f13.net forums - Dreamlords

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July 22, 2025, 08:08:24 AM

we're back, baby

Alright, got back from a 2 day trip to this years Nordic Game conference ( http://nordicgame.alphacrisis.com/ ). I'll try to make a thorough post about it in more details when I get my internet connection back at home. Enough about that for now though, I also found out about a very intresting game called Dreamlords.

Dreamlords is made up of 2 parts, 1 part being a browser game where you manage and build your empire, and one being an RTS where the actual battles are fought. I haven't looked into it yet due to limited internet access, but the information I received made me perceive it as something very intresting. For more information check out http://www.dreamlords.com/.

Ah, shit, did you talk to anyone from CCP?

But How Does It Play?

Naa, they only seemed to have one guy there who wasn't just exhibition personnel, and that was Hilmar Petursson. He was rather busy after having his presentation though. I did take some notes, sadly they're not with me atm. Some info which I recall:

Major graphics update coming next year.
They're growing faster than ever, don't have the data now but I seem to recall 270 000 subscribers by somewhere in 2007 if the trend continues. They thank Blizzard for this.
Very good retention, ~27% of the people who started at/near release are still playing, I believe the number was something like ~47% for 2005.
Contracts coming in expansion/patch ( don't recall ). As I understood it contracts will be a mechanic to somewhat fight scammers.
Heavy prototyping was used for development. The game was created 11 times, a lot of which seemed like very complete incarnations. A lot of them had a radar which got scrapped in the release version.
Some team members had some experience of a really crappy educational virtual world, apart from that this was their first major project.

Is that the Torque engine at work? The style they went with looks like a cross between Guild Wars and HoMM V.

Quote from: Strazos on February 14, 2007, 02:10:03 AM

Is that the Torque engine at work? The style they went with looks like a cross between Guild Wars and HoMM V.

Yes, they are using Torque Game Engine-Advanced (latest engine, still in pre-release but available as early adopter) for the RTS gameplay, and a custom web app based backend for the browser based stuff.

Necroposting this sucka.

This game came out just a few days ago. I'm reading a lot about it, and it sounds genuinely interesting. Of course, early launch woes, etc. - but I like the dual browser + client usage.

Did anyone play the beta of this, or has any feedback?

Can you play this strictly as a PvE game?

I'm interested in this game, however, I don't have the time to try it out now. I read through the available information on the site. Here's the short version:

You start on your little floating piece of land. You manage the empire game (infrastructure, research, building and equipping armies, etc) through a browser. Research seems to be key, as every race handles it differently. There are three races - Humans (research in their empire until they reach a point where they have to complete "a quest" - you have to win an RTS battle), Elves (research only in their empire. Don't have to fight to finish research) and Orcs (need "blood" to research, they get it from fighting - meaning they only research when winning RTS battles).

Once you secure your floating land you can "claim" neutral land. When you do you flag yourself for PvP and other players can attack and conquer (through RTS Battles) your claimed land.

There are "eras". Each era will continue for about 2-3 months, the time it will take for a player alliance to finish the main quest and "win" the game. After the Era is done, the game is reset. Players keep their stats (battles won/lost, etc), gain "traits" and start over. I have no idea what these traits are.

The game costs E13 per month. The first payment is E20, with it you basically "buy" the game.

I have one big concern - how will defending your land in PvP work? I challenge someone, he has to accept that challenge, than I have to accept a suitable time or something? I don't get it. I'm sure they don't expect me to be logged on and ready for battle 24/7. Can someone please, please, please try this and give some feedback. Could be an awesome time killer for work :)

My question too - also how is the whole research handled?
Is it real time like in ogame (meaning that you have to be on 24/7 to stay competitive, or write an ultra simple bot;-) or tick based like in RD (all the calculations are done at 5AM, so you only have to login once a day to stay competitive).

On PvP thing - how do they handle alliances, gangbanging and early starter advantage?