Beta testing starts on the New Demo

[Chris]

The new demo is now ready for testing and Beta Testers can download it from our Darwinia website. The new demo consists of an entirely new level not seen in the full game, specifically designed to intice new players to Darwinia. It uses the new control mechanism first seen in the patch1.3 beta1 recently. It also includes an entirely new tutorial. For a full write-up on why we've spent so long making a new Darwinia Demo, click here.

In fact, this new demo has taken far far longer than originally planned. This is probably the most complex Darwinia level ever made, filled with custom made buildings and cutscenes, and with its own mini-story that plays out over the course of the level. It's an awesome level, but in hindsight we've spent a bit too long on it I think.

The new demo is still very rough around the edges - it's what we call "Minimum Quality" at Introversion, which means there are still a lot of placeholders. All of the new buildings are in placeholder form, and there are no new sounds or music yet. These things will be added during the beta phase.

As usual please post your beta reports in the Beta Testers Discussion forums. If you've not been selected to be a beta tester yet then please be patient - we're going to add another batch of 100 testers soon, once the initial bugs are ironed out.

[Starfyre]

That is exciting news indeed good to hear so much is put into the new demo, should make for quite some new appeal.
The link in the email only redirects to the forums though

[Darksun]

The link works fine for me!

[trickfred]

Remove the "www." from the existing link, and it will work fine. I believe Chris has sent out a second email already with the corrected link.

[Dr4goN]

Wow! Demo2 at last!

[da_zeg]

OK, Right; forgive me if I seem stupid, but im just back from a band practice and that means I'm more than a bit drunk, if i click the link, i get a button saying beta apply, if i remove the "www." from the link i get the same page. and according to all the stuff under my rank, i AM a demo 2 tester (i never get the emails). What gives.

Tried IE and Firefox

If anyone knows the real link could you please pm me.


Thanks.

Zeggy III.

[Dr4goN]

Beta Testers,

If you are having trouble downloading the New Demo beta from the previous
emails link, this one should work better for you:

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwin ... wnload.php

Sorry about that.
Chris Delay
Introversion Software

[da_zeg]

Thank you, my good man. I'll have a go at this as soon as, but will probably wait 'til' tomorrow before i post anything i notice (for obvious reasons)

Sleaze Injection Forever

[Dave2]

That's weird... if you click on "Usergroups" at the top, are you in "New Demo Testers"? (I have no idea how the system works, this is just a stab in the dark as to diagnosing it.)

[EDIT]nm, I just checked via the group listing, you are. weirdness.[/EDIT]

[Kajotex]

ftw?

im not a tester

[Dr4goN]

ftw?

im not a tester

Have you applied to tests?

[Kajotex]

jup i have

something about 3 or 4 weeks before

[Dr4goN]

jup i have

something about 3 or 4 weeks before

You should be 1.3 patch tester then......
Okay, have you recieved the e-mails from Chris titled 'Darwinia Demo2 ready for testing' and 'Darwinia Demo2 ready for testing(continue)'?
Here's their contents:

Greetings,

The new demo is now ready for testing and you can download it from our
Darwinia website. Follow this link for your download:

http://www.forums.introversion.co.uk/da ... wnload.php

The new demo consists of an entirely new level not seen in the full game,
specifically designed to intice new players to Darwinia. It uses the new
control mechanism first seen in the patch1.3 beta1 recently. It also
includes an entirely new tutorial. We should warn you that the new demo is
still very rough around the edges - it's what we call "Minimum Quality" at
Introversion, which means there are still a lot of placeholders. All of the
new buildings are in placeholder form, and there are no new sounds or music
yet. It all looks a little rough. These things will be added during the
beta phase.

As usual please post your beta reports in the Beta Testers Discussion
forums.

Thank you for helping us to test the new Demo and the new Patch for
Darwinia - we really couldn't do this without you.

Regards
Chris Delay
Introversion Software

This was first e-mail. Now second:

Beta Testers,

If you are having trouble downloading the New Demo beta from the previous
emails link, this one should work better for you:

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwin ... wnload.php

Sorry about that.
Chris Delay
Introversion Software

If you applied to the 1.3 patch tests you should have recieved the following e-mail(name: Darwinia beta test):

Congratulations! You have been selected to beta test our new demo and
control mechanism from the list of applicants!

There has been a slight change of plan - originally we intended to start
beta testing the new demo today. Unfortunately the new demo is taking (far)
longer than expected, and it just isn't ready yet. However, the new control
mechanism used in the new demo is ready, and today we will begin the beta
test on the full game patch that includes this new control mechanism. We
will be testing the win32 version for now.

Download the new patch here:
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwin ... wnload.php

Simply unzip the downloaded zip file into your Darwinia game folder, and you
should be good to go. The new control mechanism will be selected by
default. To get started, press the TAB key to bring up the Task Manager.
You can probably work out the rest yourself. It's worth pointing out the
help system still talks about the old gestures system, so please ignore it.

Please report all bugs found in the Beta Testers Discussion forum. We have
made this forum readable by everyone, but only the new batch of testers are
permitted to post. As well as the bugs we want to know what you think of
the new control mechanism - do you hate it? Do you prefer it? Any ideas on
how we can improve it?

Thank you very much for offering to help us, and we hope you enjoy the new
controls and demo.

Regards
Chris Delay
Introversion Software

Try log in using the following link: http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwin ... wnload.php.

[LLamaBoy]

Not everyone who applied got testing access. People were selected based on hardware diversity so as to pinpoint possible incompatibility issues.

[Dr4goN]

Yeah, they are selected like this:

This isn't random selection. Near as I can tell, the folk at IV are looking for two things:
1) Unique hardware on which to test things (thus having a funky sound card would be a plus)
2) People who are active in the forums, and have a proven track record of reporting/tracking down bug