Stardock, that's a bit harsh

Quote from Istari

The announcement and store link were scheduled to go up today but the plan has changed to simply add it to everyone's accounts with the consequence being that there will be no additional demigods or maps added since it is pretty clear that the amount of hostility would overcome any value of the additional content.
I am almost speechless o_O

If Istari is really being serious here... I mean... he can't be... but if so, Stardock is actually actively destroying Demigod and the Community by letting the hostile trolls who whined about the DLC system get to them. This just can't be true? I mean that's simply military style punishment. A few guys are hostile and you guys decide to punish the whole community.

 

After all, if this is the response of a free Demigod being added to the game one can only imagine what the response would have been to content that cost money.
Again, I can't believe that I am reading this from a Stardock employee... Istari, you seem to have completely misjudged the situation. The exact opposite would happen, if there was content that cost money. People were complaining that they had to go through this procedure for free content. They simply did not understand why they have to do this, since they got Demon Assassin automatically too. If you offer DLC that cost money in the future there would certainly be not such an outrage about the system. The system is perfectly fine and simple for DLC that cost money. In the eyes of the complainers the hassle of adding Occulus manually to your account for free was simply pointless.

17,658 views 76 replies
Reply #1 Top

Actually I am not surprised; the community has got less less friendly towards stardock. I wouldn't be surprsied if demigod is scrapped with in the next three months. 

Reply #2 Top

Meh, the only thing that suprises me is that it didn't happen sooner.

Reply #3 Top

That's not true, most of the trolls have vanished, thankfully, or they simply didn't bother to troll the forum anymore.

Reply #4 Top

 

 

Stardock, that's a bit harsh

 

Completely agree - but I guess the community reaction was a bit over the top - I guess the feeling is that any new add ons are going to be more trouble than they are worth......

Reply #5 Top

But it isn't more trouble. People were just complaining, that they had to manually add free content to their game through the Impulse store, even though they received Demon Assassin automatically before. Furthermore, some people had trouble getting Occulus, some are still not able to play with him. Some are even not able to play Demon Assassin. So some people were simply outraged about additional bugs, but that's simply a different issue.

Reply #6 Top

The point was to see how many still play the game; and everyone simply bitched about it. I mean I had one or two problems with doing it, but I didn't go off flaming stardock about it.

Reply #7 Top

Quoting Spooky__, reply 5
But it isn't more trouble. People were just complaining, that they had to manually add free content to their game through the Impulse store, even though they received Demon Assassin automatically before. Furthermore, some people had trouble getting Occulus, some are still not able to play with him. Some are even not able to play Demon Assassin. So some people were simply outraged about additional bugs, but that's simply a different issue.
I couldn't play with either, but that is no excuse; members would and still is happy to try and help those who couldn't. Most are just simply impatient and wanted them asap.

Reply #8 Top

Well, if the people who seem to know what is going on have problems, can you imagine what is going to happen to the average Joes who need to do this?

Probably a smarter move so Impulse support is not bogged down helping 1000s of people individually.

PS: I had no problem activating Occ in this matter. :D

Reply #9 Top

+1 Spooky

 

It would have been nice to have gotten an announcement before the update. I think that would have cleared up this confusion nicely.

 

I think a lot of us would pay for new content. I should have been smart enough to realize that they were just testing out a system for new DLC. :/

 

If Istari is really being serious here... I mean... he can't be...

Unless they were looking for a reason to stop providing content. :/ I really hope that's not the reason, but it doesn't make sense.

Reply #10 Top

Damn, and I was actively defending and even somewhat promoting Demigod at another website to attract some new players (I got about 5 members so far to at least try the demo) as well as recently, starting to host Noob Training rooms to try and help give the newer guys a helping hand in the game from a veteran. With an attitude like this from SD though, I question whether it's even worth continuing to do either...

Reply #11 Top

Honestly I do not understand why there are not more Demigod players. It is nearly perfect! I love this Game!

I would be even willing to pay money for new maps!

I hope the community will grow faster and that there is hope for a Demigod II in some Years. This Idea/Game has to become the God of Games :-)

 

PS: I had no problem activating Occ in this matter too!

Reply #12 Top

Quoting LORD-ORION, reply 8
Well, if the people who seem to know what is going on have problems, can you imagine what is going to happen to the average Joes who need to do this?

Probably a smarter move so Impulse support is not bogged down helping 1000s of people individually.

PS: I had no problem activating Occ in this matter.
You are mixing different issues here. First of all, "Average Joe" does not need to buy downloadable content. If he wants to buy downloadable content, then he has to know that there actually is downloadable content to buy. And he knows that, because he saw it somewhere and therefore finding the right place to buy it will not be a problem for him.

Secondly, if average Joe has a problem after he bought the download able content, i.e. it's not unlocked in his game, it's a simple matter of support and this is not different from other issues and has nothing to do with the actual way of getting downloadable content.

Reply #13 Top

 

UK amazon retailers seem to have done a brisk trade of demigod this month (e.g. saying they had only a few left and then cancelling my order!), but I reckon the only ways it is going to hit critical mass are:

 

1) Re-visits by gaming magazines / sites.

2) Being marketed as a good value budget game by retailers.

But considering what happened yesterday, doesn't seem likely that Stardock are gonna put a whole lot more effort into this (to be fair can we really blame them?).

Reply #14 Top

I think you are reading too much from this statement Spooky, doubt a thing such as a few people being pissed would prevent a company from making some more money :)

Stardock got their DLC activation tested, and from what I could tell it worked flawlessly.

So now GPG can actually go ahead and make some DLC, knowing they can actually release it on a platform that works.

 

Wheter or not that will happen is a much bigger question though.

Reply #15 Top

That's not how it works Sevenix. Stardock has to estimate how much money they get from a DLC item and weigh it against the cost of making that DLC item. And Istari very clearly said, that they do not want to offer any more downloadable content, because of the hostility they received. I also hope that he mad that statement only in the heat of the moment, but Frogboy said something similar too, if I remembe correctly.

Reply #16 Top

Actually what frog boy said, "it was to see if it would be worth making new maps and content." But it isn't worth it.

Reply #17 Top

 

Frogboy's comment seemed pretty ominous to me:

 

It's really hard to take people serious who don't realize that Stardock isn't the developer of the game. And btw, GPG did an amazing job with Oculus and he's free.

I can say though this is the free content Demigod is likely to get. No one wants to deal with the community when it comes to new releases. It's a good group online but in the forums, good grief.

To make it easier, I'll ask them to just add Oculus to everyone's account automatically. The idea was to find out how many active Demigod users there were who were willing to go through a store page to add a Demigod to their account.

 

Reply #18 Top

This seems rediculous to me, though there is a good chance im missing something so sorry if I'm way off with this reply.

When I bought the game I was under the impression new content will be coming for free, for quite some time...  Isn't this game under a year old? Than you were gonna charge players for it, now you're saying since some of you are not happy we wont do anything, not even as DLC.  2 more dgs is all you get.

Sounds like a teenage excuse to avoid spending resources on the game, not like a serious way to handle issues by a serious company.  Shouldn't a good company try to improve the product instead of looking for excuses to dump it (and using consumers that purchased it as such lol?).

at least dont offend us with a lame statement like this.  Instead say sales are lower than we expected and we have no funding to continue developing the game, while DLC is not likely to attract enough support aswell...

My understanding is that GPG and not stardock is responsible for most updates tho right?  This statement makes think something failed within one of them and they decided to put the blame on us!

In the end to me it was a good game and i definately got my money's worth in the end, even if no more content will be released..  But this statement is like the biggest fail I've seen (even worse than desyncs!).  Wow...

Reply #19 Top

As far as I'm concerened, Stardock have done one hell of a job supporting a completely busted game, they managed to get it to a playable condition, and they delivered on their promises to provide two new demigods for free after the games release. I got my £35 worth or however much I paid for this game on release, and still have quite a lot of lols owning it up in multiplayer.

I am not going to QQ if there is no more content, because I am quite happy with the current maps + demigods really.

Considering the small player base, it really is not worth it to release premium content for extra £££.

But thanks Stardock for trying to fix up the game as much as possible and delivering the content that was promised to gamers.





ShakeNBake

Reply #20 Top

Quoting iokke, reply 18
This seems rediculous to me, though there is a good chance im missing something so sorry if I'm way off with this reply.

When I bought the game I was under the impression new content will be coming for free, for quite some time...  Isn't this game under a year old? Than you were gonna charge players for it, now you're saying since some of you are not happy we wont do anything, not even for free, 2 more dgs is all you get.

Sounds like a teenage excuse to avoid spending resources on the game, not like a serious way to handle issues by a serious company.  Shouldn't a good company try to improve the product? 

at least dont offend us with a lame statement like this.  Instead say sales are lower than we expected and we have no funding to continue developing the game, while DLC is not likely to attract enough support aswell...

My understanding is that GPG and not stardock is responsible for most updates tho right?

In the end to me it was a good game and i definately got my money's worth in the end, even if no more content will be released..  But this statement is like the biggest fail I've seen (even worse than desyncs!).  Wow..

They only said the first two Demigods would be free, they talked about ways more content would added and paid for after that. Also, the contract for new content between GPG and Stardock only lasts a year after release if I'm not mistaken.

Reply #21 Top

Ok that makes more sense now, my friend who got me to buy this game mislead me..  still a bad way to back out of DLC

Reply #22 Top

I am not going to QQ if there is no more content, because I am quite happy with the current maps + demigods really.
I am fine with any business based decision they have to make about new content. I simply have to accept that. But I am not fine with a decision based on a few hostile comments on the forum.

Reply #23 Top

with the consequence being that there will be no additional demigods or maps added since it is pretty clear that the amount of hostility would overcome any value of the additional content.

Ok so read as follows:

with the consequence being that there will be no additional demigods or maps added since its pretty clear that not enough players will buy DLC to cover the value (cost) of additional content.  That i understand, smaller than expected playerbase i understand, I dont get why bs us..

Reply #24 Top

Even with a statement formed like that, the "it's pretty clear" would indicate that the decision was made because of the hostile comments. And don't forget the second statement.

Reply #25 Top

Quoting Spooky__, reply 12



Quoting LORD-ORION,
reply 8
Well, if the people who seem to know what is going on have problems, can you imagine what is going to happen to the average Joes who need to do this?

Probably a smarter move so Impulse support is not bogged down helping 1000s of people individually.

PS: I had no problem activating Occ in this matter. You are mixing different issues here. First of all, "Average Joe" does not need to buy downloadable content. If he wants to buy downloadable content, then he has to know that there actually is downloadable content to buy. And he knows that, because he saw it somewhere and therefore finding the right place to buy it will not be a problem for him.


Secondly, if average Joe has a problem after he bought the download able content, i.e. it's not unlocked in his game, it's a simple matter of support and this is not different from other issues and has nothing to do with the actual way of getting downloadable content.

No, the two problems are directly related. If the people who know what is going on fail on FREE content... there is no point in doing additional content $$$ because the masses will fail miserably or worse too.

Stardock will get a bunch of grief, not make any money, and nobody will be happy on both sides.

The "hostile" comments from Star Dock are being blown out of proportion. Frogboy's comment was not hostile, and Istari's opinion is simply what I said in a more frustrated tone. 

There is no more content $$$ coming now after this experiment, so the smart thing to do is end the experiment immediately, which is what was done.