Prosper Realms of Arkania: Shovelware Edition

[Excidium]

Also, comments like yours confound me, Excidium. It's definitely cheap, the originals were too, but a cash grab? From who? The dozens of people who played the originals who still care?

Why don't they make a new DSA game instead of a remake? To cash in on this apparent CRPG renaissance in the cheapest way possible

 

[Bobbles]

Why don't they make a new DSA game instead of a remake? To cash in on this apparent CRPG renaissance in the cheapest way possible

Yeah, the Demonicon devs are the real heroes here.

 

[Bobbles]

By the way, we got two DSA games last year and (supposedly) three more this year. If the long-term plans pan out, we'll get at least another two in the pipeline (last part of Daedalic adventure trilogy, second part of RoA). Whether this one is "new" or not doesn't really matter much to me.

For comparison's sake, if I cared about D&D and the only announced game was a NWN1 HD remake, I'd probably be pissed.

More info:

- almost all atmospheric text is spoken; however, charnames and other variables that occur in text are replaced with a pause in the narration:

The man shakes Alric's hand with a smile and says:

The man shakes.................hand with a smile and says:

The bar tender serves you a roast pig and six tankards of beer.

The bar tender serves you a roast pig and.................tankards of beer.

- the lead dev has promised a patch every 2-3 days for at least the next two weeks; he's been constantly posting on the forums since Friday, so he definitely seems committed

- the patcher must be cancelled and restarted after it installs the first patch (which is an update for the patcher only) because the original patcher is bugged and will destroy the entire installation if it is allowed to install the second patch.

- new feature: lead dev reaffirmed yesterday that druidic dagger rituals (which are the main reason to play a druid in PvP) will be implemented "after launch".

 

[Bobbles]

And the new starting screen in the temple:

 

[felipepepe]

You sure that's not Oblivion?

 

[Excidium]

Greetings friend have you come seeking the blur?

 

[Bobbles]

At least it's not 2D, ugh.

 

[Stabwound]

Many of the pre-orders were already delivered on Friday (with Tuesday being the officially German release date), so there's plenty of info on the game out already. Personally, I can't even get it to start.

Problems with the gold version according to various German forums:

Well that's certainly not bad... wait, what?

Holy shit, did they accidentally release an alpha version of the game? How the hell does it have that many massively obvious problems? How did it pass Steam QA? Do they even play the games they promote for more than 15 seconds anymore?

I was looking forward to this game, but it sounds like it's extremely broken and looks like hell in combat. If that list of bugs is accurate I've never heard of such a broken release before.

 

[Excidium]

It's a labor of love you see

 

[mondblut]

And the new starting screen in the temple:

my eyes

We are going to party like it's 1999. Completely with 100 polygon humans.

I shudder to think how Riva will look with these...entities... inside houses. Riva, which was the biggest collection of hot female portraits in the history of computer gaming.

 

[April]

Good thing the germans are acting as beta testers instead of us. :D

 

[Name]

Is this the first active effort to sabotage the oldschool rpg nostalgia market?

 

[Theaitetos]

The story is: The game is scheduled to be released tomorrow, yet some shops sent the game a week before that. Those who got it too soon tried to play the game and encountered these problems, simply because the server and patch wasn't up and running: it was scheduled for release tomorrow. The devs then had to sit down and quickly get the server and some prerelease patch up and running all weekend. If I were one of the devs, I'd be pissed at those shops fucking it up.

 

[Name]

The story is: The game is scheduled to be released tomorrow, yet some shops sent the game a week before that. Those who got it too soon tried to play the game and encountered these problems, simply because the server and patch wasn't up and running: it was scheduled for release tomorrow. The devs then had to sit down and quickly get the server and some prerelease patch up and running all weekend. If I were one of the devs, I'd be pissed at those shops fucking it up.

What server does it need? Patching server? Are those retail shops? How did they get pre-release version of the game?

 

[Theaitetos]

Yes, it were retail shops and the game needs the patching server. Pre-release versions are industry standard for physical versions (as opposed to mere downloads): Since production and shipping takes a lot of time, you start that process with a goldmaster version once you're comfortable that all bugs will be fixed by the time the physical copies are in stores. Then your devs can continue working on the game simultaneously to the physical production. And as you can imagine, we Germans are very orderly people with exact plans when things are supposed to happen, and nobody likes those "fuckups" when they ship stuff early - remember when Amazon Germany did exactly that with A Dance with Dragons? G.R.R.Martin demanded their heads on a pike: http://grrm.livejournal.com/224067.html ;-)

 

[Bobbles]

The devs are currently asking around for players who can reproduce the savegame self-deletion bug. 8 hours to launch...

They also promoted a beta tester to be their community rep this morning. He called the retail version a "late alpha" release, but promises that tomorrow's patch will get the game to gold status.

 

[Stabwound]

Is there any indication that the Steam/English version isn't a pile of diarrhea like the early German launch was? This is looking pretty disappointing from here.

 

[Bobbles]

Is there any indication that the Steam/English version isn't a pile of diarrhea like the early German launch was? This is looking pretty disappointing from here.

The lead dev has already said that it's the same version + the (very small) Saturday patch. They're going to push another small patch out tomorrow, though they're not sure if they'll make it before launch. The lead dev has called the original retail version "very fun and very playable", so don't expect things to be radically different tomorrow.

I really doubt that they'll have time to implement all the spell effects (40% of listed spells still return "spell not implemented" when casting them, and there's no out of combat casting option, which renders a bunch of other spells useless), enemy models, maps, sound effects, etc. They're still asking for help on the save game deletion bug too.

You have to keep in mind that this studio that has previously only developed brower games -- the lead dev has openly admitted that all the patcher/launcher bugs were the result of him having no coding experience with Windows platforms.

 

[Stabwound]

This is a little absurd. I don't see how that excuse makes any sense here: they clearly released a very alpha-state version of the game. It sounds more like they set a deadline and then didn't come even close to making it, so they pushed it out the door anyway.

 

[mindx2]

Is there any indication that the Steam/English version isn't a pile of diarrhea like the early German launch was? This is looking pretty disappointing from here.

The lead dev has already said that it's the same version + the (very small) Saturday patch. They're going to push another small patch out tomorrow, though they're not sure if they'll make it before launch. The lead dev has called the original retail version "very fun and very playable", so don't expect things to be radically different tomorrow.

I really doubt that they'll have time to implement all the spell effects (40% of listed spells still return "spell not implemented" when casting them, and there's no out of combat casting option, which renders a bunch of other spells useless), enemy models, maps, sound effects, etc. They're still asking for help on the save game deletion bug too.

You have to keep in mind that this studio that has previously only developed brower games -- the lead dev has openly admitted that all the patcher/launcher bugs were the result of him having no coding experience with Windows platforms.

Regardless of their intent or goodwill shown that sounds horribly inept and inexcusable. Unfortunate as I was actually looking forward to this but will not buy anytime soon. I suspect many more will also avoid this game in this horrid shape which will dampen sales, limiting their income and ability to fix it.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Wow, that sounds just... weird.

 

[FalloutBR]

Funny how the only achievement on their Steam is page is a blank picture called "Testing Achievement"

 

[A user named cat]

Jeez, this sounds even worse than the Dungeon Lords debacle.

 

[Name]

Isn't Dungeon Lords very fun and very playable despite many bland design and balance issue.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Downloadan. Let's see if I can play the broken shitty version a little before if they patch it up.