- Joined
- August 30, 2006
- Messages
- 7,830
A cross posting from Qt3:
--------------------------------
No word on an English version yet(**). The German version is almost finished though. Even the preview version early last month was already in very good shape.
The River of Time is basically a huge add-on with dozens of tweaks. The most prominent:
- full voice-overs (the German voice actors are excellent)
- quick travel & a house boat following you & level design with more short cuts. -> much, much less walking
- 3 difficulty levels
- better cut scenes
- better storytelling
- more compact content (marketing says 150% content compared to Drakensang squeezed into ca 40 hours) *Of course this is a point I couldn't verify in the preview version*
- much better start
- more character generation options
- more party interaction, more choices
- more detailed world sim (still by far not Gothic level, but little details here and there do make a difference)
The graphics are still the same. Just some more polishing and a couple of nice new f/x, so they look better and still have the same low system requirements. Certainly not Crysis, but still quite pleasing to the eye at FullHD.
Conclusion after 20 hours:
It shows that the developers have one RPG more experience under their belt. There's a better flow and much less idle time. The game mechanics are still the same, but the way they are used is more advanced. The integration of the superb The Dark Eye system seems a bit improved to me. Especially secondary skills are used more often in dialogs. Storytelling is much better now, and the story involves pirates, which is of course a plus. Fun game so far, although the main complaints about Drakensang (old fashioned, rather slow pace, too nice, only standard RTwP combat) are still valid.
(**)
edit:
Publisher dtp is officially happy about Drakensang's international sales numbers and the way both audience and reviewers received the game. So there will certainly be international versions sooner or later.
--------------------------------
No word on an English version yet(**). The German version is almost finished though. Even the preview version early last month was already in very good shape.
The River of Time is basically a huge add-on with dozens of tweaks. The most prominent:
- full voice-overs (the German voice actors are excellent)
- quick travel & a house boat following you & level design with more short cuts. -> much, much less walking
- 3 difficulty levels
- better cut scenes
- better storytelling
- more compact content (marketing says 150% content compared to Drakensang squeezed into ca 40 hours) *Of course this is a point I couldn't verify in the preview version*
- much better start
- more character generation options
- more party interaction, more choices
- more detailed world sim (still by far not Gothic level, but little details here and there do make a difference)
The graphics are still the same. Just some more polishing and a couple of nice new f/x, so they look better and still have the same low system requirements. Certainly not Crysis, but still quite pleasing to the eye at FullHD.
Conclusion after 20 hours:
It shows that the developers have one RPG more experience under their belt. There's a better flow and much less idle time. The game mechanics are still the same, but the way they are used is more advanced. The integration of the superb The Dark Eye system seems a bit improved to me. Especially secondary skills are used more often in dialogs. Storytelling is much better now, and the story involves pirates, which is of course a plus. Fun game so far, although the main complaints about Drakensang (old fashioned, rather slow pace, too nice, only standard RTwP combat) are still valid.
(**)
edit:
Publisher dtp is officially happy about Drakensang's international sales numbers and the way both audience and reviewers received the game. So there will certainly be international versions sooner or later.
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2006
- Messages
- 7,830