Review Dungeon Lords first impressions

Vault Dweller · May 7, 2005

Tags: Dungeon Lords; Heuristic Park Inc.

Apparently, <a href=http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20799&page=6&pp=10>the general consensus</a> is that Dungeon Lords sucks as predicted. Here is what the lucky owners of the game report on the official forums:
 
 
<blockquote>yeah, this game really needs a patch. The only thing that really makes me mad right now is the lack of a map. Some places are huge and without a map its frustrating running in circles looking for the right way to go. The other thing that doesnt effect game play but really ruins the multiplayer is the lack of customizing your toon. If all of us playing want to be the same race we all look a like which is reall annoying.
 
...
 
Resolution fixes, anything over 800x600, the main menu doesnt stretch to the screen and when you start playing it works fine but the text sizes decrease with the higher resolution. makes it really hard to read diag boxes.
 
Character customization. Only the default models are available so if everyone is human, they all look the same.
 
No Map in game, very easy to get lost.
 
still has auto delete for duplicate inventory items. this really sucks for multiplayer.
 
And the junk tab does nothing but take up space.
 
only left handed combat. Not really a big deal to me, but other peoples life's seem to depend on this feature.
 
Still no cross hair for targeting. This doesnt bother me either.
 
I only player for a few hours before getting lost and frustrated so I quit untill a patch fixes some of these things. So these are the only things that stand out to me as broken but there maybe more
 
...
 
wheres the target indicator, wheres the map, wheres the features that were not implemented in the demo in the retail...Did I just pay $40 for a updated DEMO... I hope not and if I could return this software(junk) I most likely would but losing 1/2 the price for 1hrs use (or attempted use) just burns me
 
...
 
That's odd.. Options are in the manual but not in the game?!?</blockquote>
 
A patch is on its way and should be available early next week. I don't see many of the above mentioned issues being <a href=http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=25260&mode=thread&order=0>addressed</a>, but then again, perhaps, it would be easier to make a new game than to fix DL.

Naked_Lunch · May 7, 2005

Are you still gonna buy this, Shaggy?

Shagnak · May 7, 2005

Hmmmm...even with my insane optimism, this ain't looking good is it mate? :D
Having things not included at launch time, that they PROMISED would be in, is pretty dumb.

The map thing is a definitely a bit crap. Crikey.

Auto-delete is REALLY bad in multiplayer. If you pick something up that you already have, it gets deleted. So if your other party members do not have it, tough, you've fucked it and they can't have it. I'm was mainly looking forward to this game for small LAN multi-play, so this "feature" being retained (despite assurances it would not be) is definitely maxi-sukky.

Character customisation. Hmmm, yes, it would be nice, but its not going to ruin the game for me. Same with "only left-handed models". Still, they should (and probably eventually will) have these.

Looking around the forum, these are the major complaints. Haven't seen much else, in fatc not as many different complaints as I was first led to believe, but its early days yet and I expect there will be some quest bugs and so on.

There is already talk about a patch within a week?. Well, then I can only conclude they have forced a beta on the fans, and expect the fans to do some beta testing for them.
Not a good way to do business...

Am I still going to buy it? Yep. :lol:

The only thng that will TRULY out me off at this late stage is if there are an abundance of game-killing bugs. Hell even then maybe it won't. My masochism complex tells me I gotta follow this thing thru... :wink:

Naked_Lunch · May 7, 2005

Hey, you do what you can, mate.

Godspeed on your masoschistic, friend, godspeed!

space captain · May 7, 2005

man you must have a serious amount of free time if you are willing to play this garbage..... Id rather wax my pubes than be subjected to that

Shagnak · May 7, 2005

There is a (so far) short thread about "first impressions":
http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/foru ... hp?t=20831

One person has compiled a good (err...bad) list of pros/cons. The pros are not very interesting, so I'll just quote the cons (which pretty much support the stuff above):

-Game locks up for a split second every time an encounter is spawned
-Sound is messed up. Footsteps can be heard for a few steps then silent the next few. Seems to be no music in the game whatsoever. Very little ambient sound (birds chirping, wind, etc). Very few voiceovers. Some npcs seem to be partially voiced over then they just didn't finish. Voiceovers are too quiet compared to rest of game audio.
-Bad performance even on very high systems especially for a game with only half-decent graphics.
-More information is needed for certain skills and attributes (Sneak, Honor, +Speed, etc)
-Quest journal is very basic, could be expanded some.
-Main quest path needs to be more obvious...I ran around city for several hours trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. Improved journal could help with this. ^
-Map is not in game as far as I can tell, about 10 hrs of playing thus far.
-Can't change appearance.
-Some of the animation is very ugly and awkword (jumping...) Characters continue to run in place for a second or so after stopping.
-Minor pathing problems is a few spots, esp with doorways.
-Menus are unfinished, higher resolutions then 800/600 don't change menu size. < and > buttons on options panel don't work. Have to drag slider. Can't access options from game.
-Overall very unfinished. The game has potential but they need to seriously change a bunch of things.

I am especially disappointed that the sound issues have carried thru to the release. Not only is there not many ambient sounds still, but the sounds that are there are muddy and shite still (apparently). And no in-game music? Way to set the atmosphere...

Edit:
Oops - just read another bit by someone who doesn't have messed-up sound. Apparently when it works properly there is rather good sound and music. Seems that it's just buggy. *sigh*

Fez · May 7, 2005

Are you still going to buy this steaming heap?

Vault Dweller · May 7, 2005

Another satisfied customer:

I picked up my retail version of the game to day and am quite disappointed. This game is a buggy unfinished turd. It is basically the demo with a few noticeable changes. Higher resolutions were turned on. All the races are available. Strafing seems a bit faster now and knockbacks/knockdown have been adjusted. Otherwise, the menus are still unfriendly and combat is still clunky and unimpressive. I think they also threw in a bunch extra bugs as a bonus.

The first character I played was a Thrall thief. Not only was the
character model simply stupid looking but his stats decreased as he leveled. At level 7 all his stats had been reduced to 1 and equipping anything but the most basic gear brought on mega penalties. This is just one thing I have found to add to the long list of already mentioned issues.

The fact that this game was sent out as a some kind of finished product amazes me. Paying forty bucks for an unfinished game is not acceptable even if there is a patch supposedly coming out one day to make it playable. Unfinished is unfinished and should therefore be unfor sale. The proposed list of fixes alone shows how incomplete and hurried though Dungeon Lords is and only addresses a handful of the issues. Sorry guruchaz for not noticing when you told us so but I wish I had.

So the great news is for all who didn't drop their cash on this game. You still have forty bucks and you should hang onto it. Maybe when/if there are some major patches made and you can pick this title up for ten to fifteen dollars on the sale rack this game will be worth the price but right now it ain't. I'm thinking of damaging one of the disks as an excuse to take this turd back to the store.

Vault Dweller · May 7, 2005

Major retailers are taking this title back. I took mine back to Best Buy last night and they took all their Dungeon Lords off the shelf, due to all the complaints.

Send the developer a clear message and take it back. This is clearly an unacceptable business practice.

Elwro · May 7, 2005

The first character I played was a Thrall thief. Not only was the
character model simply stupid looking but his stats decreased as he leveled. At level 7 all his stats had been reduced to 1 and equipping anything but the most basic gear brought on mega penalties.

OMG INNOVASHUN :D
Other games are stupid level treadmills, while in this one you have to focus on roelplaing and not on earning XP. Fantastic.

freelance · May 7, 2005

It was obvious from the demo that the game was unsalvageable IMHO. No patch in hell can fix flawed gameplay to begin with.
Unless they do a SWG/CU and rewrite it to a whole new experience (yeah right, the coders are either working on something new or looking for new work)

Shagnak · May 7, 2005

Fez said:
Are you still going to buy this steaming heap?

Naked_Lunch · May 7, 2005

Vault Dweller said:
Major retailers are taking this title back. I took mine back to Best Buy last night and they took all their Dungeon Lords off the shelf, due to all the complaints.

Send the developer a clear message and take it back. This is clearly an unacceptable business practice.

Click to expand...

Ouch.

Vault Dweller · May 7, 2005

It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion:

Anyone try this yet? because when i try i see noone online and i have a ping of 0 ms. Something seems fishy here.
...
ya i kno, each time I try to get on, it freezes on me, feels like Im playin the stupid demo version of dungeon lords.
...
I got on and was able to see a few people, but they all had zero pings. Eventually someone responded to me but noone had any games going and they would dissappear on and off. Not sure what to make of it.

When the menu screen pops up the portcullis takes probably 8 minutes to shut. Meaning I have to wait for eons before I can actually click on any of the options, then when I finally do it takes another epoch for the friggin thing to open again! When I finally get to the gameplay however it plays fine! Is anyone else having this problem? I have a pretty chronic computer, AMD 64 Bit 3200, Radeon 9800 XT, 1 Gig of ram and all the latest drivers, someone please help! When is this patch coming out?

At the arms/armor shop in the first town (through the sewers, sorry forgot the name) I had a stack of 4 fear scrolls. I would click the slider over to 4 to sell them all, and when I hit the 'sell' button it would credit me 200gold but not remove the scrolls from my inventory. As far as I could tell I could keep doing this forever and make infinite money. It also seemed to happen with another, single, scroll in my inventory but I don't remember the name.

Small doorways cause mobs to get stuck and just stack up there in the doorway. Seems they collide w/ each other and can't get room to get through.

Sound is messed up. Seems sound is heard for a while then is cut out at random intervals. Can be seem specifically when running, footsteps are heard on and off.

Game locks up for a split second every time an encounter is spawned.

Quest Log not updating properly when quests are completed. So far both the catacombs and the wizard's letter delivery quests in the first town still show as active even though I have completed them and moved on to Arindale.

There are no fires inside the Arindale inn (anywhere). Making resting there (even after purchasing a room) impossible

Game crashes when attacking a large group of enemy in the slums. Game acts as if it was TABBED switched and then get the Windows crash dialog with the "don't send" button.

This one involves the quest given by the Lord in the first town to go and speak to his daughters maid. During your conversation with her she mentions you need to speak with someone in town. If you go and talk to this person before speaking to the Lord again it seems to *reset* this quest so that you have to go and talk to the maid again and then go directly to the Lord to activate the next quest...

Fun game

Shagnak · May 7, 2005

Yep, VD, It's looking FUCKING BAD.
And this from the drunk optimist.

Shagnak · May 7, 2005

freelance said:
It was obvious from the demo that the game was unsalvageable IMHO.

No, it was salvageable, but not by this dev group.
They are not the Fallout out or PoQ team.
:-(

Vault Dweller · May 7, 2005

@Shagnak
Yep, it's a shame. Can't say I was "eagerly anticipating" it, but it would have been nice to play a fun hack-n-slash game. Oh well...

Naked_Lunch · May 7, 2005

I hope Dick Whip Bradley gets bludgeoned to death with big fucking rocks.

Fez · May 7, 2005

I don't think even Shagnak can liberate this one. The best and most humane thing for it would be euthanasia.

Shagnak · May 7, 2005

You mean there is a measurable poundage of Shit that even the SGLF cannot liberate?
Damn.

I'm learning my limits REAL fast.

Vault Dweller · May 7, 2005

Decided to see what other forums think about DL:

Ok, first of all, some of the gameplay features seem to be locked. As in, it's like I just paid 40 bucks for a beta. You cannot change your character's appearance, even though the buttons are there to do so in the character creation.

Second, a lot of people, myself included, have found that you cannot map some functions to any keys, and the keys they're already assigned to do nothing when pressed.

Third, the game seems to lock up and crash at random when entering combat and/or pressing random keys. Using Omega drivers (unsupported, 3rd party drivers, in case you're wondering) seems to fix the combat crash, but still, pressing certain keys at points sometimes causes the game to shut down.

Also, lots of people are mentioning that there were 2 different "Disk II" CDs shipped (I didn't get an extra one). One seems to install the game without letting the player save their progress, the other without letting them access game options from the pause menu.

I am super, super pissed. This game has seen no end of delays and it's released like this? What the hell?

Don't buy until it's been patched. I'll keep everyone updated.

A few more major bugs:

- No map feature. It's listed as being in the game, but, as far as I and everyone else of the DL's forums can tell, they "forgot" to include it.

- You can't invert the Y-axis, even though there is the option to do so in the main menu. Changing this setting does nothing.

- The ability to set whether your character is right or left handed (listed in the HTML manual) is not even in the game (not major, but hey, trying to mention everything).

- There are a number of broken quests in the first city you enter.

More to come, unfortunately...

This game's problems go far beyond "cosmetic." It is buggy and unfinished. This game was seriously rushed out the door before it was finished, and if Dreamcatcher wants to retain any of the credibility they'd earned with Painkiller, they better get on Heuristic Park's ass to get this game patched now, because at this point it's embarassing how sloppy and unfinished this game is.

And before you accuse me of trolling, I'd love for this game to work. The parts that actually do function are very enjoyable, the graphics are very nice, and the story seems well written and presented. It's too bad the core game isn't done. Until they get this up to an at least functional version, I'd advise potential buyers to stay away.

I just bought the game, and it feels almost like Im playin the demo. Has practicly the same issues. Multiplayer doesnt work, I can't change resolution without it glitching up, mouse sensitivity doesnt save, screen flickers when loading in intro. Each time I try to get on multiplayer, the game stops and I cant do anything. Thought you all said that you also fixed alt+tab multitask issue, and put on something to let you know what you're targeting. Or is this suposed to be the "new demo" so everyone will download it and like the game then buy the crappy retail version? I feel like I got ripped off, and I probably did.

Request permission to rename DL into Dung Lords

Fez · May 7, 2005

Dungeon Lords has become such a huge pile of shit, it is now generating an inescapable field of gravity. If you try to liberate it, it will suck you in and destroy you. It is doom incarnate, a black hole of the gaming universe. In future history it will be noted only as a navigational hazard to avoid.

Edit: I second the new Dung Lords name.

Shagnak · May 7, 2005

AAAwwwww

Fucking arsecunt buggerdamncokfucklickershithead

Mr Bradley is fucked after this

space captain · May 7, 2005

how long have we been saying this will happen?? too long

this was not only predicted, it was SEEN and KNOWN like the diamond of truth itself

stay far, far away from this game, shagnak - it would violate you like a prison bitch... you would become tainted and unclean... a small part of your gaming soul would shrivel up and die

bgillisp · May 7, 2005

Or, wait for it to drop to $10 or so if you really wish to play it. As bad as it sounds, I imagine it will not take long at all for that to happen.

Review Dungeon Lords first impressions

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