Demo

On a DRM free game? You do see the problem with that, right?

well we can't all be expected to remember everything. besides, after i bought the game i ignored all drm discussion because i assumed it woulnd't effect me 'cause not EA.

Maybe the demo could just be a version of the game with a bunch of units checked off, and removed from the download? E.g., no air, naval, sat, or game enders, and one planet/system seed is used?

An alterative, that I have seen, is to just include a time limit in the launcher and leave chunks of the game out. They were mission based games, but it was a good enough taste to encourage a buy.

But that's based on my limited knowledge of game/demo development, I'm just throwin' stuff out there.

@knight Agreed. There are some games I don't buy out there because I've seen an entire playthrough on YouTube, and it feels like I've played. That typically only applies to single-player games, not so much RTS or multiplayer games though. I don't think a gameplay or a review would do PA justice.

Garat, might it be easier to do a demo post release? You'll have the final game so it won't be quite like doing 2 games at once, and you can take into account things form teh beta and other important bugfixes that'll pop up?

Mike

maybe beta modders could attempt to assemble an acceptable demo pack and present to the devs for their approval.

I say this knowing that if it happens i probably wont be helping.

I've been trying to think of a good analogy, and the closest I can come up with is:

You want to provide user initiated demos of your new car, but to make sure they can't take advantage or go beyond the original demo, you have to add special GPS and engineering to make sure you can only drive the car on a certain road, for a limited amount of time.

It's a strained metaphor, but you get the idea. The amount of work to limit a car in this way is arguably harder than designing the car was. Similarly, stripping a large code and content base down to "just the demo" is far more work than most people realize.

It's a tiny bit easier if you're a purely data/content driven game and you can just limit the demo to that content, but only a little bit (you just have to re-do your entire front end UI, and make sure none of your code breaks with the limited content, and then build a new back end for the game so when the demo is over it knows to handle it properly). Look at the game we're making: It's all procedural, and limiting a demo to only a tiny subset of those procedural systems is a significant amount of work. Neutrino could speak more authoritatively about how much work, but I'm familiar enough with the underlying engine to be fairly certain it wouldn't be easy.

Regarding a mod, (per Yog's last post as I was writing this) people are welcome to try, but without engine level access, I don't see how a mod only could do this and make it something we'd be willing to release. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising people proved me wrong.

We will certainly have a long talk about the possibility of a demo when we get to that point, but I can state with some certainty that time won't be until post-launch.

Does a login account qualify as DRM? Does Steam count? After all, the backer's lounge might be considered DRM given enough herping and derping.

There are plenty of ways to cripple a demo. Limit map access (small, single world, low player limit), remove the map generator, remove mod support, limit game access, don't allow hosting on the master server (don't include the server), don't have tech support, and don't patch it. You might even include a dreaded unit cap of all things. :lol:

It really doesn't take much to have a feature loaded demo, and yet have so much more to sell.

My basic point is that this is just wrong. It takes a huge amount of effort, even if it doesn't seem like it, that it should be "easy". I've worked on 13 different games now, and on at least half of those, someone in management or marketing was determined that "we just need to whip together a quick demo", and maybe other devs have had a different experience, but from my own anecdotal experience, I can tell you ain't no such thing.

I love demos, but don't undersell the amount of work that any demo you have ever played (that was any good) has probably had put into it.

be wary of a demo with restrictions like unit cap, people might think thats how the real game works.

And as for the amount of work in a demo, the only man in this discussion who has any practical idea about the work has spoken. I'd be inclined to just beleive him.

I'd love to be incorrect on this. I'm not trying to pull the "I've done it, you haven't", but games are not generally built to be easy to rip up modular parts, and I have yet to work on a game that's easy to whip out a demo for. I keep hoping though.

Also, I'm just a cynical old crank who has been burned too many times by someone telling me "oh just do that real quick". Ha!

well, you've had experience with making demos, and you are working on the game we are talking about... I'd wager there aren't many people who could know better.

I'm still up for encouraging the modding community but that will always be their own impetus.

I think epic 'lets play' youtube series and esports casts are going to be plenty for a person to get the idea on what's in the game and how it plays and how it looks.

With the availability of HD youtube streams, we don't even have to put up with crappy / blurry resolutions either.

Also, I would guess RTS games in general are a bit more problematic in terms of demos than for example RPG games.
In a RPG game you can limit the demo for example to a starting scene and actually leave the rest out of it (in terms of accessible data and size of the demo). Here on the other hand (even with a pre-generated demo map), you would have to pack practically the whole game as a demo and hope the artificial boundaries limiting the demo hold. Otherwise, your just giving out your game for free.

The game is DRM free any way. And anyway, why would you try to hack the demo when every game with and without DRM can be found on thepiratebay?

just because your car can be stolen, you don't place your key on the engine hood and make the extra effort to write an invitation.

yeah, I think this is my first rl car comparison, from now it's just downhill ...

An RTS demo is indeed problematic but I thought the supcom demo having only one faction, a preset skirmish scenario and the first cybran campaign mission did a reasonable job of being limited while still showcasing the whole game.

These don't necessarily apply to PA tho. Given the lack of a campaign and other factions.

Which are the domain of twenty-something "older boys" who have too much free time on their hands. You don't see children or families going to YouTube to make informed purchases.

You don't see children or families making informed buying desicions in the first place.

Children and families buy RTSs? I thought that was the territory of twenty-something "older boys" with too much free time on their hands.

You guys aren't giving them enough credit. How many of you weren't even pre-teens before you tried your hand at, and enjoyed your first RTS game? Also- you mean to tell me anyone growing up during the NES or SNES/Megadrive days never got bummed by a bad purchase?

Frankly, even I wouldn't trust dumbasses with bad nasal lisps and recording software to point out what I'm looking for in games.