The Dark Eye The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes - real-time co-op isometric dungeon crawler

[Andhaira]

https://wildriver.games/en/games/the-dark-eye-book-of-heroes/

Spoiler

Presented at Ratcon 2019 in Limburg, a new RPG based on The Dark Eye is coming.

From the developers Twitter:

It's great to see there's so much interest in the #BookOfHeroes! However, we want to correct one thing that seems to be quite prevalent in the coverage:

Book of Heroes is NOT a Diablo clone. It's closer to Baldur's Gate, NWN, etc.

https://twitter.com/Random_Potion

Reveal Trailer:



Some Twitch Feeds:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/465151639?t=02h15m42s (German + English)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/465151639?t=01h56m15s (in German)

Infinitron

 

[LESS T_T]

Sounds like this is a dungeon crawl focused game.

Some bits from German articles (via Google Translate)
https://www.4players.de/4players.ph...lenspiel_fuer_bis_zu_vier_Spieler_auf_PC.html
https://www.golem.de/news/book-of-h...ge-setzt-auf-action-von-oben-1908-143157.html
https://www.gameswelt.de/das-schwar...che-rpg-reihe-kehrt-auf-den-pc-zurueck,298067

• isometric perspective with "tactical" real-time combat
• dungeon crawl focused ("fast, intense dungeon crawls") Almost exclusive set in dungeons
• 4 character party. single-player (with AI companions) or co-op up to 4 players
• Humans, Dwarfs, Elves, and Halflings. 12 classes
  
• procedurally generated dungeons
• big focus on puzzles
• release in Q2 2020 on PC
• developed by Random Potion, a Finnish indie studio ("a game studio specialized in collaborative online roleplaying games")
• published by Wild River, a label of EuroVideo (was also involved in distribution of Blackguards)

 

[Infinitron]

Book of Heroes is NOT a Diablo clone.

Guido Henkel, is that you?

(Also, why no English trailer?)

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

• procedurally generated dungeons

Whyyy this shit, why... ;(

 

[LESS T_T]

• procedurally generated dungeons

Whyyy this shit, why... ;(

Probably similar to the reason Diablo has them, "infinitely" replayable co-op play or something.

 

[Martyr]

"closer to BG and NWN instead of Diablo" - so no real time combat and instead RTwP?

edit: "tactical real time combat" .... how the fuck can pure real time be tactical? hectical, yes. tactical, nope.
"big focus on puzzles" ..... not this shit again

 

[Jimmious]

Seems to have a focus on co-op too.
Getting Sword Coast Legends vibes.

 

[Andhaira]

"closer to BG and NWN instead of Diablo" - so no real time combat and instead RTwP?

edit: "tactical real time combat" .... how the fuck can pure real time be tactical? hectical, yes. tactical, nope.
"big focus on puzzles" ..... not this shit again

One would hope so, but given it includes optional co-op and judging from the trailer there doesn't seem to be any pause in there. However its a work in progress and its possible they may have or later add in a RTwP feature for single player games.

 

[Snorkack]

no amount of post processing effects can hide the fact that this game is hideous. However, since I'm a sucker for anything DSA related, I'll keep it on my watch list anyways.

 

[Reinhardt]

procedurally generated dungeons

with

big focus on puzzles

 

[LESS T_T]

Being real-time, it reminds me of Unexplored, real-time roguelite. It has pretty serviceable procedurally generated puzzles (sometimes multi-floor).

 

[vortex]

https://i.imgur.com/xeGfdyn.png

I think of Stonehenge when I see this.

 

[LESS T_T]

This game was originally called Project Scoundrel, seemingly was not a TDE game: http://randompotion.com/news/

Things may or may not relevant to the current version:

Project Scoundrel is a co-operative multiplayer roleplaying game with procedurally generated levels and a focus on narrative interaction between the players. It’s a blend of Baldur’s Gate, Vermintide and roguelikes. Each character has a personal storyline with private objectives and motivations that create conflict between the players, but the game requires collaboration succeed in the adventures. These social mechanics create the need for constant communication and negotiation, effectively leading into actual roleplaying.

Levels are generated specifically for the current party; if there’s a wizard in the party, there will be a puzzle requiring the use of magic, traps to disarm for rogues, etc. Each character will have moments to shine by having puzzles which require skills that only one character has. Combat encounters have enemies that are weak against a character’s skills. Players can have personal information like a specialisation in certain area of knowledge; if there are dwarven runes, only the dwarf character can read them.

The main difference of Project Scoundrel compared to other multiplayer RPGs is the focus on social collaboration instead of battles that are rare, quick and deadly in the game. Player characters have plenty of tools to avoid combat, and the enemies are usually placed in locations which contain optional content, making it a choice to go through a fight. The aim has been to develop a game that has the feeling of a tabletop role-playing game.

The primary goal of the game is to give the players unique experiences they’d love to talk about with their friends or share on Twitch, Youtube, and other channels. Social mechanics are designed to bring lively interactions to the game that will give players unforgettable memories.

https://connect.unity.com/p/project-scoundrel

Project Scoundrel is an extraordinary collaborative game of adventure, where groups of adventurers brave ancient tunnels and cursed ruins for fame and fortune. It's filled with moments of grand plans, spectacular failure and, of course, daring glory brought on by unexpected circumstance.

The player plays a single adventurer with various options for backgrounds, races, and ideals. Each player character has their backstory, taken into account by the game. Not only do their actions shape their personality, abilities and the world around them, but also their chosen backgrounds alter the choices available and the challenges they face.

The basic unit of the game is a single adventure, a procedurally generated romp through a perilous dungeon, tailored for the current group, as a tabletop roleplaying session would be. The adventures contain elements specific to the player characters that utilise their skills and illuminate their personal background stories.

• Traditional roleplaying game experience in a digital form where everyone has their own stories and agendas, creating emergent stories from social interaction.
• All the adventures are procedurally generated based on the characters' choices and actions. No two stories are the same.
• Fast-paced gameplay with sessions lasting under an hour.
• Collaboration and cooperative problem-solving. The levels in the game demand players to work together to overcome obstacles.

 

[V_K]

This game was originally called Project Scoundrel, seemingly was not a TDE game: http://randompotion.com/news/

Things may or may not relevant to the current version:

Project Scoundrel is a co-operative multiplayer roleplaying game with procedurally generated levels and a focus on narrative interaction between the players. It’s a blend of Baldur’s Gate, Vermintide and roguelikes. Each character has a personal storyline with private objectives and motivations that create conflict between the players, but the game requires collaboration succeed in the adventures. These social mechanics create the need for constant communication and negotiation, effectively leading into actual roleplaying.

Levels are generated specifically for the current party; if there’s a wizard in the party, there will be a puzzle requiring the use of magic, traps to disarm for rogues, etc. Each character will have moments to shine by having puzzles which require skills that only one character has. Combat encounters have enemies that are weak against a character’s skills. Players can have personal information like a specialisation in certain area of knowledge; if there are dwarven runes, only the dwarf character can read them.

The main difference of Project Scoundrel compared to other multiplayer RPGs is the focus on social collaboration instead of battles that are rare, quick and deadly in the game. Player characters have plenty of tools to avoid combat, and the enemies are usually placed in locations which contain optional content, making it a choice to go through a fight. The aim has been to develop a game that has the feeling of a tabletop role-playing game.

The primary goal of the game is to give the players unique experiences they’d love to talk about with their friends or share on Twitch, Youtube, and other channels. Social mechanics are designed to bring lively interactions to the game that will give players unforgettable memories.

I hope you're right about procedural generation being Unexplored-like. Because this, together with TDE, actually sounds quite nice. Even RTwP doesn't sound as bad, if battles are as rare and optional as they promise.

 

[Abu Antar]

I read the title and then clicked the thread for more info...

I went from

to

to

 

[JarlFrank]

• procedurally generated dungeons

Whyyy this shit, why... ;(

Oh for FUCK's sake, another promising title absolutely ruined by this shitty fucking trend

FUCK prodecural generation IN THE ASS

 

[LESS T_T]

To be fair, procedural generation seems like the core of this game from the beginning, not something attached. As much as I want a long TDE adventure with hand-made content, I don't mind this being a short session based game if they really can achieve what they're trying to.

 

[Infinitron]

Here we go:

 

[Lord Commissar Alexer]

Interesting.
The last DSA game i played was the Drakensang Series.

 

[Max Heap]

Ulisses should really look into getting the Realms Of Arkania trademark back from whoever's holding it right now.
"The Dark Eye" is such a dodgy, weird name. Sounds like a euphemism for an asshole or something.

Other than that, DSA is one of those cursed IPs that has wrecked more studios than I can probably remember.
Radon Labs (Drakensang) was only the tip of the iceberg there. If I remember correctly the original Sacred came out of a broken up project called LMK, which was first developed as a regular Diablo clone and then licensed as a DSA game, before the project blew up.

Then you had Herokon Online, a really, really pretty isometric browser RPG which for some reason was developed in Flash (I actually remember it being written in MS Silverlight - Microsoft's proprietary version of flash - but I can't find any sources on that anymore), so that going down wasn't much of a surprise.

And then of course you had Demonicon, which had a hellish pre-production and was actually planned as an isometric real-time game but ended up as this Two-Worlds looking shit - before the developer went down in the flames of its collapsing parent company. The first version of it was already announced in 2008 (!) - some old screenshots actually show a game that looks pretty similar to Book of Heroes and, frankly, the interviews sound pretty much the same as well. So keep an eye on that.

Let's not even talk about the Blade of Destiny and Star Trail remake. That's a story the codex knows well enough. Suffice it to say, I looked into the current state of Crafty Studios and apparently their financiers pulled out after the disastrous release of BoD. They kinda pulled themself out of the swamp so far that they could deliver Star Trail, but BoD still wrecked them so bad that they are practically defunct now (at least that's what's speculated on their forums - and given the activity of the developer there, that's probably spot on).

Then of course you had some mildly successful DSA games (the PnC adventures Satinav's Chains and Memoria, as well as Blackguards 1 & 2), which were all done by Daedelic - who actually had the financial and organizational background to work with a license like that.

But most of all Daedelic had one thing: The foresight to ignore the P&P game either from the rule's side (for the adventure games) or from a visual/atmospheric side (for Blackguards). That way they could produce games that appeal to more than just the german turbo autists who play the P&P.

You may think that I'm harsh here, and that germans liking rules and order and whatnot is just a cliché. Well guess what: The entirety of DSA has a whopping 1500 pages of rules. I know not a single person in their right mind that applies the rules to their full extent. And people say AD&D was bloated. Jesus.

All in all that's probably the core reason why that IP is essentially a studio killer. Unless you are Daedelic, already bringing in a lot of experience, money and the balls to give the hardcore fans the finger, DSA is absolutely going to fuck you.

I don't wanna toot my own horn too much, but the guys making Book of Heroes should probably print this whole post and put it on the fridge of their studio's kitchen or something.
Just as a reminder.

 

[Infinitron]

If I remember correctly the original Sacred came out of a broken up project called LMK, which was first developed as a regular Diablo clone and then licensed as a DSA game, before the project blew up.

You're probably referring to Larian's The Lady, The Mage and The Knight, which kinda-sorta became Divine Divinity.

 

[Max Heap]

You're probably referring to Larian's The Lady, The Mage and The Knight, which kinda-sorta became Divine Divinity.

Oh yeah, exactly.
I wasn't entirely sure anymore, but it does make sense cause LMK (which was later licensed as "Legenden der Magierkriege" - a setting within DSA) had this weird orthographic view that was taken over by DD.
I only remembered "german hack'n'slay" and thought it had some connection to Sacred - but either way - the project fucking exploded. It was like a joint project between Attic and Larian - and while Attic went down in flames Larian barely survived the whole thing.
So DSA almost killed those guys too.

I wonder if Larian wants to another DSA game instead of Baldurs Gate 3

 

[V_K]

If I remember correctly the original Sacred came out of a broken up project called LMK, which was first developed as a regular Diablo clone and then licensed as a DSA game, before the project blew up.

You're probably referring to Larian's The Lady, The Mage and The Knight, which kinda-sorta became Divine Divinity.

Yes, but it's also true that Sacred came out of the remains of a different DSA game, Armallion.

 

[LESS T_T]

Still no press release, tweet, or anything from the publisher Wild River Games. No video on their Youtube channel too. The developer itself is doing more PR/marketing work at this point.

 

[Andhaira]

Ulisses should really look into getting the Realms Of Arkania trademark back from whoever's holding it right now.
"The Dark Eye" is such a dodgy, weird name. Sounds like a euphemism for an asshole or something.

Other than that, DSA is one of those cursed IPs that has wrecked more studios than I can probably remember.
Radon Labs (Drakensang) was only the tip of the iceberg there. If I remember correctly the original Sacred came out of a broken up project called LMK, which was first developed as a regular Diablo clone and then licensed as a DSA game, before the project blew up.

Then you had Herokon Online, a really, really pretty isometric browser RPG which for some reason was developed in Flash (I actually remember it being written in MS Silverlight - Microsoft's proprietary version of flash - but I can't find any sources on that anymore), so that going down wasn't much of a surprise.

And then of course you had Demonicon, which had a hellish pre-production and was actually planned as an isometric real-time game but ended up as this Two-Worlds looking shit - before the developer went down in the flames of its collapsing parent company. The first version of it was already announced in 2008 (!) - some old screenshots actually show a game that looks pretty similar to Book of Heroes and, frankly, the interviews sound pretty much the same as well. So keep an eye on that.

Let's not even talk about the Blade of Destiny and Star Trail remake. That's a story the codex knows well enough. Suffice it to say, I looked into the current state of Crafty Studios and apparently their financiers pulled out after the disastrous release of BoD. They kinda pulled themself out of the swamp so far that they could deliver Star Trail, but BoD still wrecked them so bad that they are practically defunct now (at least that's what's speculated on their forums - and given the activity of the developer there, that's probably spot on).

Then of course you had some mildly successful DSA games (the PnC adventures Satinav's Chains and Memoria, as well as Blackguards 1 & 2), which were all done by Daedelic - who actually had the financial and organizational background to work with a license like that.

But most of all Daedelic had one thing: The foresight to ignore the P&P game either from the rule's side (for the adventure games) or from a visual/atmospheric side (for Blackguards). That way they could produce games that appeal to more than just the german turbo autists who play the P&P.

You may think that I'm harsh here, and that germans liking rules and order and whatnot is just a cliché. Well guess what: The entirety of DSA has a whopping 1500 pages of rules. I know not a single person in their right mind that applies the rules to their full extent. And people say AD&D was bloated. Jesus.

All in all that's probably the core reason why that IP is essentially a studio killer. Unless you are Daedelic, already bringing in a lot of experience, money and the balls to give the hardcore fans the finger, DSA is absolutely going to fuck you.

I don't wanna toot my own horn too much, but the guys making Book of Heroes should probably print this whole post and put it on the fridge of their studio's kitchen or something.
Just as a reminder.

Bad developer studio management is not the fault of the ruleset of the pnp game. In fact, games which remained true to the ruleset as much as they could were successful. Realms of Arkania 1-3; Blackguards, Drakensang 1 & 2. Yeah Drakensang 2's studio I believed also fizzled out, but then they used a RTwP version for the rules, and even then lots of people liked the games. They just didn't have a successful enough marketing campaign to pull in the sales.

Also keep in mind authentic conversions of even the most popular ruleset in the world has resulted in the studios failing, cases in point being Troika (ToEE), Black Isle (IWDII) , etc even though these games were a lot of fun.

I believe a good studio could make a great TDE game as long as they make it turnbased and have a good story and have a good marketing campaign to draw in sales; Blackguards had great combat but horrible story and was more of a strategy Rpg than a full fledghed RPG. Larian's engin of DD could make a great TDE rpg (and in fact they had a TDE module/conversion thing in DDII recently) BUT they need someone else to handled the writing and the story otherwise they will ruin it.

Drakensang's were great even for being RTwP, and they really nailed the art style for TDE. It would have been a massive success IMO had the games been turnbased and had better storylines.

Also the rules have received an update a few years back; TDE is in its fifth edition now and the bloat is minimal. You could make a great RPG using just the Core book, the Magic Book, Warring Kingdoms and the Compendium & Armory. (or heck even just the Core Book).

A very important fact is The Dark Eye while being very popular in Germany is not near as well known globally like D&D and Pathfinder, etc. And look how few games are made using those brands; we only got a real, proper and somewhat successful Pathfinder game TEN YEARS after Pathfinder launched. And even then it was marred by bugs and made in a place with very cheap labor, and self published on Steam. Note they remained very true to the ruleset too aside from RTwP, which is one of the reasons for its success. We never got a cRPG using D&D 4e, and we haven't yet gotten one for D&D5e. The latter is now only happening because the studio doing it is big/famous enough to attract sales and interest based on its name alone rather than the brand of D&D.