Game News Dungeon Lords Demo

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: Dungeon Lords; Heuristic Park Inc.

The <a href=http://dlx.gamespot.com/pc/dungeonlords/moreinfo_6121011.html?tag=boxcar_all_download_headline>demo</a> for the Combat RPG of 2004, Dungeon Lords, has just been released. Weighing at a hefty 320 megabyte size, the demo puts you in the shoes of either a Human, Argot, or Sylvan as you start off in the wilderness outside Fargrove. According to the description, which I'm too lazy to paraphrase, the demo leads you on to the underground sewer system and into the Fargrove Theatre to do battle with the Goblin Mage. This demo features both single-player and multiplayer options, as well as a wide array of weaponry and spells to wield.
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There are a number of issues with the demo, which seems rather unpolished:
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<blockquote>Known issues:
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***MAKE SURE TO DISABLE STICKYKEYS BEFORE STARTING THE GAME***
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This build of Dungeon Lords does not support multitasking using alt-tab under
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Windows. If users shift focus to another window or application, such as when
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the stickykeys notification appears they will be unable return to Dungeon Lords
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and will lose all game progress before the last save.
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You can disable stickykeys by going to Control Panel>Accessibility Options
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and unchecking "Use Sticky Keys."
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1. Although the options screen is present, not all of the functions currently
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work. In particular, players cannot alter the video resolution settings.
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2. To Exit the demo, press ESC then select QUIT.
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3. To save the game, press ESC to bring up the save menu.
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4. While in multiplayer, pressing ESC will exit the player from the game.
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5. In most cases, pressing the SPACE BAR will close dialog or menu screens.
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6. There is a minor graphic issue concerning dual wielding of light weapons
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where sometimes light weapons can be equipped but will not appear in-game.
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This does not affect gameplay.
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7. In order to enter the Sewers, you must speak to Scorch the Goblin who
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appears in the bushes to the left of the Gate Guard. In certain rare cases, he
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may not appear. If this happens, restart the game.
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8. There is a known issue with some of the lower save game slots causing
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corruption of save data. TO avoid this problem, please avoid using the last 3
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save slots.</blockquote>
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You can grab the buggy demo from <a href=http://dlx.gamespot.com/pc/dungeonlords/moreinfo_6121011.html?tag=boxcar_all_download_headline>GameSpot</a>. Feel free to post your impressions in the thread.

 

[Shagnak]

OKay, I have been looking forward to this demo, so will be spending (wasting?) some bandwidth on it now.
Those bugs don't look good. Surely a demo in this state is not a good advertisement for a final product.
Oh well, here goes...

Edit: keep getting "server full" errors. Finally found a local(ish) server that will let meon, but I'll be about 40 years older before it finishes. :sigh:

 

[Sol Invictus]

<+PatrickTheLlamaGod> Combat RPG of 2004 is the Worst Game of 2005

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's pretty awful. I made a character and started the game. I heard some guy yelling for me to come talk to him. Right off the bat, pardon the pun, I'm attacked by two bats. At least, I think they were bats because they would periodically swoop down and damage me. Then I'd look around for them, and never saw them after they attacked. This happenned a few times, and I guess they gave up because it stopped.

So, I go to talk to Simon the Messager. He tells me to keep following the road. Well, it's night time and it takes me a while to find the damned road because I can't see very far and the road is basically a path of grass that's just a lighter color than the rest of the grass. I had gamma cranked up to around 75% as well, but I found the road.

Oh, before I found the road, I was attacked by two giant scorpions and three wild wolves. I probably would have found the road in around 30 seconds and only been moderately annoyed without the frequent interruptions. Basically, I'm down to about a third of my health already.

So, I follow the grass road. I get to a gate and the guard says that Lord Dave won't let anyone in or out until his daughter is returned. Apparently the man is a fucking retard, because that's got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. So, you can't send anyone out to look for her because the town's closed off, nor can anyone who wants to help for whatever reason can enter the town. On top of that, what about trade? Bringing in food or exporting good? Eh?

Anyway, there's this goblin that says he'll help me get in the town. I turn to talk to him, and three skeleton warriors show up. I killed two, the last one killed me. All the while, the goblin is says, "Follow me! This way!"

Lame.

 

[Shagnak]

Hahaahhahahaha
Sounds fucking great!!

Edit: I wonder if they have pumped up the number of random encounters in a (highly misguided) bid to shove more "gameplay" into the demo. Or is the final game like that?

Edit2: actually, quite a few (all?) Bradley game have "quick death" opportunities for starting parties/adventurers.
W&W : go out the first gate, accidentally turn left, meet the bandits and die immediately.
Wiz7: take a wrong turn in the first 5 minutes of game, meet a Ratkin ambush, low level party dies immediately.
Okay, not a "few" but can't remember enuff about the others

 

[Deathboy]

So, I go to talk to Simon the Messager. He tells me to keep following the road. Well, it's night time and it takes me a while to find the damned road because I can't see very far and the road is basically a path of grass that's just a lighter color than the rest of the grass. I had gamma cranked up to around 75% as well, but I found the road.

If the dude had of told me "to keep following the freeway" I wouldn't have know what the fuck he meant, that is until yesterday.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Hahaahhahahaha
Sounds fucking great!!

Edit: I wonder if they have pumped up the number of random encounters in a (highly misguided) bid to shove more "gameplay" into the demo. Or is the final game like that?

There's a setting to lower the amount of random encounters in the game, but I left it on NORMAL. In around five minutes of playing it, I was attacked by four different packs of critters.

Edit2: actually, quite a few (all?) Bradley game have "quick death" opportunities for starting parties/adventurers.
W&W : go out the first gate, accidentally turn left, meet the bandits and die immediately.
Wiz7: take a wrong turn in the first 5 minutes of game, meet a Ratkin ambush, low level party dies immediately.

I never made a wrong turn, really. I never left sight of Simon the Messenger on that hillside, really, and the final battle was right there at the gate where I was supposed to go.

On top of that, the combat really isn't that much fun. Imagine Bloodlines' combat done wrong. That's what we're talking about here.

 

[Shagnak]

Super duper first impressions...

Buggy as fuck.

Had issues with changing resolution, and after a while the screen corrupted. Anything that was meant to be transparent turned a bright pink. After many restarts of the game and mucking around with graphical settings it finally returned to normal.

Sound: terrible. Looks like they ahve excluded all of the ambient sounds from the demo. Character speech sounds clear, but all combat effects are like they are coming through 10 meters of water and a think glass wall.

Gameplay to come...

Edit: I think it needs another year.

 

[Seven]

The demo won't even download for me. All-in-all, I suppose that's a good thing.

 

[Shagnak]

Anyway, there's this goblin that says he'll help me get in the town. I turn to talk to him, and three skeleton warriors show up. I killed two, the last one killed me. All the while, the goblin is says, "Follow me! This way!"

SPOILER
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..
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..
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..
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Oh well, doesn't matter, the little fuck just leads you into a trap anyway.
He tells his mates "Attack" and then they all run out of hiding and boot you in the nuts.
Little green asswipe motherfucker.

 

[merry andrew]

Wow, that was... the neat thing is that I created a party in TOEE yesterday, because I haven't finished it and I really want to since I've finished the other Troika games, and now I really really really want to play it.

But yeah, the environmental sound is sorta horrible. I could only hear muffled sounds, except for some of the spoken dialogue (which too was partly muffled). If you start a game, and just stay in one spot messing around with your equipment, crabs and goblins and wolves will spawn right next to you, tee hee. The character creation has no feature to reverse a selection (that I saw, anyway). Basically, I had little idea what I was supposed to be doing to be successful, other than swing/shoot a lot and hope that I hit something, so I don't die and have to restart, or something. Fun!

 

[Sol Invictus]

This game is gay.

 

[Sarvis]

Had issues with changing resolution, and after a while the screen corrupted.

Umm... dude... the FIRST thing in the known issues deals with that:

1. Although the options screen is present, not all of the functions currently
work. In particular, players cannot alter the video resolution settings.

 

[Shagnak]

Umm... dude... the FIRST thing in the known issues deals with that:

1. Although the options screen is present, not all of the functions currently
work. In particular, players cannot alter the video resolution settings.

Haha, yep, should have noticed that! :wink: My bad.

Taking that into account, the game should not have let me even try to alter the res I would have thought, and then maybe the pink bits wouldn't have appeared.

Goin by the issue no. 7, the goblin ambush I talked about above cannot be avoided. You have to get tricked in order for the plot to progress and for you to get into the sewers? And invariably die horribly-horribly? Thats a bit crap.

What happened to the play-testing these geezers are meant to have done?

Edit: oh, and possibly some evidence that this is based on some retarded earlier version: the damage feedback seems to be missing that was included in the later footage. Unless Im being stupid again and I havent enabled it?
Maybe its just a public release of the earlier preview version?

 

[Fez]

They should have delayed this again. Or just not bothered.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The way that JohnPNP was talking about the game in #fallout lead us all to think that it was actually good.

 

[Spazmo]

The fact that you could be convinced that Dungeon Lords might be good at all is unsettling. That you'd let John fucking PnP do the convincing is even worse.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I won't even waste the time downloading the demo then. Really didn't have any hopes for this game, so I'll just move on.

 

[Shagnak]

Oh well, I persevered.
My character is a bit less crap now and the game is a lot more bearable, simply cos I can hold my own in combat.

Tips for n00bs who want to try the demo:

The makers have seen fit to throw you into the game without equipping anything other than a crappy dagger/shortwsord or something. Push 'E' straight away and click away at all that kewl looking equipment to equip/ready it. Suddenly fights are fuckload easier, you can block with your shield, and your character looks like he has a bit more 'goblin-killing' cred. Don't forget to equip your bow as the "alternate weapon".

Can't tell if you are hurting your enemy, no damage indicators etc? Well, they are there. The status reports flash by so quick that it is often hard to spot them if a lot is going on. You're just a n00b, if you were 31337 then you would know you don't need such a useful thing.

Find yourself in a spot of bother? Surrounded by goblins. Cornered by insta-spawn(tm) monsters?
Click 'E' again and select from the heap of spells in your inventory. Choose Fire Nova for example. Go back into the combat and suddenly LMB causes instant crispy-critters!

"Oh noes" you say "I can't swap back to normal weapons!" Cue lots of running around like a twat, swapping between spells as required, while you work out how to select normal weapons again.
Just push 'Q' dumbass! Then you can cycle between [ primary weapon/alternate weapon/currently readied spell].
"w00t!" you say (you are a n00b, after all), "I's a super duper killing machine".

Then you get to the sewer dungeons and find you still can't see more than 5 meters in front of you. There is no fix for this.
Suffer, n00b!

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That's my experience so far.
I must admit I had some fun eventually. Now to con some poor naive friend into trying out the multiplayer with me :wink:

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

This game is hideously bad.

 

[DemonKing]

For what it is, I like it.

It took me a while to figure out how the spell and weapon swapping goes, and lockpicking is still a bit of a mystery to me, but overall it's good mindless fun and the graphics are quite decent, particularly some of the nice spell effects.

Sure, it's a bit buggy - a lot of menus were an odd pink colour, I got one hard-lock crash and when I summoned rats they seemed to surround me and do nothing except prevent me moving, but overall it might be worth a plunge, particulalry since I can get it for only £17.99 delivered.

I'll wait for some reviews on the bugginess of the finished product before I commit.

 

[Talorc]

I'll wait for some reviews on the bugginess of the finished product before I commit.

They cant even get the DEMO relatively bug free! You know the piece of software you release to the internet, to showcase the quality and excitement of your final product, in an attempt to convice consumers to buy it....

What do you tink the chances of the final release being "relatively bug free" are if they cant even be fucked getting the demo right?

 

[Shagnak]

A lot of menus were an odd pink colour

You can get rid of that shit. Just fuck with the grafix settings a random amount of times and do several restarts and it will dissapear. Honest. They have not com eback and I do not know why.

particulalry since I can get it for only £17.99 delivered.

really? bastid. Any chance you'll send some to us NZ-ers?

I'll wait for some reviews on the bugginess of the finished product before I commit.

This is the risky part. I have no idea if the final product will be less or more buggy. I reckon it will be not so bad, but much like W&W, minds will be poisened before risking the chance. I'll prolly buy it still. But then again, I am mental and no BIO-whore [<--whore bait for troll killers]
Honestly, later on it is a pretty good dungeon bash. It is almost like the marketing dep (if they have one) decided to fuck off the gullible. Stupid fucks.

 

[Sol Invictus]

They have an odd pink color because the engine sucks at rendering transparencies. I'm betting that whatever script they use to render pink as a transparency definition fails to load up on occasion, resulting in the said bug to occur.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

I officially fucking hate D.W. Bradley now. Go back to making Wizardries, you dumb fuck.