Drakensang: The Dark Eye & Drakensang: The River of Time

[lovender]

Hello...

 

I'm a fan of these games; Drakensang: The Dark Eye & Drakensang: The River of Time.

Is it possible that in the future there will be modding community for these games in Nexus site? Drakensang Nexus maybe?

Bcos mods for these game is very little.

So maybe with Drakensang Nexus available, the mods will be much more.

 

http://www.iniziopartita.it/file/1/9150/gallery/drakensang_portada-plana.jpg

 

Thanks...

Edited September 23, 2013 by lovender

[Vindekarr]

Highly unlikely. With such a tiny modding scene and a small community anyway, there doesn't seem to be any justification. There's also something of a... stigma attached to this game. It may be different overseas, but where I come from it's seen as a very poor quality game and a hold-up example of what can go wrong with lazy development.

[Tidus44]

I doubt a large modding community would grow on the Nexus as the tools that Radon Labs released only allow certain minor things to be changed in the game – some textures and some models. The tool kit to do anything more extensive than simple character changes is quite expensive and not exactly easy to use so I doubt many would have the time or patience to mod the game more than just some minor elements.

There is quite a good (but very small) modding community for Drakensang (Dark Eye, River of Time and Philleason's Secret) with a couple of web sites I have used (mostly German and German language though) that have mods and the tools to modify Drakensang.

 

It is sad, because the Drakensang series is hugely entertaining and fun to play and is one of the very few RPGs one can find. It would be nice to be able add to it since Radon Labs went bankrupt and BigPoint has no interest in it apparently and is focused at the online game so we will not likely see another in the series.

 

I don’t think it was a popular game because so many so-called gamers want simple character development with easy, repetitive, action filled quests where they are led by the nose with a detailed log and quest markers, get hyper-powered armour, weapons and magic with no effort early on and all within a simplistic story line that is about as entertaining as an infomercial (I think I just described Skyrim).

Drakensang is just too difficult for most. The classic rule set the game uses is complex and isn’t exactly intuitive, so the casual gamer just got frustrated very quickly. Some of the puzzles were very hard to solve (the mosaic in the Temple on the Isle of Forgetfulness) and some of the controls were a bit more than the average gamer could handle (the combat system for example). The game also had a ton of things happening and one could get overwhelmed or lost very easily, which I think also frustrated many players.

 

Glad to see there are still those players around who enjoy a real RPG.

[brokenergy]

I don’t think it was a popular game because so many so-called gamers want simple character development with easy, repetitive, action filled quests where they are led by the nose with a detailed log and quest markers, get hyper-powered armour, weapons and magic with no effort early on and all within a simplistic story line that is about as entertaining as an infomercial (I think I just described Skyrim).

Drakensang is just too difficult for most. The classic rule set the game uses is complex and isn’t exactly intuitive, so the casual gamer just got frustrated very quickly. Some of the puzzles were very hard to solve (the mosaic in the Temple on the Isle of Forgetfulness) and some of the controls were a bit more than the average gamer could handle (the combat system for example). The game also had a ton of things happening and one could get overwhelmed or lost very easily, which I think also frustrated many players.

 

Glad to see there are still those players around who enjoy a real RPG.

 

Eh, no. The problem with that game is that there is a bad in-game tutorial and is hard for first time player. If you are making a game at least be try to be nice to players that haven't even played an RPG or the Dark Eye ruleset before. Real "RPGs" would try to appeal to everyone, not people who think that tedious = super complex.

[JimboUK]

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/967659-blog-piece-supporting-modding-in-totality/

 

Yes if people make and upload mods.

[lonewolfkai]

Hmm, honestly, I've never heard of the series before. I'll have to look it up.

[brokenergy]

Hmm, honestly, I've never heard of the series before. I'll have to look it up.

 

It's actually quite nice but it suffers mainly with lack of an in-game tutorial and overly complex system.

[Tidus44]

Hmm, honestly, I've never heard of the series before. I'll have to look it up.

 

Saw your post and looked for the Dark Eye rules on the web, but I can only find them in the original German. I have my own manual in English, but its only in hard copy so I can't post it.

 

You can get the board game rules here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/156774258/The-Dark-Eye-Basic-Rules

or here;

http://www.gamebanshee.com/editorials/28222-the-rules-and-world-of-the-dark-eye.html

 

These rules only explain how the game runs, but not specifically how to play the game.

 

There is a wiki here:

http://en.drakensang.wikia.com/wiki/Drakensang_English_Wiki

and a good forum site here;

http://forum.dtp-entertainment.com/viewforum.php?

that explain a lot more on actual game play.

 

You should be aware there is information on the online Drakensang MMORPG as well, but it isn't quite the same as the single player games, so be careful when looking at web sites so you know you are on the right one.

 

The Drakensang series is two games (Dark Eye and River of Time) and a River of Time add-on (Phileasson's Secret). They are all are available through Steam, but I don't know if you'd be able to find them on disc any more.

 

The games do focus on character development, but if you have 1/2 a brain and don't mind doing a bit of reading and thinking the game is not as complex as it appears. Likely, the hardest part of playing is the combat system, but experimenting a bit with it will soon teach you how to work it effectively and how to use the various talents of each member of the party you will eventually build. Do expect to be rather weak at the start and the best advice is always have an escape route planned before engaging because running away is sometimes a good tactic.

 

Have fun, these are really good games with good quests and you will probably enjoy the humour as well. The real challenge is working the game to build a good character that suits your playing style. If you do get into the game and have questions, post back and I'll be glad to help you as best I can.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Tidus44

[lovender]

Yes, the rumor is RadonLabs went bankrupt because they hired famous voice actor like Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicia Day, etc.

That's the main cause I think. Maybe the fees to hire famous voice actor is too much. So sad...

 

One thing that interest me the most is the armor/clothing equipment system.

There are 8 slot to equip your characters with armor/clothing for the: head, shoulder, torso, lowerbody, feet, thigh, hands & lowerhand.

There are still 2 slots to equip rings, 2slots to equip 2-handed weapons (pike, 2-handed sword) / 2 slots to equip sword/axe & shield, & 1 slot to equip necklace.

So you can customize your character with so much variations.

 

 

Also I love the music!

You know...Beethoven, Bach, Handel are form Germany.

& so the style of the music is also influenced from them.

 

To me, the game is so "medieval" where you can customize your character heavily.

 

Hope you all enjoy the game like I did.

(& hopefully I can mod this game like I modded Oblivion).

 

 

@Tidus44:

Drakensang The River of Time & Phileasson's Secret are the prequel of the first Drakensang game; Drakensang: The Dark Eye.

I love the tittle theme...

Btw, do you know how to extract/unpack the mesh from Drakensang game data?

 

Thanks.

Edited September 30, 2013 by lovender

[Tidus44]

Yes, the rumor is RadonLabs went bankrupt because they hired famous voice actor like Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicia Day, etc.

That's the main cause I think. Maybe the fees to hire famous voice actor is too much. So sad...

 

One thing that interest me the most is the armor/clothing equipment system.

There are 8 slot to equip your characters with armor/clothing for the: head, shoulder, torso, lowerbody, feet, thigh, hands & lowerhand.

There are still 2 slots to equip rings, 2slots to equip 2-handed weapons (pike, 2-handed sword) / 2 slots to equip sword/axe & shield, & 1 slot to equip necklace.

So you can customize your character with so much variations.

 

 

Also I love the music!

You know...Beethoven, Bach, Handel are form Germany.

& so the style of the music is also influenced from them.

 

To me, the game is so "medieval" where you can customize your character heavily.

 

Hope you all enjoy the game like I did.

(& hopefully I can mod this game like I modded Oblivion).

 

 

@Tidus44:

Drakensang The River of Time & Phileasson's Secret are the prequel of the first Drakensang game; Drakensang: The Dark Eye.

I love the tittle theme...

Btw, do you know how to extract/unpack the mesh from Drakensang game data?

 

Thanks.

 

Took a few minutes, but I found the web site where I first found information on modding Drakensang. It has a lot of good information on editing and modding the games. Its - http://forum.dtp-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=191&t=11985&start=0

 

Radon Labs released a tool to unpack the NPK files so meshes and textures could be modified. There is a link on the page that will take you to the NPK unpacker under “The Tools” section of the web site I posted above.

There is also a link further down on how to modify textures and meshes. I used GIMP as it was free (I think it still is). I did find that modding didn’t work very well on a 64 bit computer and used a 32 bit laptop I had (it has since died) to mod.

 

I was a fan of Radon Labs and the first game of theirs I played was Urban Assault – which was pretty good at the time. I had bought Drakensang: Dark Eye as soon as it was available in North America (NA) as I had heard it was an “old school” RPG game. I wasn’t disappointed – it was and is an awesome game series.

 

The thing was I had to actually go find the game as the “normal” places I expected to find it didn’t have the game after its NA release. Drakensang won awards and was hugely popular in Europe, but all one needs do is look at the reviews from NA to see why it wasn’t as popular in NA.

Everyone in NA seemed to whine about how the game was not intuitive, how the game didn’t lead the player around by the hand and show them what to do, that character development was too complex, that the game wasn’t finished because they couldn’t complete quests, and whaa, whaa, whaa - etc. It seems most NA game players want simple, easy games where they are led around and shown everything instead of actually having to figure things out for themselves or (heaven forbid!) actually have to do some thinking and reading when playing an actual RPG that requires some knowledge to play. Of course, it was all the games fault because it was too hard – not the players fault for being too lazy to figure it out.

 

The European publisher didn’t do a very good job in advertising the game either and were in financial trouble themselves when Drakensang was released. The NA distributer was also in financial trouble and also didn’t do a very good job in distributing the game. The NA publisher went bankrupt shortly after Radon Labs did which sort of identifies why Radon Labs wasn’t as successful as it could have been in NA.

Dtp Entertainment was backing Radon Labs for River of Time and Phileasson's Secret, but then pulled out because they were in financial trouble. Radon Labs went bankrupt shortly after.

Dtp appears to have recovered from their financial problems, but Radon Labs just got caught in a bad situation at a critical time in their game development. Sad, because they were working on a third Drakensang and the series seemed to be getting some renewed interest in NA as serious PC gamers were getting tired of the dumbed down games made for consoles being made into PC games. I guess the lack of backing and relatively poor sales just did Radon Labs in.

 

It sort of makes one wonder as all the Drakensang series had great graphics, interesting game play, never lagged or stuttered and never crashed, quests didn’t glitch and NPC AI and conversations are very reasonable. And as you point out they had great music, a nice medieval “atmosphere”, there was lots of humour and a great story line – but NA players didn’t like it much; but then a piece of crap like Skyrim gets awards and rave reviews and people think it’s the greatest game ever made. Just weird.

 

If Darkensang has a downside, it was the games were as open a game world as much as one would have hoped them to be. They were not all that linear, but I'd have liked them to be a bit more open than they were.

 

Anyway, I hope the link above gets you modding and the Nexus will make a place for Drakensang mods. Who knows, I may even be motivated to mod it again.

 

If you have any questions or something to discuss, just post it - I'll be around.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Tidus44