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The Dark Eye Blackguards - turn-based tactical RPG set in The Dark Eye world

Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
Ah, he's on State of Mind now. Presumably designing some of those "combine screwdriver with screw" puzzles.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
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The guy who joined our BG2 thread (Johannes Kiel, producer, project manager, lead game designer(?)) isn't at Daedalic anymore though, the other game designer Florian Pett - I don't know.

I think Daedalic wanted a

:slamdunk:

from them:

Linkedin said:
*Developing Blackguars 2 in time/quality/budget in less than 7 months
*Dual role als Producer and Project Manager on Blackguards 2
 

Infinitron

I post news
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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
Seven months! If only they could rediscover that German efficiency for their adventure games.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
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If they only had 7 months, they should have considered an expansion pack instead. It would have of course sold less, but it wouldn't have sunk the IP and they'd wouldn't have been able to make all the wrong decisions in game mechanics and story.
 

anvi

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I tried this game at release and it kept crashing on the first mission. I left it for 3 years and tried it again earlier this year, it ended up being one of the best games I've ever played. I love the tactical combat, but also liked the setting too and the characters. I played the sequel too, it was a lot shorter but the battles were good, more interesting bosses too. They also hugely improved itemisation and a few other things.

I hope bad review scores didn't kill it forever.
 

anvi

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Lol I seem to be starting a fine collection of those parrots. I like the sequel, it helps that I bought it for next to nothing on a sale, but I liked that the itemisation was so much better, and also hunting down trainers wasn't a chore. Also the battles were as good as the average battles from BG1 but sometimes had more interesting enemies like those sand wraiths. It was short though and it didn't have some of the epic battles the first game did. It seemed like it should have just been a DLC. But if you liked the first game I'd still recommend it for more of the same.
 

vonAchdorf

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Lol I seem to be starting a fine collection of those parrots. I like the sequel, it helps that I bought it for next to nothing on a sale, but I liked that the itemisation was so much better, and also hunting down trainers wasn't a chore. Also the battles were as good as the average battles from BG1 but sometimes had more interesting enemies like those sand wraiths. It was short though and it didn't have some of the epic battles the first game did. It seemed like it should have just been a DLC. But if you liked the first game I'd still recommend it for more of the same.

Having two know-all grandpa super trainers in your camp didn't really help muh immersion. Also some new enemies were interesting, but in the end, it was mostly the golden masks and flyers which were everywhere and you just could go all fire spell (which they nerved later I think), you never really had to use the organs to win.
 

anvi

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I guess, but I never got especially immersed in either of them anyway. Also I didn't like how I was hoarding points for a large part of the game (in the first one) without knowing when I am going to be able to spend them. At one point I had like 3500 points saved because I hoped to get astral regen 2 or 3 or something, but I kept waiting and waiting and nada. But yeah the sequel dumbed down a few things that just seemed so unnecessary, constant upgrades after every battle, and removing the stats page didn't make much sense when you still had all the other pages. Also there seemed to be more points than was necessary, I quickly maxed out my astral regen and range and all castery type things on my 2 caster characters, but then by about half way I had so many points left over I just started boosting agility and stuff on my mages which wasn't even needed, especially seeing as they rarely got attacked.

But some stuff was way better, there must have been 10 times more items in the sequel. And I liked having item sets. It was made to feel contrived because the game was so short so you conveniently get a whole set of whatever you want so quickly, but still, there were waaaaay more items and I liked that. And yeah I liked the sand wraith thing and also those huge tree things which pumped out deadly spores if you got too close. I also liked the story, I usually hate stories in games but a story about the your lead character losing her shit and wanting to just kill everyone and everything was pretty cool. And as someone who couldn't get enough of BG1, being able to play though more story and more battles was great for me. I don't think the few missteps were enough to justify all the hate the game got, although bugs maybe justified a lot of the bad reviews. I only played it a few months ago. It would be so great if they could make a third game which was as big as the first one but with the gear and more interesting enemies from the second one. I get the feeling that series is dead though now.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
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The battles are terrible, copy-pasta'd crap - they more than anything are the reason why the sequel sucks. In the first game nearly all battles in Chapter 3 felt like handcrafted P&P encounters. In the second, it feels like you were playing stale random encounters in a strategy campaign. You fight literally the same fights over and over and over again, choosing from a group of completely generic soldiers to fight on your side against other completely generic soldiers.
 
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anvi

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Yeah, only that's all complete utter biased bullshit. Here are just some examples of the missions to refresh your memory:

Fortress mission
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prWvMvZrjEc
A fight against an unbeatable mage and a wraith, you have to run around opening areas and hitting switches before you can finally get to the end of it.

Escape with Naurim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUNNkGlMNWY
You have to escape from left to the right side of a big map, while being attacked from both sides from Victorian looking soldiers. Tons of traps, oil on the floor, falling walls, ways to block the path, etc.

Arena
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xqNUZi8Smk&index=5&list=PL0iVG50FRWPMFdQnS_LI5IQsRNw2sbBnn
Thrown into a circular arena with animal enemies that jump on your head.

Lava Labyrinth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2oZvkYaZ1E&index=22&list=PLOSSGHWFOzsAEN6Uyp7kiDv1Qr_mXJu-J
Surrounded by spike and blade traps and an enemy surrounded by a barrier, you have to head to one end of the map to flip a switch that rotates a bridge over lava, and then head the other way and loop around to the enemy, all while being attacked by giant spiders.

Ambush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-MZh6lrSBk&index=9&list=PLOSSGHWFOzsAEN6Uyp7kiDv1Qr_mXJu-J
Surrounded by archers on ledges that you can't reach by melee, animals in traps.

Pinned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBYGlFWvicA&list=PLOSSGHWFOzsAEN6Uyp7kiDv1Qr_mXJu-J&index=10
Whole party is pinned in a corner with a bunch of traps laid out infront of you, have to do a face to face battle against bandits, and also have to kill one guy quick before he collapses the ledge.

Surrounded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8U7PORJlu4&index=11&list=PLOSSGHWFOzsAEN6Uyp7kiDv1Qr_mXJu-J
Got enemies on both sides surrounding you, and they are behind barricades. And there is also a huge demon enemy. Also wasp creatures that fly in and surprise you and do a lot of melee damage.

Storming a castle drawbridge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U0EGzxIZb4&list=PLOSSGHWFOzsAEN6Uyp7kiDv1Qr_mXJu-J&index=12
Heavily fortified bridge with archers all over it and a massive awesome wraith guarding it too. And you have to storm it.

Need I go on? Notice how each one is completely different, different looking environments, different enemies, different challenges, different layouts, and different to the BS you typed about it.
 

Doktor Best

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How linear are these games? Is there any kind of free roaming or selection of missions like in xcom or are you thrown into level after level like in Super Mario?
 

fastjack

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iirc the good one (the first to be clear) opens up after like 3/10(?) through and until then I think there are some optional more challenging battles but it is otherwise linear.
 

anvi

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How linear are these games? Is there any kind of free roaming or selection of missions like in xcom or are you thrown into level after level like in Super Mario?
Sort of like Xcom. They are linear in some points but mostly you can choose what order you do the missions. The second one is a smaller game and you can choose which missions but there is only really 2 or 3 choices each time. (And they are both good, just don't pay full price for the second one. It is worth like $5 or less. I got it for about 2 from some deal, humble bundle or something.)
 
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twincast

Learned
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More than anything else mentioned the first one's like the - at least in this regard - best Mario games, I'd say, i.e. Super Mario World, Super Mario Land 2 or the best of them all, my beloved Wario Land (not its disappointing pseudo-platformer puzzle game sequels). Or Commander Keen. Or Secret Agent. Or Crystal Caves. Boy, how I miss them old island worlds. The second's more like... Dune 2?
 

Sneaky Seal

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I actually did enjoy the second part, the story in particular. The first one was generic bad wizard gone wild stuff. Though cramming the companions from the first game did feel forced (and as with farts if you have to force something - it's probably shit).

Though if to look at it as a sequel - it's a totall rip off. The content is DLC or expansion pack worthy but not a full number. Same engine, same graphics, same battle mechanics, same characters - that's a bit too much recycling for a sequel IMO.
 

Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
The battles are terrible, copy-pasta'd crap - they more than anything are the reason why the sequel sucks. In the first game nearly all battles in Chapter 3 felt like handcrafted P&P encounters. In the second, it feels like you were playing stale random encounters in a strategy campaign. You fight literally the same fights over and over and over again, choosing from a group of completely generic soldiers to fight on your side against other completely generic soldiers.
This is true, but it did devolve into samey purple death squads after that.
 

anvi

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For some reason i was never able to complete this game but it gave me 20h of fine german entrainment.
It got ridiculously hard near the end.

The battles are terrible, copy-pasta'd crap - they more than anything are the reason why the sequel sucks. In the first game nearly all battles in Chapter 3 felt like handcrafted P&P encounters. In the second, it feels like you were playing stale random encounters in a strategy campaign. You fight literally the same fights over and over and over again, choosing from a group of completely generic soldiers to fight on your side against other completely generic soldiers.
This is true, but it did devolve into samey purple death squads after that.
Are you talking about 1 or 2?
 

janior

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For some reason i was never able to complete this game but it gave me 20h of fine german entrainment.
It got ridiculously hard near the end.

The battles are terrible, copy-pasta'd crap - they more than anything are the reason why the sequel sucks. In the first game nearly all battles in Chapter 3 felt like handcrafted P&P encounters. In the second, it feels like you were playing stale random encounters in a strategy campaign. You fight literally the same fights over and over and over again, choosing from a group of completely generic soldiers to fight on your side against other completely generic soldiers.
This is true, but it did devolve into samey purple death squads after that.
Are you talking about 1 or 2?
Yeah i got wrecked pretty hard i dont think my party was optimal, although gut game.
 

vonAchdorf

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I think both were not really hard, unless in specific battles where they did change / alter the rules (and often just made it just more luck based). Especially in 2 you could just burn your way through the game with the fire spells and hired casters (they did nerf it later, but I had finished the game before).
 

anvi

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Yeah i got wrecked pretty hard i dont think my party was optimal, although gut game.
Yeah I don't think it is balanced very well. I kinda breezed through most of the game until near the end when it became a tedious slog. But yea great game, need more games like that.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
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Can anyone tell me how to get best ending? managed to save the girl but the guy sacrifices himself.
 

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