Demo Out!

[chr0n1x]

The demo has been released!

 

http://www.gamespot.com/promos/2006/starwarsdemo/index.html?tag=psbox_hp_eaw

http://www.download.com/Star-Wars-Empire-at-War-demo/3000-7488_4-10492455.html?tag=lst-0-1

http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/swempireatwar/empireatwardemo.exe.html

http://empireatwar.filefront.com/file/Empire_at_War_Demo;55229

http://files.filefront.com/Star+Wars+Empire+at+War+Demo/;4632916;;/fileinfo.html

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/empireatwar/

http://filecloud.com/files/file.php?file_id=2753

http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=8255

http://www.worthdownloading.com/download.php?gid=1466&id=6431

http://www.3ddownloads.com/Strategy/Star%20Wars%20Empire%20at%20War/Demo/EmpireAtWarDemo.exe

http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/filedownload.phtml?link=starwarsempireatwar&platform=&type=demo&size=741.9MB&datum=2006-01-18&description=single+playable

 

The xfire ingame profile i made:

[4727]
LongName=Empire At War Demo
ShortName=eawdemo
LauncherDirKey=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{1E875C1C-7BFF-47D6-8A01-E9C93A244B41}\InstallLocation
LauncherDirAppend=\GameData
LauncherExe=sweaw.exe
Launch=%UA_LAUNCHER_EXE_PATH% %UA_LAUNCHER_EXTRA_ARGS% %UA_LAUNCHER_NETWORK_ARGS%
InGameRenderer=D3D9
InGameFlags=DISABLE_RELEASE

Change the number if needed, put this in xfire_games.ini

 

[edit] Xfire released a games update with my game profile in it.

Edited January 19, 2006 by chr0n1x

[carrieofthewest]

NO YOU BEAT ME TO IT! btw whats your xifre?

[chr0n1x]

heavybomber190

[Krytos]

Awesome news! I'll have to download it later tonight on a my other computer that can run the game.

 

So, those who already have it: What's it like?

 

I had a question I wanted to ask prior to it's release - so I'll ask now. How does anti aircraft fire work?

Are there dedicated AA units, and they're the only ones that can shoot at air units?

Or is it more like Total Annihaltion, where any unit could shoot at air units - however AA units are far better at the task?

[chr0n1x]

The demo is great adn since its a small slice, the full game is going to be one hell of an rts.

AA fire comes from buildings in the demo, you build them on a build pad, you see excluding skirmish mode, all buildings are build in the galactic conquest view, and are in place on the ground. You cannot get any aerial units to combat aircraft, the only fighters are in space mode. The only aircraft you can get in ground mode is the bomber for the bombing run. That is why you have AA buildings, to stop them. The game is very much like Battlefront 1/2, you capture reinforcement points by holding them for an amount of time after all enemies have been cleared from the surrounding area, and turrets/bacta tanks/repair stations are built on build pads which, according to the ingame encyclopedia, can be build by infantry. So just think Battlefront 2 rts with huge units and loads more in the space combat bits, plus you can choose your own fleet.

[Bill]

I'm glad some people can download it, 741 meg on dial-up, you ought to be out of you mind, it would take me a week to download that, I'll just wait for the game to come out.

[DarthTofu]

I'm glad some people can download it, 741 meg on dial-up, you ought to be out of you mind, it would take me a week to download that, I'll just wait for the game to come out.

 

Sounds like it would take you a week to install the game! I speak from experiance- age of empires gold edition took me a full day to install on an ancient Widows 98... I hate that computer... and yet I'm still drawn to it to play Rebellion and (Ironically enough) Age fo Empires Gold Edition.

 

I have to get that demo on my compy... mayhaps after school when my parents aren't home to tell me not to

 

Edit: Man, 2 hours and 46 minutes? That's insane! I might have to start it up in the morning and let it go while I'm at school... Even though I don't leave until next to last in the morning... hmm... Any way I can hide the downloading bar?

[Ragnar]

Start download...

Watch a movie

Install...

 

Play!

 

Wow. This game is a lot more like Rebellion than I imagined. You build things in galactic mode and fight seperate ground and space battles when moving into orbit of or assaulting a planet. There's even hero's that you can send on "missions". Sofar, so good.

 

The graphics are, unsurprisingly, better than any other RST to date. And Lucasarts wants to show them off too, creating a cinematic viewmode that shows off the intricate details of the models. The spacebattles look best by far.

 

I have a little trouble ordering my units around effectively, but I'm sure with time that can be mastered. The maps look a little small to me as well and everything does go a little fast for my taste. Oviously all these things are related. I'm sure I'll find the "slow down" button soon, making my life a little easier.

[Evaders99]

I beat the demo in like 20 minutes. Seriously, while I didn't have any high expectations, I am not feeling it for this game. It tries to incorporate a bunch of things and fails at it all..

 

Rebellion - the galactic model is taken from Rebellion essential, no sectors, just planets. You have to move from paths connecting each planet. There's even turns where you get a certain amount of credits per turn. That's where the resemblance ends. Rebel forces can see planets controlled by the Empire, the Empire must use probe droids to spy. "Missions" seem only to relate to special units you receive - Smugglers (steal credits for RA) and the Bounty Hunters (as smuggler-killers). I'd really much rather play Rebellion

 

Space battle - I'd much rather see Homeworld 2 here, but all I get is Star Trek Armada. Even the use of "nebulas" to restrict the movement.. it feels just like a typical 2D map. The targetting of "hardpoints" just seems unnecessary.. space battles go really fast

 

Ground battle - since you build everything in the galaxy view, ground battle is a matter of taking out the enemies base with whatever units you are given. You can get reinforcements, but that is capped by having control points. You just get squads of troopers and vehicles. Nothing too fancy. The maps seem rather limited like the space ones. It doesn't seem to take too much tactics, just to go around their defenses to the power generator. Kill that, and you can easily win with bombing runs. Just keep calling in the reinforcements until you win.

I think I'd rather play Force Commander here, control points seem to be less strategic for EaW

 

While I admit I didn't have the graphics settings high on my system, I'm not impressed by the graphics.

 

I know this is a demo and all, so I can't judge everything. Maybe the complete game will be better. But my guess is that this will be like Force Commander... overhyped and slammed by the reviews.

[PHSYCOBOB]

Agreed with Evaders on this demo. Not at all impressed and I'm grumpy to boot.. doesn't seem like you can name your ships? I may have missed it or it may be there in the full version. That's one of my fav. parts about games, but that's a minor side grump. =o)

 

The overall gameplay within the demo is very limited, and I'm already planning on buying the full retail version. -Within the confines of this demo, I'm agreed that I see no real opportunity for tactical ability to make any true diff. in the outcome of the game.

 

REALLY hoping the full version blows me away.

[budious]

Hey pyschobobers!... yeah the demo was very limited, fortunately some moron was in a rush to push this thing out the door on friday afternoon and a bunch of unlockables were included. While I beat the official demo in less than 20 minutes my first go... the available mods have kept me entertained all day... I'm starting to think this is a fun ass single-player game, but multiplayer is going to be a serious time-killer...

 

It's not that this is "rebellion 2" as many want it to be... it's more like what all the hype around "force commander" was going to be and never materialized into...

[Pierre]

Agreed. All real strategy fans will be disappointed here... It's a really classic RTS, like C&C and nothing more. The campaign side of the game is well done and multiplayer games will be fun but...

 

- in battles, units behave erratically. There is no "standing ground" behavior, even for big units like AT-ATs... so after a while trying to organise, you just grab all your units and send them as a whole to enemy units...

- space battles are really pretty and *could* be a lot of fun, but the 2D modeling, the speedyness of them (a nebulon B frigate can die in seconds)... remove all the strategy out of it.

 

It's lovely, it's probably fun for some people, it's Star Wars no doubt (cute sounds everywhere)... it's... a shame for real strategy lovers like us. We can only dream of a Rebellion 2 with those graphics...

[Bill]

You mean this is going to be another Force Commander, I hated Force Commander, all the hype and waiting foe nothing. I hope it's not.

[Jahled]

doesn't seem like you can name your ships

 

Oh dear. Early reviews are lending belief to me that will after all (as some of have long suspected) not be anything like the Rebellion 2 game others have made loud noises about for about a year now. Evaders outlined some initial observations that make me feel it lacks certain elements that have given Rebellion it's 'epic' feel, with the player(s) feeling immersed in a Star Wars environment; and with RebEd having the beauty to tweek this more or less however they want.

 

Rebellion has always a been, and I suspect always will be, an environment mainly appreciated by the imagination. I'm actually of the belief to much distraction from this; with the possible exception of a Homeworld-style tactical battle, would get in the way of imagination.

 

When the game was first announced I sighed with it's fourty worlds, and whilst that's up to eighty, all the emphasis i've seen of the game is combat, and not much of which has impressed me more than other Star Wars titles more geared to that genre.

 

Anyway, i've yet to play the demo, so mine are just the moment's observations concerning the subject, but the ability to rename ships is key to what Rebellion's magic is more or less what i'm on about. Interaction other than giving orders to a Stormtrooper in a ground-battle.

[Lord_La_forge]

I've tried the demo, and I must say I'm old. Far too old.

This game is just crap for my taste.

I have to agree with Evaders on all points and don't feel I should add anything here.

 

The game is fun but BRAINLESS. No strategic sense required. Not even on a level that C&C games demand. Just build the biggest fleet with lots of ships and fighters rush into the system and send everything you got against the enemy. It will be succesful though, becuase it offers lots of action and CINEMA camera mode (now how dumb is this?). Cinema mode is really fun to watch, but again it shows how much strategic thinking is needed in a battle.

 

But I still want to play with the game if it comes out. But certainly won't buy it, no way.

Small and stupid things, like oversized Chewie duelling an At-At is very amusing to watch.

 

Anyone who things this is somekind of a Reb2, will be disapointed. Yes it is the game, that is most similar to it in some ways. But... ehhh..

[Pierre]

The demo is already cracked, with the ability to turn on a lot of features...

http://www.technical-difficulties.com/hacks/eaw/

 

If anyone gets what's being said here, can he make a zip so we can overwrite the stuff ? Thanks.

[Evaders99]

Yes we already have noticed many mods for EaW - just check the other threads in the forum

[Pierre]

I know but most of them are hard to use. What we (casual dumb gamers) need is an exe wich replace all files correctly so we can hit "play now" button...

[Pierre]

A link to ready to use mods:

http://www.eawhq.de/index.php?go=downloads&dl_id=10

[Davynelord]

First, I've been reading these forums for a few years now and have been a member, but had to get a new login...I just never made many post before. So hello to everyone, nice to have been reading your post for a while...:Wave:

 

But I have to say WOW! you guys are being really hard on EAW, though I can understand why. Seems you all dislike it because it's not (rebellion 2).

 

I personally went into playing the EAW demo with the frame of mind that it will not have any resemblance to rebellion or homeworld at all. I've learned my lesson from lots of past games where I had expectations of them being modeled or designed after another feature or concept that I absolutely loved in another game. The fact of the matter is gaming companies most likely do surveys for what the "Majority" of gamers want and that's the direction they go in. Clearly the support for rebellion and homeworld has been almost extinct over the past few years, no developers believe they will be able to make money if they attempted to do sequels or anything similar.

 

I mean I can search the internet all year and find maybe, just maybe a 100 people who still like rebellion outside of this site. That's pushing it.

 

Now I absolutely love rebellion, might even be addicted or obsessed with it..LOL But I will not try and say or think that EAW or any such game in the future is not good simply because it doesn't hold up to my expections based on rebellion (or even homeworld when it comes to space combat).

 

In my opinion, EAW demo is the most incomplete and possibly rushed demo that I have played in my life. After looking through the files for the past week, I've seen so many comments written by the developers that clearly show me that the demo is the furthest thing away from the full game, that I can't begin to compare my love for rebellion to EAW Demo. It also makes me believe that a february release for the final game is too soon and possible will be yet another rushed Lucas Arts affiliated game. I mean come on, every single game affiliated with lucas arts for the past 2 years has been rushed and ultimately lacking in major ways. It's clearly about sales and not about customer satisfaction.

 

With all games of the same genre, there will always be some similarities, but that's no indication something was modeled after rebellion just because EAW has it's version of the same concept. Some concepts are simply basic and fundamental in nature that you have no choice but to include it.

 

As for the demo itself, if the demo is even 50% representation of the full game, then the following are how I see the game.

 

First, everything will be unstable because it's an incomplete demo with stability and balance issues that are not even present and the devs clearly didn't even attempt either for this demo. To me it's the hardcore basic workings of the game, kinda like a football team doing a practice walkthrough of a game situation....it is the furthest thing away from the real thing and one most definintely does not represent the other or gives any indication of either being or working as you would like.

 

 

The ground combat clearly needs less obstructed space if the maps are to be as small as they are. The spawn points are just too darn close to use any effective strategy. on the tattooine map, your spawn point is literally one or two steps outside of the enemy radar range. If you take a couple steps to the north, boom, an enemy turret is shooting at you or a scout team has spotted you out before your forces can even land. So there is no time to organize once you land on a planet. Plus it takes forever to get your whole force deployed on the ground. In most cases, you've lost one or more units before you have your full fleet/platoon on the ground.

 

The ground hero's are just slighty overpowered. Boba fett can fly in literally untouched, land, pull out a flamethrower and kill all infantry troops in one pass of the flamer while at the same time taking vehicles HP's down to either half or even kill them too should they have damage already. I hate to see what vader or palpatine can do. Han solo and chewy are weak compared to boba fett on the ground.

 

The space hero's clearly favor the alliance. The millenium falcon has an invulnerability special ability that allows it to destroy a whole imperial fleet (include SD's, Acclamators and space stations) if done correctly. I suspect a rebalance fix there though.

 

The Home One (ackbars Mon Cal capital ship) is a powerhouse and is down right the baddest non-fighter ship in the game. I slaugthered an ISD with Home One and a fleet of fighters, that's it.

 

Red Squadron is only limited by their health and sheild points being low, but they have a lucky shot ability that can destroy almost anything in the game with one shot and it only takes 20 seconds to recharge.

 

The imperial weapons power up ability is unbalanced. When you use it, your shields are gone in an instant and the enemy is hitting your hull and your still not taking out the enemy much faster than if you had not used the ability. Tractor beam, well almost totally useless as there is not much reason for the alliance to retreat. Tie bombers don't have any special abilities nor do tie fighters, plus you can't build them, they are only deployed from SD's and other cruiser ships. SD's simply die to darn fast. Mon Cal's are clearly superior.

 

I didn't get to test vader and his interceptor prototype, but looking in the files at his special abilities, I didn't see anything indicating he would be as bad ass as the millenium falcon or red squadron.

 

The space battles could be a little better, but come on, for the first RTS game like this, I have to say it does look pretty good. However, take out the cinematic mode and you don't have anything special. OH and the Fog of War (FOW) is mitigated by the fact that you can go into cinematic mode, rotate the camera so it's on a flat plain with your fleet and spin the camera around until you can see the whole enemy fleet in the background. Wow, you can't see the units under the fog in normal overhead view, but in cinematic view you can see the level of the space station and that their are two big ole SD's sitting waiting for your fleet to attack. So no surprises due to FOW.

 

The galaxy map is clearly too junky. I guess I'm used to the nice organized sectors in rebellion. In EAW, you can't tell the difference from an outer rim planet or an inner rim one....only true star wars fans would know since most of use know what planets belong to what part of the galaxy or sector. The planets are all too close together. The demo only has 43'ish planets, I'm still wondering where the other 37 will fit...:scratches head:

 

The good thing about EAW is that you don't have to click the mouse button 20 billion times like rebellion....good thing they added shorcuts for everything LOL. I hate the no shortcut thing in rebellion so much that if I knew how to do it, I'd rebuild the executable to add my own shortcuts

 

There are a few other good things about EAW but this post is already longer than I wanted. Maybe another post for some of the better stuff.

 

However, knowing this is a demo, I haven't given up on EAW just yet. I actually like the ease of modding. I think it's a good place for beginners to start learning modding. So I'm doing a little bit myself for my own personal analysis of the game. That's keeping the demo alive for me, but I was not impressed by the 1 ground and 1 space battle demo. They could have at least included tutorials for hero's and other things, clearly this demo is the rawest, most basic you can make a demo....in fact, the demo wasn't even needed because the trailers/movies showed us more than the demo did. So the demo is only good for getting an inside look at the units/ships IMHO.

 

Honestly, I see huge potential for EAW and it is clearly gonna be able to be expansion friendly even down to possibly upping the graphics quality and LOD (level of detail). I really don't understand why it has taken this long to make this game....it clearly hasn't got all the workings of some of todays more difficult games made. In the end, I will buy the game....but replay value will be left up to if the full version impresses me. I'm thinking it will simply because of the modding ability.....talk about being able to do TC's...this game will be a dream for that.

[Pierre]

I think modders will pull out this game of nullity... If modders can handle prices and time to build ships, we can have a pretty decent strategy game.

 

I play the demo, it's really beautiful...

[R2-Opus2]

Its been awhile since I've been back here, but I thought I'd drop in again to see folks' impression of this EAW demo.

 

I've been playing it off and on since I downloaded it the other week. It certainly has characteristics to it that I would have liked to have seen in Rebellion - I like that there's precision targetting of hardpoints now for instance, and that overall the space stuff looks way sharper than Rebellion's combat view (one thing that's lacking that I can point to right away, that I did like in Rebellion, was being able to climb up or down in that space 'box'). I'm guessing space battles won't seem as epic, but again, at least there's better detail on the models and the like.

 

While the ground combat is remenicent of Force Commander, I think the ground portion in this game surpasses that crap title (although I wonder if build pads are a little better arranged on other planets - I don't think Tattoine's pads, with the exception of the center part of the map are in decent places - I thought there should have been a pad or two near the landing zones personally, giving us another way to try to defend them).

 

With regards to playing single player on this up to this point, and granted there's only so much you can do with the demo, I like that I can pause the battle to give orders then resume play. The first few times doing the demo I found it difficult to divide my attentions between the landing sites and my various units - some were falling quickly to Boba or being decimated by that Rancor with one swipe of his arms heh. I agree that a unit like Boba seems a little overpowering as he can just rocket in and stand on the checkpoint to retake it. Also speederbikes in a few instances took me off guard until I could rachet them down but not too overwhelming.

 

I already realized early on the importance of artillery support, but the trick there is providing them cover so you can deploy them the way you want. Again, not too bad after I got the hang of it.

 

Davynelord raised a good point with regards to the clickage going on between Rebellion and EAW. I can already see that this new one doesn't require as much as Reb did and that's another plus going for it.

 

I can't imagine yet how multiplayer will work out, but so far I think I'll enjoy the single player aspects at least.

 

The only concerns I have now with this is a question of support. Lucasarts in the past hasn't been that great when it comes to post-game-release offerings - maps, editors and the like for their titles. I already see rumblings of fan moddages for EAW so that's promising at least. Maybe there'll be another kickass fan editor for this title as well, akin to the latest RebEd.

[Evaders99]

Obviously a lot of us are from a Rebellion background. But I never expected it to be Rebellion.. in fact, I stated that it wasn't going to be a Rebellion 2. But you are correct that the demo seemed very rushed.. and may not represent the full game. We'll have to wait and see when its released

 

Clearly the support for rebellion and homeworld has been almost extinct over the past few years

One thing I do want to mention, while these type of strategy games may not have been easy sellers like first-person shooters, there have been many games in space genre. MOO series, Freelancer, even Homeworld 2. It may not attract the most common gamers, but I don't think the genre shows any signs of being "extinct"

[Zer_Teron]

I thought the demo was very detailed, and gave a great presentation to how the game should be

[R2-Opus2]

I've been looking at the two editions for sale, one being a collector's edition for like 10 bucks more. I'd be curious to know what percentage of folk's here are eyeballing that version over the standard one.

 

snippet of features on the CE:

 

• Screensavers
  3D Lenticular Packaging
  Bonus Maps
  Concept Art
  Wallpaper

 

The bonus maps are what interests me the most out of all of it. I could stand to do without the others myself. Has anyone heard any more in depth information about the contents of the CE?