Soul of War - Released

Originally Posted by Winterfart
I don't really know, I read some posts around here that talked about it.

I hope that's the case, that would be cool. Ripper has an elegant and fun writting style.

Yeah that'd be cool. I don't know if he knows how to code but seems very knowledgeable about tech in general.

Our on again off again member DArt is possibly working on a game or at least thinking about it, last we heard.

That would be cool too, but potentially slightly less cool because Dart likes MMOs

Confirmed - it is an Ellis production-ware - they mention on their web site their designer John Wilson which is the name used by this company and detected by the Codex:

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph…thread.112724/

The Codex guys are useful after all!

Our in-house detectives strike again, well done folks!! Like others have said I might pick this one up if it shows up on gog or steam, and if the comments here are favourable. The back-log problem is real!

Can someone explain what Ellis productions are and why it is a problem? This looked interesting to me as a game but I am not going to buy unless I know more

Never mind I didn’t realize there was a link to follow up above

Sadly the developer has some skills. If you look at the videos of the various games they have put up for sale here, you can see first person games in a might and magic style, classical jrpg combat, and implementation of D&D rules. Unfortunately with their past lies, buggy games, and incorporating abandonware without permission into their products, they have ruined their credibility to such a degree that even if they were actually selling fun and complete game that they would have problems finding an audience for it.

Weren't there also credible accusations of them stealing assets from other games (and even reselling other developer's freeware games under a new name)? Just watching the videos for "Soul of War" it seems some icons and music was taken right out of NWN.

The main reason I didn't immediately bite was that these games scream of 'Too Good To Be True'. Someone's just quietly made 2 hundred hour games perfectly utilising D&D mechanics and no-one's played them and no-one's talking about them and no-one's even heard of their development?

UH-HUUUUUUUUUUUUH.

In the interest of seeing if their actual game coding skills have improved, I'm still going to try and play a little more of the game. Party games aren't my thing though, so not sure how much time I'll invest. I've seen a bunch of Ellis' work and they typically make the first 10% of the game and then it falls apart after the first couple areas.

I'll be quite curious to see what 'nut has to say about this one, and his analysis of their past work seems to match up from what I recall reading a while back. There's likely more than one reason this product isn't available on either steam or GoG!

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I'll be quite curious to see what 'nut has to say about this one, and his analysis of their past work seems to match up from what I recall reading a while back. There's likely more than one reason this product isn't available on either steam or GoG!

They did try to put one of their games on Steam once, and before they had a chance to release it, Steam withdrew it because a number of people alerted them to the developer's past behavior. On the one hand I feel sorry for the developer, because as I said, they seem to have some talent and a passion for creating games (you would think they would have given up by now), but on the other hand they got themselves into the mess by lying about stealing assets and by continuously presenting themselves as different people/companies.

That said, I am also curious about what CRPGNUT has to say. If it turns out to be a good, non-buggy, complete game, I might be willing to give it a try.

Well, it's a buggy mess. Combat is clunky, the mouse cursor doesn't work right, Full screen is anything but and the game just feels amateurish. It is fun rolling up AD&D characters, but every single character gets two cure light wound potions, leather armor, a short sword and a dagger. It doesn't matter if you're a sorcerer or a knight, you get the same kit. It's just skip-able and that's what I suggest.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
Unfortunately with their past lies, buggy games, and incorporating abandonware without permission into their products, they have ruined their credibility to such a degree that even if they were actually selling fun and complete game that they would have problems finding an audience for it.

First I was like "This game looks awesome, where does it come from? Why I haven't heard of it until now? Why is it not on Steam?". Now I know. Thanks for explaining.

Originally Posted by daveyd
Just watching the videos for "Soul of War" it seems some icons and music was taken right out of NWN.

I can confirm that they are indeed using NWN and ToEE music.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Well, it's a buggy mess.

Thanks for letting us know. Now we can evade the trap.

Originally Posted by SpoonFULL
Confirmed - it is an Ellis production-ware

Damn, it looked interesting, it has a certain… charm to it. Ah well, I'll pass.

Thanks for the update, 'nut, sounds like avoid-ware for me!! And so I shall.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
Sadly the developer has some skills. If you look at the videos of the various games they have put up for sale here, you can see first person games in a might and magic style, classical jrpg combat, and implementation of D&D rules. Unfortunately with their past lies, buggy games, and incorporating abandonware without permission into their products, they have ruined their credibility to such a degree that even if they were actually selling fun and complete game that they would have problems finding an audience for it.

One thing he can't seem to do is make something full screen. Maybe he's doing Windows Forms or something.

In the time its taken him to slap together crap over and over again with other peoples assets, he could have learned to make something decent and legitimate. But I don't think he's altogether there from his quotes on RPGWatch.

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
One thing he can't seem to do is make something full screen. Maybe he's doing Windows Forms or something.

In the time its taken him to slap together crap over and over again with other peoples assets, he could have learned to make something decent and legitimate. But I don't think he's altogether there from his quotes on RPGWatch.

Well actually finishing something decent and legitimate would take a lot of self-discipline. I've played around over 600 hours with RPGMaker, and finished a 4 hour game and two two hour games which I made for my daughter when she was 11-12 years old. (for every hour of finished game time, that was about 20 hours of programming and playtesting) and that was 3 finished projects of something like 10 actual attempts to make something. Its a lot more fun to start a game and design systems for it, than to actually finish, playtest, and find and remove bugs.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
Well actually finishing something decent and legitimate would take a lot of self-discipline. I've played around over 600 hours with RPGMaker, and finished a 4 hour game and two two hour games which I made for my daughter when she was 11-12 years old. (for every hour of finished game time, that was about 20 hours of programming and playtesting) and that was 3 finished projects of something like 10 actual attempts to make something. Its a lot more fun to start a game and design systems for it, than to actually finish, playtest, and find and remove bugs.

Right. The Wizard's Grave took me 14 months to make and I had to stay focused and just keep doing it in my off hours to get it done.

Cool, I don't play a lot on my phone (mostly when I travel, but that won't be for a while until this whole virus things passes over), but I'm downloading your game and will give it a go the next time I'm sitting in a plane or a train.