Grimoire - Demo Available

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I can always make a quickstart that puts the player in a different area in a certain set of maps he can't get out of and ship these tests regularly to pledges.

I know this is how I will feel ten minutes after I release that beta.

People have been waiting 5, 10, 15, 17 years, I think a couple more months won't make a difference. The people who pledged already believe in you and your project anyways so it would be like preaching to the choir. The 10% demo should be fine for now and it you want you can always add more to that as it gets closer to release.

Is would definitely be cool for the pledgers to get that but the risk is too great. Like a Neanderthal Prometheus, us simple manboons are not yet ready for such a great power. There will be that one person who sets fire to the countryside and will ruin it for us all.

If the demo manages to be stable and maintain something akin to the Wizardry vibe, then it can only be a good thing to release it. Piracy is going to happen whatever you do, but giving gamers a real taste of what is on offer will bring in more pledgers and, better yet, more publicity via word of mouth (which is what you need to climb the cash ladder to the upper heights).

All you have to worry about is it sucking, but surely it can't suck after all the work you've put into it?! Still, if you label it as a beta and the core of the game is there for all to see, only fuckwits would complain.

Personally, I'd only release a full beta version to the very high pledgers. The feedback they can offer might be invaluable to ironing out the remaining bugs, and they should be hardcore enough not to spread the beta around nilly-willy.

I thought the idea of releasing a small demo, to higher level pledgers as a reward is a very clever idea.

What would it be worth to someone to have a demo that is one of a kind? This doesn't have to be thought of as DRM, it is personalization.

Eh, I've thrown away at least $50,000 on drugs and whores in my lifetime, and at least 25% of the time I got fucked over. I think a $75 pledge to Cleve seems quite reasonable by comparison.

"Grimoire - It's so good that you'll give up drug abuse and hookers for it"

The new resolution looks beautiful.

Also, I agree: Cleve, don't worry about the Beta. Just make a small demo with a couple of maps (just don't include any maps apart from them). However, I would strongly suggest you include the character generator, but make it limited (so only a couple of races, couple of classes, couple of spells, etc can be used in the demo)

As any fan of old school rpgs knows, character generation is half the fun of the game.

I think you should just release a demo. This beta REALLY shouldn't be the full game.

I agree, a demo for everyone is the way to go to spread the word around. The four initial maps sounds like a good idea - with or without a character generator. If the character generator is included, people should be able to import the save games from the demo into the final Grimoire, so as to keep their characters.

Giving access to the beta-version early on to high level pledgers might indeed be a nice way to have (some) people pledge more.

Just some kind of demo is the important thing. I don't really care to play the full game before release anyway, I rather wait until final polish is applied since it will jusr be a better experience then. But getting something really concrete for people to try would give the campaign much more credibility and exposure.

I'm strongly in favor of the full beta, with monthly updates. Even if it's only for top backers (and I think the $75 limit is actually a bit low and generous in this regard), it's by far the best way to convince would be-donors who are sympathetic towards the project but still skeptical that the game in its entirety is actually a real thing. Also, while screenshots and text updates are great, there's nothing quite like seeing a game grow over time with each new build...

What nomask said.

Also, normal demo with 4 or so maps seems better to me as well.

Come on, man.

Let us assume that you shared that beta. With top backers, yeah. Let us assume some asshole buys a virtual credit card, pledges 75 bucks to you from it, snatches the beta and shares it with the folk on his favorite torrent tracker right away. How will you be able to prevent that? With foul language and promises of eternal damnation for his immortal soul?

Do you want to take a bet this won't happen (where the price is a hefty chunk of your game)? Are you really sure you thought this through?

The game WILL be hacked, either as a beta or on full release. So DRM is pointless. We should all know that by now. Cleve, make your decisions based on that fact.

No matter what the game will be released online once it is given to more than a handful of people. That being said, a demo makes a lot more sense than a beta. Better to have the final copy torrented than a beta copy, because at least pirates will end up with a better impression of the game and be more likely to buy it in that case.

People will pay for it if it's good. I'm going to pay a hell of a lot more than the game is worth by most normal standards in order to have physical media.

Cleve will have my money once a (current) beta or demo version is released. I'm very close to believing, but not all the way there yet.

Yep, I am in the same boat. Hopefully not a funeral bier.

There are no "pledges" on the campaign; Cleve gets the donation immediately. More importantly, though, the fear of file sharing in and of itself is completely pointless - the only way to prevent it is to never actually release the game (which I gather was Cleve's strategy for quite a while...).

In fact, a beta that gets torrented might end up significantly reducing the illegal sharing of the full version. The pirating business is heavily focused on getting hold of previously unreleased stuff, and Grimoire 1.00 will be much less interesting for the majority of pirates if Grimoire 0.8 and 0.9 are already old news on the trackers.

Yeah, I REALLY don't think a beta is a good idea, especially if you're that concerned about piracy. As others have said, it will be pirated. I don't know of any game that hasn't been cracked and pirated so Grimoire wouldn't be any different. A demo or a "beta demo" is optimal. Maybe make a beta demo that has more than a public demo.

The problem with that is if many more people play the leak than the full version he will get bad word-of-mouth publicity for being buggy or unfinished or whatever, no matter how unfair that is.

In normal circumstances you would be right, but remember that Grimoire has 17 years of history and for some people its vapourware/urban legend/scam. IMHO showing that Grimoire is existing piece of software can only benefit Cleve and the help with the pledges if the people see the game.
I'd suggested to do the following:
1. Release demo based on current state of Grimoire, with full party creation (all classes/races) and physcially limited number of areas to one open terrain map, 2-3 dungeons and maybe some town/village (not only limited in code, but also no resources for other maps). If not it's always possible that "GrimoireDemo2FullHack.exe" surfaces. This should be released ASAP, at least 30days before the end of the pledge.
2. Beta version based on upgraded Grimoire may be released some time after the campaign is finished - copies for higher pledge options, some copies for sites like RPG codex to make a pre-release impressions article.

Anyway, in-advance demo would be nice just to play around with different classes/races to build an idea for the party to go when the full game is released.
And big NO for DRM! I'm sorry to say Cleve, but Grimoire will be pirated as any other game, including indie ones. So DRM is in fact mechanism irritating only the people who bought the game. Personally, I hated especially the CD-checks. There were multiple cases when I wanted to play a game after some inactivity and I did not remember were the CDs, or the CD got scratched => I was forced to download crack for legally bought game, which often left me with a buggy game since a crack was for initial release and no patches were installable on top of it since they reverted exe to not cracked version! Steam is a little better solution, as long as Valve does not close the service and a large bunch of Steam-bought games suddenly becomes unplayable. So, GOG.com approach FTW!

Making a video is already done. Best way to get more publicity is something playable, sending shit to some site who might not even give it the time of day won't gather that much interest.

When it comes to pre-release builds being handed out, DRM is a given. Having access to a product before it is available is a privelege, so none of the "bawww consumers suffer and pirates not" crap applies. DRM irritating, how about mailing a printed and signed NDA to Australia and waiting for a couple of months until it gets there?

Oh, regarding DRM I was referring to final product, DRM in a demo is resonable.