So what does the demo offer?(for those who have it)

[Mr.Crisp]

Pretty cool demo, the .meg extractor works and boy do they have alot of xmls

 

Yea I heard ever unit has its own XML... I think its easier this way.

[Star Wars Man]

Wow. Just, wow. The demo is great, and it really shows off some of the more interesting features of the new faction. I agree with you guys that the buzz droids; they really don't have any obvious function and just stand there saying things like, "Laser, LASER!" and "Me Hungry" and stuff like that.

 

Pros: New Units, New special abilities, New Ways to play, stuff like that.

 

Cons: No Replay Value, Barely any units to play with, Too Short too.

[ghostfox1]

Wow. Just, wow. The demo is great, and it really shows off some of the more interesting features of the new faction. I agree with you guys that the buzz droids; they really don't have any obvious function and just stand there saying things like, "Laser, LASER!" and "Me Hungry" and stuff like that.

 

Pros: New Units, New special abilities, New Ways to play, stuff like that.

 

Cons: No Replay Value, Barely any units to play with, Too Short too.

 

That's the point of a demo. And for the buzz droids, I just thought of this. Shouldn't you click on them and then tell them to attack?

[Dark_Dragon]

That's the point of a demo. And for the buzz droids, I just thought of this. Shouldn't you click on them and then tell them to attack?

 

They do attack, they just move slow, you have to get the enemy right on top of them to have any effect.

[ghostfox1]

Yep. It sucks. Maybe they can fix that in the full thing?

[Grand Admiral Thrawn 889]

can i say that i was a bit disappointed when i played the Demo. it wasn't as good as i expected and didn't have the full range of options that i wished that i could do. but overall the Demo's graphics were good. also i agree about the buzz droids they need to have more mobility than they they have now.

[R2-Opus2]

Good to know about the transport, I'm going to test that out later today.  Its a shame if its not this way in the final version, but it'd be nice to preload those transports with the necessary troop amount prior to landing it.  It would also save some space if its a garrisoned unit with soldiers inside it, freeing up land slots.

[deriko]

It definitely was a good demo, and got me really excited for the game. The demo was short though, but at least they released a demo.

[Lord_of_the_Sith]

True an execellent demo.

I can't wait for the complete game.

I was sure that EAW would have been the beginning of the best of the SW RTS.

I hope another one will come.

[OOM-911]

and the full game will have replay value so WOOT!

 

 

what i got out of the demo was a lot of fun

 

its so nice having the new units and new ability's

i especially likes how tie interceptors and tie fighters appear together

 

and the balancing facts that the underworld heavy hitters are very fragile and cant do some things

[SirNuke]

What happened to the good old days when developers put a lot of stuff in demos?  I, and I'm sure many people, played and loved Unreal Tournament 2004's superb demo.  These two short-maps-type demos really don't show off games very well.

 

Anyway, on to my thoughts:

 

Positive/Neutral

1. The game seems more complex.

2. It feels more like a C&C game.  The Zann faction feels a closer to the out-there style that factions in C&C games had (not a bad thing, since the Zann faction still seems Star Wars realistic).

2. Environment factors make the individual maps much more interesting.  This partially addresses my main complaint about EAW (all of the maps feel the same).  I really hope most maps have a lot of things

3. The game play style of the Zann faction should be fascinating.  The powerful weapons but weak armor (at least for the space units) will force players to only commit where/when they have a decisive edge and can win fairly quickly.  The faction seems to take advantage of the galaxy map (for example, ability to bribe and bypass planets).  I'm sure it's one of the most unique factions I've seen in a RTS in quite a while.  Strong work.

4. Most of the voice acting is very well done on Zann fraction units. It probably helps that we don't already have in our minds what exactly we want the units/heroes to sound like.

5. Mobile defense torrents should make flags much easier to defend, and should be an excellent addition.

 

Negative:

1. Would it kill sales of the game to put 1v1 skirmish and multiplayer (a single 1v1 space and a single 1v1 land) mode in?  Even if it only allows for a very small portion of the unit hierarchy?  I'm rather sick of demos that take longer to download and install than to play.

2. Buzz droids are useless.  And they look rather weird zoomed in.  Plus they are way too large.

3. While the interactive environment features are cool, the maps probably could use a lot more of it.  Playing in a more or less actual city with dozens of close buildings that can hold units would be awesome.  Also having static cover would be really cool (like sandbags, and the unit is somewhat protected even if not right next to them).

4. I really wish the battle pop caps had been significantly increased.  Especially for ground battles.

5. It's really hard to go back to infantry squads that don't have squad AI after playing Company of Heroes.

6. Some of the vocal responses seem out of place.  In particular, many of the space Zann units respond when clicked on with something to the extent of "Last transmission garbed, repeat".  I hope this isn't intentional.

7. The game doesn't let you skip through the cut-screen steps (where a hero is saying thing for plot purposes).  I was very irritated to find out after having finishing half the game and have to quit that I had to re-listen to everything.

8. The script is very weak.  Supreme strategist?  Seriously, supreme strategist?  Too much of the scripted dialog is unnatural.  His motivation for hating the Empire is laughable.

9. Along the same lines, the in-game cutscreen feels very unnatural and very unrealistic.  How cool would it be if instead of the Tyber/Second in command cutscreen went along the lines of: Both crouched, talking behind some type of cover.  Second in command grabs the artifact and runs off.  A couple of stormtroopers run after the second of command, with audio of them calling for reinforcements.  Tyber stands up from his cover and blows the storm troopers away.  Pause for about 3 seconds, and play the sound of an AT-ST (which is still off screen).  Tyber curses, puts his gun down, and comes out of his cover.  Two AT-STs appear (and do not take really odd paths around each other due to the absurd amount of units, such as in the real cutscreen).  Fade to black as a couple squads of Stormtroopers converge on Tyber, as Tyber gives his speech that he will escape.

 

Verdict:

Demo was still fun, though short.  I'm really looking forward to the Zann fraction, and I will probably buy the expansion (though not at the release).  It looks like FoC will be a huge improvement over EAW.

[Ishmael-PG]

Seems people are having issue with the buzz droids, so let me take a sec to explain how they work.

 

Once deployed, they'll hover in the area for about 3-4 seconds, then begin tracking any enemy fighters or corvettes that come near them, doing constant damage to those ships.

 

...unless something broke in the latest demo version (I have not played the most recent demo version), they're very useful and quite powerful.  If you use them in an area, you pretty much guarantee no fighters will be coming through there.  They also make the Star Vipers of the ZC able to take on much more powerful fighters (i.e. X-wings) and emerge victorious.

 

The only suggestion for using them is to micro-manage their deployment in different places across several viper squads.  Dropping them all in one place isn't as useful.

[Kelathin]

enough star vipers you create a line of death

[Exar Kun]

But they don't last long enough to be helpfull all that much

 

I liked the idea but i would have rather liked to be able to Control and move the buzz droids

[Nevets]

 

2. Buzz droids are useless.  And they look rather weird zoomed in.  Plus they are way too large.

 

They maybe too large, but I don't see how they could feasibly be made smaller, they are already somewhat hard to see. The art work could be improved, but I do enjoy them.