NOTE: Multiplayer Server Slowness

from Demigod Forums

To recap: Demigod's street date is tomorrow (4/14). But one retailer released it early which, in itself was problematic. Then, a couple days later, warez versions from the retail version started showing up on the net.  Until release day, only the test servers are up.

The result is that multiplayer is likely to be unbelievably slow (in terms of interacting with the Demigod UI).  Now, had the street date had been adhered to, it wouldn't have been a problem (even with piracy) because the servers will be up tomorrow.

However, we are taking this opportunity to launch these servers onto a different cluster and update Demigod today (we hope) with a version that will point to this new data cluster.

The good news is that people with legitimate licenses can download a very small update to Demigod and get very fast performance.  The bad news is that the gameplay experience for warez users will be awful as we plan to migrate most of our remaining test servers over to the release server cluster at the earliest opportunity.

 

demigod
6,079 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for the update. Any word on the day 0 patch, though? No reply on that yet, I just want to know if it's already included with our downloads before I start playing because Impulse is saying I have 1.00 which is retail and it's not offering any updates nor am I getting a prompt to do so when I go online ingame.

Sorry to be a bother, I'm not angry or anything. Just don't want to play with an outdated version and get wrong opinions of the Demigods\gameplay when a lot has already been changed. Thus I patiently wait for a reply.

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

The bad news is that the gameplay experience for warez users will be awful
End of quote

 

Why is this bad news lol? Warez users are lucky enough to play it.

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Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

"The bad news is that the gameplay experience for warez users will be awful as we plan to migrate most of our remaining test servers over to the release server cluster at the earliest opportunity."

How is that bad news? :p

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top

They will post bad things about speed issues

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

It is sad to hear that a company needs to care for the warez people.  I know you want them to have a good experience so they end up buying the game as well.

Nex time you'll know to have those new data servers ready even before release date even if it's expensive to rent them.

Good luck.

Reply #6 from Demigod Forums Top

I think he's being tongue in cheek.

Reply #7 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Istari, reply 6
I think he's being tongue in cheek.
End of Istari's quote

Is he?  I read an interesting post by Michael Fitch, one of the designers for Titan Quest, about how not supporting pirates is much worse than you'd think:

Quoting Michael,
One, there are other costs to piracy than just lost sales. For example, with TQ, the game was pirated and released on the nets before it hit stores. It was a fairly quick-and-dirty crack job, and in fact, it missed a lot of the copy-protection that was in the game. One of the copy-protection routines was keyed off the quest system, for example. You could start the game just fine, but when the quest triggered, it would do a security check, and dump you out if you had a pirated copy. There was another one in the streaming routine. So, it's a couple of days before release, and I start seeing people on the forums complaining about how buggy the game is, how it crashes all the time. A lot of people are talking about how it crashes right when you come out of the first cave. Yeah, that's right. There was a security check there.

So, before the game even comes out, we've got people bad-mouthing it because their pirated copies crash, even though a legitimate copy won't. We took a lot of shit on this, completely undeserved mind you. How many people decided to pick up the pirated version because it had this reputation and they didn't want to risk buying something that didn't work? Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy.
End of Michael's quote

 

Source:  http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=42663

Reply #8 from Demigod Forums Top

Thank you, for the update Frogboy. I was wondering about some of the issues going around.

Reply #9 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting lord, reply 7

Michael Fitch One, there are other costs to piracy than just lost sales. For example, with TQ, the game was pirated and released on the nets before it hit stores. It was a fairly quick-and-dirty crack job, and in fact, it missed a lot of the copy-protection that was in the game. One of the copy-protection routines was keyed off the quest system, for example. You could start the game just fine, but when the quest triggered, it would do a security check, and dump you out if you had a pirated copy. There was another one in the streaming routine. So, it's a couple of days before release, and I start seeing people on the forums complaining about how buggy the game is, how it crashes all the time. A lot of people are talking about how it crashes right when you come out of the first cave. Yeah, that's right. There was a security check there.

So, before the game even comes out, we've got people bad-mouthing it because their pirated copies crash, even though a legitimate copy won't. We took a lot of shit on this, completely undeserved mind you. How many people decided to pick up the pirated version because it had this reputation and they didn't want to risk buying something that didn't work? Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy.

Source:  http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=42663
End of lord's quote

 

Titan Quest was a great game, but you have to admit that their security check was a poorly implemented idea. At least display a message that says "Bad pirate!" before crashing them out.

Reply #10 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Nalgae, reply 9

Titan Quest was a great game, but you have to admit that their security check was a poorly implemented idea. At least display a message that says "Bad pirate!" before crashing them out.
End of Nalgae's quote

 

Lawl! Now there's some good copy protection!

 

Reply #11 from Demigod Forums Top

Is this small update still on track for today?

Reply #12 from Demigod Forums Top

I actually only remember one game doing this, XIII, a cel-shaded shooter, seriously, you'd think they'd spent more time protecting the game than developing.

 

If i recall correctly parts of the copy protection were everywhere, they were in executables, in textures, models, maps, etc.

So basically they had taken care of the copy protection, but the copy protection were still there due to being implemented in various game assets, heck you'd get to a point in the level and it would say something like "To get this key, you should purchase the full game", the key was of course a prerequisite for some goal in the map that allowed you to progress.

I don't even think it got cracked, there was simply so much copy protection that they couldn't be bothered in the end, every time they fixed something like the key, then it was suddenly another thing, and so on, and so on.

Reply #13 from Demigod Forums Top

Hi frogboy,

so are the test servers still up right now or have we got the fast servers now ?

They seem to act like the way you described the beta servers to be acting, at the top of this thread, please let us know.  apologies if this has been answered but couldn't see it in another thread

 

sol