Fair enough, Sargerias.

A couple of peeps in this thread might disagree, but my .02 -

1.  So far we are looking at 8 heroes (demigods or DGs) in Demigod, with at least two more planned.  Each demigod ideally has several builds and skills they can use (8-10 skill lines per DG, including some that synergize between skill trees), though in practice we are still seeing optimal builds.  DoTA players have lobbied hard for more DGs just to present team build variety, even as reskins, but the counter-argument has been that 1. DGs are supposed to be deep where Heroes are shallow 2. More DGs will be added to address perceived gaps in balance.

2.  Demigod has several items which can be bought and sold.  There are consumable single-use items and potions, armor which remains equipped ingame when bought, and Favor items which can be earned over several games and once bought, used in any game free of cost.  You have three active item slots, five passive item slots, and one favor item slot.  Items cannot be customized or upgraded a la DoTA.  Hopefully an upgrade system will be incorporated post-release.

3. In Demigod the elements of surprise, reconaissance and counter-reconaissance are not yet strongly developed on a strategic level, with some notable exceptions.  You don't see the whole map all the time, but many of the maps are small enough and have enough common objectives that you can often predict where an enemy is or is going.  Having said that - it is always possible to surprise, trap and kill opponents on a tactical basis.  Hopefully strategic LoS elements will be incorporated post-release that will add to the larger element.  

One way that Demigod does shine, strategically, is by incorporating the ability for a team to upgrade their creep stream and base in a number of ways.  There are also a number of control point flags scattered across the map which confer large bonuses on whomever controls them.  Seizing the opportunity to run through enemy fortifications and capture one of the enemy portal flags (which means the creeps coming out of the portal become allies) and then upgrading your creepstream to powerful units at the same time will usually bring you victory.

4. Demigod is very accessible, and with certain individual demigods we may be beginning to see the ceiling beyond which playstyle cannot progress without additional skills and builds (which we will probably see in future updates).  In a team setting, however, we are a long long way away from determining max efficiency and makeup.  No one team makeup is guaranteed to win every time, and I've seen good teams beat better teams that have been playing longer.  

Finally and most importantly, the developers are as committed to their player community as they can be within the limits of being in business.  None of the above is set in stone, and the devs have stated that they are planning a year of free updates after release. 

I'm sure there will be a few in this thread who disagree with some or all of the above - but after you take their input with mine maybe try the demo (which will come out a month or two after release) and see what you think

Exactly.

What I said is that if you like Dota you'll PROBABLY like Demigod. 

Similarly, if you like Master of Orion, you'll probably like Galactic Civilizations.

Naturally, at the end of the GalCiv betas we had plenty of Master of Orion fans telling us how terrible GalCiv was because it wasn't enough like MOO.

Well, on one hand it's not good for a new game to be compared to an already existing mod or game, especialy when it comes to pitching the idea, but it's understandable and widely used by players.

On the other hand, lots of well known publishers and studios take old well known mechanisms, polish and patch them up and resell them as brand new state of the art. Best example is Blizzard with Diablo III and World of Warcraft.

And about this I'd like to link a comic from a german mmo-games-magazine www.buffed.de

free Translation:

First Line:

Zam (the left one): "With Diablo III and Starcraft II it's easy to see that Blizzard has an easy but ingenius system for new editions of their games, right Björn?"

Björn (right one): ""Right Zam! They keep the games as they are and improve some odds and ends here and there ..."

Second Line:

Zam (the left one): "With Diablo III and Starcraft II it's easy to see that Blizzard has an easy but ingenius system for new editions of their games, right Björn?"

Björn (right one): ""Right Zam! They keep the games as they are and improve some odds and ends here and there ..."

Third Line:

Zam (the left one): "With Diablo III and Starcraft II it's easy to see that Blizzard has an easy but ingenius system for new editions of their games, right Björn?"

Björn (right one): ""Right Zam! They keep the games as they are and improve some odds and ends here and there ..."

thx Ke5trel

Your mini-Review fits pretty good in my actual opinion from the game. However having 8 skills instead of 4 skills (dota heros) doesnt realy add that much depth into the Demigods. If they can launch the game with 10 Heros it could be a good sign to the community. But i guess it will be 8 Heros and fully 6 Months later they come up with and expansion wich includes 2 more Heros. This way making the game just another smal stone on the road to the next damn blizzard game

On the other hand i see that no company can use almost endless resources like Blizzard can nowadays to delay their produkt till everything is close perfektion. I realy wish Demigod every possible Success in the world, but my honest opinion.......

......Demigod will have a very promising start (like countles good games before), but regular Playerbase will fall drastically after a few Months cause they get bored of the game cause of minor depth (like exactly those countles good games before). Since it positioned itself pretty clever as a "Next-Gen-Dota" (thats the way the majority of people look at it)  the game will sell good enough to at least even the productioncosts. One expansion will come out 6-8 Months after release and then the game and its community will slowly vanish (again like those countles good games before). Dotas success is based primary on the NONSTOP additions to the (therefore everchanging) gameplay. And Blizzards overall success is based on the fact that their games have incredible depth for hardcore and tourney-players while staying easy and enjoyable for those casual players with only smal playtime-amounts.

As long as no other company starts to get this basic idea and only build either easy games or totaly inaccessible games noone will ever catch up to blizzards success. Most of us will buy Demigod just to reduce our waiting-Time for DoTA 2.0 (when Starcraft 2 comes out with its world editor its pretty sure dota 2.0 will be there with dozens of brandnew Heros again).

That's it, amp up the sarcasm, that'll boost confidence in the developers.

(p.s.: I don't think what you quoted is true, and I understand why you're frustrated)

Funniest post I have read all week!!!

Sheltered life or obsessive fanboyism, hard choice.

Anyway i doubt anyone thinks that the game will be abandoned after release, it's just what will become of the game after release. There is no point of having updates/expansions for the game when the game could die out in active population after 1 month, which pretty much ends up to be a waste of time beta testing and supporting (aka. Age of Conan). I guess we will see how many "casual" gamers take notice of Demigod when it's released.

Eh... Pong ?

LOL... well i would agree in so far that "most" games have much more depth than the average player notices,

quite often leading to ironic posts where the same person complains that the game sucks so much because a.) it is so shallow and b.) they lose all the time

Let us see us walk first before we run actually maybe even crawl first cause I bet those first few steps are going to be exciting and probably rememberable.

Mr. Fancy-pants CEO sounds really angry.

More than 1% of us use edge-scrolling in galciv! And no I don't expect you to fix Space Empires V as that game is fundamentally borked.

Mr. Brad, here are my Rights:

1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

By not addressing the edge-scrolling issue you are violating Rights 1, 2, and 3.

1. Screen does not scroll when using a certain edge so technically Galciv 2 is not working properly on my computer.
2. Game is not finished because it doesn't work properly. See above.
   
3. If any of the previous updates had actually been 'meaningful' this would've been addressed by now.

You have 24 hours to fix this edge-scrolling issue before I start ragin' in the offical Galciv forums.

Thank you, and have a nice day sir.

I must respectfully disagree due to his blatant disregard of my Gamer's Rights.