Arcania - Demo Released

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Plenty of demos are tweaked to give a certain experience. It's very normal to make the demo more accessible, to make the game sell better to a larger audience.

Some things are rare, though, and I don't recall developers ever removing monster AI abilities for a demo.

With that said, I feel reasonably sure that item placement and what not, will be changed upon release.

But, we simply have no idea until it's released or developers comment on complaints.

That said, I find it absolutely unbelievable that the bow will be this powerful in the actual game. It would mean a 100% broken combat system that a dog with a keyboard would report, as a beta tester.

If they're smart, they'll use feedback to adjust the first patch for the release version. Stranger things have happened

I wasnt too impressed at the start of the demo. The graphics are decent, but one thing that bothered me was the shadows of the trees, ect were "skipping" across the screen. I doubt its my system, I have a pretty decent rig and eveything else seemed ok.

I really started to like it however when the game moved to the dungeon. Im looking forward to it. I wonder how the console version will look. I hate to say it, but maybe it will work/look better on the consoles…

I assume the cool armor you got near the end was just a demo thing, to show graphics, cause running in plate armor after just first chapter would be stupid. I like to see how my character rises in power.[/QUOTE]


Overall, I wasnt too impressed with the demo. Especially considering all the attention it has been generating. To me Risen has it beat. I supose we should wait for the final product. Maybe the demo was just showing different aspects of the game. I thought it was way too early for me to get the special weapons and armor that I did. It took the fun out of it a little…

I bet you'll see the "epic loot" quite early on, it's exactly what the ADHD kiddies, that the game is obviously designed for, wants.

Does this one include the ability to carry 87 shovels, six sets of metal armor, 14 swords, assorted maces, daggers, potions and enough crafting items to assemble a two-family house all at the same time?

This demo was horrible. I hated the cartoon-looking art style, and the graphics are not good, sorry but I disagree with most on this point. The only good part was the water in terms of visuals. All the negative things others said are true. Terrible voice acting and script. No atmosphere at all, just a generic boring world. Feels like a game intended for 12 year olds or something. Could only stand to play for 15 minutes and then uninstalled it. I have no patience for a game that gives this kind of impression.

Glad they put out a demo so I could see how awful the game is so I would not make the mistake of buying it.

Demo is out on the 360, for anyone who's a console boy. Probably on the PS3, too, though I don't know.

Okay, I've tried it myself now.

My "gaming machine" hs a "GeForce 9600 GT"-based card with 512 MB VRAM, but I had to turn a few things, down, to a medium setting. Not many, but especially the shadows. But I think that's something nearly every game has : Shadows as resource-killers.
My "game machine" also has a core duo CPU with 2 cores (?), at 3 GHz.

The game as such was good playable, and it lokked even a tiny bit less good than on the Games Com. The hands actually don't look that much like tiny branches anymore.

Interesting was the switch to and fro both graphic sets. Has anyone tried this, too ? What do you think about it ?

I think this would be a great question for this site's polls.
If the RPGWatch staff doesn't do it, then I'll try it myself. Because I'm really interested in what others think about it, especially international gamers.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Interesting was the switch to and fro both graphic sets. Has anyone tried this, too ? What do you think about it ?

Seriously, doesn't people know there's a setting for saturation in the video settings, or on your TV's remote (shouldnt take you more than 5 seconds to change back/forth).

When i first heard about the feature i thought it was kind of nice because i was expecting different bloom or other shader settings as well as saturation, but all it does it change the saturation.

But whatever, its there and it doesnt do much harm except maybe pissing off a few americans - i mean why didnt they put in random rainbows everywhere and pink horses while they were at it for the American setting

The Canadian witch means it's an instant buy for me!

I found this in settings:
<Attribute name="difficulty" type="ulong" value="1" />

But I do not know if it does anything if you change it. It does not appear to change any of the menu tick-boxes - perhaps difficulty is disabled?.

There does not appear to be vegetation settings in the video config.

Not decided. I like the movement when you are burdened by armour.
Was not so keen on caves myself.

AI was questionable on spell-casters and others.

Might just wait for some reviews TBH, the demo left me in two minds!

I actually liked the demo.

It isn't Gothic by a long shot, but then I wasn't expecting that and I have Risen. So as a stand alone game Arcania is quite finde (at least the demo).
The question (and at least for me the most important point) is the story and the gameplay (open exploration, good quests, etc) after the tutorial/demo. If it's good it'll make a fine game, if it isn't the whole game will suck.

Ah, I'll probably buy it unless my trusted review sources tell me it's a complete mess later on.

By the way I'll like it that they actually release a demo before the release of the game.

Originally Posted by Chekote
The Canadian witch means it's an instant buy for me!

DreamCatcher is from Canada, I think. Maybe their producer was female.

OK, how do you kill those little bugs for the witch? I run out of mana quickly and they regenerate health faster than I do mana. That lightning spell does very little damage, or am I missing something.

Originally Posted by Corwin
OK, how do you kill those little bugs for the witch? I run out of mana quickly and they regenerate health faster than I do mana. That lightning spell does very little damage, or am I missing something.

When you stun with the spell they get out of their shell and you can do damage, so you switch between the spell and some other weapon..

Originally Posted by bemushroomed
I bet you'll see the "epic loot" quite early on, it's exactly what the ADHD kiddies, that the game is obviously designed for, wants.

That'd be, well, "epic fail".

It seems they kind of got away from Gothic. Well, no, the atmosphere is still Gothic, but with the magic "you can not pass!" things like the bridge and locked door, they're kind of missing some of the open-worldness of Gothic (not that Gothic did not do this, but only between major areas). It seems quite a bit more boxed in.

But to miss the great rewards of Gothic in offering slow progression in items by careful exploration…eh? By the end of the demo you have a magic hammer, amulet and plate armor. I really hope that's just for the demo's sake. I can't sweat profusely for an hour carefully poking at an orc to get at the chest behind him, in a moment of glorious victory, then I'm not playing a Gothic tale. Handling golems by level 3 is retarded.

The writing is just atrocious, but at least I can hope for improvement on open-world design/loot progression beyond the demo. The combat and writing? Not so much.

The voice acting is just comedic value.

Only, well, memorably moment was when I beat up a bunch of sheep to kick off the game, and then when I meet my mom in town she's all "oh my god what happened?" and I'm all "It's just sheep, it's ok" and she's all "oh not again! You're supposed to tend them, not slaughter them"
Homocidal sheep-killing PC ahoy!

I finally finished the demo. I agree with others one the cave encounters and loots, really felt like a "this is a demo of things to come" or something.

Make me think of Fallen Earth tutorial area, you start at max level and then something happen end you are back at level 1 to play the real game.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Interesting was the switch to and fro both graphic sets. Has anyone tried this, too ? What do you think about it ?

I played with the European settings, didn't think of looking at the difference. I will check it out.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
Does this one include the ability to carry 87 shovels, six sets of metal armor, 14 swords, assorted maces, daggers, potions and enough crafting items to assemble a two-family house all at the same time?

thats funny that you mentioned that, because I almost forgot about that one after playing. yeah, there doesnt seem to be any kind of weight limit, which I feel kills some rpg feeling to me.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
No atmosphere at all, just a generic boring world. Feels like a game intended for 12 year olds or something.

That was largely my impression, as well. It seems the game is perhaps designed for a larger, less "hardcore" CRPG audience than the previous Gothic games. And it makes sense from what I've read; apparently Jowood studios is banking a lot on this game:

http://corporate.jowood.com/content/view/215/1/lang,en/

I'm pretty disappointed in the direction that the studio has chosen to take the Gothic series, based on this demo.

I wanted to just wander around a bit, apparently came too close to an exclamation mark and got a forced dialogue.

No sale, for me.

But that's OK, I'll be busy with Fallout: New Vegas.

Has there ever been a weight limit in a Gothic game? Games do run together but I think I remember being a human vacuum cleaner in all of them, especially early on.

It's pretty obvious the demo was switching into "fast forward" mode at the end. The Canadian Witch suddenly stopped following you after the Queen and you get a box full of goodies. Then you're suddenly seeing mid-level monsters. Then more loot. Then the whole cave suddenly changes. Then undead. It looks to me like, after the queen, they, removed the exit and spliced in two other dungeons with massively scaled-down enemies.

I strongly suspect all the heal potions and piles of arrows were put in for demo purposes.

Anyway, my own impressions….

I liked it quite a lot. The graphics were pretty impressive, IMHO. The sky was dull (they need to take a clue from Risen's sunsets) and some of the popout/popin was odd but the overall effect was great. Stereoscopic 3D was not even close, just as Nvidia said, which is a real pity.

I did feel pretty hemmed in, but no more than in Risen's demo.

Combat seemed good to me. I liked the archery - particularly the fact that I could miss easily. I do have to wonder what's with this extra-strong attacks the critters make, though. They were terribly slow. If that's going to be a constant of the game, they are going to need to mob us with a lot of critters, because those attacks are so slow that I could simply walk out of the way.

Acting varied from OK to "PLEASE PLEASE STOP, Eh!!! AAAAARRGGHH, Eh!!!!"

I never did figure out how to level up so I've got no idea what the skill system is supposed to be like.

All in all, it's looking fairly good to me. Definitely worth buying. Whether I'll play it before or after Two Worlds… that will be a tougher question.