Last year I was thinking about this, for days. The current version of the game feels way more different than the techdemo's. No changes, no additional cars, just how it was: 1 car, 1 map, etc. Just with the updated version. Let me tell you why I feel like this. People want to experience what playing beamngdrive is like. What do they do? They either pirate the game or they download the techdemo. They only get the feel of the old beamng drive, not the new one. Or is this the catch, ''if you want the new version of beamngdrive, buy the game''? --- Post updated --- Sorry if I sound dumb, just asking.
It's best to wait for version 1.0 to be having this conversation. Going to need to have it at that point anyway, and it can't be that far off (relative to how long the game has already been in development at least)
I don't think the version number represents how far away we are from completion, but it is a significant metric of how far we've come. Just 2 years ago we were at 0.9.
The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes. I had the techdemo, but although it was cool, I don’t know that I would’ve bought the game had it not been my knowledge from videos, et cetera. The techdemo was fine, but I think the game has developed enough since then that it doesn’t really demo the tech anymore.
But wasn't the tech demo just that? A tech demo - there's no need to update it. It's like saying, "Shouldn't they update the original Doom Demo?" ... no. It's old. Perhaps releasing a NEW tech demo is a fine idea, but this whole "WIP" or "Green Light" or whatever word you want to call a DEMO today is just that: "Current Status Demonstration." As far as I'm concerned the tech demo is what we currently have. There is no GAME yet, it's all just WIP with updates.
That's the issue. It's not very current, it demonstrates what the game is like back in 2013. It's lacking some pretty big things that have come in recent years.
I don't get it, where is the tech demo then? I figured it was what I downloaded back in 2013, and then updated, and updated, and updated and here we are?
It would make sense to wait until work put to new demo is not wasted, so after feature complete stage probably would be nice to have new demo.
I think another important factor to updating it is the graphical+physics optimisation which has occurred. I can run 0.16, on gridmap with 1 covet, on medium settings on my laptop at a stable ~30-40 FPS. when I tried the techdemo, equivalent graphics settings get me ~15 FPS. if I was looking at the game for the first time, I wouldn't have considered buying it, at the prospect of there being more detailed maps and cars, in light of the demo's optimisation.
We would rather not spend time on this. With the steam and hb refund policies in place, i personally think people can test the game and refund it when they don't like?
I've heard some people have had bad experiences with the steam refund policy. It's also more professional and IMO easier for the consumer to have a true demo instead of just buy and possibly refund the game.
As far you keep in mind the requirements Steam has to be eligible for a refund, they don't have much reason to reject it. And in any case we can be contacted directly for further help. Humble Bundle is much more flexible, you only have to keep in mind to request an eventual refund within 30 days. Everything is explained here: https://wiki.beamng.com/Techdemo#How_to_try_the_game.3F To recap: You get the experience the latest version of the game, all the content available, with no restrictions Less work for us, as we don't have to maintain a techdemo with its own limitations just because Especially in a sandbox/simulator game. Demos are rare nowadays, the few I saw were coming from adventure games where they made you hook into the story.
Techdemo should do some compatibility update because if a person downloads it and cannot run he/she might not want to buy the game, and if they runs the demo and cannot run the full game, he/she will be very frustrated
The tech demo runs on a much older version, the game has been optimized since. Dx9/dx10 should be the only performance issue that would cause someone to be able to run the tech demo but not the full version.
I got pretty good at driving that crappy little hatch around for the past couple years before I got my new PC to buy the full version. I know every in and out of that tech demo, and I'd say it's a good representation of the actual gameplay without giving too much. It's sufficiently fun and you can get pretty creative with the limited content you're given. I got a good many hours out of pulling e-brake turns and slow-motion crashes. As far as optimization goes, I guess the engine could use an update to a fairly current version to better represent the graphical requirements to run the game. I suppose that's what a tech demo is supposed to represent. But if you have sufficient processing power but lack the funds to purchase the game, the tech demo as it stands can keep you company until you buy it. Again, the tech demo should represent the resource-intensiveness of the game, and I believe the engine should be better-optimized, but the car and map provided are just about perfect to pique most people's interest.
I think somewhere on my computer's HDDs I have an Original copy of the Tech Demo I downloaded 6 years ago, I have to find it but I may use it at work for the LOLs to test computer hardware its a good use case for it