Realms of Arkania: Star Trail HD - less shovelware this time?

[Morkar Left]

They should have bought all assets from River of Time and it would have looked amazing indeed...

 

[eric__s]

The original is just so pretty. Why would you even want to play this version, which looks like a 3D Graphics 101 term project from 2004?

 

[Morkar Left]

Navigating cities and dungeons is actually less cumbersome than the in the old game which didn't have step-by-step movement. This one hasn't that either but it goes more smoothly. In BoD I actually used pretty much entirely the maximized minimap to travel around in cities...

But the main point is because it has additional content and a more advanced rule set plus it's mod friendly.

 

[eric__s]

The original did have step movement, and in fact, I remember there was a bug in the swamp that required you to turn it off. I think there was a chest buried in muck that you couldn't open unless you turned it off.

I really do want to see the new content though. I'm sure it actually is good, but everything else looks so god awful that I just can't bring myself to try it. I had such a bad experience with the BoD remake on launch day.

 

[Morkar Left]

The original did have step movement, and in fact, I remember there was a bug in the swamp that required you to turn it off. I think there was a chest buried in muck that you couldn't open unless you turned it off.

I really do want to see the new content though. I'm sure it actually is good, but everything else looks so god awful that I just can't bring myself to try it. I had such a bad experience with the BoD remake on launch day.

Star Trail? Definitely no direct steps like in BoD or classic dungeon blobbers. I remember playing it again 3 years ago and it was distracting. Maybe there was an option for step movement I used, I can't remember. But it was clunky because it was meant for "fluid" movement like Ultima Underworld or Ambermoon.

Personally I will wait till I get Star Trail. It's summer, I'm occupied with BG EET right now and think some bug fixes will do the game some good.

 

[vonAchdorf]

That footage is from the Early Access version and it's almost a year old. The released game looks slightly better.

Here, judge for yourself.

That's what I mean - why does the active pawn need a blue glow around it? It's ugly and and there are countless more subtle and just as effective ways to show the active characters. It's because there was no art director or person with any artistic skill on board and the programmer decided that the shader looked cool and helps with "readability".

 

[thesheeep]

That look worse than the original pixel art by a pretty significant margin.

That is absolutely retarded to say. Have you paled the new game? The cities look amazing.

Indeed

Cool.
They added clay golems!

 

[Eriador]

Yes, and they can even join your party :D

Also you can create characters like this:

Spoiler

 

[vonAchdorf]

Yes, and they can even join your party :D

Also you can create characters like this:

Spoiler

Good old times when you just had 3 portraits to pick from and exactly 1 of them looked good.

 

[Lady_Error]

The original did have step movement, and in fact, I remember there was a bug in the swamp that required you to turn it off. I think there was a chest buried in muck that you couldn't open unless you turned it off.

I really do want to see the new content though. I'm sure it actually is good, but everything else looks so god awful that I just can't bring myself to try it. I had such a bad experience with the BoD remake on launch day.

Star Trail? Definitely no direct steps like in BoD or classic dungeon blobbers. I remember playing it again 3 years ago and it was distracting. Maybe there was an option for step movement I used, I can't remember. But it was clunky because it was meant for "fluid" movement like Ultima Underworld or Ambermoon.

Yes, you could switch between step-movement and fluid movement. I think Star Trail might be the first and only game that offered that.

 

[Eriador]

Does anyone know this guy? State of Arkania 2 is sorely needed

You can check out my LP to see some bugs :D

It's nowhere near as terrible as BoD HD at launch, but still buggy and unfinished.

 

[eric__s]

Yes, and they can even join your party :D

Also you can create characters like this:

Spoiler

Jesus, it looks like a red Grum from Tim and Eric.

 

[YES!]

Like I said, this game is for people who love rpgs - not people who are hypercritical of graphics, or thinks only old games used pixels. The graphics in the new versions look great when turned up. The animations are nice, there is nothing to complain about.

Lady Error, who picked a female picture and name, is a known graphics snob. It makes sense for him since he picked a female picture and name, flying a flag saying he likes form over function like almost all females. The rest of you who are saying the RoA trilogy are some of your favorite games I call you liar. Where were you 15 years ago when I the only one defending them? These games are far too complicated for hipsters, remake or old version, to be liked by the new codex kids. You are just spewing lies.

The swamp area in the original ST had two things you needed to turn step movement off for - the chest and I think a body. The original RoA games have lots of bugs the remakes fixed. The remakes put money into the pockets of devs who deserve it to support their efforts. Buying the originals give money to no one who deserves it.

Also, where was all the butthurt when U5 and U6 where remade in the super shitty DS engine? All they got where praise for bringing "classics" to a new audience. This is the first time I've seen any butthirt over a remake that significantly improves on the orginals. The only people saying they don't have not played them, or played the BoD HD remake when it first came out

 

[mondblut]

Yes, you could switch between step-movement and fluid movement. I think Star Trail might be the first and only game that offered that.

Ravenloft/Menzoberranzan did.

 

[Morkar Left]

The graphics in the new versions look great when turned up. The animations are nice, there is nothing to complain about.

That's a bit far fetched...

The question is does the gfx matter in this game? Sure, it would improve the experience by competently made character models and animations as well as varied buildings and the like. Preferably with some animations for riddles or finding stuff (loot, easter eggs, secret doors, levers, platforms) in the environment you can click/interact on.

But is it a deal breaker to enjoy the game? I don't think that. In BoD you get over the graphics in around 1-2 hours in, even your own ugly chars in combat. You really stop to noticing it. In Star trail the graphics got even improved and you can customize your own char which should bring up at least some proper (but not pretty) results.

The only problem I see right now is to get rid of all these bugs (graphical bugs as well like in chargen and the filters but more importantly compatibility issues and all the gameplay stuff) and smooth out the gameplay. That's what is critically needed. Like really, really fast.

Then they could go on and do some dlc and maybe a graphical overhaul in an Extended Edition or something like that and use these improvements for the third part (hopefully).

 

[eric__s]

Like I said, this game is for people who love rpgs - not people who are hypercritical of graphics, or thinks only old games used pixels. The graphics in the new versions look great when turned up. The animations are nice, there is nothing to complain about.

Lady Error, who picked a female picture and name, is a known graphics snob. It makes sense for him since he picked a female picture and name, flying a flag saying he likes form over function like almost all females. The rest of you who are saying the RoA trilogy are some of your favorite games I call you liar. Where were you 15 years ago when I the only one defending them? These games are far too complicated for hipsters, remake or old version, to be liked by the new codex kids. You are just spewing lies.

Actually dude, the graphics look like garbage and I regularly play games from the 80s with 16 colors. Please just accept that sometimes, old 2D is prettier than new 3D.

Also, what a shitposter you are, trying to turn a conversation about this game's sub-par, Unity store-bought graphics into one about gamer cred. Fuck off.

 

[vonAchdorf]

That's why the original BoD environments look better than the original Star Trail environments.

 

[YES!]

Like I said, this game is for people who love rpgs - not people who are hypercritical of graphics, or thinks only old games used pixels. The graphics in the new versions look great when turned up. The animations are nice, there is nothing to complain about.

Lady Error, who picked a female picture and name, is a known graphics snob. It makes sense for him since he picked a female picture and name, flying a flag saying he likes form over function like almost all females. The rest of you who are saying the RoA trilogy are some of your favorite games I call you liar. Where were you 15 years ago when I the only one defending them? These games are far too complicated for hipsters, remake or old version, to be liked by the new codex kids. You are just spewing lies.

Actually dude, the graphics look like garbage and I regularly play games from the 80s with 16 colors. Please just accept that sometimes, old 2D is prettier than new 3D.

As long as it isn't ASCII I could give a fuck. I care far more about function and UI than graphics, and care mostly about gameplay and systems. I also play old games regularly. And new indies. The only game where I didn't like the graphics was Battle brothers, and that is because it was child art for the models and looked actually retarded. Literally retarded, like all the characters had down syndrome. But did that change my enjoyment if the game? No. The lack of content made me not like that game.

Even when SoA comes out, and the new city graphics clearly make the graphics in the new version far, far better than the old people will still complain. Why, because females place form over function and hipsters just jump on the bandwagon and love shit like undertail and minecraft and hate and always will hate real rpgs with some complexity and challenge.

 

[eric__s]

They'll probably also complain because characters fall through the floor and text boxes change from English to German mid-sentence.

 

[YES!]

They'll probably also complain because characters fall through the floor and text boxes change from English to German mid-sentence.

Name one game that releases without some issues this century (that is a complex rpg with tons of moving parts)? The team proved they are responsive to bugs with BoD, and the release of ST is like night and day compared to the release of BoD.

 

[Morkar Left]

Yeah, but in the ongoing LP here you can see it was again released too early. Playable and I guess enjoyable compared to the unplayable mess of BoD but still too early. And with the very bad reputation of the first game at release (which is when it really counts)...

 

[jungl]

I dont get it whats changed besides slightly better ui and bug fixes. The game is still shit and the worse arkania game I played. Never did play the original 90s game it based on but looking at its visuals I'd say they prettier then this.

 

[Snorkack]

Is it based on the same DSA 3 rules as the original or was there some modernization?

 

[Morkar Left]

Some modernization. There seems to be an easy option which allows you to circumvent the dices at level up. Otherwise at char creation each profession gets some kind of special abilities which is basically a simplified version from the 4ed rule system. For combat there seems equipment is bit more nuanced now and you can have "special" attacks.

 

[coldcrow]

I had to reinstall the game to make sure I didn't miss anything. Just compare Kvirasim the original with the remake. I don't know how you can be serious about this being any form of improvement. The town got reduced to the interactive buildings, got populated with zombies and malformed trees and the swamp? apparently releases alot of fluorescent gasses. Probably they have some kind of hallucinogenic effect on the local populace, so they won't kill theselves. Traders apparently have to stand in front of their stallsand generally sitting seems to be not a pastime invented yet.

I know these would be idiotic nitpicks if this was a game from 2000, but here is the point, it is not. And instead of going full retard 3D, a high res 2D overhaul of the original could have produced a more pleasing result. Oh, but wait, that takes actual artistic competence and some kind of vision.
No gotta do 3D because... probably easier to model 3D shapes with the current tools than actually draw 2D stuff. Fuck them.

ST has new animated models that look good, look at the second trailer in steam.

As to your other points, BoD HD fixed the major bugs of the orginal, added a ton of new content, and changed things that kept millions from trying BoD, like the xp penalty for saving. If you think it looks bad, great. I think most AAA games look silly and like shit. My favorite graphics are the simple but sharp kind, like in ToEE, Wiz8, and I think the eschalon games had really sharp graphics. TToN had nice graphics.

I rate games on content, systems, and functionality. As long as it has a decent UI and not-ASCII graphics I don't give a shit.

But, checkout the trailers of ST, it improved on all the superficial shit everyone was whining about.

I assume you actually mean simple, less adorned, somehwat realistic models and gfx. I get it. What I do not however, is your whiteknighting of this particular unity abomination. Either you have no developed taste and eat what you get served if it's ye old skool rpg labelled, or you are a trolling shitposter.
Why does this game need a full uncanny valley 3D remake? Why not try to recreate it faithfully - in the spirit of the blobbers of that age. And that's the point - it's a remake, i'd be way more lenient if it was a new game. The team is just not capable of doing it properly, that's all.