Game News Drakensang Phileasson's Secret Released

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Drakensang

<p><a href="http://www.drakensang.de/phileasson.php" target="_blank">The expansion to Drakensang: The River of Time</a> has been released.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Actually, there's no news to be found anywhere, but I know it because my copy arrived. Seems that Radon Labs no longer puts up any marketing efforts after their <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=44789" target="_blank">insolvency</a>. They're probably busy working on some <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=47392" target="_blank">shitty browser game</a> for BigPoint.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>And now everyone takes a guess at how likely it is that - with all their financial trouble - they will put up the money required to localize a fully voiced game into english.</p>

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Good.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Lol. I already knew this, being VoD's alt. But where exactly does the post-insolvency wisdom of 'let's try to fool people into thinking we haven't finished and released a game that we've been spending huge money on for the last few years' come from. Surely at least one of the major creditors has to realise at some point that they'll get more money back if they lend enough further money in order to properly market and sell the game. Even if the game isn't profitable, it would recover marketing costs and a fuckload more.

Or are they hoping that when the studio dissolves, they'll get the IP as part of the deal and would rather wait until they own the game outright before marketing it to anyone.

 

[Roguey]

Isn't it the publisher's responsibility to pay for localization and marketing? dtp entertainment gets the blame here.

 

[thesheeep]

Didn't dtp let them down, which was the reason for their financial problems to begin with?

 

[Angelo85]

Sadly on the German Forums bad things are being postet about the Expansion. Gametime is rumored to be only around 5 to 6 hours and only one new side quest.

 

[ricolikesrice]

there s a review at gamestar which doesnt have nice things to say.

basically it sounds (confirmed by fan reactions on forums) like the publisher -now that drakensang is done with anyway- just felt like ripping off blind-buy fans. 4-6 hour short, 95% boring combat and absolutely nothing of what made Drakensang 2 a good game. IF the original devs had any hand in this then good riddance, no matter how good your game was, such a massive "fuck you" to your fans is really rude - they arent the ones to blame that the game tanked because all the other morons bought Dragon Age instead.

 

[Roguey]

Didn't dtp let them down, which was the reason for their financial problems to begin with?

True enough, but it looks like they're still involved with it. This is from July, after Radon Labs was acquired: http://forum.dtp-entertainment.com/view ... 23&t=16571

River of Time is beeing localized currently.
...
We localize the game into English.
And an international publisher will have to decide about the packaging etc.

 

[getter77]

Man, it sounds like the Drakensang side of things just can't catch a break videogame wise. I wish they'd knock out an OGL styled thing or some such so at least some Indie or freeware entities could take a crack at things legally.

Then again, I wish that'd happen for most things like this as it isn't like Shadowrun hasn't had pretty much the same kind of woes despite being ripe for proper game doings.

If River of Time makes it over in English, at this point, I have to wonder how the localization quality would be---can't confidently picture them looking to spend enough for a polished time of it given the current situation.

 

[commie]

I would be happy for Kraut voices and English everything else at the moment.

 

[getter77]

I would be happy for Kraut voices and English everything else at the moment.

Likewise. Do this and make sure the UI and translation accuracy is good and I'm there on top of hopefully some way that further bugfixing/tweaking could be done.

 

[Sceptic]

Any news on whether this will ever get translated? or if there is an English text/German voices version floating around?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Well, apparently there is an English version of the game itself (not the expansion), but you cannot buy it; only download the pirate copy....

 

[Nickless]

Considering their distribution and marketing of the English copy for River of Time, I don't think their sales will be high enough to justify an English localisation, even if they could afford it. I'd really like to understand what their suits were thinking.

 

[MicoSelva]

I wonder if they'll be any version beside German.

 

[Berekän]

Yes, there's a Spanish version that was released the 25th. Also, there's a bundle with Drakensang, Drakensang 2, Phileasson's Secret & the OST for just 20€.

God, I love FX

 

[MicoSelva]

WANT!

To learn Spanish, that is.

 

[Brother None]

That's pretty swank, Berekän. Is it in Spanish only?

Well, apparently there is an English version of the game itself (not the expansion), but you cannot buy it; only download the pirate copy....

Note it exists because Drakensang 2 has been released in English in the Benelux. Just not...elsewhere...

Yeah I don't get what the hell they've been doing with this game's release cycle either.

 

[Sceptic]

Note it exists because Drakensang 2 has been released in English in the Benelux. Just not...elsewhere...

Wait what? They released it in English in 3 countries whose first language is in fact not English? With the big motherfucking English island a stone's throw away? What the hell are they doing?

Yeah I think we can forget about the expansion then...

I'm a bit surprised to see a Phileassons floating around the interwebz that says "ENG/DE" (or ENG/GER, whatever it was). I am guessing it is not what it says it is. :mystery:

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Note it exists because Drakensang 2 has been released in English in the Benelux. Just not...elsewhere...

Wait what? They released it in English in 3 countries whose first language is in fact not English? With the big motherfucking English island a stone's throw away? What the hell are they doing?

Yeah I think we can forget about the expansion then...

I'm a bit surprised to see a Phileassons floating around the interwebz that says "ENG/DE" (or ENG/GER, whatever it was). I am guessing it is not what it says it is. :mystery:

Well, German's were never very good at crossing the channel.

This is pathetic though.

 

[Brother None]

Wait what? They released it in English in 3 countries whose first language is in fact not English?

Well, we always get the English localized version. It's not worth the effort to localize games to Dutch as most Dutch people prefer English or original voice works for everything but child's products. Not sure about Belgium and Luxemburg, they're always a headache, they might normally get French/German versions for appropriate areas.

But yes, it's been out here for weeks now, I forgot when exactly because I didn't pick it up (was waiting for a review copy but might want to give up on that now), but that page says October and that sounds about right. dtp published and it certainly looks ready to be shipped to England. Hell, bol.com even ships to England or elsewhere, though I have no idea how much it'd cost.

I've stopped trying to figure out what they're trying to accomplish vis-a-vis localization and international PR and release ages ago. Drakensang itself wasn't that well-handled but 2 and its spinoff just seem to be forgotten. It happens with European releases every now and again, Lord knows why.

 

[commie]

Note it exists because Drakensang 2 has been released in English in the Benelux. Just not...elsewhere...

Wait what? They released it in English in 3 countries whose first language is in fact not English? With the big motherfucking English island a stone's throw away? What the hell are they doing?

Yeah I think we can forget about the expansion then...

I'm a bit surprised to see a Phileassons floating around the interwebz that says "ENG/DE" (or ENG/GER, whatever it was). I am guessing it is not what it says it is. :mystery:

Well, German's were never very good at crossing the channel.

This is pathetic though.

You forget the Angles and Saxons before hand? Now with the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family ruling over you, why wuld the Germans need to invade what they already own?

 

[Texas Red]

Drakensang 2 is great. Been playing it for some time and am loving it.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Note it exists because Drakensang 2 has been released in English in the Benelux. Just not...elsewhere...

Wait what? They released it in English in 3 countries whose first language is in fact not English? With the big motherfucking English island a stone's throw away? What the hell are they doing?

Yeah I think we can forget about the expansion then...

I'm a bit surprised to see a Phileassons floating around the interwebz that says "ENG/DE" (or ENG/GER, whatever it was). I am guessing it is not what it says it is. :mystery:

Well, German's were never very good at crossing the channel.

This is pathetic though.

You forget the Angles and Saxons before hand? Now with the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family ruling over you, why wuld the Germans need to invade what they already own?

They ended up being owned themselves, so the Germans had to try resorting to more direct methods. This certainly hasn't been the case with Drakensang 2 though...

Edit: They have successfully invaded France however...http://annonces.ebay.fr/allitems?_from= ... Categories

I see Italy has localised versions as well. Spain. Potatoland.

Bah!

 

[Berekän]

That's pretty swank, Berekän. Is it in Spanish only?

Unfortunately yes, it's from a publisher that only works in Spain, and it's a shame because it's like the best publisher ever. They always have good quality translations in their games (some of the translations here are fucking terrible, like in Oblivion naming the Healing spell "Fireball" in spanish ), their games are always at 20€ or cheaper, and they usually have quite nice bundles, they released a collector's edition of Tropico at 20€ with Tropico 1 + Paradise Island, Tropico 2 and Tropico 3 + Absolute Power.

What's even better, as they release their games so cheap, when another publisher picks up a sequel to a game they published, they also keep it cheap. This happened with Sacred 2, the original was released by FX at 20€ and the sequel was picked up by another publisher, but released it at 20€.

Also, they gave some things for free, like the expansion for Sacred, which could be downloaded from their webpage to apologize for the wait time until it was translated, they gave Imperium 3 to people who had registeredh his copy of Imperium 2, for example, and one time they sent me a free copy of Flatout 2 just for playing in a open beta of one of their games.