Is the demo legal yet?

[amritochates]

All Information is sourced from this link:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=58

I just read a post at the .net forums that claims that the Demo has been released in the Subscribers only November Issue of the US Version of PC Gamer and that is the only legal way to get it so far...

Additionally someone had posted the following:

Let me start off by first saying that regardless of my source, I do have the demo and it works fine. The demo features the tutorial battle, an overview movie, the Battle of Agincourt, and the Battle of Pavia. My specs:

X850 XT PE 256 MB
2048 MB RAM
AMD 3200+

I set everything as high as possible at 1280 x 1024 and the game just looks amazing. There's no other way to describe it. I give CoH the effects and physics of course, but Medieval 2 has better looking individual soldiers and terrain. No RTW mod comes close to the detail ingame. With that said, it ran a little sluggish at all high settings, so I think I'm going to tone it down a tad just to make the general feel of the game smoother.

Onto the tutorial. The tutorial was just like Rome's. You started out on the flank, beyond a bridge, fighting a unit or two of Saxons while the main Norman force was on the other side of the river. Your general, Rufus, is eventually ordered onto the flank of the main force and that is where I stopped playing the tutorial. I'm not sure what I was missing, but I moved all of my men into position, and nothing was happening? I'm sure I missed something, but it's not like I needed the tutorial anyway. I went straight into the Battle of Agincourt after that.

Agincourt was interesting, to say the least. I know it was a scripted battle, but for the first few minutes, I did nothing. I just watched as French cav and infantry charged my lines and were slaughtered. They made no effort to flank, no effort to avoid my infantry and go for the archers. Until the second French army attacked my rear, I didn't even have to lift a finger. I pulled some infantry to the rear and then their infantry and cav poured in some more but in the end, I drove back the second army and rounded on the front and won easily. Not much to say for the AI in that battle, but it was scripted. The French did cross the muddy field and get slaughtered so I don't know. Two things I noticed. Archers do not pull their strings. That discussion we had the other day based on that screenshot... they pull nothing. Strings stay tight throughout the animation. It really doesn't look that bad though. Infantry can navigate through spikes pretty easily as well.

I haven't gotten a chance to play anything else yet, but the game feels pretty amazing. The kill animations and blood look fantastic, but my system isn't good enough to play it on the settings I set it to so I don't think I got the full experience. Sure it looked great, but things were less fluent than they should have been. I plan on going back and lowering the settings and hopefully getting a better playing experience. I guess it's looking good, but it's difficult for me to judge the critical things like the AI when the only battles available to us are scripted ones. We shall see.

EDIT UPDATE: The music is great, the sound is great. Muskets sound great. I liked Pavia better than Agincourt, but it may have just been because I was playing with more than 2 FPS. Pavia required more movement, but for some reason I feel disoriented on the battle field. I know I don't have the controls down, it's been so long since I've played Rome and I'm stuck on Company of Heroes controls.

Pavia was a lot of fun though, I can't wait till get Rodeo to mod the demo so we can make custom. Another important note, it seems as if Dismounted Knights are a separate unit than mounted knights. Kind of sucks...

Ref:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=64206

[doc_bean]

http://www.pcgamer.com/inthisissue.html

Doesn't say so on the website.

[Monarch]

Its available, but in accordance with econ's new pinned toppic I shall say no more.

[amritochates]

Yeaaaaaaaah.........

Beat You all !! was the first to report demo release

[Monarch]

Yup, congrats, of course you did it after everyone had it...:P

This will probably get closed, which is fair enough.

[Callatian]

Ok ... I got the demo and I'm waiting for it to be declared legal so I can play it PC Gamer really knows how make people happy. I wonder how Gamspot or other sites feel ... anyway TWC is full of Demo discussion topics and i know you guys here at .ORG konw best since you are closer to devs... so when you will get an official CA statement pls. let me know.

Thanks,
BB/C

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Some of us won't even be playing the demo and i doubt the main game at the moment due to me having an athlon

[Monarch]

Its legal if you're a subscriber to PC Gamer.

[Stig]

BKB what sort of Athlon?
Athlon 64 works normally, as it does support that SSM thingy

But it ain't legal yet, it's weekend so CA devs are not at work, I think they will reply at .com tomorrow

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

BKB what sort of Athlon?
Athlon 64 works normally, as it does support that SSM thingy

But it ain't legal yet, it's weekend so CA devs are not at work, I think they will reply at .com tomorrow

Athlon XP mate. God, I really want to play the game! Although CA say's this is just for the demo i can see it being for main release as well.

[Basileus]

Some of us won't even be playing the demo and i doubt the main game at the moment due to me having an athlon

Im in the same boat heh, good thing is i will propably be upgrading/buying a new pc next month if Nvidia realese their DX10 graphics card. Still i think it was a bad move by CA to realese a demo thats not even compatible with most cpus out there.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I hesitate to ask, but...how is the battle/kill speed?

[Divine Wind]

Check this post out BKS.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...07&postcount=5

[Faenaris]

I hesitate to ask, but...how is the battle/kill speed?

I want to add something else to Divine Wind's post. While the Kill rates have decreased since RTW, I still think they are a tad too fast. Then again, that could be because my gold chevron foot knights charged a bronze chevron foot knight unit. Morale shattering. :)

So, right now, it is kinda hard to judge the ratio's because the fights are uneven, resulting in faster routing.

[Sun of Chersonesos]

so you got the demo through your door and your doubting wether it's legal or not? i'd be jumping to play it straight away

[Stig]

Where can i find the demo.

at some sites and when you download it it's illegal, only if you have PC Gamer you're legal, but I think CA will release the legal one any day this week

[econ21]

I understand that some people legally have the demo, so I am going to allow discussion of the demo as it pertains to content and gameplay.

Any discussion of where the demo can be illegally acquired or advocacy of piracy is not acceptable, in accordance with:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=70205

[Solon of Athens]

Ok ... I got the demo and I'm waiting for it to be declared legal so I can play it PC Gamer really knows how make people happy. I wonder how Gamspot or other sites feel ... anyway TWC is full of Demo discussion topics and i know you guys here at .ORG konw best since you are closer to devs... so when you will get an official CA statement pls. let me know.

Thanks,
BB/C

It's not like we just let everyone post torrent links is it, and in the end it turns out that discussion was allowed, just no links, like we were doing yesterday...

Anyway I think the official line from CA is, talk as much as you like about the demo, post screenies and everything, just no downlaod links...

[Gustav II Adolf]

Yes its true. I have played the demo now. My computer is old so i have difficulties knowing what causes what. My specs are p4 2,8 1G RAM ati 9600 256mb pro. I can play the demo with some lag having all settings on low (in rome i can play with all settings on high or highest without lag).



/G