Our Sacred Thread. I know Sacred even from the time it was Armalion - an DSA-based game. Look at
www.rpgdot.com for this. You can even find remains of Armalion in Sacred nowadays.
I've played Sacred, and although you *definitively* see in it remains of the full-blown RPG that should've been Armalion, it's too much Action for me. specially since the enemies respawn too much and too fast. The lovers of Action-RPGs (in the official, German-laguage Forum) insist on that being an essential part of Action-RPGs. I'm more story-oriented.
I also played Gothic I - the other part not, not even the Add-On, because I believe that I must have a new PC for that (I've got an old AMD Athlon 800).
I liked Gothic very much, because of its immersion and athmosphere. Also thre are quite a lot of German-language MODs out there for it (and for Gothic II as well). Ask Stone, he seems to know everything about it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
About DSA : DSA = Das Schwarze Auge = The Dark Eye, converted into English by SirTech as "Realms of Arcania". You can also found some bits about it at RPGDot. Official English-language DSA-site :
http://www.thedarkeyerpg.comYou can learn more about it in
this thread.
Armalion was planned as an DSA-based game, but was neverfinished, because Ikarion went bancrupt. No-one wanted to help them, which sheds light on an unpleasant chapter of the gaming industry. Instead, Ascaron bought up the remins and continued developing it - this time without the DSA license.
At the point the German mags began comparing it with Blizzards games someone must've thought that this was a good idea : Making an Action-RPG out of it. You could actually witness this shift in the official forum then. So I blame the German gaming magazines for turning Ex-Armalion into an Action-RPG. Some like it that way, I don't : too much action nowadays or my taste.
I'm not surprised that you don't know anything about DSA. It's quite common here in Germany, but FanPro (short for "Fantasy Productions", the company developing DSA) hasn't had a good hand in selling licenses in the past. Rumors say they wanted too much money for it. Guido Henkel, one of the guys behing PS:T was once at Attic, the company dveloping the german versions of the "Realms of Arcania" series. He said in an interview indeed that FanPro wanted too much money for the license.
LMK was another RPG developeed for DSA. It was the first RPG developed by Larian Studios, originally named "Unless - The Treachery" and while Larian teamed up with Attic, they renamed it into "LMK" "The Lady The Mage And The Knight" (German title : "Legenden der Magierkriege").
During dvelopment, they split, and LMK was buried. Attic wnt out of history, nd Larian began dveloping "Project C" which later became "Divinity". The "C" is rumored to stand for "cash" because they simply neded some at the split. "Divinity" was originally named "Divinity - The Sword of Lies", but german publisher CDV thought it would be a bitter title "Divine Divinity" ( ! ) and renamed it. From that decision on, CDV hasn't got the highest reputation here.
Well, that's the "Short History of Larian", and DSA and why they once were connected to one another. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
The thing that always makes me kind of sad is that the majority of C-RPGs seems to be based upon (A)D&D nowadays. I know I'm not right, bbut that's just my impression. The Wizards of thze coast - that's how I see it - clearly use this as an vehicle : Players of the P&P-version might well buy the C-RPGs, whereas players of the C-RPGs might be intrigued to buy the P&P-version. It's what I call "product placement" to me. I once wrote an article at RPGDot (which was heavily criticized and misunderstood at the same time) in which I wondered wjy they had to use the D20 system for KOTOR - in that article I wrote that theyused the (A)D&D-system for KOTOR and I got hammered upon because I
definitively was wrong - it was the D20-system, of course ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" /> (With greetings to my intimate friends at RPGCodex <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" /> ) This month I read in a German gaing magazine that KOTORII uses the (A)D&D - system, and no-one complains about it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
(A)D&D dominates the market too much for my own taste. It might be a good system, but personally I don't like it - it's too restrictive for me. I don't really know
what I don't like of the system, but I was "grown up" with DSA, and I found that system friendlier. It's a matter of taste, I suppose. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
I just wonder why theydidn't use a different RPG system for KOTOR. That's what I tried to say in my RPGDot article. Theycould’ve used a lesser known system to support it better, but no, it had to be D20 - because it’s o popular, I suppose.
I’d
really like to see games incorporating systems from leser known systems. Like Midgard, for example (another system you might’ve never heard from). Because most RPGs are still made in the U.S. , they use what’s known there. For example a game about the american civil war might well sell there, but I don’t see any sens in selling it here (there actuallywas a game about it some years ago). On the other hand I’d perhaps like a game about the european “War of 100 years” (or so it’s called; here in Germany we call it the “Hundertjährigen Krieg”). Would it sell in the U.S. I I think no. And because of the fact that the european market is too small, developers sitting in America don’t develop thems that are known in Europe but not in America, I guess.
I’d like FanPro to incorporate such a “product placement” as well : Sell cheap licensed to developers to let this system be widely known outside Germany. Instead, they sem to rather want money over that - at least in the past. Interesting is that Chromatrix sells licenses for DSA-based games on cellular phones (which we call “Handys” here in Germany) - with some success, it seems.
Well, enough rambling, that is just my very personal point of view. No-one stops you from not agreeing with me. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
Alrik.
