Anyone Playing Dragonshard? Any opinions on it?

[Hill-Shatar]

I have been playing Dragonshard for a few hours now, and I have made it to chapter four. Is anyone else currently playing the game?

So far I have noticed that this game has some distinct features, I guess you could say. Downloading it took you to a different screen then your typical Install Wizard one, the graphics are interesting on the menu and the like...

I have found that the load times are terribly slow. I could wait upwards thirty seconds-minute for some of these maps to load. Given, they do have some nice scenery to them that Warcraft didn't have, and an extra layer of realness to it, with trees that looked more like trees and Humans with actual chins, but Warcraft maps were huge. I found these ones sort of small, although it was nice to have another layer to play on. I wish they coul;d have allowed you to take soldiers with you, however, instead of having them 'absorbed' into the hero.

Back to load times, I am currently using a computer that was above the Minimum Requirements, yet I had 512MB DDR SDRAM memory, instead of what they recommended, with almost double. If you force gets large enough, to perhaps 150 people (including soldiers) the game begins to slow a bit during conflict. Not that that is bad, it does give you some time to micromanage, but I would have prefered to be able to do that of my own free will. Loading saved games also takes quite the time as well.

Another thing I have noticed so far is the remarkable limit put on buildings. You can only build on the plots given to you, and if you want your captains, leaders of squads, to be highg level, you have to group an entire block of these together. If you got more space or could build a little more freely, I could be fine, but the 16 plots they give you, with perhaps one or two expansions of 4 blocks, and about a dozen different types of buildings, not to mention the four types of monuments available to upgrade your troops ina special area that takes up a space, making a base can be haphazard, frequently forcing you to choose some favorites or go into battle with a diverse but weak force. If your going to play this game, you have to choose what kind of fighter you are.

For example, I use clerics and rangers very often in this game, yet I use barbarians very little. This I still find better than warcraft. More diverse buildings, more types of powerups, but much more units can be run on the field by you at the same time in this game. If Warcraft ever wnet up to a pop cap of maybe 200, then I would consider which is better.

They did market this game as building little and fight much, so I guess I should have expected it, but I guess I was expecting a little more from the buildings. Also, all your bases, or nexus', are surrounded by walls, usually fairly weak, that you have to defend your nexus, with some small towers built in. Considering that I stampeded over some of these bases, I don't feel safe leaving mine behind without at least a good force of people still there.

You have no 'civilians' in a sense, and so far I have no encountered a large group of NPCs. Then again, you are starting off by going into the wilds a bit, but come now, I would enjoy some more people. Beasts are not a trouble though... frequently you will see birds and monkey's everywhere, so that was interesting.

The tutorial is slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. It deserved that many o's. I must have spent a couple of hours just sitting to him slowly drone on about the importance of moving the camera and the five ways you can do that, with healthy pauses in between so that you can try it out repeatedly. It is almost worth just jumping into the game... the last three turorials were much more useful then the first three. One of them almost entirely revolved around using the Attack-Move option, which took up about ten minutes.

This game was obviously made to be centered heavily around combat. You have squads who protect the captains, and will always die before that person gets in danger, and you have the captains try to put themselves in the way of danger for the Juggernauts and Heroes of the game. I have to admit, the game is a little confusing at first, but you tend to sit down well to it eventually. The spells are varied, and you get a variety of powers from each character, up to three total each. I typically enjoy area effect and passive abilities, mostly because I have problems micromanaging overly much. Luckily, you get some help with the same autocast feature from the Warcraft Series, the same ability for control groups, and many other features that make it more bearable. One thing that was nice in this way, is the same as the following example; In Warcraft, you would have three fully powered up Shamans and they would cast Lightning Shield on each other while fighting somewhat meagerly. However, in this game, you have several fully powered up Clerics, and you have a force that can deal a fair amount of damage (about the same HP all around for Warcraft, but I think 35 damage is better than 9) while healing, and even ressurecting each other, another perk to the game. Instead of the heroes getting all the good powers and the rest getting wimp powers (well, most of the time) in Warcraft, you actually have characters that can do a fair bit of damage themselves, and have some good abilities. Heroes can no longer play along easily. You have to bring the others.

Heroes no longer level up, as they are powerful enough, and neither do the hugely powerful Juggernauts. The other units do, however, level up to level five. Each level grants that Captains the ability to lead another soldier, up to four, unless you use a special item to up it to six, as I once did. Along this way, the Captain also gains new powers, and at the end, they have three powers, two of which were upgraded at one of the levels. Cure lights wounds, for example, at level three, will become Cure Critical Wounds.

You have no resource gatherers. Your resource gatherers are your heroes, your captains, and your soldiers. You basically have 3 resources to gather. No, not wood, or meat. Yes, gold, but also mythical magical items called Dragonshards and EXP. All three have heavy uses, and guess what? Most are natural and come back after use! The Dragonshards regularily fall in Shardstorms, so you can go out and pick them up while going around the map. gold comes in chests, in piles, or off of dead enemies/monsters. Also, gold comes in through taxation per second, meaning that the more buildings you have, the more gold you get, and the faster you get it. EXP you gain from completing quests, defeating enemies, ect. It is mainly used for upgrading your units to the next level, from what I have seen thus far.

Also, NPC interaction and intercharacter relationships are a little better then in Warcraft. You have actual scenes, instead of the character running around, with it's portrait speaking in the bottom and the words beside it. They often move fairly differently the normal, and there is more emotions, ect, on both the characters bodies and faces and in their voices. Also, you have a remarkable amount of NPCs that you can get quests from and speak to fairly deeply for an RTS/RPG hybrid, including the Old Mage, your teacher, along with the ever so slow narrator, who is basically this game's version of the profit. Not that he forsees anything, just that he pops in and out, teaching you things and disapearing.

On quests, you get a great many compared to the few you used to get in Warcraft. Scrolling down the list, you have main quests and Optional quests, then they go down to the actual quests, and then, sub quests, to finish that quest. There are a great many different quests, and like in Warcraft, if you complete optional ones, it can make the Main Quest a little easier.

I apologize for my bad typing, as it is late. I would rate this game above mediocre this far, giving it solid seven or eight out often. It has it's good parts, and many little quirks to it that make the game worth it, something that is often left out now. Is it as good as Warcraft? In my opinion, no. Would I get it? Depends if you are into RTS or D&D that much. I am enjoying myself so far, but we'll see.

[Lord Mage]

I am

I Have been playing it for 4 days now but there is a problem with mine i can't see the characters they are invisible (I don't mean just the rouges every one is invisable) any ideas how to fix this? Over all I it is a good game but it is hard to statigize with invisibale characters.

[Hill-Shatar]

Perhaps you should make a new thread on it? It would attract more attention to your problem then having it at the bottom of a rather long winded post.

[Patrick]

I wonder about this game since I have seen no demo's but wanted to wait for the price to fall a little before buying. But is it a stratagy game like arcraft or is it plot linear like BG or IceWind? What is the depth of chartor creation and any clue on max levels? What have you come to figure about this so far Hill-

[swcarter]

It's a real-time strategy game with barely any role-playing elements. Concepts like character creation and max level don't apply.

SWC

[Hill-Shatar]

[QUOTE=swcarter]It's a real-time strategy game with barely any role-playing elements. Concepts like character creation and max level don't apply.

SWC[/QUOTE]

Not to the hero you are using. The other units, as mentioned in the post above, reach a maximum level of five. Basically, it's just for an HP and Mana increase and a new/upgraded power a level.

If your looking for an RPG/RTS hybrid, this one barely cut it. In fact, I've been getting into the game, expecting more, and to tell you the truth... I'm not enjoying it that much. It's got it's perks, but I'll stick with Warcraft for a favorite in the RTS section for now.