Why is there an 8 hour limit on the demo?

[Toast]

Hi everyone! I wanted to make this thread to address this as it's a very common piece of feedback we have received during our demo. I will be merging threads about this topic into this one to help avoid anybody missing this message, but please keep the feedback coming if you have any more thoughts because I will continue to keep an eye on this thread!

So first off, we totally understand the timer is frustrating for some of you. Simply put though we weighed the other options on how to limit the demo, and, for most players, this was the least frustrating way to do it. Most games are able to limit their demos simply by cutting off content, or adding gameplay limits like levels, xp, etc. However Enshrouded is a game about creativity and exploration, it's very open ended in nature, in particular our building system which has near endless possibilities. Even with a very tiny square of space there wouldn't really be anything stopping a player from building for as long as they wanted, and racking up extremely high amounts of play time in our free demo.

If we had heavily limited the content so that you didn't feel the desire to build for more than 8 hours, I imagine that would have been significantly more frustrating for most people, because there would barely be any game to play. Being a creative open world sandbox game it just didn't make much sense for us to do it any other way.

A lot of you are very dedicated players and I'm sure would still happily purchase the game even after playing the demo for dozens of hours, but many players aren't like that. Lots of players get their fill on games, even games they really like, after just a few dozen hours. So creating a demo where players could sit and build for dozens (or even hundreds) of hours would just not be a very smart move for us long term.

Compared to most demos offered in Steam Next Fest ours actually still has more content than most, 8 hours is quite a lot of time for a free demo. We tried to be as generous as we could, but at the same time we are a team of over 50 full time employees, and we have been working on Enshrouded for several years at this point. While we'd love for everybody to enjoy the game as much as they can, it also wouldn't be a very good idea to give too much of it away for free.

I hope this makes sense, and I am glad you are all loving the demo so much you want to play it for more than 8 hours! We are trying to get Early Access ready as soon as we can, so please wishlist the game if you haven't already to be notified as soon as it's time for release!

-Toast

[Imhotep]

Too Small Demo

Demo was released, and there is a time limit.

You can only play for 8 hours and then have to make a new world. you don't lose your character but... this is a building game with squished shaped characters and terrible terrible performance even on updated tech. So all the time you spend making your base just to uhm do your thing at all is just gone.

Here's what you can do in the Demo:

1: Gather objects to create a home and fight a few things while encountering massive FPS dips.

2: clear some area to make a home or place.

3: Make a tiny home or place and then review it for a few minutes before taking it back down, putting it in your inventory and transferring to your new world that you have to make.

Here's what you can't do in the Demo:

1: Almost anything. It's broken.

[Clearly™]

8 hours to play a demo AND provide feedback is wrong

Why is there a timer in the bottom left hand corner, counting down from 8 hours as soon as you get into the world?

How are you going to limit your potential customers to a measly 8 hours of game time, while also expecting them to provide meaningful feedback/bug reports

instant mood killer and uninstall

[Tagger]

Start a new save = 8 hours starts over.

It's per save. So if you need more time; make a new world.
Your character stays the same - so you wont lose what's on your character or the progression you've made with it.

[ChefDiabeetus]

The timer needs to be taken off if the demo is up until oct 22



Edit: ♥♥♥♥ that. The timer is just fine. I'm 4.5 hours in and I hit the demo end stage. I still have places I can explore, I'm still finding cool weapons. I'm still enjoying myself. 100% buying this game.

[Blaze1961]

The devs have already stated why there is an 8 hour limit, deal with it.

[Armadale]

Originally posted by Clearly™:

Why is there a timer in the bottom left hand corner, counting down from 8 hours as soon as you get into the world?

How are you going to limit your potential customers to a measly 8 hours of game time, while also expecting them to provide meaningful feedback/bug reports

instant mood killer and uninstall

you can start a new game and it restarts the timer

[MajorTom]

who cares? Who spends more than 8 hours in a demo anyways? There isn't even 8 hours worth of content here. You aren't owed anything, and still got 8 hours to try the game (which can just be done over and over again, btw). Are you just trying to get a free game or something? But really, you'll find it hard to find enough things to do for that whole 8 hours.

[Verin]

Their primary goal appears to be marketing, not testing. The testing is a nice sidenote to the publicity.

I think the timer incentivizes the wrong type of play for this genre though. Instead of casually enjoying the early content and exploring to getting a sense of whats possible, it causes players to rush the content. Limiting the accessible play area and included content seems enough to stop people, not sure why they wanted to add an artificial rush to their demo experience.

[Bout73Ninjas]

…yeah, it’s a demo.

[Odium]

your tech apparently isnt very updated because many of us are having fine perf

turn the shroud fog from high to medium. it doesnt change the effect much but it hits perf pretty hard. everything else can be maxed out and the game runs about 50ish fps for me which is more than fine for this type of game

[Odium]

because its a demo not early access. Obvious stuff is obvious

[X-Dolan-X]

If you feel there isn't enough time for your main world to build / explore all you have to do is js make new worlds to do all of your material farming only use your main world for building/crafting/exploring.

[tinsmith33]

Maybe the time limit is also so that people dont burn out on its basic play style and not purchase the game after ?

I have finished a 8 hour play and it was enough until more depth is added .
Just feels like other games out there .

I will wait till full release and see what is up .

Hype it , but dont kill it doing so .

[sky uwu]

8 hours is really generous IMO it's a free demo ..

[Where'sMySupersuit!!]

Originally posted by MajorTom:

who cares? Who spends more than 8 hours in a demo anyways?

I see you never had the pleasure to play the Skate 3 demo back in the day.