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Divinity: Dragon Commander |OT| The political RTS/TBS/RPG/Action game

D

Durante

Member
header5qpvv.jpg


Name: Divinity: Dragon Commander
Developer: Larian Studios
Release Date: 2013-08-06 (2013-08-19 for the physical version)
Genre: RTS, TBS, RPG and Dragon Action. Also cards.
Price: 39.99€ - That's basically highway robbery!
Buy it at the Larian Vault, DRM free and with a Steam key!
(Or on Steam if you have to)

For all the information you ever wanted about the game, visit the...
Official Website
or watch...
The unusually informative launch trailer

But really, what you want to know is...
Why should you buy this?

- It's a unique mixture of gameplay styles and elements.
  • At the top level, interact with your aides and other nations in a RPG-like fashion, with choices, consequences, political intrigue and all that great stuff. Also amazing Larian dialogue.
  • On the strategic map, play a turn-based Risk-like game of land control. Also use cards to enhance your lands or units, or cause special effects.
  • The manual battle resolution mode is a beautiful fast-paced RTS with land, sea and air units. The resource mechanic is based on point control (like e.g. in the Warhammer 40k RTS titles).
  • On top of that, you can directly intervene in battles as a dragon, with a set of active and passive skills, and a jetpack. That's right, you are a dragon, a commander, and you have a jetpack.

- It has surprisingly good production values.
  • The art is fantastic, and it's well integrated in the game.
  • The strategic map style (you are basically moving wooden miniatures around on a pencil-shaded map) works really well.
  • It had a relatively long beta phase with tons of participants, and is more tested and polished than you might expect.
  • It has music by Kirill Pokrovsky. Fuck yeah.

- It's a real PC game.
  • You can enter names for save files. With your keyboard.
  • Graphics (and general) options up the wazoo.
  • Game design like it's 1999, with multiple complex interacting systems.
  • You can play on your fucking LAN. You heard right, a local area network. No cloud required. How is this even possible?

- Larian are awesome.
  • Steamworks support over all distribution channels, but always entirely optional.
  • All copies are DRM free.
  • Doing the indie PC developer thing since before it was cool.
  • Watch this. It's not just a disc, it's not just a game, it's an entire box!

I made 4 categories with 4 points each, if you are still not convinced I will add 4 screenshots. Also, the game features 4 gameplay types. I started working on this thread at 4 in the afternoon. You should buy 4 copies.

Media
DC_0035.jpg

DC_0025.jpg

DC_0033.jpg

DC_0030.jpg
Click to expand...

The unusually informative launch trailer

General trailers:
Official Trailer
Interactive Politics
Let's Play with Swen Vincke

Multiplayer casts:
Trailer for the match
Dragons at work
The Match

In case you are still reading and haven't bought the game, you also get some free goodies for preordering. Now run!
 
F

Fragamemnon

Member
The let's play video is a must watch. People who liked the kind of hybridized games of the PC back in the late 1990s should really take notice.

I preordered already. Everything about the game looks fantastic.
 
D

Durante

Member
Fragamemnon said:
The let's play video is a must watch. People who liked the kind of hybridized games of the PC back in the late 1990s should really take notice.

I preordered already. Everything about the game looks fantastic.
Click to expand...
Totally. To top it all off, the let's play video has Swen Vincke, my secret game industry crush.

I can only imagine the small number of replies in this thread so far is because everyone is frantically searching for their credit card.
 
D

Durante

Member
gazele said:
Sounds really cool
Click to expand...
It's what many here on GAF including me always claim they really want: unique gameplay, not a rehash, competitively priced, DRM free.

Of course, it's not a next-gen console exclusive, another entry in a popular franchise, or easily categorized into a single popular genre and it doesn't have a multi-million dollar marketing campaign behind it so there's basically 0 hype. Philistines.
 
F

Fragamemnon

Member
Durante said:
Of course, it's not a next-gen console exclusive, another entry in a popular franchise, or easily categorized into a single popular genre and it doesn't have a multi-million dollar marketing campaign behind it so there's basically 0 hype. Philistines.
Click to expand...

Yep. Maybe if the dragon was injured and needed to escape from a treacherous tropical island with a zombie outbreak this game would get more attention.
 
D

Durante

Member
Fragamemnon said:
Yep. Maybe if the dragon was injured and needed to escape from a treacherous tropical island with a zombie outbreak this game would get more attention.
Click to expand...
Or maybe they should have made the Dragon female and then you'd want to protect it.

Or license a franchise. Breath of Fire 6: Dragon Commander, anyone?
 
Karak

Karak

Member
Was completely unimpressed with my time with it sadly. Glad to see others liking it though.
 
R

Rodney McKay

Member
Will wait for a Quick Look of this, but unless it's complete garbage it looks awesome enough that I'll most likely pick it up.

I just got all the other Divinity games on Steam over the sale!
 
D

Durante

Member
GotchaForce said:
I think when this was announced it was for consoles as well. I hope they're still on track, game looks great!
Click to expand...
The RPG, Action and even TBS parts wouldn't be a big issue, but I don't know if the RTS could transition well to a controller. It's really fast-paced.
 
S

Sir Garbageman

Member
I upgraded my Kickstarted pledge of Divinity: Original Sin to include Dragon Commander and the more I've seen of it the more I've liked. One of my most anticipated games of the year tbh, hope it lives up to my personal hype.
 
S

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
I really want to get into this, but everything I've seen of the actual combat RTS layer looks really bad.

I hope I'm wrong, but I won't be picking up a copy until I hear from some folks I trust on whether it's good or not.
 
R

rybrad

Member
I really like Larian's games but RTS' stress me out too much, getting through Starcraft 2 on hard was a feat for me. I am looking forward to watching other people play it while at work at least.
 
D

Durante

Member
Sinatar said:
I really want to get into this, but everything I've seen of the actual combat RTS layer looks really bad.
Click to expand...
The RTS layer changed massively during the beta. IMHO, it's much better now than it was just 4 weeks ago.

Of course, personally I'm not planning to play this game in competitive MP, so I'm not too fussed about it either way as long as it works in the single player campaign. We'll see. I don't think it will ever be remotely as balanced and polished as something like SC2, simply because there are so many interacting subsystems (the dragon, the strategic map, the cards, etc). But it doesn't need to be.
 
G

Giran

Member
Does the physical version come with a Steam key, too? Might go for that one in that case. Either way, I'm getting this so hard. I love Larian.
 
D

Durante

Member
Giran said:
Does the physical version come with a Steam key, too? Might go for that one in that case. Either way, I'm getting this so hard. I love Larian.
Click to expand...
Yes it does. Note that the physical version will be released a bit later though.

(Another thing Larian is doing: not unnecessarily delaying the digital release to coincide with physical)
 
M

Momentary

Banned
I have 8 bucks in my steam wallet.... if I get to ten before the end of the day I might buy it. There's just so many games I want this month. I've already bought Castlevania. I don't know what to do.
 
H

Hrothgar

Member
I've got this through the Divinity: Original Sin KS. Unfortunately I don't have time to play it till the end of August.
 
D

Durante

Member
I fixed the date, thanks for the heads-up.

The game is out on the 6th worldwide digitally, and the physical version ships on the 19th.
 
C

Casimir

Unconfirmed Member
Ah, thanks Durante. I thought I was going to have to make the OT.



Edit:

Durante said:
The RTS layer changed massively during the beta. IMHO, it's much better now than it was just 4 weeks ago.

Of course, personally I'm not planning to play this game in competitive MP, so I'm not too fussed about it either way as long as it works in the single player campaign. We'll see. I don't think it will ever be remotely as balanced and polished as something like SC2, simply because there are so many interacting subsystems (the dragon, the strategic map, the cards, etc). But it doesn't need to be.
Click to expand...

It's pretty fun. But at this point, expect to lose spectacularly your first few games.
 
T

taoofjord

Member
I feel bad that I never knew about this. This looks perfectly ambitious in that old school PC way and it looks great too. I'm sold (good job OP) :)
 
C

Cyrano

Member
I'm legitimately surprised that more people don't know about this game? From everything I've seen it looks great. Also, I love how it defies genres by being every genre. Makes me laugh in a good way.
 
D

Durante

Member
taoofjord said:
I feel bad that I never knew about this. This looks perfectly ambitious in that old school PC way and it looks great too. I'm sold (good job OP) :)
Click to expand...
Just 999999 more copies and my work here is done!

Cyrano said:
I'm legitimately surprised that more people don't know about this game? From everything I've seen it looks great. Also, I love how it defies genres by being every genre. Makes me laugh in a good way.
Click to expand...
It's not really surprising. It's a PC game, independently developed and published, not attached to any large existing franchise, and probably has a tiny marketing budget compared to most games of a similar scale.
 
J

jtb

Banned
grabbed Divinity 2 when it was on sale for dirt cheap during the XBL sale, enjoying it quite a bit. I'll have to check this out.
 
T

traveler

Not Wario
Concept sounds interesting in how-could-they-possibly-pull-this-all-off way and that's exactly what I'm afraid of. I'd take any one of these things done well, but all of them done poorly to average doesn't interest me in the slightest. I got a free copy with my Original Sin ks pledge, so I'll give it a shot in any case.
 
C

Cyrano

Member
Durante said:
It's not really surprising. It's a PC game, independently developed and published, not attached to any large existing franchise, and probably has a tiny marketing budget compared to most games of a similar scale.
Click to expand...
I dunno, Larian Studios has made some really interesting games, so I'm surprised they aren't more notable. Everything I've played from them I actually played to completion and enjoyed specific bits a good deal.
 
A

Antiwhippy

the holder of the trombone
Cyrano said:
I dunno, Larian Studios has made some really interesting games, so I'm surprised they aren't more notable. Everything I've played from them I actually played to completion and enjoyed specific bits a good deal.
Click to expand...

Their only notable franchise is divinity as far as I know, and they're basically diablo clones.

edit: except for divinity 2 of course.
 
D

Durante

Member
Cyrano said:
I dunno, Larian Studios has made some really interesting games, so I'm surprised they aren't more notable. Everything I've played from them I actually played to completion and enjoyed specific bits a good deal.
Click to expand...
I agree, but that's just how it is.

Swen Vincke has written about the difficulty of getting (particularly US media) attention as an independent European studio before.
 
F

forgeforsaken

Member
Antiwhippy said:
Their only notable franchise is divinity as far as I know, and they're basically diablo clones.
Click to expand...

They really aren't Diablo clones, in fact they seem to change gameplay rather drastically game to game. Divine Divinity had Diablo combat mechanics but it was hardly a Diablo clone and was much more of a big RPG. Think Oblivion/Skyrim but overhead with Diablo combat and you'd have Divine Divinity.
 
C

Cyrano

Member
Antiwhippy said:
Their only notable franchise is divinity as far as I know, and they're basically diablo clones.
Click to expand...
Eh, creating better Diablo clones isn't really something I have a problem with. I bought Torchlight 1 & 2. To a certain degree I enjoy the level of versatility available in the model - there are more text heavy ones with trees and progressions in that manner, while there are more combat heavy ones with more focus on integrating interesting fighting mechanics into the crawls.
 
A

Azih

Member
Yeah this feels like what would have happened if the experimental early PC games that did a bit of everything never went out of style.

I remember I played a lot of this realllly old pc game where you tried to take over japan. That included Turn based strategy and army battles and also these weird mini games where you infliltrated enemy castles in top down action to try to kidnap enemy warlords princesses.
 
D

Durante

Member
Azih said:
Yeah this feels like what would have happened if the experimental early PC games that did a bit of everything never went out of style.
Click to expand...
Exactly. I really love this kind of cross-genre game. I don't even need each individual part to be perfectly polished or fully realized as long as they complement each other well.
 
A

Almighty

Member
The game looks interesting, but I have been burned by interesting looking games before. So I will be waiting for some good ole feedback on GAF before I grab it.

On a side note this thread reminded me that I backed Original Sin. I should look and see how that is going.
 
M

Midou

Member
I love Larian studios, but I'm still a bit confused on the type of game that this is lol. I guess I'll watch the Let's Play.
 
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