Contract J.A.C.K. Multiplayer Demo

Games
1

Download linky (exclusive for now): http://www.fileplanet.com/download.aspx?f=130781

Short summary: Is this the same Monolith that made NOLF2?

Among other things, the Contract J.A.C.K. multiplayer demo is only on FilePlanet because of some complex registration system that not only involves key codes but also the dreaded Ez-Pad thingy to “authenticate” me. 'Cause I warezed the demo, of course.

The game looks pretty sharp and the controls are sharp - hey, it’s NOLF2 - but the multiplayer demo only contains a deathmatch mode with two levels. No snowmobiles, either. Various complaints:

  1. Why no other modes? Saving it for later? Deathmatch is so 1995. :-p

  2. Spawn, get shot in back. Repeat. There’s not enough room on the maps for full-sized games of 16 players.

  3. In especially close quarters fighting, it seems as if bodies move right on top of each other.

  4. The weapons are hardly original. Submachine gun, AK-47, pistol, shotgun. Then there’s the laser rifle, but the momentary glee I got from it was hardly worth the trouble of getting it.

  5. The game uses authentic weapons. Fine by me, but in order to kill a player, it seems to take an entire clip to kill someone. With realistic weapons, the hit damage should be about twice or three times it is currently.

  6. Why is there no option to toggle auto-switch on/off? No, I do NOT want to use the shitty sniper rifle when I have the kick-ass shotgun.

  7. Where’s the superb NOLF 2 attitude and atmosphere? No cool weapons or items, no multiplayer taunting, no interesting levels. The game is passionless.

2

According to Fileplanet’s “more info” thing:

“The multiplayer public demo for Contract J.A.C.K. consists of four different gameplay modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Doomsday, and Demolition) on 2 levels.”

So maybe it’s just that all the servers are running deathmatch right now?

Isn’t this some kind of Fileplanet-only beta demo, meant to shake out the network code before the release and real “for everyone” demo?

3

Hmm…whoopsy. Team DM and Demolition play exactly like DM. Spawn, kill things. Repeat. No Doomsday servers were available, sadly.

So maybe it’s just that all the servers are running deathmatch right now?

Isn’t this some kind of Fileplanet-only beta demo, meant to shake out the network code before the release and real “for everyone” demo?

That would be my guess, but still, it was publicly released so anyone with a basic FP login can get it. Which is, according to GameSpy, 2 million people.

4

On a related note.

I’m really getting tired of these “exclusive” demos, and now as an added bonus you have to enter a serial key from Fileplanet in order to play the demo (you know, just to screw anyone who may be thinking of offering the demo for download somewhere else).

So I’ve decided not to buy Contract Jack when it’s released (not that I was really excited about to begin with). I’ve put up with buggy, incomplete games. I’ve put up with asinine copy protection schemes. But I’ll be dammed if I’m going sign up and wait an hour in a download queue for a chance to play a demo of a game that you’re supposed to be trying to make me want to purchase.

So screw you Monolith, you’ve just lost a sale.

5

I would certainly agree with the sentiment that jumping through hoops, such as FilePlanert’s EZ-Pad scheme, to merely play a demo of a game, is absurd. You put obstacles in the way of me playing the demo, I won’t bother and you’ve lost a sale. Simple as that.

However, these “exclusive” demos usually turn out to be exclusive for a very short time, so I would not be surprised at all if Contract Jack shows up as a regular demo on other sites within the next week or so.

You can still stand on principle, of course, and continue to refuse to buy the game, either way.

6

I got all excited over nothing. A MP demo!? Bleh! Give me some of those tasty SP missions, Monolith, the ones you guys are so awesome at making.

7

Jeez, it’s an early version of a demo. Big whoop. There will probably be a “real” demo in a few weeks.

8

Exactly. The exclusive demos seem to generate an awful lot of bad press, though, so there must be a decent amount of money/cross-promotion involved to convince some companies to stick with them. Either that or they are counting on the general apathy/“We’ll put up with anything!” attitude of so many gamers.

9

Or maybe they’re looking for smaller numbers of players who are more likely to give some feedback, rather than spamming the world with feedback. Kind of like how id released Q3Test for the Mac first, or how MMO testing often is done on a limited basis, gradually expanding from there.

And where is this bad press? You mean the messageboard threads from people who’ll still down the regular demo, and still warez the final like they were planning on doing from day 1?

And as far as I know, no money exchanges hands for most exclusives, since both parties benefit from the deal.

10

When Ubi gave FP the exclusive for Raven Shield’s demo and when Activision recently did the same for Call of Duty, there was coverage of the negative reaction on most gaming sites, including press releases/statements made by the companies involved when they dropped the exclusivity. Some sites, like Blue’s, even went as far as to actively condemn exclusives outright.

The print media likely ignores these stories because they live and die over the space of a few days. Or maybe you guys just don’t think it’s worthy of coverage. It’s certainly not a big deal in the overall scheme of things, game-wise.

And you seem to have grown much more cynical recently. Any particular reason why? I’m not saying it’s unjustified, necessarily, but it does seem to have gone up a few notches. I don’t see that the level of whining/warezing has increased a lot but I don’t have anything to back that up, either.

Or maybe they’re looking for smaller numbers of players who are more likely to give some feedback, rather than spamming the world with feedback. Kind of like how id released Q3Test for the Mac first, or how MMO testing often is done on a limited basis, gradually expanding from there.

Maybe, but how valuable would that feedback be versus what they can get from their own QA? A limited playerbase seems less likely to find problems than a larger one, too. On the other hand, most beta testers don’t offer a lot of useful feedback, anyway, so it may not make much difference if you have 100 testers or 1,000.

11

I think you might mean “Screw you, Vivendi Universal.”

The developer rarely has control over the details of demo distribution. That’s publisher territory.

FWIW, I refuse to install some demo that also installs crap like EZPad or C-Dilla for authentication, all so that one website can keep their exclusivity on what is, after all, a “commercial.” Screw that.

I’m not saying I won’t get Contract Jack, but until they release some kind of demo that doesn’t make me jump through hoops, I’m not going to play the demo. Besides, I want a single-player demo.

12

Since this is a multiplayer demo, the QA people would not suffice for any decent stress test. And this is not the final code, limiting the test to fileplanet exclusives is probably wise since they most likely will release another demo later on.

If VU releases a “proper” demo, with SP and MP for everyone, will you change your opinion?

13

Yeah, fuck, when are gamers going to WAKE UP and fight back against whatever it is from which our apathy has made us BLIND? What is it again? I can download a new game demo from only one website? WELL FUCK THAT ACTION. Not a day goes by that I’m not enraged by this now. I want to download my free shit from ANYWHERE I WANT. What is this, Nazi China?!

14

If VU releases a “proper” demo, with SP and MP for everyone, will you change your opinion?

I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that this was an “official” multiplayer demo, if it’s actually just a beta demo then that changes my opinion somewhat. I still think it’s a stupid decision, but not as infuriating as releasing a proper demo as an exclusive.

…and screw Vivendi too :wink:

15

Yeah, this was their official day of whininess. I have those too. It’s not really news, and it just makes the publications look bad because what this is about is those other sites were being upset that they aren’t being chosen to host the exclusive demos. If they were regularly on the receiving end, they’d probably be singing a different tune.

(Or maybe they’d stand up for their principles and turn down exclusive demos, or have done this regularly, I dunno.)

How do exclusives hurt gamers exactly? It gives you one outlet for the term of the exclusive period, which could be a few days or weeks. If you don’t like the terms of that exclusive, or the hoops it makes you jump through, don’t play the demo until that exclusive period is over. Has there ever been a demo that didn’t go into wider release after some exclusive period? Companies aren’t obligated to provide gamers with a demo in exactly the form they want when they want it.

Whether exclusives, and any hoops they may make you jump through in order to maintain exclusivity, are a good idea for the publishers, in terms of promotion, is a different discussion. But I’m sure GameSpy promoted that Contract JACK demo a lot more than they would have otherwise because it was their exclusive, and that may have promotional value to Vivendi.

And you seem to have grown much more cynical recently. Any particular reason why? I’m not saying it’s unjustified, necessarily, but it does seem to have gone up a few notches. I don’t see that the level of whining/warezing has increased a lot but I don’t have anything to back that up, either.

It comes and goes. I really don’t understand the sense of entitlement gamers have nowadays. I think all publishers should, en masse, just stop producing demos entirely. We have it great with these things; there are few consumer products that people are able to test drive in such a manner. Yet people still find reasons to complain.

Maybe, but how valuable would that feedback be versus what they can get from their own QA? A limited playerbase seems less likely to find problems than a larger one, too.

Carmack mentioned that it was easier to wade through the bug reports when there were fewer of them, and that makes sense to me. If you release a game to a dozen testers, you get some feedback. If you release it to a thousand, you get more but it’s still manageable. You release it to millions, you get a deluge of reports, which makes it harder to find the legitimate issues. There’s a point of diminishing returns on the quantity of people doing QA, I suspect.

16

“It comes and goes. I really don’t understand the sense of entitlement gamers have nowadays.”

They want anything and everything now(in some cases free), and if they don’t get it they fire up their browsers and flame away at how horrible everything is and theirs gonna be a revolt if things stay this way.

I would like to know has their been a game(a descent size retail release) that hasn’t had a demo(not saying all the demos released) that wasn’t publically availible. I don’t think so.

I guess since its the start of the week people have to find something to bitch about.

17

think all publishers should, en masse, just stop producing demos entirely. We have it great with these things; there are few consumer products that people are able to test drive in such a manner. Yet people still find reasons to complain.

What other form of media has the technical problems that games have? When you go to a movie, is there a serious likelihood of the projector breaking down halfway through and the ticket office not giving you your money back? When was the last time you bought a defective CD, or a copy of the latest George R.R. Fatso novel that accidentally was printed in ancient Lemurian?

But despite the fact that there are really no technical issues you need to worry about for books, film, cds, etc. there is a huge industry devoted to “demoing” them for the public. CDs have single aired on the radio and music videos placed on MTV, films have trailers, and even books have exerpts published in magazines and literary journals. And these are all channels devoted to the quality of a product (at a much lower price point, I might add, than the average game), not the issue of “will the game actually work on my machine”?

Don’t get me wrong: Creole Ned’s being a wearisome cunt over not being able to choose the method of delivery for his freeloading, but I find your thinking here to be equally bizarre - the game industry should stop en masse producing demos because their games are buggy and will only intermittently function on even an advanced user’s computer and, yadda yadda, “gamer entitlement” and “we have it great with these things”? Even industries not fraught with the technical difficulties of software development haven’t done this, because proving first-hand the quality of your product is an important tenet of advertising.

18

Almost every game from Blizzard and Westwood didn’t have a demo until it had been on shelves for a while.

19

Companies could put out “competibility test” versions which let you see if the game ran, like that Final Fantasy benchmark thing.

When you go to a movie, is there a serious likelihood of the projector breaking down halfway through and the ticket office not giving you your money back? When was the last time you bought a defective CD, or a copy of the latest George R.R. Fatso novel that accidentally was printed in ancient Lemurian?

I haven’t had a game refuse to run in, hell, I can’t remember when it happened last.

Anyway, I suspect more people are trying them out to see if they like them than just to check if they’ll run at all. (Performance testing is probably more likely than compatibility testing.)

Even industries not fraught with the technical difficulties of software development haven’t done this, because proving first-hand the quality of your product is an important tenet of advertising.

My comment was actually a joke, as in that would shut up all the complainers about people that don’t like how demos are distibuted.

But we are pretty lucky to get the demos in the first place. And when people bitch about something that’s basically free, that’s just goofy.

20

Yeah, but that was my ancillary point: it isn’t enough for a company to expect you to pay 50 bucks for a game which you only know will “technically” work on your machine. A game’s quality, how enjoyable it is to play, are important to advertise, and the only way to advertise that aspect of a game is by releasing demos. All other forms of entertainment allow a user to get an informed glimpse of a product’s quality before you put money down… I don’t understand why video games should be an exception, especially since games are much more expensive to buy.

As for games generally “working”, well, kinda, yeah, but just because you can get a game to run doesn’t mean it isn’t a buggy mess. There are far more of those “buggy, but technically playable” games out there than ones which just flat out won’t work.