Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General Looking for some really good ideas and feedback

I just updated the text again, based on all the comments we got (thank you btw, it's been really helpful). Let me know what you think.

Much better now Lar ... now I'm just patiently waiting to look for upcoming phrases of DC :
some video's of gameplay like dialogs, strategical map, dragon combat, etc ... with a nice soundmixure of Kirill in the background !

But lovely to read those updated lines about the game and aaaallll the suggestions for promoting Dragon Commander ... never know so much possibilities you can think about it (and take one after the other )!

On this moment the only thing I wish to know so I am convinced to buy DC, is the stuff about the "roleplay elements" in DC ... : are their some sort of "Quests" to do or is it more (or only) a issue of making "decisions" while in dialog with a NPC (or more than one at the same time?) ...

"Ever wanted to be a Dragon who commands an army ?

Now you can."

Or :

"Ever wanted to be a Dragon who commands an airborne fleet ?

Now you can."

Something like this.

Arr ... and please don't use this Dragon Age "Rise To Power !!!111!!11!11111!!" stuff. It just leaves a bad taste now, after the Dragon age games.

What I mean is this : Some players might dream / want to play of ABSOLUTE POWER. SUPREME POWER. Or, as Magic The Gthering has it : "Here I rule". A kind of orgasm of sheer might and power.
These "power-hungry" kinds of players might get an "nerdgasm" by the thought of not only getting to play a Dragon (which is generally in most Fantasy settings considered as THE UPREME POWER over everything - SO POWERFUL that even the Gods might crumble uner his feet ... Ahem, yes, well ... where was I ?),
but also a Dragon which commands an army. A fleet. A conquest. Over taking as much land as possible. Even more power to da man !

I believe that this was the fatal flaw the Dragon Age II advertising campaign made (and perhaps the Dragon Age I marketing campagn, too) : Appealing to the "lust for power" of players. Leaving all elements of Story, Lore and Srtting out. In the marketing campaign - at least judged by what has been left of it in my memory nowadays.

Please - don't do this. It gets fishy. Appealing *too much* at the "power aspect" of *any* game will only attract a certain kind of players - and (that's at least what I fear) not a 2healthy player base", so to say.

The domain of what i call "power-hungry players" are the so-called "Action-RPGs" a l Blizzard. Loot-centric, power-centric, with the whole game - and its story ! - being reduced to a "jourmned to the top of everything". The own character even becoming a God - or at least the most powerful being the story / setting has to offer.

Drakensang 2 was so much different to this concept made popular by Blizzard, so that it did *not* have this element included. the own character was *not* becoming a God-like figure !

Perhaps that was one of the many resons why Drakensang 2 didn't sell that well ? Because the "rise to power" model after Blizzard is already *too much* established ?

Please don't do that. Please do not establish Dragon Commander as a game where the player plays a character which becomes a God-like Overlord.

In my opinion - subjectively, of course, and this is purely my prsonal opinion of course s well - you should imho rather try o estalish ragon commander as wht it really is . An RTS game in wich the main theme is ... well, why actually does the Dragon Knight want to conquer these lands ?
Because this is part of the story that hsn't been made publc to the public yet ... err ... so to say ...

Why does the dragon knight want to conquer these lands ? What are his motifs ?

Making this clear you should - imho, but I'm not sure about that - have less problems in outlining the story that is underlying Dragon commander.


Make clear what you want have with Dragon Commander :

- RTS ?
- Story of Romance ?
- Story of seeking power ?
- RPG ?
- What else ?

Ask people what they do belive DC is. And then boil it down to an essence. And that's it. your main marketing approach theme, I guess.

In my personal opinion God Complexes are what sets strategy players apart from other gamers, and lusting for more power is what sets rpg players apart from other gamers

also Marketing Dragon commander as a game where you play a dragon and fight is marketing it as an rpg, marketing dragon commander as a game where you command an army and fight other armies is marketing it as a strategy game, marketing dragon commander as a game where you fly around online and fight your friends using fire breath, missiles, and bombs, is marketing it as a first person shooter.and finally marketing dragon commander as a quasi mix of all three ideas creates a whole new genre of gaming, and my biggest concern is that larian will favor one aspect over another, for example making the dragon form weaker in my opinion was a mistake as it dissuaded some of my more rpg playing friends. In other words Larian you need to tell people while they can come up with full proof strategies and plans
for combat, they can also go straight into the mix and change the entire outcome of the battle with sheer skill and ability, or at least thats what i would do.

sorry if this doesn't make any sense my mind is scattered today.

also on a side note why is my text invisible when im typing a post, and is only visible when highlighted?

There should be white text on a black background in the Quick Reply or Fully Reply text boxes, when using the forum's default stylesheet, and assuming you don't have your browser overriding the text colour (try a different browser, if convenient).
You can click 'My Stuff' in the top menu bar, then 'Edit Preferences' to check or change 'Your preferred stylesheet'.

If that doesn't help, post in the About this website forum.

Then I'm an Alien, because i solely play for story.
And for fun of course, too.

That's another good point, different games have different strengths. From what I've read about DC, you can go for romance, you can go for power-hungry, it is of course an RTS, and your choices can be RPG-like in that they determine the course of the game and the ending. Each of those things will appeal to a different set of players.

Dragon Commander's strength seems to be about choice and consequence mostly - each choice you make has an upside and a downside. Each Princess has multiple endings that your choices affect. I think emphasizing choice and consequence would probably be the strongest approach because that's where the game is strongest.




Heroic should be used to describe a person, not a land or planet, unless every single person there is a hero (and I KNOW that's not the case.).

I still think “one of the last Dragon Knights” badly misses the mark and contradicts Divinity 2. Has the story changed again?

I thought this game took place in the heyday of Maxos. Isn't he around in this time? Shouldn’t that be when the Dragon Knights are in their prime? One of the earlier bits of information was that there were other Dragon Knight characters in the game (some allied and some enemies), has that changed?

According to Divinity 2, Dragon Knights were still plentiful enough that there was an entire organization created to train soldiers to take them out hundreds and hundreds of years later. Orobas, Talana, Geldar, and who knows how many others were still around at the time of the Divine's death. They had survived for hundreds of years because no new Dragon Knights had been trained after Amdusias and Lovis had their spat and Maxos sealed them.

If there were never very many around even at their prime, that's fine, but "one of the last" still doesn't make sense to me given that centuries later, at the time of the Divine's death there were at least four, and from what Marius said about "the great Dragon purges" in Farglow, there were a heck of a lot more than that.

Sometimes I get the strangest feeling that between games, Larian forgets the lore they've created to build their world.

Wait, "Forces of Chaos"? I thought the story was about a monotheist attempting to convert all of Rivellon to her particular brand of religion and is opposed by the polytheistic Dragon Commander. Also, the whole vengeance for the dead family thing.

Anyway, what's the Chaos here? I mean, if the enemy is a secret Chaos worshipper, fine, whatever, but you wouldn't want to give that away in the press release.

I remember this summer's moment when DC got the most attention: when the 2 demo pc's were stolen.
Perhaps if some more stuff "that should'nt have been publiced yet" but we DO want to be worldspread >;) found a way out of the studio?

I mean, what's harder to resist than the forbidden? I bet most people would gladly take a look after the terrible news was announced !

That would require of course some non-forbidden yet-forbidden stuff in the first case. And having no problems with deceiving your own public. Nah whatever no one's gonna fool me!

That place should be replaced by "place" I believe.

Did they ever get those PC's back?

As far as I know they did'nt.

Game wallpapers. There is just one wallpaper to be found (the two dragons, must be almost 2 years old by now) and not even available at larian sites.

Dont forget lar you promised us a new postcard/wallpaper for christmas this year!

I agree ! A postcard/wallpaper for Christmas time is something I'm looking forward too !

I just wanted to say that reading this thread was really cool. It's quite amazing how willing Larian is to taking suggestions from their fans. Most developers, from my experience, aren't this open.

I'd just say that I think you'd have more success advertising to rpg and strategy game enthusiasts then the huge sites like ign, and gamespot. Those sites seem to appeal more to the Call of Duty, halo type of player. You'd also get a very short and small article with very little push, I'd bet.

Some sites I'm thinking of would be Gamebanshee, rpgwatch, and rpgcodex(of course, rps). These type of sites would spend way more time with your game, probably write much longer articles and even conduct interviews and such. It just seems to me to be the much better way to advertise. I've seen game developers spend alot of money on ad campaigns that ultimately seem to do very little, just because they thought it would be smarter to go after the mainstream audiences.

You guys make nerdy games, and that's great. You've become one of, if not, my favorite developer and I'll continue buying any game you guys release. I think you'd have a higher chance attracting that kind of loyalty from those type of sites, then the big mega corporation sites. Just an idea.

I just wanted to note that the DC official website still hasn't been upgraded yet and I find this outrageous. There's still a picture of a floating build terrain grid although that has been cancelled a long time ago, there's still no information on when or how people get to play it? Date? Console?
While someone is spending weekly updates on facebook (and bravo for that, its great!) the official site is dead though, and as I have mentioned before, that's still the first page that shows up after entering "dragon commander" in google. Do you really expect people to search for Dragon Commander through facebook in the first place? I say if they can't even get an impressive google, then why would they even care to search beyond that? The site proves a lack of motivation to bring the game towards it's public. Shame on that!

Couldn't agree more. The web site looks good but the news and other pages should be updated in line with the facebook updates. It is the first thing that appears when the game is searched for on google. As I have mentioned in other posts not everyone uses facebook so simply putting a link to the facebook page won't do. There are people out there who are not sure exactly what this game is and even believe it to be a facebook game. One of my friends included.

Yeah, I imagine that Larian is on holiday break now, but I'd really like to see some new information soon in the new year - screenshots, videos, something more than "how should we write a press release based on information you don't have?" I don't use Facebook, I wouldn't check it for updates.

The game is supposed to be coming out before summer next year, how are they going to get sales if no one knows it exists?