Ironworks Gaming Forum - View Single Post - OT - DL Demo discussion

Wyvern · 03-27-2005, 01:52 PM

It was nice to finally get my mouse on the demo. We've all been waiting a long time and I haven't had a game that I really enjoyed in ages and ages.

A simple command sheet should have been included for players to print. You do not want to be reading the help screen when a dozen wolves are attacking.

Life one:

DL has nice eye candy - Even though you can't reset the resolution in the demo I was very satisfied with the appearance of the game world.

The interface demands a huge learning curve. They added to the joy of learning a non-instinctive interface by starting you out in the dead of night. I believe this is to foreshadow that in the real game we are all going to die and die a lot!

Even with the game settings on EASY - your lone character can be overrun by masses of monsters who do know what they are doing while you're still struggling to figure out how to equip your sword.

No, it isn't "I" for Inventory, it's "E" for Equipment - oh, too late, you're dead.

Life two:

Turning to face your attackers is a real pain. I use a trackball and while I'm trying to turn around

Life three:

Okay, I've reset the keyboard commands so that the number pad 4 and 6 will turn my character - these will also work WITH the mouse or in my case the trackball to make turning faster which is a very good thing because these swarms of monsters seem to like to surround you and attack from all si

Life four:

With my back to the nearby ruins, I manage to fight off the initial rush of monsters. If I had known that there really wasn't any point in talking to that NPC by the fire (and there isn't any reason to - has nothing to do with the demo) I could have avoided

Life five:

Unlike the mighty stamar, I didn't get into using magic until much later in the game. I did manage to make it to the city gates where you can have another meaningless conversation with the NPC Guard. He'll tell you that the city is closed until the Lord's daughter is found so naturally I thought that would be the goal of the demo - nope.
After killing off a zillion rabid rats we manage to follow the strange goblin to the entrance to the sewers. Actually, I lie, we manage to follow him over to an ambush by a zillion goblins

Life six:
We enter the sewers! and it's VERY dark! I mean extremely dark - too dark to be considered "fun". One good thing, even in this utter pitch darkness the lever to open the sewers is so large that you are sure to smash your nose on it sooner or later. Read through the help screen again to learn that you have to use the SHIFT key to activate - sewers are now open!

These sewers remind me of others I have wandered - one set of sewers in particular but I'm not sure if that was M&M or something else - whatever. There are areas within the sewers that you are not meant to access in the demo but of course you don't know that so you do try.

After a bit of exploring around, learning to disarm chests, fighting hordes of monsters that threaten to introduce you to your next lifetime, you happen upon your first LADDER -

How I have waited to see how HP handled ladders in DL after choosing to not handle them at all in W&W (which does not mean that W&W didn't have ladders - it had a lot of ladders, just no effective/worthwhile means of actually using them - fall/splat). You can use the SHIFT key to go up and down ladders! YAY!!

Naturally the first ladder places you on this narrow catwalk which has lovely obstacles at every corner and monsters attacking or shooting arrows at you long range - splash.

Dispite the appearance - the catwalks have a fuzzy edge - you can only be partially on the catwalk for it still to count. That's a good thing considering how badly they are designed if you had to be completely on the catwalk.

BOWS are actually effective in this game! Don't faint - it is true. But how to quickly switch to my bow, read help screen - ooof - splash - That goblin is HISTORY NOW!!! After dispatching the goblin archers (and I didn't bother to go see what loot they dropped) I head off into the upper area of the sewers.

There's quite a pool at this point - you get to do some swimming and have to relearn how to climb out of this mess (I don't even want to know what my character smelled like at this point).

Lots more goblins as I near the drop bridge. It was at this point that I felt compelled to learn how to use magic.

Life seven:
After locating the Bridge Key I finally gained access to some area beyond it - which looks rather like an abandoned building of unknown purpose.

By this life, I have almost completely reassigned the keyboard commands to that the most important actions can all be done on the number pad. These changes help a lot! My biggest complaint/difficulty remains the games tendancy to shift perspectives. While it may be realistic that when you receive a blow from an enemy that you get "knocked back" this game takes it to extremes. You have to face what you are trying to hit and you find yourself constantly struggling to do so. One command that I would really like to have is a fast "turn around" for when the monsters sneak up behind you and

Life eight:
You get a lot of practice smashing crates and opening chests. There is no relationship between the difficulty of the chest and the loot there in. Not that you have any use for all this loot within the demo anyways - but really if you can manage to disarm a level 4 lock you should get better goodies.

This abandoned building rather resembles a maze so I presume that it must at one time have been an amusement attraction but the mirrors are gone. Eventually you come upon a lift with a broken handle and another lift that appears to be complete but just doesn't work. After fixing the lift with the broken handle you manage to make it to the theatre area.

Lives nine and ten and eleven and twelve -
There is a War Troll here and some goblin with some nasty magic to toss at you.
You get a lot of experience from defeating them which of course is very nice but they seemed a bit strong/difficult for the demo. I did manage to off them and it really didn't take a number of lives to do so, just a lot of fireballs.

Killing the main goblin you get the Theater Key which - when you use SHIFT on the correct door will tell you that you have completed the demo.

I would have liked to have completed some quest - not just managed to survive to get to some location.

I don't like the fact that when you choose to walk backwards (which is a very good thing to do when you are shooting slimes with your bow and want to keep some distance) that you walk like a 90 year old with a walker out for a stroll in the park. Backstep is so slow it's painful - quite literally because the monsters catch up with you far too easily.

By the time I got to the theater and with my reassigned keyboard commands, I was getting much better with the game interface but I'm not happy with it. I didn't bother to even examine all the different camera angles that are explained in the help file. I don't want different camera angles. These may be included for players who come from overhead view games such as Baldur's Gate but I prefer to be looking from my character's point of view.

Along the way I earned enough experience to advance my character many times. There are a LOT of options and you seem to have to buy everything. I'm hoping that in the real game we may have options for increasing some skills/stats with guilds and temples. If everything must be increased on this character stat page from experienced earned, it's going to be difficult to figure out where to put my points.

I have a lot of questions about how the real game will be. I do not feel that the demo gives a real sense of the game. The monsters and chests were all very "Monty Hall" (overly generous with loot) that I cannot believe the real game will be similar. The demo is very Monty Hall - you start out with so many spells - is the real game like that?? I doubt it. I read one comment that said that the demo was very much like the "press build". I think it's been designed to look more favorable than it might have if you did start with the real begining of the game where your character is a total newb.

I'm also a bit concerned about some of the tech issues and solutions - this is a game that is supposed to be released next month. There is a warning with the demo not to use the last three save slots because they are known to corrupt data?? I was using 3 save slots and anytime I saved to the second slot after creating a save in the third - the third save wouldn't show up. It was still there but it shouldn't be disappearing from the menu.

I rather have the feeling that this game is being rushed again - which isn't to say that they haven't had a lot of time to put the game together. I'm just wondering where that time has been spent.

I've had my preorder in for DL for quite a while and I'm looking forward to having the whole game.

[ 03-27-2005, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Wyvern ]

03-27-2005, 01:52 PM	#1
Wyvern Ironworks Moderator Join Date: January 7, 2001 Location: Rural Paradise, MI Posts: 5,701	It was nice to finally get my mouse on the demo. We've all been waiting a long time and I haven't had a game that I really enjoyed in ages and ages. A simple command sheet should have been included for players to print. You do not want to be reading the help screen when a dozen wolves are attacking. Life one: DL has nice eye candy - Even though you can't reset the resolution in the demo I was very satisfied with the appearance of the game world. The interface demands a huge learning curve. They added to the joy of learning a non-instinctive interface by starting you out in the dead of night. I believe this is to foreshadow that in the real game we are all going to die and die a lot! Even with the game settings on EASY - your lone character can be overrun by masses of monsters who do know what they are doing while you're still struggling to figure out how to equip your sword. No, it isn't "I" for Inventory, it's "E" for Equipment - oh, too late, you're dead. Life two: Turning to face your attackers is a real pain. I use a trackball and while I'm trying to turn around Life three: Okay, I've reset the keyboard commands so that the number pad 4 and 6 will turn my character - these will also work WITH the mouse or in my case the trackball to make turning faster which is a very good thing because these swarms of monsters seem to like to surround you and attack from all si Life four: With my back to the nearby ruins, I manage to fight off the initial rush of monsters. If I had known that there really wasn't any point in talking to that NPC by the fire (and there isn't any reason to - has nothing to do with the demo) I could have avoided Life five: Unlike the mighty stamar, I didn't get into using magic until much later in the game. I did manage to make it to the city gates where you can have another meaningless conversation with the NPC Guard. He'll tell you that the city is closed until the Lord's daughter is found so naturally I thought that would be the goal of the demo - nope. After killing off a zillion rabid rats we manage to follow the strange goblin to the entrance to the sewers. Actually, I lie, we manage to follow him over to an ambush by a zillion goblins Life six: We enter the sewers! and it's VERY dark! I mean extremely dark - too dark to be considered "fun". One good thing, even in this utter pitch darkness the lever to open the sewers is so large that you are sure to smash your nose on it sooner or later. Read through the help screen again to learn that you have to use the SHIFT key to activate - sewers are now open! These sewers remind me of others I have wandered - one set of sewers in particular but I'm not sure if that was M&M or something else - whatever. There are areas within the sewers that you are not meant to access in the demo but of course you don't know that so you do try. After a bit of exploring around, learning to disarm chests, fighting hordes of monsters that threaten to introduce you to your next lifetime, you happen upon your first LADDER - How I have waited to see how HP handled ladders in DL after choosing to not handle them at all in W&W (which does not mean that W&W didn't have ladders - it had a lot of ladders, just no effective/worthwhile means of actually using them - fall/splat). You can use the SHIFT key to go up and down ladders! YAY!! Naturally the first ladder places you on this narrow catwalk which has lovely obstacles at every corner and monsters attacking or shooting arrows at you long range - splash. Dispite the appearance - the catwalks have a fuzzy edge - you can only be partially on the catwalk for it still to count. That's a good thing considering how badly they are designed if you had to be completely on the catwalk. BOWS are actually effective in this game! Don't faint - it is true. But how to quickly switch to my bow, read help screen - ooof - splash - That goblin is HISTORY NOW!!! After dispatching the goblin archers (and I didn't bother to go see what loot they dropped) I head off into the upper area of the sewers. There's quite a pool at this point - you get to do some swimming and have to relearn how to climb out of this mess (I don't even want to know what my character smelled like at this point). Lots more goblins as I near the drop bridge. It was at this point that I felt compelled to learn how to use magic. Life seven: After locating the Bridge Key I finally gained access to some area beyond it - which looks rather like an abandoned building of unknown purpose. By this life, I have almost completely reassigned the keyboard commands to that the most important actions can all be done on the number pad. These changes help a lot! My biggest complaint/difficulty remains the games tendancy to shift perspectives. While it may be realistic that when you receive a blow from an enemy that you get "knocked back" this game takes it to extremes. You have to face what you are trying to hit and you find yourself constantly struggling to do so. One command that I would really like to have is a fast "turn around" for when the monsters sneak up behind you and Life eight: You get a lot of practice smashing crates and opening chests. There is no relationship between the difficulty of the chest and the loot there in. Not that you have any use for all this loot within the demo anyways - but really if you can manage to disarm a level 4 lock you should get better goodies. This abandoned building rather resembles a maze so I presume that it must at one time have been an amusement attraction but the mirrors are gone. Eventually you come upon a lift with a broken handle and another lift that appears to be complete but just doesn't work. After fixing the lift with the broken handle you manage to make it to the theatre area. Lives nine and ten and eleven and twelve - There is a War Troll here and some goblin with some nasty magic to toss at you. You get a lot of experience from defeating them which of course is very nice but they seemed a bit strong/difficult for the demo. I did manage to off them and it really didn't take a number of lives to do so, just a lot of fireballs. Killing the main goblin you get the Theater Key which - when you use SHIFT on the correct door will tell you that you have completed the demo. I would have liked to have completed some quest - not just managed to survive to get to some location. I don't like the fact that when you choose to walk backwards (which is a very good thing to do when you are shooting slimes with your bow and want to keep some distance) that you walk like a 90 year old with a walker out for a stroll in the park. Backstep is so slow it's painful - quite literally because the monsters catch up with you far too easily. By the time I got to the theater and with my reassigned keyboard commands, I was getting much better with the game interface but I'm not happy with it. I didn't bother to even examine all the different camera angles that are explained in the help file. I don't want different camera angles. These may be included for players who come from overhead view games such as Baldur's Gate but I prefer to be looking from my character's point of view. Along the way I earned enough experience to advance my character many times. There are a LOT of options and you seem to have to buy everything. I'm hoping that in the real game we may have options for increasing some skills/stats with guilds and temples. If everything must be increased on this character stat page from experienced earned, it's going to be difficult to figure out where to put my points. I have a lot of questions about how the real game will be. I do not feel that the demo gives a real sense of the game. The monsters and chests were all very "Monty Hall" (overly generous with loot) that I cannot believe the real game will be similar. The demo is very Monty Hall - you start out with so many spells - is the real game like that?? I doubt it. I read one comment that said that the demo was very much like the "press build". I think it's been designed to look more favorable than it might have if you did start with the real begining of the game where your character is a total newb. I'm also a bit concerned about some of the tech issues and solutions - this is a game that is supposed to be released next month. There is a warning with the demo not to use the last three save slots because they are known to corrupt data?? I was using 3 save slots and anytime I saved to the second slot after creating a save in the third - the third save wouldn't show up. It was still there but it shouldn't be disappearing from the menu. I rather have the feeling that this game is being rushed again - which isn't to say that they haven't had a lot of time to put the game together. I'm just wondering where that time has been spent. I've had my preorder in for DL for quite a while and I'm looking forward to having the whole game. [ 03-27-2005, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Wyvern ]