Incoming...DragonShard Single-player demo

DemonKing · Aug 4, 2005

http://www.atari.com.au/news/details.do?newsId=449

Haven't tried it yet and don't have great expectations after the multi-beta, but I'll post some opinions after I've had a chance to play.

Drakron · Aug 4, 2005

Dragonshard is a RTS and not a RPG ...

I am going to avoid it like the plage.

Whipporowill · Aug 4, 2005

Well, tried it - nothing special, but I enjoy these types of games after all so I'll probably play it once it's out.

Spazmo · Aug 4, 2005

RTSeses are amusing and I've wanted to get a feel for this Eberron business. I may try the full game if I like the demo.

obediah · Aug 4, 2005

I'm pretty sure I saw the ad for this and the tagline was:

'September 2006, Atari takes another big shit on your childhood.'

But, really what would you expect from a company that bought it's name specfically to shit all over all of our childhoods.

DemonKing · Aug 4, 2005

I only played through the first level so far, but it has a nice "D&D" feel to it at least in terms of the treasures and monsters.

The gelatinous cube is pretty amusing.

The characters and player units though don't seem to bear much resemblance to the PNP game.

Sheriff05 · Aug 4, 2005

I beta'd it very early (April/May) and found it lacking in every respect as both a D&D game and an RTS game. I would assume major improvements have been made since they bounced the release back to September (from June) due to negative beta user feedback, in fact most Beta testers bailed after a getting a grip on what a steaming pile it was.

I'll only played mulitplayer so there were no scripted single player story elements
what so ever, I guess this could be an improvement.

Personally I found this to be another example of moron's who have no clue what
it is that people like about D&D games, they figured they'd strip all features of the D&D characters away and just give you D&D style "units" in a mediocre RTS.

yeah, the Gelatinous Cube is cool, as it's the first one I've seen that actually "swallows" its victims and turns them into bones., Thats novel for a bit, then you find yourself saying "so what"

Snuffles · Aug 5, 2005

Played the first level of the demo... Maybe I don't play enough RTS' but it seemed to be a basic copy of Warcraft 3, can't see why they bothered making it really.

theverybigslayer · Aug 5, 2005

Snuffles said:
can't see why they bothered making it really.

For money

Surlent · Aug 5, 2005

Does anyone know if the single player campaign will let you play through with the other 2 factions (underworld denizens and dragonkin) ?

Whipporowill · Aug 5, 2005

Hm. I think that Dragonkin is there but is grayed out at the beginning of the demo, and that it mentions you can begin either the human campaign or that one... the underworld one might be unlockable, dunno.

Shevek · Aug 5, 2005

The AI seems pretty bad.

Walks with the Snails · Aug 5, 2005

Wow, did that suck. It's basically a poor WC3 clone. I strained to look for D&D mechanics but didn't see any.

Saint_Proverbius · Aug 6, 2005

Yeah, it's pretty damned awful. There's really nothing about it that seems like D&D there. I'm not sure if it's Ebberon(what ever)'s setting, but there's even units and things that aren't D&D classes.

D&D aside, I don't think this would be a good RTS anyway. The combat is dreadfully lame. It's slow. Painfully slow. The pathfinding during combat is completely ass as well. You click on a bad guy and then watch as your little army dances a ballet around the bad guy until some of them get in position to attack it.

I never once saw any clerics healing anyone. I'm not sure if this is something you have to do manually or not, but it boils down to either being manual in nature or something that was promised but left out of the game. In either case, that's really lame. The only thing I could tell that clerics did was toss hammers at bad guys, which is also lame.

Building in this game is terribly lame. You find a well, then you build a fort. Forts can have four buildings built inside them. These buildings in the fort will each generate one type of character unit. Umm.. Gay! In addition to that, my hero is taller than the walls of the fort and some of the buildings. The building animation is pretty weak too.

All in all, I did like that on every splash screen, it said, "The first D&D real time strategy game." Well, that doesn't help much if it's the first if it sucks this hard. They really need to change that to "The first and LAST", because I really can't see this game doing well if people play the demo.

Sheriff05 · Aug 6, 2005

If they had followed the model of a game like "Spellforce" and went from the there, they could have made a great game that had both RTS and strong RPG elements.

Regardless of whether you liked Spellforce ( save it, Rex) The fact it succesfully had a unique combination of RPG and RTS gameplay that easily lent itself to the D&D mechanic (which they obviously borrowed from) is undeniable.

Instead the geniuses at Atari think you can slap "D&D" on whatever flavor of the month is getting whored out by the gaming rags and it will automaticaly "sell". This game will be D.O.A and I suspect at the rate D&D online is turning off hardcore D&D fans that game has a 6 month life span , tops.

The irony for Liquid Entertainment is nobody is still playing there shitty RTS LotR game or Battle Realms while Spellforce is still wildly popular in Europe, spawning two expansions and now a full blown sequel. While good ol' Atari is on the brink of being delisted on NASDAQ.

What's its going to take for somone with half a fucking brain to get job as the product manager at any of these companies? It is really mindboggling how out of touch these people are. I hope I run into some of these assholes from Atari at the upcoming Gencon. Just pointing at them and laughing alone will be worth the price of admission.

Drakron · Aug 6, 2005

Well seeing Atari first published NwN (that was in a advanced development stage when they go it) then they published ToEE around the time they published D&D Heros, they also published Forgotten Realms:Demon Stone and now they are going to publish this game and D&D Online.

All non RPGs failed badly (inclusing the LotOR actin RPG clone, FR:DS) and even if NwN was a success (no thanks to then, the ground work was done long ago) and ToEE did not that well (but better that D&D H and FR:DS) they continue to persue non RPG games based on D&D.

Its clear D&D means nothing to non roleplayers and people that buy D&D cRPGs appears to look for the official ruleset being implemented.

Its very hard to break that barrier, making WC3 clones is not doing to do it.

obediah · Aug 6, 2005

I played the first few levels. I'm not a big fan of RTS's, but I have had fun with some on easy.

This ons seems total crap, as mentioned earlier advancement and pathfinding are utter crap. With the snaky levels, it seems someone would have realized pathfinding would be important.

I can only hope the voice "actors" were scabs brought in to make sure a strike didn't delay the game. The thought that they spent money for that crap is just sickening.

<deadpan, no clue that he is supposed to be excited>Treasure, as in gold?</deadpan>

<deadpan>Keep a clear head rogue</deadpan>

Saint_Proverbius · Aug 6, 2005

Drakron said:
Well seeing Atari first published NwN (that was in a advanced development stage when they go it) then they published ToEE around the time they published D&D Heros, they also published Forgotten Realms:Demon Stone and now they are going to publish this game and D&D Online.

All non RPGs failed badly (inclusing the LotOR actin RPG clone, FR:DS) and even if NwN was a success (no thanks to then, the ground work was done long ago) and ToEE did not that well (but better that D&D H and FR:DS) they continue to persue non RPG games based on D&D.

NWN and ToEE did pretty well. D&D Heroes tanked, though. I have no idea how well DemonStone sold. It was Atari's third best selling PC game for that year behind Unreal Tournament 2003 and some other wierd game I can't remember. It outsold the NWN expansions, though.

Its very hard to break that barrier, making WC3 clones is not doing to do it.

The sad thing is, I went to their forum to see what all has been posted about the demo. There's a few rabid fan boys calling this lump of shit a "Warcraft 3 killer". I find that fairly wierd considering I wouldn't even call DragonShard a "Warlords Battlecry 1 killer." Check this:

BLOODUK2 said:
On the second mission as you leave, it goes very dark then you hear
a rumbling and all hell breaks loose, lots of shards smash into the ground If things like this happen more into the full game BRING IT!

SO far WARCRAFT beater, i hope the demo isnt all its cracked up to be
too many full games have been ****e compared to a good demo

There's a few others, but he's in several threads talking about how this game is the bestest game of it's type EVAR.

Sheriff05 said:
Regardless of whether you liked Spellforce ( save it, Rex) The fact it succesfully had unique combination of RPG and RTS gameplay that easily lent itself to the D&D mechanic (which they obviously borrowed from) is undeniable.

Instead the geniuses at Atari think you can slap "D&D" on whatever flavor of the month is getting whored out by the gaming rags and it will automaticaly "sell". This game will D.O.A and I suspect at the rate D&D online is turning off hardcore D&D fans that game has a 6 month of life span tops.

Hell, something on the order of Majesty would have been fantastic if they'd used the D&D character system with multiple feat trees for the heroes and larger maps and dungeons.

LlamaGod · Aug 6, 2005

All in all, I did like that on every splash screen, it said, "The first D&D real time strategy game." Well, that doesn't help much if it's the first if it sucks this hard. They really need to change that to "The first and LAST", because I really can't see this game doing well if people play the demo.

The first D&D RTS was called Blood and Magic, those tardboats. And it sucked too.

Also, the way the buildings work sounds like a mega retarded version of Kohan 1.

Sheriff05 · Aug 6, 2005

Saint_Proverbius said:
Hell, something on the order of Majesty would have been fantastic if they'd used the D&D character system with multiple feat trees for the heroes and larger maps and dungeons.

yeah that was a cool game, I haven't thought of in awhile. I'm sure the designers of "Dragonshard" never heard it.

Shagnak · Aug 6, 2005

Majesty was great. Wasn't there a sequel being developed?

Drakron · Aug 6, 2005

Saint_Proverbius said:
NWN and ToEE did pretty well. D&D Heroes tanked, though. I have no idea how well DemonStone sold. It was Atari's third best selling PC game for that year behind Unreal Tournament 2003 and some other wierd game I can't remember. It outsold the NWN expansions, though.

Remenber that Demon Stone was cross plataform, there was a PC, PS2 and XBox version.

I think that is were the game failed, overall it could beat the NwN expansions (not too hard since they were PC only and expansion always have lower sales that the original game) but it had high cost due to being multiplataform and Atari was pumping the game, I remenber seeing a lot of ads in GameFAQs for it as ToEE had very little.

Also I remenber reading something on OE forums over a quote of Atari PR guy that implied that DS did not go well, at least the critics were not kind with that game at all.

Saint_Proverbius · Aug 6, 2005

Ah, ToEE was Atari's third best selling PC game of 2003. My post was confusing.

I do agree that it's rather stupid to branch out wildly with the license, though. The problem with DragonShard is that it's not going to make D&D fans happy because there's really nothing D&D about it other than a few names here and there. There are magic items from D&D, but they're merely power ups you can click on as opposed to actual items the hero can wear/wield/etc. I bought a breast plate in the game after my first mission. I was pretty shocked it was something I actually have to click on a button and can only use for a short time as a power up as opposed to normal armor. Even the first Warlords Battlecry was better than that.

Here's another great thing about items. You don't retain them from mission to mission as far as I can tell. I ended the first mission with a Ring of Fireball, a bunch of potions, and various other amounts of ph4t l3wt, but none of those things were available in the second mission. I just had that breastplate.

Gromnir · Aug 7, 2005

Saint_Proverbius said:
Here's another great thing about items. You don't retain them from mission to mission as far as I can tell. I ended the first mission with a Ring of Fireball, a bunch of potions, and various other amounts of ph4t l3wt, but none of those things were available in the second mission. I just had that breastplate.

it looks like you can place three items in your backpack previous to starting missions... and there is a character item vault you can use to store non-backpack items.

also, clerics in our game were clearly doing their darndest to heal our units.

nevertheless, this looks like your typical rts where you collect resources so you can build structures capable of producing additional combat units. ebberon campaign setting were a good fit for such nonsense as it gots dragonshards already worked into the setting.

doesn't look any better or worse than most of the starcraft/warcraft 3 clones we usually see.

am still waiting for somebody to try and make another dark omen kinda rts game.

HA! Good Fun!

Whipporowill · Aug 7, 2005

Gromnir is right about the item vault, although it seems only to be accessible on the mission debriefing screen - i e you can't backtrack even before starting the next scenario. CRAP implementation, I'd say.

As for the clerics, they autohealed occasionally - but stopped doing so at a certain level of char health (they had mana left) or either had some ai flaw of some kind.

Incoming...DragonShard Single-player demo

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