Drakensang: The Dark Eye MODs

[msxyz]

I'm playing for the first time this little jem.

Apparently, there a small but devout community of nodders, mostly from Germany, for this game but, so far, I couldn't find a lot of them. There is a sort of unofficial patch, a magic rebalancing mod and a save game editor I couldn't try because of the links I've found for it are dead.

Does anybody can direct me to a site which hosts MODs for this game?

I was specifically looking for a MOD (if it exists at all) that let's you have more than 3 companions at the same time.

 

[abnaxus]

There was one guy modding it.

http://www.2shared.com/file/ovYBXEgS/Ergos_Fixpack_v180.html

Having more than 3 companions is easy, you just need to edit a database with SQL editor.

This is done using SQLite.
Open up static.db4 with the browser & navigate to the "_Story_DialogueConditions" table.
Use the search funtion for "HasPartyMembers number" in the "ConditionContent" field.
It should return 47 entries e.g "HasPartyMembers number="3" operator="lessOrEqual";" that correspond to the hiring of companions on first meeting & in the Ferdok house as well as the quest's that require less than a certain number.
It's simply a matter of changing the single digit to allow more members.
Most of the 3's & the 4's refer to the joining of companions, so if you wanted a fifth member you would make the digits one number higher.
Be aware that the gui limits the party portraits to the first five positions, while the sixth is reserved for the summon.
So if you have more than 5 members, their inventories won't be selectable.
Also no icons show for battle actions next to the fifth character portrait.

 

[msxyz]

Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for. Even one more character is better than nothing...

 

[Raghar]

Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for. Even one more character is better than nothing...

Majority of battles are supposed to be done with only 4 characters at most, and a summon. Also the interface is not really designed to be usable with crowds.

 

[abnaxus]

Having one extra character that can use wounding skills like master marksman or mortal blow is always a plus. It ends battles very quickly, which becomes especially important at the final area.

 

[msxyz]

Two tanks, a marksman/rogue and a battlemage should constitute a good party. The game is not very forgiving, though, and I've still some difficulties getting the most out of the ruleset.

A shame the Drakensang franchise faded into obscurity (not counting the MMO) although I understand in Germany it was very popular for some time. While looking for mods I found out someone even made a nudity patch for it!


It seems a good metric to judge the popularity of a videogame within the gaming community is to check if someone bothered to make a nudity patch for it...

 

[Raghar]

Card Captor Sakura RPG nude patch.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Its sequel River of Time is leagues better.

 

[msxyz]

Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for. Even one more character is better than nothing...

Majority of battles are supposed to be done with only 4 characters at most, and a summon. Also the interface is not really designed to be usable with crowds.

I restarted from scratch with a new character. Choosing the right specialization at the beginning is very important. The first time I tried a rogue but it was useless because the game offers a rogue as a companion already in the first chapter and an even better one in the second chapter. This time I went for a 'metamage', a rather versatile conjurer class which can also be used as a melee fighter (which i usually do, buffing all the melee talents as soon as possible and investing the remaining XP points in making my summoned creature stringer). The game feels now more balanced.

The 'dark eye' ruleset seems interesting but at time overly complicated (a typical German trait ). I've already bought on Steam 'the river of time' at half the price taking advantage of the Xmas sales and I plan to give it a try once I finish this.

 

[fastjack]

Its sequel River of Time is leagues better.

I just wanted to reiterate this.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Its sequel River of Time is leagues better.

I just wanted to reiterate this.

Second this, same as with Kotor I and II, F3 and FNV; play just the sequel the first part is shit good for what it was.

 

[abnaxus]

If you play River of Time before Dark Eye, you'll miss out on a lot of easter eggs and references and not enjoy it to the fullest, imo.

 

[fastjack]

If you play River of Time before Dark Eye, you'll miss out on a lot of easter eggs and references and not enjoy it to the fullest, imo.

While this is true, people who want to like Drakensang but find that despite their efforts they just can't enjoy the game enough to finish it shouldn't write off RoT with the assumption that the two games are identical. I just want folk to know that RoT trims down, polishes, and refines Drakensang into an (very imo) enjoyable game.

edit: Also, trying to push through a mediocre-at-best Drakensang in order to understand all of the references in RoT would likely be counterproductive since it might burn you out on the game's combat and whatnot.

 

[msxyz]

Some notes on the ruleset:

-every action seems to be heavily influenced by look. So, even the most trivial activities become a matter of trying until you succeed. I never understood the fascination with dice rolls. Either you can do something or you can't. Luck should be a minor component.
-mages cannot cast spells while clad in armor: another dumb rule that plagues many fantasy RPGs. At first I though the limitation was based on the encumberance, but I noticed that a leather armor has the same encumberance of a chainmail but the first allows you to cast spells. Amazon armor is classified as light and yet it has the same limitations.
-brawling influences the basic attack and parry attributes, so any kind of melee fighter has to increase this attribute as well. Kind of odd and illogical becuase fighting with bare hands and fighting with a tool are two very different things.

I'm not particulrly impressed by the gameplay mechanics but the game is enjoyable enough. I'm about halfway through it.

 

[Commissar Draco]

RPG is about dice rolling new fag.

Putting the 'roll' back into Role-Playing Games

You roll 11 :: This is like that roll Cleve was talking about.

 

[msxyz]

RPG is about dice rolling new fag.

So is backgammon, although I wouldn't call it roleplay

There is a difference between adding a layer of uncertainity in the effect (that's what the dice rolls should be) and tediously checking every trivial action against a dice roll, otherwise it will fail. In the Dark Eye, I get the feeling the 'luck factor' is weighted in too much...

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

If I were to play a mage I'd always choose either healing mage or elven spell weaver for they have the advantage of fast mana regen.

-every action seems to be heavily influenced by look. So, even the most trivial activities become a matter of trying until you succeed.

And the mind boggles. Even more surprising is the way how your actions are almost guaranteed to succeed once you have the skills/stats for it. Almost like in a roleplaying game.

 

[msxyz]

If I were to play a mage I'd always choose either healing mage or elven spell weaver for they have the advantage of fast mana regen.

-every action seems to be heavily influenced by look. So, even the most trivial activities become a matter of trying until you succeed.

And the mind boggles. Even more surprising is the way how your actions are almost guaranteed to succeed once you have the skills/stats for it. Almost like in a roleplaying game.

It's my fault, I didn't explain correctly (as you might have guessed from the spelling error, I'm not a native english speaker).
Let's do a practical example of what I meant, using an in game example: I need to heal someone from a wound.

In Drakensang, I'm finding myself with dozens of bandages and the companion with the highest 'treat wounds' trait has only a 7:

What usually happens is: the first try, I fail; the second try I fail again and the third one succeeds. Since I've plenty of bandages, I don't mind wasting a few; I just feel like I'm flipping a coin and waiting for the correct side to show up. No incentives to improve; even if the bandages were scarcer I would probably just save and reload waiting for a good chance.

Much better would be if the game checks the severity of the wound against several factors such as: skill of the healer, quality of the medicament and, most importantly, if I'm using the correct one (i.e. bandages are good for deep cuts or bleeding wounds but not for traumas or burns). No luck involved, just stats.

 

[cherry blossom]

I never understood the fascination with dice rolls. Either you can do something or you can't. Luck should be a minor component.

Dice are there to account for a myriad of unpredictable conditions that always play into everything you do such that even a mastery does not give you a full immunity to failure or a less then stellar application of your skills. And it could be anything that would be superfluous to exclusively define in a rule set but not insignificant in terms of its impact on you. So it's not just dumb blind luck but also that.

As a general rule, I think anyone questioning the purpose of dice rolls in RPGs has a fundamentally flawed understanding of the concept and is better off sticking to dumbed down mainstream games.

Specific implementations of dice rolls, however, are a different story.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

If I were to play a mage I'd always choose either healing mage or elven spell weaver for they have the advantage of fast mana regen.

-every action seems to be heavily influenced by look. So, even the most trivial activities become a matter of trying until you succeed.

And the mind boggles. Even more surprising is the way how your actions are almost guaranteed to succeed once you have the skills/stats for it. Almost like in a roleplaying game.

It's my fault, I didn't explain correctly (as you might have guessed from the spelling error, I'm not a native english speaker).
Let's do a practical example of what I meant, using an in game example: I need to heal someone from a wound.

In Drakensang, I'm finding myself with dozens of bandages and the companion with the highest 'treat wounds' trait has only a 7:

What usually happens is: the first try, I fail; the second try I fail again and the third one succeeds. Since I've plenty of bandages, I don't mind wasting a few; I just feel like I'm flipping a coin and waiting for the correct side to show up. No incentives to improve; even if the bandages were scarcer I would probably just save and reload waiting for a good chance.

Much better would be if the game checks the severity of the wound against several factors such as: skill of the healer, quality of the medicament and, most importantly, if I'm using the correct one (i.e. bandages are good for deep cuts or bleeding wounds but not for traumas or burns). No luck involved, just stats.

I don't have time to explain how TDE works. From Gamebanshee:

A talent test is typically used to calculate success or failure with a talent. This test involves rolling a 1D20 die against the three attribute values associated with the talent. The character must meet or exceed the three dice rolls in order to pass the test, but the character can use his or her prowess with the talent (TP) as bonus points where needed.

For example, the animal lore talent is associated with cleverness, courage, and intuition. If the character has scores of 12, 11, and 14 for those attributes, and rolls 13, 15, and 10 in the talent test, then the character would only pass the test if he or she has a TP of at least 5 in the talent (in order to bump up cleverness by 1 point and courage by 4 points).

Some tests also involve bonuses and penalties. In general, bonuses are added to the character's TP, and penalties are added to each roll of the dice. For example, with lock picking the tool bonus (or -10, if the character doesn't have a tool) is added to the TP, and the difficulty of the lock is added to the dice rolls.

For each successful test, some number of prowess points are left over. These points are usually used in magic talents, and are designated as SP*. Generally, the higher the SP*, the more effective the talent is. For example, with the attributo agility talent, (SP*/3 + 1) is the bonus applied to the target's agility.

I don't remember which stats treat wounds rolls for, but 7 in the actual skill is pretty good. You should let the char treat wounds who has the best stats for it, you can see which stats are used in the talent test in the char screen, I think it was right-click on the talent. same goes for all other skills, spells etc

It also means you should really focus on raising the stats of your chars instead of just going willy-nilly with skillpoints all over the place. having higher stats really goes a long way in succeeding your rolls even if you have only a few skillpoints in the talent/spell

 

[abnaxus]

Advantage of elementalist/metamage over healing mage in first game is availability of summoning spell from the very beginning.

Of course, in River of TIme one can simply create any mage with Fast AE regeneration as advantage.

 

[mondblut]

While this is true, people who want to like Drakensang but find that despite their efforts they just can't enjoy the game enough to finish it shouldn't write off RoT with the assumption that the two games are identical. I just want folk to know that RoT trims down, polishes, and refines Drakensang into an (very imo) enjoyable game.

Hm, I began playing RoT and failed to see any differences with TDE. Same game with different locations.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

RPG is about dice rolling new fag.

So is backgammon, although I wouldn't call it roleplay

There is a difference between adding a layer of uncertainity in the effect (that's what the dice rolls should be) and tediously checking every trivial action against a dice roll, otherwise it will fail. In the Dark Eye, I get the feeling the 'luck factor' is weighted in too much...

RPG == Using Dice
Using Dice != RPG

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Advantage of elementalist/metamage over healing mage in first game is availability of summoning spell from the very beginning.

Instead you have the healing spells from the beginning. Also not too shabby. And fast mana regen which a metamage or elementalist cannot aquire. So healing mage is still the best option for a full mage.

Of course, in River of TIme one can simply create any mage with Fast AE regeneration as advantage.

Still picked a spellweaver for kickass bow reasons. Lay the smackdown with a bow, cast if necessary.

 

[Commissar Draco]

While this is true, people who want to like Drakensang but find that despite their efforts they just can't enjoy the game enough to finish it shouldn't write off RoT with the assumption that the two games are identical. I just want folk to know that RoT trims down, polishes, and refines Drakensang into an (very imo) enjoyable game.

Hm, I began playing RoT and failed to see any differences with TDE. Same game with different locations.

The difference is clear in first hub you'll visit; they're proper origins for all classes and PC has good reason to get there instead of being hero amnesiac again and doing huge map cause one door... well gate was artificially closed ala 2nd chapter of NWN2; there's lesser amount of hubs but all of them can visited multiple times using boat in order you choose. Just don't install the expansion DLC its cashgrab made after original Devs were already sinking and on fire. Shame it had so shity marketing had more fun playing this than Dragon Age awakening or Warrhammer Chaos Rising. It has nothing new added but all elements from first game just work together better.