can connect to their opponents still aren’t able to join the game, so either way players are beset with technical issues beyond their control.
It also appears as though the servers were not prepared to handle the increased load, which is simply the result of poor planning and bad estimates.
That being said, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has performed admirably while under fire, putting in tons of extra hours and communicating constantly with the community to assure them not only that problems are being worked on, but even going so far as to specify how and what their priorities are. In an open letter to Demigod’s player base at the end of release day, Wardell listed the major concerns that had been voiced and even took responsibility for some of the technical issues plaguing the new release.
It’s extremely refreshing to be told precisely what’s going on by someone with authority rather than wading through the bullshit typically spewed by low-ranking community forum moderators who aren’t given any information whatsoever (looking at you, Blizzard). Good customer service is something that has been lacking in this industry ever since Blizzard, SOE, and EA (the tri-fecta of companies that treat us like cattle) became behemoths.
It should also be noted that these difficulties have been compounded by Gamestop’s violation of Demigod’s release date. The storefront retailer began selling copies of the game a week early, catching Stardock off guard and forcing them to scramble in order to bring the multiplayer servers online over Easter weekend.
Many have accused Gamestop’s blunder as being an intentional attempt to grab a higher portion of early release sales due to the fact that Stardock has advertised that they are selling digital copies of the game for $10 below MSRP. Intentional or not, Gamestop really put Stardock in a difficult position. However, to be fair, if Stardock wasn’t able to identify and fix these networking problems during the game’s lengthy development then I doubt another week would have made much difference.
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April 17th, 2009 at 1:35 am
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91001-Demigod-Piracy-Running-High
‘In yesterday’s Day One Status Report, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell revealed that the company’s network was clobbered by a heavy influx of users anxious to get online with Demigod, the vast majority of whom were running illegitimate copies. “The system works pretty well if you have a few thousand people online at once. The system works… less well if there are tens of thousands of people online at once,” he wrote. “And if there are over 100,000 people, well, you get horrific results such as the game being incredibly unresponsive due to simple web service calls that were considered pretty benign during the beta that suddenly start to bring down firewalls and such due to the sheer massive number of calls that are being made.”
“Sadly, most of the ~120,000 connections are not customers but via warez,” he continued. “About 18,000 are legitimate” ‘
Without dismissing your concerns, which are indeed valid, we don’t know how the game would be running if it was only people who had actually purchased the game were the ones playing.
Perhaps if the 85% of people who didn’t buy the game stopped trying to play it, we would see better results from the network. And if that 85% decided to buy it, maybe Stardock would have the resources to deal with that many players.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:46 am
The game being unable to negotiate connections between different computers due to router settings is the most pronounced and pressing problem facing Demigod and it exists completely independently of server load.
Also, not requiring a legitimate CD-key to connect to their servers and then not anticipating a huge influx of pirates is just as stupid as not planning for the correct number of actual game owners. It’s like advertising that you’ll be giving away free money in Central Park and then saying “Gee, I didn’t realize so many people would show up!”
This basic level of DRM (CD-key authentication) is completely non-invasive and is deemed perfectly appropriate (and even necessary) by just about everyone, gamers and pirates alike. I sympathize with their plight, but they brought it upon themselves willingly and didn’t take steps to deal with the consequences beforehand.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
The problem isn’t piracy. They shouldn’t be trying to claim this. Any copy of the game will at launch and shutdown make a brief https connection to their general “Impulse” server(s). Installing and running their Impulse client, which is free and available to all, creates far more connections to the same server. This service also shows no signs of having issues.
The real match making, multiplayer capabilities are going to be quite separate. They’ll be separate servers, and would require a legitimate game account WHICH REQUIRES A LEGITIMATE SERIAL NUMBER. So pirates aren’t generating any of this traffic.
October 9th, 2009 at 4:57 am
I’m very impressed with this game. The graphics are excellent, runs great on my PC, and the art direction is amazing. Alot of attention to detail was put into this game. I’m excited to see how GPG and Stardock expand on this game in both MP and SP respects. Anyway, if you have time, take a visit to http://www.sheeparcade.com