Demigod post launch, two month roundup

It's been just two months after the launch of Demigod, and after a bunch of very long workdays, Demigod connectivity is pretty solid and thousands upon thousands of people are currently playing online matches. In this time, Demigod has received a lot of press about the launch, including the affects on piracy, multiplayer gaming, and the PC game industry itself.

One aspect many people don't know is that Stardock documented this entire process in the form of videos and developer journals. Much of this was to keep customers and community members aware of what was going on, and to show a "behind the scenes" look at what goes on post-launch.

We have three documentary videos showing and talking with game and Impulse developers during a 108 work week, and some of the craziness that goes on at 4 in the morning.

• Demigod 108 Hour Work Week - Part 1
• Demigod 108 Hour Work Week - Part 2
• Demigod 108 Hour Work Week - Part 3

Demigod on launch day was a pure peer to peer networking game in which everyone connects to everyone else. This reduces lag since you are talking directly to the other user rather than through a server. Developer Gas Powered Games had previously used a program called GPGNet for Supreme Commander. GPGNet is an external program that handled all of the connectivity features for that game. Unfortunately, it had essentially been retired so it wasn't an option for Demigod. To solve that, we licensed a third party solution to take its place. We won't dwell on the details of how things went since it's been covered a great deal.

That put us all in a very difficult position. The connectivity issues had to be solved (obviously). It also became pretty clear that a largely new system from scratch that was far more robust was needed and needed fast. So who would develop it? There were four obvious options: Gas Powered Games, Stardock, Atari or Raknet.

If GPG had to develop it, that would take time and resources away from updating the game itself. That would mean fewer new features. Raknet could do it but it would take time and it's not "their game". Atari is a traditional publisher and it did not make sense to ask them to intervene at the 11th hour. That left Stardock. Since Stardock develops games and already has a robust networking program (Impulse) it was the logical choice. So over the last 6 weeks, we have created a new connectivity system.