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There was a time in our republic when people not only used their garages for repairing their cars and lawn mowers but when computer games were programmed there as well. Back then, it was 'Realms of Arkania: Shadows over Riva' from Swabian attic Entertainment that kept innumerable fans glued to their screens for weeks on end.
The interactive version of the popular P&P RPG got another two sequels since 1992 [ed: this is not 100% accurate since they are making it sound as if Shadows over Riva was the 1st game, not the 3rd] and sold a total of 2.4M copies.
After the release of the third part of the Northland trilogy in 1996, however, it got pretty quiet around 'The Dark Eye' as far as computer games are concerned.
Attic's 'Dark Eye' games only saw minor technical improvements when they were re-released via a Northland trilogy pack while new RPGs with new and innovative technology entered the market...

Ten years later, and here we are, visiting Radon Labs, the developer of 'Project Nomads'. Here, in the center of Berlin, there is no garage team hacking away but instead a team of highly qualified artists, programmers and level designers. This is where they are making high tech engines to be prepared for the competition with international top developers. After all, there's no 3.5" floppy disk freakware being produced here but instead there's a major production budget of several million Euro at risk.
The team of Radon Labs has made a secret dream come true for themselves. They have silently been working on 'Drakensang: The Dark Eye' since 2003.

Turn-based Combat
"We are absolutely dedicated 'Dark Eye' fans, we love this world", says company co-founder Bernd Beyreuther. The Berlin crew has a very palpable vision about what a "real" RPG should be like in contrast to the wide-spread action titles in the genre.
"We've nailed it down as 'Baldur's Gate in 3D'", explains the Radon Labs boss. "This means that we are making an RPG where you start off with a group, develop several characters and get involved in tactical and strategical combat".
The turn-based combat that is subject to the 'Dark Eye' ruleset is additionally spiced up with action game ingredients such as a large variety of combat moves and spectacular special effects. "We wanted to implement a turn-based combat system similar to 'Baldur's Gate' but we also knew from the beginning that we would have to add a lot more action elements to the mix", explains Bernd Beyreuther. "Gamers are used to the highest technological standards these days. That's why we want to add more pace to the game while still making sure that the player remains in control of the group." The combat can be paused at any time; certain formations of the four party members, the correct choice regarding an attack style and the weapons are all factors that determine the fate of our heroes.

Best Side Story
"The outcome of a battle is determined by the skills of the characters and not by how fast the player can click the mouse button", says Bernd Beyreuther. There's more to 'Drakensang: The Dark Eye' than the generally strategical approach as far as gameplay is concerned though. Another primary goal of Radon Labs is the narration of a convincing, epic fantasy story.
"'Baldur's Gate' in 3D as a vision also means for us that the characters and the story are very important. The Dark Eye is not a static world but a huge, living universe that is constantly being worked on and enhanced by 20-30 writers". Radon Labs' intent to deliver an accurate narration is hard to overlook. Copies of the 'The Dark Eye' fanzine 'The Aventurian Messenger' (with news about the latest events in the fantasy world) are piling up on the desks; the team members are frequently checking encyclopedias about famous heroes and infamous villains of the fantasy realm. The most important resource, however, is presented to us in the conference room of the company as Bernd Beyreuther displays the more than 1000 pages strong background story script for 'Drakensang' that has been written by two 'Dark Eye' writers by order of the Berlin studio. The team has been busy for months now as they are dissecting the script into small chunks that can be used for quests.

Talkshow
Plot progression and the backgrounds of the characters are supposed to be driven by a sophisticated dialog system. [ed: this next part is basically impossible to translate so here's a rather direct 1:1 tranlsation... hope you get the meaning ). Adventurous 'Dark Eye' fans don't need to worry about "interactive text avalanches" that might have a tantalizing "parking break effect" though. "We have established that the length of text within the dialog trees should remain as short as possible", says project lead Jan Lechner. "One team member's sole responsibility at this time is to reduce the length of texts to a minimum."
Additionally, there will be dynamic points of decision-making where the player can choose to get more info about a quest, the characters that are involved or the region, according to Lechner. "Of course, the player can choose to only get the info required for the current quest and then abort the dialog", promises Lechner.
What already appears to be most promising so far is the graphical aspect of 'Drakensang'. Even though the game won't be released until late next year, there already seems to be a surprisingly detailed fantasy realm. Art director Martin Elsäßer and his team still have a long road ahead of them though. "The world of Aventuria is pretty huge and we realized early on that we needed to develop a prototype quickly so we could begin testing the game", explains the art director. "This means that the entire world is already playable right now but we're using a lot of untextured graphical placeholders for the unfinished parts".
Regarding the art style, 'The Dark Eye' is clearly inspired by historical buildings and regions. The 'Mittelreich' [ed: Middle Realm if translated literally] where the game is set can easily be compared to 14th century central Europe. That's why the art team is regularly going on trips to Saxony and Thuringia to examine old castles and city structures. That is also why timbered houses in 'The Dark Eye' have nearly identical gable structures as their historical counterparts. Even the so called 'weather front', a small piece of slate that was used on the side of the house that was most exposed to rain, can be found in the game.

Burgenland
Elsäßer's master piece so far is the complex construction of Castle Grimmzahn. According to him, it is essential to check out historical examples in order to achieve an authentic result, especially when dealing with larger structures. That's why wooden components in Castle Grimmzahn can accurately be found in the higher parts of the structure since the wooden parts are more vulnerable to attacks.
The castle has serveral courtyards to alleviate the building of a defensive line and to aggravate a complete capture. "We pretty much build 1:1 copies of real castles because the way that they have been built is based on principles that have long been forgotten", explains Martin Elsäßer. "To give you an example of the inventive medieval art of construction would be that paths that lead up to a castle are always turning left. The reason is that knights always carried the shields to their left and thus their less protected side was exposed to the archers of the castle". Similar attention to detail can be found in the weapons and equipment design. Every single weapon has a so called specular map in addition to the color textures. The specular map determines the intensity of reflections. As a result, the metal fittings of a crossbow will appear to be more shiny than the wooden stock of the weapon. Radon Labs is also using normal maps for every item in addition to that. The normal map takes care of small details on the surface such as wood grain and frets.

Collector's Items
Elsäßer continues: "Naturally, the player will develop his characters and collect items that he should be proud of. That's why it should be possible to zoom in at any time and to get a close-up view of the heroes".
Due to hundreds of different items in the game, it is a necessity though to apply some tricks. Via an editor, a single piece of equipment -once designed- can automatically be scaled and modified to fit a certain race.
You will collect your treasures from a huge area: The region where the game takes place, Mittelreich, comprises an area of 900 square kilometers [ed: it does not become clear whether they are talking in general terms or the actual playable area in the game]. A certain, special fantasy metropolis should definitely be worth a visit: "We are planning to build and implement a city with 3,000 residents", unveils level designer Sven Fahrenwald. He doesn't want to reveal which Aventurian city he is talking about, however. If he did that, then 'Dark Eye' fans might already be able to figure out too much of the background story...

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Christoph Holowaty

'Drakensang: The Dark Eye' is a tremendous surprise that came completely out of left field. Finally, we can look forward to a high quality traditional, tactical RPG. The graphical presentation is amazingly polished already even though there are still a lot of details missing in this early phase, of course. However, what could be seen of Aventuria so far illustrates one thing very clearly: This game is being made by real 'Dark Eye' fans. The fate of Mittelreich lies in the best of hands at Radon Labs.

Developer: Radon Labs
Publisher: dtp
Release Date: End of 2007

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Archetypes like this Garethian Warrior were hand-drawn for the game and conceptualized by original 'Dark Eye' illustrators. The animations are created via motion capturing. There are male and female actors for the different, gender-dependent animations. Every character has an idle, hit, motion and death animation. Additionally, the heroes can -according to 'Dark Eye' rules- perform targeted strikes to the head, body or legs of their enemies.

Weather effects are used to create atmosphere. When the sun shines, you can see a rainbow over the waterfall.

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Originally posted by Gorath
Nice job Mo.
Don´t you think it´s time for a comeback as feature editor? A review every other month?

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Originally posted by Arma
The only thing that leaves a space for worry is that they actually have a person on the team with the sole purpose to cut down the amount of text in the game.

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Originally posted by Roqua
Why is Tb combat so confusing for gaming "experts" who write for large print and/or websites?

Is this why Hammer & Sickle confused them so much? "What the hell? Evereything stops, this game is full o' bugs. Come on' Cletus, lets write us a review."

And since when has the combat in BG or any of the IE games been considered tactical or strategic or even good? Thats like saying buying a hooker requires your rico suave A game. No it doesn't.

When the announced RoA 4 it felt like I got a call that I won the lottery, but now it just feels like a telemarketer called. How could "fans" of the series stoop so low? How would Gothic fans feel if Gothic 3 all of a sudden had TB combat for no good reason? (Real TB combat, not what gaming "expert" retards call TB).

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