Drakensang - Preview @ GamerNode

GamerNode has kicked up a preview of Drakensang based on a trip to the recent Leipzig GC. The author is Thomas Beekers, who is known for his work at NMA. Here is a sample:

From the announcement onwards, this game has been marketed as "Baldur's Gate in 3D." The developers have made it clear that this game is not a sequel to the classic series, but another take at the DSA world in a cRPG setting. Fair enough, but the question becomes "how good is their take?"
The tentative answer is "not bad." The game employs the 4th edition DSA ruleset and, after decades of refining, the DSA system is widely known for being well-balanced, intuitive and expansive. The game does not fully exploit this expansiveness, cutting a few skills, but even so it retains an excellent system of combat, magic and miscellaneous skills like smithing and alchemy to exploit.

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Thanks, Dark Savant!
More information.

Slowly I am being known for my work everywhere. Mu ah ah ah ah ah!

What´s the source for the budget?

Gorath said:

What´s the source for the budget?

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My colleagues at Drakensang.net.

Anaconda gave them 1 million, and then some governmental funding. Not sure how Avantenor came to that number, ask him

So what's the story on the publishing, Germany only at this point?

@Gorath: That was an information of the ZDF report on 22.08. You can watch the file on dsa-game.de (should be in one of the news).

@magerette: dtp is aimply not an international publisher and they did not announce any other regional publisher 'til now. But the fact, that they already made an english website (drakensang.com) and gave us the english dev diaries tells me, that they at least want to make an english release, too. But they concentrate on the german market and leave marketing for interenational sales to their partners.

DSA "intuitive" ???
Well, at least not the character building.

But the fact, that they already made an english website (drakensang.com) and gave us the english dev diaries tells me, that they at least want to make an english release, too. But they concentrate on the german market and leave marketing for interenational sales to their partners.

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Well, I'll hold out hope that we'll someday see the game here, then.
Thanks, Avantenor.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

DSA "intuitive" ???
Well, at least not the character building.

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I'm an old-fashioned 2nd edition player. All of 2nd edition was intuitive. I heard they rebuilt it for 4th edition, but to be honest haven't paid enough mind to it.

Doesn't delve deeply enough.

But it at least conveys some measure of optimism, and is a welcome departure from incessant whingings about the proposed rules-set implimentation.

I don't know how many of these malcontents have actually played the ROA series, but it was fraught with palpable design faults which could only have been redressed through the kind of selective rules streamlining which Anaconda seems(to their credit) to appreciate, for all the drama/grief it has caused them...

Even with the proposed omissions/adjustments, Drakensang poses a far more elaborate adaptation than ROA(and this from a fan).

Alas, one would do well to consider that unlike PNP(and thus devoid of an intelligent intermediary to act on behalf of one's alter ego), fixed CRPG mechanics have less margin for error in negotiating the contingencies of their narratives, and thus lend themselves better to a specificity of design(as opposed to a more plastic, and intuitive format like PNP).

As for the preview implying such a linear correlation between budget and visual quality - I would beg to differ.

Great artists aren't necessarily more expensive than crap artists, and even at this stage of development Drakensang's graphical artistry appears on equal terms(at least!) with any 'big budget' RPG in development since the big 'O'(and makes NWN 2 look like a turd, incidentally).

A decade ago(to the month - when I was playing Shadows Over Riva), one could only dream of a game that inspired as much promise as Drakensang.

Something for my kindred grognards to contemplate.

Brother None said:

I'm an old-fashioned 2nd edition player. All of 2nd edition was intuitive. I heard they rebuilt it for 4th edition, but to be honest haven't paid enough mind to it.

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Okay, I really meant the 4th edition, because it's the current one.

Personally, I like the third and second editions more, too.

nscourge said:

I don't know how many of these malcontents have actually played the ROA series

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They say, that they've played the RoA Trilogy.

Even more, I heard that Radon Labs was specifically founded to do an DSA-based game one day in the future.

If that is true, then for them a dream must've come true.

For what they do, I can't blame them, although I don't like several o their design decisions at atll.

They just want a good selling game that is liked by as many RPG players as possible, without being too complex (because that would decrease the sales) and they just orientate themselves at what's common right now.

I can't blame them for that, although I wished they had rather made a game like Startrail, for example.

My hope is just that this can be a point to jump from - which might (hopefully) result in one or two more "hardcore" games, once the franchise is up & running, but I must admit that my hopes are fairly low.

RT combat could be interpreted as a marketing decision.

But beyond that, I don't see anything evident in the ROA design modus which should necessarily favor it over what Drakensang is proposing.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of the old games.

But that doesn't mitigate the fact that ROA's adaptation was compromised by a slew of extraneous skills which had limited applicability(or none at all) within the context of gameplay beyond statistical minutae/window dressing.

As much as I love the ROA series, Drakensang is promising an elegence of depth that the earlier games just didn't possess.

The translation thing was a bit worrying (since I never managed to learn German ), but I still think it's worth keeping an eye on. I hope for the stuff I usually hope for in cRPG's: well written dialogue, a nice story and questsolveing that isn't entirely based on combat.

Übereil

nscourge said:

RT combat could be interpreted as a marketing decision.

But beyond that, I don't see anything evident in the ROA design modus which should necessarily favor it over what Drakensang is proposing.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of the old games.

But that doesn't mitigate the fact that ROA's adaptation was compromised by a slew of extraneous skills which had limited applicability(or none at all) within the context of gameplay beyond statistical minutae/window dressing.

As much as I love the ROA series, Drakensang is promising an elegence of depth that the earlier games just didn't possess.

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I understand what you mean, and in my eyes the whole thing is a huge "dancing on the high wire", so to say.

Some want a game like Sacred, others a game like the ROA games, and Drakensang is positioned somewhere in the middle, trying to please both groups.

I don't blame them for trying to do so, but to me, personally, a game like the ROA Trilogy had mire depth, was more cchallenging because there were many more details you had to consider. Micromanagement, in short.

The expectations are high, very high, especially from the old ROA-lovers fan-base (who seem to rather be hardcore RPG players, but that is just my very personal perception, highly subjective), almost too high, so that the game won't most likely fill all the qwishes and desires of those who are awaiting this game (especially the old, almsost ancient fan-base).


I must admit, a thing that I NEVER understood, was, why the devs "Attic, that is" actually included to many talents, of which several were simply not used in the game. and what's worse: You could actually put (experience) points into them ! Even if they weren't applicable to the class !

I think that was the worst design decision back then, but that complaint is really old, because everyone knows that.

As I translated the community interview, some parts of the game actually looked a bit more promising to me than I had formerly thought.

But my biggest complain still is the lack of true turn-based combat. And I know they won't implement that.

So, when I'll play the game (I'll do that, nevertheless, because I've waited too long and two failed attempts for a new DSA game), then I'll probably cry ( ) and miss the turn-based combat I loved so much. *sigh*