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I was poking around for new PC-RPGs to play the other day and remembered Drakensang (http://www.drakensang.com/index_en.htm) - a German RPG franchise being given the Tron treatment by a German game developer. It apparently released in Germany early in the fall season this year, and an English version will be coming out in a month or two.

They've also recently released a demo in English (http://www.drakensang.com/oe2edit/oe2edit.cgi?site=005&language=en) (500MB), which I decided to try out yesterday. Personally, I was less than impressed.

The graphics and environments (well, the two that I saw) are pretty good. Major characters are voice-acted, at least to some degree - in the demo, they'll speak their first lines and then lip-sync the rest with accompanying text.

The game itself is obviously and deeply informed by MMOs. You run around with either point-to-click movement or WASD, and can move the camera independently of your characters. Combat basically means autoattacking and hitting hotkeys to queue up actions, which then execute over a short number of combat ticks. Kill things, get loot and XP.

I can't really judge the quality of the quests, as I didn't get too far into the game. This was largely the fault of the interface and partly the fault of my character creation choices. The interface, while MMO-like, feels pretty clunky. I had a hard time getting moves properly queued up in combat for chain execution. Movement and camera manipulation feel clumsy. Target selection requires you to click directly on the target, which can be a problem in crowded forest areas or indoors.

Also, I chose a spellcaster straight off, and I expect this made combat a good deal more difficult than a basic fighter character. I had no armor and a weak weapon, so enemies chewed me up pretty easily. Once I picked up a hireling to tank, things got a bit easier, but not by much.

The description of DSA's magic system (DSA being the PnP RPG system on which the game is based) made me think the spell effects would be neat and flashy, with cool verbal and somatic components. In the game, your dude points his finger at something and a stream of particles comes out. Red-orange streams for fire, white streams for lightning. Whee.

I think the demo is probably worth playing for PC-RPG enthusiasts, but I doubt it'd be worth it for the general population. Perhaps some of our German posters have played farther into the game and can shed some light into the bits that I didn't bother trying out (e.g. alchemy/crafting).

Edit: tidying up.

The artwork is actually kind of cool. Almost Team Fortress like...except Fantasy. Or maybe I should say a little whimsical like Bard's Tale. I like fantasy that looks like this.

MMO-like though...? Bleh.

[edit] As an aside, I expect this from typical users, but why the fuck do people RAR video files? The shit is already compressed!

I see a lot of Europeans do this too. They can't seem to get enough of RAR over there, apparently.

I didn't dislike it, but then I'm an oldschool RPG enthusiast. And that is basically what I got. Also, I may be biased because I played DSA in the past, and had quite a few "Been there, cool to finally see it in picture" moments.

I always go melee/healer, so the combat system didn't bother me. You can do all tradeskills, because you don't need the tradeskillers in you party, they can do their thing in your homebase. I didn't bother with most of them, you find better stuff. The interface could be better, but I played it directly after the Witcher (pre-patch) and compared to that I felt elated with the experience. Some very stupid design decisions, though. Worst of all the fact that you can't reenter most areas after you finished their part of the main quest and left them. Pretty basic story which can't compare to the aforementioned game. Nothing to write home about, I didn't waste another thought on it after finishing it. Definitely nothing for two playthroughs. Solid workmanship, but no jawdropping "This is so cool" moments.

I tried it again, this time as a melee character, and the game was - surprise surprise - a whole lot easier. I also figured out how to control my party better, so there was less main-character-gets-raped-while-hirelings-stand-around shittiness. That said, I still feel the UI is a bit clunky, and I still have no idea what all the stats on my weapons meant.

It seemed solid, if relatively uninspired. I'd say it's something like the drunken lovechild of WOW, NWN and Baldur's Gate. If you really wanted to see an RPG system like the Black Isle Baldur's Gate games in an engine that was a mishmash of WOW's over-the-shoulder Actiony-MMO with some of the party aspects and questing of NWN, you should try this game out.

I'll probably be giving it a pass unless I find it in a €5 bargain bin somewhere.

Lum clued me in that this is a continuation of a hardcore german series from Back in The Day.

Either way, this shit is HARD TO THE CORE.

Due to it's budget price, I could not help myself and I fear I will sink many, many hours into it. I like the art direction a good deal, it's well-written, and there's more to do than even Bethesda could possibly come up with. I am stoked.

What say you? Anyone else playing? Do want to talk about it.

Hardcore in what sense? Dick in a meatgrinder?

Very stat heavy, tons and tons and tons of shit to do, difficulty is harder than normal, there's a bunch of classes (A BUNCH) and they're all quite different once you get into the nitty gritty.

Here, I'll put it this way, I can't even pick a class to play from beginning to end. The amount of content is freaking daunting.

On the bright side, it runs like a dream, looks great, and has made me put down The Witcher.

Because at f.13 we also provide links (http://www.drakensang.com/index_en.htm).

We also search for threads on the exact same game from two months ago. Merged.

I played some of the Realms of Arkania stuff waaaay back when.  It wasn't great.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that this one comes out more, uh, engrossing.

I might have to radicalthon this. I survived the first scripted battle.

Both of my characters have broken arms and a minor gangrene infection.

You are aware that you could've just said that your characters can have their limbs broken and infected, and we'd all rush to buy the thing?

I couldn't hear you over the sound of my characters walking slowly and the sound of gangrene rotting my skin.

Walking speed is my number one complaint with the game atm.

Can you return back to previous locations now?

lol, and i was searching for a way to fast travel to locations on the minimap. Just ran through the demo, this game is impressive in the amount of character customization. Though as Yoru said in the initial post, i think this will appeal in the majority to rpg-enthusiasts. Which is fine for me because i think i'll be picking this game up.

Multiplayer?

None.

Bummer.

Ah, finally released? I'm on it. I'm an eastern euro rpg lovah. Played at least one of the RoA games back in the day, but remember very little about it.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, it is relevant to my interests.

I need a runspeed mod. Someone make one. With double the runspeed I'd be playing this 4+ hours a night. >_<

Heard about this game, ignored it, but now I'm interested again.

I found this (http://www.cheathappens.com/show_board2.asp?headID=79989&titleID=14327) with info on editing the save game file to increase the run speed.  It seems to work.

I like this game and for some reason I'm fascinated with the name generator.

sigh. tht sounds overly complicated, shouldnt' there be a universal default run speed value we can just edit? This game looks nice , but 15 min into the game and I felt reallllllllllllly sleepy. I made a big burly pirate. Gona go 2 hand axes to smash harder since defense doesn't really matter much.  :oh_i_see:

and how do u detect traps btw? I gave the amazon trap skill but we kept tripping on them in the first dungeon.

Takes about 10 seconds using the save editor they linked.
Run speed 5.5 seems a tad fast. 4 should be better.

Make sure to apply to the whole party.

10 seconds!? Far too long.

Disclaimer: I'm only halfway through the game.

It seems i'm in the minority here, but I find the game to be pretty dreadful. Never having played RoA or "Der Auger Schwarz" or whatever the hell it is, the rule system is pretty esoteric, though that's really the least of the game's problems. I won't hesitate to say that it has the worst voice acting I have ever encountered, seemingly styling every character as a drunken yokel, weird child (see the drunken apprentices from the demo), or over-the-top harbinger of doom. Even by the standards of European dubbing, it shatters my immersion; the evil sorcerer's lines are delivered like he's Wizard NoHeart. It would have been much better if there was an option to keep the original German voice acting, with English subtitles.

The 'high fantasy' of it all is also a little mind-boggling. My character is on the "Dragon Quest" for the "Dragon Oracle" to find the "Dragon Armor" and stop the "Dragon cult" from dragon dragon dragon. A succession of buttery innkeeps, stubborn dwarves, mysterious elves and charming rogues makes the game world a generic fantasy land with utterly forgettable characters. Presumably my lack of familiarity with the Dark Eye might have something to do with this, but I was similarly unfamiliar with the world of the Witcher, or even Forgotten Realms when BG came out, and I found those games to both be very immersive. A lack of dialogue choices (or any story choice at all, seemingly) means that you'll be playing Constance McGoodheart from start to finish. There are one or two exceptions to this, such as whether you want to side with one trading company or another, but they seem mostly cosmetic.

The final nail in Drakensang's coffin is the combat. Though I find it challenging (possibly because I am utterly clueless towards the game system and may have created a total gimp), the lack of collision detection means that every battle is inevitably a mad dash to keep the more lightly-armored characters out of reach of swarms of enemies. The lack of a "taunt" skill makes this even more frustrating.

If anything this game reminds me of Chapter 1 from NWN2. Sixty hours of autumn-colored countryside and harvest fairs, and you've got Drakensang.
 

with gangrene.

hmmm ok ! looks good. Too bad I can't swim across a small stream, seems silly having to circle around to find the path into the town. And what's with the barrel smashing even in towns. Wth are these devs thinking? Why can't I open it up like a normal person?

This is much better.

Too bad, as far as replayability goes, it's not really a lot. It suffers due to the small gameworld, most of the social skills you pick hardly make a difference (Oh, milk the shit out of the rogue in the first town. PICKPOCKET EVERYONE!). I created a charlatan to see how the first part of the game goes and noticed very minor differences except I wave my hand and make pretty sparks before faceplanting in 3 hits instead of being the god of melee when I played a Pirate.

Edit:
Y'know fuck it, I'll just be blunt, this game's writing is really amazing. Although I could've sworn I read it before in a less darker tone. Just these out.

Well done.

I was going to Radicalthon my playtime with Drakensang but I might not last very long. 


You mean like this Rogue_01?

(http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/680305/screenshot_20.jpg)

Nonsense!

"Inconceivable" was the word that sprang to my mind.  :awesome_for_real:

Nice.

This one jumped out at me right off the bat.

(http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/8464/autolycus01.jpg)

Though the more I play it, the more I like the combat system.

The 'movement divorced from camera' thing is odd, I keep having to swirl the camera around to keep my toon on screen. Movement seems very clunky, to the point I haven't played it enough to get to combat yet.

I'm generally not liking the interface. At all.

gotta agree with rattran, I think the camera behavior are really odd. Also I don't know if I should play it a la BG, or FPS or both. Anyway to always have my buddies follow me instead of having to hit select all everytime I move? Storywise, it looks like it could have some potential tho.

Also, you can play a PIRATE!!! how isn't that the most awesome class of all the RPG.

:heart:

Bruce Campbell waved at me and a friend, once, when he recognized us from the previous day as cosplayers.  (Yes, I know I say that every time he comes up.  It's Bruce Campbell.  Deal.)

From all I heard of him he seems to be a genuinely nice guy.

I bet it was Bill Murray in disguise. He's tricksy.

I love dressing up my guys. And getting that Iranian Assassin was nice. I like the character customization as well on the stat side. Here's Jost, NPC Battle Mage that you get to rescue late game. I thought I had no use for him with the caster slot taken by the elf and 2 front line tanks with me as the rogue, but I decided to experiment by teaching him 2 handed sword and slapping on leather armor for protection.

before
(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m20/r3dknight/before.jpg)

Haven't fought yet, but he looks mighty shiny with the self buffs on.  :awesome_for_real:

AFTER

(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m20/r3dknight/jesus.jpg)

AWE! He could be the son of god!

I thought that was "late game" as well, until I finished part three of the Dragon Quest and it ended up just being the prologue. This thing really does go on forever.

Is there an editor with this game?  Or some console commands?  Can I cheat?   :grin:

Vex's link (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15699.msg602623#msg602623) provides an editor that lets you do pretty much whatever to a save file.  Here are direct links for xp (http://upload.worldofplayers.de/files/DrakensangEditor0.9_pBeta1_x86.zip) (tested fine on xp x64) and vista (http://upload.worldofplayers.de/files/DrakensangEditor0.9_pBeta1_x64.zip) (untested).  Reminds me of editing Diablo.

I gave my warrior guy a bunch of adventure/upgrade points, money, and a fireball spell (and seemingly turned him into a magic user).  Loaded up my new save and all changes occurred.  I could spend the points to upgrade my guy, I had a new blue energy bar, I found my fireball spell and upgraded my Astral Energy to use it but I couldn't fire it off.

I don't like cheating in games because I lose all interest in continuing on, but I hate locked boxes even more.  When I find a locked box in real life I scream and punch myself.  In game, I find it frustrating to leave a box behind because my lockpicking sucks.  I'm going to alleviate my pain by maxing out lockpicking with this editor and then stop before I get creative.

Well, I will also increase my run speed.

And I would like to up any carrying capacity limits that may exist.

And testing out spells would be nice oh god can't stop  :drill: :drillf: :drill: :drillf:

Yes, I only use necessary cheats, too.  Well, at least until my interest in the game starts to diminish naturally and I realise that unless I become a God, I'll never finish.  Then I cheat like mad to wrap it up.  Sometimes even then I don't last.  Anyway, thanks for the tip.  It was Schild comment about run speed that made me want to know this before I bought the game.  I have a real problem with really slow running.  Even the appearance of really slow running bothers me sometimes.  Oh and those locked boxes really can be annoying, especially if you have to run back to them really, really slow.  If there is a carrying capacity, it is NEVER enough.  I don't consider any of that to be cheating!   :oh_i_see:

He is. I've only met him once, at a book signing and I came away from it more happy with him than before I met him. He entertained the crowd and took the time to make small talk with each person as he signed their book. You basically sat in a chair next to his table and he'd talk to you briefly.

He was great at the anime convention.  Didn't know a thing about anime, but had fun with it all and gave everyone the same feeling as Riggs.

 :uhrr: oh dear.  :awesome_for_real:

found easter egg , purchase the rock goblin from the ducal citadel merchant, otto.

aloha shirt and fake beard.

(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m20/r3dknight/aloha.jpg)

Fake beards? Now I've got to get it.

Wow. That's exactly what I wanted to say. How did they know that? Seriously? You germans are the FUNNAY!  :awesome_for_real:
And there's no other dialogue option either!

(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m20/r3dknight/loldialogue.jpg)

Now available on Steam for the same as retail. Wish they'd mentioned that it was going to be available before I bought it at retail, I hate having to have a cd in the drive to play a game.

Is it because you feel sorry for the CD?

Just crack it. Stop being a bitch.

Having beat it, I'd say that while the game seems to start out incredibly hard, it becomes pretty easy once you figure out the system, and what works and doesn't work. Unfortunately, the manual isn't much help. Here's some random tips and explanations that I wish I'd known at the start. Nothing in it should be too spoilery.

Summoning is really great with multiple options but I"m not sure what the Shadow does.
Summoned Genie can cast spells and do special attacks, pretty decent at high level. I think it's random, sometimes you get a caster, sometimes you get a melee genie. Fire elemental is the most worthwhile summon, it might not last as long as the others, but the ability to burn from attacking and being attacked is huge. The first half of the game turns easy when you just abuse fire guy over and over as an Elementalist, who gets the spell at level 1. Summoned bears can knockdown too i think and has the highest HP, so just alternate between your elf and your elementalist summons as needed.

I did not bother to play too long this game, it does look really good but I could not chose a class.
Any advice on which class could be nice to play and not gimped?

I take it you didn't click the spoiler link 2 posts above yours.

melee:
dwarf: pure hp and str, low dex and agility. Plays like a rock. You can't dodge, but you can take hits. Merc is the best choice.
human: balanced but still no magic, can unlock more special skills without pumping main stats. Warrior if you want single hand, Soldier if you want two handed.
elf: starts a little weak, but blooms mid game with supporting magic, just make sure you're wearing leather. Very versatile with Bow & Spear + cast self heals.

magic:
Elf: doesn't have access to other summons except for animal. Damage spell limited to Thundershock, if you want to play spellweaver, I suggest pumping bow skill as regular damage output and use support magic to help your party. Hawkeye & Cold Blooded Warrior are great midgame self-buffs.
Human: Mixed bag. Elementalist starter spell is good but he lacks physical stats. Battlemage extra willpower increase survivability with decent starting stat and Metamage is simply Battlemage minus the willpower but higher magic resistance.

I liked my Dwarven Sapper. I hate it when I can't open locked chests, and the sapper gives me the ability to pick locks without being made of paper.

Thanks, I think I'll go the dwarf merc route

I started as a human warrior, but the fiancee made fun of my haircut. I showed her how you couldn't change your appearance in the creation phase and she said the pirate was the best choice. So Sven Forkbeard (who is clean-shaven) it is.

I like my human charleton.

Got pictures? :drill:

Do we really want to go down this road again?

Now $5 on Direct2Drive (http://www.direct2drive.com/2/7595/product/Buy-Drakensang:-The-Dark-Eye-Download) along with tons of other games (http://www.direct2drive.com/d2dturns5).  (It isn't available on the UK site (http://www.direct2drive.co.uk/d2dturns5) sadly.)

I'd been waiting for this one to come down to a price that wouldn't make me guilty if I never got to it, but even with just a morning worth of play I feel like I've gotten my 5 bucks worth.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game and the whole new detailed and rich rpg system to figure out. (Well new to me, anyway.) This game is competitive with any other party-based rpgs out there.

The run speed hack is an absolute must however.

Yeah the Steve Austin slo-mo run is getting to me a bit. Is this the editor y'all used to change the speed? http://drakensang.sourceforge.net/ (http://drakensang.sourceforge.net/)

I have two programs in my Drakensang folder from March:
Drakensang Editor 0.9 Beta
and,
Drakensang Savegame Editor 1.3 (the same program you link to, only an earlier version)

One or both of these will allow you to edit the run speed (don't remember which, sorry). If I remember right, you need to do it for every character in your party or the slow ones will lag far behind. Good luck.

At least the current version of the Drakensang Savegame Editor does.  Here's the current release notes (http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=697726):