Review Dungeon Lords first impressions

[space captain]

cognitive dissonance, huh?

back in the old days it was called "sweet lemons".... the opposite of "sour grapes"

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

but it appears that neither Dreamcatcher nor Heuristic paid any attention to their input.

I think most of the development of the game was self funded, so I doubt Dreamcatcher did much in the way of pushing it on to the shelves. Dreamcatcher didn't sign on to be the publisher until last autumn, and Dungeon Lords was announced by Heuristic Park back in January of 2003 - with screenshots. So, the game had probably been in development for over three years.

I really don't think you can fault Dreamcatcher much at all for rushing this release given the length of development time and them showing up so late in the development to publish. I'd say Heuristic Park was running low on funds after all those years of developing the game.

Ya ur all way to 3l33t for me.

Aren't you the stupid douche who said we should quit playing action CRPGs but buy Dungeon Lords anyway because DimWit Bradley worked on it?

 

[space captain]

Maybe you guys arent familiar with Dreamcatcher games. They also publish Derek Smart's 300AD junk.

Buggy releases are standard procedure.

The only real mystery here is how anyone (who is informed what the game is) would ever buy this shit. Then they get on the forums and bitch about it?? Even probably knowing that it was shit, played the demo, bought it anyways and now bitches "ITS ON THE BOX, BUT NOT IN THE GAME, *cry*cry" I mean, get a fucking clue. You think people are gonna tell you to your face when they are trying to fuck you in your ass?

Life sucks, wear a helmet.

 

[NeVeRLiFt]

Maybe you guys arent familiar with Dreamcatcher games. They also publish Derek Smart's 300AD junk.
.

Damn that explains it right there! 300AD was a POS

 

[LlamaGod]

I've played it a bit now and everything everyone has said about it is true:

Turning off shadows does not turn them off

To change resolutions, you have to change and quit the game totally

At character creation, the buttons get a gold rim to them to let you go through them, Race and Class get a gold rim but all the appearance options do not and they are in the game files, too.

You cant tell who you are targeting even though 'Targeting Cone' is turned on in options

Changing grass/tree detail down doesnt seem to do anything, the game runs pretty shit in some areas

While I was thinking 'hey, Gothic didnt have too much in the way of maps and I could navigate it fine and enjoyed it' when heading into Dungeon Lords with no map I learned the problem: it's pitch black and the entire forest is exactly the same in every area, except enemies will get harder and chase you forever.

Whats up with the character system? Not only do the classes suck ass, but instead of say 20 points at leveling and you spend them on shit, you get like 10,000 points and stuff costs like 5000 or 3456 or 433.

Combat is a snore and the enemies are incredibly lame.

The level design is akin to someones 'my first map' for a FPS. Lots of stupid novelty effects that arnt very visually pleasing or useful and some stuff thats just plain retarded (hey hey, metal beams between pillars you walk around that are 20 times too small for you character)

Generic fantasy out the ass. Think of the most generic fantasy you can and multiply that by 5 and you got the WONDEROUS WORLD OF RPG GRANDMASTER D.W. BRADLEY

Spells are in the same vein: Magic Missle, Fireblast, Poison Dart.

The inventory system's Junk section doesnt work, so you have to view the All tab to see stuff that isnt in the other categories. Not to mention equipping stuff sucks shit in the game and all the equipment you get early on is exactly the same with very slight differences.

The game is extremely linear, not even in a 'linear but playable because its usually unique' Diablo sorta action RPG linearity. It's more like rail-shooter linearity.

iAlso fun is the loading screen, which isnt there. Instead of a loading screen, the Load Game screen will just flicker like mad until its done loading and you're in the game.

You cant access Options or Settings while playing, you have to save and quit to the main menu to change anything.

it goes on and on

 

[theverybigslayer]

Seeing is believing. I am going to try it.

 

[LlamaGod]

The game could probably be excused on alot of stuff if the gameplay didnt suck and there wasnt alot of bad class design.

Personally, if I was making a 3D 3rd person action RPG, i'd make all the classes mostly melee focused since its ACTION. Magic will be part of some classes but will hybrid in with melee.

Also to make it better is more fun and interesting combat, stuff like special moves and combos similiar to the Episode 3 videogame, different moves and combos and abilites for the different classes.

Like say the Barbarian has a bunch of slash n' smash them up combos, the Monk has a special slow-down ability kinda like Viewtiful Joe but more fleshed out (so you slow the game down to slow-mo and can dodge blows and deliver some for the few seconds it lasts), thief has lots of evasive multi-hit combos

It would make the combat in the game pretty fun, but as it is its just friggin boring as hell.

All the weapon lines have the same combos for everyone and they are incredibly bland starting off alone. Stab foward, slash down, slash left, slash right. Thats all you got.

Speaking of the weapon skills, that reminds me.

I picked a big burly warrior-type and focused his skills into Polearms and Armor. So what do I start with? A simple leather tunic and a short sword and shield (I put no points into either Light Weapons or Shield). Yeah, that sure is useful for my build there...

 

[theverybigslayer]

I have tried it.

Cons:
I have found the some very minor bugs:
- flickering load screen
- the main menu 800x600 in 1024x768 resolution
- there is no map

Pros:
- very great gameplay
- very good graphics
- best action crpg after Diablo and Gothic

IMHO

 

[space captain]

I think your opinion is much different than just "humble". I would go with IMOUO - for "obscenely unrealistic"

 

[theverybigslayer]

I think your opinion is much different than just "humble". I would go with IMOUO - for "obscenely unrealistic"

Not unrealistic. The game is on my PC and I have seen the truth.

 

[space captain]

Well, it probably will turn out to be unrealistic if the mass majority of people retain a consensus on its status as total garbage. The combined total of agreements between the subjective experiences of giant crowds of people should be evidence of the objective status of the game itself - i.e. as garbage. Thus the reality (which is objective and not dependent on subjectivity) may be discovered.

You must discover the immutable reality, the objective manifestation in its true essence - which in the case of "Dungeon Lords", is crap.

 

[theverybigslayer]

Sorry, I do not care about the mass majority. The most important thing for me that I like this game.

 

[LlamaGod]

The gameplay in it is pretty dull and the evironments dont exactly spice it up, halls and halls oh boy and GOBLINS. I will thrust stab them 50 billion times.

I leveled up! I put a rank into Light Armor! I still get penalties wearing fucking studded pants!


Also, playing as a thief guy I discovered yet another dumb design idea: Whenever you successfully pick a chest, a group of monsters will spawn and attack you, every single time.

So its great you're a thief for the purpose of stealin from locked chests, but then they toss a bunch of guys at you. Yeah, thats some balance. GOLD AND A SHITTY HEALING POTION? ATTACK!

 

[space captain]

I still stand by my statement that this:

- very great gameplay
- very good graphics
- best action crpg after Diablo and Gothic

is an obscenely unrealistic opinion of this game

 

[DemonKing]

First review has appeared - solid score but no mention of bugs whatsoever!

http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r21419.htm

 

[Volourn]

"Well, it probably will turn out to be unrealistic if the mass majority of people retain a consensus on its status as total garbage."

Since when is the majority always right?

 

[space captain]

i never said they were

but in this case they are

 

[Claw]

Pairing Diablo and Gothic like that hurts my mind.

 

[LlamaGod]

Its like Gothic because its 3rd person behind-view and real-time combat lololololol

When you toss an angry troll into the mix, use of the environment becomes life-saving.

What is fun is that doors can kill monsters. If they try to close on them it just opens again but also huts them and then tries to close again. I get tough guys dead by luring them to door ways and then closing the door

I like how all the junk about the game say its like a FPS when its neither first person or a shooter.

Dungeon Lords is great fun to play. By letting players customize their avatars to a high degree the developers have given a world of possibilities to the players. The two notes that bring this game down to Earth are the graphics and the sound.

Yeah, low rent .wavs that sound like the sounds were ripped from an Open Source sound library and then played through a blanket and the lack of any music = QUALITY.

I too enjoyed all the character customization abilities and the ENDLESS FUN CHANGING HAIR STYLES, oh wait.

People need to stop saying 'its a throw back to the olden days of RPGs'. Thats just retarded.

 

[Ortchel]

And I had such high hopes too ..

 

[Elwro]

What is fun is that doors can kill monsters. If they try to close on them it just opens again but also huts them and then tries to close again. I get tough guys dead by luring them to door ways and then closing the door.

Back to the roots!
I remember using this technique in Dungeon Master 1, but I think that back then it actually was a feature, not a bug. You could kill some nasty guys, e.g. golems by luring them under a grate and doing the repeatable guillotine trick.

 

[LlamaGod]

What is fun is that doors can kill monsters. If they try to close on them it just opens again but also huts them and then tries to close again. I get tough guys dead by luring them to door ways and then closing the door.

Back to the roots!
I remember using this technique in Dungeon Master 1, but I think that back then it actually was a feature, not a bug. You could kill some nasty guys, e.g. golems by luring them under a grate and doing the repeatable guillotine trick.

You can do it to designed encounters and junk in Dungeon Lords. Not only that, they are just wooden sliding doors.

10 rats show up so I just run down the hall to a door and let it auto-crush them

 

[Shagnak]

@LlamaGod:
Have you played far enough yet to see the state of the quests and content, etc? So far I see a lot about the stuff eveyone knows about (e.g. missing map, non-working customisation, etc), or I see the other extreme - people determined to like it no matter how arse it is.
Some more detail on game content would be much appreciated (esp. after Eron got scared off :wink: ).

Just remembered - some examples of crapified content were given in a bug report on the DreamCatcher forums:

- temple in fargrove, the npc says to use the altar downstairs to heal wounds, but nothing is there and no way to heal
- arindale inn is missing everything, furniture, fireplaces, bed, people, ....

I leveled up! I put a rank into Light Armor! I still get penalties wearing fucking studded pants!

How big a penalty? I think the idea is that any armoured foe will be less mobile than an unarmoured foe...so unless the penalties are really bad I wouldn't expect one rank to offset all of them. Admittedly, I haven't played the full (heh) game, so I don't know how crap the implementation is. Apparently very crap?

Yeah, low rent .wavs that sound like the sounds were ripped from an Open Source sound library and then played through a blanket and the lack of any music = QUALITY.

Heh. Actually, as mentioned earlier, some people don't have any sound issues. There was a thread with people trying to track down why...someone even metnioned turning off HW acceleration fixed it for them...but I haven't been back to see if they found the real reason. Given that the sound was fucked in the demo for me, I am guessing that it will be for me in the released version.

Also, playing as a thief guy I discovered yet another dumb design idea: Whenever you successfully pick a chest, a group of monsters will spawn and attack you, every single time.

I remember this happening in the demo whenever I tried to pick a trapped chest that had the "Alarm" trap. There were quite a few if I remember rightly. Monster appearance was immediate, unless I recognised it was trapped and disarmed it first.
It didn't happen every time I picked a chest that wasn't trapped in this fashion though. But still, even when I picked a chest without an Alarm I would have a mate watch my back as occasionally a random gobbo would appear and attack me while I was in progress. Dumb.

Oh, and while I'm on the topic of "when things should not attack", found this great bug in the forums:

oh yeah, no monster spawning near campsites would help. I was at the forbidden lands and camping at one of the fires and was attacked by a bunch of spiders when time was accelerated. needless to say they killed me dead in a matter of seconds and kicked my body halfway accross that portion of map before I could break from camping.

 

[obediah]

First review has appeared - solid score but no mention of bugs whatsoever!

http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r21419.htm

hmm, so that's what Bradley's ass tastes like.

 

[Shagnak]

Yeah, based on that review I would have raced out straight away and bought the game.
I'm not certain that site had any credibility to begin with, but omission of comment on some pretty big fuck-ups and obvious incompleteness is incredible.
There's nothing saying that the reviewer cannot inexplicably like the game, despite the obvious flaws, but its not often that a score of 7.6 can look like such a flagrant sexual favour.