Stardock Tells the Dark Tale of Demigod's Release, Promises Updates, Demo

The release of Stardock and GPG's RTS-action title Demigod has been a troubled one. With thousands of players--legitimate users and otherwise--harassing the game's servers, the title was made unplayable online for many.

"Demigod's connectivity problems have basically boiled down to 1 bad design decision and 1 architectural limitation," writes Stardock CEO Brad Wardell in a new blog post that outlines the situation.

Ungodly networking issues have plagued Demigod.

Wardell explains, in storybook format, the reason that hypothetical Demigod players "Tom" and "Alice" probably have had issues playing Demigod online. The whole thing has something to do with sockets, and considering I thought the show "24" invented those, it's best left to the technical minded. The short form is that help is on the way.

The current plan includes a patch on Wednesday that will alleviate the proxy hysteria, followed up by ongoing support from the company. Wardell also mentioned that a demo, likely multiplayer-only, should be released in the near future.

As for how the connection issues affected the game, Wardell says that the game is selling "slightly" slower than its 2008 cult hit Sins of a Solar Empire.

"The difficult launch definitely hurt the game," he said. "There's no way around it. Besides upsetting a lot of people anxious for a good multiplayer game, you also have the fact that those early negative reviews are going to linger."

Added Wardell: "A lot of Demigod's long-term success depends, in my opinion, on whether we're able to "perfect" Demigod's online experience before a viable alternative shows up."