[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by rtrooney

Plus, this demo, if it can be called that, seems unusually timed. In Adventure-Time or dog years, the game has been out forever. Why bother?

On purpose or not, you just touched upon something seriously twisted about that whole video gaming thing. Flavour of the month, what's next? Or, like you put it: Why bother (at all)?

I mean, for me as a consumer it's awesome. I can get like a gazillion of quality titles at a bargain price. And not just the real oldies (like Dreamfall, aparently). No, no. With software (not only that, yeah yeah) it's about owning and desperately needing like aaaaall the latest shizz out there. So to speak. Or maybe it's just that you're made to believe to need that. Something like that. Since all that seems to matter for most games and the companies behind them is the immediate revenue nade after their initial release. Like the first couple of weeks or so. Isn't that like.. weird? In a way, certainly not. This whole industry is thriving on the latest, the biggest, the hottest things out 'ere.

Or maybe not. Well, I don't know what I wanted to say, and if I did, it wasn't probably much of anything. Or so such. Whatever. Heh. Merry Christmas, girls.

[tabacco]

Originally Posted by rtrooney

Because I feel it is my sworn duty to piss people off occasionally!

I like to call that 'trolling'. Please don't.

[rtrooney]

Originally Posted by tabacco

I like to call that 'trolling'. Please don't.

And you don't?

[Dasilva]

I don't know why its always my threads that get filled with un-needed posts... lol.

[Lee in Limbo]

Well, it's less than a year since the initial release, which in some cases took months to reach foreign distribution due to some very bad distribution arrangements, it seems. The game has only been available worldwide for a month or so, and of course, the initial buzz has faded quite a bit. A little extra push to grab any stragglers who were thinking about it but forgot about it while waiting for it to come to their country will be more than glad to sample the demo version.

That said, a 3GB demo would seem to say 'giving the cow away' to me. but then, Ragnar et al pretty much insisted that a small demo would serve no purpose, since it's realy a very subtle story, and playing one small section really wouldn't give you a feel for the game. Still, it does leave me wondering how much (or how little) they held back with such a large demo.

And seriously, I do not comprehend why people are still so rancourous about this game. I was stumped by the action at first, but it got quite easy with a bit of practice. Not a nice thing to do to diehard point and click players, but Dreamfall really is quite a nice act. I'm quite looking forward to the finale.

[tabacco]

Originally Posted by rtrooney

And you don't?

The difference is, I get to do it because I'm telling you to stop. Now stop.

[Terramax]

Typical. you have to sign up to the site to get the demo. F that! I won't be trialling it hence won't be buying it. Screw Funcom.

[Dale Baldwin]

If you read AG's news item, you'd see there's more than once place to get it.

[Huz]

So, leaving aside claims that releasing a demo months after the full game is even vaguely a good idea, and that 3GB can be downloaded from a small selection of painful-to-use sites in a blink of an eye, has anyone actually managed it yet?

What form does the demo take? I'd love to know whether it's worth continuing the struggle. Yes, overnight I've had Gamespot, Gamershell and 3d Gamers all reset my connection and force me to restart the download, very slowly, from scratch, presumably due to their queuing systems.

[tsa]

Originally Posted by Terramax

Typical. you have to sign up to the site to get the demo. F that! I won't be trialling it hence won't be buying it. Screw Funcom.

Apart from the language I agree with your post. That's the same as the experience I had on the Dutch Ford website. You have to give them your name and address if you want a folder! They will then send it to you by snail mail. Why can't they just put a pdf on their website? They just lost a customer, that's for sure.

[tsa]

Originally Posted by Huz

So, leaving aside claims that releasing a demo months after the full game is even vaguely a good idea, and that 3GB can be downloaded from a small selection of painful-to-use sites in a blink of an eye, has anyone actually managed it yet?

What form does the demo take? I'd love to know whether it's worth continuing the struggle. Yes, overnight I've had Gamespot, Gamershell and 3d Gamers all reset my connection and force me to restart the download, very slowly, from scratch, presumably due to their queuing systems.

I'm downloading it now. I hope to tell you more in an hour or two. I'm curious to see how well it runs on my 2.0 GHz CoreDuo MacBook Pro!

[tsa]

Well I downloaded it form GamersHell. Unpacking the zipfile seems to be going to take just as long as downloading it. Sigh. Thanks GamersHell for these two wonderful 1 kB files I will not use!

[Havrepus]

What is the demo like? Anyone played it yet?

[tsa]

Originally Posted by Havrepus

What is the demo like? Anyone played it yet?

I have installed it. That takes quite a while, because after unpacking the zip file you are left with a self-extracting exe file, which has to extract itself. Then the installation process begins, which took another 20 minutes or so on my MacBook Pro. When you finally start the game you are welcomed by a screen that gives you a choice to play the free trial, buy the full version (which is nice because then you don't have to remove the demo and install the game when you've bought it), or register the game. I chose the Free trial option. From there on I guess it behaves just like the full game. I haven't finished the demo yet and I don't think I will because I expect my copy of the full game to arrive any day now. I didn't see anything in the demo that might be different in the full game yet.

[Havrepus]

Nice! I just got curious about it, since it was such a huge file. I already have the game, and have played through parts of it. To me this really was the best game of the year.

Edit: you should also check out the soundtrack, both to The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. They are just fantastic!

[lostwolfe]

Originally Posted by kuze

ten months is not forever. 3 gb is not a lot.

[rant on]

this depends on where you're from. in germany, it's completely possible to download three gigabytes, no problem, because your internet service providers are sane. if you're moving out of the first world and into the third, [and smaller territories] it starts becoming a different kettle of fish.

i am in south africa. in south africa, we have one, lonely telecoms operator. they charge exhorbitantly /and/ tell you what you may and may not do with your bandwidth. you are also given a limited amount of bandwidth.

at it's "smallest setting" you can buy a one gigabyte chunk. this chunk counts both up /and/ downloads. the standard setting is three gigabytes. now, remember, that's up /and/ download.

for up /and/ download, you pay something like one hundred dollars a month. after that, the sky really is the limit. you can get an unfettered account [that is, one with unlimited bandwidth] for something close to three hundred dollars. of course, with three hundred dollars, you could:

--> buy your groceries
--> pay your flat rent

so. yes. this trend towards ever-larger demonstrations of games is actually frustrating. [and this, mind you, doesn't even seem like a demonstration. it seems like the whole game that you "unlock," which makes it "not a true demonstration of the game, but the game hiding in full under the guise of a demonstration."]

am i impressed? not really. if i were in the market for a new adventure game, i wouldn't buy from funcom. they seem to want you to jump through a number of hoops to play their game. it's one thing to do that while playing an adventure game, it's another to do it in real life.

[/rant off]

[my original post ends here.]

[edited, about six or so hours later, since i realized that there was something constructive i figured i ought to add.]


having thought about it a bit, i figured i should add something constructive, so here goes:

my guess is this demonstration part of the game /probably/ unlocks the first little section of the game. [someone who downloaded the three gigabyte chunk of data and installed it can probably better inform us of whether or not this is the case.]

it is my thinking that if they /truly/ wanted to demonstrate the game, they should have made a little demonstration - one that clearly showed all three of the mechanics which are prevalent in it, say, a small level that showed off the environment and a puzzle or two, along with a sneaking section and a fighting section.

off of the top of my head, i could think of a fairly easy way of doing this by offering a "training camp" like mission - where zoe is introduced to us and the puzzle solving is shown along with a stealth and fighting sequence.

this is probably /fairly/ easy to construct since all of the assets are already present - most of the animations for the actors are there and all that needs to be done is a new area needs to be built [and with an engine, which they reportedly developed] this should hardly be difficult. certainly, this would take time, manpower and a bit of money to get the voice actors re-hired, but, honestly, it is my feeling that the way it has been done now is somewhat lazy and somewhat slipshod.

if "space quest six" could do it and "freddy pharkas" could do it, then the "dreamfall" team could do it as well.

[tsa]

Thanks for your rant lostwolfe. I am lucky to have a very vast internet connection at home; I downloaded the game in less than 50 minutes. But still I think 3.5 GB for a demo is a bit over the top. It shouldn't cost you two hours just to download and install a demo! Most people will have lost interest in the game long before I did.

Added later (about one minute later):
I think your idea of a demo that demonstrates the features of a game is not so bad. I don't think I will play the demo because I'm afraid that when I have the full game (which I ordered at JustAdventure just before the demo came out) I will have to start all over again. And it's nicer to have a demo that is a little story in itself than play part of the story, although I can imagine that a demo with a cliffhanger sells the game better.

[Terramax]

I spent about 6 hours downloading the demo. THEN, after all that, it told me some files were missing!!! After all that I still couldn't play the trial

[kuze]

There is a 1.7GB "xtreme repack", heavily compressed and with cut out videos, available on a russian site ( here - just press "Нажмите здесь, чтобы скачать файл."). You can download the recompressed videos (about 170MB) seperately here.

I am aware that there are frustrated users out there who have to pay for their traffic, but in times when more or less cheap broadband is not an issue in most countries, it is understandable that Funcom is aiming for the larger audience.

[jacog]

Originally Posted by lostwolfe

i am in south africa. in south africa, we have one, lonely telecoms operator. they charge exhorbitantly /and/ tell you what you may and may not do with your bandwidth. you are also given a limited amount of bandwidth.

Heh, down with Telkom, boo hiss etc (does weird Italian back-of-hand-under-chin thing - what the hell IS that?).

I am in Gordon's Bay, just up the road from you, and with a tiny little local ISP that offers uncapped banwidth at a decent price. Unfortunately my local tower is broken and they will only fix it next week... plaf... I did say they were tiny. Either way...

... soon as they fix the durn thing I will download the Dreamfall Trial as I would like to see it, and have never seen the game in any of the local stores. Unless of course you know where one can buy it locally ... I am curious enough to just buy a copy.

On that point... where IS a good place to buy games here?? Most of the chains here just get random stuff from the supplier and shelve it with no regard for what it is they get, and no sense of variety. Most don't even know what stock they are getting.