Very interesting. I get a contradictory story from the Codexers.

The Codexers don't like Drakensang, for whatever reason. Maybe their sunglasses aren't strong enough for the game's graphics. ;)

Radon Labs indeed cut out 75% of the DSA system. But the rest is still quite a lot. Some of the skills are certainly underused. That's no surprise for a dev's first RPG.

You need is patience, though. The game gets better and better with increasing complexity. As always things start really simple. ;) Or more directly: The start ( = the demo) is the game's slowest and most undemanding part.

LOL! Plus it's not turn-based. ;)

As an aside, anything requiring patience seems to be under-appreciated in that crowd.

I tend to agree. Maybe THQ had some prejucides against German RPGs, cynically said.

But I assume they rather wanted fast cash, instead of anything else. Apart from cash, they didn't care about it.

In some details, they even changed the rule system. The way wounds are "produced" doesn't seem to be taken from the P&P rule system … At least not the way I heard about it, but I must admit that I'm not that deep into the whole system.

But the greatest change - imho - is the recuperation. The way of Drakensang how to get life points and magic points back isn't in the system at all, it's Radon Labs' invention.

There are a few more changes I heard about, but I'm not that deep into the rules so I can't really tell for sure.

Character development is the best thing about the game. It's a complex system, even after finishing the game there were things I didn't fully understand (like the parry/dodge multiattack thing), and yes, there are a few things that don't make a difference. Specially some skills that don't need to be raised part a certain point. (Just seems like there are too many skill points per level so you can max a bunch of them instead of specialize).
I loved the game, can't wait for the prequel.

$30 is stil a bit too steep for me. I've got a huge blacklog of older games to plays still. Just getting through the Forgotten Realms Collection silverbox will take months. ;)

$30 for ~60+ hours of gameplay, plus solid replayability based on the varied character development system? So what would a game like Modern Warfare 2, with a 6 hour campaign and no inherent replayability outside of multiplayer, be worth … $0.02? ;)

That's about right, since I have no desire to play it. ;)

Some context. I rarely buy a game a soon as it is released. It's not only not cost effective, but I don't like to beta-test and wait for patches, and I rarely have a state of the art PC to take advantage of all the latest whizbang graphic features.

Recent exception was Geneforge 5 because I knew there was no advantage to waiting very long after the first patch.

I'm also usually waiting. Since I'm not that wealthy I'm usually waiting for budged versions of the games.

Me buying a full-price game is most unusual and in my case a deed of appreciation of the game. I just can't afford full-price games.

Plus, lower-priced collector's editions of the "Gold Version" kind of games usually combine all patches - and in rare cases a few bonuses.

There is also a way to speed up the character movement considerably. You need an SQLite Database Browser for this, though. Works like a charm and helps a lot if you have to run back and forth across the same map all the time.

I never understood what people have against the speed. Why must everything be so fast nowadays ? In my case, I was very much enjoying the landscape meanwhile running. The only place where i found all the running too much was before the first castle (forgot its name), but even around Tallon I could very much enjoy the landscape.

Sounds stupid isn't it ? ;) :D

Totally agree. With Gothic 3, I had to stop and enjoy the view a several times. I actually told my wife to see how beautiful the river looks in Silden. :D

The point where it got a bit much for me were the Blood Mountains. I had to go back and forth on that map all the time. Additionally, I had some troubles finding the last bandit camp, and as, by that point, I knew every flower on the main map area by first name, I wanted to get forward. The map looked nice, but enough is enough.

Yes, it sounds stupid. ;)

*I* want to have the choice. If I want to do sight seeing *I* set the speed to walking instead of running. Having the default set to snail speed is not acceptable.

Absolutely agree - recently played a DS game (Black Sigil) that had fast/slow travel in town but only terribly slow speed on the overland map … very frustrating …

For me, the default running speed of Divinity 2 is too fast - now when I say in a forum that I let my character almost only walking in towns, people will very likely call me stupid, because I 1. I refuse to use the running speed in towns (just looks unrealistic to me (I'm *not* running towards the next shop to buy my newspaper in real life !) and 2. because I decide to "slow the game down" at all.

No matter what I do, I'm lost, because I'm not doing what the majority does.

Really? I'm a little gullible when it comes to people joking around, but you really switch your character to walking speed in towns for the duration of the whole game? Not just this one?

I wouldn't call that stupid, but you sure are more hardcore than I am. I wouldn't have the patience or time to do that. If you have the time and don't mind walking around everywhere in a town then I guess it sorta makes sense. You'll definatly be playing the game longer than I would.

But that is like salt and food - if there are two speeds, you can choose the slow one and someone else can choose the fast speed. But if the fast speed *is* too slow … you are out of luck. Make sense?

I'm currently doing that in Divinity 2 as well. Of course, *sometimes* I switchtowards running speed in towns again, but especially in Drakensang everything looks just so beautiful for my eyes that I don't have the desire to turn running speed on - at least not in towns. :)