Drakensang Is this game a classic, or just the right game at the right time?

After a while, aye.

msoltyspl said:

After a while, aye.

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don't worry, you're not alone there. The Witcher also bored me after not too long

I agree that the time since the witcher was published was long enough to make Drakensang a "right game at the right time".

But as a party based cRPG it is the right game for a very long time. The last comparable game was NWN 2 and I like Drakensang much better. The auto-pause option alone makes it much better in my point of view, but I also prefer game mechanics, story, atmosphere...
(Didn't play Mask of the Betrayer I admit - the OC had turned me off to much to even try the sequels).

I believe it is the first decent party based cRPG with auto-pause since the infinity engine, may be???

I'm only about 65 % complete with the game. I would say it's a good game but not a classic. Perhaps it timing is everything. The last party based RPG that I played and finished was Dungeon Siege (I know, Action RPG), but I never finished Rise of the Argonauts, Silver Fall, Legend-Hand of God, nor NWN. Nowadays its hard for me to get into the story of a party based RPG. And the desire to build your party to do bigger and better things is for the most part totally missing. These new game developers just don't have the touch of a Might & Magic. Drakensang is better than the ones I have tried and not finished, but that's not enough to make it a classic in my book.

(Didn't play Mask of the Betrayer I admit - the OC had turned me off to much to even try the sequels).

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The same here. Although it was so universally praised (even on rpgcodex ), that I might give it a try.

It will likely sound weird - but I really liked NWN+SoU+HotU. Tight party, no micromanagement (development) hell. I enjoy developing one (mine!) character, but doing that for whole party usually puts me off (although surprisingly, I find it tolerable in Drakensang, so far - maybe due to different ruleset ?).

And who said you have to micromanage every party member in NWN2?

I believe "recommended" button is there for a reason.

Overall I'm also enjoying the game quite a lot, but I hope the dungeon design gets better later in the game! I'm not very far into the game yet but on a couple of occasions I've thought that the dungeons were simply too long for the content they provided.

For example, I'm currently working on the "Rat Plague" quest in Ferdok - and that dungeon is simply just plain boring (IMO). Going through 4 or 5 levels with no puzzles and only encountering rats (hundreds of them!) is just a couple of levels too much and feels like easy filler material to make the game longer.

The rat quest is not a very serious quest, as many here already pointed out. Other dungeons are more interesting, but only very few are really good. The best levels are definitely the towns and cities.

The low interaction density has been (correctly) identified by the devs as one of the main weaknesses. They promises to improve this in the next game.

Most dungeons are at least one level too big. The game itself gets better and better though. The upward trend holds until you reach an area which is obviously far too big. So big that you only want it to end, despite some of the most interesting quests. After that the game gets back on track.

Reg. the rat quest, make sure to use more than one save slot. The boss fight is hard and the door is locked behind you.

Gorath said:

Reg. the rat quest, make sure to use more than one save slot. The boss fight is hard and the door is locked behind you.

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Thanks for the warning. I see what you mean! I actually managed to win the fight with my chars at lvl 5, but it wasn't pretty and I guess it was only due to stubbornness and an insane amount of reloading (almost to the point of cheating). Clearly that quest was intended for a higher level party. In all fairness I must say that the game did what it could to tell me as much

It would had been much nicer to have River of Time as an addon to Drakensang instead of a prequel, because that's just the thing that it's missing, more content.

Yes, but we cannot change the decision.

At least we can hope for mistakes corrected in the new game.

And it might be even more "old school", because it ties better into the ROA series (especially from the time frame - the game takes place meanwhile there is a search for a "Blade Of Destiny" going on elsewhere in Aventuria, I read).

Ergonpandilus said:

It would had been much nicer to have River of Time as an addon to Drakensang instead of a prequel, because that's just the thing that it's missing, more content.

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I think Drakensang had more than enough content. It was just spread too thin. So the world should have been smaller and the design a bit more clevererer.

Gorath said:

I think Drakensang had more than enough content. It was just spread too thin. So the world should have been smaller and the design a bit more clevererer.

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Agreed. There was some annoying filler. It makes no sense fighting the same group of creatures again and again in a game where you regenerate so fast. There is no challenge in that.

That said, I am super-confident about River of Time. The developers appear like they know what they are doing. They are also in a constant dialogue with the community and take criticism very seriously.

nessosin said:

And who said you have to micromanage every party member in NWN2?

I believe "recommended" button is there for a reason.

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Sorry for late reply. Changing isp is rarely good experience

The "level up" stages - few and far between game-wsie after all are not by any means irritating. But equipment management and babysitting usually not too impressive AI fight after fight after fight ...... . It gets tedious after a while. Having n characters + m on standby (often almost as soulless and empty like zombies) doesn't help with immersion too much either. What's worse, I can't help myself not digging into every possible detail - so after a while I feel more like playing "house" with dolls than a game

By no means it's limited to NWN2 of course, and Drakensang isn't much better (if not worse).

As for my list of complains about Drakensang - it grew up a little (particulary the loot became crazy good), I still enjoy it though (I'm at Talon stage atm).

God knows I wanted to like this game... I really did... but it's just too damn bland. Rather then rant and rave, let me just make a nice little list:

1. Atmosphere: It's bland. It's boring. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't. It had some nice details like the little leaves floating down rivers, leaves and little seeds flying in the breeze, but otherwise it was terribly generic. The trees look like crap. They have bunches of leaves that aren't connected to anything. They picked the safest, and most boring set of trees possible. Why must everything be set in summer? You can only enter certain buildings and when you do, it seems to be the same thing over and over again. Boring Germanic tudor homes (sorry Germany) and bloom effect designed to blind us all. We've seen this all before.

2. Characters: Some were nice enough, but most were bland. Where is the variety? Why can't we have someone interesting rather then the absent minded wizard, the lone woodsmen, the stalwart paladin, nature loving elves. BORING. NO. Don't do it anymore. When making a game, this should be the perfect opportunity to express yourself. Make something interesting! Don't be bound by what other game settings use. Who the fuck cares what Tolkein's elves are like!

3. Lore: TDE may be good and deep and all, but this game sure ain't. I barely got any worthwhile info about this game's setting. A few loading screens explained some crap, but that's about it. What's supposedly so great about this world?

4. Combat: It sucks. Having rats run through your tanks to get to your mages and all is lame. No excuse.

5. Stats: Actually, I liked this. They did good. I thought even the social skills got used a fair amount... though they could have expanded a little bit more and made combat NOT so necessary.

So, that's my expert opinion. If anyone has any comments, I'll be in my observatory. THANKS!

Thoth said:

God knows I wanted to like this game... I really did... but it's just too damn bland. Rather then rant and rave, let me just make a nice little list:

1. Atmosphere: It's bland. It's boring. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't. It had some nice details like the little leaves floating down rivers, leaves and little seeds flying in the breeze, but otherwise it was terribly generic. The trees look like crap. They have bunches of leaves that aren't connected to anything. They picked the safest, and most boring set of trees possible. Why must everything be set in summer? You can only enter certain buildings and when you do, it seems to be the same thing over and over again. Boring Germanic tudor homes (sorry Germany) and bloom effect designed to blind us all. We've seen this all before.

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I actually liked it a lot. Maybe because I'm not so picky? I didn't even notice "leaves that aren't connected to anything". Also, you can only enter certain buildings... and that's fine! If you could, then you'd probably be complaining that all houses look the same inside. Let's face it, this is a game, not a world simulation.

2. Characters: Some were nice enough, but most were bland. Where is the variety? Why can't we have someone interesting rather then the absent minded wizard, the lone woodsmen, the stalwart paladin, nature loving elves. BORING. NO. Don't do it anymore. When making a game, this should be the perfect opportunity to express yourself. Make something interesting! Don't be bound by what other game settings use. Who the fuck cares what Tolkein's elves are like!

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I liked all the characters, well except the absent minded wizard that's overdone I agree. Elves are like that because that's how they are in the game setting. Nothing to do with this particular game.

3. Lore: TDE may be good and deep and all, but this game sure ain't. I barely got any worthwhile info about this game's setting. A few loading screens explained some crap, but that's about it. What's supposedly so great about this world?

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I do agree at least in the beginning. When the game starts you're just someone walking down a road to a town. A bit more 'background' would have been welcome. But remember this was almost like an 'experiment' game, they didn't know if the public would like it as the whole 'pause-party based RPG' was supposed to be out of style. Now that they realize people do still want to play these games, hopefully they'll flesh it out more for the next installment.

4. Combat: It sucks. Having rats run through your tanks to get to your mages and all is lame. No excuse.

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And who's telling those rats they can't do it? Why can't they, being much smaller, much faster, and more nimble, just run around the 'tanks'? Who's supposed to explain to them that those big pieces of flesh inside metal cases are "tanks" and you're not supposed to run past them? I don't even remember having that problem, maybe because I didn't have any fixed ideas of how things should work.

5. Stats: Actually, I liked this. They did good. I thought even the social skills got used a fair amount... though they could have expanded a little bit more and made combat NOT so necessary.

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I agree, although something I certainly didn't like is that, in the last 20% or so of the game, all social skills were relegated to nothing, all combat.

Thoth said:

The trees look like crap. They have bunches of leaves that aren't connected to anything. They picked the safest, and most boring set of trees possible.

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Speedtree. Guess why they decided to hand-craft all trees for the next game ?

3. Lore: TDE may be good and deep and all, but this game sure ain't. I barely got any worthwhile info about this game's setting. A few loading screens explained some crap, but that's about it. What's supposedly so great about this world?

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Okay, in Germany almost everyone knows it. (Exaggerating a little bit). It's like (A)D&D in the U.S. . Everyone in the RPG sector basically knows what's it about.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Speedtree. Guess why they decided to hand-craft all trees for the next game ?

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Yes Speedtree... no wonder why every game looks the same.

Okay, in Germany almost everyone knows it. (Exaggerating a little bit). It's like (A)D&D in the U.S. . Everyone in the RPG sector basically knows what's it about.

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I'm not ripping on the P&P world, but rather the lack of info on said world in the CRPG. BG games had lots of lore in books, item descriptions, etc. were in this game, I just didn't see it. That's a shame.

wolfing said:

I actually liked it a lot. Maybe because I'm not so picky? I didn't even notice "leaves that aren't connected to anything". Also, you can only enter certain buildings... and that's fine! If you could, then you'd probably be complaining that all houses look the same inside. Let's face it, this is a game, not a world simulation.

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Why wouldn't we complain that everything looks the same? Isn't that part of immersion? That the developer builds a convincing world? I saw all these buildings and was disappointed to find I couldn't enter most of them. I mean, that one town, Tallon was it? You can't enter any buildings IIRC.

And who's telling those rats they can't do it? Why can't they, being much smaller, much faster, and more nimble, just run around the 'tanks'? Who's supposed to explain to them that those big pieces of flesh inside metal cases are "tanks" and you're not supposed to run past them? I don't even remember having that problem, maybe because I didn't have any fixed ideas of how things should work.

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Yes, but the rats are running through my characters... unless they're ethereal rats from the Astral Plane, then they shouldn't be able to do so. Not to mention the camera freaking out whenever your characters position themselves in battle underground. It just shouldn't have had to be this way. I don't see how you never noticed this unless you didn't have any spellcasters? For me, critters, orcs or otherwise ran straight through my characters homing in on my spellcasters/archers.

All in all, I did enjoy this game, but I wouldn't say it's a classic. I'm done playing it and I don't think I'll ever think to play it again. As for the next TDE game coming out? I'll definitely get it. I think Drakensang is, generally speaking a success and much better then most other RPGs out.