Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager - The Greatest Forgotten RPG

[Dhruin]

Here's a nostalgic change of pace. Digitally Downloaded sends in this piece titled The Greatest Forgotten RPG: Dark Sun - Wake of the Ravager.

Looking at the list of some of the greats, it could almost be a ‘best of’ list; there’s Death Knights of Krynn, Eye of the Beholder, Menzoberranzan, Pool of Radiance and the Ravenloft horror RPGs, Strahd’s Possession and Stone Prophet. These games were universally capable of bringing Dungeons and Dragons fans into their favourite game worlds at a time where the value of Dungeons and Dragons was peaking, and there were more game worlds then people were capable of following.
But the best of them is the lost-to-history Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager. It was a supremely detailed game that encouraged exploration and consequence before the likes of Baldur’s Gate had even been thought of. As such it was also endlessly replayable, and as it was set in a game world that goes against the grain for modern fantasy, it remains, even now, reasonably unique.

More information.

 

[Selerious]

Still have this game, was I think the first game I ever bought that was on CD's. Sadly, the 2nd game was so full of bugs as to be almost unplayable.

 

[Zloth]

I've never even heard of that one. From the looks of the graphics, I might have been on the old Atari ST back then.

As for the greatest forgotten RPG that I haven't forgotten... the Eamon Adventures.

 

[Pessimeister]

Overall, I preferred Shattered Lands from memory, for aesthetics and story.
But Wake of the Ravager had the more high level combat...and featured the dreaded Tarrasque. (IIRC, it took up nearly half of my monitor at the time!)

If people have played Knights of the Chalice but not Shattered Lands or Wake of the Ravager, they really owe it to themselves to check out both the Dark Sun's if only to see the engine derivation and other similarities. Plus the combat, story and setting is really top notch and provides good challenges.

The last fight in Shattered Lands for instance is one my most memorably difficult in cRPG history...but everyone's choice and experiences will obviously differ.

 

[guenthar]

I loved Wake of the Ravager and it probably would have been my most favorite D&D based games if it wasn't for not being able to complete the game because of a bug. When I go through the mirror to the temple and come back through the mirror the screen turns black and I can't continue.

 

[Lord_Brownie]

My wife and I both loved this game. Turn based, fantasy combat was good fun..but I don't remember much about the story other than the starting out part which was nice.
LB

 

[HiddenX]

Both Dark Sun games are classics!

 

[bjon045]

Shattered Lands has superior graphics and is better balanced and sticks to the setting better - in WotR metal weapons are everywhere and the environment is far too lush and magical. And for some reason WotR decides to bump the difficulty (without telling the user) to maximum if you decide to import your party. Both are very buggy but the bugs are not too severe as long as you maintain a lot of saves.

 

[Corwin]

A patch was issued (on a floppy disk) for the mirror bug in Ravager which I got and used. Great game, but it would need someone like GoG (hint,hint) to make it playable today in all likelihood.

 

[guenthar]

I was never able to get the patch and I got a (supposed) newer version later on that still had the mirror bug. (I think the newer version was in a collection that I bought)

 

[zakhal]

I bought both of them few years ago but Im planning to finish the gold box games first. So far Im stuck at curse of azure bonds for third year in row.

 

[drum]

Hmmm, is it that much 'forgotten'? In my colledge days it was still widely played while Baldur's Gate sequel was on its way, as well as X-COM, these 2 were like enduring classics. Ultima 7, which was released in the 1st half of 90s as well, was more 'forgotten' for us at the time.

 

[ManWhoJaped]

I always wondered why there were never more games in this series. After all gold box series got like 20 games and it couldn't have been that much more effort to make these. Geez this article sickens me. Concepts like armor class going DOWN being better were hard to wrap your head around. OH NO TEH IMPOSSIBLE COMPLEXITY OF A GAME SYSTEM MILLIONS OF PEOPLE HAVE PLAYED.

 

[guenthar]

The 3rd game in the series was an online game but then after that is when they went under.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Death Knights of Krynn, Eye of the Beholder, Menzoberranzan, Pool of Radiance and the Ravenloft horror RPGs, Strahd’s Possession and Stone Prophet.

Strange enumeration to highlight D&D's best.
DKoK is by far the worst Krynn game. Unimaginative and repetetive.
Menzoberranzan is under its (nowadays also ugly surface) an uninspired hack'n slay.
I always considered the Ravenloft series the weakest of all SSI D&D games.

Why not talk about Pools of Darkness? The first Krynn game? Or maybe (gasp) Buck Rogers? The stability of DQoK is shaky, but it much better than most of the games mentioned above...

 

[Zerotown]

Why not talk about Pools of Darkness? The first Krynn game? Or maybe (gasp) Buck Rogers? The stability of DQoK is shaky, but it much better than most of the games mentioned above…

I agree. The titles mentioned above were great, along with the Dark Sun games. Still, my set of values might be slightly off, since I had a resonably good time with titles like 'Descent to Undermountain' as well. I often try to see the potential underneath them.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Never saw this game. I'm too young for it ...

 

[guenthar]

You can't be too young for this since it is never too early to start playing rpgs. My first jrpg was at 6 and my first crpg was at 7. The only reason why those weren't earlier because I didn't have a console till I was 5 and a computer at 7.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Well, I rather meant that I came to gaming fairly late - in the mid-to-late 90s.
I really missed quite a lot of games then.

 

[skavenhorde]

I'll repeat what I said over at the Codex

*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE* DARKSUN!!!!!

God that felt good

I loved both Darksun games even with their lovely bugs. They weren't a game killer for me and the world was chock full of Darksun fun.

Darksun was one of the few P&P games I got to play more than a few times and had a blast as a preserver. They were a pain in the butt to play sometimes, but they were made much more interesting by how you drew your magic and how people would react to you once they learned you were a preserver. Had a pretty good DM back as well who made the game much more interesting than any old Forgotten Realms game.

There are novels being written for Darksun as well as a new home in the current version of D&D. I hope they also plan to make another computer game as well. I won't hold my breath, but who knows it could happen.