Game News Successful sales = expansion + sequel for Drakensang

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Drakensang

<a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=10067">RPGWatch summarised a few German articles about Drakensang:</a>
<br>
<blockquote>The RATCON 2008 panel discussion about Drakensang proved to be quite fruitful. Drakensang's sales numbers are so convincing that both an add-on and a sequel are in the pipeline. Radon Labs is still in negotiations about the details. Work on DraSa 2 will be started when the add-on has shipped.</blockquote>
<br>
Fans of patches are also in for a surprise:
<br>
<blockquote>Radon Labs plans to release several patches for Drakensang this year. The focus will be on further polishing and new content. NPC behaviour (especially reaction to pickpocketing), balancing, item placement, combat AI, enemy aggression, difficulty levels, more diverse traps, more NPCs, more monster types, better item descriptions, faster loot collection, etc. are on the list. They'll evaluate the whole thing and put as much as possible into patches.</blockquote>
<br>
Enhanced Edition anyone? And why would you <b>plan</b> "several" patches? Pro-tip: If you're <b>plan</b>ning on buying the game now, don't. Wait until they release the patched version.
<br>
<br>
Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</a>

 

[Nedrah]

They're a rather small studio, you know. I'm sure they would have loved to ship an even more polished game from the beginning on, just like cd projekt would surely have preferred a non-shitty translation of their game. I believe you're comparing these kinds of developers to the likes of Bethesda or Bioware, but tend to forget that those smaller studios who are seeing their first real success are not wearing money hats to work. If they use their newfound assets to polish their game - more power to them!

 

[Gorath]

Radon Labs is actually one of the bigger German studios. They have more than 90 employees.
In my summary I left out the 2nd half of both articles. The RATCON is the official DSA exhibition. Every single visitor is a DSA fan. Radon Labs explained honestly why certain decision were made. Many of them included compromizes due to severe budget restrictions or target audience consideration. ( Radon Labs has been pitching the Drakensang project since ca. 2001. No publisher wanted it for acceptable money until they found additional external funding.) They had to play it safe to make sure their company survives.
Drakensang's success gives them a chance to give some of the compromizes a little push in the right direction. And it also makes perfect business sense. The patches are budgeted through the add-on. The game is already nearly bug free, so there is really no need for hectic emergency patches. They can simply improve one feature after the other and release small patches. Each updates the CP, improves the game, signals commitment and keeps the game in the news. Not to forget they also show goodwill towards the hardcore DSA crowd.
The last important point is the timing: This year. The international release is in Q1 next year. You guys will get an even better game.

Delaying a purchase doesn´t make much sense. Drakensang is on its way to become a major hit in Germany. It won´t go budget before 2010. Just buy it when you have time for gaming.

 

[Spectacle]

Planning several patches makes plenty of sense. One patch put out quickly to fix bugs and other serious issues, and another patch later to polish the game.

 

[Nedrah]

Radon Labs is actually one of the bigger German studios. They have more than 90 employees.
In my summary I left out the 2nd half of both articles. The RATCON is the official DSA exhibition. Every single visitor is a DSA fan. Radon Labs explained honestly why certain decision were made. Many of them included compromizes due to severe budget restrictions or target audience consideration. ( Radon Labs has been pitching the Drakensang project since ca. 2001. No publisher wanted it for acceptable money until they found additional external funding.) They had to play it safe to make sure their company survives.
Drakensang's success gives them a chance to give some of the compromizes a little push in the right direction. And it also makes perfect business sense. The patches are budgeted through the add-on. The game is already nearly bug free, so there is really no need for hectic emergency patches. They can simply improve one feature after the other and release small patches. Each updates the CP, improves the game, signals commitment and keeps the game in the news. Not to forget they also show goodwill towards the hardcore DSA crowd.
The last important point is the timing: This year. The international release is in Q1 next year. You guys will get an even better game.

Delaying a purchase doesn´t make much sense. Drakensang is on its way to become a major hit in Germany. It won´t go budget before 2010. Just buy it when you have time for gaming.

Thanks for clearing that up even further. When I said "small", I was not so much referring to the amount of employees and I was not trying to describe them as indie like. I was really rather referring to their financial possibilities and the fact that they were small enough in that regard to be unable to adopt some kind of "when it's done" mentallity no matter what or to afford their game to flop.

 

[mondblut]

English version, when?

 

[ricolikesrice]

...

sounds good. drakensang could have been a lot better but it also could have been a lot worse. great that they get good sales and even better an expansion and sequel are comming. i m hoping those will be more RoA-like but i understand why drakensang had to sacrifice some things to appease the mainstream crowd.

a SoZ-like expansion for drakensang would be a dream come true ( i really look forward to SoZ but after playing drakensang NWN2 looks so goddamn inferior =/ )

 

[SimpleComplexity]

I`m not really caring for them. If i compare this game to Fallout or Arcanum that game is still lightyears away from what it could be(i guess it isn`t even possible to compare them). They might be able to fix a lot of bugs, add a lot of things but in the end it`s still at best a mediocre RPG. Of course they want to make money without a high risk and thusly they design their game like that way. Nope sorry, they failed.

 

[Gorath]

Thanks for clearing that up even further. When I said "small", I was not so much referring to the amount of employees and I was not trying to describe them as indie like. I was really rather referring to their financial possibilities and the fact that they were small enough in that regard to be unable to adopt some kind of "when it's done" mentallity no matter what or to afford their game to flop.

That´s right.
They had a little bit of luck though. When the hype was much bigger then expected dtp realized they had aimed too low and granted them 9 additional months of polishing. Better late than never.
One of the RL bosses revealed in a speech at a dev conference that initially the interested publishers demanded to get the game for 1M EUR. 1M for a party RPG with better than average graphics. Answer RL: "Impossible!"

English version, when?

Q1/09. Countries still unclear. I suspect at least the UK and the small European countries. Then GoGamer can import it.


Another thing I didn´t post:
They announced a coop-MP campaign for Drakensang 2. AFAIR none of the two summaries had an "if" in the respective sentence.

 

[inwoker]

Dark Underlord, we got that you want devs to polish games before release. Now stop using your anti-witcher butt-hur'tency in every newspost.

 

[Gwendo]

I'm noticing a trend here: "let's not waste resources in a full game. Let's just make half-a-game and release it. IF the game sells well, then we'll complete it. We'll have paying beta testers FTW!"

 

[aleph]

I'm noticing a trend here: "let's not waste resources in a full game. Let's just make half-a-game and release it. IF the game sells well, then we'll complete it. We'll have paying beta testers FTW!"

In a few years they will first release the design document as a paperback. Only if that sells well they will start working on the game.

 

[Hannah06]

<a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=10067">RPGWatch summarised a few German articles about Drakensang:</a>
<blockquote>The RATCON 2008 panel discussion about Drakensang proved to be quite fruitful. Drakensang's sales numbers are so convincing that both an add-on and a sequel are in the pipeline. Radon Labs is still in negotiations about the details. Work on DraSa 2 will be started when the add-on has shipped.</blockquote>
Fans of patches are also in for a surprise:
<blockquote>Radon Labs plans to release several patches for Drakensang this year. The focus will be on further polishing and new content. NPC behaviour (especially reaction to pickpocketing), balancing, item placement, combat AI, enemy aggression, difficulty levels, more diverse traps, more NPCs, more monster types, better item descriptions, faster loot collection, etc. are on the list. They'll evaluate the whole thing and put as much as possible into patches.</blockquote>
Enhanced Edition anyone? And why would you <b>plan</b> "several" patches? Pro-tip: If you're <b>plan</b>ning on buying the game now, don't. Wait until they release the patched version.

Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</a>

Is that true that the RATCON 2008 panel discussion about Drakensang proved to be quite fruitful. Drakensang's sales numbers are so convincing that both an add-on and a sequel are in the pipeline?




_________________
Aprilaire

 

[Spectacle]

Wow, a zombie necromancer. Avast, foul creature!

 

[racofer]

 

[The Ninth Circle]

Hot.

 

[A user named cat]

I only have one suggestion for anything in Drakensang's future: