DSA - Drakensang

They don't make RPGs like they used to

Written by Avantenor

Friday, 27 October 2006

Jan Lechner was asked to write some words for RPGVault's latest RPG Roundtable, topic "They don't make RPGs like they used to". His piece of the article:

RPGs have changed, for sure. Technical capabilities, gameplay and game mechanics have changed and emerged. In the earlier years, technical limits forced developers to deal with a certain way of abstraction that came up in loads of charts and indexes in RPGs. Only some elements of the information these charts gave could be displayed graphically. For meant only hardcore gamers played CRPGs for a long time. At the same time, the focus was set as to the essential element of RPGs, the storyline. All elements of storytelling - characters, leveling, the relationships between characters, the RPG universe, and of course, the story outline were given their appropriate attention.

Today, when developing a CRPG, we have much greater capabilities. And we have to realize this. But this has also moved the focus. A lot of CRPGs currently in development are trying to take as much as advantage of technology as they can - but obviously, the developers forget that RPGs are extremely influenced by non-visible aspects like storytelling and characters, and also the implementation of the player himself as well as his own imagination. Of course you can't trivialize - there have always been good and not so good games, and there always will be. And maybe, it's just the high number of releases today makes players feel like there was more quality in the earlier years of the industry. [...]

The whole thing @ RPGVault

Forum

German Community Q&A

Written by Avantenor
Thursday, 26 October 2006
Radon Labs' Jan Lechner answered some community questions in the official german forums at Anaconda. Here a short summary: There are no factions or guilds the player character can join, although he will get to know some interesting groups in Drakensang, maybe receiving some quests for them that will change the course of the game. Priests will not be available for player character, because the karma system would take too much time and effort to implement. This is because it is completely different than the arcane magic system. Player's journal seperates active and finished quests, quests will be differentiated as main and side quests. It is combined with the world map and will automatically show a quest's relevant map details. There is a variety of companions waiting for the player to join (not just 3). Some of them will follow him immediately, some of them are little bit harder to please. Playing a lonesome fellow shall also be possible though it shouldn't be easy, because Drakensang is meant to be a party-based RPG. Cinematics during the campaign will be done in ingame graphics (no renderings). Inventory is limited by slots and weight, depending on a character's personal strength. Player character won't have to eat or to care for their weapons and armors. Mikromanagement is optional, giving the player more advantages, i.e. if he's skilled in repairing or modifying weapons. Community Q&A (German) Last but not least, a personal request. I'm looking for some assistance in filling this site with content. So if you're interested, send me an email or PM . Forum

2 more interviews

Written by Avantenor
Saturday, 30 September 2006
There have been two more interviews with Bernd Bayreuther, creative director of Drakensang. The first one is from CRPG.ru, the second one from Gameguru Mania. They are nearly identical, so there's no reason to read them all. If your not familiar with The Dark Eye campaign setting, you can find some helpful explanations within those interviews. Interview @ CRPG.ru Interview @ GGMania.com Enter our Forum

Update

Written by Avantenor
Saturday, 09 September 2006
one-cool translated our german article about Drakensang's game world Aventuria and about Ferdok, the city you will travel during the game. So, feel free to take a look. If you want to see more, also take look at our link section. There you will find a list of websites that could be of interest. "Screenshots" and "Render Art" will bring you to the galleries at our german site dsa-game.de. Last but not least you can take a look at some ingame material at our video section .