I excitedly ripped my CGW open today to install the Arcanum demo. About 90% into it I get "Installer cannot read arcanum1.dat file. Please verify it exists and is accessible. Choose ABORT, RETRY or IGNORE."

It exists and it is accessible!
*Hits RETRY*
"Sorry, wrong button!"
****!
*Hits IGNORE*
"Install has completed successfully, except, sorry, can't read arcanum2.dat, acanum3.dat or arcanum.exe files either! Guess you're ****ed!!"

Why you little ****CGW CD! I want my ****ing demo!

"Sorry, pathetic subscriber, we knew we'd sucker you into upgrading to the CD subscription this year so we made sure to send you defective demo discs! Just like your experience with PC gamer! BAHAHAHAHA!"

OOOOOOOOOh I'll fix your little CD wagon! *digs out overheating Kenwood TrueX drive and melts demo CD*

WHo's LAUGHING NOW???????

"Help I'm meeeeeeeelting!"

*sigh*

Well, anyway, I've tried everything and it will not install or work. I just don't want to ask for a replacement if this turns out to be a Sierra screwup. My drive's fine, the disc's fine and no sign of scratches.

Those magazine CDs are notoriously hard to read. I've had tons of difficulty in the past. Try cleaning the surface with windex and a soft cloth, and use the slowest CD-ROM you have access to. I keep an 8x CD around for that very reason.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Can you copy the files to your HD and run the setup from there?

-Monkeybutt

That's a thought, though if those 4 files are corrupted I think I'm outta luck. I'll try to check Sierra's Arcanum discussion board - maybe others have the same prob, or if they don't I can finger my DVD-ROM drive but I've had not had any problems with anything else. The Summoner demo on the CGW CD installed fine.

I'm going to call CGW's new EIC and give him a piece of my tiny mind about this demo problem!

*rrrrrriiiiiiinggg*
"Hi!"
"Hi, is this Jeff Green?"
"Hi again! You've reached the voice mail of CGW's New Sheriff in Town - as the Dodgers' late Kevin Malone would say! - but I'm currently busy tailoring bustiers and tuxedo buns in EverQuest. Leave a message and I'll get back to you someday, but I know you're probably just a character from the Majestic beta! Have a nice day!"
"Argh! I hate voice mail!"

Geo--that is scarily just how the call would go. :)
Seriously, if you still can't get that demo to run, lemme know. So far I haven't heard any other complaints, so it's possibly you just got a crappy disc. Email me if you want me to send ya a new one. [email protected].

Also, I think the demo is getting posted all over the web now already anyway....

The demo hasn't made it out. One (very slow) french site had it but no one manage to get it even to mirror it. I would subscribed to CGM but you probably wouldn't want that. Every magazine I've subscribed to in the past three years (out side of CGO) has gone out of business within a few months. I'm a curse. :)

Here's the fix for the CGW version of the demo (it's a rather DOH! error in how one folder on the disc was named) :) This is from a helpful feller, epicrpg, at Arcanum message boards.

>>>To get the demo to work, I had to copy the arcanum directory to my hard drive and rename the Arcanum_Preview directory [this has the four files that won't install properly] to Arcanum Preview. Remove the the underscore and then run setup.
--------------

Maybe CGW wants to post the fix on its Web site before an angry mob develops. ;) Put that George Jones guy right on that! :)

Only played a bit so far, but it's got a very polished interface (although sometimes it's not intuitive how to do simple things), beautiful music, very funny when comedy pops up and a nice auto-arranging inventory. Looting has never been so painless. :)

I set the Arcanum demo up for overnight download and it is sitting on my server even as I type this. :) Email me at [email protected] and I will be happy to set it up on my FTP for you to grab.

It's listed at fileplanet,but since fileplanet sucks Big Green Donkey Balls(tm),it'll talke 10 years to get a download going.

-Monkeybutt

got the Demo from here...ftp://ftp.icrontic.com/pub/616-Arcanum.zip

there is a 25 user limit so you might have to re-try a couple times.

The server was fast,77.7k/sec with my DSL.

-Monkeybutt

Hmm. That reminds me. I renewed my CGW subscription a couple months back, with the CD option, but don't believe I've seen any CDs. 'course, I'm not sure exactly when the last issue of my last subsciption runs out, either, so I won't worry for a couple months.

An interesting point was that my renewal card didn't give me any choice but to renew with the CD option. If that's the way it's gonna be moving forward, this will probably be my last go with CGW. I like the mag, but usually don't have any time to play demos.

I've played the demo and as it turns out, I really suck at the game. I'm going to have to wait for a manual. The interface just isn't very intuitive...

I used to really suck at Baldur's Gate too, but I was never this bad...

Brad Grenz

Thank you for posting that link to the demo Monkeybutt. It's coming in quite nicely at 150 kb/sec as I type. I'm actually d/ling it for the second time. I got it from fileplanet the first time and it was giving an error saying the file was corrupt or something...