The CRPG Book Project needs Arkania Reviews

[Arhu]

Well met, folks!

Felipe Pepe is still looking for contributors to his CRPG Book Project. In particular, he's still looking for people who can write reviews about the Realms of Arkania trilogy. Where better than to ask here?

The book will be available for free as a PDF and is 50% finished with 200 pages (preview). It also includes or will include reviews by known developers like Chris Avellone, Warren Spector, Tim Cain and others.

The CRPG Book Project is a collaborative, nonprofit project that aims to compile the history of Computer
Role-Playing Games into a handy book. The entire project is being written by fans from all over the world, who pool
together their knowledge about modern hits, great classics and obscure titles alike to create a guide to CRPGs that
will offer something to both old-school veterans and new players.

- CRPG Book Preview with 200 pages (PDF)
- CRPG Book Project Website
- List of Games and assignments


If you're interested in writing about the Realms of Arkania games, simply contact Felipe via crpgbook@gmail.com.
The list shows Blade of Destiny as assigned, but he told me that the trilogy still needs reviewers. Due to page count constraints, RoA1 and RoA2 get two pages each while Shadows over Riva can be mentioned in the review for RoA2.

Hope you guys can help out!

If RoA isn't your thing (cough) you can write about lots of other games, too.

[Rabenaas]

Oh come on. Let's do this. Who's in?

[Alrik Alrikson]

Honestly, I would be tempted to contribute, especially when thinking of Chris Avellone and Tim Cain as fellow reviewers.
But as a matter of fact I really do not have the time to write a review (or parts of it) in a manner I would see fit. At least not before the end of this year...

PS: Speaking of time, until when is this review expected to be written?

[Rabenaas]

I understand the rule is one game for each article. Which one would that be? I am leaning sligthly towards Startrail.

[Hendrik]

So, no one wants to do this? Maybe we can join forces to make the task less overwhelming. We can discuss here what should go into the article and make a kind of outline.

An article about (any part of) the trilogy should contain:
- Roots in german P&P RPG: European-style P&P, more down-to-earth than D&D, very detailed world
- Detailed skill system
- Strong focus on exploring, not so much on combat
- Short history of Attic software
- Turn-based combat system + 3D exploration mode + Travel mode

For BoD, I would mention the cosy viking athmosphere, the freedom regarding the main quest, the many small towns, how it feels to travel Thorwals coasts, mountains and rivers, ...

For Startrail, I would mention the tough wilderness (starving to death or just dying of an unmedicated cold is really easy), the athmosphere of travelling throug a partially occupied country in the middle of a war, the different athmosphere in the different locations (cities & dungeons), ...

For Riva, I would mention the foggy, somewhat eerie and bleak feeling of the city, darker athmosphere (lots of black magic, forbidden experiments and undead), lack of travel mode (in contrast to part 1/2), ...

[Borbaradwurm]

An article about (any part of) the trilogy should contain:

What I think any article about Blade of Destiny must contain in order to be taken seriously at all is that the German version of the game was released in early 1992 (April) and the English localization would not come out until mid 1993 (June), that's more than a whole year later. This resulted in a lot of unfavorable English language reviews.

[Rabenaas]

All good points. But don't forget about the music score. It's still first rate. And party splitting is rare. Seems like RoA has a following outside Germany, probably because it's so close to the p&p original. I've yet to see such a faithful implementation of the D&D ruleset. Maybe we can hijack a page in the BrightEyes Wiki for collaboration on the document?

[Alrik Alrikson]

[...] Maybe we can hijack a page in the BrightEyes Wiki for collaboration on the document?

Sounds good to me. I think when three or four people collaborate the review might actually come true (and be more balanced as well).

[Rabenaas]

BoD is already taken. Riva seems not to be listed. Somebody should contact the editor about Trail imho.

http://www.bright-eyes.obiwahn.de/index...._-_Artikel

[felipepepe]

Hi, I'm Felipe the editor, thanks Arhu for posting about the book here, and to everyone who got interested.

The guy who was going to write about BoD was too busy and gave up, so now the entire trilogy is available. You guys are the expert on these games, so how can we best write about them? I have a limited number of pages, so I can't give each game a 2-page review. What I propose is this:

One 4600 characters article about BoD, plus two 2300 characters articles about the other two games.

I know Star Trail is considered the best by many players, so if you guys feel it's really needed, I can make both BoD and ST 4600 characters reviews, but Rivia would still be a 2300 one.

What you guys say?

Regarding deadlines, I would need the review finished in about 40-60 days. I already have some quotes from Guido Henkel about the game I would like to use, but feel free to sugest more, or share some cool .png screenshots as well. My e-mail is crpgbook@gmail.com

[Rabenaas]

Hi felipepepe ,

that is a nice project you have. Your suggestion amounts to two pages for RoA and one for each other? Should be fine and could be done in a month or two.
Put the quotes on the temporary wiki page if you like, so everyone can chime in who has an account.

[felipepepe]

Your suggestion amounts to two pages for RoA and one for each other? Should be fine and could be done in a month or two.
Put the quotes on the temporary wiki page if you like, so everyone can chime in who has an account.

No, I meant two pages for Blade of Destiny, two for Star Trail and one for Shadows over Rivia. Is this confusing?

Anyway, I couldn't understand the wiki's interface in German, so I'll just post the quotes I found interesting here:

“The area where these games truly excelled, in my opinion, was the micromanagement of characters. I know, it sounds bad, but for many players this is what they were looking forward to. We wanted to make the most hardcore RPG out there, and I think we succeeded, all the way down to making sure players were feeding their characters on a regular schedule. Naturally, this kind of level of detail did not sit well with everyone. Many players and reviewers criticized the games for having too many minutiae in them to keep track of.”

“I have always felt that real-time combat in a party based game is not only unrealistic but also extremely limiting. The beauty of role-playing is that you let your imagination go wild - if you force the player to revert to reflexive H*cking and slashing, you are, in a way, defeating the purpose of RPGs. I prefer to take my time, appraise a situation and make tactical decisions.”

“These were niche products. It is easy to glorify these games in retrospect with nostalgic glasses on, but the fact of the matter is that compared to many other games and genres, games like Star Trail simply did not nearly make as much money. As a result publishers turned their backs on these kinds of hardcore games and instead went down the path of streamlined mainstream products, especially since Baldur’s Gate proved very clearly at the time that there is a market for light role-playing games.”

These are all from Guido Henkel, in this interview: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8620

“Many of today’s games are like fast-food. They are slick, simple, fast and pretty, but they have very little substance. The moment you finished your burger, you forget about it. Games like the Realms of Arkania trilogy operated on a different level, partially because they were very unforgiving and because they forced you to pay attention. It’s not that the games were unfairly harsh, but if you made a bad decision, you would suffer the consequences eventually.”

This one is also from Guido and came from this interview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/...ethermore/

I would like to feature a quote from Hans-Jürgen Brändle, since he was the director of these games, but I found no interview with him. :/

[Rabenaas]

Wow, these are some great quotes.

I've started to write a little. Everybody feel free to correct and improve.

[HenneNWH]

I would be happy to support this article with some internals and technical details about BoD,
since I am literally at the source.

In this context I'd like to get BrightEyes mentioned, a reverse-engineered rewrite of the BoD engine.
Progress is going fast toward the end (~15% of the binary code needs to be rewritten).

@felipepepe: I'm speechless to see such a complete list of crpg-reviews of my "youth memories" gathered in one book.
Thanks a lot.
I've missed only the following games: "return of medusa", and (I know it is an arcade game, but) "Gauntlet".

P.S.:It would also be nice to mention GemRB (Infinity engine rewrite for Baldurs Gate I+II, Icewind Dale I+II and Planescape Torment)

[Rabenaas]

Citing a maker of sports apparel: Just do it.

Later we can bring the different parts together and make everything fit.

[Borbaradwurm]

Since my account on the wiki doesnt work at the moment (when I try to log in, I get thrown back to the main page, my IP address shows up where my username is suppost to be, log in failed with no error message of any kind) I post some comments:
- The Eye of the Beholder (sewers of waterdeep) was first released in 1991 (MS-DOS and Amiga versions), it's not a 1992 game.
- the correct German trademark for The Dark Eye is "Das Schwarze Auge" (note the capital S)
- the correct name is Attic Entertainment Software, commonly shortend to Attic not Attic Entertainment.
- don't like "chiefdom" as a description of the political system of Thorwal
- "Travels by land and sea take place on a map of Arkania‘s northern coastline" > "Travels take place on a regional map of southern Thorwal." it's more specific, and by the way it would be Arkania's/Aventurias western coastline.
- Never heard/read the title shortend to Blade (aside from BLADE.BAT maybe) seen it shortend to RoA1 plenty of times though.

Stuff to add:
- German vs English language release date
- first person view in RoA1 is pseudo 3D, while RoA2 and RoA3 is real 3D
- The games are based on an early version of the third edition of The Dark Eye (which was released between 1992-1994, the magic rules were not finalized until 1994)
- It should be noted that the English language trademark changed from Realms of Arkania (the three DOS games and three translated novels, 1993-1997) to The Dark Eye (since 2003 starting with the English 4th Edition p&p release)

[Rabenaas]

- The Eye of the Beholder (sewers of waterdeep) was first released in 1991 (MS-DOS and Amiga versions), it's not a 1992 game.

Yeah, I know. Originally this was a reference Wizardry6, but I was not sure how many players know the name "Guardia". Anyway, this is just introductory fluff to point out what was the state of the art in '92. I'll just leave it there for somebody to improve.

- don't like "chiefdom" as a description of the political system of Thorwal

Can be changed as you see fit.

- "Travels by land and sea take place on a map of Arkania‘s northern coastline" > "Travels take place on a regional map of southern Thorwal." it's more specific, and by the way it would be Arkania's/Aventurias western coastline.

Come on, give me some artistic license. It's written this way to make clear the scenario is somewhat northern-ish. I'm not convinced most readers would appreciate it being too specific. That's just my two cents.

Stuff to add:

Will be done unless Obi repairs your account sometime soon.

[felipepepe]

- German vs English language release date
- The games are based on an early version of the third edition of The Dark Eye (which was released between 1992-1994, the magic rules were not finalized until 1994)

Cool trivia, if there's no place to it in the main review body I can add them as side-notes.

- It should be noted that the English language trademark changed from Realms of Arkania (the three DOS games and three translated novels, 1993-1997) to The Dark Eye (since 2003 starting with the English 4th Edition p&p release)

This makes more sense to be mentioned as a side-note in the Drakensang review.

[Arhu]

Guys, I'm glad I came to the right place and you're busy writing.

If you know of other such forums specific to certain games that aren't assigned yet, feel free to go ahead and showcase the CRPG Book. felipepepe already spread the word in most big communities and what's left is to contact individual sites or people.

[Rabenaas]

Btw, I could use some help there. Especially on the gameplay und reverse engineering aspects.