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 What is Dragon Commander? Dragon Commander is a mishmash of several genres. It combines a 3D RTS, with a Risk-style world strategy map, and RPG elements in political decisions. Some of this information may be a bit out of date or in error, but I will try and correct it if anything is wrong. Feel free to give suggestions about how to improve the OP.  If you want to talk about Divinity: Original Sin, it NOW has its own thread. What’s the story of Dragon Commander? The game is set in the magical and technological heyday of Rivellon, over a thousand years before the events of the Divinity series. This was a time when Maxos was alive and well and the Dragon Knights were flourishing. You play a young human Dragon Knight, the son of a King who was murdered for opposing a new “one god” religion, championed by the Empress Aurora. The prince now must lead the races of the Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Imps, Lizards, and Undead against Aurora. OTHER INFORMATION  (Coming soon, possibly)Cast of Characters  What do you do? In four words: Emperor, Strategist, Commander, Dragon.   (Click for larger) You are an Emperor who must make tough political decisions balancing the conflicting wishes and goals of your wife, your generals, and your council of advisors, consisting of 5 different races that make up your allies and your conquered territories. You rule from your flagship, The Raven.  (Click for larger) The council of advisors represents five political archetypes: conservative capitalists (Dwarves), smug libertarians (Lizards), fundamentalists (Undead), amoral technologists (Imps) and liberals (Elves). Being the ruler of an empire means that you’ll have to make choices and compromises based on politics to achieve the best result you can. Sometimes there are certain bonuses to your army or favorite generals that you want, but can only get from taking a position you may personally dislike. Piss off a race too many times, and some of the territories you control may revolt, denying you of their manpower and gold, unless you place some of your units in them to quell the rebellion (but tying the units down).  (Click for larger) Your generals direct the forces in battle, and have unique skills that can be unlocked through your choices.  (Click for larger) Every decision you make will affect your standing with the council members, your wife, and the various races as a whole. It will increase your standing with some races, and lower it with others. You will often find yourself making choices you may personally disagree with to reap the benefits on the battlefield.  (Click for larger) Early on, you will have to choose a princess to marry, either Elf, Dwarf, Lizard, or Undead human. Each of the princesses has their own storyline and goal. Sometimes fulfilling the princesses goal goes against what their race desires – for example, Ophelia the undead princess desperately wants to be restored to life, which would greatly offend the other undead, who enjoy their existence as it is.  (Click for larger) Upgrades are researched between turns. They have a certain gold cost and take a number of turns to research, but if you want you can spend extra gold and get the research finished faster. Certain decisions can unlock new upgrades for units. No faction has any unique units, each side uses the same 13-15 base unit types, but each unit has at least 4 possible upgrades, many of are mutually exclusive and which will drastically alter the way a unit acts. For example a bomber could be altered to drop mines instead of bombs, making it useless for targeting enemy bases, but excellent at defense against ground units. It’s impossible to get all the upgrades, so you need to decide what you want your army to do.  (Click for larger) Some of these benefits take the form of cards. There are at least three types of cards: Political cards, which can be applied to maps in the strategy part. Dragon cards, that offer extra powers for your Dragon form, and Mercenary cards that add extra units to the field for one battle. Cards can also be obtained from certain structures on the strategy map.   (Click for larger) You are a Strategist who must decide which territories to attack, and what each territory should focus on to support your war effort. You build factories, taverns, mines, and research institutes on territories you control, move your troops around, and apply any “political” cards you wish. Once you’re done, you hit a button to finalize your moves, and hope that you guessed what the enemy will do, because only after both sides are committed do you see what the opponent has done. Battles on the strategy map can be auto-resolved if you choose, and victory will be calculated based on the number of troops and bonuses on the territory, or if not, you can personally command the individual battles in the real-time mode. Each unit type has a certain number of movement points on the strategy map, which is how many spaces (countries) you can move them. This is why building factories and other unit producers closer to the front lines is important. There are transport units that can be used to move units faster than they can on their own. I think each country will only let you have one building on it, but I’m not sure. Wizard Tower buildings give you Dragon skill cards every turn. Factories produce units, Gold mines increase the revenue from the country by 50%, Shops will let you buy cards, Academies decrease research cost, Taverns give you mercenary cards, the Parliament gives you strategy cards for managing the political side – like to make a country immune to attacks and invasions for one turn, or destroy an enemy factory, or build a factory for no gold cost.   (Click for larger) You are a Commander, who directs the individual battles in real-time, directing air, sea, and land units to defeat the enemy and accomplish your objectives. You don’t start the battle with a base and resources to gather. What you start with on the map is based on the units to be found there in Strategy mode, any mercenary units from the cards you chose, and whatever starting point you get. Some or all of the regions in the RTS mode are said to be about 400 x 400 km2, or the size of Oblivion. There is no Starcraft style base building. Buildings are erected on preset capture points which let you build certain types of buildings on them. Each building costs a certain number of recruits to build.  (Click for larger) Recruits are the only resource on the map, and they’re acquired by building recruitment centers on certain points. Each map uses the population cap from the Strategy mode, so you know going in how many recruits you have available. There’s a catch, though – the population is shared between all players on the map, and once it’s depleted, it’s depleted. It is not advisable to just sit back and build up forces, you should aggressively expand or else you’ll get overwhelmed. The idea is that a map should take only 10-15 minutes, 30 at the most, which makes sense given how many maps there are! If you win, there is a formula to calculate the survival rate of your units, to see what it translates to once you return to the strategy map. Basically, if 60% of your units survive, you’ll get 60% back on the world map. A suicidal strategy might end up with you defeating the enemy, but you won’t have much left over to move to the next country on the world map. It’s not game over if you lose in the RTS mode (unless maybe if you lose the territory with your capital city), you can keep playing and try to take it back.   (Click for larger) You are a Dragon, who can join the battlefield yourself, delivering carefully placed blows to the enemy force. The Dragon form is powerful, and can turn the tide of battle quickly by judicious use of its skills and abilities. Your Dragon can be set to one of four general roles: Good at direct combat, good at support, good at sabotage, or average in all areas (but not good at any particular area). If the Dragon dies in battle, there is a cooldown until you can respawn, but you can bypass it by sacrificing some of your recruits.  (Click for larger) Switching between dragon and RTS mode is done literally at the press of a button, letting you zip into combat from any nearby friendly units, deal with what you wanted to deal with, then zap back into the RTS mode. Who’s making it? Larian Studios, the team behind the Divinity series (Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Divinity 2)  (Click for larger) What does that thread title mean? This game presents a lot of scenarios based on real life political debates. Larian looked at various political ideologies and translated them into the game. Specifically, the title refers to something the head of Larian said in an interview: quote:Q: Which regional market are [you] most afraid of when it comes to the reception of the ideas portrayed in Dragon Commander? What platforms is this going to be released on? It’s being developed primarily for the PC at this time, although a console port is not being ruled out. There may not even be support for a controller at all. That makes sense given that RTS’s lend themselves much better to the drag-select abilities of a mouse than to controllers. What’s so special about this game? This game is built around Choice and Consequence.  (Click for larger) Gone are the canned dialogue animations from Divinity 2. The recording sessions for the voice-acting used motion capture at the same time, so each live actor’s performance will end up on-screen. There are no pre-made missions. The length of the single-player campaign depends on your choices on the strategy map. Will there be multiplayer? Yes!  (Click for larger) Multiplayer doesn’t have the RPG-lite political decision part, but it does have the strategy map and RTS phases. Multiplayer matches are 2v2. Each player selects 5 cards to use – three are visible to all players, two are kept hidden. There are also upgrades that can increase the number of cards that are hidden. In multiplayer, any enemy dragons appear as team-coloured stars if they’re not in sight, and if they’re in sight, they have a team-coloured trail. Larian is thinking of adding a special team mode so that one player can control only the Dragon, while the other handles the RTS parts of the deployment. Where can I get this? / When's the release date? UPDATE: The game is scheduled for a release on July 2 from GoG, on Steam and from the Larian Vault. There may also be a collector’s edition that includes a board-game version of the strategy map mode. Pre-orders for the game are available on Gog.com now, but they will be coming to Steam as well later on, and to retail outlets as well. Can I get into the Dragon Commander Alpha/Beta test? Dragon Commander is already in closed beta. Larian has talked about getting keys for a beta, but there's no official word on what's happening yet. What are the System requirements? quote:Minimum system requirements: VIDEOS: Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9lbrq3BLQU Gamespot Gameplay preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbHsdC4U_2k PREVIEWS (and interviews): RPG Codex Interview with Swen Vincke (Feb. 2012) (added 5/10) Rock, Paper, Shotgun PCG Media Preview PCG Media Interview with Swen Vincke iSeries Strategy Informer RPG Watch Games Radar On RPG Deal Spwn Jeux Video (French) Gamespot Preview The Game Station podcast: Dragon Commander Trailer (2:14 – 2:20) (added 3/28) Total Biscuit – interview with Larian (Dragon Commander specifics starts at 13:55 - added 3/28) Gry Online Preview (Polish, (added 3/30)) Divinity: Dragon Commander Preview on French Radio (French, (added 3/30)) New Preview from PCGamesN (added 3/28) Dagons Lair - Interview with Swen Vincke (53 min.) (French with English subtitles) (added 3/28) Colony of Gamers (added 4/01) RPG Gamer.com - Dragon Commander E3 2012 Interview (added 4/06) Twitch TV Live Stream (with pre-order code) - (added 4/10) RPG Codex Preview - (added 4/20 - scroll down past the Original Sin preview) PC Gamer Hands-on Preview (added 4/28) Developer Blog Entries
LINKS Larian Studios Youtube Channel Developer Blog Divinity: Dragon Commander Official Website Dragon Commander Facebook Page Divinity: Original Sin SA Thread Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at May 10, 2013 around 13:36 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 02:28 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 05:20 |
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This sounds like they're trying to do eight million things at once. I'm hard-pressed to think of too many games that successfully pull that off.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:06 |
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I love Larian Studios, but I'm cautiously optimistic about this. The isometric party-based Divinity 3 that they are also working on sounds really promising though.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:09 |
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I hope this is any kind of decent, because I love You-are-a-unit RTS games, and who doesn't love a dragon with a jetpack. Like particle said, they're juggling a lot of plates and any large enough slip up could be disastrous.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:18 |
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Orv posted:I hope this is any kind of decent, because I love You-are-a-unit RTS games, and who doesn't love a dragon with a jetpack. Like particle said, they're juggling a lot of plates and any large enough slip up could be disastrous. What did I teach you about having hope, Orv? 
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:26 |
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Zaodai posted:What did I teach you about having hope, Orv? It springs eternal? 
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:27 |
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Orv posted:It springs eternal? No, that hope is what gives your dreams that satisfying "CRUNCH" sound when they get smashed.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 08:29 |
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This game sounds like Shogun 2 with better politics, dragons and lizard wives. Where can I pre-order?
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 11:01 |
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Gonna marry that skeleton princess so fast. So many boner puns to gleefully cackle at!
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 11:17 |
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Looks like I'm gonna be ignoring the gently caress out of everyone's opinions but the elves.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 11:25 |
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It honestly sounds like they are focusing entirely on the politics/cards stuff, rather then trying to balance everything. I've been paying close attention to this game, and this is the first I've really heard about the RTS features ( outside of "we will add them yes" ). Looking at them from the screenshots, they don't look very amazing either. It really looks like the core of the game will be managing loyalties, and the combat will mainly be blobpushing. I'm cool with that as I mainly want to fiddle with all that politics stuff, but I can see this game getting railed on pretty hard at release for "bad" RTS features. There's also the factor of a hardcore RPG dev team making an RTS.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 12:13 |
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I'm cautiously optimistic. If they can get the political stuff right and have the combat be atleast passable then this game will be pretty rad. And who doesn't want to marry a skeleton princess with lipstick smeared around her face bone.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 12:19 |
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Rookersh posted:It really looks like the core of the game will be managing loyalties, and the combat will mainly be blobpushing. I'm cool with that as I mainly want to fiddle with all that politics stuff, but I can see this game getting railed on pretty hard at release for "bad" RTS features. Blobpushing isn't so bad as long as the RTS components feel right. You don't need StarCraft's balance, just StarCraft's instant responsiveness and precision.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 12:22 |
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Can't gently caress an Imp, not interested. Okay, fine, I'm a little interested. I wish the RTS part of the game wasn't there, though. I've never played a turn-based strategy with real-time battles where I enjoyed the latter.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 12:23 |
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It is true that Larian is building this game around choice and consequence, but I remain optimistic. The previews haven't been making GBS threads on the RTS side, and in fact, many of the previewers have said that they liked it so much they went back to play some more. They let 1000 gamers try the game at the Frag-O-Matic LAN party in Belgium. The feedback they got back wasn't that the game was perfect, but the complaints were fixable. Larian has also said they'll be releasing a demo before release. Megazver posted:Can't gently caress an Imp, not interested. I think Larian said the imp princess was killed in a lab accident. My guess is that they didn't have enough resources to do 5 princesses. I'm mostly interested in this game because I want to blow poo poo up with my Dragon, but the game will give you options for how much you want to play as a Dragon and how much you want to play as an RTS commander. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at Mar 22, 2013 around 12:40 |
| # ? Mar 22, 2013 12:36 |
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The game has some great potential, though I can't get over how sexy skelo-babe has lips. Lady lip bones?
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 15:34 |
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From the art I've seen, she's just wearing lipstick where her lips would be. So it's all over her teeth.
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| # ? Mar 23, 2013 02:33 |
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DrManiac posted:I'm cautiously optimistic. Pretty much this, I don't have much attachment to Divinity, but I'll definitely pick it up if the word about it is good. I love the political concepts, just hope they can pull it off. Lazy Programming fucked around with this message at Mar 23, 2013 around 02:57 |
| # ? Mar 23, 2013 02:54 |
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That blurb about abortion is utterly retarded, but I love the Divinity series and this looks like it would at the very least be a fun clusterfuck of failed ambition, and at best it'll be a hella-fun genre masher.
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| # ? Mar 23, 2013 03:06 |
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JebanyPedal posted:That blurb about abortion is utterly retarded, but I love the Divinity series and this looks like it would at the very least be a fun clusterfuck of failed ambition, and at best it'll be a hella-fun genre masher. I see the devs are from Belgium, this worries me. I only trust this level of mish-mashed insanity to Eastern European devs.
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| # ? Mar 23, 2013 03:20 |
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A whole bunch of news has come out on Larian's other title, Divinity: Original Sin, and they've launched a kickstarter project to increase the development team to pack even more features into the game. I'm currently working on an update to add Original Sin information to the thread, which I'll post when it's ready and not so disorganized. Feel free to use this thread for discussion of all things Divinity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weUPfejQ7xE Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at Mar 29, 2013 around 12:07 |
| # ? Mar 29, 2013 11:51 |
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The $65 tier of that Kickstarter gets you both Dragon Commander and Original Sin. If you want to help an awesome developer and save some money in the long run, that's a pretty good deal.
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| # ? Mar 29, 2013 12:07 |
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Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:The $65 tier of that Kickstarter gets you both Dragon Commander and Original Sin. If you want to help an awesome developer and save some money in the long run, that's a pretty good deal. I settled for the $50 tier, not because I don't want Dragon Commander, but because there was talk of a special collectors edition of Dragon Commander, and I think I want that instead. EDIT: Update on the Kickstarter, and a video showing part of the process of using the editor to make quests and dialogues. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG-PujUp-9Q Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at Mar 29, 2013 around 13:11 |
| # ? Mar 29, 2013 12:08 |
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First update about the Editor. It's alright. It's a bit sad that they're not gaining the money faster. It just feels like they've botched the release a bit by starting early.
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| # ? Mar 29, 2013 13:23 |
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Megazver posted:First update about the Editor. It's alright. Their hand was forced by the earlier-than-expected release of an Original Sin preview. One preview meant that a bunch of other sites would also release their previews. Larian wanted the mention of the Kickstarter in as many as possible, so they had to launch it now.
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| # ? Mar 29, 2013 13:32 |
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Their hand was forced by the earlier-than-expected release of an Original Sin preview. One preview meant that a bunch of other sites would also release their previews. Larian wanted the mention of the Kickstarter in as many as possible, so they had to launch it now. Yeah, I know. I have a feeling they should have tried to make that one guy retract his poo poo and go on a damage control discussion spree with everyone else first.
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| # ? Mar 29, 2013 13:53 |
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Margoyle posted:The game has some great potential, though I can't get over how sexy skelo-babe has lips. Lady lip bones? Oh sure, dragon with a jetpack is fine, but skeleton wearing lipstick? 
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| # ? Mar 29, 2013 13:59 |
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Wait, is it me or did they close off some of the tiers? Can anyone else get the $40 tier now, for example? EDIT: I think they just made it no longer limited. Megazver fucked around with this message at Mar 29, 2013 around 15:34 |
| # ? Mar 29, 2013 15:32 |
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In case you missed it, Divinity: Original Sin and it's Kickstarter now has its own thread for discussion that and other Divinity games. Gry Online Preview (Polish) Divinity: Dragon Commander Preview on French Radio (French) New Preview from PCGamesN quote:Between those battles, or during the pauses when you aren’t shuttling tokens across that strategy map, Dragon Commander has you wandering about your mothership, a brassy, Victorian-style base of operations where you brush shoulders with lizards, dwarves, imps and even friendly undead. Stepping into the bar, there’s time for a chat with some of your war-weary comrades and colleagues, while searching out the resident technologist has you discussing what equipment or units you should begin research on next. Back in the map room, your advisors wait for you to make important decisions that could well affect the course of the war, and these decisions are more often economic, or even moral, than strategic. EDIT: An interview about both Dragon Commander and Original Sin: Dagons Lair - Interview with Swen Vincke (53 min.) (French with English subtitles) Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at Mar 31, 2013 around 15:25 |
| # ? Mar 30, 2013 23:41 |
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So the prince can have an undead wife? That's... huh. Well, the OP's sold me on getting the game anyway, I'll pre-order it through the relevant Original Sin pledge option for a discount.
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| # ? Mar 31, 2013 17:19 |
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Wow, they weren't kidding about bringing real-world political issues into the game. The sale of organs is still a divisive issue.
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| # ? Mar 31, 2013 17:30 |
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Satanos posted:So the prince can have an undead wife? That's... huh. It was one of the first things revealed about the game, that one of the princesses to marry was a skeleton. Basically, you have to marry a non-human for political reasons. Ophelia did used to be a human when alive, and she wishes to be alive again.  I think the story behind the undead faction in this game is that they were humans who were suffering from a plague, until the priests of the One God empire (the bad guys) saved them (so to speak). A short interview with Swen Vincke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCymMu4IGr8 He's confirmed that there will be a special collectors edition of Dragon Commander featuring the board game on which the strategy map portion is based. That sounds pretty tempting.
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| # ? Apr 1, 2013 01:44 |
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Another preview: Colony of Gamers quote:Yes, you read that right. If you play this game your avatar will be asked about social issues like gay marriage, and you will have to answer them. When I was initially presented with this political aspect of the game, I was a little worried about the implications. After seeing it in action and speaking with the designers, however, I’m significantly less worried. It’s clear that each of the races represent some stereotype of a political faction, but one doesn’t come off as ‘worse’ than the other. You’ll find yourself rolling your eyes at the foolishness of the Elves just as often as at the draconian tendancies of the Undead. Also, a running theme in this game is the slippery slope: sure, you may agree with a female general that women should earn the same pay as men, but what happens when she asks you to abolish an ancient Dwarven tradition because she finds it sexist? I think one of the really clever parts of the design is that Larian doesn't have to worry as much about balance, because the nature of the games - up to 30-odd fast matches on different maps - isn't intended to be perfectly balanced. Players can have different cards, different upgrades, uneven numbers of units on the map to start with, and then there's the Dragon form, where key use of it can change the face of the battle, at the cost of losing strategic focus. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at Apr 1, 2013 around 19:18 |
| # ? Apr 1, 2013 19:12 |
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Gog.com to carry pre-orders for Dragon Commander, and provide DRM-free copies of Original Sin to Kickstarter backersquote:GOG.com, DRM-free digital purveyor of all that's good in gaming, has announced today that they will be partnering up with Larian games on their next two release titles: Divinity: Dragon Commander and Divinity: Original Sin, kicking things off with a live Google+ Hangout On Air Q&A session on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 at 2:00 GMT (10:00 AM EDT), which will reveal new gameplay footage of the game and have a special code for $2 off the preorder for anyone who watches the Hangout On Air. Hmmm... I'm not sure exactly what Google+ is, but if I were to join Google+, would I be able to un-join it after this is done? EDIT: I think I'll pass on joining. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at Apr 3, 2013 around 17:59 |
| # ? Apr 3, 2013 16:17 |
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Hmmm... I'm not sure exactly what Google+ is, Imagine facebook, but without the people or any real ease-of-usability.
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| # ? Apr 3, 2013 16:28 |
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And if you leave G+ any videos you upload to Youtube get set to private and all the comments wiped.
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| # ? Apr 3, 2013 16:39 |
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Edit: wrong Divinity thread.
Phlegmish fucked around with this message at Apr 3, 2013 around 16:44 |
| # ? Apr 3, 2013 16:42 |
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I've never even played a Divinity game before but literally every single thing I've read about this game has made me want to break my 'no preordering' rule (still kinda burned by breaking it the last time for The Cave ugh). Do we know how much it's going to cost?
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| # ? Apr 3, 2013 17:03 |
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I can't imagine you would want to sell a game of this size/type for less than 39.99 at release. Divinity 2 at release was 50 or 60 dollars, Divine Divinity was around the same at launch, I believe.
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| # ? Apr 3, 2013 17:13 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 05:20 |
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There is a tier on the D:OS Kickstarter that allows you to get both games + extra stuff for 65$. It's a pretty good deal, especially if you're in Europe, given the $:€ conversion rate.
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| # ? Apr 3, 2013 17:18 |
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