[gravy]

Some dummy spammed the Syberia 2 forum and the admin. closed it with the following news.

-----------quote from site -------------------
The Syberia 2 forums are currently closed.

Hello fellow Syberia fans!

As you might be aware of, an incomplete and unofficial spanish demo of Syberia 2 has recently been made public on the internet.

This situation is not in itself very critical since the OFFICIAL DEMO will be available on this website MONDAY MARCH 1st.

However some ill-advised users have decided to spam our forum with dozens of message related to the pirated spanish version, therefore making the forums unusable due to the incredible amount of useless repeat posts.

In light of those regretful events, we have decided to close down the forums until further notice.

On a personnal note, I'd like to thank our long-time fans for their support and incredible patience, especially in moments like this.

Best regards and see you on Monday


Guillaume Roy
Webmaster
Microïds
----------------------

adding site link: http://www.syberia2.info/english/

[Risingson]

So the spanish demo isn't official? That's interesting news...

I was wondering why it was released in spanish before any other languages already.

[nordic_guy]

I think it was kind of a well-known fact that it was pirated.
It's sad to see that they had to close down the forums just because some idiots decided to spam them with that cheap demo, though.

[Risingson]

It's weirder than that: the link that I saw was from virgin spain. So it looked more than official.

Now it is protected with a password and username, but it was http://212.0.114.19/FOTOS/ [...] . What a mess.

[Risingson]

Ok, now I've talked to jones, a friend and webmaster of Aventura y cia, a spanish adventure site, to see what happened. The facts are interesting: there has been an unofficial spanish beta-demo of Syberia 2 wandering in the www, there has been quite a mess lately with that demo... and someone from Virgin Spain emailed him with three links, one of them related to the spanish demo, which I now realize that it's in fact the beta-demo, the unofficial one. The link now does not work, but this week was, allowing thousands of users to try something which I think that was not the complete demo. But, I repeat, it was allowed by the spanish distributor. Now the man behind Syberia2.info says that this was not permitted or official, and this has been a shock to most of spanish users - nearly as a shock as having the Syberia 2 demo released in spanish before any other language, even french - , as now we are involuntary delinquents from one day to another. I haven't tried the demo - I didn't like Syberia, anyway - but this stuff has pissed me off a bit.

Risingson

EDIT: Wondering... this thing becomes more and more interesting. Terra Juegos and many other BIG spanish online sites have the demo for downloading, and those are not the kind of sites that would give unofficial stuff for downloading. So let me ask a couple of questions: why the unofficial demo is in Spanish? And why virgin emailed every spanish magazine telling them the URL of that demo? Why are YOU judging us as unofficials, when it's Microids and the Sokal people who are playing with us?

[Risingson]

Ok, sorry to insist for the third time.

But I want someone from Microids to explain me why that demo is legal and official in spain and why it's paranoidly unofficial and forbidden in the rest of the world. And I don't know where to ask.

[nordic_guy]

Obviously, someone pirated an unfinished demo and released it as an official. It happens all the time, I can't see it being anymore complicated than that.
Surely, Microids wouldn't release a demo just to take it back claiming it was pirated.
And we don't judge YOU as unofficials, just the demo.

[Risingson]

No. Virgin Spain SENT US the link to that supposely unofficial demo.

EDIT: let me explain some facts again:

1.- A couple of days ago, the "public relations" of Virgin Spain, the company which distributes nearly all the games of "the adventure company", sent Aventuraycia (the site I sometimes help) and many other videogame websites ( www.terra.es/juegos , www.hardgame.net , [...]) three links related with Syberia 2, one of them being the playable spanish demo.

2.- Strangely, there is no other demo in internet of this game. Yesterday I browsed the forums of the adventure sites I could remember (and which my ISP lets me... don't know why sites like fourfatchicks.com, without the www, doesn't resolve well), and I found here that the link that we had posted in the main site, http://www.aventuraycia.com , is considered unofficial by Microids. I inmediately thought that we had to remove the demo; I didn't know then that it was Virgin itself the one who sent the links without mentioning at any moment that we couldn't publish it.

3.- Ultimately I realized of one thing: Microids says that the spanish demo is the unfinished one shown at the E3 (in e3 everyone talks in spanish then?). But, after wondering about that a bit, I think that the problem is that Virgin published the spanish demo too soon, and Microids didn't know about this. And to prevent embarassing acusations (and reasonable ones; why spanish before french or english?) they have officially said that this demo was the one which was stolen in the E3. Or maybe it's that the public relations of Virgin sent us the same file than the one which was stolen in the E3.

And until someone at Microids tell me something else, that's what I think: this has been a terrible incident showing how Virgin and Microids are, trying to blame Syberia2 fans for their incompetence.

[marksteven]

Risingson is right on. The Spanish demo is NOT the E3 unofficial press demo. It is an entirely different, new, finished and official demo. Just to confirm this the E3 demo was in multilanguage WITH ENGLISH (lol as risingson suspected) and involved getting off the train and fixing some mechanical horses in a sort of bar. The new Spanish demo involves running around in the snow with a little polar bear cub, exploring a cabin, fishing for salmon, etc. Totally different.

Microids messed up (once again) and is now making accusations against others for CYA purposes. Anyway, it won't matter on Monday but the fans must be getting sick of this sort of thing.

Mark

Originally Posted by Risingson

No. Virgin Spain SENT US the link to that supposely unofficial demo.

EDIT: let me explain some facts again:

1.- A couple of days ago, the "public relations" of Virgin Spain, the company which distributes nearly all the games of "the adventure company", sent Aventuraycia (the site I sometimes help) and many other videogame websites ( www.terra.es/juegos , www.hardgame.net , [...]) three links related with Syberia 2, one of them being the playable spanish demo.

2.- Strangely, there is no other demo in internet of this game. Yesterday I browsed the forums of the adventure sites I could remember (and which my ISP lets me... don't know why sites like fourfatchicks.com, without the www, doesn't resolve well), and I found here that the link that we had posted in the main site, http://www.aventuraycia.com , is considered unofficial by Microids. I inmediately thought that we had to remove the demo; I didn't know then that it was Virgin itself the one who sent the links without mentioning at any moment that we couldn't publish it.

3.- Ultimately I realized of one thing: Microids says that the spanish demo is the unfinished one shown at the E3 (in e3 everyone talks in spanish then?). But, after wondering about that a bit, I think that the problem is that Virgin published the spanish demo too soon, and Microids didn't know about this. And to prevent embarassing acusations (and reasonable ones; why spanish before french or english?) they have officially said that this demo was the one which was stolen in the E3. Or maybe it's that the public relations of Virgin sent us the same file than the one which was stolen in the E3.

And until someone at Microids tell me something else, that's what I think: this has been a terrible incident showing how Virgin and Microids are, trying to blame Syberia2 fans for their incompetence.

[ragnar]

Are you absolutely sure that the mails came from Virgin Spain, and not just someone imitating a mail coming from them? It is very easy to change the From-address to anything you like. Check the email-headers to see where it really came from.

[Risingson]

Now I'm beginning to think that you are taking me as a dumb.

[ragnar]

No, it's quite easy to be fooled like that.

[kelmer]

It's really so hard to believe that Microids just screwed up?

What obscure purpose would anyone have on impersonating someone from Virgin Spain just to send this demo to the company's press contacts, anyway?

EDIT: Besides, it wasn't just us at Aventura y CÃ*a who were 'fooled' by this 'mysterious hacker guy', it was also big companies like Terra.

How would anyone get to know Virgin's press contacts? No, it was actually Virgin who sent the mail, and who UPLOADED the demo to ITS servers.

[pinoso]

Originally Posted by kelmer

It's really so hard to believe that Microids just screwed up?

What obscure purpose would anyone have on impersonating someone from Virgin Spain just to send this demo to the company's press contacts, anyway?

EDIT: Besides, it wasn't just us at Aventura y CÃ*a who were 'fooled' by this 'mysterious hacker guy', it was also big companies like Terra.

How would anyone get to know Virgin's press contacts? No, it was actually Virgin who sent the mail, and who UPLOADED the demo to ITS servers.

Lol good point. If Ragnar needs to invent convoluted hypothetical explanations to defend Microids then that's his business, but it's pretty obvious what happened.

The fact that Virgin sent the demo out prematurely will be confirmed if the demo released by Microids on Monday is the same "fishing demo" as the Spanish one. Otherwise one would have to imagine that the official demo was leaked to a "hacker" who then spoofed Virgin's email and sent it to Virgin's press contacts.

Of course some people believe that corporations never mess up, lie or manipulate their customers, so perhaps Ragnar will stick to his delusion regardless.

Pino

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by pinoso

Of course some people believe that corporations never mess up, lie or manipulate their customers, so perhaps Ragnar will stick to his delusion regardless.

Pino

You missed my point entirely. Of course I don't believe such stupid things. But, before you start to throw accusations around, you should be sure that what you have fairly solid evidence for the accuse, my comment was just a help to make sure it is solid evidence. There are lot of people who, for various reasons, like to throw around accusations against companies when it in fact is those who accuse that are wrong. That doesn't mean that companies are never wrong, they are, quite a lot.

[nordic_guy]

Where did all these spanish people come from?
Did they all coincidentally registrate during the same three days and leave with only a few posts on their account, or is it some 'Join Adventuregamers'-day on a spanish gaming forum?

[kelmer]

Well, when people throws accusation over me, I like to defend myself personally, and since there's no chance to do it over at Microids forums, I just wanted to clarify our innocence to the rest of adventure community. Being this one the most visited website about adventure games, I found it to be the better place to settle this issue down.

Anyway, I was already registered since December 2001, but strangely I lost my username and had to register again.

Hope this doen't become a crusade over those who just try to defend themselves... you woud've done the same.

[nordic_guy]

We all lost our accounts. The forums went down and everyone had to re-registrate.

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by kelmer

Well, when people throws accusation over me, I like to defend myself personally, and since there's no chance to do it over at Microids forums, I just wanted to clarify our innocence to the rest of adventure community. Being this one the most visited website about adventure games, I found it to be the better place to settle this issue down.

Anyway, I was already registered since December 2001, but strangely I lost my username and had to register again.

Hope this doen't become a crusade over those who just try to defend themselves... you woud've done the same.

It wasn't really a personal accusation.

Perhaps Spaniards have something similar to our Samorost day...

[kelmer]

No, it wasn't. It was a collective accusation over adventure community, which wouldn't offend me in any way if what they blamed us on were true, and if it wasn't really THEIR (or virgin's) fault.