What happened to the Combat Mission demos ? Will they return ?

[Brille]

Since Battlefront moved over to Slitherine the demo files of all those games seem to have vanished.

They cannot be found either on Slitherine.com, nor on Steam itself.

Will they make a return at any point ?

I know that Steam has a 2 hour/14 days-trial policy where you can return the game without any questions. However that may not be enough for potential customers.

 

This is not for me, as I have all the Combat Mission games.

 

 

[Warts 'n' all]

One thing that put me off certain companies in the past was the lack of demos.

[Thewood1]

Then you are not going to like Matrix.  But steam lets you buy and try for a few hours of play.

[Warts 'n' all]

8 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

Then you are not going to like Matrix.  But steam lets you buy and try for a few hours of play.

You're right I don't like Matrix. And I don't like Steam either. I remember buying something many years back. The online receipt was in tiny black lettering on a dark grey background. So I didn't even see the bit about "buy and try", until after they had refused a refund. It turned the time allowed to play the game wasn't even enough to get through the tutorial. I might be in a minority of one, but I'm saddened to think the BFC want to work with such a bunch of (insert expletive of choice).

[Vacillator]

I've found dealing with Slitherine (the relevant part of Slitherine/Matrix for CM) to be good.  They respond to questions and requests for help, or if it's more appropriate I believe they'll send you in @BFCElvis's direction.  I haven't tried to get a refund though.  Why would I ?

Steam is for me perhaps less of a 'personal' experience, it seems more like a games-selling-machine than a group of humans.  However I have previously 'returned' a game within the 2 playing hours time limit and got an immediate refund (the game was so bad I can't even remember what it was).

All of which does not help with the lack of demos.  I would also like to see them return as I sometimes suggest them to new players.  I'm even trying to set up a PBEM with a new player (aka a neighbour of mine) using the CMBN demo which I downloaded some time ago.

As a wacky suggestion I wonder whether all of the demos could be made available at the TFGM Scenario Depot hosted by @Bootie?  Of course there may be some 'legal' reason why they can't, and I suppose it may not be the most obvious place for potential new customers to look, so putting them on the Slitherine site might be better overall.

Edited 22 hours ago by Vacillator

[BFCElvis]

8 hours ago, Vacillator said:

As a wacky suggestion I wonder whether all of the demos could be made available at the TFGM Scenario Depot hosted by @Bootie?  Of course there may be some 'legal' reason why they can't, and I suppose it may not be the most obvious place for potential new customers to look, so putting them on the Slitherine site might be better overall.

Not a bad idea. I'll ask around. I can definitely post a link tot he demos, similar to the Mac downloads. 

I have had a bit of a problem with our demos for a while because they aren't updated to the latest engine. I think the CMFI demo may have been built with Game Engine 2. And I never got one for Cold War. I had a whole Demo page set up and ready to go once the Cold War demo was released because I wasn't keen on the demos being in each game's page, rather than a single Demos page.

But sumfink is better than nothing.

[Vacillator]

2 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

But sumfink is better than nothing.

Thanks John, I totally agree.  They have been useful for me even if they're old engine stuff. 

Now if only I can get my neighbour over the starting line with the CMBN demo ... 

[BFCElvis]

55 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Thanks John, I totally agree.  They have been useful for me even if they're old engine stuff. 

Now if only I can get my neighbour over the starting line with the CMBN demo ... 

Here are all of them:

 

https://battlefront.sharefile.com/public/share/web-s65bfb318dde74b2b9ee191c5d32da6af

[Vacillator]

42 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:

Here are all of them:

Downloading the whole lot, thanks John.  Even those weird *** Mac versions as someone might, just might, want to use one of them .

Edited 10 hours ago by Vacillator

[Redwolf]

Elvis is right. The fact that the demos are outdated makes them a lot less useful. People might dislike them for things already fixed.

Hopefully there will be some Charles time to rebuild them one more time.

[Vacillator]

5 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

The fact that the demos are outdated makes them a lot less useful.

Perhaps, but when I played the demos of CMBN and CMRT it was enough for me to buy the games.  Only later did I become aware of the 'what needs fixing'.

But time moves on and they get older so if the suggestion is newer demos, I agree.

[BFCElvis]

1 hour ago, Redwolf said:

Hopefully there will be some Charles time to rebuild them one more time.

Don't hold out hope, my brother. That is serious rearview mirror stuff.

But to tease a little, there is a HUGE amount of resources being put into CM3. As Steve said in a post......The team is very large. Our new partners know what you guys want and that is the focus.

[BornGinger]

On 10/21/2024 at 9:09 AM, Warts 'n' all said:

It turned the time allowed to play the game wasn't even enough to get through the tutorial.

That's why Youtube is the place to go for getting to know about a game. Watch a video or two and you'll know whether or not to buy it.

[BornGinger]

6 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

Our new partners know what you guys want and that is the focus.

So they have read all the posts about what we want a good game with a battle setting to contain? I sure hope so even though I'm sure much of it won't be in the game.