Piranha Bytes RPG teaser site

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Hey, if it means more individual creatures or other models, I'm all for recycling the same model for women. XD

[mkreku]

This is their first game even featuring women, give them a break! :D

 

Seriously though, I think I screwed up my character by going to the bandits. I met this magic dude last night that helped me through a mission and he was cutting through our enemies like a warm knife through butter! My measly sword (that gets blocked like 90% of the time anyhow) felt like a toothpick in comparison.

 

I'm in Chapter 2 now at least.

[HoonDing]

Don't all games use the same model for women?

 

I'm planning to play as a mage. It better be as overpowered as in Gothic 3, but take equally as long to develop. Summoning demons - hell yes!

Edited October 6, 2009 by virumor

[Maria Caliban]

This is their first game even featuring women, give them a break! :D

 

That's scary.

 

How do you forge a sharp bastard sword? All I'm getting is the regular sharp sword.

 

 

Don't all games use the same model for women?

 

I'm talking about the face. I've finally entered harbor town and have found more faces though.

[mkreku]

How do you forge a sharp bastard sword? All I'm getting is the regular sharp sword.

You need smithing at level 2 and then you bring 10 iron ore to the smithy. Offer them to him and choose a bastard sword.. thingie (forgot the name of the unworked metal). It's only the initial metal thingie that's different.

 

Tiny spoiler:

 

If you explore thoroughly, you can actually find more exciting stuff to forge!

 

 

Big spoiler:

 

I found two broken unique swords so far, one bastard sword called Storm..something, and a two-handed sword called Soul..something. I have to check the names when I get back from work. Anyhow, you can forge them back together when/if you find the pieces.

 

[Oner]

This is their first game even featuring women, give them a break! :D

There were women in every Gothic game.

[mkreku]

Technically, yes. But this is their first game with female characters. You know, with roles, voice actors, full animation sets, etc.

 

It seems they've used the same system for male models as with female models when it comes to visible equipment and such. All characters have their weapons on their backs and it looks OK for a male character. But since the upper torso of the female model is so much smaller than the male equivalent, the weapons on female backs hangs in mid-air, 30 centimetres from their bodies. It looks awful.

[Nightshape]

mkreku, if there is one thing everyone should agree on, Risen looks awful.

 

I do like the godray system they have in place though.

[H]

Risen looks awful.

No.

 

EDIT: Well, the 360 version does.

Edited October 6, 2009 by H

[Masterfade]

Risen's graphics engine is fine, its assets aren't.

Edited October 6, 2009 by Masterfade

[mkreku]

I don't think Risen looks awful either. In fact, I think the gameworld looks fine (except for the low poly cliffs and the slightly weird water) and the world design is top notch as usual. It's only in the character models/certain animations you can see that Piranha Bytes isn't a 150 man team like Crytek.

 

Overall I think Risen looks good. Sometimes even great.

 

By the way, am I the one only loving how when a wolf strafes really fast around you and you kill it in motion, its lifeless carcass tumbles around like a sack of potatoes? RPG's need more physics like this! My dream is to some day get a RPG where a fireball is actually capable of inflicting enormous damage, like breaking trees in a forest and blowing holes in walls. Perhaps a RPG using the Frostbite engine?

[Pidesco]

So, the Codex tells me Risen is really, really short. Apparently it turns into a linear hack and slash fest from the second chapter onward. Like Lionheart?

 

How's the second chapter treating you mkreku?

[Slowtrain]

SHort is the name of the game these days. Can't really blame developers for taking advatnage of the fact that people are willing to pay the same amount of money for games that are 1/20th the length they were a few years ago.

 

I'm waiting for some upcoming version of Halo that costs your standard exorbiant XBOX 360 price and has about 20 minutes of gameplay. And sells 20 million copies.

[mkreku]

I've just entered the second chapter yesterday, but I did notice that the amount of quests available to me had diminished significantly. Of course, I've done probably close to a hundred of them already.. I will see if it turns linear or not after work when I can get some more playtime in.

 

I must add, though, that the quests I've done have been varied and fun at least (I especially liked the Patty quest line). It's a pity if I'm all out of them already.

[Slowtrain]

Maybe I'll wait and see how your game turns out in the end before I decide whether to buy it now or later.

 

Too many games start out great but wear out quickly.

[Nightshape]

I don't think Risen looks awful either. In fact, I think the gameworld looks fine (except for the low poly cliffs and the slightly weird water) and the world design is top notch as usual. It's only in the character models/certain animations you can see that Piranha Bytes isn't a 150 man team like Crytek.

 

Overall I think Risen looks good. Sometimes even great.

 

By the way, am I the one only loving how when a wolf strafes really fast around you and you kill it in motion, its lifeless carcass tumbles around like a sack of potatoes? RPG's need more physics like this! My dream is to some day get a RPG where a fireball is actually capable of inflicting enormous damage, like breaking trees in a forest and blowing holes in walls. Perhaps a RPG using the Frostbite engine?

 

Risen's tech is fairly basic, and certainly the 360 version looks worse than the PC version, kinda expected as much, but all the same it's not that far beyond Gothic 3, it's fine, and does the job, weighing up the result to performance. It's not bleeding edge.

 

And as you note the character art, and I could even say the art in general, isn't top notch. The word i would use to describe what I see is servicable, with the occasional nice touch. I believe it's a great achievement for a small team.

 

On another note, Frostbite does most of it's destruction via basic mesh swopping (to be blunt, it's crap, smoke an mirror's which seem's awesome because most people haven't seen anything all that much better), Red Faction's engine would actually provide better results, I'd certainly like to see what you're mentioning in an RPG, I don't think there are enough FPS's out there prooving good destruction tech yet. 4-5 years though and I imagine it'll be a common feature in RPG's.

 

That said Diablo 3 looks to be doing some interesting stuff.

[Pidesco]

Obsidian doing an RPG with something akin to Silent Storm's engine would be nice.

[vault_overseer]

All this Risen talk got me really interested in the game, so I downloaded the demo at work yesterday, installed it, tried to run it and instantly remembered why I got the 360 in the first place. It crashed on launch and I had to go download some drivers, install them, restart the pc, blah blah blah.

 

I might download it for 360 and give it a try, but I'm not holding my breath.

[vault_overseer]

Umm yeah, the difference is staggering

[Maria Caliban]

I'm still in Chapter 1. I did 3 harbor quests for the Order and 4 for the Don, and just became a hunter. I've focused on the secondary skills (gutting, prospecting, smithing, pickpocketing, lockpicking, sneaking) and have a strength of 50 and a bastard sword I made (thank you mkreku). After I get lockpicking to 3, I'm going to focus on sword fighting as I want to wield my bastard sword with a shield

 

...Risen looks awful.

 

Um. No.

Edited October 6, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Wrath of Dagon]

Umm yeah, the difference is staggering

That actually doesn't look half bad. Reassures me atout getting the 360 version.

[Maria Caliban]

Okay.. traps. How do I not get myself killed by giant spikes that spring out of the ground?

 

Anyways, from a website: "Not only magazine outside Germany struggle with some fundamental design concepts of RISEN, which are so different from mainstream RPGs like Bethesda's Oblivion."

 

How are the fundamental design concept of Risen so different from Oblivion? It's more story-based, but it feels very much like a mainstream RPG.

Edited October 7, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Gorth]

Maybe you can get killed in Risen?

[Slowtrain]

No extremely fragile exploding cars?

[Maria Caliban]

I'm in Chapter 2 now and for some reason I failed a quest to tell Flitcher about a temple. Annoying.

 

Most interesting bug so far:

Recruit: "Can you help me? My friend Kryeban was searching for plants and he disappeared."

Conversation ends and recruit begins chatting with Kryeban, who's sitting beside him.

 

Maybe you can get killed in Risen?

 

I died in Oblivion.