Breaking a myth: Why Darklands SUCKED!

[denizsi]

I've been checking the grand FAQ at darklands.net for some of the in game stuff, and I noticed the section 5.7 Stupid Things About Darklands, which I found interesting.

1. Characters have no real limit on how much they can carry, even though weight for each object is given.

2. There is never a shortage of any particular good for sale. No matter where you go, you can always buy any number of a particular item for sale. Considering that Germany was not yet the rich nation it later became, it seems unlikely there would be an unending number of all items for sale at any given time.

3. There is no difference in size for various characters (Gretch can wear Gunther's armour and vice versa, an unlikely occurence in real life).

4. There is no need to eat or sleep while on the road. Normally, I would say this has been abstracted for the sake of simplicity, but for a game that actually requires you to decide what your characters do every hour of every day, you would think eating and sleeping might be requirements, rather than simply optional. Also, travelling is continuous, with no stops at night, unless you desire to do so. Your characters will cross Germany from end to end without stopping to rest or eat.

5. Travelling further by water does not cost more. Assuming it costs 3 groschen to go from Vordingbord to Naskskov, and it costs 3 groschen to go from Naskskov to Flensburg, it doesn't cost more than one fare to go from Vordingbord to Naskskov and continue on to Flensburg and even further, all the way to Thorn, if the opportunity arises.

6. Germans are extremely honest people; nothing you carry with you is ever stolen without your knowledge, or being able to fight to keep it.

7. You are never caught unaware, with your pants down and your weapons unready, unless the player has chosen to unequip his characters ahead of time.

8. No one ever bolts from combat, everyone fights to the death, unless the player chooses otherwise. Non-player characters die with their boots (or hooves) on.

9. A player character who has not been attacked will not involve itself in the defense of others, but a non-player character will.

10. Characters on the point of death can still strike with full force.

11. Armour and weapons never degrade as a result of regular combat. Only alchemical attacks cause armour to degrade.

12. Characters can pass things to one another, even though they're rooms apart.

13. The Archbishop of Trier has two capitals, Trier and Koblenz.

It's interesting how the critique is made completely from a PnP perspective, which is a much needed but completely extinct today. Also interesting, how some of the improvable game elements mentioned there are ridiculously taken for granted today, like 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, or almost all of them. Brings a whole new meaning to "learning from mistakes".

I also stumbled upon an old interview with Arnold Hendricks, lead designer on the game, made back then between patch .06 and .07. It was an interesting read. Noteworthy excerpts:

(B.MELANCON1) Can we stumble on a region that is currently at war? I have not seen anything of that.

([Arnold] MICROPROSE) We had provision for that originally, but couldn't get the database and logic working together. Maybe in a sequel game also set in Germany we could implement that. I like political stuff, and wished we could have got it working, but you can't do EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, parts of the manual were in print before we realized that, hence the misleading hints there. Sorry 'bout that.

This one brought me a smile for the obvious reason:

(B.MELANCON1) Could the horses be used in combat (cavalry-like?) in future games/updates?

([Arnold] MICROPROSE) Originally we wanted to have cavalry-infantry and cavalry-cavalry fights but the graphic demands on current PCs were just too great, not to mention the horrible animation problems for the artists. So we postponed that for future games (when we get a brainstorm on how to do it without taking ten zillion man-years of animation and a parallel processing P5 with at least four chips and a graphics coprocessor! GA

Also, I couldn't help but think Beth fanboys when I read the following paragraphs:

(M.APICELLA) Hello! I think Darklands is the most innovative games to date-no matter what kind! Only problem is, i have an Amiga! If you do release it (Sierra has been selling many MORE games since it's turned to Hard Drive only), how many colors would it be? I'm waiting desperately to play it, and the art looks great! I think it looks like the guys at microprose have done another great job! Also, if it is made, what specifications will it require besides having a hard drive (which i have, by the way)?

([RELIK] R.KINKEAD) I'm very happy with DARKLANDS. If you read my post to the topic recently you will see a list of some of the things I like about the game. I still would like to see more "realism" in the game and more social interaction and consequence.

Noteworthy point for as far back then.

([Arnold] MICROPROSE) I agree. More human interaction is the dream for all computer RPGs. I'd like to break this train of thought for a minute and mention that the playtest manager for Darklands and MicroProse, Mike Craighead needs to get home to his family real soon now. are there any questions out there for him, specifically? Scorp, can you handle this kind of thing for us?

([RELIK] R.KINKEAD) Mike, do you select the beta testers for their interest in the particular genre of the game or from a pool of testers regardless of genre interest?

([Mike] MICROPROSE) Our playtest department now consists of 8 full-time testers and 5 part-time testers, all in-house. Projects are divided up both ways that you mentioned. We would prefer that testers have an interest in the projects they work on, but all the games need to be tested, so sometimes people get games that don't totally excite them. However, this may be good, because they may be more likely to get down to the serious business of bug finding and testing which is quite different from just "playing" the game.

This also helps give the testing new and different perspectives, which is always important and valuable. We try to maximize the talents and interests of our staff, since we put in so much time. Darklands is now at 5,500 hours. So, we try to keep people as interested and happy as possible, and we do have a female tester, and would like to have more. Her perspective has been extremely valuable to us. Arnold adds, unfortunately, we do not use out-of-house testers. Everyone is local and on staff.

Who thinks that any company puts that many Q&A time in their games today?

(E.LARGE) Thanks...I wanted to say first that I have been a staunch supporter of the realism of Darklands. And I am sure that the game crashing has already been beat to death. But I would like to know if in the future a little more substance will be added ie. the game got very repetitive after awhile....(BTW) I finished the game

([Arnold] MICROPROSE) Yes, I know, no matter how much variety you try to put into a game, after a while things do get repetitive. In Darklands we just tried to stretch out that time a lot, and let you wander as freely as we could manage. One of the sequel possibilities is to expand Germany a lot, fleshing out new and different adventures... but even then, all computers have their limits. That's why I expect to still play paper and pencil RPGs for a while yet!

([Danny] D.HAN) I know you guys are running through a zillion new settings for a sequel... but would you consider one set in Feudal Japan?

([Arnold] MICROPROSE) Well, we thought the civil war era between Ashigara Japan and Tokugawa Japan (circa 1500s there) would be a GREAT topic, with lots of fun. So we did a game on that topic some years ago, SWORD OF THE SAMURAI. Unfortunately, very few Americans seemed to share this interest, and game sales were lower than we expected, even though it was a very good game (and I didn't even work on it!). So until somebody proves the topic is actually strong, and SWORD OF THE SAMURAI failed for some other reason, we're obliged to stay away from medieval Japan for the time being. I, for one, I'm a little sad about that. I love those Kurosawa Samurai "Easterns."

The best thing about the whole interview deal is the casualness in it. Imagine some guy asking Todd or Pete about specific bugs or more general issues like "repetitiveness", or realism.

 

[El Dee]

That was a good read. I remember getting Darklands when it first came out and had a hell of a time getting it to run on my computer. It had its flaws but it was still a great game.

 

[MisterStone]

If Darklands had only not used that godawful shitty RT combat, and especially the dungeon exploring mode (like when you are in the mines or a baron's castle), it would still be worthwhile to play even today.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Yes, Darklands has terrible terrible combat. I would have played the game more if it weren't for that.

 

[Binary]

What terrible combat? It's RTwP!

I never heard anyone say in the Codex "I would play BG2/PS:T/NWN but I hate its combat"

 

[Zomg]

I could shit on Darklands' combat extemporaneously if necessary, but I really did like the few seconds when two sides hit melee range. The penalty for fighting multiple opponents is very serious and there's a lot of tension because things can domino into a world of shit. I'd like to see a JRPG-type game with combat taking place on an abstract playing field where you have a few more PCs and the "crash into melee" effect that Darklands creates would be featured.

 

[almondblight]

What terrible combat? It's RTwP!

I never heard anyone say in the Codex "I would play BG2/PS:T/NWN but I hate its combat"

<--------Right here for NWN. It almost stopped me with the Infinity Engine games, but after some time they turned out to be...alright. Coming from playing Exile though, the combat in IWD (the first one I played) SUCKED (though actually it seems better than BGII's).

I don't think it's a problem with RTwP, though, because Freedom Force had very fun combat.

 

[MisterStone]

I could shit on Darklands' combat extemporaneously if necessary, but I really did like the few seconds when two sides hit melee range. The penalty for fighting multiple opponents is very serious and there's a lot of tension because things can domino into a world of shit. I'd like to see a JRPG-type game with combat taking place on an abstract playing field where you have a few more PCs and the "crash into melee" effect that Darklands creates would be featured.

I guess it isn't the fighting itself in real that is bad. What sucks is actually getting the dumbfuck PCs to stand in the right place and whale away at the right person. Figuring out WTF is going on during all the wild flailing is a pain in the ass too... someone usually gets bumrushed by two or three people and beaten down before you get a chance to do anything... there should at least be some way of telling one PC to guard or otherwise support another.

Also, missile combat is fucked up.. you always start out either too close to an enemy to use missile weapons more than once, or it is so far away that you have zilch chance of hitting. Trying to time area effect weapons is pretty fucking annoying in this system as well.

 

[Zomg]

No counter from me. It's almost entirely shit - slow, stupid, awkward, unbalanced.

 

[Binary]

No counter from me. It's almost entirely shit - slow, stupid, awkward, unbalanced.

Love those constructive arguments you make about possibly the best cRPG ever made

 

[Zhirzzh]

No counter from me. It's almost entirely shit - slow, stupid, awkward, unbalanced.

Love those constructive arguments you make about possibly the best cRPG ever made

He's referring to the combat, which was fairly terrible.

 

[Jasede]

PS:T's combat is terrible too. And Bloodlines. And Fallout's pretty mediocre. Good combat died with dungeon crawlers. Wizardry 8 was likely the last game with really good combat, but that's just me.

Just goes to show that while combat is a central part of an RPG, others can still turn out to be more important - like the sheer amount of things to do in Darklands.

That said, I don't think its combat is worse than Baldur's Gate's...

 

[Zomg]

No counter from me. It's almost entirely shit - slow, stupid, awkward, unbalanced.

Love those constructive arguments you make about possibly the best cRPG ever made

I can elaborate, but I think that's pretty much how anyone that's played it would feel about the combat in a nutshell. I wasn't referring to the complete game, if that's what you think, which I am semi-articulately in love with.

 

[someone else]

What I hate about it

1) No drag select
2) No AI scripts, will only fightback. (but will choose vulnerable attack if opponent armor is thick, IIRC will parry if outmatched)
3) Annoying screen panning
4) Missile weapons are forced to reload if target is changed even if shot is not fired, annoying for handguns.
5) Cannot reload missile weapons in dungeons without attacking

I have the hintbook so I understand the combat mechanics, pretty well done, one of the most complex & realistic. It is just user unfriendly.