Link http://www.totalwar.com/news/4897
:laugh4:
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Link http://www.totalwar.com/news/4897
:laugh4:
Well, well. We shall see what we will see.Quote:
Originally Posted by Monsieur Alphonse
Intertsing. :balloon2:
Let me tell you, I'm about ready to make a little voodoo doll of CA and rip its head off.
pever.....why the hostility??
Not in the mood to explain it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phog_of_War
But a demo is good news, especially a pre-release one.
Looking forward to it! Skipped Napoleon but eager to get back into things with Shogun 2!
Cheers!
Ituralde
I'm guessing Steam.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phog_of_War
Nope, I love steam, one of the staunch defenders of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by johnhughthom
So am I.Quote:
Originally Posted by pevergreen
It's that time of season again... :)
How about a little hint as to what in the world has you going all voodoo on CA? :inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by pevergreen
Now hopefully my PC can handle the demo. :clown:
It seems every article I read on the STW2 site features the line:
"by perfecting the features from previous games such as full 3D land and naval battles and a detailed campaign map"
Not exactly what I was hoping for. If the thing you're most proud of about your upcoming strategy game is that it features full 3D (OMG!!!) land battles, something is very, very wrong.
Still, yay demo!
Also, hi .org, it's been a while.
Im rather exited about the demo.Cant wait to try it out. Also wellcome back Dead Guy!:bow:
Is pever's (surprising) animosity to CA due to a staggered launch or availability of Shogun2? i.e. like Mass effect 2 (i think). That would certainly tick me off.
Perhaps Australia isn't getting some of the special editions.
***BUMP***
Demo available in about 2 hours based on GMT? That's the speculation.
There go any plans for sleep tonight.
I'm so excited! :D I am going to download it as soon as I can!
But the other speculation is that the game will be released when the Steam offices open in Seattle WA at 9:00am PST tomorrow.
Well. I am on the Steam site now and no demo.
Looks like no demo tonight. I will now cry like a brokenhearted schoolgirl and suck my thumb as I fall asleep.
Its only the afternoon of the 22nd here, why would you get it on the 21st?
Yeah, it's most likely 5pm GMT today (the 22nd). Soo, in about 6 hours or so, + DL and installation, we will get a first peek at this baby.
Yup, sounds right. CA confirmed on their twitter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Revolting Friendship
hmm to wait up or not that is the question
Well I think I will be able to play just tomorrow, I don't see how thousands of players will be able to download the demo in the same time
I'm kind of glad I won't even start downloading it until about 15 hours after its released due to work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vlad The Impaler
Yup. Wish they would have done that yesterday to kill all the speculation.Quote:
Originally Posted by pevergreen
About 2 hours 45 minutes to go.
Not too worried about that - as I was browsing Steam yesterday the status page showed 2.3 MILLION users logged on. Methinks they have quite a bit of server capacity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vlad The Impaler
Yeah, but its always terrible when a big name title is getting downloaded at release. Especially when there is no pre-loading.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x
E:TW release was a nightmare.
Yes, I do remember that being the case and I will NEVER purchase an on-line version again. SOOO much easier to buy the discs, load 'em up and activate on Steam.Quote:
Originally Posted by pevergreen
Well, we will see how big the rush is in 2 hours.
Not to mention that you can always download them from Steam if you don't want to use the discs so buying discs has to sources of the game;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x
Demo should be out about now, does not appear to be. Also, the main Total War page appears to be down.
503 Service Unavailable
No server is available to handle this request.
so I think it is online now^^
Info. on the demo.
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...2-Demo-details
My bad, I was watching the "demo" page on Steam. It's available from the Shogun 2 page instead. I expect they'll list it on the demo page eventually.
Could someone please be so kind to give me a direct download link? I can't reach totalwar.com :(
You have to download from Steam. It is on the Shogun 2 page. Just click on the grey button: download the demo.
Downloading now!
Here are the details:
Hi Everyone,
As all of you on this forum know there is a demo of Total War: Shogun 2 being released today. It’s quite unlike any demo we have released previously. This demo will be giving a snippet of campaign gameplay. It's a big piece, but a snippet none-the-less. Its great fun and the testers have certainly been enjoying it.
Rather than using, as we usually do, just one historical battle and a single tutorial battle, we're basing this demo on the campaign and battle tutorials. The campaign tutorial handholds the player through the first few turns of a campaign game, serves up three tutorial battles of increasing complexity, and then lets go of the player's hand, leaving them free to explore a mini-campaign.
To cut the size of the download down to something even remotely acceptable for a demo, we have had to make all battles, apart from the three tutorial battles and one big historical battle, auto-resolved battles. We did this because the data files involved in creating the battlefields are very large. The demo version of the game for example is approximately 5GB while the full version of the game is approximately 15GB.
For this reason players won't really get the full on Total War experience, but we hope it gives a much better impression of what the game is about than a single stand-alone battle does. For those of you looking to test drive the battles a little, we’ve included the historical battle of Sekigahara, so you can get a feel for the type of warfare Shogun 2 offers. The full game obviously offers a huge amount more.
That’s ultimately the point. This is just a taster of the final game; in every aspect what you’re seeing is the smallest example, so we’d urge you to keep that in mind as you play.
As many of you know for those of you that wanted to get a fuller, hands on, experience of the game we’ve been running community events worldwide.
There is an event going on in the US today that members of all the forum communities were invited to: http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...-Get-Involved! . And this one for an upcoming UK event at CA: http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ty-event-at-CA. We are also looking at other events for other countries.
So as you can see we are doing our very best to explore as many means as possible to give people an idea of the depth and quality of Total War: Shogun 2, the demo is just a tiny piece, experience it as that.
Thank you for your time and enjoy the demo!
The Total War Development Team
found it on Steam, thanks!
W00t currently at 15% completed. Not to shabby for 5 mins of dl time given the size of the demo.
Demo is now listed on the Steam demo page as well.
Downloading it as we speak.
Campaign tutorial campaign tutorial why am i stuck in class harglebarglyapdojasdfawepopzucip.
Downloading.:2thumbsup:
"4,500 Mb of 5,950 Mb. 15 min remaining!"
I can't wait!!
I still have to wait more then an hour.Cant wait to start reading the first impressions, nevermind trying it myself.
EDIT: Download finished installing.
Less than 1 Gig to go but bit rate slowing down over the past 1/2 hour.
After the opening cinema, there's a small movie built into the main menu. It's running at 4 fps on my computer. Also, settings default to 'Classic Total War Camera'. I don't know if this is a change from Napoleon, but I could swear that wasn't always the case. Finally: There's an encyclopedia! I'll check it out before I start playing.
Ok.I am playing. I will post updates and pics here as i try the demo.Here is the mainmenu:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Here is the map with playable clans in the full campaign from the encyclopedia:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Starting screen of the historical battle of Sekigahara:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Going to try the battle next...
Wretched Kobayakawa! Like in history our western army got backstabbed in the heat of the battle.A pic from the slaughter from my headquarters area:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
On other location of the battlefield i still was able to push the Tokugawa on the run.Interesting feature here is that there are wounded enemies who definetely are not fighting anymore:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Oh,no you are not taking my position you scum!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
With the remnants of my army im moving to the open with the Shimazu as when you cant flee all you can do is to attack!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
And the end in the hands of Kobayakawa traitors. See the nice gravestone appeared on the generals portrait.:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I have to install Steam to DL. Is there a non-Steam version? If not, then I will wait. I will probably buy the game anyway, with or without playing the demo. Just hope that the retail box won't need Steam.
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by pdoan8
It will. And I, for one, welcome our new Valve overlords. Every TW title since Empire has required Steam. Surely this is not news?Quote:
Originally Posted by pdoan8
Managed to play a little bit of the campaign. I'll wait for some non-work time when I can really concentrate before giving impressions.
From the screenshots, the Battle Replay button seems to be active in the demo. If this is true, I have a question to those who already have the demo: can we now rewind during a replay or is it like in NTW, that the replays only run forward with no chance of rewinding and looking at crucial moments several times from different angles ?
The encyclopedia is huge, and fully-functioning. You can access it at any time, even during battle. It also functions as an in-game manual. If anyone has any questions about the game feel free to ask, I or someone else with the demo can probably find an answer.
For multiplayer, I guess. That's suck a bit for me. My company provided laptop can run STW2, but Steam will surely be blocked by the security software. I really don't want to carry 2 laptops every where I go.Quote:
It will. And I, for one, welcome our new Valve overlords. Every TW title since Empire has required Steam. Surely this is not news?
By the way, I don't have any TW games that come after Kingdoms. Don't have the XPack for Rome either (but I have 2 copies of Rome, which I played the least).
Just started downloading this after some server work: 760 kbs. :jumping: it has the campaign in the demo ~:)
Quick few impressions. Love the artwork and music.There are even music from the original STW in the game. The atmosphere is great.Tomorrow after some playing i can say more about other things.
I had a nasty moment in the second tutorial battle when the enemy army charged my position before I was in formation, perhaps because I had let my cavalry get too far forward chasing some routers (The Tutorial placed a few units way ahead of the main army for educational purposes). I was actually pretty worried for a moment, but I think I had more soldiers (tutorial battles exist independently of what you have in the campaign, so it's harder to tell) and I was able to get my soldiers around there's and flank them. Good thing too, if I hadn't gotten my Daimyo there in time, their cavalry might have routed mine and turned my left flank. Pretty encouraging!
EDIT: Also, apparentlyallcavalry function like Dragoons have previously and can mount/dismount at any time. Nice to know that feature is here to stay, you'd think they would have added that in Rome since they were half-way there in Medieval I!
Remind me a lot of NTW. :laugh:.
I started the download just now (got late home, some idiot let himself arrested and I have to visit him)
If I am shutting down steam, tomorrow it will resume or I have to let the PC downloading all night long?
I've messed around a bit with the campaign tutorial, but have yet to try a battle. The atmosphere and music are great as Kage mentioned. So far, the campaign map is very channeling. I am hoping this still allows for a variety of battle terrain (woods, hills, etc), but the demo will not help determining that.
So far, I like what I've seen. :2thumbsup:
BTW, this is a great demo by adding a mini campaign rather than just a battle or two. Nice work CA. ~:pat:
It looks like they finally have a Total War that seems polished. The Encyclopedia is very Civesque. Hopefully htis game will be the Civ4 of the franchise rather than the Civ5.
I lost the final battle tutorial. My coordination was all wrong, and the enemy ended up slaughtering my units piecemeal as they attempted to storm the castle. I hope the AI does as well in other battles.
Any idea if the battle AI is scripted for the tutorial?
well seems their servers are great, I downloaded the demo in 20 minutes or so.
first impression is that the game is moving great. although I have a great PC I always had a sense of fragility playing Empire (and a CTD that I never explained although I put all IT from my workplace team to seek the cause because at some point I suspected my PC) so I hope that the game will be the same. if will be easy modable it will be even better.
the game is moving great and that fog of war with old shoggy map looks nice.
I think at least part of the tutorial AI has to be scripted. They wouldn't hang out their archers/gunpowder out to dry like in the second tutorial battle.
Also, don't besiege the second province you take. It'll try to do strange things with tutorial battle, and afterwards you'd get stuck if you tried to assault.
Downloading now, next to the Dragon Age 2 demo. It's gonna take me days lol
Not even sure why I'm bothering though, with the campaign restricted to autoresolve. CA is going to keep the real AI under wraps...
According to a mod on the official site the AI "is not technically 'on.'" I would say your suspicion is warranted, Alexander. It sure does look like they're hiding something...Quote:
Originally Posted by drone
well off to a good start. froze at the spalsh screen so i restarted now my steam is trying to update my demo :S
edit: can any1 confirm if theres an update for hte demo i cant really afford to download it again cos of some stupid steam issue ill go over my limit
I had some fun recording from the demo and found this, lol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsP5...layer_embedded
Nice demo, it's smoother than the NTW one.
Kagemusha thanks a LOT for that review and the screen shots. I have to live vicariously through you and others until my new PC gets delivered.
Hahaha, that is hilarious. Tough little guy. That is a really impressive little detail and makes me ever hopeful that the game will be epic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinxit
That castle siege is actually somewhat hard.
Some of the pathing issues from ETW are still there like units turning sideways to shoot at walls. Mostly everything works as expect, smooth, and quite fun. :)
Doesn't seem to require any extra oom from the hardware compared to NTW. But then again, the armies aren't that big. Definitely like the new mechanics. It feels quite a lot more polished like NTW. Basically like NTW with swords.
Can't really talk about the AI other than that its not MIITW completely retarded for the most part.
Very impressed with the demo...runs smoothly, looks terrific, I think they are finally on to somethig great in the making.
Wow...
Can anything be deduced about the pacing and battle mechanics from the demo? Do you think the gameplay will yield rewarding multiplayer battles?
Read comments over at official forum saying units often rout within 30 seconds when unevenly matched (e.g. katana vs spear) and battle felt rushed. I haven't got a good enough computer to play yet, hopefully it's not like how some described, I am pretty clumsy with maneuvering units.
Just played the demo. I first played the historical battle and then played through the campaign. To be more precise, I played through the part that worked. It hung up on the "defend your trade route" command and never let me progress further. I was so wholly disinterested that I didn't bother playing through again.
It's all just so much lipstick on a pig of a battle engine. Insta-routing, poor pacing, super speeds, and unit reaction issues are all back with a vengeance and they've added some new head scratchers as well. (Why are my non-routing cavalry all running in opposite directions?) And as usual in the newer titles, don't bother zooming in to watch the cool animations they worked so hard on, as the battle will be decided before you have a chance to zoom back out. Arcade-ish would be a compliment.
What is really frustrating is that you can tell how much work they put into the details. The armor, animations, landscapes, and a hundred other aspects of the game are brilliant, but they fail to all come together to create an overall enjoyable experience. What is the point of all the special abilities and formations if the battle progresses so fast that you cannot make use of them? Why even bother to incorporate an exhaustion system, when it is practically meaningless to the game? (Changing the default from walk to run is indicative of the role exhaustion now plays in the engine.)
Yes it is far more polished and has a nifty dictionary, but the battles themselves are just awful - much worse than Empire and a far cry from the original.
I'm sure they will sell millions of copies, but if this is a representation of the game play we can anticipate, they won't be selling one to me. :shame:
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger
Over way too fast