Just tried the demo...
 

I downloaded the demo yesterday night (about midnight), and decided to try a few turns. When I stopped, it was 4:00... so I guess it's at least a partial success http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

It's not completely successful for me, though, because I had some technical problems. The game seems awfully slow for such a simple program (my computer isn't exactly state of the art, but it does run "big" games from a few years ago like Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights - actually it was built with Morrowind in mind, and if LOL is more resource-intensive than Morrowind I think there's a problem); often response is sluggish, and that's too bad.

Also, from time to time the game will iconize and bring me back to the desktop, with no intervention from me. This might be a strange interaction with my antivirus, but it's still annoying.

At the moment, unfortunately, these problems are probably enough to stop me from buying the game - such a "light play" game needs to be responsive.

Other than that - the AI is rather weak, because it never gave me any kind of trouble and I'm not exactly a god of this kind of games (in all my games, the "flood them with the cheap units" strategy worked pretty well)... I guess I'd have to get trounced in multiplayer.

Oh, and for the record, even though I'm a past customer of Shrapnel (Dominions and Space Empires), I want to say I heard about LOL in a French mag, PC4War, in a preview by PDF - another die-hard Dominions fan. It's not an online mag, though, so it probably doesn't have to be included in the list of reviews/previews.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Hey there,

I'm sorry to hear about the problems you've been having!

The game bringing you back to desktop is a problem we've never had reported, so I'm sorry (and surprised!) to hear that.

Our skirmish AI, unfortunately, won't give the toughest of challenges to advanced-level players, but the legendary campaign would definitely give you a run for your money. Also, our online features are intended to be a big part of the value of the game. I assure you, humans are far more devious than AI could ever be, and I find that the most rewarding style of playing the game.

I'm also sorry to hear about the performance issues you're encountering. The game is a bit of a workhorse, but it sounds like it's running even slower than I've traditionally seen it run for some reason. May I ask your machine specs?

Thanks for at least giving the game a whirl. =)

-Hiro_Antagonist

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Too bad you'll miss out on the online play. There's some stiff competition for tactical mastery going on, and I think the cheap unit horde is probably one of the best tactics. Although, there are some other players who find some combos of unit damage with bigger supporting units.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Processor is an AMD 1800+, 512Mb of memory, GeForce Ti 4200 card, running Windows Me. Not exactly state of the art, but still way over the minimum requirements.

I tried it a little more, and while I still got the returns to desktop, I didn't experience the slowing down.

The "combat animations" are a nice touch at the start, but they start cutting the immersion after a few games. Is there an option to turn them off?

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Well, I'm glad the speed thing is addressed. The returns to desktop thing is very strange. So are you playing full-screen when it happens? Is it basically just minimizing the app?

There's no way to turn off battle animations, but you can click your mouse once they start to end them right away.

-Hiro_Antagonist

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

I have almost the same problems. I'm running on Win 98SE with 768MB of RAM and I have a 933MHZ CPU.

The game runs VERY slow on my system. I get crashes to the desktop quite often. I have yet to play much of the demo before it crashes.

The biggest problem I have is that the buttons don't seem to respond to inputs all the fast. It takes quite a few clicks and time before the game detects that I have clicked a button.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

I downloaded the demo and had a good time with the campaign scenarios provided. I'll be picking this one up. Some thoughts:

1. Definately provide a download option if you can. Even better if you can provide the download link a bit sooner than the CD version. I feel like playing this weekend http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

2. I also like the option to turn off the battle animations.

3. An option to also turn off the highliting of units (I assume they are healing?) and the +$1000 that appears above the cities at the beginning of every turn would also be welcome.

4. I find myself counting tiles to try and determine where the enemy could possibly move and attack. I think someone has already asked for it, but it would be nice to be able to right click on the enemy unit to get this information. Or maybe something similar to the way you can determine what your own unit's attacks would be if they moved to a particular square. Or, if this is too difficult, how about a way to turn on the tile grid to make counting tiles a little easier?

4. An option to turn off (or a button to skip) the "flavor" text/descriptions that appear before each campaign scenario. I'd just like the scenario objective that appears at the end. I was afraid my wife was going to look over my shoulder and read some of them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

5. Not sure about this one, but it might be useful. Currently, you can click on a unit to determine it's status effects (i.e. can't move for X turns, can't attack for X turns, regenerates for X turns, etc.). It might be cool to have small color coded icons (that you can turn on/off) next to each affected unit on the map itself so you could tell at a glance what is going on without having to click around. Say a green 3 for Regeneration 3 turns, a brown 1 for No Movement for 1 turn, etc. Just a thought.

6. In the full version, can you start with the Legendary campaign difficulty from the start? Does the Standard difficulty setting get more difficult as you progress through the game and the different races?

Good game and I look forward to the full version.

Thanks, Jeff.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Jeffr -- here's responses to the things you mentioned.

1) That's completely up to Shrapnel. I get the impression they're aware of this demand and are exploring their options. =)

2) Right now you can skip them individually. It seems likely we'll put in a new 'off' switch for them in a future patch.

3) I'm not so sure about this. That informatoin is pretty important, but I'll explore options and see if I can find anything I like. Maybe I'll add an option to speed them up a lot.

4) Showing possible target squares is actually much tougher than it sounds. This is because units can have 2 different attacks targeting different units and/or at different ranges. Also, the attack range depends on where a given unit moves, and there are tons of possibilities for that. A grid option is far more likely for us to implement than some sort of targeting highlighting (except what we do now, showing potential targets when you move a unit.) (EDIT: I'm adding a grid option right now, so it will be present in the first patch.)

5) We played around with that, and the problem is that those icons would be very hard to read, and would obscure important information on the board. We do use a 'dots and arrows' system. A unit shows a dot for each status effect, and a green up arrow for a raised stat, and a red down arrow for a lowered stat. These are usually pretty helpful at reminding you which units are affected by status effects, and to a degree, which ones.

6) Yes and yes. The Legendary campaign is pretty uniformly hard throughout. The Standard campaign also gets more difficult as the game goes on. Players can choose to start w/ the Legendary campaign if they really want to, though that would probably prove frustrating for casual players.

I hope that helps!

-Hiro_Antagonist

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm looking forward to the full version.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

The upper level campaign scenarios, even in the standard campaign, can be really challenging. I had serious problems with several of them, even after quite a bit of practice with the game!

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Hi, just tried the demo, and thought it was pretty fun. One thing I agree with the original poster on is that the AI is pretty weak. I was wondering if the gold version has (or you've thought about adding) a handicap system. While making the AI a lot tougher might be hard, it might be easy to artificially make it tougher by giving its units bonuses (such as more hit points, cheaper, etc). This could go a long way towards making the AI skirmishes more fun...

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Well, we have no plans at this time to add a handicap system. This is something we've thought about a lot, but the problem is that any handicap would affect different races differently.

We might eventually relent, but I'm a bit proponent of keeping balance in my games, and adding a handicap system would reward certain races more than others. I'm holding out hope I can come up with a more balanced approach...

-Hiro_Antagonist

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Howdy,

I downloaded the demo onto a USB memory stick and carried it home. Trying to install from there was very slow, I eventually control-alt-deleted out. It said it was verifying the install program or some such. I then copied the file to the desktop and ran it from there. It then was very slow again and seemed to hang when I said it was ok to install some Direct X components. I started again and got involved in a discussion with my girlfriend. Eventually it installed. I am using Win XP and, like PhilD, have no problems with the more graphics intensive games. It might be my machine or my memory stick, but as a long time Shrapnel user, I thought I should bring it up.

Sorry, no comments on the game, the girlfriend noted my frustration and convinced me to spend the evening “with real people.”

Just curious, but given the graphics, how come the demo is so much bigger than something like the Popgun games? My network admin agreed let me install “small games” on the network, presuming I would not meet his 10mb standard. Similarly, what happens to give the computer such a work out? The game appears technically simple and has low demands graphically, so I thought I would be faster on the kinds of machines people are talking about.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Well, the demo installer size is large because it includes the .NET and Managed DirectX installers. Those two components inflate the installer by about 55MB.

I too have noticed that the installer is slow to respond at first. We're not entirely sure why this is, but it's the behavior of the Nullsoft Installer, which is otherwise a very nice and usable installer.

As to why the game may run slow, the most honest answer is that this is our first game and highly efficient graphics programming isn't our forte (yet). Even though all art in the game is 2d, we use Direct3D, so we have access to alpha-blending, dynamic coloring, fluid scaling/rotation, etc. But with the sheer number of sprites we draw on the screen on every frame, that becomes enough to bog down slower machines or machines with slower 3D cards.

The other developer for the game has been looking into some graphics improvements for the last week or so, and our hope is that we can introduce some performance improvements in a patch. We cannot garauntee this, however.

For what it's worth, we're rebuilding our graphics engine from the ground up for our next game. In fact, we've learned a lot of tricks from the PopCap Framework (which is now open source), and we hope to be able to leverage some of the performance-enhancing tricks ourselves in our next game.

-Hiro_Antagonist

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Hiro,

Thanks for your reply. I got a chance to play over the weekend and thought I would pass along my thoughts.

First, the game itself runs at a decent speed, it seems the installer was my main problem.

Balancing, at least for the demo races I could play, seems very good.

Small scale, quick gaming it is, largely, so you have hit your target.

Concerns (and I do pity the game designers of the world, as every user out there has 1000 ways to make the game better, but no idea how hard it is to do. That said, I am still going to list my 1000 ways…)

It would be great to have an option to turn of the fight scenes. Yes, I know I can click to make it go away, but I don’t want to.

Saves. Sure, it is supposed to be a fast game, but when your girlfriend calls you for dinner, you want to save that single player game. I recognize this could be a time consuming feature to implement, but maybe if sales are good, you could consider it.

The next points are small, but they are about time. The game is supposed to be super fast, yet a couple of features are slow.

Why do I have to see each unit getting “unspent” each turn? It adds nothing and takes time. You might want to consider hiding this.

Showing me the money. With such small maps, people likely know exactly where their money is coming from. Maybe I am too PC based, but the slow pop up of 1000 over each city reminded me of Mario Brothers, didn’t tell me anything I did not know and slowed the turn down again. You might want to consider making this an option.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. The game is fun and interesting, these are not huge problems.

Thanks again,

Dave

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

This will probably be added into the first or second patch.

Save game functionality will be included in the first patch, due out by the time the game is released. We've already got this feature almost done.

As for your other suggestions, I'm definitely considering them, and there's a very good possibility they will be addressed in the first or second patch.

-Hiro_Antagonist

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

I have also enjoyed playing the demo. I like the idea of playing a short and sweet turn based game that is not hideously complicated.

I agree with Saxon's comments about improving the flow of the game.

It would also be nice if there was an option for making the AI tougher in skirmish mode.

I look forward to playing the full game.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Hey PhilD,

I am no war god but I do know a little about playing these sort of games. The basic statment of cheap units to win is a little wrong. The more correct statement is the least costing units with the most bang for the buck will win.

Take for instant the low cost unit of the Undead compare to the low cost unit of the Human. The monks are far more suited to win the battle against the skeletons even though you can field far more skeletons in the field than monks. This is due to the fact that monks can auto retal and basically get an extra attack in when someone attacks them, just as long as they are not killed in the attack.

I can spend hours talking about other issues regarding tactic but I rather show them to you on the battle field. So come on and buy LOL and we can have some fun. I asure you that they few bucks we drop for this game will be small compare to the entertainment we will get from finding the perfect match!

Look for me in the lobby and we can have fun!! And if you win me I promise to buy you a beer if you ever find yourself in Seattle.

Regarding the AI. What AI?!?! The freak that made the AI has no knowledge in tactics. I think a monkey flipping a coin has a better chance to win the game!

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

I find that the AI is actually quite good for this kind of game, considering its quick response time. Also the target market is not 100% hardcore strategy gamers.

Judging from what I've seen, I think the AI is probably searching the game tree a few ply deep, and choosing the best move based on some pre-defined valuations. That's why it isn't good at long-term strategy, and why it sometimes goes for cities/capitals when it doesn't have a chance at holding them for long enough to capture.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

Is the full game out? In the demo, I only saw two races, no undeads...

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

These guys are talking about the BETA. The full game starts shipping on the 21st, and you'll see all 8 races.

Re: Just tried the demo...
 

That is 8 very deverse races and a [censored] load of maps. My favorite map so far is 'Lazy River' with me as Dwarves going 2nd. I would like to play someone with this set up and see if you can cross the river of death!

The demo does not do the game justice so if you remotely enjoy the demo and found it worth the time to download it, then you will love the full game! LOL is highly addictive and I think I have played like almost 50 games already. Hope to see you all on Sept 22 on-line!