Daedalic Entertainment - The Dark Eye Lore

[Couchpotato]

Daedalic Entertainment released three videos in the last month were they partnered with Orkenspalter TV, Ulisses and Nandurion to share information on The Dark Eye Lore.

LORE Part 1: Aventuria

LORE Part 2: Gods

LORE Part 3: Elves, Dwarfs and Lizards

More information.

 

[ChaosTheory]

We need to get "The Dark Eye" and the "Massive Chalice" together.

Now that's a game I'd play!

 

[Kordanor]

I only played the Pen and Paper Game once but I am a Fan on the world and not only had fun reading the Novels but also the Lexicon.

It's basically what I am looking for in a good fantasy world: A world which offers everything but which is consistent and completely logical in itself. In addition they are not shying away to write about socially critical topics like discrimination, racism or homosexuality.
The first video already showed that you can basically find an equivalent to every people in the game, to every landscape and so on, so it's also not too hard to immerse with the right background. Wether you want to play an "Asian" which would be an inhabitant of Maraskan, a "Viking", which would be a inhabitant of the Northwest (Thorwal, Realms of Arkania Players will remember), or a "Native African" which would be a "Moha", living on the islands in the very south.

I think these videos are a good way to open up the World for Non-Germans, which was a big problem with the Drakensang Games from what I know as hardly anyone outside of Germany had a relation to them. (Forget the latest game, which is not Dark Eye anymore).

An interactive bi-lingual page with a map however might have been even a better choice.

 

[Kordanor]

Not everything about Aventuria is great though. But I am not sure how much of this is still "valid" and how much was reverted. E.g. the Timeline goes into an "apocalyptic" future, where most are dead after some mage wars. The hack and slash game Demonicon is settled in that period. That kinda destroyed the illusion of having a "living" world.
Also they introduced the "Güldenland", a western continent at some point. It hat cat people, flying ships and steampunk influences. From what I know almost nobody liked it and so people ignored it as much as possible. It also completely breaks with the logic I mentioned in the beginning.

Last but not least, the one big bad thing about Dark Eye is: There is almost no "Unknown". Basically everything is mapped out. You are not going to explore new lands or so. If you pick a random town and pick its townhall, chances are you can check in some books who built it and where the material came from. Well, ok not that detailed, but you get my point.
I mentioned the Lexicon before. To get an idea about it's mass of content, I made 2 pictures here and here.

 

[Deleted User]

I enjoyed what I played of the Realms of Arkania remake. I hope they remake the next 2 games in the series. Will definitely give them a shot as well.

 

[Turjan]

Not everything about Aventuria is great though. But I am not sure how much of this is still "valid" and how much was reverted. E.g. the Timeline goes into an "apocalyptic" future, where most are dead after some mage wars. The hack and slash game Demonicon is settled in that period. That kinda destroyed the illusion of having a "living" world.

The special situation of Demonicon was location, not so much time. If you look at the timeline of the games:

RoA: Blade of Destiny - 1008-1010 BF
Drakensang: RoT - 1009 BF
RoA: Star Trail - 1010 BF
RoA: Shadows over Riva - 1010 BF

Drakensang: TDE - 1032 BF
Demonicon - 1033-1034 BF
Chains of Satinav - 1035 BF
Memoria - 1035 BF (590 BF)

You see that Demonicon is in the second block of games, pretty much together with the first Drakensang game and the Daedalic adventures.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

I enjoyed what I played of the Realms of Arkania remake. I hope they remake the next 2 games in the series. Will definitely give them a shot as well.

This seems VERY unlikely atm. One of these days Crafty Studios and their publisher UIG will meet at court. The judges have to find an answer to the question if Crafty is allowed to make Startrail and Riva without having UIG as a publisher.

IF they will succeed (and that is a big "if") they still have to find someone to finance production. After the bad reputation that BoD created for them I dub a kickstarter campaign to be impossible.

And a publisher who will finance this niche-nerd-remake? A pipe dream...

 

[Deleted User]

Well, I choose to be optimistic about it. I think they will make the next 2 games in the series. I spoke with Chris from Crafty and he seemed like a nice guy. They did an excellent job of polishing the game further with much-needed patches and it became much better than release. They probably want to get rid of UIG or whatever because they were forced to release the game earlier than they wanted to, thus resulting in the crapstorm they faced because of it.

But if you play the game now with an open mind, you will find a well-crafted, "hardcore" cRPG experience. It is a hardcore cRPG that has all the necessary elements you need for a true cRPG experience, which makes it baffling that so many people continue to talk trash about the game who claim they love their old-school RPGs. Doesn't make much sense to me!

 

[Kordanor]

Checked the game a while ago with the latest patch, but to me the combat still feels horrible. It just doesn't run fluently, long pauses in between actions, which make it a frustrating experience.