Drakensang: The Dark Eye
Preview
Dragons speaking English soon
by Marcus Mulkins
previewed on PC
Whatever shall I do? (cntd.)
Your race selection will be rather limited. Elves (in several flavors), Dwarves (likewise), and Humans (which come in a myriad of types, determined by behavior and interests) , and most likely Halflings as well. Also appearing around Aventuria in large numbers are Orcs, Goblins, and the usual adversaries, with occasional appearances by a wide variety of Big Baddies like Ogres, Trolls, Giant Spiders, wild beasts, and maybe even a dragon or two.
Combat - inevitable in every fantasy setting, and therefore critical to any RPG system, will be essentially Real Time with Pause. You'll be able to set a basic strategy for the party and let them wreak havoc on autopilot, or you can micro-manage to your heart's content.
Limited budget
The weak spot in the game is likely to be the graphic presentation. Radon Labs allocated 2.5 million euros for the entire development budget, which may seem like a hefty sum, but actually means that all of the artist-hours needed to flesh out every screen just weren't available. So up close and personal should look intense (check the screenshots to see that), but the backgrounds will most likely fade to mush. Furthermore, as the game is strictly a third-person perspective, you won't be seeing the minutiae that you get in most first-person games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion. (That's what 20+ million will buy you. Compare that to 2.5 million, and you'll understand what I'm talking about.)
The social interaction might be somewhat anemic, overall. The thousand-page script was written by a team of four actual "The Dark Eye" players. Now, having been a world-class Dungeon Master during my AD&D days many years ago, I realize that this claim really doesn't mean much. Having seen a wide spread of player competence in both play and communication, I know that just because you play the game doesn't mean you know how to spin a good yarn. Now, had they said the storyline was laid down by four well-published authors, I'd be more impressed. The fact that somewhere someone mentioned that Radon Labs had deliberately tried to cut down dialogue doesn't bode well either. The biggest sticking point is likely to be the quality of the German-to-English translation. The Radon Labs crew are a well-spoken bunch in their native German, so hopefully the raw material was well done. The burden then falls to the publisher, Anaconda, which generally has a pretty good reputation for bringing European titles to the English-speaking market. (I believe one of their more recent offerings was Legend: Left Hand of God.) As I find myself saying frequently these days, "I haven't died in despair just yet, so here's hoping."
Coming... soon
Overall, this entire format is best set as an open-world environment. That is, as in the p-n-p game, you've got an entire world to explore, picking up tasks and quests during your travels. But because of the limited budget, Radon Labs was restricted to the usual, tight, "Here is your quest; now go do it" approach. But they have hopes to expand upon that foundation if the game does well for them. [Which makes me think of the "Only 4% of games makes a profit" article I saw recently.] Because of the potential for a truly expansive game in the future, and knowing just how expansive "The Dark Eye" universe is, I'm cramping my fingers as I cross them in hopes for their success.
The best I could nail down the particulars, Drakensang: The Dark Eye will be released in the first quarter of 2009. Whether that's January or March - or even that it may get pushed back for some reason - remains to be seen. The most recent video trailer release suggests January, 2009. If that proves to be true, you should now have an idea what to spend all your Xmas money on.
