How to view Replays

from Demigod Forums

First of all, I am pretty dissapointed that Demigod hasnt come with a proper Replay System. There is really no excuse to not have one on the day of release. Games that are 10 years old came with replay systems, I dont see why Demigod shouldnt.

The annoying thing is that replays are basically already in. After each game, your "LastGame.DGREPLAY File" will save, and if you want to keep it you can just rename it and next time you have a game it will save as "LastGame.DGREPLAY File".

At Gamereplays.org we've made a quick-fix so everyone can view their replays and other people's. The problem is that it is pretty buggy as GPG/SD haven't officially put it in. Link for the Replay Loader topic is below:
http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=405375

And to a Dev:
When are your plans to put one in?
If you have one, how soon are we talking (weeks, months etc.)?
Now I know this is offical GPG's job and not Stardock's, but could you contact GPG and ask them about whats happening with the replay system?

demigod
2,933 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

We were just talking about this in another thread. Hopefully it gets patched in within the first month, it's a huge part of competitve play. You really learn a lot by watching replays so you can see the mistakes everyone made (to learn from) and see exactly what extremely good players are doing right.

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

While having a replay system is a nice feature, it is in no ways a necessity for competitive play.  In fact, many top gamers at the professional level, i.e. make their living playing games like Starcraft, have advocated that a replay system has diminished the competitive field because so many people can just copy their strategies or see how they play.

Starcraft didn't have a replay system when the game first came out either.  It was patched in at a later time.

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Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

Age of Empire 2: Age of Kings came out with one....10 years old.

And BlackJack666 its a very valid point. However, I propose that this Replay System doesn't allow you to view other peoples items and what they bought, which is really the only thing people can "copy". The rest is down to experience/skill, which is what you cant copy.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting BlackJack666, reply 2
While having a replay system is a nice feature, it is in no ways a necessity for competitive play.  In fact, many top gamers at the professional level, i.e. make their living playing games like Starcraft, have advocated that a replay system has diminished the competitive field because so many people can just copy their strategies or see how they play.

Starcraft didn't have a replay system when the game first came out either.  It was patched in at a later time.
End of BlackJack666's quote

No, it's not needed but it is a big part of competitive play. Those top-star players are complaining about a long and ancient problem that's hardly limited to the pro gaming world and has little to do with replays specifically.

The same problem lives in magic the gathering, for example, where there are no replays (correction: aside from a few tournies). You will always get crappy players who can't think for themselves, but that's not part of this problem. The replay system encourages competitve play the same way it does for nearly every other competitve event, such as football.

Teams watch replays to see where they did poory and where they can improve and to see why another team was so effective against them. It's an incredible tool used by many pro teams, I'm surprised if most pro-starcraft teams really say that as replays are really popular in Korea for starcraft and I watch plenty of them from tournaments.

I myslf always keep a stock of them to see how I screwed up or why a particular strat. works so well against me and that helps me improve. That's completly different from just watching good players and simply copying them. That's simply something you can't get away from, "cookie cutter" is the name of the game, and you find it freaking everywhere. Cookie cutter builds in WoW, FFXI, the "best" builds in old school rpg's, the "best" (cookie cutter, in other words) builds in DotA., ect.

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

Agreed with Cerulean.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Well, I'm kind'a the gueny pig for my other gamer friends with this game.  No tutorial.  Ok, I can handle that and learn as I go.  No campain?  Wow, well, ok, I guess I can handle that too.  Then, I play my third skirmish, it was great, but with so many DemiGods, and so much happening, I just could not wait to watch the replay to see what I did right or wrong (and also see what was going on the other 60% of the time I could not see my allies).  I thought I was really stupid or something; unable to find the replay or movie button, when after a half-hour looking everywhere, I realized that there was NO replays.  I just could not beleive it was true, but a Google and this forum gave me the facts.:(   

What a HUGE and basic thing to leave out a game like this.  Watching replays is the way we learn; it's the way we see all the stuff you miss when your too busy concentraiting on the game to be a spectator; it's what we all do right after a Lan game, drinking our beer and laughing at all our mess-ups and occational great team work; and watching the replays of top players  in matches is like watching football is to sports fanatics.

How sad, but without replays, I really can't recomend this game to my friends.  But if they do add it later in a patch/update, I'll let them all know.  

Reply #7 from Demigod Forums Top

Yes the game really needs replays, and its really something that cant be left out...

For the time being, just use the Replay Loader provided in the link i put in the original post :)

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks Dalzk.  I got the Replay Loader, and watched my last Lan game.  Your instructions on how to use it were great, thanks.  But the replay was pretty buggy; only the demigods really showed up on the map, everything else looks like a blue ghost.    The majority of the sound effects/voices did'nt play either, and it just stopped about half way though; even when we restarted it.

But I guess it's better than nothing.  STILL can't beleive they don't have a replay ability in this game; just boggles the mind. . .