Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Game News The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes seems to be The Dark Eye version of Sword Coast Legends

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Random Potion; The Dark Eye : Book of Heroes

Sword Coast Legends was a disaster that killed the company that made it, but that didn't stop Finnish studio Random Potion from announcing that they were making a game with a remarkably similar concept only a year later. Initially a generic fantasy game known only as Project Scoundrel, it was reannounced last August as an official The Dark Eye RPG called The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes. Like Sword Coast Legends, the focus of the game is co-op isometric dungeon crawling with procedurally generated maps and real-time combat. That's not the sort of thing we normally cover here, but The Dark Eye RPGs are a rare sight these days, so what the hell. Here's the launch trailer and accompanying press release:



MUNICH, GERMANY (June 9, 2020) — Wild River Games, the German publisher of console hit Windstorm, in close collaboration with developer Random Potion and rights owner Ulisses Spiele, today released The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes, their action-RPG based on the popular The Dark Eye tabletop RPG. Available now for PC, The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes sets players on an epic adventure through the mystical lands of Aventuria, where they’ll battle monsters and men on their heroic path to glory. The game features a multiplayer cooperative mode, to give players an “adventuring party” experience that can be enjoyed online, or via “couch co-op”. The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes is available now for $29.99 via Steam.

“We are incredibly pleased to launch Book of Heroes and bring the excellent The Dark Eye license to life digitally,” said Marc Wardenga, CEO of Wild River Games. “The Dark Eye is the perfect setting for fans of old-school RPGs, and the team at Random Potion has worked hard to recreate the joy of playing it on the tabletop, on PC.” The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes hearkens back to the glory days of computer role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights with its party-based, cooperative gameplay and a beautiful and extensive world showcased in a classic isometric view.

Continuing in this tradition, Book of Heroes features a deep and robust character creation system all wrapped up in a setting based on Germany’s best-selling tabletop RPG world that goes back to 1984. Based in the popular The Dark Eye universe, Book of Heroes sends players on an exciting journey through the lands of Aventuria to hack, slash, sneak, steal, and connive their way through an expansive role-playing experience. The game features an immersive and robust character creation system that will allow players to combine an enormous variety of traits and skills to ensure a true tabletop-inspired experience. Multiple fantasy racial backgrounds, professions, and skills help layers create incredibly well-rounded adventurers!

The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes Key Features:
  • Extensive Character Creation: Choose from 12 different professions and four classic species with customizable appearances and unique quests, tasks, and agendas
  • Party up, adventurers!: Play with up to four friends online or on the couch, or hack (and slash) it solo-style with virtual friends by hiring NPC companions at The Black Boar Inn
  • It’s a Beautiful World: Delve dank dungeons or take the (not so easy) route above ground as you explore gorgeous, hand-painted visuals from some of The Dark Eye’s most highly regarded artists
  • All Around Me Are Familiar Faces: With a history dating back to 1984, Book of Heroes features a host of iconic characters, locations, and lore from the sweeping history of The Dark Eye

The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes is available on Steam for $30. Let's hope it doesn't end in another bankruptcy.
 

Drowed

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
1,676
Location
Core City
Extensive Character Creation: Choose from 12 different professions and four classic species with customizable appearances and unique quests, tasks, and agendas

Extensive but indirect, apparently. From what I've noticed from the videos, you have the distribution of attributes, skills and everything else determined automatically by the "cards" you chose, you can't do any kind of fine-tuning to get the character you want. What for me, is a gigantic no-no, that is, besides all the other problems like a party you don't control.

 

tindrli

Arcane
Joined
Jan 5, 2011
Messages
4,465
Location
Dragodol
ExcellentShortIberianlynx-small.gif
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
How to fail:

  • Create an RPG for a license known for very grognardy fans - and make it rather simplified to make sure that fanbase won't be satisfied
  • Create an RPG with neither fixed story-protagonist nor proper character creation
  • Advertise with a pretty terrible trailer with barely any gameplay
  • Release an early access game as a finished title
  • Fail to come even close to a very obvious "competitor" - even if that competitor is more than 10 years old (Drakensang)
  • Copy the formula of a very well known desaster
Someone at a rather high level in their team failed very hard, this outcome could have easily been prevented.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
On its own, the character creation isn't bad actually - you get to pick a race, class, subclass, origin, advantage and disadvantage - so there are enough options to fine-tune your character, even if you can't influence the numbers directly. Nah, the biggest issue here is the combination of technical ambition (co-op, advanced procedural generation) with lack of technical competence.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Let's hope it doesn't end in another bankruptcy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1hIqGLF9mU

Other monocled game by the developer. Maybe we should hope for the bankcruptcy instead.
Same publisher, not same developer.

Ah nvm, random potion is a white blanket up to now. Oh well, this game isnt far from greatness, it needs the ability to directly control party members, openly create characters and adventures and save during an adventure. But something tells me the Devs wont to that, they got tons off negative feedback about those aspects before and they didnt change a thing. I am a lot less optimisitc than Andhaira about this.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Holy shit it got the legendary red mostly negative.

As far as I heard from developer FAQs the colour breakpoints of 70% and 40% are really important for your sales and the algorithm.
Poor devs, they tried something great but were far too stuck up in their own vision.
 

daveyd

Savant
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
287
40% positive on steam

Honestly I've heard from a few people who really like it a lot. If you're someone who can enjoy a Real-time Co-op game with rouge-lite elements like procedural generated dungeons, then you could most likely enjoy this. That's pretty much the opposite of everything I want in an RPG but perhaps if they fix the bugs and respond to feedback they can prevent it from being an abject failure. The lead developer seems like a cool dude and I get the sense he might have liked to make a different game, but this is probably what clueless suits thought would sell / what they were willing to fund.

Still hoping someday we'll get another single-player turn-based DSA cRPG.
 
Last edited:

Curratum

Guest
is that some kind of generic trailer music?
No, that's just German music.
No it is not marching music and we germans have quite good musicians throughout the last millennia. It is the filmmakers that are the problem. Since Lang und Riefenstahl there has not been a single one with talent out there.

I'm afraid I can't agree here. Your game devs produce the boringest, most generic shit ever, same with music for games, really.
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
is that some kind of generic trailer music?
No, that's just German music.
No it is not marching music and we germans have quite good musicians throughout the last millennia. It is the filmmakers that are the problem. Since Lang und Riefenstahl there has not been a single one with talent out there.
I'm afraid I can't agree here. Your game devs produce the boringest, most generic shit ever, same with music for games, really.
You know that this was a joke? Saying that german music is marching music and by naming Fritz Lang and Leni Riefenstahl this should be obvious. Google their works especially the works from Riefenstahl like "The victory of Faith", "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia". Nevertheless a good joke contains in its core always the truth. And the truth is that in the last 1000 years we germans dominated and pioneered the music in many directions (exception Blues, Jazz and Hip Hop / Rap (Afro American music)). Now what you refer to (correct but due to different circumstances) and this is also a part of the truth is the producing aspect and that is made "nach Schema F" (comes from the military.. google and translate what it means). And that also applies to computer games and to film (therefore i also named german filmmakers) and the contained music made by germans. Works of art (what games and films are) require sometimes risk taking and free minds that are not chained by boundaries and checkboxes.
The French and Poles are more free in this aspect than Germans and therefore they tend to be more "creative" in this medias, but creativity does not always translate to quality even in the arts department. Gothic I and II is an example that germans can excel at making RPGs.
So you didn't disagree with me, like i do not disagree with you, but you simply missed the point of my statement. If i would have made the joke more obvious it what have become trivial without the eye twink.
 

_V_

Scholar
Joined
Jun 15, 2015
Messages
105
Holy shit it got the legendary red mostly negative.

As far as I heard from developer FAQs the colour breakpoints of 70% and 40% are really important for your sales and the algorithm.
Poor devs, they tried something great but were far too stuck up in their own vision.
Well, I don't know the algorithm, but for me it's being displayed as "new and trending". So at least it seems to be getting some attention atm.
Will pick it up for 1€ like SCL. Will probably regret it. Like SCL...
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 2, 2018
Messages
408
40% positive on steam

Honestly I've heard from a few people who really like it a lot. If you're someone who can enjoy a Real-time Co-op game with rouge-lite elements like procedural generated dungeons, then you could most likely enjoy this. That's pretty much the opposite of everything I want in an RPG but perhaps if they fix the bugs and respond to feedback they can prevent it from being an abject failure. The lead developer seems like a cool dude and I get the sense he might have liked to make a different game, but this is probably what clueless suits thought would sell / what they were willing to fund.

Still hoping someday we'll get another single-player turn-based DSA cRPG.

If you're someone who can enjoy human fecal matter in their omelette with cancerous growths like part-formed hair and teeth, then you could mostly likely enjoy this.

Agree, burn it now.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom