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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Some impressions and thoughts...
I've just left Fargrove and feel I have enough playtime under my belt to offer an opinion, although there's a long way to go. I get hit with different emotions as I go along, so in some ways these comments may be a bit contradictory.
This release is a mess. There's no point in re-hashing the missing features and empty towns but I really have to think back to dodgy $9.99 budget releases to think of a game so poorly finished. However, the code seems very stable and the main features and quests seem in place, so it's quite playable. Fortunately, the combat (which is really the centre-point) feels solid and responsive. It's at its best against one or two good enemies where you can really dodge, feint and block and degenerates when 20 rats hit at once -- but it is fun, overall.
I don't really get the references to Gothic that I've seen. To me it matches a 3D Diablo with the character depth of W&W. It mostly works - lots of character development options (although it really boils down to a melee, magic or combo build and it's annoying wasting points on Light Armour to get to Medium Armour and so on) with lots of fighting, dungeons and spawns like Diablo etc. There's not enough combo moves but throw in some magic and there's enough variety in the combat to keep things going. It's not called "Dungeon Lords" for nothing - old-style dungeon mazes with puzzles are prominent.
I'm a little disappointed with the high-level design goals. We often refer to "old school" as if they were perfect but modern RPGs have improved the genre in a number of areas (even if they've gone backwards in others *sigh*). I find it disappointing that the world lacks cohesion and is the most generic of generic fantasy. Really, keyword dialogue systems don't cut it for me anymore, nor does an empty town with little/no interaction. To use Gothic as an example, every NPC is named, has a home, the world feels "realistic" with animals filling the wild and so on.
Dungeon Lords has a couple of random NPCs walking the streets with no names -- and they definitely have no homes because there aren't any. Just facades with door textures, apart from the dozen or so quest NPCs and locations. It's not just that they ran out of time to populate the towns - things from no books to flash out the history to nonsensical spawns (rats to bandits to witches out of the same deadend alley in a few minutes) chip away at the cohesion.
To be fair, none of this was ever promised but going from a Gothic (or Morrowind, even though I'm not really a fan) where the world has depth to this seems quite a step back. Even the way the story is introduced seems a little amateur to me but I'll leave that to avoid spoilers. I find myself wondering, is this the best world DWB can envision?
But...with so many problems I am still having fun. The combat works and it reminds me of days past with games like Wizardry, which evokes some fondness in me.
Even in perfect technical condition, I think this falls short of the best in the genre by a fair way...but it's a fun diversion.
Just a footnote: it irritated the crap out of me that items Charles Vinson (Chuk22, Art Director) said were already added/fixed (map, targeting, alt-tabbing bla bla) are no where to be seen. I'm sure he meant well but I really understand those that feel mislead or lied to.
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Wed May 11, 2005 3:39 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive. Hopefully, 2-3 patches will be released by then, so the game might begin to reach an acceptable standard. I've been following the official forums and it seems to me the responses are at both ends of the spectrum, with very little in the middle; people either love it, or hate it. I'll share my opinion once it arrives.
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If God said it, then that settles it!
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Wed May 11, 2005 6:44 am |
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the mighty stamar
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 602
Location: arcata ca, humboldt county |
I think Im going to like it a lot regardless.
Im not even sure why. But wizards and warriors had funky bugs but it had a really great story. I think this game will be similar. Ill probably get it this weekend I havent had time to play it anyway. |
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Fri May 13, 2005 12:40 am |
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bjon045
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 02 Jun 2003
Posts: 234
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I got the game when it was first released, haven't even put the disc in the drive yet. Waiting for patch 1.2 to arrive (hopefully it will include automap similar to wizardry 7, where you skill determined how good the map was - which was the only new feature I liked, wizardry 6 was better in all other regards) |
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Fri May 13, 2005 3:22 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
I wouldn't count on an automap. The current installation has a map folder with Fargrove in it - but nothing else. I would guess making maps for every location would take a while and be a low priority compared to other issues.
Edit. Seems like an automap is in the next patch so I was patently wrong.
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Fri May 13, 2005 6:44 am |
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