Some 12 hours until launch according to Steam. Pre-Launch info is not good - the game is expected to be very buggy according to reports from Germany. Just hope they have the basis for a good game and are able to fix it up.
The developers have posted in the steam forums that this will not be the case with the steam release though. The german print version is a month old according to them.
Fingers crossed.
The shop sold the normal retail version, but 5 days too early. The massive release patch actually was more or less ready, but the auto-patcher was not.Yes, some German stores released the wrong version or something. Reading between the lines of what Chris says on Steam though (and other sources), I think the game is likely to still be pretty buggy at launch.
OK, so the first bit makes Dungeon Lords look like a masterpiece release.
Seriously.
Absolutely no context - you are in a room with some faces on the UI and some stuff to click on. No introduction, nothing. I started again and watched the opening video again … still nothing.
For a beginner the game looks broken - it says 'unless you know what to do, screw you'. Of course folks who played the original will know what to do, but that isn't the point. You are dumped in a room with no explanation of what to do, or even HOW to do something? You are building a character, and no description of traits? C'mon.
Most of the text is in German (>50%), with about 35% English and 15% 'placeholder' text.
Eventually you might figure out that you can get to the Help menu … indirectly. You go to Q for quests, then click on H for Help. Then you can find some minor help items.
Graphics are a mess, with menu tabs misaligned all over the place, things popping up one over the other. Performance is mediocre for the graphics quality.
Um, yeah. This game might possibly be 'playable' (I mean, it didn't crash), but it is a pathetically buggy mess. I would say that without exception it is the worst release state I have ever seen for a game - and it is utterly unplayable unless you already know the original.
I would say they are at least 3 or 4 patches away from something worth even the small amount of money I paid.
OK, according to what I read on steam, the day 1 patch is apparently indeed not incorporated in the released steam version, and should come out this afternoon (german time). That gives me a tiny glimmer of hope…
That better be one hell of a patch.
Oh well… Rise of the Triad comes out tomorrow - looks like I might be playing that first.