Prosper Realms of Arkania: Shovelware Edition

[mediocrepoet]

This game is so fucked. I can't believe I gave them money. etc.

I knew I'd basically thrown cash in the garbage when it finished downloading and I booted it to be treated to an opening cutscene (in German) that clipped through the terrain and was generally unviewable. Good times. I suppose I'll rack this one up as a donation to the mentally disabled.

 

[octavius]

It suddenly occured to me...is this remake only available on Steam?

 

[Lady_Error]

No, Amazon and probably other places too...

 

[octavius]

No, Amazon and probably other places too...

OK, let me rephrase: does it require Steam?

 

[Excidium]

No, Amazon and probably other places too...

OK, let me rephrase: does it require Steam?

Think so. Unless the game has an autopatcher, which I find unlikely.

 

[octavius]

So it is indeed a steaming pile of shit?

 

[Bubbles]

No, Amazon and probably other places too...

OK, let me rephrase: does it require Steam?

Think so. Unless the game has an autopatcher, which I find unlikely.

It does not require Steam, because it does have an autopatcher. Check and mate, mate

 

[Excidium]

@@

 

[vorvek]

If they had to put each patch through Steam they'd be banned from the service by now.

 

[Metro]

So... what are we talking another six months?

 

[sser]

 

[DefJam101]

LOL

 

[Bubbles]

Collected patch notes:

Patch 1.25, 6th of September 2013, 11pm (GMT+2)

• Refill lanterns with oil
• fixed pirate attack
• fixed “negative” effect display of elixirs
• removed wrong “hostel” icon near Tsa-Temple in Thorwal
• Fixed queststate Umbrik Sevenstone
• Included Krakenewt random event when at sea
• fixed graphical bug empty button on item descriptions
• Fixed “superdense Fog” problem
• Fixed Altar in Spidercave, endbattle against Mactans is now reachable
• Display loot window on successful hunting to allow manual distribution (or discarding) of the surplus rations found
• made random events at sea less common

Patch 1.26, 9th of September 2013 11pm (GMT+2)

• Thorwal: fixed top stair collisions
• Made Weapon Breakchecks scarcer
• Fixed Break Factors for magical weapons
• Fix triggers for Abandoned Hostel appearing elsewhere as well
• Fixed pirate attacks
• Fixed Resurrection in Temples
• Fixed River Passing trigger appearing too often
• Fixed Taverns in Vilnhome
• Fixed name for “miracle cure”
• Fixed Minimap not centering properly after moving the overview map
• Fixed Minimap slipping “out of its circle” on different resolutions
• remain in Tavern if cheating/pickpocket was successful
• cover Minimap areas outside Fog of War
• Fix Karnifilo (target, duration)
• Fix Axxeleratus (target, duration)
• extended Fulminictus display
• replaced Travia “you were fed” text
• Fixed assignment of Rondra birth bonus to attack and parry
• Mouselook invertable
• Prevent “clicking through the overview map”
• Fix Rondra-Temple in Prem showing wrong flag
• Fixed Tips in Taverns
• Fixed Tavern message display “you drank” without having ordered anything
• Update Questmarkers after Tavern visit
• Quest arrows always point to quest target, even if it is already visible on the minimap

Patch 1.27, September 16th 2013, 10:30pm (GMT+2)

• Sicknesses

• Healing Talents
  • Poison
  • Wounds
  • Sickness
• Brendhil: Changed Hostel to Tavern+Hostel
• Battlearena 01 fixed
• Fixed Abandoned Hostel triggers everywhere
• Fixed: Items are not removed (Alchemy, Quests)
• Adapted Regeneration while Sleeping
• Temple Collection shows group wealth
• Fixed Characterstate “dying” (now correctly deducts 1 Damage every 15 Minutes until Character is actually dead)
• Removed "overdamage" on Ignifaxius with spell failure
• Ignifaxius now correctly is held off by armor
• Adapted several item values
• Heshthot immune to mundane weapons
• Altar(battle) Spidercave can only be started once
• “Wait”-Command fixed for magical characters with <= 2AE
• Fixed Fulminictus Damage calculation

Patch 1.28, September 18th, 2013, 6pm (GMT+2)

• Introduced sleeping bag
• Introduced graphical effects ( Antialiasing, SSAO, DoF) that can be (de)activated separately in the settings
• Made finding herbs harder in Winter
• Freezing damage only in Winter
• Wintercoats now available at Chandlers (formerly only at Arms Merchant, as they are classified as “Armor”)
• Hetman Dialogue improved (more to come)
• Keyboard control for the battle camera (remembers tilt and zoom)
• Herbsearch now chooses from correct set depending on location (formerly the “by a river” set was taken regardless of location)
• Freezing only does permanent damage after 48 hours untreated, not right away after sleeping
• Permanent damage to LE capped at 15

Major changes highlighted.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

 

[mondblut]

LOL.

I wish something like that would happen to Bioware's next gay vomit, though. Laughing at RoA HD falling apart is like laughing at your own elderly grandpa falling down the stairs. Seeing a whiteknighting feminazi "queer people of color" in his place would be so much more satisfactory.

Still...

his fall is ridiculously lulzy.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Haha, this is ridiculous. Still, if they do patch up everything eventually, I might give it a spin.

 

[Lady_Error]

Same here.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

So what's the verdict here. Does the game have potential to be good once/if the bugs are sorted?

 

[Grunker]

- Gothic 3 was a gigantic mess with horrible stuttering and unending loading times.
- The Witcher, pre-1.2 loading times. Ar ar ar. Now they take about 3 seconds.
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, all of them. Don't get me started on their state at release.
- Morrowind, but any ES game in such a list is cheating.
- Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines had as many holes as Swiss cheese.
- Any Bohemian Interactive game. It's impressive how much ArmA2 improved over time.
- Some Total War games, Empire for a start, and apparently Rome II is going the way of Carthago.

There is a huge difference between "game is a bit broken/a real mess" and "game is functionally completely incomplete, missing everything from basic coding to animations."

 

[ERYFKRAD]

All the difference between betas and alphas, then?

 

[Cenobyte]

Never before have I been more interested in knowing just what the fuck happened during a game's pre-release development cycle

The Codex should do an interview with them. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering

That could be interesting, indeed.

 

[sser]

So what's the verdict here. Does the game have potential to be good once/if the bugs are sorted?

My taste in games has a low bar of entry, but I think it has potential and is in a much better state than it was when released, though that's not saying much. It's just bugridden and missing a lot of gameplay features, some of which are pretty glaring. At the moment, the game is playable to a degree and can be finished. It's nowhere near as unstable as it was even just two/three weeks ago. There's a lot of charm and uniqueness, namely the sense of exploration and just plain ol' adventure you can get by traversing the map. I'd say most people would probably do best avoiding it, but I'm the type of person who had a lot of fun just walking around in Morrowind.

I know the video kind of made fun of it, but I'm interested to see how the game improves. I don't want to just bash it because, really, that's just all too easy right now. And the developers' approach to fixing the game and listening to the community seems genuine, lacking any kind of cynicism I'm used to seeing in those kinds of interactions. Realms of Arkania -- the original -- is not a super complicated game. I think they'll eventually get to a point where it's a reasonably alright modern update. The graphics will always be terrible, though, no getting around that.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

So what's the verdict here. Does the game have potential to be good once/if the bugs are sorted?

My taste in games has a low bar of entry, but I think it has potential and is in a much better state than it was when released, though that's not saying much. It's just bugridden and missing a lot of gameplay features, some of which are pretty glaring. At the moment, the game is playable to a degree and can be finished. It's nowhere near as unstable as it was even just two/three weeks ago. There's a lot of charm and uniqueness, namely the sense of exploration and just plain ol' adventure you can get by traversing the map. I'd say most people would probably do best avoiding it, but I'm the type of person who had a lot of fun just walking around in Morrowind.

I know the video kind of made fun of it, but I'm interested to see how the game improves. I don't want to just bash it because, really, that's just all too easy right now. And the developers' approach to fixing the game and listening to the community seems genuine, lacking any kind of cynicism I'm used to seeing in those kinds of interactions. Realms of Arkania -- the original -- is not a super complicated game. I think they'll eventually get to a point where it's a reasonably alright modern update. The graphics will always be terrible, though, no getting around that.

Thanks for your answer.
I've never played the original, but it seems there is a fairly solid game buried beneath the rubble after all.
Will continue to watch this thread.

 

[Jasede]

If it looks worse than the original it's not much of an HD remake, is it?

Edit: unless HD is short for "hardly desirable"

 

[Bubbles]

If it looks worse than the original it's not much of an HD remake, is it?

Edit: unless HD is short for "hardly desirable"

HD is shorthand for "supports a resolution of at least 1280x720", which only applies to the remake, not to the original. Thus the HD in the title.