New Demo VS Old Demo

I prefer the Old one .....


for those reasons ....

Post your tastes differences .....

For what concenres graphics I preferred much more the first Demo ....Becouse :



I could see bloom , now no more
I could see Blood , now no more as much at least
I could see higher resolution texture of mails etc now not
Shadows where much better befoure now they are the same
as an slightly impoved version of rtw
...
Grass looked better extending from ditance befoure ...

Altough the fps has increased the graphic experience has decreased , And I preferred much more the previous version .... altough

what instead I like of the new demo are the units in general look a bit better altough not graphically as befoure with all the effects and bloom ...
Reflections can't actually even be seen since they do not reflect anything at least this is what seems ..

if you agree with me then ...

Please go here to discuss as well to make CA know it ....

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...cID=5222.topic

What really annoys me about the new demo is actually none of the above issues, because my computer can't handle those options anyways, but they're also of a graphical nature.

Who in the world had the idea to put those fancy white hearts beside the Fatigue and that jolly little smiley beside the Morale? Makes me wonder why they haven't turned it pink or something. Also the icons on the unit cards are really ugly now, that stark white without any conture, or hue or anything. It hurts my eyes to look at it really. you have the dark moody atmosphere and something like that poking at your eyes. I bet some guys were play-testing and complaining about the fact that they didn't see what was going on and had to take a closer look. Now the facts are jumping at my face causing me physical pain.
I really don't like those changes. What they have done in colour and mood with the mini-map they have reversed with those battle icons. :embarassed:

Cheers!

Ituralde

I think it's an improvement, it runs a lot smoother on my PC compared to the old one. As for the faces and icons, I don't think they are neccessary but it definately isn't the end of the world.

There are not enough girls playing this game, so they wanted to make it more appealing :D

Just kidding.

Anniep

I cannot for the life of me fathom out why the smilies bother people so much?! They serve the purpose of relaying important information to you, the controller, quickly. In that respect, they do their job perfectly. Get over it and focus on the more important aspects of the game, i.e. is the AI any better...?

I'd arge the AI is massively improved in the second demo; Agincourt is no longer a walk in the park and I've lost my first two attempts at Otumba. :)

I'm not gonna deny the AI or the awesome gameplay provided by the demo and I enjoy playing it very much. That makes those little design decisions all that harder to understand. It was perfect for me in the first demo, but then they decided to change it for whatever reason and that's what's bothering me.

Of course I can play the game with those smileys and with those hearts but I'd rather not have them in. The first demo showed that it can be done without them.

Well, seems like I'll have to live with it, haven't found any promising entry in the preferences file yet. But I can and will voice my concern about them.

Cheers!

Ituralde

The best thing about the new demo - it runs on my PC. And, it runs well without me having to turn the graphics all the way down or buy a $100+ upgrade to play a $50 game.

:2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by PROMETHEUS

I could see bloom , now no more
I could see Blood , now no more as much at least
I could see higher resolution texture of mails etc now not
Shadows where much better befoure now they are the same
as an slightly impoved version of rtw
...
Grass looked better extending from ditance befoure ...

Altough the fps has increased the graphic experience has decreased , And I preferred much more the previous version .... altough

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Could possibly be a result of making the game playable on non-SSE2 machines. You get worse graphics so all those AMD FX owners can play the game ~:)

Also the blood system has improved.
Instead of the instant red you saw in the old one, it now increases on the soldier as the battle rages on, just like the mud.
Also the new demo is alot better.:2thumbsup:

I can actually place the game this time, last time it was very slow, but I'm getting a new GFX card before release anyway so :D

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Originally Posted by Ituralde

I'm not gonna deny the AI or the awesome gameplay provided by the demo and I enjoy playing it very much. That makes those little design decisions all that harder to understand. It was perfect for me in the first demo, but then they decided to change it for whatever reason and that's what's bothering me.

Of course I can play the game with those smileys and with those hearts but I'd rather not have them in. The first demo showed that it can be done without them.

Well, seems like I'll have to live with it, haven't found any promising entry in the preferences file yet. But I can and will voice my concern about them.

Cheers!

Ituralde

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I would like to see morale and fatigue information on the unit card. It was a request and I am glad the request was filled. I have not seen how distracting the icons are, am unable to download the demo. But it seems these crucial information is made available and I cheer that.

In general, anything appearing on the card (iconwise) is moddable. There must exist a little image file somewhere that you can blank out or putting a better icon. However, it is not moddable if the information never made available in the first place. So, before you complaint too much and the developers say "screw it, can't please everyone of anything" and take that away, perhaps you should wait a bit until the game is out and someone could figure out how to mod it.

Annie

@LadyAnn

Unfortunately the information on Morale and Fatigue is not displayed right on the unit card which would be a good addition but it is displayed when you mouseover untis right beside the text where it says Tired for the Fatigue or eager for the Morale.
Here's a screenshot to give you a better impression:
https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y7...t/Spanish1.jpg

I don't like the look of them and can spot the 'wavering' text as fast as I can discern whether the smiley has its lips down or up, that's all I guess, seems like I'm rather alone with that opinion. Also the smiley for eager and the smiley for good morale are the same, so in the end you still have to read what it says right next to the icon to get the exact information.

I played Agincourt and won easily. It was like playing against a newbie online.

It looks to me like the stakes are a lot thinner in the new demo. I think the stakes were much too thick which left too little space between them in the older demo.

I had a lot of lag in that battle and graphics problems. I believe it was caused by the 2 year old video driver I have to use with my ATI 9800 Pro so that I can play MTW/VI online without severe lag.

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Originally Posted by Ituralde

@LadyAnn

Unfortunately the information on Morale and Fatigue is not displayed right on the unit card which would be a good addition but it is displayed when you mouseover untis right beside the text where it says Tired for the Fatigue or eager for the Morale.
Here's a screenshot to give you a better impression:
https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y7...t/Spanish1.jpg

I don't like the look of them and can spot the 'wavering' text as fast as I can discern whether the smiley has its lips down or up, that's all I guess, seems like I'm rather alone with that opinion. Also the smiley for eager and the smiley for good morale are the same, so in the end you still have to read what it says right next to the icon to get the exact information.

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Sorry, I didn't realize it was not on the card.
Mouse over is not good. And yes, I agree it is not informative enough.

To me the landscape now looks much less impressive , may be they reduced tree numbers and something about the grass and terrain , the texture and stuff dunno but it looked better befoure , I remember in agincourt I could see a true forest all around now I see parse trees woodland .... then the fgrass was spreading far and more dense and it didnt really caused any lag problem looked muhc better , the textures of units looked crisper or bumped somehow .... now are tuned down , there are no more reflexions no more bloom effect that was so nice and gived everything a great look . now it just looks like a RTW mod with different skins and better AI ....

Prom, it sounds like you're computer has detected new auto settings for the graphics.

If you could play it before with the graphics turned up, try turning them up now...

Thank god that they have made it playable for all thos poor sods without the newest CPU's, it also seems to of had the side-effect of toning down the graphis of the game, which although decreases the eyes candy increases the chances of most of us being able to play the game without needin a serious upgrade.
:2thumbsup:

I just played otumba for the first time. I managed to win but barely. Some moments were really touch and go especially when the aztecs attacked from behind right into my crossbowmen and i realized that all of my other units were engaged. The AI seems much better finding holes in the line which caught be surprise at times. It managed to squeeze an aztec bodyguard unit through a small gap between my battleline and the cliff and then it attacked my musketeers. I thought they were gone but they managed to hold off the bodyguard and even kill the general long enough for some reinforcements to help them out.

That was a very hectic battle.

I am really peeved with the graphics decrease. I played it on high or highest on all before and now when I put it on the same level it just looks worse for a very minor fps increase.

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Originally Posted by Myrddraal

Prom, it sounds like you're computer has detected new auto settings for the graphics.

If you could play it before with the graphics turned up, try turning them up now...

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No I like to play at lag level all at max to take screens and watch the battlefield , befoure lagged a lot all at max , but I expected that , tough graphics where breathtaking , now all at max is no more like befoure ...

Darn, and I just went out and spent almost $200 at NewEgg to upgrade from a G6800 series NVidia card to a G7600GT to be able to take advantage of the some of the new graphical enhancements in MTW2.

Oh well, such is the life of PG game enthusiast.:wall:

The AI is tenfolds harder in the new demo. I'm able to play on shader 2 in my new demo with lagging in the beginning of the battle and getting better as it wears on.

Big improvement, especially combat animations. More like the swordsmen executing kill moves and seeing whether or not his man can parry or resist it.

I think this goes back to shading issues. For me personally I have a 3 ghz and a crappy ass graphics card. When it's up at Shader 2 it's laggy as hell but when it's down on shader one it's just fine. There are some noticeable graphics differences but that's life.

I like the new demo better for a couple of reasons. One the menus are better, secondly I can choose a few combat options now where as every single button was grey in demo one (like fire at will and skirmish.)

The Aztecs are a nice challenge. Not easy in the least means and the old CTRL-A charge does not work against them. In last battle even with groups, and movement and flanking it was rough I think i ended without about 6-8 guys.

Hmmz.. This sounds really bad.. They made the graphics worse so more people can play it? How wrong is that! Should they just add a couple more options for people to customize their own experience, whether they want to enjoy an extremely graphics detailed battle or a minorly detailed one..

No, they fixed an SSE2 issue so that a large section of the market can run the game and you think that's wrong?

.......Orda

I think the new demo has more pros than cons compared with the old demo. However, i noticed something strange. I had a unit of sword and buckler men fighting peasants downhill on my right. I thought they would easily grind the peasants down so i let them be and concentrated on the others. I checked from time to time but none were dying out. Late in the battle i had lost about three men and the peasants had lost maybe ten out of 150. The aztecs were getting reinforcements by this time in my rear so i charged the peasants with some horse which broke them. I could see no reason wy they had such low killratio. Is this a bug or a new feature?


G

Maybe the peasants were set on "Guard" mode. I have noticed, especially in Azincourt, that it was improving drasticly the defense of a unit and made it last longer. But it might only a bug.

As for me, i think the new demo is better because it runs smoother while keeping almost the same quality of graphics. I can see the bloom effect, and lights are the same as in the old one. I only put shadows at the lowest setting in order to keep a good pace on the field so i haven't checked about them.

The overall impression is that i can have real good battles to watch without having to turn off nice graphic features. I'm quite happy about it.

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

No, they fixed an SSE2 issue so that a large section of the market can run the game and you think that's wrong?

.......Orda

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I think doing it the "easy" or "wrong" way is wrong.

I find that the Aztec reinforcements from behind seem to go straight for Cortez, so you can stop them hitting the rear of your army just by moving him around a bit.

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

I think doing it the "easy" or "wrong" way is wrong.

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I fail to understand how including a large sector of the market can be construed as 'wrong'. On the contrary, losing the possible sales from this sector would be bad marketing strategy

.......Orda

What gave you the impression that I said that "including a large sector of the market" is wrong? I simply said, it is wrong to do it by wrecking down Graphics for everyone. They should have kept the graphics, but included options that allow SSE1 CPUs to run the game but on the expense of graphics level.

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wrecking down Graphics

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Graphics are wrecked? Bit of an exaggeration there

.....Orda

Not wrecked .... just toned a bit down ....

here is new Demo grass a bit less as you can see....

https://img218.imageshack.us/img218/...ollina2rv9.jpg

Here is the old Demo grass , a bit more dense , also you could pan more down as visual....

https://img53.imageshack.us/img53/44...avicinotp9.jpg

here of the bloom effect on old demo ...

https://img189.imageshack.us/img189/...necchi2il5.jpg

here on the new Demo as you can see its toned down ...

https://img189.imageshack.us/img189/...necchi2il5.jpg


I have to rectify about the texture , they seem to be the same quality at high , plus , the reflections where as well barely visible as in the first as in the second .....the trees too look similar as density , probably shadows have been retouched , grass looks less dense as befoure and camera pan could go more down ....
bloom effect decreased
blood effect improved but toned down and no more blood spread when hit (I liked befoure a lot)
flamed people now look better ...
AI I am not sure is better since I won Otumba by rushing only and in Pavia a french unit was attaking by giving the backs to my Lansdziwiser or how they are spelled ....plus some units have been substituited and look better ,

So far what I would fix is

Put back blood and Bloom , grass density , finishing moves .....



Another annoying thing I noticed is that longbowmen taqke exaclty 8-10 seconds to AIM .... this is crazy .... check it out in Agincourt....


and on a side note on none of the demo the corpes on field are 3d and put a real obstacle .....as instead said in the features by CA....

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

Graphics are wrecked? Bit of an exaggeration there

.....Orda

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Maybe, but is true.. (The whole meaning of the statement I mean)

Sorry Prometheus, after studying those pics I fail to see any major complaint. The trees in the first pic are a bit 'fuller' but I see nothing that bad with the comparison. IMO the second example without bloom is a far better picture. The first looks like it is over exposed

....Orda

Is it me or did Prometheus links the same picture twice for showing the Bloom difference?
At least the URLs are the same and I noticed no difference between them at all.

Bah, the demo CRAWLS on the system I tried it on (2.4ghz pentium, 512ùb Ram, Radeon 9600) with everthing on low. I didn't even play it...

From those pics i can say that if there are any differences, they are minimal from the looks of it.

I find the differences quite minimal too and the graphics still look stunning.:2thumbsup:

The last two pics have identical URL :inquisitive:


CBR

Just to clarify, I haven't played the second demo, but through the various complaints I read, it appears it has lost Graphics quality since the first one, thus my posts above.

GAH, I can't believe this, I just finished DL'ing the demo (took me six hours) and tried playing the Agincourt battle - it is literally a slideshow! Completely unplayable.

I have an Athlon 64, 1 Gig RAM, ATI 9800 Pro.

Obviously the first thing to try is to tweak the graphic settings, but this is very discouraging! It's far worse even than RTW when I first got it, and that was when I only had a 1 Gig Celeron with 256 Mb of RAM!

Update: Tried turning shadows off and it was much better. I lost the battle - got Henry killed. Can someone remind me how to zoom in on the action? I don't want to sit through the whole tutorial to find out!

First impressions are okay though. The melee combat certainly seems to last plenty long enough. That was the thing I was most worried about. And the units don't seem to be moving too fast - another very important issue. In fact it does look very much as though "classic" TW battle pace has been restored to the game. Looks like about the only thing left to worry about then is the quality of the AI, and there's no telling about that from the demo, since it's scripted.

Some of the animations are ridiculous though. I saw one heavily armoured French knight actually do a backward somersault when struck a blow by an opponent. Yeesh! How stoopid is that. Not very keen on the unit colour schemes either. Too garish. The English look particularly wrong, in their yucky orange-and-yellow. Is this an example of the Aussies taking revenge against their former colonial masters? :laugh4: But the colours are certainly better than they were in Rome, which isn't saying much.

All in all though, my first impressions are more positive than I anticipated. I find myself reconsidering a full price purchase of this game. But all the same, I think I'll still wait until the community has had more time to assess the gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

IMO the second example without bloom is a far better picture. The first looks like it is over exposed

....Orda

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Which reminds me - what exactly is bloom? I saw it in the graphics options but left it on since I didn't know what it was.

Yes my bad , I uploaded two times the same pic for the Landszichnecht or whats written like ... anyway the bloom effect looked better in first demo .... much better .... and about reflections they are missing on both ....

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Originally Posted by screwtype

Can someone remind me how to zoom in on the action? I don't want to sit through the whole tutorial to find out!

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Try the wheel on your mouse~;)

........Orda

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IMO the second example without bloom is a far better picture. The first looks like it is over exposed

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Lol.. It's the same picture ~;)

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

Try the wheel on your mouse~;)

........Orda

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Mice don't have wheels ~D At least, mine doesn't.

I probably just need to look at the keyboard shortcut screen, that should tell me what the commands are. But thanks anyhow ~:)

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Originally Posted by screwtype

Which reminds me - what exactly is bloom? I saw it in the graphics options but left it on since I didn't know what it was.

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It's an effect that adds a "glow" on highlights in the graphics, if your video card has the hardware to support it. Try turning it off, then back on, and you'll see the effect.

I can't stand it myself... it looks like I'm viewing the scene through a dirty camera lens. It's an over-used effect in many modern computer games. I think some developers use it just because it's available on the card, and not for any real aesthetic reason. At least it can be disabled in M2TW, which I appreciate. I know some people like it.

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Originally Posted by Zenicetus

It's an effect that adds a "glow" on highlights in the graphics, if your video card has the hardware to support it. Try turning it off, then back on, and you'll see the effect.

I can't stand it myself... it looks like I'm viewing the scene through a dirty camera lens. It's an over-used effect in many modern computer games. I think some developers use it just because it's available on the card, and not for any real aesthetic reason. At least it can be disabled in M2TW, which I appreciate. I know some people like it.

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Hmm, yeah, that does sound like something I probably don't need. I'll try disabling it to see what difference it makes. With a bit of luck it might actually improve things, the colours all looked a tad garish to me anyhow ~:)

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Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

Lol.. It's the same picture ~;)

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Yes.......I noticed you picked up on it too :laugh4: But there, it only serves to reiterate how minimal the 'wrecked' graphics are

Screwtype
I can't remember either m8. Did you try * and - above the number pad?

....Orda

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Originally Posted by screwtype

Hmm, yeah, that does sound like something I probably don't need. I'll try disabling it to see what difference it makes. With a bit of luck it might actually improve things, the colours all looked a tad garish to me anyhow ~:)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_%28shader_effect%29

That pretty much explains what bloom is.

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Originally Posted by wraithdt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_%28shader_effect%29

That pretty much explains what bloom is.

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Hmm, sounds to me like turning it off may well reduce the garishness of colour that I don't like. Might save a few GPU cycles too.

That's assuming my Radeon 9800 Pro actually has the bloom capability - if it does, I've never read about it. Maybe I'm not getting bloom effects anyhow. I'll have to play the demo over again to find out.

I guess it might also explain why some folks feel the graphics are worse in the new demo - maybe bloom wasn't enabled in the original and is now. Because one of the effects is apparently a blurring of the image. The solution then might just be to turn off bloom and see if that restores the detail some people feel they have lost.

I like bloom. Things are far too clean and clinical otherwise. Makes it a bit messier. Covers up jagged lines too...

If I had a card which could cope with high AA then I probably wouldn't be so bothered.

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Originally Posted by screwtype

GAH, I can't believe this, I just finished DL'ing the demo (took me six hours) and tried playing the Agincourt battle - it is literally a slideshow! Completely unplayable.

I have an Athlon 64, 1 Gig RAM, ATI 9800 Pro.

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I have the same card and RAM & found the first demo hard going - have you gone to the graphics setting and made sure you have "shader 1" selected? x-danger gave me that hint (:2thumbsup:) and it dramatically improved things for me.

New Demo played fine on my AthlonXP 2400+ cpu (2.0 GHz), 1 GB RAM and ATI 9800 Pro Radeon with the new Catalyst 6.9 video driver. I used shader 1, no AA, bilinear filtering, high building detail, medium unit detail and low grass detail.

To me the new demo is a real improvement. Simply because the old one refused to load, and the new one does not.

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Originally Posted by screwtype

Which reminds me - what exactly is bloom? I saw it in the graphics options but left it on since I didn't know what it was.

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bloom adds luster and radiance to the graphics metal becomes very bright and literately glows and everything has an over exposed dream like quality. i prefer bloom off since it looks much more realistic. but bloom is a very pretty and interesting effect.

A totally wierd difference.

Compared to the old demo, I sense that CA wanted to make a more graphical approach. They improved the graphics(fonts are smaller now) and also, they changed the scripting of Pavia for instance, but still, you can defeat the enemy.

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Originally Posted by econ21

I have the same card and RAM & found the first demo hard going - have you gone to the graphics setting and made sure you have "shader 1" selected? x-danger gave me that hint (:2thumbsup:) and it dramatically improved things for me.

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Um, not sure what I did, but whatever it was it improved the gamespeed hugely ~:)

I think it was turning off shadows that did the trick though...

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Originally Posted by screwtype

You get worse graphics so all those AMD FX owners can play the game ~:)

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I've got an FX and never had truoble with the old demo - or am I misunderstanding you?

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Originally Posted by ProudNerd

bloom adds luster and radiance to the graphics metal becomes very bright and literately glows and everything has an over exposed dream like quality. i prefer bloom off since it looks much more realistic. but bloom is a very pretty and interesting effect.

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I totally agree with ya about keeping bloom off. For me it's just a really lame and simple interpretation of HDR :smash: