Prosper Realms of Arkania: Shovelware Edition

[Bobbles]

Full party editor is available here. German UI for now, but if you really need to edit a save game for some reason, there it is.

 

[markec]

Question for those who played this, does this game even have a potential to be any good with extensive patching?

 

[mondblut]

Patch released. Final patch notes:

Fights: Activated Spell Horriphobus
Fights: Activated Spell Mad Dance
Fights: Activated Spell Paralyse

LOL. Previously users were supposed to play without Horriphobus, Dance and Paralyze? What's next, "Fights: Activated melee"?

 

[Micmu]

Those changelogs and "patching" schedule.... this is really funny.
It may indeed be in worse shape than Dung Lords was.
At least they are "patching" faster. Not that this will help them in any way. What a bunch of suicidal jerks.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

I don't see how that would even work, because the game is going to be absolutely panned in reviews before they fix it enough to call it a playable game. The damage has been done and now they're trying to band-aid everything.

Well, if you're faced with either A: end of company or B: release shit and keep going on what money you get - i would pick B too. If they can reasonably fix it on the revenue, it might get them a steady income, like those ToEE and Arcanum copies that sell infinite. But, yea, they killed any success imaginable with this. The best possible outcome now is to survive to the next project.

There must have been financial troubles, otherwise i can't imagine anyone releasing such shit.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Well, if you're faced with either A: end of company or B: release shit and keep going on what money you get - i would pick B too. If they can reasonably fix it on the revenue, it might get them a steady income, like those ToEE and Arcanum copies that sell infinite. But, yea, they killed any success imaginable with this. The best possible outcome now is to survive to the next project.

They still should be imprisoned for a fraud against their customers, though.

 

[Bobbles]

Finally, a new patch! I was just about to sue them for fraud!

Patch 1.07 - August 4th, 2013 (8pm GMT+2)

Character: Fix hang for All negative attributes mined
Character: Recalculate Armor mali on Levelup
Trade: Fix free Healers
Tavern: Fix wrong dialogs Branches
System: Performance Setting impact vastly improved
Towns: Improved Animations of the new NPCs
Dungeon: Fix Old Bailey Quest
Dungeon: Fix empty chests in spidercave (only works with new games as chest status resides in Savegame after first entrance)
Camp:: Waterskin refill fixed
Dungeon: Fix pirate cave door
Camp: Fix Savegame Time forward
Towns: Add “Master Dramosh” in front of Old Bailey
Towns: Leave House Tooltip fixed
Questbook: Actually hide Hidden quests
Townmap Rybon fixed
.System: Fixed Save/Load-Game-Error on with new Characters, old Savegames should work again

In the works (on top of the schedule):
- Fight Fleeing NPCs (time ran out because of the performance update)
- Class-Specific Equipment Restrictions (the same)
- More Dungeon Fixes
- More Bugfixes, as always

 

[mondblut]

not disagreeing that the spell situation is ridiculous but if i recall correctly from the original, fleeing enemies dont give XP, mad dance is AP costly, and paralyze needs melee range, so lightning blinding foes is almost always better.

I spotted no difference between slain, fleeing or charmed enemies - in fact, in most harder-than-average fights my 3 elves and mage spammed horriphobus, great need etc like no tomorrow, and no xp was lost. Dance is actually cheaper than any other disablement spell; it is paralyze which is costly (but worth it, as it effectively instakills anything, no matter how powerful). OTOH, I found little use for blinding. You still have to kill the blinded enemies; they might suck at parrying, but they suck at parrying anyway when you gangbang on them one at a time.

 

[Gord]

Blinding is a very cheap way to temporarily disable an enemy and about every spellcaster can learn it easily. Also it works on most bosses, I think.
Dance is ok, I guess, but hard to learn for all classes except druids, iirc, so unless you bring one, you won't get much use out of it for a while.
Then again, I found Druids to be much better than their reputation.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I spotted no difference between slain, fleeing or charmed enemies - in fact, in most harder-than-average fights my 3 elves and mage spammed horriphobus, great need etc like no tomorrow, and no xp was lost. Dance is actually cheaper than any other disablement spell; it is paralyze which is costly (but worth it, as it effectively instakills anything, no matter how powerful). OTOH, I found little use for blinding. You still have to kill the blinded enemies; they might suck at parrying, but they suck at parrying anyway when you gangbang on them one at a time.

Do enemies also use these spells?

 

[Steelworker]

Well, if you're faced with either A: end of company or B: release shit and keep going on what money you get - i would pick B too. If they can reasonably fix it on the revenue, it might get them a steady income, like those ToEE and Arcanum copies that sell infinite. But, yea, they killed any success imaginable with this. The best possible outcome now is to survive to the next project.

There must have been financial troubles, otherwise i can't imagine anyone releasing such shit.

Would it not be possible to get a loan? Beats losing so many sales because of negative reception.

 

[Stabwound]

Who knows now, their publisher is a shovelware outfit responsible for all of those mundane simulation games, so they probably fucked them on it with a release date set in stone. Now they're running around panicking trying not to get the game removed from Steam for being half there.

This all seems pointless to me now since the sequels will probably not get released this way.

 

[Mother Russia]

Mother Russia would have been pissed off at this travesty.

Nah, I knew it would be shit when I saw the combat demo on YT a few months back. It was sad, because when initially announced with that initial video of just exploration, it looked nice. But when the combat models of the originals look better than the remake, you know they screwed up.

Ofcourse, this is a legendary screw up of epic proportions, but what can you do.

 

[RK47]

Hahha this image fits the game release reaction perfectly.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Damn, this game is SUPER FUN.
Every day I see something unique there. I can play it, like, forever.
My dream has come true. You haters can do nothing but whine.

Spoiler

Spoiler

No, really, they do more in a couple of days than a Call of Duty and Skyrim devs in 2 years.

 

[eric__s]

This is the best roll I've ever gotten in any video game. You think it was due to a bug? You don't need to fix it, guys.

 

[mondblut]

I spotted no difference between slain, fleeing or charmed enemies - in fact, in most harder-than-average fights my 3 elves and mage spammed horriphobus, great need etc like no tomorrow, and no xp was lost. Dance is actually cheaper than any other disablement spell; it is paralyze which is costly (but worth it, as it effectively instakills anything, no matter how powerful). OTOH, I found little use for blinding. You still have to kill the blinded enemies; they might suck at parrying, but they suck at parrying anyway when you gangbang on them one at a time.

Do enemies also use these spells?

Some. Spells are just like skills, and normally, different casters have access to different spells. You have to plan, like, 10 levels in advance to allow your elves to eventually spam "Dance!".

On paper, anyway. If an enemy gets a chance to cast a spell, u r doin it rong There are only a couple of encounters in the entire trilogy with more than a couple of casters against you at once, and these are the encounters you were carrying those 99 menchal cacti for

Blinding is a very cheap way to temporarily disable an enemy and about every spellcaster can learn it easily. Also it works on most bosses, I think.

Bosses, yes, have to give it to them. Somebody is ought to spam lightning every turn on those dragons.

Dance is ok, I guess, but hard to learn for all classes except druids, iirc, so unless you bring one, you won't get much use out of it for a while.
Then again, I found Druids to be much better than their reputation.

I dunno, dance is about the only thing in the game druids are good at. They suck in melee, elves cover their skills, and magicians are far superior as a spell booth that can't fight. Sure, everybody's got his own way on how to build a party, but I believe having more than 1 combat-incapable character is a waste. Just keep raising Dance every levelup for elves and magician, and midway through Star Trail they'll make the whole world go dancing Before that, they'll manage with Great Need.

 

[Caim]

This is the best roll I've ever gotten in any video game. You think it was due to a bug? You don't need to fix it, guys.

Wait, stats for claustrophobia and fear of heights?

I will admit, I am intrigued.

 

[Lady_Error]

Just play the original Realms of Arkania. The first part is indeed a bit clunky, so just start with the second one - still one of my favorite RPG's.

 

[Wolfus]

Nah, start with original Blade of Destiny. It's a great game.

 

[thesheeep]

Does the remake also use the old ruleset?
Because in the new ruleset, stats like these are still very good, but can be achieved without rolling, just by spending points.

 

[Gord]

I thought that I had read on another forum that the new game mostly* uses the old rules, but has removed some restrictions for shuffling points around, so it's easier to get characters with very good values.

Some things are gone/have been changed a bit. Nothing drastic, but there are differences.
However, some changes are actually closer to the old PnP ruleset than the RoA games.
Keep in mind that right now it gets patched a lot, so those things change from time to time, as well. See e.g. http://www.crystals-dsa-foren.de/showthread.php?tid=4323 (german forum, has a lot of stuff on the old trilogy)

 

[Bobbles]

BoD is by far the least linear game in the series. Its gameplay is only slightly limited compared to its successors, and the atmosphere is only weak by comparison to Shadows over Riva (one of the most atmospheric games of the 90s, but very linear). BoDs only real problem is that the dungeons are much uglier than in its successors. A perfect candidate for a remake

 

[Infinitron]

 

[mindx2]

Hahha this image fits the game release reaction perfectly.

Where do you all find these things?!