He's not gone, he just wont be on these forums for a while.

Really, this thread was supposed to be a "Support Stardock" where the appreciation was supposed to come out and I think Frogboy probably came in here to find some inspiration to keep on being part of our community and putting himself in the line of fire for people and their venom filled comments.

Instead he catches even MORE heat and simply put he got sick of it. Though I'm not happy he is gone I completely empathize with him. Reading the comments above annoyed me so I can only imagine what it was like on his side.

Frogboy, I'm sorry you have to deal with stuff like this

Actually, no he doesn't. Demigod has been on the bestseller list long enough for Stardock and GPG to have made plenty of money on it. They really could have walked away from it weeks ago. But you're right, we can totally keep them here by insulting them and making the forums a living hell to traverse. You're brilliant. Really.

If it was really so bad, you wouldn't have spent time on it. Those of us with jobs know that forty dollars for a luxury that lasts as many hours as we've put into Demigod is well worth it. And again, you can make them work harder on it by whining. Really, you can. Keep posting.

You're right. Who has time to wait 3 minutes in Pantheon for a game to boot up? Not me, way too busy. Busy busy busy. Busy posting on the forums about how long it takes to get a game up.

Frankly, with the amount of time people spend whining on the forums, they could have earned their money back and bought a new game.

RE: The Dawn of War 2 patch list.

The new patch is pretty damn impressive. DoW2 came out 2 months before DG, do you think in 2 months we will be seeing a similar amount of progress from GPG?

Different projects, different budgets etc. but I don't feel it's an overly unfair comparison. Both companies are veterans of the industry (and both make games I really like) and have experience with RTS games in particular.

Also worth noting that despite the giant changelog DoW2 has, there are *still* balance issues (tac blobs, barbed strangler).

I'd be sad if frogboy has really decided to stop posting in here due to a minority of individuals. I've found his posts inciteful and his enthusiasm for the product has helped to keep it going. I'm not aware of any other publisher who has been so proactive towards a product they publish

looking forward it needs that enthusiasm if its going to develop.

Tals

I agree, i was very suprised when i saw Frogboy devotion for communicating with players and because of this i started to love Stardock and it will stay that way. It's sad Frogboy that you are leaving but i'd like to say thank you for what you were doing here (and i have a small hope you won't be gone for good).

I'm going to stick to Demigod and most of all to Stardock's games because i know you care about your customers/players like no other company does.

Freudian slip, I assume you meant insightful :p

if it's any consolation to Stardock, the TF2 forums are much worse!

Regardless of any other arguments, having the CEO of a company having these irrational emotion-driven decisions seems ridiculous, immature, and unprofessional.

The state of delivery of software projects (and this extends beyond gaming) sucks for everyone involved right now. A company that builds to spec spends just as much resources defining what they will deliver to a client, and the client still doesn't understand/wants more. If someone pushes and they get something extra for free, why wouldn't they do it again?

Video games and shrinkwrapped software is even worse. It used to be that you bought a game, and that was it. If a game sucked, you returned it (which I can assume retailers and distributors hated). But there was no patching, begging for improvements, etc. Today, you buy a game, and the devs/publisher know completely well that it is isn't finished. There is a certain trust that the purchaser has to have that the game will be fixed and patched. The problem is that there is no contract to do so with the customer. How as the CEO do you determine when Demigod is "done"? How does the customer determine it is "done"? Probably far further down the line than the CEO. Their expectations aren't inline, and people get pissed.

However, as the CEO of a company, you are expected to make rational decisions that deal with your reality. Software delivery today is broken and you can make a step to change it, learn to control expectations reasonably, or otherwise deal with the situation. When you come on the forums and make a bunch of promises which you fail to deliver on, people get upset. It is the public outbursting that is a discredit to the company.

Wait wait wait... are you seriously telling frogboy to be like the average CEO? Hell, most CEO's couldnt give a rats ass what you say let alone read the crap you post and deffenitatly wouldnt give you the time of day to reply. I dont even know what promises you are complaining about, the 2 demigods? What the devil man, would this be the first time something in the gaming industry couldnt meet the time window presented?

As a CEO you are expected to make money. Period. You should be grateful stardock and thier CEO frogboy care more about thier costumers than thier bottom line. Frogboy's human, thank god, and someone can only be pushed so far before they just gotta let it out.

something about what you wrote really pisses me off, probably because you feel so haughty that you have a right to tell someone to do thier job. Seriously, thats one of my worst pet-peeves.

hmm  this game  how to rate it

idea = 95

gamplay = 86

graphics = 87

content = 20

fixes = 70

SD

support = 80

readyness = 10

forum = 75

GPG

Development = 85

balance = 79

i would say this is a great game for a bout 2-3 months but  then it is  repeatertive and seeing as most gamers  dont like doing everything the exact same way it is a bit boring

the lack of content is  my biggest worry about this game GPG has a contract say they have to give new content for  a year btu it doesn't say when they have to give it  so they could have 2 demis  4 maps and give it to us in december

SD doesn't want this game to fail   but GPG  have other things to do in mind as in sup com 2  so let look at this

SD wants the game to wrok  incrreasing there profit margin  GPG is  the one who  has to make the new content

Frog or SD member  why dont you guys make the content yourselves then when GPG's content comes  it will be as bigger boost

and i bet most of the people who bitch about the game would shut up(including me)  if the game gets new content i will start playing again and i will tell all my friends  who i have told not to buy this  game to buy it  i will also post  on all the forums i go on which is about 20  that this game is a good one and worth looking at now

so please SD pimp your game

I was unable to play games online properly when i bought this game.

Stardock fixed that comprehensively.

Hence stardock, for me at least, has been able to introduce another 8 people (friends whom i have recommended to buy the game) to their brand and its positive-towards-pc-gamer beliefs.

It always seem to happen that good word of mouth goes unreported, whilst a public forum allows for even the most minor of innocuous inconveniences to be recorded and seen by the world.

Honestly, the amount of support from a publisher towards a game they didn't even develop has astounded me. And i am very grateful for it, it is not something i have ever demanded entitlement of.

I honestly believe that when team matching is made available, and when official team-matched competitions online take place(as pointed out as future flagged), with its inherently obvious ability to be broadcast and watched online, that demigod will then "take off" in its counterstrike-esque roles as leading RPS.

Cheers stardock. Keep on GPG for us here please.

There's a reason you think "they don't give a rat's ass". Arguing with random people on their forum isn't in the best interest of the company.

Honestly, I think the content in this game is perfectly fine. I am happy with the maps and demigods that exist. I don't think many people are really qualified enough to claim complete mastery over the existing demigods. It is the fact that the damn thing doesn't work that I am talking about. How many times did Frogboy say the connection issues were going to be fixed in the next patch? Or that the stats were going to work? Or that the lobby was going to hang/people disappear/etc/etc.? Hell, right here on the box it says that I will be able to play with 9 other people online, and several months after release, I still can't get that to work. Even if these things did get fixed, the game would still be missing basic features that you come to expect in a multiplayer game, ESPECIALLY one that basically has no single player component - usable rankings and matchmaking, any sorts of arranged team/party/clan system, etc.

I work as a software dev and if I acted out emotionally every time I went into a meeting where a client or user bashed what I had poured a huge chunk of my life into, I would probably have committed suicide by now. You learn pretty quickly that you need to take it with a grain of salt, keep a level head, and push the product forward, because it is a very hard thing to define what you are going deliver and to keep so many interested parties happy. And you don't go around promising the sun, the moon, and the stars because you damn well aren't going to be able to deliver it.

Frogboy is free to do his job however he wants, however it is my opinion that he has seriously discredited himself and Stardock by engaging in public flame wars. If he isn't willing to see this project through, why should we?

the best intrest in a company is money   when u get down to it thwe main point is money

Haha im there with ya!  I'll be fighting to the end for this game against the haters.

He is still going to do journal updates, but he's stated he will not be ingaging in the forums anymore until the uncontructive posters leave.  I have NO problem with that, and love the fact that Frogboy is human and shows emotion, rather than being a professional robot only caring about money.  To each his own I guess, but in my mind Frogboy getting upset and telling the trolls to f*off tells me he's a human being who cares about his game, which in turn shows that he cares about the image of his company.  It shows that Stardock doesn't give up on a product just because it goes beyond professional protocol.

Because making a stardock praise thread when I personally believed they did not deserve praise was constructive? Morale boost may have been the maximum constructiveness it could have offered. I know im the target of all these troll thread's, and thats fine. I just call things like I see them, if that happens to anger an entire community, then I think that community has problems to begin with.

Stardock believes they support games, and that makes them the ultimate publisher. This would be a credit to them in this case, however, as I see it the "support" we are getting that no other publisher gives has been getting the game back up to basic functionality. Just because GPG said "DONE" doesn't make it done in the minds of the consumer, and for him to believe that we should respect the fact they just wanted to move on is hard for me to swallow. In the end, it is both GPG and Stardocks fault for the state the game was on release, and now. Like my post stated, I actually do empathize with stardock as they seem to have gotten more of a short end of the stick than GPG did, but that doesn't let me give them a free pass on my next purchase. Next time i'll make sure its a finished product that is getting stardocks support.

Sorry if it seemed directed at you Wicked, not my intention.  I do believe this thread is contructive not to the game but to the community, because as we see it now this community is going down the shitter.  These threads are being posted by the players who are not flamers and are trying to re-define the DG community.  Will it work? Who knows for sure, but I won't give up on this game or the support SD gives it.

And I believe your point is valid on making sure products are finished when they are released.  I do this for everygame I purchase, and I believe you have the right to think that.  Personally though, I bought this game after 1.1 so I have had ZERO connection problems.  I'm very lucky for that, but I'm just trying to encourage people to direct their concerns in a different approach, such as if you have a tech problem, send an e-mail to their SD support rather than produce a flame thread with all caps and make our communtity look like asshats.  My fight is to re-define DG's image going on in the threads, and I don't think you are part of the problem.  Your posts are constuctive and give real points, and from those we can come up with future solutions.

[quote who="WickedBear" reply="15" id="2310626"]I know im the target of all these troll thread's, and thats fine. I just call things like I see them, if that happens to anger an entire community, then I think that community has problems to begin with.[quote]

WOW. GODMODE

persoanly i side with wicked me and him are both honest and the maturity of the comunity  have no backbone   in fact most people these days dont have a backbone

ever one here is too agreeable and submissive  they do what the pubs say with out questioning then there is the people who hump the legs of the people above them/in charge  as in frogboy

the publishers  are doing there job bbby  keeping the game runing  and if it is there motive to keep the community as happy as possible  then they will do but if there motive is to earn ttones of money and fuck everone over  then they will

people dont realise too the publishers and developers this isn't for fun it is buisness  they may have fun doing it but it doesn't mean it is for fun

i bet if SD asked the people who  dont blindly folo what they think should be improved i bet they would get more money

dam forums bugging out

Yeah I gotta make a confession...I have no back bone because I didn't bark, complain, and whine at stardock.

I can barely read what you say.

people who have no backbone folo the leader blindly  and some- most people here do that  i anit naming anyone or not naming anyone

if u feel like i have upset ur masculinaty drug  feel free to say

no dude, I'm not upset about you calling me out specifically or anything. You didn't call me out. I'm upset that you are saying that the people who aren't bitching and whining in a childish manner have no back bone.

*edit*

for the record..a lot of guys who aren't bitching and complaining are suggesting new features and stuff, but they are doing it in a more mature way and with the understanding that there are business processes that have to be followed when it comes to this stuff.

With such an atittude you tend to get what you ask for.

Frogboy wasn't here because of the money. If you knew him, you'd realize that. He was here because he cared about the game and the community. 

Demigod's success or failure has little effect on Stardock overall. If you knew more about the company, you would have realized that. 

Perhaps some people here actually talk to other people in person the way they do online but I somehow doubt that. No one is asking anyone to kiss anyone's butt. Brad simply expected some civility. Since that appeared to be too much to ask, he chose to no longer participate here. 

I`ve read quite a few of your posts and never really had a problem with anything you`ve written.  After reading that, I`ve come to the conclusion that you`re an idiot.  You think you have a back bone because you can post some rant`s on a forum?  Maybe behind your PC monitor you grow a solid back bone.  What about the real world?  Are you spineless?  Do you bend over for your own shadow?  After reading your last two posts, I honestly think you must be drunk.  Your spelling and grammer are usually off.  Nothing like that gibberish you posted in reply #43 though. 

I could be wrong, I was under the impression english was the native language of Great Britain.