dungeons-and-dragons posts

Dungeon and Dragons: Daggerdale looks fun, even if the setting is a bit on the generic side. This particular trailer shows the tower of a dark being known as Rezlok (we're not entirely sure how it is spelled), and various dungeon-like areas for the players to fight their way through. Nothing particularly stunning, but it's not bad for what is essentially a cinematic trailer done through the in-game engine.

Download theDungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale 'The Journey Begins' trailer
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Last year publisher Atari announced plans to release Dungeons and Dragons Daggerdale, a downloadable RPG that's due out later this spring. Now Eurogamer is reporting that the game is being designed as the first title in a possible trilogy of games.

The game itself goes up to the first 10 levels of the pen-and-paper 4th Edition of the D&D role playing game franchise and any continuations would move to to level 20 for the second game and level 30 for the third game. According to Zandro Chan of the game's developer Bedlam Games, " .. you will be able to carry characters forward" through the final two parts. However there's no guarantee that a trilogy of games will in fact be made with Chan saying that the team will "have to see how things pan out"

Dungeons and Dragons has never seen a really good third-person action game, but with Daggerdale, that looks like it's about to change. Set in the Forgotten Realms location of Daggerdale (big surprise there), the game involves gathering your friends together to massacre skeletons, goblins, golems, and other nasty creatures. This trailer shows off both gameplay and cinematics, and it's definitely a beautiful-looking game. Our interest is piqued, if just because the genre of deliberate third-person action games is one that does not see much play on the PC.

Download HD Dungeons and Dragons Daggerdale Announcement Trailer
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Publisher Atari has just announced yet another downloadable game project and this time its part of its Dungeons and Dragons license. Developer Bedlam Games is working on Dungeons and Dragons Daggerdale for release in the spring of 2011.

The actio-RPG title has The Forgotten Realms under attack by "the evil Rezlus and his Zhentarim" (we hate when that happens) and naturally your band of adventurers have to save the day. The game will feature both single player as well as co-op support for up to four players. Atari has already announced plans to release a number of downloadable games in 2011 including remakes of Star Raiders and Yar's Revenge along with a new Ghostbusters game.

It's time for GoG.com to reintroduce us to yet another classic fantasy RPG game. The PC DRM-free download site has just added Icewind Dale 2 to its library and it and the game's Adventure Pack can be yours for $9.99.

Originally developed by Interplay's internal development studio Black Isle Studios, the original game was first released in 2002, not long before Black Isle Studios closed its doors. GoG.com's version of the game, now published by Atari, comes with some free extras including the game' soundtrack, a book of spells, a 152-page manual, wallpapers, pieces of artwork, avatars and more.

The DRM-free PC game web site GoG.com continues to add classic but major PC titles to its library. Today the site brings us a true RPG masterpiece in Planescape: Torment, the 1999 title from developer Black Isle Studios and publisher Interplay.

The Dungeons and Dragons-based game is now available from GoG.com for $9.99. In addition to the game itself the site also has a number of bonus materials including the game's manual, wallpapers, the game's soundtrack, over 100 pieces of artwork, avatars and even a PDF of the game's novelization from Chris Avellone (now at Obsidian working on Fallout: New Vegas) and Colin McComb.

As we get closer to Gamescom, we can expect to hear more and more game announcements. One of them might be the reveal of an MMO based on the Neverwinter Nights franchise for Dungeons and Dragons. During this week's GenCon event, it was revealed that Atari, the current rights holders to make D&D based PC games, have a new announcement coming but could not go into details.

The superannuation web site has revealed that Atari has secured several web URLs related to Neverwinter Nights. A Neverwinter Nights MMO is not a new rumor as Variety reported over a year ago that such a game was in the works. Also Atari owned MMO dev team Cryptic Studios announced that their third MMO project for the publisher (after Champions Online and Star Trek Online) would be announced in late summer.

[Via Blue's News]

Atari is already facing a lawsuit from developer Turbine over Atari's alleged actions with the Dungeons and Dragons game license. Now D&D's current owner Hasbro has also filed its own lawsuit against Atari, claiming "five different breaches of their licensing agreement" for the D&D game rights.

According to Hasbro's press release, Atari may have sought to enter a "sublicensing relationship" with another publisher, Namco Bandai. Hasbro says this is a violation of its agreement with Atari, saying, "We have been working for several months now to reach resolution with Atari, and they have left us with no other choice than to pursue legal action." Hasbro is looking to terminate its D&D game license as well as "compensatory damages for economic losses suffered."

Atari has already responded to Hasbro's allegations and sent Big Download an official statement which can be read below in full:

Atari has had a long and rich history with the Dungeons and Dragons franchise, investing millions of dollars into numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful games that have generated significant revenue for Hasbro. Hasbro has resorted to these meritless allegations, in an apparent attempt to unfairly take back rights granted to Atari. Atari has sought to resolve the matter without cooperation from Hasbro. We regret that our long-time partner has decided to pursue this action. Atari will respond appropriately through its legal counsel in court.

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

So begins Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, typically shortened to just Zork. One of the greatest games of our time, it has been an influence on generations of video game players and developers. A few of its in-game phrases are so popular that they can frequently be quoted out of context and still generate that call-and-response so common to those of our fraternity -- sometimes even without the respondent ever having played the game themselves.

As an industry, we've come a long way from simple text input with no accompanying images. And while 8-bit games still hold some diversion in and of themselves, the role of text in gaming has changed from being the entirety of the experience to merely providing support. Will we ever see a resurgence of text adventures? Has the rise of sophisticated imaging destroyed the power of the simple word?

After the death of E. Gary. Gygax in 2008, the gaming industry has now lost the other co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons. The blog site Grognardia reports that Dave Arneson died on Tuesday at the age of 61 after a long battle with cancer (the site mistakenly reported his death earlier this week but the site has now confirmed his passing via a statement from his family)

Arneson did indeed created Dungeons and Dragons with Gygax in the mid-1970s but later had a falling out with his partner and D&D's company TSR. He filed lawsuits against TSR trying to gain both unpaid royalties and credits in later editions of Dungeons and Dragons. The lawsuits were resolved in 1981. While Arneson continued to create games he never received the amount of fame Gygax did in the making of one of the most influential games in the PC game industry.

The Grognardia site has info on where to write to the family of Arneson. Funeral arrangements are still pending but a visitation for him will be held April 20. Again details can be found at the web site.