Game News Realms of Arkania 4 confirmed

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Drakensang

The prize for the best and the most unexpected news in a long, long while goes to a German mag's story, <a href=http://www.pcgames.de/?article_id=464501>confirming</a> that the famous Das Schwarze Auge series <a href=http://www.pcgames.de/?menu=browser&article_id=464862&image_id=507905>live again</a>.
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Now would be a good time to (re)play the first 3 games and see what Dave Gaider is always raving about.
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Thanks, Moggs

 

[Brother None]

DSA 4? That rocks, a lot! DSA is probably one of the best fantasy setting with the most balanced rules ever, and the old games were great.

Here's to hoping they'll make a worthy sequel.

 

[Kendar]

I hope this game will feature Patrick Stewart and soil erosion, otherwise I am not buying this crap.

 

[sheek]

I am worried what effect this will have on the ESF forum kiddies. They have been ritually chanting that Oblivion is "the greatest RPG ('genre defining') ever" for months now. It's een said so often that it almost seem like a fact of reality. How could Pete Hines lie to us??

Existential angst leads to bad things.

 

[bryce777]

Now, if they dumb this one down, it's time to go postal. I can't imagine it will be a shitty game, though, really.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

I've only played a bit of the first game (Blade of Destiny?) and it seemed pretty cool. What's the best game in the series? I've heard VD rave about Star Trail so that seems to be the way to go. What does it offer that's not in the first game?

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I started my P&P career with DSA - ah, good times.... I only ever played shadows over RIVA of the CRPG series though, apparently the weakest one of the trilogy.

 

[Moggs]

Well, the thing that worries me is that they already DID dumb it down a bit (Riva wasn't half the game that Startrail or Destiny were). We shall see. I hope we get plenty of (English) progress reports throughout its development.

(VD: my pleasure!)

 

[Jora]

It might be that if they wanted to make an RPG considerably simpler than the previous Arkania games, they would probably have chosen a licence more suitable for those goals.

 

[Jora]

How was Riva dumbed down?

 

[Moggs]

How was Riva dumbed down?

Didn't they throw out a lot of the inventory/party management stuff and scrap the world-travel bit from the first two games? I have to say my memory of the third game is a bit hazy (unlike the previous two games I've not returned to it since my original tinkerings with it upon release), so it's entirely possible I'm talking out of my arse.

 

[Moggs]

It might be that if they wanted to make an RPG considerably simpler than the previous Arkania games, they would probably have chosen a licence more suitable for those goals.

Um, Brotherhood of Steel? Crusaders of Might and Magic?

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Well, I'll have to say "fucking awesome" about this, so I'll just go do just that. Right now, minus the fucking-part as that'll have me shot where I'm at the moment.

Edit: Riva threw out a lot of stuff from Star Trail, I think. It was still a really good game.

 

[Moggs]

The developers just announced the official (English) forums over at RPGdot:

http://www.anaconda-games.com/forum/vie ... 4d0ad0d755

 

[HotSnack]

I've only played a bit of the first game (Blade of Destiny?) and it seemed pretty cool. What's the best game in the series? I've heard VD rave about Star Trail so that seems to be the way to go. What does it offer that's not in the first game?

It looks prettier (though more importantly, buildings no longer look identical), has nice music, more of the skills are used, and everything is a bit more explained (no more sitting around wondering if weapon X is actually better than weapon y).

 

[Jora]

Didn't they throw out a lot of the inventory/paty management stuff and scrap the world-travel bit? I have to say my memory of the third game is a bit hazy

Traveling and especially camping and party management was the best and most essential part of my short Star Trail experience. The developers have to be out of their minds if they decide not to implement them.

 

[Goliath]

The second part of the series is the best one IMO.

While I liked the old RoA games a lot I have no hopes for this newly announced game. I am sure it will feature real-time combat and they will remove / hide all those intimidating stats...
streamlining, NextGen, you know..
I have never really played RoA 3 but the first two games were pretty much the definition of "hardcore RPG" because they implemented most of the PnP ruleset. Complex character system, more skills than I can remember. You cannot sell such a thing to the ADD kiddies of today. They want no more than three stats "frag", "magic frag" and "stealth frag" i.e. Oblivion (*).



(*) Yes, I truely hate that game. It symbolizes everything that is wrong; kinda like satan for Christians...

 

[Jora]

Complex character system, more skills than I can remember. You cannot sell such a thing to the ADD kiddies of today. They want no more than three stats "frag", "magic frag" and "stealth frag" i.e. Oblivion (*).

"More skills than you can remember" is good but "making every skill meaningful and useful" is even better. Sadly, I think it's inevitable that some skills have to be cut so that the usefulness of the remaining skills can be improved.

 

[Elwro]

Sweeeet!

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

The ROA Games were wonderful, however:

If im not completly wrong:
It's a new development team. A new publisher. A completly new game which uses the DSA ruleset and license and proclaims itself to be the succesor of the RoA series.

We know nothing about it yet, the chance is big they screw this up like 90 % of todays rpgs.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

How was Riva dumbed down?

Didn't they throw out a lot of the inventory/party management stuff and scrap the world-travel bit from the first two games? I have to say my memory of the third game is a bit hazy (unlike the previous two games I've not returned to it since my original tinkerings with it upon release), so it's entirely possible I'm talking out of my arse.

The world travel was gone since the game was centered around Riva and its surrounding wilderness.
However, imho the whole micromanagment of your party was still there in the third. For example when resting in the wilderness, you had still to assign guards for the night, collect herbals ecetera.

You just couldn't travel in the world anymore unfortunatly.
I still liked the 3rd installment, it had a pretty intimidating and dark atmosphere, but it was the weakest in the series.

However, I think we can say for sure that the most part of party micro managment will be thrown out.
Someone mentioned today's ADD Kids...

 

[Claw]

Great news - maybe. I hope they stick as close to the P&P rules as the original and use a similar travel system, that was the best part.
The games had fourteen attributes, over fifty skills and even more spells, btw. It's true that some skills were barely used. Some may never have been used, I don't know exactly. But the great thing is that the system could afford it. The different skills were fun additions, I felt no need to min/max my characters and I never felt I had wasted my skillpoints. Having a party helped, of course.

I don't believe you have to sacrifice skills. If you'd focus on implementing the skills rather than "epic quests" then it should be possible to make all skills useful.

 

[roguefrog]

Why haven't I heard of any of these games before?

 

[vazquez595654]

Yeah I have never played any of these games before. Someone give a recommendation of which one to play in order to experience the greatness everyone seems to be talking about.

 

[trystero]

Sooo....

Star Trails is best one? Is this one of those games that if I didn't play it in 1994, then I missed the boat?

- trystero