Dark Messiah Expanded Demo News

[Liquidize105]

If you still have the recent Dark Messiah demo (or the E3 demo) installed on your system, or whether you're looking to give it a whirl later, GamersHell (http://gamershell.com/news/32014.html) has a savegame for the demo that supposedly takes it beyond where the demo ends and allows you to go through the cyclops battle.

Also, do the following to enable all weapons and spells:

1. Make a shortcut, right click on it and go to properties
2. Then in the target field (right after all the stuff) paste this in: -dev -console +sv_cheats 1 +map e3_l06_l09 +bind n "noclip" +bind [ "impulse 101".
And lastly, here's the minimum system requirements for the demo:


Supported OS: Windows® XP
Processor: AMD Athlon™, Pentium® 2.2 GHz (3 GHz recommended)
RAM: 512 MB (1 GB recommended)
Video Card: 128 MB DirectX® 9-compatible video card (256MB recommended)
Sound Card: DirectX 9 compatible sound card
DirectX Version: DirectX 9 or higher
Hard Drive Space: 3 GB free
Peripherals Supported: Windows-compatible mouse and keyboard
Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX/6/7 families, ATI® Radeon™ 9/X families
Thanks to GamersHell (http://gamershell.com/) for the info.

At roughly twice the requirement of HL2, the demo is very taxing on low-end to midline systems. I only hope the final product is more fine-tuned and optimized.

[Varsity]

And this is why you can't be lazy about demo builds. Ubi/Arkane thought they could get away with cutting corners by disabling the console (I kid you not), but all that approach has done is expose stuff that shouldn't be exposed and frustrated people who are trying the use the dev interface for other purposes, of which there are many. Lesson learnt: when it comes to demos, the coders need to get in there and start commenting!

Performance is indeed pretty dreadful on my machine. 30FPS max in all but a handful of areas, whereas Ep1 ran like a dream under the same settings. The last month or so is usually when the bulk of optimisation works happens though, so I'm confident the final product will be solid. Not to mention absolutely ace.

[Pugwash]

I have just finished playing through the demo a couple of times and was shocked at how little there was for a 1.5g download.

What was there was great though... daggers ftw!

[Mozgus]

At roughly twice the requirement of HL2, the demo is very taxing on low-end to midline systems. I only hope the final product is more fine-tuned and optimized.
Perhaps they are being honest about the specs? Unlike Valve, who completely lied about their's, and totally fucked up my component choices. I was so hyped about HL2 and built a system that met the recommended specs before it launched, then the game came out, and ran like dogshit for the next 1.5 years, until I had money to upgrade yet again. Thankfully, during that time, I explored and found many other games which looked and ran better then HL2 ever has. So I can thank Valve for that much.

[F3nyx]

I've been playing the game with a processor and video card that are both below the "minimum" specs. Still can't figure out why the fuck they disabled all resolutions below 1024x768. :(

[Varsity]

I was so hyped about HL2 and built a system that met the recommended specs before it launched, then the game came out, and ran like dogshit
System issue, the recommended specs (and below in fact) can eat HL2 any day. People have been playing it on goddamn integrated-graphics laptops*!

*Although I will admit, not at 6xAA.

[Majster Wichajster]

I want to play this game but with my computer I'm not going anywhere near it. I of course hope that this game will be a stellar success and continues the M&M franchise.

[Borys]

It's also the best graphical showcase I've ever seen in a RPG game. Puts Oblivion to shame, but that's a given given (duh) its level-like structure.

Amazing physics, amazing combat, amazing graphics - I hope Bethesda is watching AND learning.

I want *nothing* less from TESV.

[DorkOff]

I've found that enabling AA in any form rapes the frame rate. Fraps reports 60 FPS with everything on high (except AA) at 1680x1050, V-Sync enabled. Selecting even 2x AA dips FPS to teens.

[PIPBoy3000]

I played the little "extra" area. It's pretty, and the cyclops model is fairly nice looking. It's obvious they never intended for people to play around in that map. The AI on the cyclops is broken and there's no way to get out of it.

My son loves the game and played through the demo a dozen times. Now I've got him doing chores and earning points so he can buy the game. Don't tell him I probably would have bought it myself.

[bean19]

So how is this being published? Is it going to release on Steam and in Brick&Mortar stores via Ubisoft?

[Qoz]

Amazing physics, amazing combat, amazing graphics - I hope Bethesda is watching AND learning.I see so many compare it too Oblivion which is silly. They only have the RPG elements and the viewpoint in common. Oblivion has huge vista gfx, open ended gameplay and complex classes, while DMOMM is much more linear, with compact lvl design and simple classes.

I will play DHOMM for different reasons than I played Oblivion.

Oblivion is pretty but has some problems with extreme HDR bloom and other things. I think DMOMM has graphical weak sides too. The textures could be more sharp - it's alot of brown. And the game lags a little when physics are activated (same in HL2). Still it looks really fun..

[archon]

My system generally isn't considered top of the line, but I ran the demo at max settings at 1280x960 and there was no slowdown at all... It seemed only marginally more taxing than HL2: Episode One, if at all.

[Somefool]

I can run HL2: Episode One at 1680x1050 with every setting maxed, but this demo DESTROYS me even at 1024x768 with settings cranked down.

[UnderHero5]

I can run HL2: Episode One at 1680x1050 with every setting maxed, but this demo DESTROYS me even at 1024x768 with settings cranked down.
Gotta be glitching then. My 6800 GT runs this demo fine with everything maxed (except AA and AF) at 1280 x 1024. Ran great... EXCEPT I got a couple spots where the game would nearly freeze from slowdown... literally like 3 FPS for seemingly no reason.
And in different parts on a couple different play throughs. I cured it by quiting and loading a save both times. No idea why it did it. Glitch I suppose.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Its a demo, take every damn thing in it with a grain of salt, especially performance. Too bad my main rig is down for a while or I would try this out.

[KarmaGhost]

The demo played excellently on my system... until I added the save game and the dev console to the shortcut. Now it runs like shit. Anybody have any ideas as to why?

[Mozgus]

System issue, the recommended specs (and below in fact) can eat HL2 any day. People have been playing it on goddamn integrated-graphics laptops*!

*Although I will admit, not at 6xAA.
I have the cleanest, most optimized XP install you could ever dream of. My system is, and was at the time, flawless. I can't speak for the 10,000 others who have flamed the steam forums because of the fake specs, but something tells me they aren't all running a bunch of bloated, adware ridden systems either.

Valve should have actually been sued for that. Too bad it would never hold up. Regardless, those thousands of people wanted a refund and couldn't get it, due to the way Steam works, and makes retail copies worthless. When you throw away $50 on a product you can't even use, despite the fact that you meet every required spec, you'd be angry too.

[bean19]

Mozgus - You must have had some problem. I've played it on an office machine with one of those $50 Office Max graphics cards that were intended for fast PDF viewing rather than gaming at 800x600 and it still had bad framerates.

[The Continental]

The demo played excellently on my system... until I added the save game and the dev console to the shortcut. Now it runs like shit. Anybody have any ideas as to why?

Same exact situation for me. I'm guessing it's running in debug mode judging by all the text output appearing on screen when running it with these settings.

[Skookum]

Same exact situation for me. I'm guessing it's running in debug mode judging by all the text output appearing on screen when running it with these settings.

When I first load up it takes me to the beginning of the game and the framerate is really slow (4-5 fps). But, after I load the savegame (you guys downloaded the savegame and installed it, right?) it goes back to normal speed. However, now all the new spells are gone, and the cyclops is immune to all my attacks, and his AI is broken.

[spacerat100]

The demo played excellently on my system... until I added the save game and the dev console to the shortcut. Now it runs like shit. Anybody have any ideas as to why?
same problem here

[51|RandoM]

Valve should have actually been sued for that. Too bad it would never hold up. Regardless, those thousands of people wanted a refund and couldn't get it, due to the way Steam works, and makes retail copies worthless. When you throw away $50 on a product you can't even use, despite the fact that you meet every required spec, you'd be angry too.

I think you're being silly. The game plays well on the recommended spec hardware, end of story. Valve can't be expected to deal with every system quirk out there, and not only that, deal with it before they even know it exists, lol.

Of all the games(and by extensions, developers)you could bitch and moan about when it comes to their product running well on the recommended hardware, Valve shouldn't be anywhere near the top of the list. Hell, Source is known to scale very well, and one of the main reasons people are still playing CS to this day is that the original half-life engine was also very forgiving in the hardware specs department.

[tombofsoldier]

First demo kep crashing on me, and somehow took 5 gigs of my HD. Definitley not re-dowloading just to see if it crashes again.

[kabutor]

The lighting and the look of the cyclop is great, but looks invincible, anyway, is quite well done when he hits you and you roll by the floor.. very nice demo

[51|RandoM]

I'm getting 400+KB/sec via torrent, will finally be able to check this out.

[UnderHero5]

Wow, is any one else having a problem uninstalling this demo?
When I try to remove it through Add/Remove programs or the shortcut in the start menu it begins the installation again! (I installed it to D instead of C, apparently it has a problem with that).

[51|RandoM]

I'm having trouble installing it, not uninstalling it. Thing is crawling.

[Pretzel]

Same exact situation for me. I'm guessing it's running in debug mode judging by all the text output appearing on screen when running it with these settings.

Try typing "developer 0" after you run the game. That turns off the text, but leaves the console on.

[Demo_Boy]

The lighting and the look of the cyclop is great, but looks invincible, anyway, is quite well done when he hits you and you roll by the floor.. very nice demo

Is anyone jabbing the cyclop in teh eyeball with the katana? Cause thats what you have to do to kill him. I saw the devs do it at e3 about 10 times. It was awesome.

[Mozgus]

I think you're being silly. The game plays well on the recommended spec hardware, end of story. Valve can't be expected to deal with every system quirk out there, and not only that, deal with it before they even know it exists, lol.

Of all the games(and by extensions, developers)you could bitch and moan about when it comes to their product running well on the recommended hardware, Valve shouldn't be anywhere near the top of the list. Hell, Source is known to scale very well, and one of the main reasons people are still playing CS to this day is that the original half-life engine was also very forgiving in the hardware specs department.
Once again, you weren't there. We fucking crashed the steam forums; there were that many of us. There were polls everywhere to prove the results. The fucking game only ran on around 40% of the machines which should have ran it fine. I remember one specific poll, linked from the Steam forums, which counted over 20,000 votes, again it showed that the majority couldn't play the game, and they were super pissed.

The stutterbug remains a gigantic problem for everyone who didn't throw away more money to upgrade their system to insane lengths. Hell, I still have mild stuttering even now, after upgrading every single piece of my system yet again.

For the first year, Valve told us our systems were to blame. Even more shameful, was that Valve spent vast ammounts of effort deleting all our threads on the issue to cover it up. It was completely retarded. When you have a thread with 1000+ posts, most of which are users actually making progress on SOLVING the bug in Valve's absense, and then that thread vanishes in the blink of an eye, you just lose all respect for that company.

Then after that, Doug Lombardi from Valve fessed up about the bug, admitted it was real, and that they were "working on it". It was hilarious, as long as you never actually wasted your money on the game.

What puzzles me the most is how they spent like 6 years on such a short game, and couldn't even bug test the damn thing during that time.

[Ragman]

Is anyone jabbing the cyclop in teh eyeball with the katana? Cause thats what you have to do to kill him. I saw the devs do it at e3 about 10 times. It was awesome.

yea
hit the eye/head quite a few times (i used arrows and mini fireballs) and when he is knocked down hit the eye with a power attack.

you still cant leave the cave after he is dead, though

[Borys]

I see so many compare it too Oblivion which is silly. They only have the RPG elements and the viewpoint in common. Oblivion has huge vista gfx, open ended gameplay and complex classes, while DMOMM is much more linear, with compact lvl design and simple classes.

I will play DHOMM for different reasons than I played Oblivion.

Oblivion is pretty but has some problems with extreme HDR bloom and other things. I think DMOMM has graphical weak sides too. The textures could be more sharp - it's alot of brown. And the game lags a little when physics are activated (same in HL2). Still it looks really fun..

Guess what - it is a first person RPG.

Should I be comparing DMOMM to Final Fantasy or Devil May Cry?

Just like Wizardry was being compared to Might and Magic and Lands of Lore games, DMOMM is being compared to the former best looking RPG on the market - Oblivion.

[randir14]

When I first started the demo I was amazed at how well it ran on my computer...in the tutorial level. Once I got to the cyclops level it ran like crap.

[Fyd]

I see so many compare it too Oblivion which is silly. They only have the RPG elements and the viewpoint in common. Oblivion has huge vista gfx, open ended gameplay and complex classes, while DMOMM is much more linear, with compact lvl design and simple classes.

I will play DHOMM for different reasons than I played Oblivion.

Oblivion is pretty but has some problems with extreme HDR bloom and other things. I think DMOMM has graphical weak sides too. The textures could be more sharp - it's alot of brown. And the game lags a little when physics are activated (same in HL2). Still it looks really fun..

Im agree with you, i hate when someone compares oblivion to dm, dm its like an rpg+fps linear game, and oblivion, ok its rpg+fps too, but its not linear, you have lot of quests, and a huge world to explore, great music, lot of MODS to improve the game.

[Varsity]

Fraps reports 60 FPS with everything on high (except AA) at 1680x1050, V-Sync enabled. Selecting even 2x AA dips FPS to teens.
That's probably because your monitor's refresh rate is 60Hz. Turn it up!

Once again, you weren't there. We fucking crashed the steam forums; there were that many of us.
Oh, this old fallacy. Five million purchasers, five thousand forum posters, I can't even work out what percentage that is but it's stupidly small. You will see the same effect on every forum for every other popular PC game going.

Edit: Remember the 360's 'instability'?

[DeadScreenSky]

Once again, you weren't there. We fucking crashed the steam forums; there were that many of us. There were polls everywhere to prove the results. The fucking game only ran on around 40% of the machines which should have ran it fine. I remember one specific poll, linked from the Steam forums, which counted over 20,000 votes, again it showed that the majority couldn't play the game, and they were super pissed.

The stutterbug remains a gigantic problem for everyone who didn't throw away more money to upgrade their system to insane lengths. Hell, I still have mild stuttering even now, after upgrading every single piece of my system yet again.
The problem isn't even so much that the recommended requirements were wrong, it's that Source is a picky bitch of an engine. A lot of people even found they only got stutter after they upgraded to new computers, when their older and slower ones ran it great! I was only able to partially fix it in Sin Episodes by actually increasing my sound card's PCI latency away from the default, basically the opposite of what a lot of people do to fix it.

It was a major issue with the Source engine, and I can't believe so many apparent fanboys try to pretend it didn't exist. I do believe Valve has basically fixed it in the latest version of the engine (often not yet reflected in third party Source games like Sin), but it was a gigantic problem for a very long time. Check out all the developer documentation on the issue for evidence (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Stuttering) (though it generally pretends that it's strictly a performance issue, a look at the list of often contradictory fixes shows it's practically voodoo magic). You can even see it in effect in Valve's E3 announcement videos - the devs themselves couldn't get rid of the stutter on their own machines!

[Mozgus]

The problem isn't even so much that the recommended requirements were wrong, it's that Source is a picky bitch of an engine. A lot of people even found they only got stutter after they upgraded to new computers, when their older and slower ones ran it great! I was only able to partially fix it in Sin Episodes by actually increasing my sound card's PCI latency away from the default, basically the opposite of what a lot of people do to fix it.

It was a major issue with the Source engine, and I can't believe so many apparent fanboys try to pretend it didn't exist. I do believe Valve has basically fixed it in the latest version of the engine (often not yet reflected in third party Source games like Sin), but it was a gigantic problem for a very long time. Check out all the developer documentation on the issue for evidence (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Stuttering) (though it generally pretends that it's strictly a performance issue, a look at the list of often contradictory fixes shows it's practically voodoo magic). You can even see it in effect in Valve's E3 announcement videos - the devs themselves couldn't get rid of the stutter on their own machines!
A perfect post. The stutter was fairly bad in their early E3 demonstrations, if you bothered to stream that stuff off gamespot at the time. I saw that and just assumed issues like that would be ironed out in the end. I had totally forgotten about it by the time the game launched. God damn...that was such a smack in the face, the first time I fired up the game and knew I was in for a world of shit.

But I've seen some ungodly videos of the stutterbug. Stutters which lasted 20 seconds, with zero movement until it finished. I remember the video was being recorded off of a machine that was even better then my own at the time. (And before another clueless smartass chimes in, he used a camera, not FRAPS.)

Edit: Remember the 360's, Xbox's, and PS2's 'instability'?
Yes, and fixed.

[Qoz]

Guess what - it is a first person RPG.
Should I be comparing DMOMM to Final Fantasy or Devil May Cry?
Just like Wizardry was being compared to Might and Magic and Lands of Lore games, DMOMM is being compared to the former best looking RPG on the market - Oblivion.
Who cares if it's a first person fantasy RPG? It's the gameplay.
Like with movies - you don't compare an action and romance movie, just because they both are vampire movies?

Wizardry and the MM games were very much alike in gameplay. They set out to do the same thing and should be compared.

DMOMM is primarily action driven, with some classes to spice it up.
Oblivion is pieced together by many things - action, story, complex classes etc. People play them for different reasons. They set out to do different things, so comparing them toe-to-toe would be silly.

You can't even compare the graphics fairly, as Oblivion has huge outdoor scenery. What you can compare is the combat component, but still - the combat is the focus of DHOMM, and a much smaller part in Oblivion. If DHOMM does this part better, is it a better game? Not really, as Oblivion has so much more.

[Ravenlock]

It's a real stretch to call Dark Messiah a first person RPG. It's an action game - almost a first person shooter - with medieval trappings and a good melee combat engine. Yes, there are upgradeable skills, but they appear from the demo to be upgradeable skills more in the vein of Jedi Knight (pick a path and you get these abilities to play with), which was certainly not a "first person RPG", and health and mana potions don't make a game an RPG.

At any rate. For those having problems with the framerate after using the shortcut modification, check out this thread (http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/808101043/m/7691028074/p/1) over on the Ubisoft forums, where somebody's figured out not only how to get all the spells and skills without lagging, but also tons of other shortcuts - you can spawn enemies (including ones that aren't in the demo), refill your adrenaline, and more. Makes it a very fun sandbox to play in, and makes it (in my opinion) worth the download time.

It runs very well on my system, 2.4Ghz AthlonXP with a 128MB GeForce6600 and 1 gig of RAM. Not a slouch, but not top of the line anymore either.

Good demo, looks to be a good full game, but no, not an RPG. Oblivion would do well to implement a combat model this comprehensive, but aside from that there's little point in comparing the two.

[Savok]

A perfect post. The stutter was fairly bad in their early E3 demonstrations, if you bothered to stream that stuff off gamespot at the time. I saw that and just assumed issues like that would be ironed out in the end. I had totally forgotten about it by the time the game launched. God damn...that was such a smack in the face, the first time I fired up the game and knew I was in for a world of shit.

But I've seen some ungodly videos of the stutterbug. Stutters which lasted 20 seconds, with zero movement until it finished. I remember the video was being recorded off of a machine that was even better then my own at the time. (And before another clueless smartass chimes in, he used a camera, not FRAPS.)


Yes, and fixed.
People who know me, know I'll bitch about anything, I don't care what it is, chances are I completely hate it with a passion.

But this? I'm shocked people even bother with the specs anymore, I'm so used to them having no real bearing on performance that I simply judge games by gut and timeframe. There were issues with people who had some amazing rigs at the time, it wasn't specs so much as something in your system the game didn't like. Why doesn't it like it? Who knows, it's PC gaming, we chew razor blades and shit acid for fun, I'm more worried about the show stopping bugs with the actual game then compatibility myself, at least some of us can play then.

Why people who bitch about "*** monopoly!1" shit me, yeah they have a monopoly, but here's the thing, I don't care, that everything is Windows means one less compatibility issue I have to worry about.

[PopoWRX]

People who know me, know I'll bitch about anything, I don't care what it is, chances are I completely hate it with a passion.

But this? I'm shocked people even bother with the specs anymore, I'm so used to them having no real bearing on performance that I simply judge games by gut and timeframe. There were issues with people who had some amazing rigs at the time, it wasn't specs so much as something in your system the game didn't like. Why doesn't it like it? Who knows, it's PC gaming, we chew razor blades and shit acid for fun, I'm more worried about the show stopping bugs with the actual game then compatibility myself, at least some of us can play then.

Why people who bitch about "*** monopoly!1" shit me, yeah they have a monopoly, but here's the thing, I don't care, that everything is Windows means one less compatibility issue I have to worry about.

I swear computers are so dam fickle about compatibility every time I run into performance and/or hardware issues it makes me want to swear off PC Gaming forever. And then Blizzard releases Starcraft 2 and I'm back on it like a crack addict.
:(

[Majster Wichajster]

It does seem that Vista with its new driver model should be more compatible and there should be less issues across the board. I think I've read that over at msdn.com. Or net.

I also thought that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game, thus DM is a RPG because you can play a role there (for example a wizard).

[Ravenlock]

I also thought that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game, thus DM is a RPG because you can play a role there (for example a wizard).Ummm, no. Unless every game out there is a role-playing game.

In Half-Life I play the role of a scientist-turned-action hero.

In Super Mario Brothers, I play the role of a plumber saving the Mushroom Kingdom.

In SSX3, I play the role of a snowboarder racing and doing tricks down the side of a mountain.

So if those are all RPG's, then sure, I guess Dark Messiah is too. If you're talking about the genre of RPG's, though, then no, it isn't - and certainly not in the sense that Oblivion is.

[Varsity]

Once again, you weren't there.
Oh, I was there. Under this username in fact. I got stutter. I wrote the goddamn article DeadScreen linked to, yes, and realised afterwards that I'd gone too far ahead of myself and had most of it wrong. But none of that had anything to do with min spec. It was a bug.

[51|RandoM]

A perfect post. The stutter was fairly bad in their early E3 demonstrations, if you bothered to stream that stuff off gamespot at the time. I saw that and just assumed issues like that would be ironed out in the end. I had totally forgotten about it by the time the game launched. God damn...that was such a smack in the face, the first time I fired up the game and knew I was in for a world of shit.


An easy way to fix 99% of the stuttering in Source:

Do not use a creative labs soundcard, or their shitty drivers.

I'll be so happy when some company has the balls to say something like that on the box. Something along the lines of, "Runs worse with Creative!". Lol.

[51|RandoM]

I played through this demo yesterday. Seemed fairly interesting.

They seem to have chosen a weird depth of field or something, not sure how to explain it. I guess what I'm saying is that the range of hand to hand fighting doesn't seem to match up properly with the height of the characters. Your/their reach appears to be insanely long, when compared to actual size of the models. Don't guess it'll matter once you're used to it, just threw me off when trying to judge attack/block distances.

Lots of physics gimmicks in the demo, I hope that doesn't continue throughout the entire game. Sure, it is fun to knock down a platform and have somebody go flying, but how many unstable platforms loaded with blind and deaf guards can you really expect to run into? :p How many rooms are going to come complete with spikes conveniently sticking out of every vertical surface? Try that in america and you'd be slapped with a lawsuit the first time somebody walked through, lol.

Didn't particularly care for how the enemy AI deals with a stealthed archer(they don't). If you get hit with an arrow and it doesn't kill you, it should be fairly obvious which general direction that arrow came from and you should be taking steps to put something solid between you and that direction at least until you pinpoint the archer's location. Nope, instead, they start moving SLOWER and sometimes meander in your direction, which is quite possibly the worst approach for dealing with a sniper. I'm sure orcs are dumb, but are they that dumb? Wouldn't instinct at least give them some pointers here?

Gameplay issues aside, the environments and story look interesting enough that I'll be buying this anyways.

[Mozgus]

An easy way to fix 99% of the stuttering in Source:

Do not use a creative labs soundcard, or their shitty drivers.

I'll be so happy when some company has the balls to say something like that on the box. Something along the lines of, "Runs worse with Creative!". Lol.
WRONG! I didn't even use a Creative card back then. But, switching to an Audigy 2 ZS certainly didn't make it worse.

[51|RandoM]

WRONG! I didn't even use a Creative card back then. But, switching to an Audigy 2 ZS certainly didn't make it worse.

Not wrong, just wrong in your case(um, duh?).

99 != 100, fyi.

Long story short, if you felt the issue was 100% a problem with the game itself, you should've returned it for a refund. Getting your panties in a wad over a game, and to such an extent that you're still vocal about it today isn't doing yourself any favors.

[Mozgus]

Not wrong, just wrong in your case(um, duh?).

99 != 100, fyi.

Long story short, if you felt the issue was 100% a problem with the game itself, you should've returned it for a refund. Getting your panties in a wad over a game, and to such an extent that you're still vocal about it today isn't doing yourself any favors.
Oh right, I'm that 1 percent. That's why you said 99%. How fucking clever.

Creative cards have nothing to do with the stutterbug. Thousand of people, smarter and more motivated than you, combined efforts and have studied deeply into it. You do not have the solution.

And how does one get a refund on a physical disc which is completely worthless to anyone who doesn't know my Steam password? Don't be a dumbass.

[DeadScreenSky]

Creative cards have nothing to do with the stutterbug. Thousand of people, smarter and more motivated than you, combined efforts and have studied deeply into it. You do not have the solution.
Yeah, it stutters for me using a Philips soundcard. I won't touch Creative's garbage for other reasons, so it sure as hell isn't specifically that. It's an engine flaw, plain and simple. If the graphics only displayed correctly on 95% of the computers that met the required specs it would be the same thing.

[Gel214th]

Umm..with the Dark Messiah demo, those experiencing crashes could be having a problem with any Themes etc. installed on their machine.

If you right click the shortcut and go to properties, and compatibility and turn off Use Themes it should work. It worked for me. Some people have also gotten it to work by running it in Windows 2000 compatibility mode.

It doesn't have to be that your download was corrupted.

I liked the demo. I wouldn't say the graphics were that far above Oblivion. I found them to be on par with Oblivion's Cave Interiors and monster detail. And thus far that's really all we have to go on. We haven't seen any outdoor areas or sweeping countrysides with Dark Messiah. And I don't even believe it's going to be that type of game. More a Level to Level experience such as Doom 3 or HL2.

As with all these types of games, including Oblivion I find that Movement Combat Combos are inefficient and just don't work.

Having to move left while holding power attack, or move forward and jump while holding power attack just doesn't work reliably. Much better to "Press Forward,Ctrl and Power Attack to Perform a lunging strike at your opponent". In Oblivion the Movement threw off the execution of combos reliably. I find the same with Dark Messiah.

Also, the 3rd Person view lends itself much better to a combat/action oriented RPG than First person. We should have the ability to switch. And when in 3rd person the camera should behave as it does in some of the best action RPGs out there such as Jade Empire. Certainly not as it behaves in Oblivion.

Jade Empire is an example of an action RPG which has all the combat and spell combos you could want,and the player can actually use them efficiently and skillfully from the third person view.

[gspot]

I don't understand it, I have the worst luck with computers, yet I have never ever had a problem with valve. I even have a laptop that freezes in the BIOS, and nothing valve has ever released has ever vexed me. ever.

Seriously though, how could it fucking freeze in the BIOS? It's the fucking BIOS!

[F3nyx]

Also, the 3rd Person view lends itself much better to a combat/action oriented RPG than First person. We should have the ability to switch. And when in 3rd person the camera should behave as it does in some of the best action RPGs out there such as Jade Empire. Certainly not as it behaves in Oblivion.Third person would be awesome. Almost as good as Rune 2 :D

I don't really get what you're saying about the movement combos, though. It felt completely natural and reliable to me after a half hour of practice. Keep in mind that if you're preparing a Power Strike, you only have to be moving in that direction while you press the attack key -- after that, you can move in a different direction while the attack finishes "charging."

[Revrant]

I never got the demo to work, everything I tried, everything recommended to me, Nada, I can't even play it, I got it to work ONCE using the run with different credentials workaround, no one on my lists has gotten it to work, the only people I've talked to who got it to work are on forums. =\ Sigh, I was looking forward to it for so long.