Drakensang Online - Trailer, Tidbits

We won't be following Drakensang Online in any depth but Alrik sends in some links, which will serve to farewell the subject unless something dramatic happens. These are all German, obviously.
GameStar has a short article and the first (?) gameplay footage, revealing a what looks like a rather Diablo-esque hack'n'slasher. There's another short article at Buffed and another Demonews.
More information.

What a pity. I wonder how the developers themselves feel about this? Happy to still have a job, I'm sure, but apart from that?

Ugh, it looks like a more realistic Torchlight.

And I don't like Torchlight.

German reactions I've read this far are similar to yours.

Yeah I can see why RPGWatch is dropping coverage on this title. Yegh…

Am I reading this right? It's not even using the DSA license? I did not know that.

An online hack & slash? NO DSA license? What's the point?

Sad.

My condolences to all the devs that put their hearts into making Drakensang but are stuck making this schlock now.

I think this will be one of the last news covering the Drakensang license - except translated games, of course.

Since RPGWatch doesn't cover online games that much, I don't see much in covering that, either.

But - when sending the news in, I wanted everyone to learn what has become of this series.

I'm wondering if this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. It doesn't use the TDE/DSA license, I assume, but Drakensang was set in a TDE/DSA setting, and I don't think I've heard anything about Chromatix being involved.

Surely there's something about them using the name in bad faith or false pretences? I know Bethesda tried something similar in court in regards to the Fallout Trilogy pack (FO1, 2 and Tactics), as they claimed the name could imply that it contains FO1-3. If you apply that to this, one could claim the use of Drakensang, and the logo, would imply that it's a TDE/DSA product.

Originally Posted by Dwagginz
I'm wondering if this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. It doesn't use the TDE/DSA license, I assume, but Drakensang was set in a TDE/DSA setting, and I don't think I've heard anything about Chromatix being involved.

Surely there's something about them using the name in bad faith or false pretences? I know Bethesda tried something similar in court in regards to the Fallout Trilogy pack (FO1, 2 and Tactics), as they claimed the name could imply that it contains FO1-3. If you apply that to this, one could claim the use of Drakensang, and the logo, would imply that it's a TDE/DSA product.

No not going to happen. The name Drakensang and the logo was owned by Radon Labs and is now owned by Bigpoint. It's actually the only asset Bigpoint bought from the now defunct Radon Labs. Aside hiring about a third of the talent, including the owners. The name has nothing to do with TDE, really, as it always was an "international sounding" (still wtf?) variant of Drachensang (the TDE name of the titular summit from Drakensang).

:sigh: Well, I guess it will have to come down to some sort of fan project and/or some sort of barely OGL equivalent(I've said it once and I will say it again: The likes of Incursion should serve as something of a template to get many P&P systems finally "out there" in a proper'ish videogame form) release so as to stave off any legal doings as far as any substantial future games to come.

Well, both Drakensang games can be modded to some extend, actually (example : "Der Stumme Alrik", a new NPC who sells material and is a minor quest-giver, has nothing to do with me ), but not so far that whole new modules can be built with it.

Yes, and I remember hearing of various improvement/tweak mods to the first game---honestly the second game needs to make it out in English, in fine form, while hopefully being more…overtly…moddable compared to the first, and then somehow attract an enthusiast group along the lines of Circle of 8 in regards to Temple of Elemental Evil. Beyond something roughly like that happening, it'll have to be an effort from scratch unless the projects listed in the HardcoregGaming101 article from awhile back on the franchise on the whole decided to come back to life…as I believe one of them was aiming for a NWN-like situation.

There is already quite an active modding-community, as far as I can see.
But since I don't look into it, I can't say much about it.
There's also some sort of things to be "restored" that idn't make it into the final game, perhaps a some kind of bonus for the moders ?
One example of that is a kind of gigantic chain-saw in Drakensang 1, not gas-powered, but rather consisting of wood with a chain on it, as it looked to me from the pictures I saw.

Originally Posted by noctrun
No not going to happen. The name Drakensang and the logo was owned by Radon Labs and is now owned by Bigpoint. It's actually the only asset Bigpoint bought from the now defunct Radon Labs. Aside hiring about a third of the talent, including the owners. The name has nothing to do with TDE, really, as it always was an "international sounding" (still wtf?) variant of Drachensang (the TDE name of the titular summit from Drakensang).

I see, I see. I was just wondering as there's a number of Das Schwarze Auge releases related to Drakensang, even going as far to use the logo.

Yes, books and aventures, but not video games - except the browser games.
http://www.tde-games.com/