Anyone else think this is getting ridiculous?

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
It's 12-15 minutes for me. But you're neglecting the simple point that for many games, it's impossible to create a small demo. As games these days are more about the eye candy and less about the gameplay it's the graphics that sell the game and the graphics are what's causing the giant downloads. If you downgrade the graphics to make the download smaller you're just screwing yourself. If the demo looks bad it doesn't matter how good the gameplay is, the downloaders won't buy it. But if you make the demo look stunning and it plays like crap the downloaders will drool over the graphics, assume that the bad gameplay is due to the fact that it's only a demo and they'll buy it anyway.

Epic specially changed the UT2003 demo so it would fit in 100MB so they could get it on PC mag demo disks by usuing lower res textures and lower quality models.
The fact is most game designers can't be bothered to make a small demo, not that it's not possible.
They are just lazy/getting pushed to churn out crap. The games world is full of crap, hence the huge patches, huge demos, and games that are all the same. The publishers dictate what the studios have to do, and that (most likely) also includes NOT bothering to take the time to make an efficient demo.

Originally posted by: spunkz
lol 700 megs. they had a preview of Auto Assault over the weekend but you had to download the entire game. took up 8 gigs!

That's because it's the full game, and it was only 3GB to download, 8GB when decompressed, so your comment is a bit of a misnomer. It was a beta test, not so much a demo, so you had to DL the full game, plus it's a beta, so they can't ship it on CD's because it's not finished and they are updating all the time.

 

[Conky]

It's definitely BS. You can still download the Q3 demo which is as pretty as almost any game out, includes bots for offline play, and will play on almost any machine with a 47mb download. And that was a huge download at the time back in late '99.

I see games now with 500+mb with 1 hour game time limits and I think, why bother?

Quake 3 demo is still fun to play after all these years... that is the mark of a fine game demo. :beer:

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: l Xes l
First of all, u bitch too much for some games. So what if the game is big and has a lot of contents?!.. if u dont like it go back to tetris...
and patches are good indication of the companies promptly updating their games w/ various fixes...
If u r at work, WORK

Learn to use proper words.
350MB patches are a sign that the game had SERIOUS issues before release, and, in fact, should not have BEEN released at that stage.
I'm all for patches improving things, but they shouldn't be for making something unplayable into something playable, they should just be general minor improvements, because the goddamn games should ship in a workable state.
Epic (again) released a fair few matches for all their games, and they released bonus packs too, but UT2004 was (IMO) absolutely fine on first release too in terms of playability.
They also don't feel a need to release 350MB patches, because their game was never totally screwed up.

 

[StrangerGuy]

700+MBs game demos are still quite OK, but patches bigger than a whole CD is simply NOT acceptable.

I hardly remember the days when games simply work out of the box...

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

PSA:

Gb = Gigabit
GB = Gigabyte
Mb = Megabit
MB = Megabyte

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

PSA:

Gb = Gigabit
GB = Gigabyte
Mb = Megabit
MB = Megabyte

PSA:

STFU = Shut The Fvck Up.

Pie.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: LoKe
At this day in age, the average person has a more than capable internet connection. 762MB's isn't all too much, anymore.

I dunno about you but thats a 7 to 9 hour download for me.

Still, a demo is supposed to be small, just a sample.

It's 12-15 minutes for me. But you're neglecting the simple point that for many games, it's impossible to create a small demo. As games these days are more about the eye candy and less about the gameplay it's the graphics that sell the game and the graphics are what's causing the giant downloads. If you downgrade the graphics to make the download smaller you're just screwing yourself. If the demo looks bad it doesn't matter how good the gameplay is, the downloaders won't buy it. But if you make the demo look stunning and it plays like crap the downloaders will drool over the graphics, assume that the bad gameplay is due to the fact that it's only a demo and they'll buy it anyway.

So you download at 1.05mbps from all sites you download? You're full of crap.

Uh 1.05 mbps is only 131.25 kB/sec which anyone with broadband can easily do. Quit your whining. If the demo was small and the graphics sucked, you'd be whining about how Empires at War sucks because the graphics are awful and whatnot.

 

[Pepsei]

last year, the world of warcraft beta demo was the full size, around 1 gig

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

PSA:

Gb = Gigabit
GB = Gigabyte
Mb = Megabit
MB = Megabyte

PSA: His math is right

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

i have a 6Mb line 6000/8 = 750
((750 * 60) *60) /1024 = ~2.63 GB/Hour

and it would still take over an hour to dl it because NO MIRROR EVER SERVES AT LINE MAX, the fastest i have EVER seen from a mirror for a popular game demo or massively large update is 300k/s most run in the 100-150 range

the only thing i ever get to hit line max are Torrents

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: dabuddha

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

PSA:

Gb = Gigabit
GB = Gigabyte
Mb = Megabit
MB = Megabyte

PSA: His math is right

PSA: No sh|t sherlock

 

[talyn00]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

i have a 6Mb line 6000/8 = 750
((750 * 60) *60) /1024 = ~2.63 GB/Hour

and it would still take over an hour to dl it because NO MIRROR EVER SERVES AT LINE MAX, the fastest i have EVER seen from a mirror for a popular game demo or massively large update is 300k/s most run in the 100-150 range

the only thing i ever get to hit line max are Torrents

I assume he meant grabbing different parts of the file from different mirrors.

 

[talyn00]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: l Xes l
First of all, u bitch too much for some games. So what if the game is big and has a lot of contents?!.. if u dont like it go back to tetris...
and patches are good indication of the companies promptly updating their games w/ various fixes...
If u r at work, WORK

Learn to use proper words.
350MB patches are a sign that the game had SERIOUS issues before release, and, in fact, should not have BEEN released at that stage.
I'm all for patches improving things, but they shouldn't be for making something unplayable into something playable, they should just be general minor improvements, because the goddamn games should ship in a workable state.
Epic (again) released a fair few matches for all their games, and they released bonus packs too, but UT2004 was (IMO) absolutely fine on first release too in terms of playability.
They also don't feel a need to release 350MB patches, because their game was never totally screwed up.

It really depends what that patch fixes, it doesnt really indicate whether or not a game is fit for release.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: talyn00

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

i have a 6Mb line 6000/8 = 750
((750 * 60) *60) /1024 = ~2.63 GB/Hour

and it would still take over an hour to dl it because NO MIRROR EVER SERVES AT LINE MAX, the fastest i have EVER seen from a mirror for a popular game demo or massively large update is 300k/s most run in the 100-150 range

the only thing i ever get to hit line max are Torrents

I assume he meant grabbing different parts of the file from different mirrors.

who ment what? rarley do game patches and dems get relased on BT, i like it when they do because its generally faster to DL and it uses a sh!t load less bandwidth on their side

most offer normal HTTP or FTP Dl from some crappy place like fileplanet which is slow as ass and for popular things has a freeking wait line that can be hours

 

[Kelemvor]

What's the big deal? Start it up, go to bed, wake up, play your demo...

I could download a gig in an hour or so. Games these days are getting bigger and prettier every day. That stuff takes up space. They could release a demo with crap graphics and make it small but then no one would buy it because they'd say it looks like crap. So they release one with all the goodies in there but then yeah, it's going to be big.

So just download at night if you have to. Probably get faster speeds that way anyway.

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: Anubis
who ment what? rarley do game patches and dems get relased on BT, i like it when they do because its generally faster to DL and it uses a sh!t load less bandwidth on their side

most offer normal HTTP or FTP Dl from some crappy place like fileplanet which is slow as ass and for popular things has a freeking wait line that can be hours

Does Blizzard still do this? I know they started to a whil eback for some patches and such but everyone was pissed becaue they used their own built-in client and you couldn't just use your own BT client so lots of people had problems.

That was the only company I heard of that did this.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

i have a 6Mb line 6000/8 = 750
((750 * 60) *60) /1024 = ~2.63 GB/Hour

and it would still take over an hour to dl it because NO MIRROR EVER SERVES AT LINE MAX, the fastest i have EVER seen from a mirror for a popular game demo or massively large update is 300k/s most run in the 100-150 range

the only thing i ever get to hit line max are Torrents

Heh, I hit line max on most server 24/7 with 2Mbps Sib
Of course, you could always use GetRight or DAP.

 

[PricklyPete]

So you are complaining about getting more out of a demo?

Download it over night if it bothers you that much. I am happy to get large demos that really show off the game...I want to see what I am getting.

I've been outstandingly happy with the fact that the Xbox 360 finally lets me download demos for it like I always could for PCs...probably my number 1 gripe about consoles...and now they have fixed it.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: LoKe
At this day in age, the average person has a more than capable internet connection. 762MB's isn't all too much, anymore.

I dunno about you but thats a 7 to 9 hour download for me.

Still, a demo is supposed to be small, just a sample.

It's 12-15 minutes for me. But you're neglecting the simple point that for many games, it's impossible to create a small demo. As games these days are more about the eye candy and less about the gameplay it's the graphics that sell the game and the graphics are what's causing the giant downloads. If you downgrade the graphics to make the download smaller you're just screwing yourself. If the demo looks bad it doesn't matter how good the gameplay is, the downloaders won't buy it. But if you make the demo look stunning and it plays like crap the downloaders will drool over the graphics, assume that the bad gameplay is due to the fact that it's only a demo and they'll buy it anyway.

yeah, pretty much.
have you seen the size of most gaems these days? they're several GB. expect the demo to be large too.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: LoKe
At this day in age, the average person has a more than capable internet connection. 762MB's isn't all too much, anymore.

I dunno about you but thats a 7 to 9 hour download for me.

Still, a demo is supposed to be small, just a sample.

It's 12-15 minutes for me. But you're neglecting the simple point that for many games, it's impossible to create a small demo. As games these days are more about the eye candy and less about the gameplay it's the graphics that sell the game and the graphics are what's causing the giant downloads. If you downgrade the graphics to make the download smaller you're just screwing yourself. If the demo looks bad it doesn't matter how good the gameplay is, the downloaders won't buy it. But if you make the demo look stunning and it plays like crap the downloaders will drool over the graphics, assume that the bad gameplay is due to the fact that it's only a demo and they'll buy it anyway.

So you download at 1.05mbps from all sites you download? You're full of crap.

His other point is valid. Games these days take a lot of hard drive space. You can only remove so much stuff from the demo without making it kind of pointless endeavor.

And to be fair, back when I was on dialup I used to leave my computer on overnight to download ~100mb demos. The same thing is still possible to do, and with bittorrent its certainly possible he can max out his download rate on new popular files.

This just seems like the natural evolution of things to me.

Edit: I agree the patches are pretty stupid at this point though. And BF2 clearly was not complete when it was released...and many would argue it still isn't.

 

[Buck Armstrong]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: LoKe
At this day in age, the average person has a more than capable internet connection. 762MB's isn't all too much, anymore.

I dunno about you but thats a 7 to 9 hour download for me.

Still, a demo is supposed to be small, just a sample.

It's 12-15 minutes for me. But you're neglecting the simple point that for many games, it's impossible to create a small demo. As games these days are more about the eye candy and less about the gameplay it's the graphics that sell the game and the graphics are what's causing the giant downloads. If you downgrade the graphics to make the download smaller you're just screwing yourself. If the demo looks bad it doesn't matter how good the gameplay is, the downloaders won't buy it. But if you make the demo look stunning and it plays like crap the downloaders will drool over the graphics, assume that the bad gameplay is due to the fact that it's only a demo and they'll buy it anyway.

So you download at 1.05mbps from all sites you download? You're full of crap.

Ever hear of a mirror? My cable connection tops out at 1.5mbps and it's not hard to find a server that gives at least 2/3 of that if several choices are available. Just because your mommy only buys you dial-up is no reason to assume that the rest of us are living in the dark ages too.

LOL, moron, I have 1.5mbps down adsl, anyhow where did this come from?

BTW, Canada > USA as far as internet technology goes while you kids are fvcking with fios, we've got 15mbps down cable.

Then whats the problem? You have 15mbps cable and you're whining about a 700MB download?! If you have broadband, that sort of file is no big deal.

I certainly don't want developers to limit graphics or content because a few people still only have dial-up. I want every single thing they can possibly squeeze into my patch, and why not, it fixes/enhances the original product. If you can't handle the file size, don't download the file.

 

[Kenazo]

Speaking of Lucasarts games, I'd love to see a remake of X-Wing, using today's graphics capabilities.

 

[talyn00]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: talyn00

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

i have a 6Mb line 6000/8 = 750
((750 * 60) *60) /1024 = ~2.63 GB/Hour

and it would still take over an hour to dl it because NO MIRROR EVER SERVES AT LINE MAX, the fastest i have EVER seen from a mirror for a popular game demo or massively large update is 300k/s most run in the 100-150 range

the only thing i ever get to hit line max are Torrents

I assume he meant grabbing different parts of the file from different mirrors.

who ment what? rarley do game patches and dems get relased on BT, i like it when they do because its generally faster to DL and it uses a sh!t load less bandwidth on their side

most offer normal HTTP or FTP Dl from some crappy place like fileplanet which is slow as ass and for popular things has a freeking wait line that can be hours

sorry was referring to GagHalfrunt's post about using mirrors to get files

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Phil

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: spidey07
that shouldn't take you more than an hour and a half or two on 1.5 meg dsl

so much for canadian technology.

I'm to far from my CO office, so it's unreliable. At home I've got 3.0mbps down and it would take me about an hour or two.

3000 / 8 = 375
((375 * 60) * 60) / 1024 = ~1.3Gb per hour.

700Mb in "an hour or two" = your internet connection sucks.

i have a 6Mb line 6000/8 = 750
((750 * 60) *60) /1024 = ~2.63 GB/Hour

and it would still take over an hour to dl it because NO MIRROR EVER SERVES AT LINE MAX, the fastest i have EVER seen from a mirror for a popular game demo or massively large update is 300k/s most run in the 100-150 range

the only thing i ever get to hit line max are Torrents

Heh, I hit line max on most server 24/7 with 2Mbps Sib
Of course, you could always use GetRight or DAP.

most of those file mirror dont allow DAP and other download accelerators to work
i woudl also max a 2Mb line as its caps at ~250k/s which is about as fast as the Dl anyway

and yes blizzard sill uses BT for internal updates HOWEVER ITS SLOW AS BALLS
the 300+mb WoW update would have taken over a day to DL with it. i got it off fuleplanet IIRC at 300k/s
still took a while