What is going on here? (Ragin' about "Rage")

[Koko Ricky]

I thought to myself just now, "I've seen lots of screenshots and video of Rage, so why not download the demo and check it out?" I found this article...

http://www.gamezone.com/news/bethesda-working-on-pc-demo-for-rage

...which stated that two months after the game's release, Xbox owners can grab a Rage demo if they so please, and that in regards to PC owners, Bethesda is "working on something for the PC as well." What the hell is going on here? Wasn't there a time when the demo came out months before the game's release? Or at least at the time of release? It's completely baffling to me that a demo would be released so late.

It reminds me of how, awhile back, Steam was advertising a Crysis 2 demo that, upon downloading, contained absolutely no playable content because the servers had already been shut down, even though Steam was still allowing the demo to be downloaded. Have some developers just stopped giving a shit about letting potential customers try out their product beforehand?

[Creaphis]

Evidently yes.

[Jodwin]

Apparently some big devs/publishers think that hype and marketing should be enough to get people buy their games. Seems to be so, too, since they're still in business...

[Shaviro]

Id has gone completely into hiding ever since they released Rage. No SDK, no editor, no demo for PC. The game still doesn't work quite right on many systems. No DLC. No news. Perhaps they're just cutting their losses and moving on?

Anyway if the events surrounding the release of Rage as well as the reception it got don't spark a few crisis meetings at id, nothing will.

[chungy]

Er, the game comes with the editor just fine. The command is, IIRC, "idstudio" in the console.

[Shaviro]

That's how it was supposed to be, but it was never published with the game.

[Xaser]

I really hate to hear this. Hopefully new-id isn't self-destructing - I liked RAGE for what it was. Sure, the story fell apart and the missions were nothing but 'go fetch' quests, but the shooting was a lot of fun, moreso than most modernish games I've played. That and I want to see how Doom 4 turns out, even if only for morbid curiosity's sake. :P

[Use]

I still like Rage.

[yellowmadness54]

Was Rage really that bad?

[Koko Ricky]

That's what I'd like to find out. Man, you used to get 1/3 of the fucking game with these demos. These days the demos are probably closer to 1/50 of the game and in this case, the game has been out for months with no demo. I guess this is just the new way of doing things.

[Technician]

Wait, there is still no demo for RAGE? What would be the point of even releasing one now that the game has been played and forgotten by the masses?

[Use]

Honestly, Rage itself feels like a demo.

[Coopersville]

Demos are kind of irrelivant now, imo. Instead of burning a gig of bandwidth on a demo, I can stream a 38MB trailer or part of a Lets Play off of YouTube that demonstrates the game just fine.

[Technician]

Coopersville said:

I can stream a 38MB trailer or part of a Lets Play off of YouTube that demonstrates the game just fine.

I can understand using a Let's Play as a means of decision, but trailers provide little to no game play footage.

[Gez]

Coopersville said:

Demos are kind of irrelivant now, imo.

Demos are irrelevant if your only concern is the gameplay.

But if you wonder about compatibility with your own personal hardware -- certainly a valid line of inquiry given what happened with Rage -- then a Let's Play or trailer isn't going to give you any meaningful answer. The trailer will of course tell you that the game is super awesome and flawless. The Let's Play may feature bugs that you wouldn't happen to have if you ran the game on your own computer; or inversely be bug free while you would get a lot of glitches yourself.

[Koko Ricky]

I don't see how you can get a feel for the controls and gameplay mechanics from watching a video on YouTube.

[Coopersville]

Technician: Bad trailers, sure. People still often lament on trailers that aren't gameplay demos, though. The initial teaser, fine, but they better cut it out with that garbage afterwards.

Gez: lol oh right, PC gaming. Then again, some games have been notorious for being tweaked to run on machines far below the minimum requirements, like how a few minor changes in an .ini file can get Doom 3 to run on a Pentium III era system. Not that this has anything to do with demos; I'm just babbling.

GoatLord: If there's something dealbreaking about the controls, I'll usually read about it on /v/ a week before the game is out.

[StevieWolfe]

Shaviro said:

Id has gone completely into hiding ever since they released Rage. No SDK, no editor, no demo for PC. The game still doesn't work quite right on many systems. No DLC. No news. Perhaps they're just cutting their losses and moving on?

Anyway if the events surrounding the release of Rage as well as the reception it got don't spark a few crisis meetings at id, nothing will.

This worries me a LOT about DooM4...

[reboot]

I used to be really excited when id announced a new game. I found Doomworld around 2002 or 2003, when I was desperatly looking for any bit of information about Doom3. But Rage, meh... I never actually felt like I wanted to play it. Now it seems to have been forgotten, overshadowed by Skyrim, maybe?

[geo]

Having a demo come out before a big money game hurts the game sales. I've been playing many FPS demos and grading them and a lot of them make me not want to play the game. Kind of like I had my fill and nothing is exciting or fulfilling enough for me to buy it when I have Doom, Quake, Half Life 1, 2 and Team Fortress 2.

I didn't see Rage breaking new ground so much as catching up with Half Life 2, which sucks that iD has to catchup to any game period. I think that Rage came out at a time where Fallout 3 and Borderlands could be seen as a similar setting and people get their fill from those games.

I do think that seeing the 10 minute gameplay trailers Rage had sold me more than them just talking about it.

Rage is like $30 now and in another month or 2 it will bottom out at $20. Steam will have it for sale $5 in 4 months.

[Quast]

geo said:

I didn't see Rage breaking new ground so much as catching up with Half Life 2, which sucks that iD has to catchup to any game period.

Catching up with half-life 2? Rage? What? ID already tried that, 6 years ago...and they failed.

I think that Rage came out at a time where Fallout 3 and Borderlands could be seen as a similar setting and people get their fill from those games.

Fallout 3 used its setting to effect, to move the fallout story forward. Borderlands could've had just about any setting and worked just as well since the focus is simply shooting things to get better guns.

Having never played rage, does it fit either category? Or is it another lame id attempt to add a story where none is needed to a game that doesn't require one because they think that it 'ought to'?

[hobomaster22]

I was hoping for a demo to see if my aging computer system could handle it. I don't have time for this vidja game nonsense anyway. I can't remember the last time I started my desktop. It would probably explode from all the dust it's been collecting if I started it up. The last newer game I found worth playing was Left 4 Dead. Before that was Half-Life 2. Yep.