Devastation MP Demo

March 21, 2003

ARUSH Entertainment, Groove Games and Digitalo have just released a performance fix for the Devastation Multiplayer Demo. This is a performance fix and not a full patch. This performance fix addresses specific problems that may cause players to experience extreme frame rate loss and connection lags even when running a local LAN game.

A full patch will be released sometime in the coming weeks. It will fix many of the other problems that have been reported on the DevastationGame.com Forums like server browser issues, miscellaneous gameplay issues, physics, and even audio problems.

NOTE: The issue that caused the poor performance is NOT an issue in the retail version of the game. It only appeared in the demo.

The 3 MB fix is located on the mirrors below. Simply run the .exe, point it to your Dev MP install folder and install it. Your demo version will be v. 369 and you will be ready to play!

http://www.devastationgaming.com/ They have it right now.

Coming soon to:
www.fileplanet.com
www.fileshack.com
www.filefront.com
www.gamehelper.com
www.unrealops.com
www.gaminghorizon.com
www.worthplaying.com
www.3dgamers.com

ARUSH says its probably a wrong compile:

[quote]Calm down, they believe they accidentally compiled the debug code in with the dem/quote]

LOL!

Riiiight... You're telling me you guys compiled the demo and didn't test it? Just upload it and then 'oooops it sucks'? I would advise you to change your statement because everyone I know who has read it take it as you're flat out lying straight to our faces.

Hey guys, Digitalo is hard at work correcting the performance issues for the MP demo and we will have an official announcement sometime soon. As soon as we get something ready, we will let you know.

I just wanted to make sure that you all know that the performance issue is ONLY in the MP demo, and does not appear in the retail version. This issue is in the process of being fixed for the demo. Again, the problem does NOT appear in the retail version of the multiplayer game; it is only in the demo.

Thanks to everyone that hasn't lost their heads and have been so very patient and understanding. We're doing our best to give you the best possible experience.

D-Dogg ARUSH

The best thing about his demo was the uninstaller, it was real quality.

Seriously, I haven't played a demo this bad since that "gore' thing.

"Digitalo is working on a patch which will address most of the technical, gameplay, and audio issues that have been reported in the Devastation MP Demo within the past eighteen hours. It's a little too soon to construct a valid ETA yet, but rest assured that the team is thoroughly committed to this, and will work as fast as they can to resolve as much as possible, as quickly as possible, for all versions of the game, demo and retail.

We appreciate all the feedback, and encourage you to continue posting your issues in the DevastationGame.com forums. Please make sure to be as specific as possible, and provide us with your system specs every time you post a bug.

Thanks again for your support."

VicDeLeon
Digitalo


As much as i want to judge this demo for its less than stellar performance and netcode (understatement) its pretty clear that something got totally borked. people i talk with are saying that in previous builds they got >100FPS and the netcode was 10X better, lets see what digitalo can do with the upcoming patch.

<@Yoda`> programmer wants to cry because all the servers suck
<@Yoda`> and it makes the game look very laggy
<@Yoda`> something is very wrong
<@Yoda`> I normally get >100fps
<@Yoda`> I'm not sure what to do
<@Yoda`> I was playing by myself and it was slow




maybe we will see a patch soon to increase performance and decrease lag.

See, this is why I didn't hype this game at all in my mind. I didn't listen to the voices on the shack saying how great the game is. When I heard people going "oh wow look how great it is" I didn't say a word. Infact I think a lot of the time I was about to say "too many shitty games out there, this one could be just like the rest" but I just let the game speak for itself.

Well there you have it, another shitty game overhyped by everyone. I just wonder when people will stop hyping games. If anything this game could have been good if it wasn't labeled as something more than it is. At least then people would give it's issues a bit more of a chance.

So all you big bandwidth people how is it ?

just a note, someone on the game's forum said there is much less interactivity in MP than in SP for performance reasons.

First off, the physics for the objects in the world; who do they think they are fooling?! As soon I got into the game, I saw objects spinning around in extremely unrealistic patterns. It is very clear to me that the physics system for the objects in the world are NO WHERE near being finished.

The Net Code feels horriffic. Every server that I was on would drop me before I got a chance to exit on my own volition. Very few of them would ping under 200. For a second, I thought I heard a modem.

And for me the absolute worst part about it all was the audio. Did something seem "off" as soon as you stepped into the game? Yea, that's because you can't hear any footsteps when you are normally walking around--ONLY when you are on gravel, and even then it is extremely quiet. How are you supposed to find enemies if they are all a bunch of def & mute silent ninjas. Not once did I hear my character or anyone elses for that matter make any audible sounds from their lips.

And this was the part that made me turn it off. Have you heard the sounds for the weapons? Firecrackers. That's right, they sound like fucking firecrackers. Not the good kind like M80s, but more like the little Pop-Its that kids can buy year yound. And the shotgun, for me, that is the untimate test if a game knows what the hell they are doing in the audio department. As soon as I found that bad boy, I let one off right away--waterbaloons. It sounded like (and I'll admit the F-word is overused in many circles, but I'm going to excersize it's user here & now--again) a FUCKING water balloon. That was it. I turned it off.

I even can't being to imagine what the AI will be like if everything else is this shoddy.

Devastation has missed the mark on so many levels. The game is already gold so you would assume that this isn't exactly "old code". Let's just say that I'm a lot less interested in this game now that I've been able to play the demo. Single Player is going to have to be the work of DaVinci in order for me to have any interest in this title from here on out.

(Originally posted on evilavatar.com, but I wanted to see if anyone here had something to say, as it gets more hits.)

OK it is not as bad as some people say it is (comparing it to Gore?!). People are bagging on the physics, but what other game are they comparing it too? Quit trying to compare the physics to real-life. If you compare it to real-life then, yes, the physics are crap. However the developers did something that has not been done to this level in a game. The game is NOT crap.

I personally think that the single player game will be fun. The multiplayer portion is too laggy right now.

Overall it was fun, but didn't run smoothly.

thanks guys, i set this up for download last night and then went to bed. based on all this talk, i'm just gonna delete it and wait for full-game reviews.

I tried the demo...the PC I tried it on wasn't all that great but here are my first impressions:

It was pretty much like most people said: MEH! I'd really wanted this to be good...just like I'd really wanted UT2003 to be better than it was. This had potential...but after playing it I don't see myself buying it unless it gets a lot better. The interaction is cool, but it feels more like a gimick than anything else. There are some serious clipping issues with objects as well and it felt like a lot of cool ideas that needed better execution.

I was interested in it as a mod platform but I don't really see much to make it a better choice than UT2k3...maybe if they polish it up a bit with some patches it might get better, but right now I'm not impressed and I really wanted to be.

The next time I hear a player say "Come on guys, it's only a demo!" I'm gonna give him such an ineffectual but ill-intended flame. Demo stands for "Demonstration." It's supposed to be a taste of the game. You know, like a sampler. Would you buy an ice cream flavor whose sample tasted like poop? If so, then keep it to yourself.

Okay, I think this game might be fun IF (and this is a big IF), they can MAKE IT PLAYABLE. I'm on Athlon XP 1800 with a Geforce4 Ti4600... there's no reason for me to be having sub 20 frames per second. As for the netcode... man... is it ever bad. I haven't seen this much player teleporting since first-release Quakeworld. Here's hoping that most of the lag problems are due to their being so few servers and so many of them not being dedicated. I do, however, think the game *might* be fun... I just have no way of knowing for certain.

How come no one else has mentioned the abyssmally easy spawn camping? I got the machine gun, sat by a spawn point, and racked up 50 kills in 2 minutes. I literally held down the trigger and got a kill every other second as someone respawned.

Yeah...I'm sure that won't be abused once the full version is out......

Check out the Devastation website. It's Eminem!

I am in agreement with the rest of The Shack collective: This game isnt any fun, nor does it have any original concepts.

How could this happen? I have 4 machines to play on and even a 2600+ with a 9700Pro latest drivers this piece of s*** demo runs like crap! The on top of that it is just not any fun to play. Devastation = SOF2 devastated. There are other demos out that I will pursue that atleast show off some of the promises of the devs. BAD SHOW!

After reading most glowing previews and trying out the MP demo, the only preview that I personally think was right on is the WORTHPLAYING.com one. Although it's a preview of the SP from what I can see it applies to the multiplayer as well.

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=9102

This game runs extremely bad on my pentium 233/128 mb edo/voodoo 1 machibe. WTF

Maarten, or whoever it was that played the press demo… give us some words of encouragement here. Is the game really this bad, or was this demo super rushed?

I want to like this game, but there’s not a single good comment here. Based on what I’ve heard so far, the game has gone from “Buy the moment it hit the shelves” to “Wait till it’s out a week and see what people are saying about it.”

Most of the complaints here are tied to a single bug, IMO. I *believe* that there is something with the netcode + physics engine tanking the game. I set up a server with the following stats:

SYSTEM
Athlon XP 1600
512 DDR
Geforce 3
nforce Audio
12mbit ADSL

When only I was in the server, the game ran fine. Good feel, good framerate, good physics. As soon as the first person joined, something started to feel wrong. It was still "ok" but my spider sense was tingling. After the server total went to 4 people, it was lagging terribly. Lagging is not the right word, it was CHOPPING. Each player was slowing the game exponentially. So at one player the game was great, but at 9 players it was totally unplayable. Of course, you can't set the max # of players in the SETUP screen (doh!) so essentially every game will bog down and die.

Once this physics / netvode bug gets worked out I think the game will be pretty enjoyable.

Hakujin

Cancell'ed 10 MB in download.
shack opinion: if they like it, I'm timid, but will try it.
If they hate it, uh, thanks for being a filter, guys!

This seems a whole lot different than the Devastation Maa'en previewed...

Also, i completely agree with unmaker's point. It's a demo. A DEMONSTRATION. So instead of being average, bad, buggy or otherwise sucky it should make me want buy the full game. It should impress people. Clearly not the case here. This piece of shit does not make want to buy anything.

My take on it

Guns - Poor guns. They don't feel right, and you don't feel in touch with them. The sounds aren't any good either.

Finding a Server - Well every server wasn't dedicated but there's no way to tell that from the screen. Lowest ping I had was 156.

Gameplay - Netcode to me was terrible, I finally found a server where I was pinging 115 and I was teleporting everywhere. The framerate sucks absolute ass. I was playing this on an ATI 9700 and the framerate dropped way down several times. On a Geforce 4 Ti4200 I couldn't even play it in 1024.768 I had to use 800x600.

Characters - They are kind of cool but they just kind of blend into the background and sometimes it's hard to make them out.

Maps - Looks like just a bunch of shit was tossed out onto a level without really thinking them out. Looks like no thought was given to strategy, camping points, squeeze points etc...

Overal Impression - Had the promise to be a really really fun game. I was expecting something fun like duke nukem or something with all the interaction, sadly the only interaction was me shooting a barell with a bad explosion animation. I ended up deleting this one on my hard drive after 1 hour of trying to get it working and playing time. How dissapointing.

Graphics 7/10
Sounds 3/10
Gameplay 4/10
Fun-factor 3/10
Overall 4.5/10

bleh!

This game would have been good 5 years ago. Today, its just refried C R A P !

THE MERCURY ACCOUNT HOOKETH IT UP.

This game blows... Graphics are ok, it crashed on me once, sound is subpar. About the only part that really shined was the menu. The physics are laughable at best.

Damnit; I wanted to like this game so much. The screenies made me wiggle with anticipation. After playing it, it seems to me that a ton of work needs to be done on this before they release it. It runs like pond water on my system (2700+/512MB/9700 Pro) and the netcode is simply horrible.

There was no way this demo was tested on the internet before it was released. I don't think anyone would have released this if they saw how bad the netcode was. It starts out with pretty decent (100 - 150ms) pings, then leaps to 600-1000ms, and before you know it, you're over a second behind. :(

I'm going to sum up my feelings about this game with a paraphrase of a Star Wars line:

Help us id Software, you're our only hope!

give me doom3 goddamnit, i'm getting sick of these lame ass generic games

It all started with Unreal 2. Now all the FPS on the market is GENERIC. If u have fun with it, fine. ok.

I would have to wait for that SP part with which Steve had fun.

Oh, and this - Worst guns of 2003.

Sounds like they should have released a demo/beta way earlier and done more public testing... Ho-hum-hum-ho

I am NOT impressed! :(

you know... I'm surprised, I complained about waiting for downloads on Fileplanet, but fileshack I feel is doing much better... What with most of the regular people only waiting 30-50 minutes, thats better than the 1.5 hours I've seen on some of Fileplanet's downloads... Good stuff steve, Thanks for your bandwidth/work in getting us this. One of these days soon now I'll sign up for mercury (preferably when I have money :D).

Didn't maarten just love this thing? I'm about to try it out myself..but reactions are not good thus far.

I have a geforce 4 ti 4400 with 512 ddr ram running on a amd xp 2000. I own every other unreal powerd game (splinter cell, ut2k3, unreal2, raven shield) I run them all full detail on 1280x1024 . This game does not run well at all. In fact it brings my machine to a crawl.

The netcode oddly enough is shoddy which is unusual for an unreal powered game. The animations on the weapons are very uninspiring, the sound effects do the weapons no justice either. All in all, a very very bad demo if this is representive of the finished product which is already gone gold.

The physics system though much hyped was not displayed very well, I did manage to pick up an oil drum and throw it at someone then shoot it in mid-air. Kinda cool, but not as satisifying as one would hope. The rag doll physics seem virtually missing. What else can I say, im very underwhelmed and disappointed :(