Game News Drakensang: The River of Time Trailer

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Drakensang

<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28ddK7DuQlE&amp;feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">Behold the awesome graphics of Drakensang: TRoT.</a></p>
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[Fez]

Looks okay. I liked the variation in face designs. I see it's another game I'm going to have to turn the gamma up for, judging by all the dark battle scenes.

 

[entertainer]

Jewtube videos are now news posts? what the fuck

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Yes, that was the first time a trailer for an upcoming game was posted as news. It's all part of the decline.

 

[Wulfstand]

Oh great, and just when i started to forget about the game. WHEN THE FUCK IS MY ENGLISH VERSION COMING OUT RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Phelot]

Oh great, and just when i started to forget about the game. WHEN THE FUCK IS MY ENGLISH VERSION COMING OUT RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[hoochimama]

A trailer about humor in a german game?

Game doesn't look like it has cheapo production values either, can it make enough of a profit by only selling to germany&little germany? I want my english version.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I played it. I could say things about it. Maybe german humor isn't for inferior non-german ears.
But anyway, one things is for sure, this is the technically best game ever. No crashes. No framerate drops. No memory leaks. No bugs. And I mean it - even if you play 15h in a row. A masterpiece of craftsmanship (programming). OK, at least with the first patch and on my rig.

They improved a lot over the original too. Example topic, skills:

- In Drakensang skills were almost often useless. Sure, haggle would reduce prices, and if you wanted to create potions or craft stuff you needed herbalism and the skill for skinning animals, however the english names for those skills are, but social skills would - in the few instances they were applicable at all - only lead to a line of flavor dialogue. Even smithing or bowcrafting was useless because when you finally had the recipe for a rapier or a longbow you had found a much better weapon long ago. Why would I craft a waraxe if I already looted a couple of dwarven waraxes of doom? THe only exceptions were 1 or 2 special weapons crafted from Dragon remainings.

- in TRoT skills are not useless. You can use them all. Need a bow? And not the shitty one you can buy or a party member starts with? Well, you better have someone with the skill to craft them, otherwise you'll never have a decent bow. Same with armors and other weapons. Sure some of the best things get looted or can be bought. But you will loot them late in the game and buying the magical dwarven warhammer you always wanted implies having 500 dukats, so this is out of the question for a long time too.
Unlike Drakensang 1 you'll now often have different approaches to quests, a violent one and another one more subtle, which requires you to use social and stealthy, phex-like skills. And even better, unlike DS1 those skill checks are not just for whether you have 4 or 5 skillpoints in the skill in question. The hardest skillchecks require (for persuasion for example) well over 20 for the skill in question. Plus taking the non-combat route is at least sometimes more rewarding XP and loot-wise, so you don't feel like having missed out on goodies. Basically I had ALL skills spread out over the party, some of them in the mid-teens, others maxed, and I didn't regret it.

 

[Thrasher]

Oh great, and just when i started to forget about the game. WHEN THE FUCK IS MY ENGLISH VERSION COMING OUT RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sceptic]

The original Drakensang passed me by with not a flicker of interest. This seems much more interesting though. I'm looking forward to the English version.

 

[Thrasher]

How so? I thought the first one was pretty good. Besides DA, I've never played such a bugfree RPG.

 

[circ]

Drakensang did stealth pretty well. Unfortunately there were only two places where it was even used. More stealth in this one?

 

[Mortmal]

so worth buying really ? is it less cliché than the first one ?

 

[Grunker]

Drakensang is like Cartoon Network mixed with fantasy. For children and retards only.

 

[ricolikesrice]

neither drakensang 1 nor 2 take themselves too seriously as *SHOULD* be pretty obvious from the art-style: see the faces in this trailer as a premium example. but you never know, there possibly also were some people expecting monkey island to be a brutal, realistic pirates simulation with pillaging and tons of whores......

...if you find your "maturity" threathened by a game that isnt grimdarkgritty, you should probably avoid Drakensang 1&2 at all cost, before one of your schoolmates/co-students sees you with it and makes fun of you infront of all the other cool guys

anyhow, that would be kind of a shame since rpg-GAMEPLAY-wise Drakensang 2 is a really good game (unlike the first one which i found slightly above mediocre, i.e. "good for what it is" ).

as ventilatorofdoom already said (btw. he disliked drakensang 1 alot)
there s plenty of skillchecks and alternate question solutions this time around. the game world is no longer strictly linear. etc. etc.
of course its not flawless though, combat beeing on the easy side etc. which is what keeps it from being great instead of good.

the game has A LOT more in common with the fallout/arcanum gameplay that many people here *claim* to love than the Twitcher / Dragon Age shit.
(i d have prefer it to provide RoA gameplay instead though.... )

that being said i wouldnt be suprised if an english release would still lose the codex RPG of the year award to Twitcher 2 or another DA:O addon, just like MOTB did remember kids, RPG is about picking dialogue choices and (preferably MATURE )writing !

 

[Grunker]

Drakensang is light and cartoony in the same way that Dragon Age is grimdarkgritty. I enjoy neither extreme, though at least Dragon Age is no worse than a gorey Hollywood flick. Drakensang is Cartoon Network full retardspeed ahead.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

sounds like p. convincing reasoning. I trust your expertise when it comes to retardness though.

 

[Grunker]

sounds like p. convincing reasoning. I trust your expertise when it comes to retardness though.

You're free to enlighten me with your wisdom about which parts of Drakensang you found so compelling? Was it the silly wizard straight out of kid's morning TV? Or the stunning RTwP-combat that makes Dragon Age seem complex?

I'm sorry, but I hate this game with a passion. It is subpar in every aspect.

 

[Darth Roxor]

 

[FeelTheRads]

Drakensang broke my Windows. Horrible thing, I avoid it whenever I can.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

You're free to enlighten me with your wisdom about which parts of Drakensang you found so compelling?

The character system. It's awesome, a true RPG character system, unlike Dragon Age for example.

True, the combat was annoying in DS1 and hasn't been improved in this one. Mainly 2 things: when you attack someone the pathfinding will desperately run in circles trying to find a spot to attack, and secondly you can't use party formations tactically, eg tank something, since the opponents will just move thru your tanks and go after the mage. Otherwise it's not worse than other RTWP games as of late. But yes, for a game that combat centric they better had improved the combat mechanics.

The rest is lame encounter design. Repetitive, tedious. But again, compared to DS1 it's much better, but it's still there to a certain extent. Example: Efferd temple. I think 99% of the effort went into creating the awesome 3d visuals, the rest was merely enough to populate the dungeon with ~40 identical giant mudcrab/giant slug encounters.
What happened to the interesting dungeons of olde? Anyway. Dragon Age wasn't better in that regard.

If you hated DS1 so passionately, DS2 will hardly change your opinion.
I don't say that DS2 is a great game, but I saw that they improved a lot over the first one in different aspects. So they're moving into the right direction.

 

[Grunker]

You're free to enlighten me with your wisdom about which parts of Drakensang you found so compelling?

The character system. It's awesome, a true RPG character system, unlike Dragon Age for example.

True, the combat was annoying in DS1 and hasn't been improved in this one. Mainly 2 things: when you attack someone the pathfinding will desperately run in circles trying to find a spot to attack, and secondly you can't use party formations tactically, eg tank something, since the opponents will just move thru your tanks and go after the mage. Otherwise it's not worse than other RTWP games as of late. But yes, for a game that combat centric they better had improved the combat mechanics.

The rest is lame encounter design. Repetitive, tedious. But again, compared to DS1 it's much better, but it's still there to a certain extent. Example: Efferd temple. I think 99% of the effort went into creating the awesome 3d visuals, the rest was merely enough to populate the dungeon with ~40 identical giant mudcrab/giant slug encounters.
What happened to the interesting dungeons of olde? Anyway. Dragon Age wasn't better in that regard.

If you hated DS1 so passionately, DS2 will hardly change your opinion.
I don't say that DS2 is a great game, but I saw that they improved a lot over the first one in different aspects. So they're moving into the right direction.

I don't disagree with you, except concerning the character system, which is rubbish. I'd call it "foundationless and misleading complexity." It basically tries to be realistic without attaining that goal in the slightest, is overly complex and no real thoughts seem to have gone into the overall design. Complexity isn't a bad thing by any means; but it has to serve a purpose, or it's just simplicity multiplied. This is the case with Drakensang. All the stats could easily merge to fewer without anything being lost in the process.

I like my complex character systems, but Drakensang's is just a really simple one blown out of proportion.

 

[Shannow]

Hmm, didn't like Drakensang 2 much better than 1. The main improvement for me (and I may just have missed it in Dr1) was that I could choose my own traits and penalties and my tribal warrior looked kick-ass. Pretty much the best character design I've seen in any 3D game. Head, shoulder, ladder and 100 ft wall above NWN2, eg. More skill checks, but since I don't care too much about that, it didn't have much of an impression on me.
Areas can now be visited again...and sadly have to be visited again and again and again... Because new quests open up the further the player comes along the main-quest. Coupled with loading times I feel they just went from one extreme to another when a compromise somewhere in between would have been best.
So while Dr2 had some improvements and I do like it better than Dr1 I still stopped playing out of boredom somewhere close to the finish (same as with Dr1). That's because no matter how awesome your character design and system are your game still stinks if it has bad gamrplay and bad encounter design.

 

[A user named cat]

Let me ask the important question, the only question that needs to be asked: is this another barrel smashing explorer? I left the first game feeling very anti-barrel, I don't want to hurt any more wood.

 

[Shannow]

Let me ask the important question, the only question that needs to be asked: is this another barrel smashing explorer? I left the first game feeling very anti-barrel, I don't want to hurt any more wood.

Yep. Another reason I'd never call it more than mediocre.