Prosper Realms of Arkania: Shovelware Edition

[Daemongar]

That really does look good. There were a lot of stats, screens, items and stuff to keep one occupied for hours even before walking out into the game world. The turn based combat just about puts it over the top. Even that slider in the sky looks pretty righteous: it's about time an RPG said "To hell with torches!"

 

[mondblut]

That's pretty awesome. Except that slow ass camera movements. Like when a party stops for resting during overland travel and resting is setup in some kind of a house interior screen. WTF is with that slow panning to the right once the resting orders are given?

 

[Jaesun]

It is an Alpha.

The important thing is, are they still including all of the elements of the PnP system that were in the original game?

 

[Turjan]

Like when a party stops for resting during overland travel and resting is setup in some kind of a house interior screen.

No idea about the slow movement, but for people who don't understand the voiceover, the house interior is just a placeholder for the up to now non-existing campfire screen.

 

[wergle]

The only improvement RoA needs is 8 moving directions instead of 4.

What the hell are you talking about? Both RoA 1 and 2 (I have not played 3) have shitty combat interfaces on top of shitty combat pacing. The non-combat gameplay is excellent, yes, but when a basic no-brainer fight takes several minutes to pan out it detracts from the overall experience. This is something that could be improved upon by making, say, a remake. Unless the people making the remake are dumb, which is very possible.

I know it's not going to happen but right now I'm imagining an RoA game with Dark Sun/KotC-style speedy combat and it might be the greatest RPG ever not made

 

[Lady_Error]

What the hell are you talking about? Both RoA 1 and 2 (I have not played 3) have shitty combat interfaces on top of shitty combat pacing. The non-combat gameplay is excellent, yes, but when a basic no-brainer fight takes several minutes to pan out it detracts from the overall experience.

For no-brainer fights you had automated combat in RoA 2 and 3.

The important thing is, are they still including all of the elements of the PnP system that were in the original game?

Apparently they are. All the mechanics seem to be pretty much the same. Even the soundtrack is the same as in RoA 1, but in better quality.

 

[mondblut]

The important thing is, are they still including all of the elements of the PnP system that were in the original game?

I hope not. Rolling for whether any skill and spell upgrade actually happens or fails to increase during levelup was the single most idiotic and offensive idea in the entire history of RPGs. "Congratulations, you've earned a level. Sorry, but that gives you exactly fucking nothing, lol". Fuck these losers.

Making any encounters give only 47 xp after you've fought a given creature for the first time was not exactly the brightest idea in the history of game design, too. Combine the two, and RoA begins to look like an attempt of deliberate trolling of its target auditory.

 

[Lady_Error]

I hope not. Rolling for whether any skill and spell upgrade actually happens or fails to increase during levelup was the single most idiotic and offensive idea in the entire history of RPGs. "Congratulations, you've earned a level. Sorry, but that gives you exactly fucking nothing, lol". Fuck these losers.

I'm pretty sure you still got upgrades in things like HP and basic attributes, even if you failed to increase skills or spells.

Making any encounters give only 47 xp after you've fought a given creature for the first time was not exactly the brightest idea in the history of game design, too. Combine the two, and RoA begins to look like an attempt of deliberate trolling of its target auditory.

Never noticed it, but yeah, that is a bit lazy.

 

[:Flash:]

The important thing is, are they still including all of the elements of the PnP system that were in the original game?

I hope not. Rolling for whether any skill and spell upgrade actually happens or fails to increase during levelup was the single most idiotic and offensive idea in the entire history of RPGs. "Congratulations, you've earned a level. Sorry, but that gives you exactly fucking nothing, lol". Fuck these losers.

I thought it was great. Normal levelup is just distributing points, it is boring. RoA gives you tough decisions like "do I try to upgrade my high level spell, but have a higher chance of failing, or do I rather level up a low level skill but succeed almost certainly?" "Now, I have lost two tries on this skill, do I try a third and last time, or do I improve another skill that gives me almost sure success?".
Character creation and levelup are an entire game to themselves in RoA and there is no other RPG where I enjoyed the process as much as I did in RoA.

Of course if you don't know the rules of The Dark Eye 3.0 then it seems like a random nuisance. I just checked, the don't explain the rules in the manual, I knew them because I had played the Pen and Paper game. They do say that leveling up a single character takes around half an hour.

 

[Gord]

The PnP system is clearly not made for powergamers...

Anyway, over the course of the game (or an characters career) the level-up usually even itself out quite well.
It has a lot to do with the concept behind the system, which is originally a low-magic setting where heroes much closer resemble ordinary humans than in e.g. D&D.
You don't (and aren't supposed to) gain semi-godhood after a few level-ups. In fact you very much stay a quite normal being that's just doing somewhat heroic stuff.
Many of the original adventure modules tried to remind the party of that, too.
If you are looking to feed your inner munchkin, there are better systems for that then The Dark Eye.

Not to say that it isn't possible though (if the DM allowed it, anyway).
The games especially had a lot of exploits and possibilities for power-gaming in them.
With some optimization on character creation and a bit of luck during level-up (or reloading) the party was already very strong after level 4 or such.
And playing through all the games with the same party made you almost unstoppable (in combat at least).
Also because you could find rather much magical equipment that wouldn't exist in TDE PnP, usually (like plenty of belts of strength).

Also, what's the problem with getting less combat XP when fighting the same enemies multiple times?
That your brain was missing the trigger for your reward center?
I think, however that the game could have done away with many of the mob fights. Eventually I just clicked on auto-resolve for most fights against groups of low-level enemies.

 

[mondblut]

Also, what's the problem with getting less combat XP when fighting the same enemies multiple times?
That your brain was missing the trigger for your reward center?

Yes. I like to have fun in games, see.

Not to mention there is exactly 1 combat featuring half the entire xp pool of RoA1 (and a couple of such in ST), and every guide started with "proceed to location X,Y in Daspota and god forbid you enter any other house on your way or you lose half the experience in the entire game. Which is a recipe on how to NOT make an RPG.

 

[Gord]

Not to mention there is exactly 1 combat featuring half the entire xp pool of RoA1 (and a couple of such in ST), and every guide started with "proceed to location X,Y in Daspota and god forbid you enter any other house on your way or you lose half the experience in the entire game. Which is a recipe on how to NOT make an RPG.

A bit inaccurate. It only is important if you set out to make a meta-gaming playthrough to maximize possible rewards.
I never tried to play the game according to maximum exp gain and yet never had any trouble reaching around level 5 at the end - which is more than enough to complete the game without mayor difficulties and get a very powerful party at the beginning of Startrail.

I don't deny that you CAN exploit the 1st encounter xp system like that, but it is absolutely unneccessary to do it - there are enough xp around and the game anyway is not that hard.
So, unless you absolutely insist on a metagaming optimization approach you will NOT end up with a gimped party for ignoring the subtleties of the 1st encounter XP.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Looks majestic.

Are they going to remake the whole trilogy or just Blade of Destiny?

 

[Lady_Error]

I guess it will depend on the success of the first one.

Though once the whole system is in place, it should be pretty easy for them to "import" the RoA 2 and 3 stories, so I'm pretty confident those will come out as well.

 

[Dorateen]

Still wish they would just develop a Realms of Arkania IV.

I get that there is some value in re-makes, introduce to a new generation and all that. But I've always been one who prefers a band that plays their own original material to one that does covers.

 

[Lady_Error]

From what I understand, the RoA developers intended to continue with RoA games, even after Henkel left to work on Torment. But they fucked up business-wise and went bankrupt.

 

[:Flash:]

From what I understand, the RoA developers intended to continue with RoA games, even after Henkel left to work on Torment. But they fucked up business-wise and went bankrupt.

One of the reasons Guido Henkel left was that he did not want to continue with RoA, because they could never earn much money because of the expensive license.
I don't know when Hans-Jürgen Brändle left, but after that only one of the three founders was left. And it is pretty obvious that he had no idea what he was doing. He was lucky to be a highschool pal of Henkel and Brändle, but from the credits of the Attic games you can see that they did all the work. After they had left, Attic never developed another game. He hired Larian to develop LMK, an action RPG with the DSA license and then bankrupted Attic and almost Larian. He tried to blame Larian, unfortunately even the Attic employees sided with Larian on the Forums. You can find him on the gravestone of the Lady, the Mage and the Knight in Divinity (DJ Hammer = Director Jochen Hamma). After the bankruptcy of Attic he changed to Spellbound and became executive producer on Gothic 4 which he gave the name Arcania, because, U know, I'm the developer of Realms of Arkania. After that, Spellbound was bankrupt as well.

 

[:Flash:]

BTW, I just found the original source for the Attic-Larian story:
http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=280783&site_id=1#import

The three Germans from that story all continued at Larian and were part of the Divinity team. Marian and André are now working on Deathfire with Guido Henkel, who had long left Attic when that story happened. It's kind of funny how these things work out.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Not sure if anyone's seen this but there's a video out that shows a bit more of the game.


http://www.gamestar.de/videos/previews,18/das-schwarze-auge-schicksalsklinge-hd,69946.html

 

[golgepapaz]

Not sure if anyone's seen this but there's a video out that shows a bit more of the game.


http://www.gamestar.de/videos/previews,18/das-schwarze-auge-schicksalsklinge-hd,69946.html

That was posted 14 days ago in this thread... And I still can't watch it..

 

[Luzur]

The important thing is, are they still including all of the elements of the PnP system that were in the original game?

I hope not. Rolling for whether any skill and spell upgrade actually happens or fails to increase during levelup was the single most idiotic and offensive idea in the entire history of RPGs. "Congratulations, you've earned a level. Sorry, but that gives you exactly fucking nothing, lol". Fuck these losers.

Making any encounters give only 47 xp after you've fought a given creature for the first time was not exactly the brightest idea in the history of game design, too. Combine the two, and RoA begins to look like an attempt of deliberate trolling of its target auditory.

well, in that new video the first thing they say is "the complexity of the original game will not be changed" so i guess all the old features is in?

 

[mondblut]

The important thing is, are they still including all of the elements of the PnP system that were in the original game?

I hope not. Rolling for whether any skill and spell upgrade actually happens or fails to increase during levelup was the single most idiotic and offensive idea in the entire history of RPGs. "Congratulations, you've earned a level. Sorry, but that gives you exactly fucking nothing, lol". Fuck these losers.

Making any encounters give only 47 xp after you've fought a given creature for the first time was not exactly the brightest idea in the history of game design, too. Combine the two, and RoA begins to look like an attempt of deliberate trolling of its target auditory.

well, in that new video the first thing they say is "the complexity of the original game will not be changed" so i guess all the old features is in?

That's awful. Heck, even next edition of DSA has removed this ugly shit if Drakensang and the mobile games are of any indication. They must have realized themselves how retarded it is. Imagine D&D making your fighter fail his one-point THAC0 increase five levels in row. "Yay, I am a 10 level fighter who fights like a 5 level fighter". Ridiculous.

Back to playing with skill advance crack, I guess.

 

[Modron]

The RoA series graphics hold up pretty well imo, really the only reason I am looking forward to this remake is potential change to the inventory system. My only major gripe with the series was inventory felt a bit too limited; one more row of inventory space would have done wonders.

 

[rashiakas]

Release date is 25.06. and the CE costs 25€.

There is also this music sample.

 

[rashiakas]

Short video.

Apparently, there will be a website soon.