Just to clarify: Rimelands is not a Diablo clone and plays nothing like it (I'm one of the "internal" testers they mentioned). It's really more like an animated version of the table-top RPGs of old -- which is, in my book, all kinds of awesome.
Would you say that gameplay, not quality wise, that they're comparable to classics such as Baldur's Gate or Planetscape: Torment. I loved the gameplay in those sorts of games.
Actually, Baldur's Gate and Planescape are among my favourite games, so I can't resist commenting on this. In a lot of aspects Rimelands is not very close to BG games, but compared to Diablo-like action RPG genre there are a couple of similarities (design intent-wise, at least, I hope these also come across to others): * Combat is slower and more tactical than in action RPGs. BG is a party-based game, which brings a lot of tactical aspects to the game, which is are absent from Rimelands where you only control a single character. We have a number of talents however, which should counter this a lot. * One of the biggest reasons I enjoyed BG games was that they were based on AD&D system. The advantage of this was that I was able to know how the system functions and thus make better educated choices in the game than I'm able in other games. This is one of the primary design guidelines of Rimelands: transparency. You should be very aware how your choices (which equipment to wear, which talents to use, and so on) in the game affect the outcomes. There's not that much character interaction in the game as BGs, but I'm striving to write characters that we have to be as memorable as possible.
All that is coming across very well in the preview builds. The AD&D feel is particularly strong, not only with the dice rolling mechanic, but also the way the vaults/dungeons are structured (for example, once a room is cleared, it stays cleared). But you also get the feeling of moving metal figures around a tactical map.
Wow, this looks amazing. Between this, Aralon, Xenome and FF:Tactics the rest of this year may be the best month for rpg fans yet.
Or maybe a fail on the PR's part? Quote from email: Anyways, thanks for the heads up Josh. I'll be updating the post to reflect what you have stated.
I apologize on behalf of our PR department - I think when I said 'Its going into Beta' they thought that meant that it was being submitted for some reason - which obviously is not the same thing.
There was a Twitter announcement today that the game will be submitted this Friday! Is this information correct nor again: not?
