Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Latest News RUSSIAN presentation of the game @ Gamescom

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