Demo?

[JesterJD]

I just picked up the latest issues of Armchair General and saw the advertisement for Down In Flames. I ran to my computer to donwload the playable Demo of it as stated in the advertisement. Where the heck is it?

Have I just been teased?

JesterJD

[Larry Welborn]

I think it is safe to say that you have been teased.

[bartbert]

As the developer on this project, I can give you my perspective on the question, but I don't speak officially for Battlefront.

If you have been teased, it certainly hasn't been intentional. We'd love to get the game out into players hands. Some of the delay is just the normal stuff you run into with software development. We'd rather release a stable product late, than an unstable product on time, and I think most players would go along with that.

Another source of delay was that we added campaigns into the game rather late in the process. We felt that it really added a lot of value to the game, but of course it required more development and testing, which pushed things out a bit more.

Finally, you have the fact that Down in Flames is the first game for Battlefront in which they are providing a game server, which will facilitate players hooking up with other players in a Lobby area, running the games, etc. This client-server model is a much more difficult undertaking than the peer-to-peer model. It requires Battlefront to proceed cautiously to make sure that the game server can handle the load and provide players with a fun experience.

That's kind of where things are right now. Since it's a new model, we're feeling our way along. I can't give you a date when it will all be ready, but I can tell you that we're still working steadily to get this into players hands.

[Haohmaru]

As a player I'd really appreciate the opportunity to play a single player only demo. If all of the holdup is almost entirely related to the online portion of the game, then surely a single player demo can't be totally out of the question? Given that we have been expecting this game to come out for several months now, I think it would be a nice gesture to be able to play something now rather than wait for it all to be finished.

[Kiith]

I agree, all I'd expect from the demo would be a couple of fighters (I.e. Germany only vs the British and only up to the Bf109E) and a limited sent of pilot skills. This should be just enough to give us a feel for the game with the rest of the nations, campaigns and online competition giving you the promise of much more.

That said I could understand if you wanted to put one of the smaller campaigns like Dunkirk in the demo. But I feel that the Solomon Islands AAR really tells you all you really need to know about how that side of the game works. From my point of view all I really want to get from the demo is how the dogfighting part of the game works, feels and plays out like.

[bartbert]

I understand what you guys are saying. Again, I don't speak for Battlefront, but I would think any software company would want to release a demo only when they have the actual product ready to sell. Any sooner than that, and it seems like you would be diluting the main point of a demo, which is to sell the product. At any rate, hopefully you won't have to wait too much longer.