The Demo

[rabelais]

Hmmm. I think I'll start a strat review site, just to get an early copy.

Anyone know why black steel helmets only improve my wyrm's prot by 2 each? Is it a balance mod thing?

18 is pretty good, but I was a little surprised/disappointed.


Rabe

[BigJMoney]

I never read that post originally, but my gut feeling was correct. Pirating did play at least some hand in the desire to only print the manual, rather than create a PDF. I am horrified to see that they got such lousy requests on a weekly basis, though. That's disgusting. It causes me to wonder what should happen if my Dominions II manual should finally kick the bucket. How many loops would I have to jump through to get a replacement, even if I am willing to pay a few $$?

One promising piece of information I am gleaning from this, however, is that none of the above necessitates that a demo cannot be ready some time before/around shipping time. I am in a thread about the demo, right? The two week time frame for game reviews, CD pressing, manual printing, etc. could also be used as demo creation time. Whether Illwinter are going to push themselves that hard to get a demo out is another story, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

@rabe
Interesting place for your query, but my understanding is that creatures with natural protection get diminished returns from wearing armor. There is a formula for it, look around on the boards. Heck, it might even be in the manual. I think this includes protection bonuses you get from some spells/items. Barksin and invulnerability come to mind.

=$=

[Wick]

rabelais said:Anyone know why black steel helmets only improve my wyrm's prot by 2 each? Is it a balance mod thing?
Rabe

See section 7.13 of Liga's Manual Addendum for formula or, since the link seems to be broken:

"If a units has both natural protection and armor, to calculate the protection values you have to:

Pb = base protection, intrinsic, from stone skin etc. Pa = protection from armor. Pt = total protection. Pb and Pa are always restricted to 40 or less.

Pt=Pb+Pa -(Pa*Pb)/40

So a unit with 10 intrinsic protection and a total of 18 in equipment armor would have an effective armor of: 10+18-(10*18)/40 = 28-4.5 = 23.5, rounded up to 24.

[Zen]"

So the maximum protection possible in the game is 0 natural and the Monlith Armor (30), Barrier (7), Black Steel Helm (3), Krupp's Bracers (4), and Bracers (2) = 46. Oh, +18 for Crystal Shields in the other three hands, if there is a four hander with no protection.

[Gandalf Parker]

I dont think this was done on purpose but I think its great that the Space Empires V demo came out already. Its going to make the Dom3 demo look great. Of course Dom3 cant please everyone so there is bound to be discussions about what people feel should or should not have been "fixed" in their opinion. But the SEV demo is getting much more flak than I think the Dom3 one will. Good timing even tho Im sure it was accidental.

[PDF]

Gandalf Parker said:
I dont think this was done on purpose but I think its great that the Space Empires V demo came out already. Its going to make the Dom3 demo look great. Of course Dom3 cant please everyone so there is bound to be discussions about what people feel should or should not have been "fixed" in their opinion. But the SEV demo is getting much more flak than I think the Dom3 one will. Good timing even tho Im sure it was accidental.

Sure, as Dom3 didn't switch to 3D strat map !

[Nerfix]

SEV demo is nice enough. Been playing it a bit.

[VanderVecken]

Don't get me started on the SE:V Demo. For every NIce addition, they seemed to 'Wank' something that was streamlines in the previous version. A Demo for Dom3 would be nice but the Dom2 Demo and what I'm not hearing 'Thru the cracks' in these forums by playtesters has me sold that Dom3 is still about as streamlined as Dom2.

Just 1 more turn games, stop becoming 'Just 1 more turn' when extra 'Clicks' and unwieldy UI are plugged into even the best of games. I dont get that feeling from what I've read here. (Unlike my hands-on experience with the SE:V demo. Don't get me wrong, There is a very good game there, a few non-changes in the interface and it would have been great.)

Of course, go ahead and Make that Demo quick. I have several gamer friends I would make sure download it and give it a spin.

[Gandalf Parker]

Thats a great point. The SEV demo lost that "just one more turn" thing for me. Instead it became "where is that older space game". Its hard for me to give the game the decent try-out that Im deterrmined to give it. It deserves at least that.

[NTJedi]

Well Aaron the developer of SE5 did make a very smart move by releasing the demo first. The greatest benefit is all the fans become testers in locating bugs... and some obvious ones have been found. Heaven knows if the gamers here find any major bugs we won't blame Illwinter... we'll blame the beta-testers.
Another benefit of releasing the SE5 demo now is it gives the gaming community a chance to voice their opinion about the changes... allowing Aaron time to add or remove a few extra tweaks/balance/features.

[PhilD]

It all depends on how close SE:V really is to release. If it's an early demo (like a public beta), this means some of the "bad moves" might still be changed. If it's right before gold, it means the game _will_ release 99% as it is in the demo, and apparently the eagerly awaiting fans won't like it until it's significantly patched. Not sure it's so smart a move, in the end.

I'm not an expert on SE, and I'm guessing Dom3 will keep me busy for some time after it releases, so I'm probably going to wait a bit on SE:V to see how the experts are judging it.

We're talking about games that live or die by word of mouth, not huge releases where you see trailers in every computer games store. Hype won't sell this game; happy fans will.