Arcania: A Gothic Tale

[Nightshape]

Post-processing is basically real-time image processing, so stuff like HDR, colour grading, motion blur etc... Are all post processes that occur on the image.

 

It's an alteration to the frame buffer after the scene has been rendered, so disabling post processing is basically viewing the rendering without an additional tampering. Merely lighting + texture art.

 

That said it doesn't look like they're doing much with it... Seems like an ugly game period.

Edited September 26, 2010 by Nightshape

[HoonDing]

Well, I've played & finished the demo and liked it. No complaints about the voice acting, really, I've heard much worse. It sounded like the main hero was voiced by Alistair from DA:O.

 

Melee combat is terrible, though, and seems to be trumped by ranged combat completed. I could easily defeat any melee enemies by simply backtracking and sniping them in the head. The magic seemed fun & useful.

 

As long as not much of the Forsaken Gods nonsense is used in the game, it should be alright.

[Morgoth]

Anybody else thinks this game lacks soul?

[Lexx]

Finished the demo today. Not really impressed by it, will not buy nor play it otherwise. Risen > Gothic 4 in every game element.

[LadyCrimson]

I'm finally playing the demo and for me the game runs best with post-processing off. Anyone know what this option does, exactly? It seems to impact the look of the game quite a lot.

What post-processing setting are you talking about? Unchecking a lot of the options in that big 'Video' list, or something else?

 

That said it doesn't look like they're doing much with it... Seems like an ugly game period.

I wouldn't call it ugly...it's just very generic. And in the demo at least, the color scheme feels monotonous to the eye. For an RPG (vs shooter) with the usual tons of distant & close green foliage scenery - that rarely looks super-great in any game, anyway, imo - it doesn't look terrible while moving in-game. But definitely not very interesting.

Anybody else thinks this game lacks soul?

I think it's hard to say based on a short demo. Which is one reason I don't usually do demos. They're enough to judge certain things with but there's lots of games where it took me a long time of not giving up on it before I became really enamored with it.

Edited September 26, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[HoonDing]

I'm finally playing the demo and for me the game runs best with post-processing off. Anyone know what this option does, exactly? It seems to impact the look of the game quite a lot.

What post-processing setting are you talking about? Unchecking a lot of the options in that big 'Video' list, or something else?

The post-processing option in advanced settings.

 

Strangely enough, unchecking this option when using the European colour palette, makes it look almost exactly like the American colour palette.

[LadyCrimson]

The post-processing option in advanced settings.

 

Strangely enough, unchecking this option when using the European colour palette, makes it look almost exactly like the American colour palette.

Ah, there it is, thanks. .... yeah, it does make European look more like the American. I don't know what it's doing technically, but to me the post-processing visually comes off as = combo of saturation control and contrast control. It doesn't seem to affect things like sun glare, for instance, since that's a separate setting. Here's a couple more comparison shots. Just for disclosure, I have it set to European but also used the 'saturation' slider to boost color a bit more than the default 'European'. (click thumbs for full size)

 

 

 

Something else I noticed, is if you have the shadows on "Ultra" & stare at them on the ground, they "tick" rapidly as they move w/the sun. eg, it looks jerky. Didn't notice if it's true on High shadows, maybe it did & I didn't observe. It's weird/distracting tho.

 

Also...why is a sheep following me everywhere?

[HoonDing]

Also...why is a sheep following me everywhere?

Well, the main character is a shepherd. I killed it, but if you lead it back where you start the game, it will stay with the other sheep.

[LadyCrimson]

I was wondering if it was something like that. Kinda cute. Wonder if monsters will attack it. Think I'll go find out.

[taviow]

I've been hearing reports of some anti virus programs detecting Vundo trojan in the demo. What do you guys think of this?

[mkreku]

That some anti virus programs are broken.

[Tigranes]

OK, I just tried the demo. Not as bad as I thought but god, it runs so badly on my system - it's surprising, as everyone has been saying it runs very well and performance is not a problem.

 

My laptop has a Dual Core P7350 (2ghz), GeForce 9600m GT 512mb, 3gb ram - not the best, but pretty good for a laptop and ran DA:O, Alpha Protocol, Risen, etc. just fine on high settings. Are the superhigh system requirements for real, then? The game certainly doesn't look good enough on high settings to justify it. I seem to get 10fps at lowest settings, 5fps at highest. Even 20 would be just fine with me, but Gothic style combat is just not fun at that level.

 

Otherwise, I expected the worst and... I don't think it'll be a good game, but might be a decent romp. Ability to deselect the silhouettes and markers and such is a big plus, and voice acting / dialogue is actually okayish in places - it's just that it descends into idiocy a few times. Combat was too easy, but hopefully in the full game it will be fairly simple to mod damage values? I'll have to play a bit more and see if I can get it to run better, but I suspect things like invisible walls and quest design, as well as stealing without consequence, will suck a lot of fun out.

[HoonDing]

The game seems CPU bound. I have a quad-core Phenom 9500 2.2 Ghz and it runs on about ~30 fps on high settings. Changing video settings barely does anything to the framerate.

 

I think sub-par writing & voice acting actually work in games like this, where most people you talk to are peasants, soldiers & other mercenaries... they should sound awkward & boorish rather than talk Shakespeare. The same goes for Two Worlds & the Gothic games.

 

Though I heard that the German voice-over in Two Worlds & Arcania is actually pretty good.

Edited October 1, 2010 by virumor

[Tigranes]

Ouch, if graphics were the ceiling I could try and fiddle, but I don't really know what you can do with a CPU ceiling - anybody have any tips? I guess i'll defrag & delete crap off HD to fool myself that it's helped.

 

edit: wow, 99.8gb of movies I accidentally recorded through Fraps while LP'ing Icewind Dale.

[LadyCrimson]

Are the superhigh system requirements for real, then?

The readme says dual core 2.8ghz minimum so maybe that's part of the problem. I've seen posts of people using dual core 3.0ghz that say it runs ok.

 

The game seems CPU bound. I have a quad-core Phenom 9500 2.2 Ghz and it runs on about ~30 fps on high settings. Changing video settings barely does anything to the framerate.

Yeah, I noticed that too.

Edited October 1, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

I have a Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13ghz), 2GB Ram, GeForce GTX 260 (with 896mb) and the demo runs for me nearly smooth. Only at day with the sun beams, it stutters a little bit, but is still playable. I had all graphic settings to the max.

Edited October 1, 2010 by Lexx

[Hassat Hunter]

According to a gamereview I read (in a mag, not online, so more reliable) the demo-part is the best part of the game, it goes downwards from there.

 

So I am going to wait till a few of you guys got a run and gave us your reports about the full version...

[Labadal]

Or you could wait for the inevitable price crash. I'm guessing this game will be very cheap very fast. After replaying the demo I can safely say that I want to play the full game, but I'm not willing to pay very much.

[Lexx]

If the demo was the best part of the game, I don't want to see the rest of the game.

[Tigranes]

But then, maybe the said reviewers think all the village / marriage stuff was good, in a Fable sort of way. Hassat, do they give any reasons for the downhill?

[Hassat Hunter]

Well, that goes without saying. I buy very few games without a price-drop. I generally play them much later than anyone else (waiting for DA gold for example, or Akhum Asylum's price to drop...)

 

@ Tigranes: To sum it up:

* Linear boring and unbalanced progression (area per area, bad itemspread, nonsencial story and sidequests all of "fetch X of Y format")

* Lack of character-creation (3 spells for the entire game too)

* Conversations worse than Two Worlds.

 

So the conclusion was it's pretty avarage hack&slash due to the fighting system, but real RPG fans should seek elsewhere.

[Tigranes]

Yeah, I just finished the demo and the one thing I noticed is that magic is going to be really boring. Risen dumbed down magic but this is nothing in comparison.

 

The problem with combat is that you can't shimmy around while blocking, so the most effective way to fight is to just roll everywhere in really big animations, thus relying on auto-target to orient yourself, and then, because enemies are horrible at adjusting to this, hack slash hack slash. Enemy spellcasters are entirely useless as they take 5 seconds to cast their slow projectile spells; and finally many of the enemies seem lobotomised in that their attacks are languid and ponderous. You can strafe-shot wolves to death here - now compare that with Risen / Gothic wolves. And then it seems like levelling up doesn't really give you anything new to play with, you just get stronger. Level up is a joke - my football game is more RPGish than this.

 

Really disappointed, there are things in there which could end up being fun but I know I shouldn't waste my money on this.

[Hurlshort]

I really hope this being a bomb won't affect Risen 2.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I really hope this being a bomb won't affect Risen 2.

 

Like? Two separate developers, two separate publishers, two separate franchises. I don't see how this game failing could affect Risen 2 at all.

[Hurlshort]

I really hope this being a bomb won't affect Risen 2.

 

Like? Two separate developers, two separate publishers, two separate franchises. I don't see how this game failing could affect Risen 2 at all.

 

For some reason I thought the developers were tied together.