Drakensang:RoT First impressions

Gorath said:

So what do you guys think, how much better is TRoT?

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Take the first part. Take away much of the combat filler. Add more places that you can revisit to finish side-quests. Add a rudimentary "within-location" fast-travel system. Add full voice-over. Add more choices on how to finish a quest. Add more skill-checks. Add some in-game engine cutscenes.

Yes, the choices. Some are very "strong", meaning that their outcome really matters.

I'm curious, what are "European trees"?

Guys, I know all the details. I wanted to know how much better it is. The reviewers write that it's better, but they don't give higher scores. Which secretly implies the first one got too much.

Thrasher said:

I'm curious, what are "European trees"?

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That was one of the first things the devs disclosed, with a smirk. They felt restricted by SpeedTree. Every tree looked similar and it was impossible to integrate the trees seemlessly into the world. All you could do is create nicely looking tree-shaped obstacles. But they wanted to build tree houses for example, or non-standard looking trees with optional party interaction (say a hole in it for a quest).
Medieval Central Europe was filled with often dense mixed forest.

(OT: I saw a docu lately about the 2000th aniversary of the victory of the German tribes against the Romans. 3 full legions lured into the woods and wiped out without a chance. That was ca. 10% of the whole Roman army of about 30 legions. In the eye of the Roman soldier Germania was a djungle with low temperatures and a lot of rain (compared to Rome). The roads - if there were any - were more like paths. The woods were so dense the legion - not to talk about the bagage - had to dissolve its formation to move at all (-> formation is everything in the legion!). A barbarian could hide 3 meters next to them and they couldn't see him. Duty in Germania was like a punishment. Maybe like being sent to the Eastern Front in WW2.
Shortly after this battle Rome built a big wall to keep the barbarians out. A radical change from a global expansion strategy.)

Gorath said:

Guys, I know all the details. I wanted to know how much better it is. The reviewers write that it's better, but they don't give higher scores. Which secretly implies the first one got too much.

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Or the second one too little, but it does not matter. If, in your rating system, 70% means that the game is not that good, there is not much space to maneuver.

I would give Drakensang 1 75%, meaning that it is a good game, vey good even for fans of the genre, but still with a lot of space for improvement. Drakensang 2 would get a low to mid-80 so far.

For comparison, other RPGs on that scale. Oblivion (71%), Gothic 2 (86%), Gothic 3 (55%), Risen (72%), Fallout 3 (79%), The Witcher (88%), NWN 2 (90%), Dragon Age (86%), Mass Effect 2 (82%), Deus Ex (92%).

@Gorath : If you want to seriously learn more about Roman occupation, then you should read "Die Römer in Bayern", if you can get it cheaply. It is an excellent write, and imho quite easy to read compared to other works of Archaeology !
The lowest priceI found is this one : http://www.amazon.de/Die-Römer-Baye...r_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268313720&sr=8-10

The book also shows that they did some "roads", too, for example, mainly for military reasons (easy and quick way to get their Legions from one point to another and for collecting tributes).

The woods I have encountered in Drakensang 2 are rather looking like modern woods in some places, imho. I have been a lot throgh woods in my youth (collecting mushrooms ) , and I must say that here are very ifferent types of woods.
The woods almost oly consisting of conifers (especially fir trees) were mady by humans, because onifers are not he natural "wood-trees". The Beech Tree is the "natural born wood tree", so to say, and this has evolved through the last tens of thousands of years, through time, after the last great glacial periods.

Conifers should be relatively rare within "modern" woods.

The Oak Tree is a wood-tree, too. This tree dominated the German woods before th Beech came and took over.

The Elm tree had played a prominent role, too, but it had several times of declinations, nowadays as well. This was during the stone ages when people (prototypes of farmers) cut off their lowest branches as food for their animals, his made the Elm tree vulnerable for fungi, which destroyed them, large-scale. A similar "event" is happening nowadays, too. The Elmn tree is right now so much in danger that it might die out here in Germany or even in central europe soon.

Now, hat we find in Drakensang 2 are woods with lots of "lower" plants, and few, very, very thick trees, as far as I have seen so far. Europe ust indeed have had "tree giants" in the past, a hing I know only from the north of america. But they vanished, because people needed woods. Especially for fires, pottery, melting metal. A lot of woods seem to have vanished during the "metal ages".

I personally don't know many woods like those I have seen in Drakensang 2, but they might have been much more common hundreds or even thousands of years go, I guess.

All that talk about trees and I'll most probably not even notice it lol.

Well, okay.

I'm quite sure, that the graphics or design are not the problems in Drakensang: TRoT as they weren't in the original. Drakensang is not trying to look realistic, but more like a "real" fantasy world.


If you want to enjoy real-life alike forest, then play Gothic 3, in RPG genre it has the most authentic forests IMO.



Old finnish spruce-governed woods.

How "free" is TRoT? Can you revisit ALL the places? Does the map have more than one new place to go at any time?

Ergonpandilus said:

How "free" is TRoT? Can you revisit ALL the places? Does the map have more than one new place to go at any time?

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No, you'll need time to "unlock" certain places through quests. Usually as part of the main plot, in one case it is aside of the main plot (a steward must be shipped (literally ! ) to his domain. He is waiting at the port of Nadoret).

Once these places are unlocked, they are free to be visited by you at any time !

And often it is useful, too, to visit them, because the areas might change a bit (don't want to spoil anyone), and sometimes new sidequests arise ! Plus, the people there have wares to sell.

CRPG forest trees are never high enough. Why is that?

Dunno. Ask the devs.

I finished the game a week or so ago, and it's time for my final opinion.

Overall, it is a very good game which kept me entertained at all times. The pacing is very good. There is no filler in the main quest, the writing is good, the voice-over good most of the time. The only part which contains repetitive combat is optional (the river temple quest).

The world is very fun to explore, and very true to the pen&paper material. I love the dialogue writing. It is *so* TDE.

The main quest is less epic this time. You are not saving Aventuria as you know it, but "merely" sparing a region from potential disaster. The quest is still motivating because of the characters involved. All party NPCs are somewhat personally involved in it and have a stake in the outcome.

However, the ending is a bit weak. There is a multi-stage boss fight which I did not enjoy, and the story-writers and designers pull a very weak stunt before that. The minor spoiler:

Big spoilers.

Still, story and quest design was a clear improvement from the already good first part. Also, many quests now have different ways to solve it.

The combat system is the same, only that the encounters are more varied. The skill system is the same, but there is an increased number of checks in dialogue. I find the choice of NPC party members a bit strange. Two fighters, one thief and either an elf or a mage. Depending on your PC, you might find yourself lacking talent in some area. If you want to have a variety of talents in your team, you either have to play a mage and pick the elf, or an elf and pick the mage.

If you liked Drakensang, getting the second part should be a no-brainer. I can recommend it without reservation.

Yes, I found the choics of possible party-NPCs a bit strange, too. But on the other and it is kind of explainable in histoical sense.

What I *greatly* miss is the availability of female party-NPCs. There are in fact none.

Apart from that - and a few other things - the game is greatly improving. I love it, the more I play - except combat-heavy situations (temple quest, again).

For now, I just love it.

I even heard the rumor that "maxing out" a few non-combat skills makes new things detectable or/and available ? - but these are just rumors, and I know almost nothing about it.

Anyway, a varity of skills ditributed over the party members really helps. The game kind of supports the development of specialists. At least thats my very personal impression.

All we want now, is a release date for the English speaking population!!

What??!! No females, no romances!!! What is the world coming to!!!!

Alrik Fassbauer said:

What I *greatly* miss is the availability of female party-NPCs. There are in fact none.

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Fayris (the elf) is female.


But depending on how you choose early in the game, you get the mage, who is male.

That choice is a little strange. First, I was not even aware that I was choosing when I acted in a way that made the elf join me and not the mage. Second, it simply does not add much to the experience. I would have preferred having both in the party.

Grandor Dragon said:

The main quest is less epic this time. You are not saving Aventuria as you know it, but "merely" sparing a region from potential disaster. The quest is still motivating because of the characters involved. All party NPCs are somewhat personally involved in it and have a stake in the outcome.

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YES! This is something I've been clamoring forever. Why is every game about saving the whole multiverse including all planes of existence? What's wrong with just saving a country, a region or a city? I roll my eyes every time I play and the full 'storyline' presents. I have to save the world from something. Inevitably.

Grandor Dragon said:

Fayris (the elf) is female.

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Yes. But she is the *only* one.

By the way, I find some of the bigger the side-quests *very* interesting !

The latest ones have been keeping myself long enough at the PC - too long, even ! :lol:

I'm not telling which ones, because i don't want to spoil anyone.

The sidequests are quite varied and range from simple "kill X" quests to quests exploring the elven culture.