Whare are you from?

johan osterman · #1 October 8th, 2003, 09:01 AM

There will be a turn limit on the demo. Shrapnel wanted a more limited demo than it was in dom 1, with a mechanism like the turn limit. Whether or not this is a good decision I have no idea, but all things concerned I trust shrapnels business sense over ours anytime.

Gandalf Parker · #2 October 8th, 2003, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
There will be a turn limit on the demo. Shrapnel wanted a more limited demo than it was in dom 1, with a mechanism like the turn limit. Whether or not this is a good decision I have no idea, but all things concerned I trust shrapnels business sense over ours anytime.

Im not happy with this. You guys know me. You know that Im all for you getting the money you deserve. But if you look back at all the Posts in the newsgroup one of the things that we were always able to make a point of is that the demo allowed you to finish games.

I thought you totally went the right direction before. If it had been full featured and allowing full games but not multiplayer games, then many would have stayed with the demo. If it had been limited play either by days or by turns, many would not have been hooked (it took a while to get past the interface). If it had been shareware, many would never have sent in the money.

By allowing everything, but not allowing the full exploration of ALL of the strategys in the game, I think you had hit on the perfect arrangment. People felt you were nice for allowing full games. But I think most people who could afford to buy the game probably did it. Thats the impression I had in the newsGroups anyway. Maybe its because they were in the newsGroups and we could keep telling them to get past the interface problems.

The reason for "play awhile, now pay for it" demos is the concept of "just enough to hook them". Sure its standard. In fact it makes total sense for a lot of games. Any game where you play it and then you are done, this would be the only way to go. Games with no replayability, or games that people get tired of and delete, you would have to go that route.

Oh well, as Im famous for saying (way too often) everything has its pros and cons. You are with Shrapnel now so your pricing is more standard, your demo will be more standard, hopefully there will be some standard marketing, maybe some boxes in stores? I better back off now. Wont do me any good to stay on your good side and anger the publisher.

PDF · #3 October 8th, 2003, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
There will be a turn limit on the demo. Shrapnel wanted a more limited demo than it was in dom 1, with a mechanism like the turn limit. Whether or not this is a good decision I have no idea, but all things concerned I trust shrapnels business sense over ours anytime.

It all depends on how many turns the demo will allow !
Less than 20 will be ridiculous, 30 would allow for some discovery of the game, 40 or more would even allow to finish small maps ...
Did you decide about this ?

Psitticine · #4 October 8th, 2003, 05:36 PM

I can't remember the exact limit in the demo-beta, but it was somewhere between 40 and 60 turns. It was definitely enough to get into the endgame on a small map, and winning would certainly be possible.

Saber Cherry · #5 October 8th, 2003, 05:45 PM

A 50-turn, unlimited demo seems fine with me. It would give a better feel for the game than the current limited demo, in my opinion (where a lot of things seem uncounterable, and a lot of nations seem unbalanced, because the counters are off-limits unts or spells).

I think it is a good decision, as long as the turn limit is high enough to see the late game on a very small map. While giving a better feel for the game, it would less possible to use the demo as a total replacement for the retail game, since people would not really want to start serious MP games that they could not finish. In SP, while every map would be playable, only the small or very small ones would be worthwhile to consider starting a game on.

-Cherry

P.S. Although personally, if it were me, I would also make three of the nations off-limits in the demo - probably 2 of the old nations, and one of the new nations.

[ October 08, 2003, 16:50: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

johan osterman · #6 October 8th, 2003, 05:51 PM

Research is still limited to lvl 4 in the demo. But all nations have access to all thier troops.

Psitticine · #7 October 8th, 2003, 05:54 PM

Gandalf,

Something I will probably become famous for saying a bit too often is that, whether I or anybody else agrees or not with them or not, I'm always glad to see people stepping forward to voice their opinions in a constructive, intelligent manner. It doesn't do anybody good for people to keep silent when they see something they feel is a problem.

Just my 2�, of course. I obviously can't speak for Richard or Tim, but I'd be quite surprised (stunned, actually) if they'd want anybody to cease speaking up just because they don't share the same viewpoint.

Maybe this post is a bit unnecessary, but I wanted to say all that publicly as a general statement to everyone on how I feel this board can be at its best. I hope everybody will follow your example and speak out in an adult manner on the things that concern them. So far, I think we've been doing very well on that, actually!

Psitticine the Community Spirit Parrot