Demi-oh-my-god

It was supposed to be a fun get-together of eight players for a Demigod match. We were each going to write up 500 words on our experience and turn it into a nice multiplayer feature. What ensued was hilarity, calamity and frustration over the next hour and a half, and no game played.

Game Truster Tom Chick helped organize the match, pulling in myself, Bill Abner, Troy Goodfellow, Bruce Geryk, Jason McMaster, Kelly Wand and a friend of Tom's. We had spent the last couple days hashing this out, even checking connections early to make sure we could all connect. We had also set it up so each player would play a different demigod and each four-player team would chat via Skype to stay on top of strategies.

In the end, it was all for naught.

Chick set up a password protected lobby and we all started to meander in. All players were on Skype and we kept track of the connection progress of our teammates. When I reviewed Demigod, I played several multiplayer games with no issues. I stand by the review, but after last night, I understand all the frustrations players have pointed out in the Demigod forums. Chick must have reset the host game at least six times (once because he forgot to password protect it and several uninvited folks snuck in). Everyone was able to connect at one time or another, but we could never get everyone at once.

Finally, after we were about to give up after an hour of trying, Chick noticed that a patch had dropped sometime between when we started and were finishing. We speculated that that may have been the issue, with some people trying to connect incompatible versions of the game. We all added the patch (luckily it was a small one), and most of us were finally able to get into the lobby, except Goodfellow. Took him several tries, but finally, it looked like he made it in. We all clicked "ready," and Chick started the game ... and nothing happened. Chick later reported that, despite all of us appearing in the lobby, we weren't all "connected" as he got numerous host error messages in the lobby chat to that effect.

By that time, we were all slaphappy and we called it. We'll try again this weekend or next week and hopefully the issues will be resolved. What had started as a multiplayer get-together ended as a great Skype call. Too bad we could have played at the same time.