Preview Let's not forget about Drakensang, mkay?

[Monolith]

Tags: Drakensang

Brother None has posted a cautious <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/previews/drakensangthedarkeye1.php#null">preview</a> of PnP based RPG <a href="http://www.drakensang.com/">The Dark Eye: Drakensang</a> on <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">Gamebanshee</a>. It's based on his stay at the Drakensang booth at this years Games Convention and is basically a reminder that Drakensang might have the potential to be great - or just average.
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<blockquote>Quite a lot of attention is being paid to the equipment system, which contains an expansive system of slots to allow you to equip the character however you see fit. <strong>The micro-management known from the originals is optional, which means heroes dying from an illness they picked up when travelling or walking their boots to a thread and being damaged by travelling on barefoot are pretty much out.</strong></blockquote>So...if it's out, where is the option?
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<blockquote>The designers strike me as an honestly dedicated and intelligent lot. They don't have a whole lot of experience designing RPGs, having mostly made action and adventure games. But the DSA authors are known as a skilled lot, which promises a well-crafted plot for the game. I'm personally somewhat worried about their intention to cut down on dialogue, which might dampen the experience a lot.</blockquote>You can't get the good without the bad nowadays, huh? Good dialogue! Let's cut it, so the average ADHD kid will get past the tutorial.
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I have a hard time getting excited about the game and Brother None's preview doesn't change that.
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[Deleted member 7219]

This is looking pretty good. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

 

[Brother None]

I have a hard time getting excited about the game and Brother None's preview doesn't change that. Now, BN, just don't see that as criticism. You've done a good job summing up the facts and giving your impressions.

That's an odd thing to say in a newspost.

The preview wasn't meant to change anyone's opinion, just inform. I don't feel strongly enough about the game to try and convince anyone either way. Like you, I have a hard time getting excited. And considering I'm an enormous fan of the DSA P&P game (though I stopped playing years ago) and the ROA games, that's pretty bad.

 

[Monolith]

Sorry, I structured that a little awkardly. The preview didn't change my opinion regardless of your intentions. And with "that (as criticism)" I meant the whole newspost. I felt as if I was too negative towards you and had to say something nice at the end. I'll edit that out.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

I have a hard time getting excited about the game and Brother None's preview doesn't change that. Now, BN, just don't see that as criticism. You've done a good job summing up the facts and giving your impressions.

That's an odd thing to say in a newspost.

The preview wasn't meant to change anyone's opinion, just inform. I don't feel strongly enough about the game to try and convince anyone either way. Like you, I have a hard time getting excited. And considering I'm an enormous fan of the DSA P&P game (though I stopped playing years ago) and the ROA games, that's pretty bad.

I still don't get your stance here.

About the dialogue: Having an "editor" who straightens out texts is pretty much standard in all media - why not in computer games? Also I don't think that the Northlands trilogy was that dialogue heavy. I think they did feature less dialogue than BT1.

So, where's the point?

 

[denizsi]

Somehow the game looks so much better and presentable than Oblivion to me, despite the slight 'mannerism' of the design in some of the characters (the feet, or rather the boots). Most interior locations, especially the dungeons and caves with all the shaders, look absolutely fantastic in Oblivion in my opinion, but outdoors; forests, towns etc. look like crap.

Oh by the way, did you spot any auto-pause options, BN? Like those in IE games, especially "auto-pause at the end of each round"?

 

[Brother None]

I still don't get your stance here.

Still?

About the dialogue: Having an "editor" who straightens out texts is pretty much standard in all media - why not in computer games?

Why not? It is standard in all computer games. But not all computer games have editors that go "I'm going to shorten all dialogue to two lines because else people won't want to read it all", I think those kind of editors are exclusive to Oblivion and Drakensang.

Also I don't think that the Northlands trilogy was that dialogue heavy.

Sure wasn't. But this game's not related to the NLT in anything other than setting, so why use it as the base comparison for things like dialogue?

Not saying the comparison is fair, but saying "this series of games in the same setting didn't have much dialogue so neither should this game." The first D&D games didn't serve as a template for Baldur's Gate, did they? People light forget that DSA is just a p&p license, like D&D, and your expectations for Drakensang are best aimed the same way as you'd build expectations for a totally new D&D title.

Oh by the way, did you spot any auto-pause options, BN? Like those in IE games, especially "auto-pause at the end of each round"?

I'm pretty sure there's an auto-pause function, yeah, though it wasn't shown.

 

[Monolith]

Why not? It is standard in all computer games. But not all computer games have editors that go "I'm going to shorten all dialogue to two lines because else people won't want to read it all", I think those kind of editors are exclusive to Oblivion and Drakensang.

Did you get any idea of how much will be cut?

 

[Brother None]

Did you get any idea of how much will be cut?

Not really.

For a reminder, their remarks on dialogue:
On the other hand, we don't want to force the player to plough through page after page of text in order to be able to follow the plot. We want to put an emphasis on short and vibrant dialogues.

Since a part of the question goes back to something I said that was easily misunderstood, I want to go into detail about the amount of dialogue in the game.

We want to create a structure that gives players access to important information without requiring them to read large amounts of text. We do however want to fill all dialogues with lots of additional information about the world, its inhabitants and their relation to each other. In addition, there will be a multitude of optional dialogues and information in the form of books and scrolls which open additional quests and additional paths to the more “diligent” gamer.

This is a good example of how we approach these game design decisions: we want the player to have the choice, whether he wants to listen an NPC’s life story of whether he just wants a quick answer. That’s the philosophy that governs the whole project.

Essential information-filled dialogue is shorter for the sake of the player, 's all we know.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

• Combat: Basically it is a turn-based system, built on the P&P rules, but it is displayed in real-time.
  
  Dialogue: the developers decide[d] to slice up and shorten most dialogue in favour of a faster pace, with the apparent reasoning that the average RPG player doesn't like to read much.
  
  Summary: Drakensang is like going back to the roots. Finally, there's a real RPG with a party, skill-based combat system and pausable fights... Our project is just better described as a "Baldur's Gate in 3D".

Chances to not suck: Limited.

Personally though, I look forward to shortened dialogue's. I just don't have the time to do all that reading stuff anyway and besides, it just gets in the way of the killing. Really, if they just cut the game down to you whacking stuff and even better, if they made that happen automatically, we'd all be better off.

I like the screenshots though. I cast bright shiney light at the kissing wolves and Evil Eye. Mind you, Dragon looks like it will be fun to play with.

 

[Brother None]

I like the screenshots though. I cast bright shiney light at the kissing wolves and Evil Eye. Mind you, Dragon looks like it will be fun to play with.

That's a Tatzelwurm, I kind of minor dragon race. They can't fly or breath fire, but they're still pretty mean-ass. I doubt you'll meet any real dragons and certainly not the upper races, they're way too powerful in the setting.

I kind of like the Tatzelwurm, it's one of those things that's more unique to DSA, just like the non-standard look of orcs and goblins. It's still pretty standard high fantasy, but just a bit different.

Not sure what's up with XTC-trippin' Gandalf there, though.

 

[Rivo]

Did you get any idea of how much will be cut?

Not really.

For a reminder, their remarks on dialogue:
On the other hand, we don't want to force the player to plough through page after page of text in order to be able to follow the plot. We want to put an emphasis on short and vibrant dialogues.

Since a part of the question goes back to something I said that was easily misunderstood, I want to go into detail about the amount of dialogue in the game.

We want to create a structure that gives players access to important information without requiring them to read large amounts of text. We do however want to fill all dialogues with lots of additional information about the world, its inhabitants and their relation to each other. In addition, there will be a multitude of optional dialogues and information in the form of books and scrolls which open additional quests and additional paths to the more “diligent” gamer.

This is a good example of how we approach these game design decisions: we want the player to have the choice, whether he wants to listen an NPC’s life story of whether he just wants a quick answer. That’s the philosophy that governs the whole project.

Essential information-filled dialogue is shorter for the sake of the player, 's all we know.

Short and vibrant? Hold on, did I miss something?. Is vibrant a new word for epic/immersive/whateverthenextbigsellingthingis?

Besides that:

In addition, there will be a multitude of optional dialogues and information in the form of books and scrolls which open additional quests and additional paths to the more “diligent” gamer.

Seems very, very oblivious.
I like to read pages of -sometimes trivial- text in game. Sometimes it evens adds more colour to the plot/story. It gives you a larger view of the whole story instead of just summing up all the key events in the plot.

When I think of it, I have seriously no clue why any decent developer would do that to their story, it's like forcing handicapped people to have sex with you. Jeebs.

 

[Claw]

The micro-management known from the originals is optional, which means heroes dying from an illness they picked up when travelling or walking their boots to a thread and being damaged by travelling on barefoot are pretty much out.

RoA had two game modes. I guess this game is too next-gen for options.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

The micro-management known from the originals is optional, which means heroes dying from an illness they picked up when travelling or walking their boots to a thread and being damaged by travelling on barefoot are pretty much out.

RoA had two game modes. I guess this game is too next-gen for options.

If you refer to the beginners and expert modes, those were only different in the way skills and attributes were increased - automatically or the manual way.

@BN
I wrote still, because I read your preview earlier :wink:

Let me cite the devs themselves:

Dialoge:

"Wir versuchen einen Weg zu finden, wesentliche Informationen so aufzubereiten, dass sie schnell zugänglich sind. Das bezieht sich nicht nur auf Textmengen, sondern auch auf die Art und Weise wie Dialoge angelegt und gestaltet werden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen elementaren und anderen Informationen bedeutet aber nicht, dass letztere pauschal weggelassen werden. Ganz im Gegenteil: wir werden weit mehr Informationen implementieren, als wirklich notwendig. Man kann, bei entsprechendem Interesse, viel mehr über die Welt und ihre Bewohner, die Geschichte und ihre Auswirkungen erfahren, als für das Lösen der Mainquest nötig. Und natürlich werden sich durch diese Informationen immer wieder Bereiche des Spiels öffnen, die demjenigen, der nur der Mainquest folgt, verborgen bleiben. " (Jan_RadonLabs, Mai 2006)

"Dialoge werden vertont, möglicherweise werden wir aber im Sinne eines zügigen Gameplays an einigen Stellen darauf verzichten alles wörtlich zu vertonen." (Jan_RadonLabs, Juni 2006 im Interview mit drasa.de) [

Translation

We try to present essential information in a way that it is rapidly accessible. That is not limited to the amount of text but also refers to the way dialogues are represented. The distinction of elementary and further information does not mean that this non elementary information will be omitted generally. Very much the other way round We will implement far more information than what is really necessary. If you are interested ,you can find out much more about the world and its denizens, the story and its consequences than it is necessary to solve the main quest. And of course will these information open up portions of the game, which will be secluded for those who only follow the main quest.

Dialogues will be voiced, but probably we will refrain from voicing everything in order to get faster gameplay.

This doesn't sound to bad to me.

 

[Ivy Mike]

Brother None, did you get any feeling for the non-linearty aspect of the game, if there is any? Also will it follow BG in the sense that it's mosty linear with areas cut off untill you complete some form of goal and real (TM) choices almost non-existant, or will the game be allow for free-form playing with real consequences for your actions?

About the optional travelling managament, is it optional or is it out completely?

 

[Brother None]

This doesn't sound to bad to me.

While you seem better informed than me, so I might indeed be way off, I feel that Jan and Bernd are simply on the wrong tack of design philosophy. The assumption is that you can have a natural flow of dialogue and still have NPCs statements tied closely to dense information providing.

I think they're wrong, and whenever you cut into dialogue for the purpose of making the information-density tight, you're "mechanising" the NPC until he becomes little more than an "information here"-slot machine.

And it doesn't help that there's one "rant to me" branch and one "give me only info" branch. That'll likely feel even more unnatural. Unless they're giving you route descriptions, human beings just don't tend to be pure information resources or pure filler. The split is unnatural.

Brother None, did you get any feeling for the non-linearty aspect of the game, if there is any? Also will it follow BG in the sense that it's mosty linear with areas cut off untill you complete some form of goal and real (TM) choices almost non-existant, or will the game be allow for free-form playing with real consequences for your actions?

They've said that the main storyline is linear with branching side-quests that allow more options, that's all I know.

About the optional travelling managament, is it optional or is it out completely?

Optional, I *think*. But no on-off switch, just "you can ignore it completely or do something with it" kind of stuff, so either way it's not important.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

This doesn't sound to bad to me.

While you seem better informed than me, so I might indeed be way off, I feel that Jan and Bernd are simply on the wrong tack of design philosophy.

Yeah, the issue here isn't what will or won't be in, it's what their focus is. Their intention is to cut-down on the dialogue (or split it into various forms) seemingly because it "gets in the way". If you think dialogue in an RPG is getting in the way of (presumably) the action, you're not generally of the idea that good dialogue adds to the game. In other words, as Kharn said, you're making information vending machines. I see that as being ala Diablo, where the focus is more on the shiney things you collect from killing stuff, rather than crafting a deeper story or developing interesting characters that add to the atmosphere.

Deep and interesting characters in an RPG are developed around "how" they give their information and when they give that information to you, not necessarily the information they give. EG: They want "faster gameplay", not "interesting characters that compel you to read every line and explore the world in a deeper and meaningful way". Their focus appears to be very clearly on "make stuff happen NOAW", which I see as being akin to the Diablo philosophy, where shiney loot is dropping every which way around you and you play the game like a mindless addict at a gaming machine, trying to get as much ph4t l3wt as you can, rather than out of any deeper interest or respect for the gameplay mechanisms involved or the setting or story.

... and let's be honest. Those graphics aren't going to attract the "average" RPG player anyway.

 

[aboyd]

So... a failure all around, then?

 

[Au naturel]

More like mediocrity when it comes to an rpg; Cordial that has had far too much water added to it.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Are we now playing "Oblviion development" backwards or what?

I think this is all criticism that is uncalled for. Bethesda promised, promised and delivered quite the opposite - and we knew it all along.

So, lets consider for a moment, that they try to make a game that works on different levels - a shallow one and a deep one.

They have a massive fan base in germany (who mostly consist of spreadsheet autists and rule book fascists) which is their target audience and which they try to impress.

Hell, they even use famous DSA NPCs (like the Bioware games) who in general are much more detailed characters than your average Elminster

And then they have a level on which the game works for DSA ignorants, Hack'n Slashers and the majority of the "average gamer".

I don't know if it will work, but I think they try hard.

... and let's be honest. Those graphics aren't going to attract the "average" RPG player anyway.

Tell me: How could such a scene be more "impressive"?
http://www.dsa-game.de/images/zoom/screenshots/drakensang0098-spielerhaus2.jpg

 

[aboyd]

Tell me: How could such a scene be more "impressive"?

Oh oh, I know! Pick me!

It could be more impressive if the right wall wasn't a re-scaled pattern that has become blurry. Also, if it used bump-mapping (is that what it's called, to simulate the depth of 3D lighting on surfaces?), the wall and the tiles of the roof wouldn't look so flat and fakey. Also, if they used more character models, there wouldn't be a mirror image of the guy in green, 100 meters ahead and to the right. Also, the shadows from the buildings all angle toward the camera, while the shadows from the people all angle away from the camera. So fixing that would help the scene to be more impressive.

Did I get it right?

 

[Brother None]

Are we now playing "Oblviion development" backwards or what?

I think this is all criticism that is uncalled for. Bethesda promised, promised and delivered quite the opposite - and we knew it all along.

I don't think trying to defend them by comparing them to Oblivion/Bethesda is a good idea.

So, lets consider for a moment, that they try to make a game that works on different levels - a shallow one and a deep one.

With design preference given to the shallow experience? No thanks.

Something like that has never worked. I might trust it in the hands of an experienced RPG developer who knows what he's doing, but that's not what these guys are.

They have a massive fan base in germany (who mostly consist of spreadsheet autists and rule book fascists) which is their target audience and which they try to impress.

This is also true for every D&D title, did that stop BG:DA from being made?

And then they have a level on which the game works for DSA ignorants, Hack'n Slashers and the majority of the "average gamer".

Here's the kicker: "why?"

Tell me: How could such a scene be more "impressive"?
http://www.dsa-game.de/images/zoom/screenshots/drakensang0098-spielerhaus2.jpg

What aboyd said.

Their dollar-a-minute graphics are about the level of Gothic and the game looks pretty shitty in motion. They got a lot of style, though, just like Gothic. That's enough for us.

But DU is talking about the "average". The "buys Mass Effect and Oblivion" average. They wouldn't even touch this with a 10' pole. Why set your gameplay towards "average" gamers when you don't have the graphics to please them?

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Tell me: How could such a scene be more "impressive"?

Oh oh, I know! Pick me!

It could be more impressive if the right wall wasn't a re-scaled pattern that has become blurry. Also, if it used bump-mapping (is that what it's called, to simulate the depth of 3D lighting on surfaces?), the wall and the tiles of the roof wouldn't look so flat and fakey. Also, if they used more character models, there wouldn't be a mirror image of the guy in green, 100 meters ahead and to the right. Also, the shadows from the buildings all angle toward the camera, while the shadows from the people all angle away from the camera. So fixing that would help the scene to be more impressive.

Did I get it right?

1. Texture resolutions seems okay to me. Look at the buildings that are farther away. They seem crystal clear to me.

2. The floor tiles are bump mapped IMHO. The texture does not seem "flat" to me. It is of course not the displacement map technology. That would actually look more "impressive", but is just a shader away.

3. Your shadow analysis is incorrect. As you can see at the market booth on the left the shadows of the buildings angle to the right and up. The shadows on the right hand corner are either no shadows at all (because you can see people's shadows within those shadows, which is impossible) or a shadow of a tower left and high above the courtyard.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

http://www.drakensang.de/pics/screen_001.jpg
http://www.drakensang.de/pics/screen_005.jpg
http://www.drakensang.de/pics/screen_008.jpg

vs

http://www.ps3land.com/previews/Crysis/ ... 5B1%5D.jpg
http://maxygames.no.sapo.pt/Crysis.jpg
http://www3.incrysis.com/screenshots/cr ... ck-guy.jpg

The graphics are good for us but they're about 5 years old by "next-gen" standards. You visit any "average" forum and you'll see games with better graphics than Drakensang get torn apart for "looking like shit" by the "average" gamer. Besides, there's nowhere near enough bloom.

So, lets consider for a moment, that they try to make a game that works on different levels - a shallow one and a deep one.

I think all they'll end up with is some kind of bastardised version which doesn't satisfy either crowd.

 

[thesheeep]

I just wanted to tell you guys that some new screens popped up.

http://www.krawall.de/web/Das_Schwarze_ ... 01835957b9

The site is german but its about the pictures anyway


IMHO, those look very nice, though there is a bit too much bloom for my taste. The characters seem to be very detailed and the armors and weapons seem to be normal (no magical +3000 to all stats with glowing flames of ice).
The interface seems to be copied from NWN2, more or less. Not that this really matters, as long as it fulfills its purpose.

Is this newsworthy?