Drakensang: The River of Time - Developer Diary

Myrthos

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A developer diary in English and German of Drakensang: The River of Time is to be found at the official site. Make sure to click the flag at the righ top if the diary is not shown in the correct language.
We were searching for the fitting title for our game for a long time. We even called out a little in-house competition that provided a lot of funny and bizarre suggestions. In the end we named it “The River Of Time”. Why this unusual almost philosophical name? some might be asking. The answer to that is simple. A river plays a huge part. And the time as well. Because the game takes you back into the past – to the events 23 years before the original “Drakensang” to be exact.
That brings up the question, what made us place the game before and not after “Drakensang”. The answer to this is a little bit more complex. But first things first: The story of “Drakensang” was never designed to be continued. It was epic. It would have been very difficult to tell an even bigger adventure in a sequel. We experienced with „Drakensang“, that the fascination was especially high with the smaller stories. They seem more vivid and personal. The more we would have gone into another epic, the more we would have neglected the smaller characters.
It shows clearly, what makes a fantasy roleplaying game a great one compared to others: Strong characters and a well drawn up story. They are not only attachments, not only carriers, but part of the game playing. This is where we tap the full potential of opportunities of the roleplaying game. The genre allows like no other to tell tightly woven, thrilling stories.
Thanks Armin.
More information.
 
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I still like the translation "Flow of time" better. Because "flow" it can mean river (substantive)and to flow (verb), thus retaining the wordplay of the German title.

The only thing I can't quite figure out is how to translate the preposition "am" elegantly.
At the flow of time? By the flow of time? On the flow of time?
These are the three possibilities, but which sounds most elegant?
To my (non native-speaker) ears they all sound kind of strange, though if I had to choose I'd choose at (for one can't misunderstand it).
 
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I still like the translation "Flow of time" better. Because "flow" it can mean river (substantive)and to flow (verb), thus retaining the wordplay of the German title.
I know exactly what you mean.
The only thing I can't quite figure out is how to translate the preposition "am" elegantly.
At the flow of time? By the flow of time? On the flow of time?
These are the three possibilities, but which sounds most elegant?
To my (non native-speaker) ears they all sound kind of strange, though if I had to choose I'd choose at (for one can't misunderstand it).
In context "at" is "am", "by" would be "neben" and "on" would be "auf". At least it isn't as bad as the Drakensang international marketing crap (it should have been Drachensang (German) and Chant of the Dragon (English)).
 
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I think with "river" the physical river is meant, too.
And that would be rather a "stream" than a "flow", because saying a [physical] river is a flow instead of a [physical] river is a stream sounds to me rather odd.

The physical river and its surrounding myths *will* play a role in the game. As far as I can tell. And I have seen a few bits (although almost only the main town) from the beta testing last weekend (I participated).
 
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I think with "river" the physical river is meant, too.
And that would be rather a "stream" than a "flow", because saying a [physical] river is a flow instead of a [physical] river is a stream sounds to me rather odd.

The physical river and its surrounding myths *will* play a role in the game. As far as I can tell. And I have seen a few bits (although almost only the main town) from the beta testing last weekend (I participated).

No, it's not the physical river it's a wordplay involving that phisical river and the flow of time (River = Fluss, Flow of time = Fluss der Zeit), because the game is a story from the past told at the end of the first game. The wordplay is lost with the river translation.
 
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Yes, but trust me, as I said, the physical river and its surrounding myths *will* also play a role, believe it or not.
 
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Yes, but trust me, as I said, the physical river and its surrounding myths *will* also play a role, believe it or not.
I know and I never said the physical river is not in the game. It's just that the myths of the river still have nothing to do with time. Aside that if you've seen the screenshot with the allerged female Necker, you'd know that Radon Labs threw out constancy with the Dark Eye source material alltogether with this one.
 
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It's just that the myths of the river still have nothing to do with time.
Rivers were/are frequently used as a metaphor for (the flow of) life. While that image is not as ambiguous as the term "Fluss" in German, a river can still be seen as a metaphor, and in this case probably should be ...
 
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I have no exact idea of how a female or a male Necker should look like, since I haven't got the appropriate sources for that.

The only examples I know of are in the third Realms Of Arcania game, and on one Dark Force trading card game card.
 
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