[WIN] In arrivo remake di Darghul

[Magnvs]

Da qualche tempo Wolf Mittag (responsabile di Teudogar, interessante wrpg ambientato all'epoca dell'invasione romana dei territori germanici) ha reso noto il remake di Darghul (uscito all'epoca per Dos), con una vasta mole di ampliamenti.

Fin da subito è stato chiarito come Darghul non intenda inserirsi nella scia di Teudogar, proponendo un'esperienza fantasy classica ed abbastanza leggera, incentrata sull'esplorazione del vastissimo mondo di gioco (a differenza di Teudogar qui l'intero mondo è transitabile) e sul procacciamento di artefatti di vario genere. Al momento non vi è una data d'uscita precisa, ma a breve dovremmo saperne di più.

http://www.darghul.com/newe.htm

plot:
- The new DARGHUL is a remake of an old German MSDOS CRPG I wrote many years ago and which became a sort of classic; there still remains a large fan base here in Germany; however there has never been an English version of it so far.
- Plot: Evil King Gibur's supernaturally strong orc armies threaten to conquer the entire world; obviously, several powerful magical items must be procured to put and end to this.
- It's neither original nor brilliant, but it's actually great fun, in a carefree way, not as intellectual and earnest as Teudogar has been.
technical:
- The new DARGHUL version will run under Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP/Vista/7 (with DirectX 2.0 or later; which is included in all of these systems).
- Recommended configuration: Pentium 200 MHz with 64 MB RAM or better. (It will even run on a Pentium 100 MHz with only 16 MB RAM, though slowly.) Of course it also runs well on fast machines (>2 GHz) with lots of RAM (>2 GB).

game world:
- There were no cities or castles or large dungeons in Germania; consequently there are none in Teudogar. There are, however, in DARGHUL: Many cities, from large (Ranaghol, Naramanca) to medium size (Karad-Dur, Unghol); several huge castles (Sagadur, Persapor); many villages in between; also many people living somewhere in the wilderness; lots of orc settlements; also Elves (Lolandriel) as well as Dwarves (Karad-Dur); several wrecked cities; and countless tombs, ruins, temples, caves, dungeons and so on almost everywhere.
- Teudogar's game world consists of a couple of individual locations and nothing else; DARGHUL has a large continuous game world, i.e. not just the main cities but also all forests, swamps, orc villages, caves, temples, tombs, ruins and so on that can be found between the cities; i.e., you can actually walk all across the continent without interruption.
- Teudogar: traveling via a travel screen; DARGHUL: travel either by simply walking from one end of the game world to the other end, or by using the services of wizards who can teleport you to most locations, or teleportation scrolls (will teleport you to one specific location), or teleportation anchors (using one anchor will teleport you to the place where the 2nd anchor has been placed), or teleporter fields (all destinations), or the teleport spell (all destinations). (All of these means of teleportation can be acquired over the cause of the game; when you start the game, you have none.)
- The game world is huge, with about 12,720,000 fields (and about 2,900,000 objects). In total, there are about 185 locations (among them several larger cities and castles, and about 360 caves and dungeons). (The original DARGHUL's game world consisted of only 25 locations with about 409,000 fields; thus, the new version's game world is 31 times larger.)
graphics:
- Teudogar screen resolution 640x480, DARGHUL 1024x768 (see screenshots); this looks much smoother.
- The higher screen resolution means that individual tiles, objects, NPCs etc are now smaller than they were in Teudogar; this enables you to see a larger section of the game world within your screen; orientation is much more convenient that way.
- Due to its fantasy world, DARGHUL offers much greater graphical variety than the historically accurate Teudogar, which was quite restrained by the fact that Teutons everywhere built their houses in exactly the same way and materials.
gameplay:
- There are some new game elements such as levers, switches, teleportation fields, as well as magical scrolls and potions and so on.
- Repairing weapons, weaving, fishing and so on remains available. Additionally, you can now brew magic potions, repair clothes, spin yarn, bake bread or smoke fish, etc. My goal was to enable you to actually use every object you see within the game.
- More than 50 unique magical objects (Goram's sword, fireball sceptre, cup of healing, teleportation anchors and many more) can be found and fought for at several locations all across the continent.
- Historians can tell you what kind of magical items exist and where they might possibly be found.
- If a place such as a dungeon, ruin, tower or tomb is locked, seers can often tell where the key can be found. You can also ask seers about the whereabouts of any special/magical object you've heard about.
- You can consult geographers about locations you've heard about; they can draw these onto your map; this is useful since you need to know where a location is in order to get there via teleportation.
- Across the continent, dozens of wizards teach different spells or sell magical reagents. (Seers can give you hints about who teaches what.) A lot more spells than Teudogar (the usual Fantasy curriculum - Fireball, Explosion, See-through-Walls, Open, Teleport and much more). (Some of these spells use magical energy.)
- Lots of commerce, with taverns, food stores, smiths, healers etc in most cities. (BTW, the bartering system has been significantly improved, see below.)
- There are countless dungeons with lots of monsters and treasures. Typical fantasy creatures such as Orcs, Goblins, Demons, Giant Spiders, Skeletons, Evil Wizards, Zombies, Poisonous Worms and lots of others exist and are plentyful, at least below the surface of the earth.
- Weapons and Armor: Mostly similar to Teudogar; some additional kinds of armor (e.g. better protection for your legs), a few more weapons (e.g. mace), more missile weapons (see below), and lots of magical weapons/objects. (Since this is a Fantasy game, where magic is pretty powerful, special magical objects/weapons as well as your regular spellcasting will be somewhat more important than your physical armor.)
- The character system has been significantly extended. You can now play the game as a man or woman, and as a warrior, wizard, craftsman, rogue. The game allows different courses of action, e.g., you can spend all your time fighting, or avoid violence almost completely; or become a powerful wizard, or play the game without ever casting a spell. Your character's development is solely determined by your actions, and you're free to do whatever you want (including unethical behaviour), and become whatever you want (e.g. you might start as a warrior but end up as a wizard after regularily practicing magic and neglecting combat). People will react differently towards you depending on your sex, biography, skills, and reputation, so re-playing the game with a different starting character results in a very different gaming experience.
- Production: Depending on your skills and available materials, you can create almost every existing object by yourself, such as weapons, armor, clothing, even furniture. You could e.g. cut down a tree, cut the wood into boards, manufacture leather out of an animal skin, hammer an iron bar into an iron plate and create shield buckle from this, and finally assemble boards, leather, and shield buckle into a shield (which you could use or sell).
- Modifying the game world: You can cut down trees (and even, with time and diligence, whole forests), and use the wood as building material. The game will probably allow you to build your own houses in the cleared spaces. (Depending on the amount of programming work necessary for this, this feature may be not be available at the first release.)
- Production: You will probably be able to hire people (or force demons by magic) to mine raw materials or produce goods for you. (Depending on the amount of programming work necessary for this, this feature may be not be available at the first release.)
- Trade: You can rent shops and hire sales clerks, who will sell your goods for you. You can hire mule drivers who will transport your goods. Via the trade screen you can conveniently set trade routes as well as order what kinds of goods to transport. Goods can be picked up or dropped or bought or sold to merchants at any stop of the route. Goods dropped in your shops will be sold to the city's population over time by your clerk.
- These features are intended to make sure that there will always remain enough interesting things to do to keep you enjoying playing this game indefinitively (even after you've already finished the game's plot several times).

user interface:
- There's no longer just one single inventory bag window; instead you can carry several more bags with you; this makes it easier to sort the stuff you're carrying around.
- Within the inventory bag window, items can be freely placed, just like in Teudogar; however, identical items are grouped in one single field and their number is displayed next to them; i.e., instead of displaying 25 individual pieces of meat in your inventory window, the new system will display just one, with a "25" next to it.
- When you drag&drop one of several identical objects, you'll be asked how many of these you want to move.
- Chest and box windows now offer a "take everything" button; clicking on this will empty the chest and place its contents in your inventory, automatically placing items into bags where there already are similar items (i.e. food into your food-bag, gold or gems into your booty/valuables-bag and so on).
- In addition to sword and spear (or throwing axe), you can now carry up to 8 more weapons or other items on your belt or in your pockets; different from your inventory bag window, you can access these items even during combat mode; i.e. you might carry a sword on your belt, a throwing axe in your hand, and up to 8 more throwing axes on your belt/in your pockets, and hurl them at approaching enemies one by one during combat; or let's say, 4 throwing axes plus a healing potion, a teleportation scroll, a fireball sceptre, and a wizard's-eye-crystal. This adds a lot more variety to combat.
- Bartering: in Teudogar's barbaric environment, even merchants accepted money only as a bartering good, meaning you had to drag&drop lots of items; in DARGHUL, merchants will simply tell you the price they want for the goods you've marked, or the price they'd be willing to pay for the goods you offered; so after clicking OK payment in gold/silver coins will automatically be taken from the pile of coins you're carrying in your inventory (or added to your coins if you're the one selling something). (Of course non-merchants are still willing to barter goods for goods; and many merchants and craftsmen also buy used goods; there's also haggling.) You can now drag several identical items at once onto your bartering table; also, you can unmark/mark items you placed there; all of this saves you a lot of dragging&dropping.
- Since there are a lot more keys in DARGHUL than in barbaric Germania, I introduced a key-ring: You can put every new key you find/acquire on this key-ring; when you come across a locked door, you no longer need to try every single key individually; instead, simply double click on the key-ring and then click on the door; if a fitting key is on the key-ring, the door will be unlocked.
- Actual player stats numbers are now displayed, e.g. "Strength: 100 (average)"; same with weapons, armor etc. The player info offers much more information than it used to, including lots of statistics on what your character has done, whom he has defeated, what he has explored etc.
- The Trade Screen shows at what locations you have stored your goods, provisions or treasures; where you own houses, shops, or caves; where you can buy or sell what kinds of goods; and it enables you to conveniently set trade routes and lists of goods for your caravans.
- Journal: Directions or other important information you receive from people or books is automatically written to your Journal. You can also edit or add to your Journal manually.
progress:
- The new DARGHUL version will be released in a few months. I'm currently concentrating on this project, and have been able to complete a lot over the past weeks and months. Still, there remains a lot yet to be done.
- Completion takes so long because it's a very large project, and I usually have only a few hours per day available for work on this project.
- By now, the C++ source code for Darghul.Exe consists out of 275,000 lines. Printed out, that would result in about 4,600 pages; printed out on line printer paper, you would get a paper trail of 1,090 meters (3,600 feet or over half a mile). If you'd put the entire source code in one single file, scrolling down from beginning to end by keeping the PageDown-key pressed (i.e., scrolling too rapidly for reading anything at all) would take about a quarter of an hour. And of course all of these 275,000 lines of C++ code rely on each other and must function smoothly together; a single error in a single line might prevent the program from working.
Dialogs and other text comprise about 84,000 words (720 kB, about 180 pages when printed out). Several thousand graphic tiles and about 50 animated NPCs/armor sets (each with about 90 phases) have been added to the graphics inherited from Teudogar. The game world with its 12 million fields is so large that even a very fast scrolling from one end to the other will take over a quarter of an hour, too; real walking/exploring and thorough checking of the entire game world of course takes days to weeks. Hundreds of NPCs with time schedules, 620 containers, 650 house data tables, 1,300 markers/ladders/stairs etc had to be defined; and placing almost 3 million objects (about 100,000 manually) has also taken a good while.
- At present, there's still a considerable list of incomplete or not-yet-perfect functions in the source code, especially regarding production, trade, spells, auto-generated caves, npc navigation in very complex buildings, construction of houses and furniture, and many minor points.
- This game will definitively be completed. However, it takes a lot of work and time. I appreciate your patience.
- If you'd like to be notified when the Beta and/or Final Version are finally released, please drop me a note via www.wolfmittag.com/contact. (We will never give away your email address; and we will not send any other mails to you; you will get exactly one brief notification email when the game is released.)

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

In coda a Age of Decadence è il secondo RPG che attendo di più (quantomeno tra quelli di uscita più o meno prossima).

[Magnvs]

Mi fa piacere che non sia passato inosservato, anch'io dopo aver letto le caratteristiche del titolo son rimasto piacevolmente colpito.

I miglioramenti a tutto tondo rispetto a Teudogar, le dimensioni dell'area esplorabile, la possibilità di interagire con l'ambientazione disboscando e costruendo etc lo rendono imho più interessante rispetto ad altri progetti del genere di Avernum 6, che pure intenderei provare se avrò tempo. Allo stesso tempo non mi crea particolari problemi la volontà di Mittag di evitare un eccessivo approfondimento della componente ruolistica.