What % of game does the demo cover?

[tungprc]

Hey All! I downloaded and played through the demo and had a good time. The only thing that stops me from registering is the fact that the demo area was very small and yet it seemed to cover a fairly significant part of the whole map. How big is this game? The demo was 1 town, 2 dungeons, 2 mini dungeons, and some wilderness. It only took me 2-3 hours to play through. I was expecting 25% for a demo, but if so this is a very small game. I posted this same question at RPGWatch, but I bet you guys answer faster

[nerelas]

Hey All! I downloaded and played through the demo and had a good time. The only thing that stops me from registering is the fact that the demo area was very small and yet it seemed to cover a fairly significant part of the whole map. How big is this game? The demo was 1 town, 2 dungeons, 2 mini dungeons, and some wilderness. It only took me 2-3 hours to play through. I was expecting 25% for a demo, but if so this is a very small game. I posted this same question at RPGWatch, but I bet you guys answer faster

Wait, what demo EVER gives you a full quarter of the full game. Demo's are generally a rather small portion to give you a taste of what the full version has to offer. Methinks you haven't played too many demo's friend.

[macdude22]

Historically I think the Spiderweb games gave access to around 25% of the games (at least on the older ones). This was more than enough to get you hooked worse than a crack addict in Columbia.

[tungprc]

RPG-demoes. Go download a spiderweb game, Nerelas. He's the only successful indie crpg developer. Name another indie crpg developer that has over 3 titles. I'm thinking BW wants to be successful. One more, just for fun, although I'd call them a small-developer; Gods-Lands of Infinity. It was about 1/3 of the full game. Even Puzzle Quest gave about 10 hours and it was only $19.99 for the full game. I'm not sure if BW baited the hook enough, but time will tell.

I've downloaded and registered: Avernum 1-4, Azalta, Aethra Chronicles, Wizard War, Yendorian Tales 1-3, Exile 1-3, Blades of Exile, Homeland, Lazarus, Prelude to Darkness, Nethergate, Nahlakh, Natuk, the two Lysandia games, etc. The only shareware game I've downloaded and not registered was one called Parhedros. I didn't feel there was enough game there to warrant registering it. I'm on the bubble with this one.

I'm old

[Asharak]

Hey All! I downloaded and played through the demo and had a good time. The only thing that stops me from registering is the fact that the demo area was very small and yet it seemed to cover a fairly significant part of the whole map. How big is this game? The demo was 1 town, 2 dungeons, 2 mini dungeons, and some wilderness. It only took me 2-3 hours to play through. I was expecting 25% for a demo, but if so this is a very small game. I posted this same question at RPGWatch, but I bet you guys answer faster

I didn't exhaust the demo before buying the game - how far north can you go in the demo?

Assuming you can only go about as far north as you can south (you can't go to the Salted Coast, so I'm guessing you can't go beyond the North Parish region), then the demo is way less than a quarter of the game.

- Ash

[nerelas]

RPG-demoes. Go download a spiderweb game, Nerelas. He's the only successful indie crpg developer. Name another indie crpg developer that has over 3 titles. I'm thinking BW wants to be successful. One more, just for fun, although I'd call them a small-developer; Gods-Lands of Infinity. It was about 1/3 of the full game. Even Puzzle Quest gave about 10 hours and it was only $19.99 for the full game. I'm not sure if BW baited the hook enough, but time will tell.

I've downloaded and registered: Avernum 1-4, Azalta, Aethra Chronicles, Wizard War, Yendorian Tales 1-3, Exile 1-3, Blades of Exile, Homeland, Lazarus, Prelude to Darkness, Nethergate, Nahlakh, Natuk, the two Lysandia games, etc. The only shareware game I've downloaded and not registered was one called Parhedros. I didn't feel there was enough game there to warrant registering it. I'm on the bubble with this one.

I'm old

Hmm, I've played and bought a few of the Spiderweb games (The Avernum titles mostly) and I honest to god don't remember the demo's offering that much (again I can quite honestly be wrong at this point my memory isn't the best)
I guess this one seems to be going longer for me because I like trying multiple builds/approaches and get a bit mucked up.

[kornalius]

tungprc: We should get at least the complete game in demos... Seriously, 25% is way too much, what you are getting is perfect, 2-3 hours is more than enough to decide if you want to buy the game or not.

[Elixir]

The only thing that stops me from registering is the fact that the demo area was very small and yet it seemed to cover a fairly significant part of the whole map. How big is this game? The demo was 1 town, 2 dungeons, 2 mini dungeons, and some wilderness. It only took me 2-3 hours to play through. I was expecting 25% for a demo, but if so this is a very small game.

I would say the demo is about 4-5% of the game, I played the demo for about 3 hours and then bought the game, I've now been playing 27 hours and theres is a LOT more to be done, I'm expecting to finish the game the first time with my original character at about 120-140 hours, maybe more because im never in a hurry to finish any game.

[GSV3MiaC]

The Spiderweb games are not 25% .. maybe 15%, but that is area. You typically can't complete but 5-10% of the quests because you can't go out-area to where the answers are. You can usually develop your party to level10-15 (when the max in-game is maybe 35 or 40), and encounter maybe 30-40% of the spells.

I agree with the sentiment that the demo area in Escalon is too small. You can really only complete 2 quests, and you don't get enough storyline to get hooked, or explore the skills/spells/alchemy systems. It's just about enough to show the mechanics ..

On which topic - I hate it when you click on a person/chest and are told you are too far away ('just move me closer fer heaven's sake). And I'm not a big fan of the 800*600, which doesn't look too cool on my 1920*1200 widescreen.

[Gwendo]

Jeff Vogel (the man behind Spidweb) stated that the demos cover 25% of the full games. And having played his demos and registered after, I believe that percentage is correct.

A demo where we could really be sure it gives 25% away is Blades of Avernum. It comes with 4 scenarios, you can play a full scenario (and it wasn't the smallest one, either).

So I'm also curious to know how much game there is beyhond Eschalon's demo, before buying it.

[Zoggles]

Having just purchased it and having spend most of the last twleve hours playing it, I would say that the demo looks to be only about 5-10% of the game. If you are looking at 'land area' used by demo and in the whole game (including dungeons and other explorable areas) then it would appear to be around that mark (Only 2 map areas, and a couple of dungeons in the demo). If you consider monsters/enemies - about 4 in the demo (salamander x 2, bat, ooze) I've already met at least 7 or 8 new monsters in the areas I've explorer so far.. so that too would tend to concur with the 5-10% figure. Quests - hmm if I recall, only a couple of quests were completable in the demo (finding maddock, mithril bar and clearing the abbots basement) Again - though without specific numbers - this feels like less than 2% of whats in the game.

-Z-

[tungprc]

I've registered the game, based on feedback from others who had registered before me. I've been playing a paladin and having a pretty good time. I love the buffs from Divine magic that allows my fighter to survive wailing away on the enemies. I'm about level 9 or 10 and I think I've logged about 8-9 hours into the game. If it wasn't for the insanely slow walking speed, I'd rate the game even higher, but even now I'd give it a nice 7.5 or 8.