Replay System

Well over the Beta we never actually had any replay system. Someone made a mod so we could view replays (though we had to save/load them manually, and it was unbelivabely buggy) but it was never actually implemented for us to test.

So will the retail version have a replay system so we can save/load replays? Replays really help the competitive community thrive and I think without the replay system the competitive scene will REALLY get hurt. So many people wont even consider buying the game if they hear it has no replay system. Replays really help the new players learn how to play well and helps people share tatics/great moments with each other.

So anyway, if there will be a replay system included with the retail version, I think the following features would be great:

  • Fast Forward/Rewind. This is particulary important with Demigod imo as games are longer then the average RTS ones (I think?).
  • Be able to view games from each players perspective.
  • Be able to view the mouse clicks and panning from each players perspective
  • Be able to skip to certain parts of the replay (like in windows media player, you can skip to like 5minutes in then go back to 1 minute in)
  • Auto-Arrange them. You click an "auto-arrange" button and all the replays will get renamed in the format of NumberofPlayers_MapName_Gameduration (or some other format, just an example) so it would look like 2v2_Cataract_42:21

Anyway im not expecting those features but it would be awesome if those could be patched into them later.

Note: If you guys have forgot about the replay system please dont keep telling us you will patch it in and just do it 6months later when the game is dead. If its not in, please make sure its patched into Demigod within the week or month at latest. (Reason I say this is because I have had bad experiences with EaW doing this...man that was sad.)

Note2: Ive been told that Rewinding replays is near-impossible or just very hard to do.

 

7,452 views 25 replies
Reply #1 Top

If it doesn't have a replay feature I will be canceling my preorder as that is a major part of learning and drinking.

Reply #2 Top

Demigod is using the Supreme Commander engine, I recall, and Supreme Commander had a standard replay system that let you set the speed, lift/set fog of war and perspective of a certain player. It would be a major flaw if Demigod didn't have an equal or better replay system.

I mean, who wouldn't want to watch The Rook squash Sedna with his hammer in ultra slow motion?

Dawn of War 2 is a great spectator game also, I watch DoW 2 replays way more than I actually play the game. Though I am glad Demigod won't have minions fleeing back to the Citadel EVERY 20 seconds. At least they have the decency to die for our amusement. :D

('-')y

Reply #3 Top

Eh, I am not sure what the big deal would be if it did not have a replay system.  Sure I love watching replays in games like Starcraft, but have you watched a replay of a match of DotA?  B o r i n g!  I guess I will have to wait and see what the game is like I guess.  But generally the more people that are playing the less interesting I find the replay.  I prefer watching 1v1 and 2v2 matches.

Reply #4 Top

If the game has ladders and competition, it will need to have a feature to play replays Black.  Simple as that.

Reply #6 Top

I am going to assume a lot of people want to see the best of the best compete and the strategies they used, how they reacted to potential game turners and overall an exciting match that could have gone either way. Kind of like [insert your favorite sporting event] Championship match but instead of someone telling you, "Team BlahBlah won, it wuz epic", you can watch the match yourself. And you control the camera! And you can control the flow of time itself so you can get more pretzels and a rootbeer or whatever.

If the *majority* of players find the replays boring to watch, then Demigod did something terribly wrong during the development cycle. Usually replays are boring because the core gameplay end up the same (no variety of play styles/strategies/flow) or the victors can be called 2 minutes into the match when the replays are 30 minutes long.

I'd say those are pretty good reasons for making the Replay feature a priority, the game is good enough that you'd want to see a replay of a match.

('-')y

Reply #8 Top

I think there will be a replay system.

With this little mod you were able to set the speed of the replay (with + and -). But if there will be a timeline, no idea

Reply #9 Top

How is it simple as that?  Why does there NEED to be a replay system?
End of quote

Demigod doesnt "NEED" anything black. In fact, it doesnt NEED 8 Demigods, it could have only 2. It doesnt NEED to have online play, but it does. It doesnt NEED a replay system, but it should have one.

If the game has ladders and competition, it will need to have a feature to play replays Black.  Simple as that.
End of quote

Yes. The reason for this is people will want to view the big, important matches in the tournaments instead of just hearing about them (as mentioned before above). Also if there is a big tourny match, and the game crashes for someone, and then both players come out saying they should have won that (when it really was obvious one of them was going to win), then you need a replay to prove that. You CAN use screenshots but replays are 1000x more reliable for a situation like that.

Reply #10 Top

I generally spend more time watching replays of an RTS title then playing the game itself.

I'll often not only watch replays of other people playing but I will also watch my own games to look at what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. This is a lot easier to do watching a replay with your feet on the desk and a drink in your hand than during the stress of a live game while hunched over the monitor with the mouse tightly gripped in your sweaty palm.

Replays are a great way to enjoy a game. Turn on your tv and just take a look at the amount of sport 'replays' being shown. If you are into gaming instead of sport its just as entertaining in my opinion. Specially if you have a favourite replay of somebody trash talking you through a game and the colourful comments are recorded for perpetuity as you set fire to their house and break all their toys :rofl:

I've also sometimes joined a gaming community just to help new players develop. Replays are a critical part of that process as it allows a mentor to watch over a player's shoulder and provide tips on how they can improve their game. When this happens its over benefit to everybody playing the game as the quality of games is much higher.

So I think a replay system is very important to these kinds of games and I have no doubt there will be a replay system in place or plans to implement one.

Reply #11 Top

Yea I cant imagine why there wouldnt be a replay system, but I am just double checking as there wasnt one in the beta.

Reply #12 Top

Just a few points:

- The problem with replays in the beta was that they were bugged so they would often freeze partway in the game or would desync from the original.

- Replays were playable, however - Poita's "mod" (it was really more of a separate tool) just made it so that double-clicking a Demigod replay from Windows Explorer would automatically launch it in Demigod. 

- The actual ability to play replays was already in Demigod; it was a more basic version of Supcom's.  You could speed up or slow down the replay just like in Supcom.  They just had the "replay" portion of the game disabled, much like the "singleplayer" option was disabled.

- Rewind doesn't work (or usually doesn't, anyway) because replays simply keep track of the commands that each player made.  Playing a replay just tells the game to recreate the match.  This is why you can't just jump ahead in the replay; you can fast-forward, but the game still needs to make all the calculations to recreate the match.

- Replays are great for learning from the better players.  They also let newer/weaker players show their games to people so they can get advice.

Reply #13 Top

Confirmed by people who have the retail version of Demigod there is no Replay System :(

Reply #14 Top

But I think it´s on their "to-do list" =)

Reply #15 Top

hmm, it saves replays, but no viewer then?

Reply #16 Top

Replays are so important to a game like this; for learning; for teaching; for watching top players and clan play; and our favorite is to watch it after a Lan game, multiple times usually, cause 60% of the game can't be seen whe your concentraiting on your DemiGod/strategy.  Not to mention it's been a standard of most every RTS type game for many years now.

Reply #17 Top

They're also a great tool for show casing a bug in the game.

Reply #18 Top

I wanna know when they are releasing it. I hope its in about 2 weeks and no longer :\

Reply #19 Top

lol even sins had replays and it wasn't competitive. :x

Yeah they need to add/fix a lot of thigns quickly..

I think a lot of them are working on supcom2 or something. :(  That's my worry..

Reply #20 Top

Playing Warcraft 3 for so long I will tell you why there should be replays.

#1 Not everyone learns by mass gaming, if there is one mistake some people often do is try to get experience only by playing massive amounts of games. By going back and watching your previous games you can learn from the mistakes you've made. "Hey I shouldn't have done this, OOO I am so stupid why did I do that, I should have done this", it is one way to learn without playing and not understanding.

#2 Learning from others. "I am to pro to learn from other" Often the best way to learn is by seeing how better players then you play. They have more experience and you can learn from their play. You do not have to copy it but you can certainly get a better idea of what you can do in that situation that you didn't get out of but he did.

#3 Building a community. Replays are often a part of simply sharing your experience or showing off. It is great to build a community because you get to know people. If someone was so happy about making a comeback the last minute and ofcourse a way to express it is by sharing. People will see it, say "good job" some will say "OMFG NOOBS GO /WRIST". Sometimes your contact builds up as people start asking if you want to play with them or are interested in your skill for a clan.

 

There are more reason but I stick with thses for as long as I have been gaming.

Reply #21 Top

Showing a bug, yes, I forgot about that.  In Sins (and DoW2) they have LOTS of movies that helped squash bugs by showing the replay/movie.

Reply #22 Top

Replays would be awesome. Game play videos from replays are excellent promotional methods imo

Reply #23 Top

EDIT: accidental post, shouldn't be here :X

Reply #25 Top

Yea there is a way to watch replays as I already mentioned in the orginal post but like I said, its very buggy and has no features. Its near-useless :)