A behind closed doors presentation of Dragon Commander @ Gamescom surfaced today, courtesy of Kanobu.ru, a major Russian portal.

They approached it quite professionally & thoroughly, so it's definitely worth a look, especially if you want to hear how Farhang dubbed in Russian sounds

Go here to view the presentation.

Very nice footage.

I had the *wish* to hear Farhang dubbed in Russian sounds ...
... but I couldn't understand a word

Excellent presentation of the game, just what I was looking for. Thank you.

I think the presentation is good. I remembered about Mount&Blade.

The actual presenter is talking in English - would it be possible to get a version of this video without the Russian dub?

EDIT: Wait - I have the feeling that I've ALREADY seen this presentation before.

just what I was looking for. Thank you.

Hmmm? Thats not a very interactive command ship, if they only way you are going to navigate it is with a menu which lets you choose which room you want to go to. What would have been impressive would have been a full interactive command ship which let you walk the corridors and interact with people like the Normandy in Mass Effect.

Also a avatar character creator like the one in EVE Online really sets the standard for modern games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOA8am-6kwA

That was an early version of the game being shown in the presentation, so the interface and design for the interior of The Raven were not necessarily finalized. Dragon Commander was initially prototyped/developed using the DKS engine, but it has since been moved to a new engine. There should be a video released by the end of the month, with more around E3, so we will eventually get another look at the interior of The Raven.

Blog post: What’s going on with Dragon Commander?


Do characters not wear armour in EVE Online? (don't know if it is all ship to ship combat) I went through the character customization options in DKS, but after you get your first helmet, IMO there isn't much difference based on your selections, other than voice.

In Dragon Commander the customization should be much more visible than in DKS, though, as you will not be fighting as a human (no need to be covered with armour) and dragon equipment should be more of an enhancement to the dragon form.


Welcome to the forum.

Honestly, I would be surprised if we ever actually saw the commander's face. I'm not sure that the game would be hurt if you never saw the Dragon Commander. Walking around would be nice, maybe, but if the only time you get to walk is around the ship, eventually you might get bored and just want to warp from room to room.

I think walking around the ship would be important to give the player a sense of place and, dare I say it, immersion. If it's just a glorified menu screen navigated by a disembodied entity (who is supposed to be the player character), I think there would be a disconnect. And so the incentive to roleplay would be diminished and the temptation to just min/max the system would increase.

Also, Dragon Knights are not full dragons. I think it would be... important... to show the Dragon Knight outside of combat in order to demonstrate that, well, they're not full dragons.

Though speaking of combat, I wouldn't mind if the Dragon Commander was not dragon-shaped all the time. Maybe when assaulting a rival's castle or something, the available space becomes too small for the dragon form to fit. Something like that.

Like the flying fortresses maybe ?

Btw, weren't we supposed to have some news about the game or am I wrong ?
(Where is the propaganda director when you need him ?)

I think it would be rather cheap to not ever see your characters face at all.

Also Has it been confirmed that you can be a male or a female yet I have a slight thought that it has but my memories out of whack today, anyway i doubt larian would limit our customization at simply our gender

They said they would look at the possibility of including an option on gender (with the added work that would involve with the dialogue and alignment system), but AFAIK have not announced anything definitive.

ah ok so its a possible that gender is a choice thats cool


i just realized they would have to do alot more work with adding princes

Those are some good points, I wouldn't object if you could walk around your flagship. They still could put in a Dragon Stone type menu to let you teleport to another part of the ship if you didn't feel like walking.

Fighting in human form sounds like it could be trickier to balance, and this game seems to be built around fighting in Dragon form. I'm not saying that it would be a bad thing, but that would be resources would need to be put into ground-based enemies, and raises more questions: would the human-form have stats and skills? Equipment? Each one of those things you say yes to would increase the amount of resources that would need to be spent on that area. I definitely wouldn't mind if combat was only in Dragon form.

What would be cool though is if you entered the combat arenas by taking a running leap off of your flagship and transforming.

Given all the dialogue apparently in the game, letting the player play a female and having to record lines for new Prince characters could be a nightmare.

Couldn't agree more.




Sadly true. Still, if the blog is to be believed, Larian may just be insanely devoted enough to do it.

(Also alternative lines for certain Princess characters. And alternative lines for certain Prince characters.)

I too would like there to be an option to play a female dragon knight but right now I find myself just wanting it to be released already

Mass effect was funded by Microsoft for the first game & EA for the second & third both are big companys. Larian is a small inderpendant company & they are funding the creation of DC themselfs so frankly I thing there attempts are admerable.

Larian, you know if you need some Multiplayer beta testers you have A LOT of volunteers

Indeed, very good suggestions because that would be very cool !!



Olala .. are they planning to include a nightmare mode difficulty

Please give us the option to choose between male or female character !! I'm begging you !!
IF not, I don't buy this game !!
.. don't think I can even resist to buy Dragon Commander on relaese date !!

You can walk around your battle tower in Divinity 2. I don't see how this can't be achieved in DC.

In all fairness, in Divinity 2 most of the fighting was done in human form anyway.

It looks like in Dragon Commander, most if not all of the fighting will be done in dragon form. Creating a seperate, customizable human form that only walks around on the Raven could therefore be considered an unnecessary, perhaps even a somewhat extravagant, expense. If you think of the fighting as the most important part of the gameplay, anyway.

That´s not a line of arguing I agree with, personally, but, you know, I guess it´s not completely invalid.

Dragon Commander is using the same game engine as project E, so a human avatar walking around wouldn't be as much extra work as if the engine was designed primarily for dragon combat. There may still be technical, artistic or design reasons not to have a human avatar, though.

Oh, I didn't know that. Welp, there goes that argument.

In my opinion is it really necessary to have a avatar for the human form since DC is MORE than fighting in dragon form only!!
In the Raven you must conversate with many NPC's and it would be stupid to NOT see you own character all the time walking & talking in the Raven and going to your sexy skeleton princess (with two big round bougies like apples so nice) to give her a kiss etc etc ...

DC has, besides RTS and TBS parts, also a RPG part and I believe this RPG part include & need a human avatar !
And to look at your human character shapeshifting into a dragon on a platform in a (kind of a) garden at the Raven will be fantastic cool !!

What do you think ?

I agree. As though that wasn't obvious already.

I wouldn't mind if you had the option to walk around your command ship - if they keep the instant-teleport ability of the Divinity 2 Dragon Stone. But I don't agree that it's a MUST HAVE feature.

Dragon Commander isn't an RPG. It's closer to a strategy game - a part where you disperse your military, and a part where you send your dragon into one of the zones for real-time dragon combat.

I do not said DC is a RPG, I said it has both, RPG and of course most of all strategy elements.

But I believe that it give more pleasure & fun to "see" you own hero(in) ingame ! I feel very sad to not know how my hero(in) look like playing a game! And 'for me' it gives me a very different feeling with or without an avatar !

Walking around in the Raven is more than only using the Dragon Stone, not ? And what about the conversations with NPC's ? Without an avatar ? Aaaarrggg ! Aahooee !! Down with that !!!

Only playing a pure puzzle game like the Mist games don't require a avatar (for me).

I dunno. It's a mash-up of genres. That one demo we've seen focused nearly as much on interacting with people aboard the Raven as it did the whole fighting thing.

Perhaps Larian will finally put the RPG in SRPG.

All right, let's say there's a ship you can walk around. Here are some things Larian would have to think about in that case:

How big is the ship?

If the ship is too small, it runs the risk of being unimpressive and pointless. If the ship is very large, that's resources you need to spend making corridors and rooms.


What would you do when wandering around the ship?

What can you interact with? Are you only there to look at the pretty ship? There's only so many times you can look at the inside of the ship/the pretty view before it stops impressing you. In Flames of Vengeance, How many times did you walk everywhere instead of using the teleporters? I'm sure you stopped walking at some point.

The only new unique elements that would keep changing would be maybe a few graphical changes as you get upgrades, and conversations between unimportant NPC crew members. (Important crew members would be found at destinations, not in the hallways.)

All right, so now there's a bunch of generic NPC's having conversations in the corridors of your ship, reacting to your decisions. That's more budget you need to spend on voice acting and less on other areas of the game. Larian's said repeatedly that this stuff is really expensive, and they're not a big AAA game company.

Yeah, it'd be great to have that, there's no question. But it's still all extra stuff which isn't part of the gameplay. It would have been great to leave Aleroth and wander the area outside in FoV. But they didn't have enough resources to do both the outside and the inside.

It's NEVER as simple as "the engine could support it, therefore that's a reason to have it in". Granted that the demo movie isn't likely to be reflective of the final game, but all the conversations with NPC's, the player had no human avatar at all. Almost all strategy games don't have a specific human avatar - the only one I can think of is Starcraft II.

At least there IS a room in the Raven looking at that screenshot of the Skeleton Princess in the bethroom

I played some RTS game a time ago (Settlers) and yeah, you've "The Settlers" as avatars, so more than 1 at the time and more important : different kind of "hero's" to choose during your playthough

And what about the Dragon combat ? You, the hero, are a Dragon Knight who fly and in the RTS part you can help destroy opponents ... so you can SEE yourself flying as a dragon ... Now MY logical mind is thinking:
why would I not SEE myself when I'm at the Raven in human form ?
I Can't believe I remain in dragon form while talking to a Skeleton Princess or other crew members ... and it's dangerous if I "accidentally" breath fire !
O noo, this may not happen !!


Just my thougths

Dragon Commander won't - as far as I can see/interpret it - have no levelling, therefore it won't be an RPG, imo.

It will, on the other hand, have dialogue where you will be able to adopt a certain personality that hasn't been completely defined for you, and which will have impact on how the game and possibly story develop.

You'll get the opportunity to, dare I say it, play a role.

That said, RPG has become a very nebulous term. Modern Castlevania games have levelling up of all kinds, but I wouldn't call them RPGs.

Please, for God sake, how many times I must say it again ??
Dragon Commander is a TBS - RTS - RPG - game, a very UNIQUE game concept whole the world must look at & buy this game !
DC will have RPG 'features' I guess, what will not absolutely means it must has also a leveling system. A RPG is more than leveling only imo, not?


Say that 'Willy' have said it to me and it will not cost you three times 500 goldcoints ... it only cost you a little part of your monthly salary and gives you instead a stunning fantastic funny time as reward ! Do not forget all of this, is that clear ?

Otherwise I send you all a big Jetpack,
With whom you can fly fast away & back
To a game shop to buy Dragon Commander !

Signed,
Joram & Willy, your marketing friend(s) for life !

"Modern" companies use exact this argument to label Brothers Of Duty games as "RPGs", too. I have seen in an interview shooter game devs calling shooters "rol playing games", because "you play a role there". That of a ... soldier, for example.

There's a thing like abusing of labels out there, too ...

Which element is served by letting you walk around the corridors of the ship?

Answer this: what would the player have to do when walking the corridors?

Having the sense that the Raven is a real place and not a static, soulless menu screen? Something that is worth spending time in and not some brief formality you have to hurry through before getting back to the real game?

Look, I wouldn't mind having a menu/map screen that allowed you to warp all over the place. The Battle Tower had that, too - you could walk to the door or you could use the stone.

But let me put it another way: if the player only has a real, 'solid' presence during combat, how would Dragon Commander be any different from Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires?

I get the sense Larian is shooting for a bit more here.

I really hope Dragon Commander has at least very strong TBS - RTS features to have big fun with !! And I'm sure DC also can carry the label 'TBS-RTS-RPG' as a new genre on it's own, thanks to the couragous work and the risk Larian Studios make with such a "NEW" unique genre !!

I believe Dragon Commander will have at least some RPG elements like :
"the fever to upgrade" your battleship and other battle units ...
"some Skills" for your units and yourself being a dragon ...
not to forget that nice looking upgrade, your Jetpack on your back !!
And sure I forget to mentioned (many) more rpg-wise features that plop up in the minds of the devs to try out to see if it fits Dragon Commander !

Maybe also some stats like offense/defense values, or the strength that give your units stronger attacks or the agility for faster attacks .... etc etc ...
I don't care if there's a real "level-up" system ... but upgrades gives in fact the same result imo !

I know I can not say DC is a 'RPG', no, it's a strategy game with turn based & real time combat with some roleplay elements ... I really wish to give all this the description :

Dragon Commander will be a strategic game in which you play your own story