InspectorRumpole
Prophet
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Bitte, für die Kinder!
-
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Prosper Realms of Arkania: Shovelware Edition
- Thread starter likaq
- Start date
Delterius
Arcane
Reskinned into 3D.What the fucking fuck, reskinned the game?
Clockwork Knight
Arcane
What the fucking fuck, reskinned the game?
He would know, after all he read the original's wikipedia page.
- Joined
- May 9, 2008
- Messages
- 113
What an utter and complete clusterfuck. And to think I even preordered this. Head, meet desk.
I know that feel, bro.
I think if this was a higher-profile game (like The War Z), there'd be a pretty good chance of Steam issuing refunds.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
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- 98,178
I know that feel, bro.
I think if this was a higher-profile game (like The War Z), there'd be a pretty good chance of Steam issuing refunds.
I'm pretty sure that if you mail Valve and insist they will give you a refund for this. If enough people ask for one, they might even take the game down. It's a scandal that it hasn't been taken down already.
I did e-mail them and was just told that their policy is to not give refunds, etc. I agree that they will probably make an exception if enough people complain about it - as they did with The War Z - but the user base here is probably just not large enough for Valve to notice. This was never going to be a big game, even if it had actually been good - I don't think more than a couple thousand suckers bought this.
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- 98,178
Here's another review: http://www.worldsfactory.net/2013/08/10/realms-of-arkania-review-a-half-baked-blunder
@cboyardee Somebody picked up on your Ira Glass comparison
REALMS OF ARKANIA REVIEW – A HALF-BAKED BLUNDER
In this Realms of Arkania review, we delve into the remake of the 1992 Sir-Tech published classic game. Developer Crafty Studios attempts to modernize the RPG classic based on the German pen and paper game The Dark Eye. Featuring first person town and dungeon exploration and isometric turn-based combat, the game has all the ingredients of an experience that caters to the hardcore RPG fan. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destinynot only misses the mark entirely, but manages to deliver one of the buggiest, unfinished releases in recent memory.
I’m afraid than any in-depth review of Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny will sound like a bug report for a game that’s still a year out. Whether they meant to or not, United Independent Entertainment GmbH (known for various sims such as Agricultural Simulator 2013) shipped a broken game, leaving Crafty Studios to desperately release patches that, while addressing bugs like a dwarven villager stuck halfway in the ground and a vicious combat freeze bug, only introduce new bugs, like enemies that stay standing after death or get stuck in walls as often as not. Since release there have been a number of patches addressing issues like wrong dialog branches, missing class restrictions, and a fix that kept you from casting spells without mana (AE in The Dark Eye system). More patches are being releasedon a near daily basis with plenty more promised in the future.
Let’s not dwell on what the game was or will be, and instead let’s focus on what it is now: Realms of Arkania is nearly unplayable. Players can build their party of up to six characters out of almost a dozen classes ranging from Warrior to Witch, with a boatload of stats, skills, and spells to tinker. I hope you have a Dark Eye player’s guide handy, because the game does a lousy job of explaining what anything does, and often the tooltips for items are less than helpful, and you don’t even gettooltips explaining what spells do in the middle of battle, so good luck remembering what Plumbumbarum does (pro tip: It reduces the target’s Parry and initiative). It’s not so much an issue of obtuse rules or systems, but that the systems are obscured from the player.
The screenshots on the game’s Steam page make it look like an impressive fantasy adventure, but frankly I’m not sure what sort of wizardry they used to pull that off. Even on the game’s highest of four graphics settings, Fantastic, the game looks old, with character models that unfavorably resemble the 2001 Piranha BytesRPG Gothic. Whether it’s a townsperson or a robber in combat, everyone animates poorly, clothing clips through the model, and the open-mouthed vacant stares of the market salesmen seem to glaze over your party like a Twilight Zoneepisode.
The soundtrack consists of a handful of tunes that seem to come and go when they please and a near deafening rain track. Everything is repetitive with obvious looping and nothing really stands out as above adequate. The sounds are cheap and combat is a mostly silent affair; it’s clear many sounds have not yet been implemented. The voice acting is atrocious, with the narrator doing his worst Ira Glass impersonation that makes every descriptive line or dialog read unintentionally laughable. Thankfully, not every line is voiced, but the writing is hardly passable in some cases, most likely due to poor translation.
Don’t buy the 2013 release of Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny. Do yourself a favor and pick up the original trilogy on GOG and save yourself the pain of waiting for this game to be fixed. The game was clearly shoved out the door before it was ready for prime time. With so many options for developers and publishers to explore before releasing a broken game, it’s perhaps more unacceptable than it’s ever been for unfinished game releases. Plenty of unfinished titles are released on Steam Early Access, and titles like Minecraft, Prison Architect and Mercenary Kings show that players are willing to tolerate paying for unfinished games.
The Kickstarter community, with its limitless nostalgia for classic RPGs, would have embraced the idea of a Realms of Arkania remake with open arms. Stay tuned, and I will let you know when this game is done and worthy of your dollars, but sit tight because it might be summer 2014 before that happens.
@cboyardee Somebody picked up on your Ira Glass comparison
Gord
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2011
- Messages
- 7,049
ROA: Blade of Destiny
Development Team:
Guido Henkel - Designer, Programmer
Hans-Jürgen Brändle - Designer, Programmer
Jochen Hamma - Designer
Ugurcan Yüce - Cover Artist
Vadim Pietrzynski - Artist
Markus Henrich - Artist
As far as I know, the "team" behind the remake consists of 2 guys.
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I don't think so, since he mocks them in every other post. He's definitely an odd fellow.
- Joined
- May 9, 2008
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- 113
What is this?! I don't even...
:Flash:
Arcane
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- 6,591
But "Make the game playable from start to finish" is not on the roadmap, even though the developers don't know themselves if it is even possible to finish the game.
Bubbles
I'm forever blowing
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2013
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- 7,817
I tried to wait a day to see if they'd translate the patch notes into English on their own, but apparently that's become too expensive:
It looks like they're getting ready to get the game out of beta within the next 2-3 updates.
Note that the two devs will be at Gamescom promoting this game full time, so no patches from the 21st-25th.
It looks like they're getting ready to get the game out of beta within the next 2-3 updates.
Note that the two devs will be at Gamescom promoting this game full time, so no patches from the 21st-25th.
Last edited:
Stabwound
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2008
- Messages
- 3,240
So, are the original trilogy of games worth playing? I'm a fan of blobbers, but I realize the games are pretty brutal and inaccessible even compared to the Wizardry series. Lots of ways to fuck up from the beginning because of useless skills/needed skills, getting yourself into unwinnable situations, etc.
I've always been interested in this series, and I enjoy most of the classics, but these games have always seemed super daunting and a chore to play from what I've read on here. Would anyone that didn't play them back in the day (so, lack of nostalgia goggles) recommend them?
I've always been interested in this series, and I enjoy most of the classics, but these games have always seemed super daunting and a chore to play from what I've read on here. Would anyone that didn't play them back in the day (so, lack of nostalgia goggles) recommend them?
Bubbles
I'm forever blowing
- Joined
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RoA is not a real blobber -- it's blob based exploration with isometric TB combat. The hardest game in the series is easier than the easiest Wizardry. The biggest challenge is the time limit in the first game. I'd start with the third game, it's easy, pretty short (15-20 hrs?) and basically impossible to screw up. The only real advantage of the earlier ones is more exploration and non-linearity. The overarching story of the series is non-existant -- Wizardry is heavily serialized by comparison.
fastjack
Augur
I only played them a few years ago. I started with the second game, "Star trail", and I really enjoyed the PnP vibe the game had, as well as the exploration/survival aspects. I then played the third game, "Shadows Over Riva", which was a little more modern and had some nice improvements to the engine. The problem with Riva was that it ditched the exploration aspects and that really soured me on it from the beginning. Lastly I tried to play the first game, "Blade of Destiny", which was supposed to have the most exploration to it, but it also lacked a lot of little improvements the later games introduced. I found it too hard to get into given the backwards steps in things like arrow targeting. I was really looking forward to these remakes so that I could play the first game with some modernizations, but obviously that prospect is looking slim.
I enjoyed the games and would recommend them with some reservations, there are some UI elements that make it hard to play nowadays, such as magical items looking like their nonmagical counterparts, and the limited inventory space with no/limited description of items and their uses. The newer games did update elements of the UI, but I forget what exactly and when. The great adventure feeling in the games was their best part imo, it really felt like a PnP game to me, the new system was also a nice change up from the usual dnd.
:Flash:
Arcane
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No, no, no. You absolutely have to start with the first. Dragging your party through all three via character import is half of the fun, and that is how they were designed.
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I highly recommend the second one. And RoA games are not even close to the difficulty of Wizardry. There are ways to fuck up, but that's what save games are for.
There are lots of ways to fuck up, sometimes hours before you know you did.
But in terms of game mechanics, the series are fairly simple. There are only a few "hard" encounters, and most of them are optional and skippable (if you are willing to lose half the xp in the series, that is
).
As for useless skills - well, raise swords and missile every levelup for everyone who wields them, read spoilers or ask around for which few spells are useful and raise them on every levelup too, especially if they are, like, -15 at first level (miss a level or two, and you'll never get to cast them). Non-weapon skills are largely useless (other than the obvious stuff like lockpicking), and a balanced party covers them fine enough with their default values anyway. Have a warrior, a dwarf, an elf, a mage, the rest are up to you (personally I'd go with 2 more elves, they kick ass as archers and support casters, and can hold their ground in melee too). Oh, and maximize strength for everybody, too. Which means everyone should be a Praios worshipper
But in terms of game mechanics, the series are fairly simple. There are only a few "hard" encounters, and most of them are optional and skippable (if you are willing to lose half the xp in the series, that is
).As for useless skills - well, raise swords and missile every levelup for everyone who wields them, read spoilers or ask around for which few spells are useful and raise them on every levelup too, especially if they are, like, -15 at first level (miss a level or two, and you'll never get to cast them). Non-weapon skills are largely useless (other than the obvious stuff like lockpicking), and a balanced party covers them fine enough with their default values anyway. Have a warrior, a dwarf, an elf, a mage, the rest are up to you (personally I'd go with 2 more elves, they kick ass as archers and support casters, and can hold their ground in melee too). Oh, and maximize strength for everybody, too. Which means everyone should be a Praios worshipper
Stabwound
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2008
- Messages
- 3,240
This is insane. I wish there was a way to get ahold of the original release of the game. Considering how broken it is, it wouldn't surprise me if entire sections of the game were missing and secretly added in this updates, because there were apparently a bunch of game-stopping bugs and probably still are.
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