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Demigod: Putting my money where my mouth is
Over the years I've rarely if ever let an opportunity to slam pretty much every aspect of DRM pass me by. So when I heard that an upcoming game called Demigod was going to be released without any sort of DRM at all, I just had to reward that by buying a copy.
Someone from the publisher Stardock had this to say:
"Second, since Demigod has zero copy protection on it, it meant that that piracy on this title will, in theory, be maximized. Stardock’s position on piracy is pretty straight forward but to repeat it here: It’s not that we don’t think piracy is massive. We just aren’t convinced that it results in that many lost sales. Or more to the point, we don’t think intrusive, obnoxious copy protection will result in more sales than we lose from people who don’t want to mess with it."
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/34
As luck would have it, the game is also a lot of fun, but more on that in a moment.
Stardock is taking an interesting approach to their IP. First, that unique key on the back of the manual? You don't enter that when installing the program. In fact, if you want to install it on multiple computers across your LAN for some multiplayer action, they've explicitly allowed this. That key is entered when you create an online account on their Impulse service. This allows you to participate in various forms of online play. They're treating the online services as a value add, an enticement to have a valid key.
I've enjoyed a lot of RTS games, but the ones I've enjoyed most broke away from the C&C formula somewhat, games like Myth, Sacrifice and now Demigod. In this game you mainly interact with the environment through your character, a demigod. You choose your demigod from a list of eight, four "assassins" and four "generals". Assassins roam the battlefield alone, while generals can summon a small number of minions as well. The bulk of the units on the battlefield are allies, which are entirely AI controlled. Each of the demigods I've tried so far plays quite a bit differently.
As you do battle, your demigod gains XP and levels up. Each demigod has it's own set of skill trees allowing you to customize it. You can also spend the gold you earn on regular gear and powerful relics. You also gain favour points for achieving certain goals during the battle (most kills, etc), which can be used to purchase persistent benefits for your demigod.
I found the tactical and strategic aspects of the game interesting. Tactically you need to decide where to deploy your demigod, capturing flags, recapturing flags, hunting enemy demigods, assisting your allies, etc. Strategically you build your demigod in various ways, and you decide how to spend your gold. You can improve your character through gear, buy healing and mana potions and other expendables, and buy upgrades for your citadel (ie: home base). These upgrades can improve your allies, defensive buildings, gold flow, xp rate, and add new allies.
I've found so far that I don't have nearly enough gold to pursue all these different options, so I'm experimenting with different approaches. Focusing on new allies works well. Different demigods will work well with different strategies. A general has to buy increasingly expensive tiers of totems to summon it's minions, cutting into the gold available for other strategies.
I've enjoyed the game so much I'll have to check out Stardock's other offerings.
Someone from the publisher Stardock had this to say:
"Second, since Demigod has zero copy protection on it, it meant that that piracy on this title will, in theory, be maximized. Stardock’s position on piracy is pretty straight forward but to repeat it here: It’s not that we don’t think piracy is massive. We just aren’t convinced that it results in that many lost sales. Or more to the point, we don’t think intrusive, obnoxious copy protection will result in more sales than we lose from people who don’t want to mess with it."
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/34
As luck would have it, the game is also a lot of fun, but more on that in a moment.
Stardock is taking an interesting approach to their IP. First, that unique key on the back of the manual? You don't enter that when installing the program. In fact, if you want to install it on multiple computers across your LAN for some multiplayer action, they've explicitly allowed this. That key is entered when you create an online account on their Impulse service. This allows you to participate in various forms of online play. They're treating the online services as a value add, an enticement to have a valid key.
I've enjoyed a lot of RTS games, but the ones I've enjoyed most broke away from the C&C formula somewhat, games like Myth, Sacrifice and now Demigod. In this game you mainly interact with the environment through your character, a demigod. You choose your demigod from a list of eight, four "assassins" and four "generals". Assassins roam the battlefield alone, while generals can summon a small number of minions as well. The bulk of the units on the battlefield are allies, which are entirely AI controlled. Each of the demigods I've tried so far plays quite a bit differently.
As you do battle, your demigod gains XP and levels up. Each demigod has it's own set of skill trees allowing you to customize it. You can also spend the gold you earn on regular gear and powerful relics. You also gain favour points for achieving certain goals during the battle (most kills, etc), which can be used to purchase persistent benefits for your demigod.
I found the tactical and strategic aspects of the game interesting. Tactically you need to decide where to deploy your demigod, capturing flags, recapturing flags, hunting enemy demigods, assisting your allies, etc. Strategically you build your demigod in various ways, and you decide how to spend your gold. You can improve your character through gear, buy healing and mana potions and other expendables, and buy upgrades for your citadel (ie: home base). These upgrades can improve your allies, defensive buildings, gold flow, xp rate, and add new allies.
I've found so far that I don't have nearly enough gold to pursue all these different options, so I'm experimenting with different approaches. Focusing on new allies works well. Different demigods will work well with different strategies. A general has to buy increasingly expensive tiers of totems to summon it's minions, cutting into the gold available for other strategies.
I've enjoyed the game so much I'll have to check out Stardock's other offerings.
If you're looking for more gaming goodness from Stardock, you can check out Galactic Civilization. It is a Civ-like game set in outer space (duh) and I found it quite fun when I was playing it some years back. They also have a Galatic Civilization 2, though I haven't had the chance to play that one yet I have heard it surpasses the original.
Amusing anecdote: somehow, I managed to blindly stumble into the "effectively infinite supply of credits" glitch (which I didn't even notice at first). Even with that bit of unintentional cheatery on my part, I still had to work at winning the main scenario. So it is a well-balanced game, in my experience.