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DS2 Demo (on the September PC Gamer DVD)

Sharkull's picture

FYI.

I just bought the new PC Gamer with the Demo on it (found at CostCo, if anyone in TO is reading and wondering where to look). Of course I find it just before I plan on leaving town for a few days. :roll: Stare

From the ReadMe:

Quote:
The Trial Version of Dungeon Siege II contains only a limited portion of the single player version of the game (up to the Elven Shrine area). In the Retail Version, your adventure will continue well beyond this area.

I didn't get all the way through the Demo, but I did make it through the beginning, and all the way to the first teleporter (after buring the first tower). I have to say the that the most interesting things I found were the chapter 1 story stuff (excluded from the MP Beta), and the limit on party size at the beginning. If you want to add a third party member or pet, you have to pay a fee to the Innkeeper. Also, the Save Game implementation seems a bit weird... (no multiple saves possible, just one per character, consisting of a ds2party file and a ds2radar file).

Anyways, I thought I'd post this info., just in case anyone was interested. Wink

Thank you. Don't really like that part about only one save per chapter. Could be troublesome while playing some mods where you need to save often incase you encounter a bug.

Yeah the demos on the September issue of PC Powerplay for Ozzie people (so much for world wide exclusives). I have to say I'm very impressed so far. Very slick and surprisingly good performance even with everything maxed out. Though I'm playing at 1028x768 since it's hard to read the dialog at the highest resolution (have to get a bigger monitor Laughing out loud ).

I agree the save system is problematic at best. You also have to restart a save game from the last town. Too bad if you only fancy a quick 20 minutes blast or so, or only have that much time to spare Sad .

Apart from mods, the one save per game also discourages experimentation. Imagine if you get 30 hours into the game only to find out you've messed up your character due to a mistake 20 minutes or so ago (picking a wrong skill or dropping an important quest item).

I imagine one of the first mods or tools created for the game will be a saved game backup utility like those that exist for Diablo 2 (where GPG no doubt copied this system from).

That sucks. I save my game constantly because I ummmm........ tend to die alot. I don't want to have to go back 3 hours and start over just cause I was stupid and ran into the wrong room. To all of you modders out there please please please make something so I can save my games. I know absolutely nothing about modding or I would do it myself. :dunce:

I actually like 1 save because it only takes 1 second to save... I've only died a few times then used pwors ALot and havnt died since. DS2 RULZ! Cool

-Sean

Oh, man...
Oh, man..
I'm still waitin'
Anticipatin'
Please Mr Postman don't be slow - be like Elvis..
Go,man. Go!! Crazy

Sharkull's picture

saraibrahim wrote:
That sucks. I save my game constantly because I ummmm........ tend to die alot. I don't want to have to go back 3 hours and start over just cause I was stupid and ran into the wrong room.

Don't worry too much about it sara. There is a Respawn function that allows you to live again (possibly with the loss of some gold, depending on how you choose to continue after respawning). Basically, you won't be replaying 3 hours worth of game (especially if you save often).

At worst, you'll lose a percentage of your gold and/or have to do some running from the last teleporter you activated. When you die for the first time, your options are explained in a helpful pop-up tip.

"Ctrl+S" is your friend... without restrictions. Since you load a game starting in town, you don't have the same worries about a "bad save" as in DS1 (i.e. save a game a split second before you get killed).
Laughing out loud

Thanks Sharkull!!! That makes me feel better. :cheerup:
I just hope that I have the money to get it when it finally does come out.
12 more days YAY!!!!

Ok i started and completed the demo and i can tell you about advanced dying ( total team death)) is that you can respawn and the bestest thing to do is just hault noogies then press gather all treasure (your team will automaticly pick up their own stuff) and about the save system you can save anywhere but when you initiate the save you start by the transporter in town. Over all i was a little dissapointed in the demo (couldnt go south) so if you completed the beta there is nothing new. But if you havent completed the demo by all means enjoy

Sharkull's picture

KillerMondoDude wrote:
Over all i was a little dissapointed in the demo (couldnt go south) so if you completed the beta there is nothing new.

The beginning to the game is new... you didn't get this opening chapter / training session (and the accompanying story dialog) in the Beta.
:P

Yea but ummm i WANNA GO SOUTH GATE Dammit i want my Wolfy

Running on a Ti4200, it looks fine - just a couple of beefs:-

1 long delay waiting for game to start up...??
2 occasional blips on loading - a network list keeps trying to cut in??
3 ..is there a conflict with ZA??

Did anybody else get a glitchy start?? :?

Looks like it's going to be a winner, though.... :yahoo:

Sharkull's picture

1. Add the nointro=true flag to your shortcut, and that should speed things up at startup (just like DS1).

3. There was a known issue with ZoneAlarm in the Beta, and I did have a problem with ZA when I first ran the Demo too. The ZA pop-up asking for network permission was invisible, froze my screen, and I had to hard boot. Before I started the Demo again, I just set the ZA settings up manually, so that it would not prompt me for permission. I haven't had a problem since.

Anyone know where I can get the demo in NZ without d/l it? I'm afraid I'll get a bad file error or something and waste my bandwidth. Already got my retail copy pre-ordered, coming with that nifty comic Smile but I want to see what's changed in the demo. No spoilers please Smile

Welcome Arrozal,

The september issue of PcGamer, which should be in the stores, comes with the demo. I'm not sure if it is only in the US but maybe you could find out? Or maybe someone here who knows can shed some light on it.

I've only been able to find June editions and stuff around here but maybe I havn't been looking in the right places. Damn Whitcoulls...

That store is probably a bit behind if they only have the june issue.

The sept issue seems to be out in Australia, and likely the US. But I don't know about anywhere else. I went to GPG garage but couldn't find any information on if it. Also on PCGamers homepage I see the August issue. http://www.pcgamer.com/inthisissue.html

I'm not much help here. ^^

Quote:
Anyone know where I can get the demo in NZ without d/l it?
I got the demo on the September edition of PCPowerplay which I believe is distributed at some stores in NZ. So DS2 isn't an exclusive to PC Gamer after all.

Some stores only stock the older editions of PC magazines. PC Gamer is distributed in Australia (and possibly New Zealand as well) as both PC Gamer & PC Games addict, which are virtually identical except that one is imported & the other is published in Australia. To get up to date overseas PC magazines in Australia (and no doubt NZ as well), you pay a premium.

New Zealand, as is the case for Australia, will probably get the retail version of DS2 on August 28th.

Nope, preordered mine and it's arriving on the 18th-19th of August. Yeah, I'llsee if I can find the latest PC Powerplay or PC Gamer.