Impressions after ca. 20 hours

A cross posting from Qt3:

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No word on an English version yet(**). The German version is almost finished though. Even the preview version early last month was already in very good shape.

The River of Time is basically a huge add-on with dozens of tweaks. The most prominent:
- full voice-overs (the German voice actors are excellent)
- quick travel & a house boat following you & level design with more short cuts. -> much, much less walking
- 3 difficulty levels
- better cut scenes
- better storytelling
- more compact content (marketing says 150% content compared to Drakensang squeezed into ca 40 hours) *Of course this is a point I couldn't verify in the preview version*
- much better start
- more character generation options
- more party interaction, more choices
- more detailed world sim (still by far not Gothic level, but little details here and there do make a difference)

The graphics are still the same. Just some more polishing and a couple of nice new f/x, so they look better and still have the same low system requirements. Certainly not Crysis, but still quite pleasing to the eye at FullHD.

Conclusion after 20 hours:
It shows that the developers have one RPG more experience under their belt. There's a better flow and much less idle time. The game mechanics are still the same, but the way they are used is more advanced. The integration of the superb The Dark Eye system seems a bit improved to me. Especially secondary skills are used more often in dialogs. Storytelling is much better now, and the story involves pirates, which is of course a plus. Fun game so far, although the main complaints about Drakensang (old fashioned, rather slow pace, too nice, only standard RTwP combat) are still valid.


(**)
edit:
Publisher dtp is officially happy about Drakensang's international sales numbers and the way both audience and reviewers received the game. So there will certainly be international versions sooner or later.

Sounds fantastic. Thank you for the post

That's not a houseboat - it's much cooler

I can agree to all that Gorath writes here.

It's still not a houseboat

can't wait. Is there any more variety for spell content? Choices there seemed a bit light to me. I loved it though.

The Geode has a few more and new spells - apart from that I cannot tell, because I just don't know about the spells there.

I'm playing this now and very much enjoying it so far. Gorath's comments up there seem spot on to me. I'm not really a fan of stats based p&p-style approaches, but I like this one - it seems nicely consistent. The story seems well-delivered as well. Definitely worth checking out at its weirdly low price. I'd say the technology is a bit better than Dragon Age, i.e. the other vaguely recent party-based fantasy game, but the writing's probably not as good.

Recommended!

Originally Posted by Alistair
at its weirdly low price

The cynical self in me says that this low price is based on prejudices against European games.

Am I correct in thinking to use any special ability, I have to select it myself and then select the target as well? There is no skill-selection by the characters, and they need to be told the target every time?

Originally Posted by Alistair
Am I correct in thinking to use any special ability, I have to select it myself and then select the target as well? There is no skill-selection by the characters, and they need to be told the target every time?

I think that's correct. That's how I like it for the way I play, I don't like to allow the computer to decide my characters' actions even when that is configurable such as in Baldur's Gate. For both games I pause a whole lot to give orders except in easy combat situations.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The cynical self in me says that this low price is based on prejudices against European games.

Its not cynical if it was true. The fact is the game was already more than a year old.You don't sell it at full price as it would be bad marketing.

Originally Posted by NFLed
I think that's correct. That's how I like it for the way I play, I don't like to allow the computer to decide my characters' actions even when that is configurable such as in Baldur's Gate. For both games I pause a whole lot to give orders except in easy combat situations.

I'd prefer some intelligence about using special powers, otherwise things get pretty repetitive. Mighty Blow again then Forgrimm… like the last 200 times. But inparticular, I don't see why I have to target the special ability, rather than have it used against the current target by default… I half remembered that's how the first game did it, but it doesn't seem to be true here.

I think, you are expecting too much. Radon Labs never were a company with the rssources of Bioware or Black Ile … They were never able to develop something sophisticated like that, it seems to me.

Me, as a fan boy , I'm just content with what I have, and that's enough for me, especially since we won't get it any better since Radon Labs is gone.

And - I like turn-based combat …

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
I think, you are expecting too much. Radon Labs never were a company with the rssources of Bioware or Black Ile … They were never able to develop something sophisticated like that, it seems to me.

Me, as a fan boy , I'm just content with what I have, and that's enough for me, especially since we won't get it any better since Radon Labs is gone.

And - I like turn-based combat …

There still around but will be making browser based games from now on.

I do know. I've been following the development around Radon Labs' "demise" quite closely …

Seems to me that the engine would be a good buy for someone, and even some of the art assets?

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
There still around but will be making browser based games from now on.

Almost.
The Radon Labs GmbH was liquidated. The team was hired by Bigpoint and integrated into Bigpoint Berlin.

Originally Posted by Alistair
Seems to me that the engine would be a good buy for someone, and even some of the art assets?

I suppose the technology was the main reason Bigpoint made them an offer. The Drakensang Online interview revealed that one of their first tasks as Bigpoint Berlin was to make the Nebula Engine work inside a browser with the help of some experts from their new employer. Official word is that it's indeed the same engine, and it took them 4 weeks. No idea if this is really the truth.

The assets would of course also have been interesting for Bigpoint if they wanted to make a Drakensang Online hack & slash game. It's unclear though if they were locked into the DraSa: TRoT project.

Just uninstalled this - really quite sad not to be hanging out on the river with my friends any more

Anyone know if Philaesson's Secret was standlaone - or would I need a German River of Time?

You need the main game, as far as I know.
I know nothing about international releases - apart from a Spanish-language one which was briefly here in the news.

I'm in the 3rd / 4th run-through of this game - a female Elementarist and an Amazon more or less at the same time.

Since this is the very first time for me to play an entirely magics-related character, this feels kind of "new" to me.