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[nenjin]

Yeah, and as of 9pm my time, the 4th, I haven't received an invite Was hoping with the game's relatively low profile, we'd be shoe ins.

[Neonivek]

Don't feel so bad I didn't get in either.

[Viken]

I have a sneaky suspicious that no one in the english community got invited into the closed beta.  No one I've seen or talked to was invited, either.

[Shades]

Games industry and press members are also excluded from the test

I so wanted to try this beta too...

[Viken]

You're a part of the gaming industry or the press, Shades?

[Shades]

Gaming industry, but that will change soon as I'm kinda bored. It was less fun than I hoped working for a large developer. I'll probably go back to other, better paid and more interesting, work and then make games in my spare time again.

[nenjin]

Here's a quasi-gameplay trailer they just released.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt_bpuVcBHk&feature=player_embedded#!

The Good: I definitely got a dungeon keeper vibe watching it, zooming down to watch your minions fight and admire the detail work.

The Bad: The graphics look dated. I could be really generous and say that's just the quality on Youtube at 480p....but that'd be too generous.

The Ugly: When your full-on media release trailer has obvious FPS issues looking like that, it does not bode well for the final product. But we're getting it February 2011, so hopefully they'll optimize the shite out of it by then.

[Kitsunin]

That trailer makes the game look like crap, it's too cheesy, the graphics look very dated, and it shows no real gameplay (Well it's a trailer so that's not really a legitimate complaint.)

That being said it'll hopefully still be pretty good.

[Sowelu]

Hey, even the guys who make trailers have to start their careers somewhere.  So this guy was a noob--oh well, it's not -too- bad for just coming out of school.  Pretty pleasing for him to get his stuff online like that!

That said:  Oh god, the colored lighting, the COLORED LIGHTING.  It's like they hired CliffyB as their lighting director.  ♥

[Viken]

The youtube video of the partial in-game trailer sucked, anyway.  But yea, I agree.  Mind you, that trailer was made from either the alpha or current closed beta, probably using some third-party program to record all the footage. It wasn't very slick or professional; but I can dig it, anyway. Mwhahaha.  First good glimpse into the game, anyway.  They'll probably work the sh!t out of it in the next few months, and once we get some good footage out it'll probably appear alot better. *Nod nods* 

[nenjin]

I was kind of....shocked to see the vast difference in quality between that footage and the stills. That's usually the case with most games, but yeeeeecchhhhh...Dungeons looked particularly fugly in that video. I'm thinking, on top of it still being development and whatever else, that someone encoded that video improperly.

[inteuniso]

It looks like crappy animations, with russian-esque graphics.

[mrchinchin25]

Having discovered recently

1) my copy of dungeon keeper 2 that I never got into
2) a method of playing dk2 in w7 64bit without crashing

I am now happy. Can't wait for this new one to come out though, just to give it a try.

(basically this - http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/2820/t1394451-dungeon-keeper-2-how-to-run-under-xp-vista-win7/ if you're curious)

[nenjin]

In the name of due diligence, I bring you this tidbit from their forums.

The gameplay footage is choppy due to video conversion and codec woes (sorry for that). On an average dual core rig, the game runs smooth as butter. The remaining graphical glitches are being fixed as we speak and we decided to keep them in the trailer for authenticity's sake. At least you can tell it's all actual realtime footage and no doctored or post-processed eye candy.

http://forum.kalypsomedia.com/newreply.php?tid=7567&pid=74425

So. That's that.

Still....had I been in the position of saying whether or not that video was ready to go, my response would have been "HELL NO! WHATCHU TALKIN' BOUT GUNTER?!"

I hope they put the time into a new video for the Steam store page. I'm sure that's no small feat. They have to stage footage, shoot it, sync the music again, splice the footage, write new titles, all that jazz. (I took AV courses in college, so I know a little about building video footage.) I would guess in the grand scheme of things, they probably don't have the time or the inclination to do it again.

I don't know these guys, or many of their products, but that just seems......amateurish? Unprofessional? I've seen smaller independent dev houses deliver better promotional material with less money. And while I'm not trying to flay them over pretty much the only thing I've seen them do "wrong" so far, a bad video is worth 1,000 words. And they always leave me going "Jeez, if that big of a problem for something as crucial as the Steam Store video was overlooked....."

Still, I know I'm buying so I'm glad the actual game is running right. I just want them to be successful, because honestly, I think the crowd is against them on judging the game based on its own merits. It's going to be judged next to DKII, and any technical short comings are just going to be more dirt for people to sling at it.

[nenjin]

Been re-reading the forums a little bit, catching up on the smaller posts they've made. I've learned some things.

Apparently, decorations have an impact on the AI. Such that where heroes go can be guided (or not guided) by decorations, possibly by their quality level. In addition, rooms will have buildable objects that will change how well the room performs its functions. Whether or not this was part of the plan initially, it sounds like our concerns were heard over at Realmforge about dungeon items and prestige, and it's not like Theme Hospital and such.