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Development Info Dragon Commander Post-GamesCom Update

VentilatorOfDoom

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Tags: Larian Studios

<p>Swen Vincke posted another status update on the Larian forums.<a href="http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&amp;Main=28997&amp;Number=449855#Post449855" target="_blank"> Read about the difficulty</a> of finding a publisher for Dragon Commander.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><span id="body0">As he politely started explaining to me why Dragon Commander would be a total failure, memories of a similar conversation popped up in my head, where I was equally politely told by the same guy that maybe I should focus on our kids titles because clearly we had nothing to seek in the &ldquo;real game&rdquo; space. He didn&rsquo;t remember that I think, or didn&rsquo;t want to remember it as the success of the Dragon Knight Saga was too tangible a proof that his predictions had a tendency of being iffy. So as I was waiting for him to tell me that &ldquo;jetpacks might raise global warming issues among the audience&rdquo; (which to his credit he didn&rsquo;t say), I suddenly realized that the best endorsement I could get was this guy telling me that it was going to be a complete and utter failure! Or so I liked to think.<br /><br />And it continued. I met major publisher after major publisher, meeting completly risk averse people, seemingly brainwashed by their marketing departments and thinking about games as SKUs. I had to look up what a SKU was, so for the equally ill informed, a SKU is a number or code used to identify each unique product or item for sale in a store or other business (at least according to Wikipedia). To be blunt, my feelings about thinking about a game as a SKU can be summarized as - Yuk! Yuk! And Yuk! But that&rsquo;s just me. It&rsquo;s clich&eacute; to talk about majors like that, but hell, why do they have to honor those clich&eacute;s ? A little bit of out of the box behavior would make these meetings a lot more fun!<br /><br />After a couple of these I said to myself &ndash; right, before sinking into complete depression, remember that you&rsquo;re doing this because you wanted to hear their thoughts and learn from it &ndash; not because you actually want them to buy it because the only thing they&rsquo;ll do is swallow your studio and spit out the remains afterwards like they&rsquo;ve done with so many of your peers, the last thing you want is some executive producer stepping in and making it his game, not yours, and besides, you don&rsquo;t need their money anyway in order to finish the game.<br /><br />If the latter part of that phrase comes as a surprise, we really did sell a lot of Divinity II&rsquo;s, putting us in the comfortable position of being pretty stubborn about what we do and don&rsquo;t do. I think the best example of that was one of the majors coming in to tell me that I should rejoice, because they had an add-on for a well-known brand that needed to be made, and they were thinking of us ! I was flattered in a way, because it really is a cool brand on which I wasted many hours of my life, but I was also insulted, because it was for the add-on, whereas I thought Larian could make the original game a million times better.</span></p>
<p><span>...</span></p>
<p><span id="body0">The contrast was enormous with the sub-major labels. They were all over it &ndash; distribution deals were signed &ndash; proposals were made and in general the reception I got was similar to what Farhang was experiencing when showing the game to the journalists, of which at least a large proportion I suspect are still gamers at heart, looking for something different than the same old formulas regrinded, covered with some idiotic innovation presented as the next big thing such as &ldquo;now with true dual wielding !&rdquo;. These sub-major labels are small enough that there is still some idealism left, even if they too obviosuly need to focus on the money to ensure they stay in business, just like ourselves, but at least they don&rsquo;t call a game a SKU, and in my book a big +1, they expressed their enthousiasm about the game we were trying to make rather than tell me why it was doomed not to work.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/104660-dragon-commander-post-gamescom-update.html">Gamebanshee</a></p>
 

Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
If it weren’t for the RpgCodex guys who gave us a good dose of their healthy cynicism, on par with many an acquisitions guy at major publishers, there was a real risk here that we were going to start floating on the positive buzz.
:rpgcodex:
 

commie

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The guy is ok, even though he plays the 'loveable wacky indie' thing too much.

Let's face it, Divinity II was merely average with 90% useless skills, useless loot, shit dragon form, shit combat, no replay value as apart from flinging magic missiles and exploding arrows there's nothing else to make the combat less tedious, flying fortresses were shit too. Only real redeeming things was olden day style of lack of hold handing and puzzles and a bit of humor. I was initially very enthusiastic about it and was going to hand over my money, but as the game wore on it got shittier and shittier, so my purchase remained a private tracker one. Flames of Vengeance was enjoyable with the town quests somewhat.

Most overrated Codex game ever, how people defend it yet rage about Twitcher(for one) is a real mystery.
 

DraQ

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Jaedar said:
If it weren’t for the RpgCodex guys who gave us a good dose of their healthy cynicism, on par with many an acquisitions guy at major publishers, there was a real risk here that we were going to start floating on the positive buzz.
:rpgcodex:
:love:

And I'm pretty much determined to buy DC asap (but no preorders - that's how I roll) - good people at Larian seem to be making games they'd like to play themselves, and unless you're a retard (hi Todd!) or an uncontrlled perv, it generally means you're making good, or at least enjoyable games.

Sure, there are COUNTLESS things I would have changed or fixed about DKS, but that's not important. What's important is that I never felt even slightest pang of regret after buying this game - just pure fun, and I'm dead certain that this will also be the case with DC.
 

Phelot

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commie said:
Most overrated Codex game ever, how people defend it yet rage about Twitcher(for one) is a real mystery.

:lol: Oh commie...


Anyway, it was an enjoyable game, but I fear it's destined to disappear from memory. I wouldn't call it a classic at all, but a solid enough experience.

However, with this newest project... well it might be decent enough, but already I'm sick of the word "dragon" let alone a game in which you command the fucking things.
 

abnaxus

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I think the best example of that was one of the majors coming in to tell me that I should rejoice, because they had an add-on for a well-known brand that needed to be made, and they were thinking of us ! I was flattered in a way, because it really is a cool brand on which I wasted many hours of my life, but I was also insulted, because it was for the add-on, whereas I thought Larian could make the original game a million times better ;\)

I think they were slightly upset that I said no, small developer that we are, especially since they brought so many people to the meeting, but it did feel good to be able to do that, even if I did appreciate them at least thinking of us. Ordinarily, we should’ve jumped at the opportunity, and probably one of my fellow developers will, though actually, I would advise him against it.
Swen is the anti-Fergus. :salute:
 

DraQ

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phelot said:
commie said:
Most overrated Codex game ever, how people defend it yet rage about Twitcher(for one) is a real mystery.

:lol: Oh commie...


Anyway, it was an enjoyable game, but I fear it's destined to disappear from memory. I wouldn't call it a classic at all, but a solid enough experience.

However, with this newest project... well it might be decent enough, but already I'm sick of the word "dragon" let alone a game in which you command the fucking things.
But that's the twist - you command other fucking things as a dragon instead.

:smug:

Also, there have been precious few decent games where you play as a dragon - lass than decent RPGs.
 

sgc_meltdown

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DraQ said:
Also, there have been precious few decent games where you play as a dragon - lass than decent RPGs.

oh boy this 'I of the Dragon' game sure is gonna be good
 

Phelot

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DraQ said:
Also, there have been precious few decent games where you play as a dragon - lass than decent RPGs.

Yeah, for you there haven't been that many, but for the rest of us enough is enough!
 

l3loodAngel

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villain of the story said:
same old formulas regrinded, covered with some idiotic innovation presented as the next big thing such as “now with true dual wielding !

Jab at Bethesda? :D

Too bad that it will forgoten and will not be picked up by butt licking media when skyrym releases...
 

Trash

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That certainly was a fun and refreshing read. :salute:

So, who else thinks he was alluding to EA with that 'they'll swallow your studio and spit out the remains' remark? :lol:
 
Self-Ejected

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abnaxus said:
I think the best example of that was one of the majors coming in to tell me that I should rejoice, because they had an add-on for a well-known brand that needed to be made, and they were thinking of us ! I was flattered in a way, because it really is a cool brand on which I wasted many hours of my life, but I was also insulted, because it was for the add-on, whereas I thought Larian could make the original game a million times better ;\)

I think they were slightly upset that I said no, small developer that we are, especially since they brought so many people to the meeting, but it did feel good to be able to do that, even if I did appreciate them at least thinking of us. Ordinarily, we should’ve jumped at the opportunity, and probably one of my fellow developers will, though actually, I would advise him against it.
Swen is the anti-Fergus. :salute:
:salute: indeed. take that, Obsidian.
 

Burning Bridges

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He seems a likeable guy and one can agree with what he says about big publishers. But if they really wanted to cater to a different taste it does not make a whole lot of sense that they did not stick with Ultima inspired Divinity and isometric perspective.
 

Mangoose

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Jaedar said:
If it weren’t for the RpgCodex guys who gave us a good dose of their healthy cynicism, on par with many an acquisitions guy at major publishers, there was a real risk here that we were going to start floating on the positive buzz.
:love:
 

sgc_meltdown

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a developer said something wholly positive about rpgcodex, and I don't mean the meaningless kind of positive like Todd Howard's 'rpgcodex have some good ideas but we're going with what we know'

come on what's his angle here

members don't even make up a significant sales percentage and our cross-site PR value is nearly nonexistent

is he a poster here or something

perhaps it's because the codex doesn't really speak ill of divinity I and II

or maybe it's skyway's approval
 

Metro

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Being likeable won't make me automatically buy a questionable game. And they've still yet to remove SecuRom from DKS.
 

AlaCarcuss

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commie said:
The guy is ok, even though he plays the 'loveable wacky indie' thing too much.

Let's face it, Divinity II was merely average with 90% useless skills, useless loot, shit dragon form, shit combat, no replay value as apart from flinging magic missiles and exploding arrows there's nothing else to make the combat less tedious, flying fortresses were shit too. Only real redeeming things was olden day style of lack of hold handing and puzzles and a bit of humor. I was initially very enthusiastic about it and was going to hand over my money, but as the game wore on it got shittier and shittier, so my purchase remained a private tracker one. Flames of Vengeance was enjoyable with the town quests somewhat.

Most overrated Codex game ever, how people defend it yet rage about Twitcher(for one) is a real mystery.

Horses for courses and all that, commie.

I had exactly the opposite experience with DKS. Started off hating it and grew to love it the further into it I got. If you check the old DKS thread, a few of us are showing the love once again and I've just re-installed for another playthrough (no re-playability heh?).

Overrated... possibly... fanboy... obviously.

In my defence, I did mention the numerous flaws in the game... but hey, it's fun despite all that.

:love:
 

Duckard

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Seems like a decent enough chap, although I haven't played any of his games. I hope that his new game is good, and he doesn't have to sell out to the worst publishers (too soon, anyway) or go out of business. Certainly is nice to see a developer finally acknowledging how fucked up the industry is at this point.

As I type this, I realize this may just be some sort of fiction to lure some jaded folks to his side, but RPG Codex doesn't really make up a large group of people. It's weird how he would publicly badmouth some of these companies that he may have to work with in the future. Anti-Fergus indeed.
 

Stinger

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That was an interesting read...if very depressing. Loved the obvious stabs at Bethesda.

I don't know what he's thinking with that "people on the internet approve therefore it'll be successful and I don't need publishers yet" People on the internet are such a niche audience, it's quite a gamble he's taking there.

Still, he's got me interested so I'll definitely be following up on more Dragon Commander info.
 

RK47

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sgc_meltdown said:
is he a poster here or something

Hmmmm.
 

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