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[Piston Hyundai]

I remember GAF bashing the hell out of the leaked demo too.

Seems yelling at unfinished products is an all-time standard.

doesn't no man's sky have enough threads already

Spoiler

yes, this is a joke post

 

[RedSwirl]

I didn't even finish the leaked demo before pre-ordering the game.

 

[rrs]

The lack of single player demos these days is a bit baffling.

I wasn't a part of playing the Deus Ex leak, but more recently, the Doom demo is the main reason I bought the game. I had read the reviews and heard the chatter, but it wasn't until I played a nice chunk of the game that I thought I really needed to buy it.

Especially when you have a 10+ hour game, I don't see the harm in releasing the first hour or so of the game to the public ahead of release if you're confident in its quality. It's a great way for a 'non juggernaut' release to get the exposure it needs to get more people to give it a shot.

That of course is the problem, quality. If that first hour isn't a zinger, it will do nothing but deflate hype.

 

[Samikaze]

Like most people here, I was also skeptical about it. Hell I had zero hype for HR when it was leaked.
I remember seeing my friend boot up : "Deus Ex Human Revolution LOL" on Steam.

I gave him about an hour before asking him how it was and he sent me the link for the leak in reply. Since Halo and Splinter Cell, no small chunk of game play has ever changed my mind so quickly on a game.

 

[CertifiedFP]

I remember the demo for Deus Ex Invisible War.

The PC demo had the Xbox UI settings enabled. It was all sorts of fucked up. (Oversized HUD, mouse was laggy, huge hitboxes, etc.)

This was after they said making the game for consoles wouldn't affect PC development.

They never patched the demo and told people not to judge the final product on the shitty fucking demo they put out.

It was faaar worse than just that. Some gaming-detectives found that the load times on PC were hardcoded to match Xbox load times.

To this day I'm trying to figure out the thought process that went into Invisible War. Surely Deus Ex on PC vastly outsold the PS2 version, didn't it? The only logical explanation I can think of is that Eidos management got swept up in the "PC = Piracy" psuedoscience shit that was going around in the mid-2000's. But consoles aren't even the start of Invisible War's problems. The game was just plain full of amateur-hour writing and questionable game design choices that didn't make sense for PC or Xbox.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

It really was the best accidental marketing they could've had. Making a Deus Ex game after Invisible War, especially at the time when people were getting pretty worn out on the popular format of linear shooter campaign, was an uphill battle to say the least.

 

[malboroking]

Reading the "opinions" of the game before it had even come out and the playing the game and finding out it was amazing just made me realize that so many people on GAF don't know what the hell they are talking about. So many people thought that because IW sucked that HR would also suck. So many people get a hard-on from shitting on games they haven't even played.

 

[Mupod]

I think I played the leak more than the actual game. I should finish it.

I was posting in the original thread when it went up. The guy was straight up shitting on the game expecting some kind of validation. But everyone was basically saying that it looked pretty good, if he hated it so much then just give out the files. He uploaded them saying they'd be useless to other people anyways...and of course it was cracked in no time.

 

[Calavera520]

Same here.

also did this. Ultimately though, I didn't think much of the final product. Not so thrilled with how the new one looks either. Cool that they do games like this but I feel like adding in three or so paths to an objective isn't enough. It's like these new DE games are driven by a box checking approach rather than an overall principle of openness of gameplay. Just my opinion.

 

[Vex_]

Interesting how many people are admitting to piracy. The fact is, it wasn't an official demo. Doesn't matter if you were told it was "okay". You shouldn't have acquired something (whole or not) illegally. It's not yours. Furthermore, you obtained it from a torrent.

I myself just straight out bought it after researching the game. Ya know, like a normal person?

Spoiler

/k

 

[Sanctuary]

I never played the leak, and ended up buying the game based off of a) already being a huge fan of the original game and b) it looked way better than Invisible War, and at the same time brought to mind a lot of the gameplay aspects that I enjoyed with Mass Effect 2.

I enjoyed the first half of the game immensely, and then kind of just forced myself to finish the second half. Hopefully the pacing will be better in the sequel.

 

[Jintor]

I remember my editor at the time telling me he got the official demo from squeenix.

Few years later I asked him and he and he said he probably just got a leaked copy and told us squeenix got it to him.

Fun fact: the build we had had KFC ads as part of the in world advertising

 

[Sanctuary]

I remember my editor at the time telling me he got the official demo from squeenix.

Few years later I asked him and he and he said he probably just got a leaked copy and told us squeenix got it to him.

Fun fact: the build we had had KFC ads as part of the in world advertising

The prerelease version of the game had quite a lot of product placement from what I remember.

 

[Deadbeat]

I remember GAF bashing the hell out of the leaked demo too.

Seems yelling at unfinished products is an all-time standard.

Your memory sucks. Go read the the leak discussion thread again, thanks.

 

[Quadraphonic]

It was faaar worse than just that. Some gaming-detectives found that the load times on PC were hardcoded to match Xbox load times.

To this day I'm trying to figure out the thought process that went into Invisible War. Surely Deus Ex on PC vastly outsold the PS2 version, didn't it? The only logical explanation I can think of is that Eidos management got swept up in the "PC = Piracy" psuedoscience shit that was going around in the mid-2000's. But consoles aren't even the start of Invisible War's problems. The game was just plain full of amateur-hour writing and questionable game design choices that didn't make sense for PC or Xbox.

I didn't want to get too deep into it.

A unified ammo supply? That's fucking LAZY. A rocket uses the same type of ammo as bullets? That's lazy game design. Pure and simple. To help control the flow of ammo throughout the game so they didn't have to balance explosives, 9mm, and other calibers.

Circular UI was a fucking joke, too. Something they even detailed in their post mortem as something they didn't think was a waste of space.

From everything I know about Warren Spector is that he always wanted to make a console game, so this was a personal directive from him, pushing it. Even at E3, they had more Xbox demo stations than PCs.

The same kind of sweeping changes affected his work on Epic Mickey later with him being the one that necessitated the art change from the detailed apocalyptic world to the softer less-edgy dirty world because he wanted it on the Wii with the paintbrush pointing.

We have to remember how fucking much of an abomination DXIW was. It was so fucking bad that they removed EVERY REFERENCE of Deus Ex from the spin-off game, Project Snowblind which was originally titled Deus Ex: Clan Wars.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

What was up with the early press impressions of the game? Was that build significantly different than the leak?

I kind of associate that period with the press following the overall reaction of the community, often to a fault. The reaction to Dark Souls during this era is another example.

I believe it was the exact same press preview build that leaked.

 

[Riposte]

What was up with the early press impressions of the game? Was that build significantly different than the leak?

I kind of associate that period with the press following the overall reaction of the community, often to a fault. The reaction to Dark Souls during this era is another example.

If I can put it more harshly, the press's opinion is easily shaped by the expectations they are told to have by word of mouth and I don't think that's exclusive to an era. "Oh, this game is suppose to confuse or frustrate me" (although Human Revolution is hardly doing that). If they don't get the message that this or that game should get the Demon's Souls treatment, then it may just end up being looked at as archaic, clunky, lacks features, not worth the investment, etc. In this case, they didn't have any word of mouth to go off of. Granted, this isn't exclusive to people who write professional reviews.

 

[EatChildren]

The leaked demo was a mental turning point for me, where I went from generally ambivalent to super fucking excited.

My course of anticipation for Human Revolution is short to chart. At first I barely cared. It wasn't that I didn't have faith in Eidos Montreal, it was the simple fact they were a fresh, unproven team working with an iconic franchise off the back of its disastrous successor in the midst of a generation notorious for bastardising game/franchise complexity for the sake of mass market accessibility. Rather than cry foul at a favourite franchise being mangled by a new studio, Invisible War had tempered any expectations of Deus Ex returning in suitable form. Plus Bloodlines had already scratched the first person RPG itch (even if it's not at all cyberpunk).

A handful of early previews tipped me a little bit in the more positive direction. Or I should say started to draw my attention. I mean, I wasn't even following the game at all up until that point. I remember distinctly a preview by David Wildgoose for PC PowerPlay in which he, having played the press build, described using a strength aug to pick up a refrigerator from one apartment to repeatedly smash it against the door of another locked apartment just across the hall and this strategy actually working. I read this and thought "Um, okay, maybe I should pay attention", and as soon as the press build leaked I gave it a whirl.

All the pieces fell together. It was obviously a modern representation of Deus Ex, in that it had accessibility, but the guts of Deus Ex seemed there. Notably the agency and freedom of play, in use of the aug system and world interaction. I spent a ton of time just exploring Detroit and taking in the world, replaying with different builds to see what kind of strategies I could implement, and alternative paths around particular bottlenecks and side missions. I was sold.

 

[Durante]

I actually had to check if I posted in that leak thread. I didn't, so I had probably already decided to get the game no matter what.

 

[BigTnaples]

I initially expected the new Deus Ex to be a sequel in name only, even worse than IW.

Then I played the leak, and it blew my freaking mind. Such fond memories of it.

The final game went on to be one of my favorites ever.

Cautiously optimistic about this new game. Really hope it can match the first one in feel.

 

[Izuna]

I bought the game because I enjoyed what I played in the leaked version.

As did I... What a scam.

 

[ebullientprism]

I remember GAF bashing the hell out of the leaked demo too.

Seems yelling at unfinished products is an all-time standard.

Was this an alternate reality GAF? Impressions were almost all incredibly positive. To the point where people unconvinced before (like me) actually started paying attention.

 

[patapuf]

I remember GAF bashing the hell out of the leaked demo too.

Seems yelling at unfinished products is an all-time standard.

Nah, the demo was pretty well recieved on gaf.

I think even Derrik01 liked it though my memory on that is murky.

 

[Moff]

I remember GAF bashing the hell out of the leaked demo too.

Seems yelling at unfinished products is an all-time standard.

I wasn't on GAF back then, but that's not how I remember the general impressions of the leak.
Most people were very impressed, which is why I think the leak actually did a lot of good. after Invisible War many people were very unsure about the quality of Human Revolution, but the leak proved the game would be a lot better than Invisible War.

 

[cackhyena]

The leak made me a believer.

 

[kami_sama]

The leak was what convinced me to buy the game.

 

[Farks!]

Didn't play the leaked version, but people I trust only had good things to say about. It made me and many others excited about the game. So it definetly worked in the games favour.

 

[Azzanadra]

I wasn't following the game pre-release, so I do find that there was negative coverage of the game to be an interesting fact, could someone please give me some examples? How bad was the ridicule?

 

[SlickVic]

The same should happen/have happened to Mankind Divided, at least a very big demo.

Would it really have had a big impact this time around though? As the OP details very well, Human Revolution had a lot to prove going into it. A new studio, a follow up to a rather poorly received sequel after an 8 year gap, the related challenge of modernizing a series without abandoning what made it special to its fans, and not to mention the mixed reception it was getting prior to the leak.

I'd say that Human Revolution was able to prove itself very well for the most part, and as a result, there has been a lot less skepticism regarding how Mankind Divided will turn out. That's not to say it's going to be the perfect game, and it remains to be seen how well it actually ends up selling. But I don't really see a huge need for a big demo or leak for this game. It seems we already got a pretty good idea of the direction the franchise is headed after playing Human Revolution.