Crysis 2 demo

[Spare-Flair]

*Sigh* I'm willing to give the release version a chance, but if this is how they want to do it, then I may just cancel my preorder.

DX9 at release. Good job Crysis 2!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=267505

How can they patch the entire code path? It's a DX9 build from the ground up that they are just bolting on some DX11 frills on top of afterwards. Sort of like Crysis 1 and how running in DX10 magically gave you blurry DOF filter and god rays - all features that people figured out how to implement in DX9 anyway with a little digging into the autoconfig.

 

[NathanP2007]

What type of FPS are you guys getting? On "Hardcore" 1920x1080 res i am getting 50-60FPS, on "Gamer" i am getting 65-80FPS. So far what i find ironic is i find that i was much more precise with my shooting (especially pistol shooting) on the 360 demo, than with a mouse on the PC demo.

 

[heatlesssun]

Aim assistance does work with keyboard and mouse. It's in the beta as well for single player and multiplayer (which hackers found a way to play all the full multiplayer maps on their own hamachi servers a month ago).

You're right though, PC gamers are sealing their own fate.

I stand corrected, I never tried it myself and there was at least one poster here that said it didn't work with KBM.

 

[heatlesssun]

Please extrapolate that into the context of revenue lost due to piracy. If you can't achieve this, the argument is meaningless.

This is specious and analogous to saying that because one can't prove the existence of God or extraterrestrial life that neither exists.

Piracy is on the PC unstoppable correct? It's been said literally millions of times. So that being the case profit from PC software comes totally from the willingness of strangers to buy the software instead of getting it for free. No one can prove the direct effects of piracy on sales but it's beyond easy to point out that a market that works solely on the willingness of customers to pay is one filled with reluctance, fear and uncertainty.

 

[Spare-Flair]

This is specious and analogous to saying that because one can't prove the existence of God or extraterrestrial life that neither exists.

Piracy is on the PC unstoppable correct? It's been said literally millions of times. So that being the case profit from PC software comes totally from the willingness of strangers to buy the software instead of getting it for free. No one can prove the direct effects of piracy on sales but it's beyond easy to point out that a market that works solely on the willingness of customers to pay is one filled with reluctance, fear and uncertainty.

People just take issue with the correlation of pirated copies directly being lost sales as it's false. Many people who pirate a game would have never bought it in the first place.

 

[Matrices]

This game is running like ass for me - who else is seeing poor performance in Crossfire?

Getting less than 30 FPS in hardcore mode with my setup at 30".

 

[Nuby1Canuby]

What type of FPS are you guys getting? On "Hardcore" 1920x1080 res i am getting 50-60FPS, on "Gamer" i am getting 65-80FPS. So far what i find ironic is i find that i was much more precise with my shooting (especially pistol shooting) on the 360 demo, than with a mouse on the PC demo.

On Hardcore at 5164x1050 res, I am getting about 25 FPS, Advanced 40 FPS and Gamer 45 FPS.

 

[NathanP2007]

On Hardcore at 5164x1050 res, I am getting about 25 FPS, Advanced 40 FPS and Gamer 45 FPS.

Maybe AA and AAF or something is on and goes up higher and higher until "Hardcore" has every setting including AA and AAF to full max. OR the demo is just not that great in terms of quality for getting expected frame rates....or the whole game wont be good frame rate wise. Who knows.

Another interesting note, the shutgun is full auto on PC but not only is it single shot , but when you rapid hit the xbox controller trigger, it is very slow in shooting the next round. BIG difference. Also Xbox 360 melee is one hit kill, and PC melee is 2 hit kill.

 

[Matrices]

It looks like Call of Duty HD and gives negative scaling in Crossfire, fucking brilliant.

RIP Crytek.

 

[phide]

This is specious and analogous to saying that because one can't prove the existence of God or extraterrestrial life that neither exists.

What I said was that without sufficient data to suggest a correlation the claim that the piracy is problematic is meaningless. I did not say that there was no correlation, I simply asked you to establish it.

In order to declare extraterrestrials as being problematic, one must first present some sort of data that they exist in the first place.

No one can prove the direct effects of piracy on sales but it's beyond easy to point out that a market that works solely on the willingness of customers to pay is one filled with reluctance, fear and uncertainty.

What is your point?

 

[ChronoDetector]

Can't even login, WTF, anybody experiencing this issue? I even disabled my firewall, same shitty error.

 

[SilverSliver]

Any of you guys know how to make an account? Even made a fresh e-mail address and it says in-use.

 

[phide]

Nope. Couldn't make it work any way I tried.

 

[shansoft]

Why do I see the failure of this game since they announced it will be on both 360 and PS3?

The demo is terrible... 6v6? WTF is this?

Aside from "Press start" direct console port, the whole game is a big dumb down graphic... And everything with light looks shiny and hurts my eye..

Somehow they didn't put sunglasses on their nanosuit helm..

 

[Matrices]

You don't actually have to make an account, strangely enough. Just enter any login and password and join.

 

[heatlesssun]

What I said was that without sufficient data to suggest a correlation the claim that the piracy is problematic is meaningless. I did not say that there was no correlation, I simply asked you to establish it.?

Well then couldn't I ask you to do the same thing? Show that there is NO correlation between sales and piracy? I can no more prove that there is a correlation between sales and piracy than you can prove that there isn't. This is why your original statement is specious. Neither of us can prove either point.

What is your point?

My point is that piracy has a chilling effect on the willingness of developers to produce games and features for the PC because of the enormous amount of uncertainty and unease that it generates. Neither one of us can show a correlation between sales and piracy one way or the other but all we have to do is look at what developers are saying and doing. The ever increasing consolization of games and the reluctance of developers to do PC only titles and optimizations and it doesn't really matter how piracy truly effect sales. In the eyes of developers piracy affects them negatively. And they are the ones taking the risk and doing the work.

 

[Derangel]

It's a demo, probably slapped together as I would think that auto-aim wouldn't be in the RTM, it doesn't work with KBM anyway.

My point is that if PC gamers are going to call everything crap and pirate everything to oblivion that PC gamers are sealing their own fate.

Your piracy argument doesn't account for the fact that every game market was down in sales last year EXCEPT for the PC which grew 20%. And despite piracy it is only expected to continue growing every single year.

 

[heatlesssun]

All I was saying is that constant biching and piracy isn't drawing the love of developers, the effect of sales isn't really part of my point. However if sales are up that awesome, that means devs will be willing to put up with more shit.

 

[Derangel]

All I was saying is that constant biching and piracy isn't drawing the love of developers, the effect of sales isn't really part of my point. However if sales are up that awesome, that means devs will be willing to put up with more shit.

Its only a few developers who are really bitching. The funny thing is its some of the big ones who's games would always sell. If those developers wish to believe the world of consoles is all gold platters and no piracy then fine good luck to them, but it would be nice if they didn't burn all the bridges on their way out. I'm usually a fan of developers speaking their minds, but they should still be way of backlash from their words and understand that once your make certain comments there is no turning around and trying to get in the good graces of the people you basically told to f-off. It doesn't work that way. It works that way even less when you release a sloppy mess of a ported demo. I'm normally one to get on gamers cases about bitching, but in this case I think almost all of it is 100% valid.

 

[heatlesssun]

It works that way even less when you release a sloppy mess of a ported demo. I'm normally one to get on gamers cases about bitching, but in this case I think almost all of it is 100% valid.

Its a free demo, I think to start threads like Crysis 2 Worse Game of the Decade" based on a free demo is a bit premature. The PC originally wasn't going to get one at all, this is better than nothing. Hell it works with 3D Surround out of the box, something a lot of demos haven't for me.

Did I care for this demo? Not really as I'm not going to pick up Crysis 2 for the MP anyway. But I did get a flavor of the game and it looks to support 3D Surround just fine, so yeah, day one purchse for me.

 

[phide]

Well then couldn't I ask you to do the same thing? Show that there is NO correlation between sales and piracy?

I didn't claim there was no potential correlation. I stated it could not be meaningfully quantified. I believe I was pretty clear.

My point is that piracy has a chilling effect on the willingness of developers to produce games and features for the PC because of the enormous amount of uncertainty and unease that it generates.

There is uncertainty in any market. The PC games market is no way unique in that respect. It certainly didn't stop Crytek from releasing multiple PC-exclusive titles before to much fanfare, critical acclaim and commercial success.

In the eyes of developers piracy affects them negatively. And they are the ones taking the risk and doing the work.

In my eyes lobsters are the Devil's spawn, sent to Earth from another dimension to commit unspeakable atrocities upon mankind with their divine telepathic powers. Out of this fear I have abandoned my previous business endeavors in commercial lobster fishing, as in my eyes, no good could ever come from harvesting the demonic crustacean infestation for my own financial benefit. I am perfectly rational and my motives should not be questioned.

 

[Derangel]

Its a free demo, I think to start threads like Crysis 2 Worse Game of the Decade" based on a free demo is a bit premature. The PC originally wasn't going to get one at all, this is better than nothing. Hell it works with 3D Surround out of the box, something a lot of demos haven't for me.

Did I care for this demo? Not really as I'm not going to pick up Crysis 2 for the MP anyway. But I did get a flavor of the game and it looks to support 3D Surround just fine, so yeah, day one purchse for me.

Its also a poorly done demo. From a marketing perspective (which is all demos are, marketing) it would have been better to spin it that they didn't have the time to release a proper demo than to release a bad one. Not releasing a demo doesn't usually do much for sales, a bad demo can hurt sales though. Yes that topic is horribly premature and one of the reasons I said "most" and not "all". Really doesn't help that there is now news out there that the game won't ship with DX11 and will only be DX9. So at launch we could very well be getting a sequel that looks worse than its predecessors. That could all be false, of course, but no one knows until Crytek speaks up.

I've yet to get 3D to work without the game deciding I'm doing it wrong or something. Kind of annoying.

 

[heatlesssun]

I didn't claim there was no potential correlation. I stated it could not be meaningfully quantified. I believe I was pretty clear.

And once again my point is that meaningful quantification is irrelevant. Crytek said that the original Crysis was pirated 20 to 1. We can disregard what impact that had on sales, the bottom line is that most people played it for free. How that is supposed to encourage a developer to create another PC exclusive is beyond me.

In my eyes lobsters are the Devil's spawn, sent to Earth from another dimension to commit unspeakable atrocities upon mankind with their divine telepathic powers. Out of this fear I have abandoned my previous business endeavors in commercial lobster fishing, as in my eyes, no good could ever come from harvesting the demonic crustacean infestation for my own financial benefit. I am perfectly rational and my motives should not be questioned.

Less caffeine might help with that. Don't know what that has to with risk taking however.

 

[Plague_Injected]

Its a free demo, I think to start threads like Crysis 2 Worse Game of the Decade" based on a free demo is a bit premature. The PC originally wasn't going to get one at all, this is better than nothing.

Not for Crytek...this will be more damaging to sales than the disastrous AVP multiplayer demo was to that title.

It is good for people who just retrieved pre-order deposits from the bottomless pit of console-port garbage, though.

 

[drako]

Sigh.. I was looking forward to getting this eventually as I did enjoy Crysis and Warhead and I loved Far Cry. But it sounds like this might be a $5 kind of game... which might not take too long (next Xmas) given how things are shaping up.

 

[phide]

And once again my point is that meaningful quantification is irrelevant.

I don't think it is. I consider it only appropriate to make business decisions based on a rational, objective evaluation of the state of the market. If Crytek's decision was to reduce their focus on attaining PC sales by focusing on what PC gamers expect from their titles due to their assumptions of the damage caused to revenue due to piracy, the direction of their business is being dictated by unfounded assumptions. One can speculate and postulate all one wants, but the end result is that, if that's really the case, Crytek is simply afraid of the market. It's not an illegitimate fear, but it's not legitimate either.

Crytek said that the original Crysis was pirated 20 to 1. We can disregard what impact that had on sales...

Easy to do because we can't discern the impact it had on sales. In reality, there's nothing to be disregarded.

Less caffeine might help with that. Don't know what that has to with risk taking however.

That's precisely my point.

 

[socK]

And once again my point is that meaningful quantification is irrelevant. Crytek said that the original Crysis was pirated 20 to 1. We can disregard what impact that had on sales, the bottom line is that most people played it for free. How that is supposed to encourage a developer to create another PC exclusive is beyond me.

It encourages them because they made a shitload of money because their game sold really well. The piracy might have even increased sales in reality for all you know, same with the leak. It's impossible to know. All you can know is that their game sold really fucking well and that they made considerable bank off it.

 

[Gilbert_pwns]

Looks like the spent a lot of time on the multiplayer side of things to cater to console gamers and try to prevent piracy. I really hope the single player didn't suffer because of this.

 

[heatlesssun]

I don't think it is. I consider it only appropriate to make business decisions based on a rational, objective evaluation of the state of the market.

Wait a minute, you're saying that meaningful quantification of piracy isn't possible. So how can one make rational decisions on the effect of piracy?

 

[heatlesssun]

It encourages them because they made a shitload of money because their game sold really well. The piracy might have even increased sales in reality for all you know, same with the leak. It's impossible to know. All you can know is that their game sold really fucking well and that they made considerable bank off it.

The first Crysis did so well that there hasn't been a high-end action based PC exclusive since, not counting Warhead of course.

 

[Derangel]

The first Crysis did so well that there hasn't been a high-end PC exclusive since, not counting Warhead of course.

Assuming an average price for $40 and a $30 million dollar budget they made over a BILLION dollars in profit. On a high end PC exclusive. If developers don't think thats a lot then they're fucking morons.

 

[heatlesssun]

3,000,000 X 40=120,000,000

 

[Derangel]

3,000,000 X 40=120,000,000

Oops. Saw one too many zeros when I was looking at it or accidentally added a zero when calculating. Still nearly a hundred million in profit isn't something to sneeze at and I'll once again mention that they had help from outside sources.

I wonder if maybe Crytek was expecting a bunch of people to license their "amazing new engine" and it didn't happen.

 

[Spare-Flair]

Oops. Saw one too many zeros when I was looking at it or accidentally added a zero when calculating. Still nearly a hundred million in profit isn't something to sneeze at and I'll once again mention that they had help from outside sources.

I wonder if maybe Crytek was expecting a bunch of people to license their "amazing new engine" and it didn't happen.

I doubt they sold 3 million at an average of $40 each. It took some time for them to reach 1M in sales. I remember there were news articles about that. It was like a year after release. Those can maybe account for $40 in average sales.

The other 2 million are likely heavily discounted like in Steam sales where Crysis was like $7.

Also, you are saying that retail sales = 100% profit which is completely wrong. That's revenue, not profit!

 

[Derangel]

I doubt they sold 3 million at an average of $40 each. It took some time for them to reach $1M in sales. I remember there were news articles about that. It was like a year after release. Those can maybe account for $40 in average sales.

The other 2 million are likely heavily discounted like in Steam sales where Crysis was like $7.

Also, you are saying that retail sales = 100% profit which is completely wrong. That's revenue, not profit!

Possibly, but I was just tossing out an average and you have to remember costs aren't the same across the world.

Edit: I was trying to make it simple without going too deep into anything.

 

[Spare-Flair]

Possibly, but I was just tossing out an average and you have to remember costs aren't the same across the world.

Edit: I was trying to make it simple without going too deep into anything.

Crysis's development costs were $22M. Add in overhead, liscensing, company, etc. costs, etc. and then take away the publisher's publishing/distribution cut and the wholesaler and retailer cuts as well as taxes and I'd say it's likely they only made $15-20M in profit as the developer. Then you spread that out in your company to help pay for another 4 years of development costs, sustaining the company, and raises, etc. and it's basically gone.

You originalyl said they made a billion in profit lol. I just thought it was funny.

 

[Derangel]

Crysis's development costs were $22M. Add in overhead, liscensing, etc. costs, etc. and then take away the publisher's publishing/distribution cut and the wholesaler and retailer cuts as well and I'd say it's likely they only made $15M in profit as the developer.

You original said they made a billion in profit lol. I just thought it was funny.

You have to remember there were multiple companies investing heavily in Crysis' success. Microsoft was pushing it as a DX10 showcase, Nvidia was pushing its 8800 series cards as being the thing to play with the game, Intel was pushing its new CPUs with it, EA was pushing it as the next big PC franchise. I doubt Crytek had to pay that much out of pocket for it.

Yes I did. My eyes tend to go a little buggy when too many of the same number are repeated, especially zeros and especially on the Windows calculator

 

[Spare-Flair]

You have to remember there were multiple companies investing heavily in Crysis' success. Microsoft was pushing it as a DX10 showcase, Nvidia was pushing its 8800 series cards as being the thing to play with the game, Intel was pushing its new CPUs with it, EA was pushing it as the next big PC franchise. I doubt Crytek had to pay that much out of pocket for it.

So out of the $22M it cost to develop Crysis, you're saying most of it was paid for by sponsorships and companies putting their ads at the front of the game? I have no information on that but I don't think they are paid that much for sponsorships. Certainly Microsoft gave them some cash for the fake DX10. Nvidia loves their "way it's meant to be played" in games but I don't recall that being in Crysis (correct me if I am wrong). Intel doesn't really need to sponsor games. EA was the publisher, they were just marketing their own game.

 

[Derangel]

So out of the $22M it cost to develop Crysis, you're saying most of it was paid for by sponsorships and companies putting their ads at the front of the game? I have no information on that but I don't think they are paid that much for sponsorships. Certainly Microsoft gave them some cash for the fake DX10. Nvidia loves their "way it's meant to be played" in games but I don't recall that being in Crysis (correct me if I am wrong). Intel doesn't really need to sponsor games. EA was the publisher, they were just marketing their own game.

Intel sponsors a lot of games. Their logo is in front of quite a few. I believe Crysis was WTMTBP, but I could be remembering wrong. Its been a couple years since I've cared enough to bother with the game. Publishers do tend to fund most games they publish. It is very rare for a developer to fund their own titles.

 

[Xenomaniac]

Just tried the demo. Lots of fun. Runs smooth as silk on my set up. Actually runs better than the previous Crysis where I had overheating problems.