The Legends of Dawn devs bring us news that their game has over 140 achievements and that this will be fully integrated with Steam (although it also works off-line). In addition there is also news on voice-overs and the beta.

As we informed you on March 20th we got Steam SDK and beside working on voice overs we were studying that stuff. So over the course of last few weeks we have revamped Achievement system. This is mainly due to the fact that now we have access to Steam systems. We are striving to make the game as compatible with Steam as we can. This, however, does not mean that non-Steam players will lack anything. All achievements are available in off-line mode as well.

Our upgraded Achievements panel had three categories with 7 achievements in each category. After these new upgrades we have implemented over 20 achievement categories with more than 142 different achievements. We hope this will make better playing experience for all our players.

Some of these achievements are quite easy to complete and some are really difficult. Some of them even require that you play the game multiple times.

We'd like to hear in comments section about experiences that you had with Steam achievements (particularly with single player RPGs).

And on the beta:

Yet another unexpected and important job is in front of us; Many backers requested the game through GoG and we were already in discussions with them about releasing Legends of Dawn on their platform. However they request that the game should be playable 100% in off-line mode. Legends of Dawn isn't online game however we built it in a such a way that the game requests an IP so the computer has to be connected to router when starting the game. Afterwards the connection isn't needed however this is a limitation that they do not want so as soon as we test the achievement system we'll work on that.

Originally we planned to release the beta as soon as we test all VOs, however expansion of the achievement system and planned work on GoG's request are core features that have to be a part of beta testing so we'll first do all that and then we'll have to learn how to publish the beta through Steam to a selected few testers.

The latest stage of the Voice Over activities for Legends of Dawn are provided by the devs, with some examples in a video.

Almost all VOs have been received and checked and are ready to be integrated in game. Here is a small sample of the work that the great people at Audiogodz did. We are very happy with results and we hope that in the future we'll be able to afford to add animated characters and cut scenes to complement such good voice acting.

Lani Minella has done great job by picking top voice actors and by directing them to such a level of performance. Although our budget was small compared to what they were accustomed to when recording sessions for RPGs from the big guys, she managed to get a team of 16 people on board for Legends of Dawn, most of whom had to give numerous voices to over 60 NPCs . We'd like to thank each of them, so thank you Lani, Claudia, Erin, Lauren, Adam, Barry, Bill, Dave, David, Eric, Gabriel, Marc, Sam, Stephanos, Terry and Tim.

They have also provided us with new emotes so all the old "uhhs", "ahhs", "ouches" etc. we'll be replaced with fresh and much better expressions.

This is it for now! We'll come back with the update on how the Steam integration is going on and even before that we will send backer survey where we'll ask you about the details such as your names for the credit section, shipping addresses etc.

Thanks to all who joined our forum and we hope many more we'll join. Thanks for actively showing your interest in Legends of Dawn and for spreading the buzz! Special thanks to all of you who are showing patience and understanding regarding release delays. 

An update for Legends of Dawn shows that the voices will be handled by Audiogodz, who apparently worked on some big titles.

Working with Audiogodz is a big step up from our original modest plans and we hope you'll appreciate it. Audiogodz worked on World of Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, RIFT, Skyrim, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, Torchlight, Sims, and more! We are humbled by being in a position to work with the best in the industry. You made all this possible. As we get and prepare the AV materials we'll post more extensive update about their work. However don't worry about the updates, we'll be working around the clock on this project; during our normal working hours on the game, and at night when, in the USA it is day time, we have to be available to assist Audiogodz with their VO sessions.

We were Greenlit at 26th February, however it took some time to go through their system and only today we've received access to the SDK which we'll start to study right away. It is always a possibility that Steam might have some unexpected requests for changes, however we do hope integration will go smoothly and the game will be approved quickly.

  As soon as the VO recordings are edited and integrated we'll probably ask a few selected backers to help us with beta testing. We don't have resources to follow up with too many of you so we'll try to select those who are experienced testers and can help us detect existing issues as opposed to overflowing us with new ideas and suggestions that may take us weeks or months to implement or hours just to respond to. If any of you feel you can and would like to help please feel free to send us an email thorough the Kickstarter.

Update #17 of Legends of Dawn brings us news that it has been Greenlit on Steam.

Dreamatrix's fantasy action RPG, Legends of Dawn, has been selected as one of many great titles to be included in the February 26, 2013, round of Greenlit games by Valve Software's Steam.

It's been a long road to this point, and while we were prepared to forge ahead if Legends of Dawn wasn't selected in this round, we couldn't be happier that the fans have given us their support and made it a reality! Thanks to Valve and Steam, we'll be able to offer the fans a great digital distribution choice, which we're very excited about!

The final steps are being taken to get Legends of Dawn to the public, which just boils down to finalizing the voiceovers and touch-ups at this point. Even though we're near the finish line, we're going full-steam (haha) ahead to get everything wrapped up and into the hands of the fans as quickly as we can.

We here at Dreamatrix want to thank all of those who voted once again; without your support, this wouldn't have been possible.

P.S. After several weeks of delay finally we received the funding. We have chosen VO recording studio one week after KS campaign ended however now those guys took some other bigger project and we are negotiating with other studios trying to find the fastest solution. We'll post an update for all when VO recording begins.

The Legends of Dawn devs bring us update number 15, which is about the Sarium Dungeon.

Sarium Outpost Dungeon! (Stretch Goal)

We just finished implementation of the Sarium Outpost dungeon! This dungeon was made due to the high Kickstarter support, so thank you all our supporters.

For all of you, this dungeon was made as an end point of one of the quests. You will have to find specific relic that used to be in the Sarium Outpost. That's small fort at the north of the map. Sarium Outpost was overrun by monsters and destroyed and relic used to be in it. Right now, relic is beneath the outpost, in the dungeon that used to be cellar that expands into natural caves. There was last stand where soldiers of the outpost withdrew beneath the outpost in hopes to defend against the monsters. You will encounter temporary barracks, priest's quarters, ancient mausoleum and more. Somewhere in the dark and real deep, where nobody goes, stands an ancient monument, with all the backer names.

The Legends of Dawn Kickstarter has closed with $47.6k from a $25k goal, meaning all three stretch goals were achieved, including the mod tools. Now the real work begins:

Ahead of us is a lot of work:

- choosing a team to do voice overs and integrating them and paying for licenses (primary goal)

- adding content of 3 stretch goals

- final testing, including testing the changes integrated as per your requests

- finding online place for you to download your files when we prepare them

- finding printing services for physical tiers; Collector’s boxes, DVDs, books etc.

- sorting your addresses and finding ways to send you stuff into many corners of the world

- preparing RPG toolset (Beta)

If any of you are experienced with this and would like to suggest good 3rd party services we'd appreciate it very much.

The most important work of all is we have to continue to build up LoD community and raise our chances on Greenlight. The target we reached here is sufficient to finish the game and to do stretch goals work. However we do have to sell the game in order to secure our existence and development of Legends of Dawn sequels. 

So please keep spreading the word and direct your friends to:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=115315981

www.dreamatrix.net 

As Legends of Dawn enters the last hours (18 to go as I type) Dreamatrix has kicked up two more updates. The first confirms passing the $40k stretch goal and offers some background on the soundtrack, while the latest is a combat video.

$43k down, so the mod tools stretch goal ($45k) looks a certainty.

An 11th update to this game's Kickstarter page has been posted by the people at Dreamatrix. They have now reached their 40,000 US dollars goal. You can see a new video featuring non-combat gameplay as well. A quote from the text then - about the Oracles Stone:

Oracle Stones

Oracle stones are ancient statues used to help druids of old to gather knowledge. You can use them to identify magical items. Magical items have icons with sparkles. You will only see the name of the item, but you will not know what that item does until you identify it. Identified items change their icon and then you will be able to fully use that items special abilities. Clicking on Oracle Stones identifies all items in your inventory. Be careful to remember the places where Oracle Stones are placed. They are very rare and hard to find.

The Legends of Dawn Kickstarter page has seen its 10th update. They are now at 35,000 US dollars and hope in the next 3 days to reach their 45,000 US dollars goal. Reaching the 45,000 US dollars goal means they will release a set of mod tools called the Dreamatrix Engine. Here's a quote:

Dreamatrix engine is complete RPG toolset. Using an intuitive node system, even those without prior programming experience can produce impressive results. The Creature Editor allows for the quick creation of AI objects, including non-player characters (NPCs), monsters and animals. Using this module we can assign various animations to AI states (including combat animations, death animations, idle animations, movement animations and more). It also allows us to link various sounds to each of these animations. Using this plugin you can edit creature stats, parts of the creatures which can be damaged, which spells and/or special attacks they use, scripts assigned to them after they die, spawning rates, etc.

The ninth update for Legends of Dawn at their Kickstarter page tells us that they have reached their first stretch goal of 30,000 US dollars. They also provide information of the rpg balance system. Here's a snip:

One question we were regularly asked is how all those systems will be balanced. There is no simple answer, however one thing we did not want to do is to manually tweak everything. That's simply impossible when you factor in how many different things our game is calculating at any given moment. That sword you are carrying is fine, but the damage caused to creature is not just the damage stat that sword carries, but also the damage bonus caused because of your exceptionally high strength score, the damage bonus from that stinky red potion you drank two minutes ago, the damage bonus from your one-handed swords skill you so patiently developed since you started playing, and the bonus you get when fighting elementals since your Elemental Lore skill is higher than average.

Two new updates for Legends of Dawn appeared yesterday. One about the stretch goals and mod tooling, and on on new tiers.
They are currently at $28K with 8 days to go, so the first stretch goal should not be too difficult to achieve.

Here are the new stretch goals. We'll keep listening to new suggestions during the KS campaign and we may change and add new tiers and goals based on your feedback.

$30.000
CHALLENGES - 10 dead swordfish scattered throughout the world of Narr will reveal the secret of the guardian - Xocotus
The first player who finds a dead swordfish and reports the found response sentence on dreamatrix forum will get raward. For example a free digital download of our next title.
Only one award per player.

BACKERS CHEST full of items on secret location

Only backers will get email with instructions how to open because the chest will have to be open not by click on it but rather on secret object.

BOOK ITEM for backers which will give you the opportunity to permanently increase the value of your ability scores

RUNES one magic rune, two chest unlocking rune and one bridge unlocking rune

$35.000
MAGICAL WEAPON (unidentified)

You will find that magical items have to be identified in oracle shrines in various locations throughout the world, to discover the item's unique properties.

RUINS Two building with rich rewards

$40.000
DUNGEON

With some unique items with systems of leveler players needs to turn on or off in order to get through. At the end will be special item rewords and monument with names of all KS backers

WATER MILLS

5 abandoned Elven water mills with rewards, scattered around

$45.000
DREAMATRIX MOD TOOLS - BETA
We believe offering moding tools is a crucial factor in helping our vision for the future LoD titles. Moding tools will give passionate players opportunity to add their content, ideas, do changes which may give everybody else new things to play with. It will also give us feedback what users want so it will help us make Legends of Dawn 2 much more better. The tools will be free and only for non commercial use in first phase.
Original stretch goal for the tools is 80k. We could save a lot if we release it without documentation and tutorials. We planned to make improvements to make it more user friendly and clear. We wanted to update several module to make them more powerful. However even without such refines / improvements it is very useful and powerful toolset. Since probably can't reach original stretch goal we are offering a compromise. Release of beta tools (for free) in it's rougher less polished form without the documentation and tutorials. Hopefully community will help us create those.
After the game is released you will be able to download all the tools used to create the game.

There's no update as yet but Legends of Dawn has passed their $25k goal and now they are working on refining their stretch goals:

During last 20 days we received several suggestions for the new stretch goals and tiers. Now would be a perfect moment to jump in with your ideas and wishes, regardless if they were already mentioned here.

In update number 6 of the Kickstarter Legends of Dawn (just $1K short of being funded) we are introduced to some of the non-combat parts of the game.

Maps

Maps panel shows the world of Narr and areas around Korden's Fall - village where players start the game. Maps panel takes care to display all locations that you have visited so far. It also shows different locations of interest such as inns, god shrines, entrances to dungeons and much more.

Wells 

During the travel you will find wells. You can refill your water skins in them. Drinking fresh spring water is good way to refill your faith. Beware however, water skins themselves are rare and wells even more so. Remember where they are, you will need them.

Dreamatrix has whipped up a new Kickstarter update for Legends of Dawn as they pass $20k of $25k with 13 days to go. This update focuses on crafting:

CRAFTING

Crafting is the part of the game that allows you to create your own items. There are 7 crafting skills you can use for crafting:

- armorsmithing

- cooking

- herbalism 

- jewelcrafting 

- leatherworking 

- metalworking 

- weaponsmithing

A fourth update can be found on this game's Kickstarter site.  They have now collected, via Kickstarter, nearly 16,000 US dollars, their goal is to collect 25,000 US dollars.

The pledge total has reached over 15.000$ which is 60% of the target amount and we now have 700+ backers which is amazing. We still have $10.000 to raise in the following 17 days, so please continue spreading the word.

They also tell about how the player advances:

Player advancement is represented with player levels. Each time player solves a puzzle, defeats opponent, finished quest etc. (s)he receives experience. After certain amount of experience is gained, player levels up. This is (almost) standard for RPG games. Players do not gain skill points through usage of specific skills but rather through redistribution of skill points that are gained after player levels up.

Two new updates are available for Legends of Dawn offering quite some new information. In update number 2, several questions that were brought forward are answered about DRM, saving, re-spawning, quest types and difficulty levels.

Game has multiple difficulty levels. You can play in easy, normal, hard or legendary mode. In easy mode creatures are less dangerous, but your level and skill cap is quite low. You can finish the game but you will not see many items or spells game has to offer. Normal difficulty is what we expect most of the players will use. Hard is for hardcore players only. Legendary is for masochists. Monsters are twice as dangerous, they respawn quicker, they are more aggressive, attack in hordes, items are more expensive and merchants are trying to rip you off with their prices. :) However maximum player level, maximum skill level, maximum spell and crafting levels are almost 50% higher than usual, chests and other itemholders contain more items and you can find and craft hundreds of new items (mostly magical items) not available in easy and normal gameplay modes.

The third update goes into the influence of difficulty level on game play.

Each difficulty level has different limits regarding max level cap, max skill levels, number of craftable items, number of items per itemholder, monster strength and so on. We thought about it and decided to test the following idea. Instead of changing existing difficulty levels and rules, we implemented fifth difficulty level - Custom.

Custom difficulty level allows you to configure various parameters before the game starts. This way you can configure game to run in easy mode but with all items enabled, or you can start the game in legendary mode but with lowered monster health, or any combination of 8 basic difficulty parameters you would like. Lead programmer had to throw quite a few special programming spells to the code to make it work without endangering the balance.

Dreamatrix has whipped up their first update for their Legends of Dawn Kickstarter, primarily discussing combat. Currently they are at $8.5k/$25k with 25 days to go, which looks like a good position, though one assumes the holidays will put some sort of dent into pledges.

Combat is mix of WoW and Diablo. Regular attacks work very similar to Diablo, you click on the monster and your player attacks it. One click per attack. There are cooldowns after each attack, but for most weapons they are very short, half a second or so. Only two-handed, big weapons and ranged weapons such as bows and arrows have noticeable cooldowns. Cooldowns for these weapons are introduced to compensate their increased damage and/or range. Cooldowns are also affected by player's skills, active spells, other effects such as monster auras etc.

 

Spells work more like WoW spells. Each time you click on the monster, that monster is selected. Click on the spell icon casts that spell toward the monster. This works for missile spells. There are other types of spells, for examples protection spells which work on player and do not require target, or ward spells which create magical wards on the ground beneath the caster.

Skills also play big role in the combat. There are separate skills for all major weapon groups which increase your chance to hit monster. Also, there are “Lore” skills which show how experienced you are to fight creature of specific type (undead, animals, spiders, reptiles etc.). You can use Bestiary panel to search database of creatures you have encountered. As you fight more creatures, you will get more information about them. For example, when you kill single spider, bestiary will show it's level, health and faith (equivalent to mana). However if you kill 50 spiders, bestiary will display spider's ability scores, resistance, attack/defense scores, damage and more.

I also asked them about the quest design in the comments and while it seems quests tend toward the typical action/RPG fare, there is some scope for more depth including factions and a reputation system:

Actually there are many non-combat quests in the game. There are many NPCs that will ask you to complete various quests such as those where you have to find items or carry items to another NPC, those that require you to find or explore specific locations, those where you need to talk with another NPCs etc. Some of these quests are in towns so there will be no combat in those quests, however there are some quests that require you to travel through wilderness or to go to locations that are filled with monsters. Even though those quests are non-combat in nature, it may still be required to kill few critters just to get where you have to.

Some of these quests can be finished in only one way (for example quest that requires you to find specific location). Other quests can be solved in multiple ways. For example, if quest requires you to bring herbs to NPC, you can solve that quest in more than one way. That includes finding the herbs in various chests (for example in dungeons), or you can use herbalism skill to collect plants in wilderness, or search warehouses in the city, you can buy herbs from NPC merchants or you can even try to solve some other quests that give you what you need as reward.

Each solved or failed quest modifies your reputation with factions. Reputation affects way NPCs act toward you. Reputation also modifies prices with merchants of that faction. It's worth mentioning that some quests require you to choose way to solve quest that will positively affect your reputation with one faction and negatively with another faction. Factions in the game are not always in peace with each other, so solving quest for one faction may reduce your reputation with other one. Generally speaking it is best to try to keep every faction as happy with you as possible.

Another type of quest (which is actually single game-wide long quest) is quest for artefact pieces. Dawn artefact is broken in many peaces and in order to finish the game you will have to find all of them. Pieces are scattered throughout the game and usually well guarded - both with monsters and with puzzles. Finding these pieces is also one of the 27 achievements player can solve. Achievements are divided in three categories - exploration, combat and crafting. Each of those three categories has nine different achievements. Solving specific achievement brings you additional experience.

Check the comments for more good information but, for example:

• Sys reqs
• DRM-free for Kickstarters
• Reasons for limited re-spawning
• No scaling
• Monsters have morale level

Dreamatrix has released a new trailer for their action/RPG, Legends of Dawn. A reminder on the game:

LEGENDS OF DAWN is an exciting Fantasy RPG Action Adventure set in Narr, a unique and open Fantasy world. More than a hundred intriguing locations like dark dungeons, mysterious monster camps and flying islands await discovery. Experience the world in a classic 3rd person point of view. Be blown away by the fantastic tale of treason and fear in LEGENDS OF DAWN.

Equip your character in one of the various cities and get new quests from any of the teeming NPCs. You will be forced to use creativity and innovative fighting styles to solve missions and survive. Mage or Knight will work together without class restrictions – it is up to you to combine your skills and create the perfect fighting style to defeat more than 150 different opponent types. But. . . be careful. Your enemies will change tactics (because of different weather conditions or the day & night cycle, for example). They guarantee continuous surprises. Solve more than 100 quests and get the answers to all secrets of the LEGENDS OF DAWN.

Walk your hero to avenge injustice – the fate of the world is up to you in Q3 2012.

I haven't been following this very closely but Dreamatrix posted a FAQ for Legends of Dawn last week - head over for a look.

Where do quests take me?

Each player that performs a quest will have a different experience. Two different players going on the same quest may not follow the same steps, because you can solve a quest in several different ways. NPCs often have something to say, or a quest to offer. The NPC will describe what you must do next and your Quest Log will be updated. You can check the status of your quests with the Quest Log.

GameBanshee followed up with Dreamatrix about Legends of Dawn for more information after the release of last week's teaser trailer. Here's a snip from the response they received:

There will be top-down perspective camera in the game. It can be freely rotated around the main hero and you can zoom in and out. This is not a pure hack'n slash game, but [it has] a lot of similar elements. At this moment, we cannot afford an expensive production and fancy advertising, but the ideas within our work already distinguishes it from others significantly.

We are open and willing to try and include new ideas. We invite your readers to join our forum to present and discuss their ideas and whatever they would like to see us include in the game. Legends Of Dawn will be a trilogy, the next two sequels are already in the works and it would be exciting to see some suggestions included in them to an extent.

Bluesnews points out a teaser trailer for Legends of Dawn, an "action & adventure RPG" I can't recall seeing previously from Dreamatrix (Spaceforce Rogue Universe). The ~40 second video is half logo and half CGI (?), so don't expect too much. Looking at the official site doesn't reveal much because despite quite a bit of descriptive text, there's almost no detail on the basic gameplay although it it described as having no loading screens and "players are free to move in this non linear world, in any direction they choose".

Looking around the 'net, it appears to be have been announced back in 2008 by Croation developer Provox, according to IGN, who have presumably since been acquired by Dreamatrix.