[color:"orange"]The Top 7 uncensored reasons why I thought the Divine Divinity Demo was better than the Beyond Divinity Demo.[/color]
Before I begin, I would like to state that this is purely my opinion, totally subjective, and you may completely disagree with me. If so, please don't kill me... Also, I
ONLY base myself on the demo, as I'm very, very confident in the full version.
*ahem* Ok, here I go...
1)[color:"orange"]The length of the demo.[/color]
This is obvious and has been mentioned alot of times. The DD demo was the EXACT right length for a demo. The point was, that in DD demo you REALLY got into the game, and if you finished it completely, you probably couldn't wait to get your hands on the full, so you can find out what else is going on.
The BD demo didn't give me this feeling. Yes, sure, it takes more time to finish then most other games, but when it comes to RPG demo's, you simply need a long demo that can keep you occupied long enough for you to not want to lose your character you spent so long developing. I can easily give up my BD character, because it was only at level 4, whereas in DD demo, you could get to level 10...
2)[color:"orange"] Lack of typical Divinity story-twists and sudden plot changes in story[/color]
The BD demo didn't have anything special when it comes to the story, apart from the fact that you are now linked to a deathknight. But you already knew that from all the previews and stuff, so really, nothing special happened, unlike in the DD demo where George was suddenly killed, or the elf in Aleroth got frozen... I missed stuff like that in this demo.
3)[color:"orange"]Setting and locations[/color]
I don't know how to explain this best, but in DD you started off in a friendly village, where you know you are safe. Even if you went off to a hostile terretory, you could always get back to safety in the village, where you had your own room and bed, and you could trade with the villagers if you needed anything.
In BD demo, you have non of those things. You start off in a hostile terretory, and there aren't really any people who can be concidered friends. All the friendly NPC's in BD demo are either crazy, dying, uninteresting (no background history) or all of the above.
Also I would like to point out that in the DD demo, manuscripts and books had better (longer, more interesting) texts in them. In the BD, it's just mostly comments. (e.g. "Hi, I'm paul and thi... [The rest of the text was covered in blood, so I couldn't read it]") How about instead of adding those comments in between [ ] brackets, you actually visually showed them?
4)[color:"orange"]Voiceacting[/color]
The voiceacting in the DD demo was simply better. There are only a few voice actors in the BD demo who I would call good, like the "squishy bits" guy. Then there are a few examples that sound very amateurish to be honest. In fact, I could swear that one line by a guard is read by a young boy...
5)[color:"orange"]Learning Curve, and interface[/color]
Ok, this was kindof expected. Now that you have more party members, you have a more complex interface, and thus it takes longer to get used to the whole thing. It took me less than 10 minutes to get completely used to DD, because the whole thing feels very natural. In BD however, I didn't quite get used to it, until I played the demo again for the second time, after having finished it. It's little things like not having a shared inventory, and not having the selected character auto-followed by the camera, that make the game unnecesarily more complicated.
I feel that there are alot of players who, if they don't understand the demo fast enough, simply cannot take the time to learn everything, and get rid of the demo immidiatly. These are the people who will never find out how awesome your game is, and that's a real shame.
6)[color:"orange"]Music...[/color]
I can't believe I'm saying this, but... *sigh* I didn't think the intro music was as good as in DD. The intro song for DD was absolutely gorgeous, and catchy. The BD intro song doesn't seem to fit in with the whole atmosphere of the game. Even the ingame song (only one ingame song in the demo) gave the game an unusual atmosphere. The graphics said: You are in a dimension of pain and suffering, while the music suggested a more relaxed atmosphere.
The thing about the intro music is that most of the time, the player will only hear the first 15 seconds of it, while he's loading his game, so the song has to be gripping from the beginning, like in DD.
7)[color:"orange"]Abrubt Closed Ending[/color]
The ending of a demo is supposed to make you want to play more, and I don't think the BD demo succeeded in this aspect as much as DD. You see, when you finish the BD demo, it's done, it's over. The only think you're left wondering about is what lies at the bottom of that pit?
The DD demo on the other hand made sure that you got plenty of quests and instructions for after the demo. This was simply a very clever move, because you now had these jobs, and instinctively, you wanted to finish them. But the only way to do that was to buy the full game.
[color:"orange"]Conclusion to this all:[/color]
Larian crew, I am not saying <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> will be a worse game than <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />, oh no. Quite the contrary as I believe it will be a far better and superiour game that might just aswell be your big break; the game that will turn you from a underdog company with great games, to a massively popular company with a big budget for even better games.
But to sell a game, you need good publicity. Getting high scores in magazines doesn't seem to be enough, as most people try before they buy a game. What is my point? The demo really has to affect the player in a positive way for him to get interested in the game.
I guess I'm just really worried that alot of people who play the demo will get a false image of the awesomeness of the full game.So yeah, there you have it. This actually turned out to be longer than I thought it would be. Oh well, wether anyone can actually be bothered to read all this is another question <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />
Tovi 
