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Dragon Age + Forgotten Realms + Cliches + German = [DRAKENSANG: TRoT]
Ferrus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The unconfirmed release date in the US is somewhere around may.
You can get the German demo here!
It shows off the graphics and overall style quite nicely and the rules aren't too hard to understand even if you don't speak German. People who played the first game shouldn't have any trouble.
The Dark Eye is the german equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. Apparently when the concept of Pen & Paper Roleplaying was first conceived, some guys from northern Germany with too much time on their hands decided to make their own rules and lore and publish a teutonic system. How exactly does it work, you ask? I have no idea, because I never played it either! Well, to be honest I have a vague idea since I played both the Northland Trilogy and the first Drakensang but more on the rules later.
The first game, to which The River of Time is a prequel, received very positive reviews and earned the German Developer Award for „Best German RPG“!
The most important aspects of
Drakensang: The River of Time:
Minimum system specs:
Pentium 4 2,8 GHz or similar
RAM: 1 GB on WinXP, 2 GB on Vista/7
NVIDIA 6800GT, 256mb RAM or similar
Based on the 4th Edition of TDA!
22 Classes as well as the usual 3 races of humans, elves and dwarves! Class and race are tied, so you can be a dwarven prospector but not a human! Did I hear someone say D&D First Edition?
How does it look?
FRIGGIN GORGEOUS, THAT’S HOW! (Screens taken by myself, on 1280x1024, all settings set to max. Running on Win7, 4GB RAM, Phenom II X3 720 with the 4th core unlocked, Radeon 5770)
I WILL ADD MORE SCREENS! The game saves them in shitty PNG quality, sadly.
This is the area you start in:
Look at this motherfucking dwarf:
Humans are sly bastards in this game:
The ruleset:
The game offers you a simplified version of the rules where you don't really have to put points anywere. However, if you like crazy munchkin'ing you can turn on Expert Mode and set everything yourself. Expert Mode is fucking complicated but you can adjust a ton of things there. For example, you can chose advantages and disadvantages for your hero. So you might be a fucking smartass with tons of Mana but a total idiot in social situations.
The game also has a skilltree for physical combat that is similar to the one in DA:O. There are passive talents that ramp up your defense, there are special attacks and so forth. Certain moves require specific weapons. The usual stuff.
Spells are sorted by school or type. There are nature spells for those fucking elves or spells that allow you to summon demons if you're a godless heathen arab wizard.
Combat itself is not unlike KOTOR or Neverwinter Nights: Continuous turnbased. The game really does throw dice and shows you your hits and misses accordingly. You can pause at any time and give orders to your group. There is no tactical view like in DA:O but you can zoom out pretty far.
I will add stuff to this OP if I feel like it. It is my first OP, so be fucking gentle, okay?
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Ferrus on
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is the combat similar to dragon age's?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Derp.
Anyways- I played the Drakensang that came out 1/2 year ago. Good stuff but I gave it up when Dragon Age.
A few impressions:
- The overall tone and art-style of this is very far from most modern "mature" RPGs. There are no big ugly demons that want to rape and murder everybody like in DA:O. At least none that I know of, storywise. You also don't gut your enemies when you kill them. There is blood, but it's used to add tension/drama.
- No romances. Lots of banter though.
- You also can't be an orphan-killing dick like in KOTOR or DA:O. In fact, you can't be a dick at all. There are some rogueish options but in general you're a good guy.
- Many people claim the game is hard. I don't think so. It's certainly not as hard as Dragon Age on your first playthrough IF you know how the rules work. I have a rather limited understanding but still manage to do quite well in battles. I'm playing on normal though.
- During conversations, your party member with the highest appropriate skill rank gets to make the test, which is nice.
- You party won't the fuck object to your decisions. They might tell you they don't like what you do but they won't murder you in your sleep for it.
- Pretty much every skill is usefull in some way. Crafting is very important, just like in the first game. Some of the best items can only be made by crafting them. Raw material can either be harvested or bought for precious precious gold. Seriously, that shit is expensive!
- There are some decent jokes in there, giving the game a lighthearted feeling so far.
Edit: On a second thought, the game feels very much like a regular PnP campaign your GM might run.
Also this.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Well... with a history like that i guess its natural to come up with good RPGs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiH82TjhrSQ&feature=PlayList&p=88829A9E478D77F0&index=0&playnext=1
Everyone can, in theory, learn everything. There are no set levels; most skill-ups are indiviually bought through Adventure Points. Every now and again you DO gain a level but only to raise the cap on your skills.
For magic you must either be a mage... or an elf, since elves are born with magic up their butt. They make great gish-types.
Armor reduces the damage you receive to specific bodyparts but the most important stats are attack and parry.
Hell, now that I think about it, this is exactly like Warhammer Fantasy. Except for the way criticals/wounds work.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I played the first one last year when it came out in the US, and really enjoyed it. Very linear, though, and I never felt any need to replay it once I'd beaten the story.
This'll be a day one purchase... whenever it arrives. Sounds like they've added lots of depth to it, and cranked up the graphical detail quite a bit!
Not sure if I'd go through another Drakensang.
The release date in the OP is only hearsay but it sounds plausible. I guess with Awakening out it wouldn't be a good idea to release the game right now anyway.
I can't say for certain how much time I put into the game but there is certainly a lot to do. I did maybe 2/3 of the side quests and then finished the main story, after which you can choose to play on.
Intuitively I would rate the game at about 7 out of 10. It isn't as massive as it's predecessor or as epic, but that's intentional. What really irks me is the lack of decent companions. You get two fighters, a thief and either a full mage or a half-elf ranger type with a few spells. But I guess I was too focused on "traditional" roleplaying systems like D&D. The Dark Eye really differs from those sometimes. For example, healing during combat is possible but only with a decent setup and you could probably play the entire game without magical support.
Also, I found this out only by chance, there is a PDF of the basic rulebook included! Yes, the entire book.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.