► WTF Is... - Divinity: Dragon Commander ?
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- Опубліковано 28 січ 2025
- TotalBiscuit takes a look at an upcoming strategy/RPG from Larian Studios.
Get it on Steam: bit.ly/13jtrzg
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Despite the less than stellar RTS elements, I found there was good fun in barraging my enemies with fireballs and acid jets. But above all else, this game really excels in the role playing/decision making and story elements. The characters had depth, and their back stories all intrigued me. For that alone I recommend this game.
"...and Divinity: Original Sin which is currently in Alpha"
*Ffs, now i feel too old*
Yeah.
This video is the reason i found you back in 2013, rest in piece
I just wanted a review of this game and now I am mildly in tears. I hadnt realised how much I missed his voice.
The full release pretty much solves every real problem the game had when this video was made.
I bought it in the steam sale and believe me it's worth it. It's a whole bunch of different things together but they just work.
And if you really need a review to convince you:
I won a battle by making an army of 75 Troopers and 1 Bomber Balloon by just ordering the troopers to selfdestruct in their faces.
Then i "Inspired" ( Dragon Ability) that one Bomber Balloon so it went full rambo and ended up destroying 2 Juggernauts.
And then after that battle i gave my wife permission to bed a stranger.
If that's not enough things to do to make you buy this thing i don't know what will.
The strategy map of this game reminds me a lot of the "war of the ring" mode in Lord of the rings: the battle for middle earth 2
freek de jonghe That mode used to be harsh haha but quite fun still
"Your enemies have significantly higher tech than you do, but you have a dragon."
Yep, I'm sold.
Hearing Yennifer's voice threw me for a loop
TB, I don't know if it's in the singleplayer campaign, but in the MP beta campaigns and skirmish, there is a ticket drain system. Each region or country has only so many recruits, and those slowly fill into your currently available recruits.
But if you keep having meat grinders, you will run out of men and lose. Recruitment centers (the resource building/circle capture points) simply speed the process of making these recruits usable.
Scarlett ... hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg, would bang/10
@@objectdefiance4027 how could u spoil that bro
Oh geez. I didnt know we were allowed to comment on WTF is videos
...The title screen drew me in immediately, with the thought of "Is that a dragon with a jetpack?"
The teeth moving when the skeleton talked was just creepy.
The major plus in this game, YOU CAN BE A FUCKING DRAGON
same reason I don't list the other 14 websites it's available on.
"You can play as a DRAGON WITH A JETPACK and fly around the battlefield destroying stuff."
I almost got blown away by the awesome.
If you use the "cycle [production building] keys, you can select your factories, and then you can use the hotkeys to build your units - build options and queue is displayed to the right of your skillbar, where selected unit abilities would be :)
I've been listening for less than 30 seconds and I've already questioned why someone with such an awesome voice hasn't been employed to narrate trailers for advertising purposes.
the tank unit, or the actual research to boost some units with extra life / or the immunity spell of the shaman to boost armor (dragon has this spells aswell to buff your army).
The tank allows some micro if you make it a transport, you can put units in it to protect them (and place mines and all the abilities to make it stronger).
Quickly becomes quite a Micro battle and dragon dog fights in a PvP match.
2v2 in this game is just brilliant cool.
Now available for ~15.00 with the newest Humble Bundle, along with another large whack of games!
So-so game. If you have the time, this could be a fun time sink. Your a gawd dam dragon with a jet pack, that will keep you entertained for a tad. If you're wondering how far you can fly up, it's not that far lol.
An RTS where everything surrounding the actual gameplay is excellent... but the RTS mechanics are utterly basic.
A real shame and a waste of real potential. It kind of comes off like devs trying to make a type of game they weren't accustomed to.
Make a Dragon Commander 2 Larian, you can afford it now, and you can do it right this time. You were nearly there, just learn from the mistakes here.
I'm glad you mentioned it... I had forgotten about that project. I have high hopes for it!
I love the idea of the undead having not only a civilization, ambassador, and approval, as well the lizardman with an accent in a suit. Cards being in non-card games annoy me as there is no reason for them to be cards. Still, this game looks like something I'd like.
The map system reminds me of Rise of Nations. I liked that one and was pissed when I lost the disk.
Remember the war game all of this stuff ended up being based on?
*_That's_* where the card crap came from.
Imo, I actually really like card aesthetics.
Very true. In fact, you HAVE to autobattle if there is more than one battle per round. You can only engage in ONE battle per turn personally with your dragon. So you have to choose wisely in which battle you want to engage personally and which you will turn over to your generals. In multiplayer, of course, every battle will be played by the player in RTS himself. ;)
So that is what they mean by having a raging drag-on
They are still improving and balancing the combat with the data from beta (for example ctrl-groups as dragon). Also this is just the first chapter. The maps currently available in mp-beta are way larger. You always have to predict and counter your enemies upgrades and skills and your dragon won't last long against more and especially more tanky units, you have to switch. So the battles really aren't always the same. You can watch Master vs. Apprentice on Larianstudios' Twitch-channel for proof.
RIP John...
Oh, I had only watched the video so I was unaware. If it's currently very similar to the way it appears in the video, the RTS aspect appears to be severely lacking.
I'm glad you enjoy it and I obviously haven't yet played to see for myself how much complex it might be, but judging from this video, I would hope that future patches would increase complexity to the combat system.
Decided to try the game out and have some feedback that I don't think was in the video.
The story mode is scripted, pitty. You get the exact same events in the same order. The replayability value of the game is only in it's MP features which I haven't tried out. Increasing the difficulty level doesn't make real time battles more interesting, it's just buffs for the AI and nerfs for the player.
Well that's a problem with the test in that case. I did a test quite some years ago as a kid (not gonna bother with the result, it doesn't matter) and there were no multiple choice or number test, or barely any anyway. It had more puzzles that do actually mean things, like a special type of maze, correlation tests (what comes next? etc), some kind of 3d puzzle and more stuff like that.
Those test are meaningful, because you really have to think to solve them, instead of blindly calculating
the main game reminds me of the rts in brutal legend
I actually didnt mind the RTS of Brutal Legend that much compared to what most other people felt. Though it had it's obvious weaknesses I felt the matches were easy enough to compensate for the lack of proper controls.
honestly, i loved the RTS of brutal legend as well, but no one plays it anymore online
Sure, every stat has meaning behind it (and I don't mean in the purpose sense). The correlation is not statistical, though because intelligence is not a statistic. Subjectively chosen tendencies of INT would be used in measuring it so there would be a correlation with those tendencies and score. As we feel those are tendencies of INT of course we will feel the score tends with INT. It's just reinforcement of whatever decided. Intelligence is a big story and a metric is only defined by its metre.
It's somewhat telling that TB didn't want to enforce tough immigration policy inspite all his advisors supporting the policy. He had his own experiences with tough American immigration policies. He had personal involvement in the policy presented in the game. Great to watch him roleplay the game based on his own experiences.
Arsetalk is now a word I will regularly use. Thank you for the addition!
Miss you, TB
It's simple, have units come in squad sizes. A lot of units but also few, give the squads abilities. You have an army of 50-200 but only like a half to a dozen different units that you can order and use abilities on.
this game is awesome. buy it.
This looks like the kind of game I would enjoy. Nice job TB! (Also, please do that Corporal Newkirk from Hogan's Heroes impression more often. Especially for comedic purposes.)
am here cuz bg3 :P
miss u alot John
Actually, a noticeable difference can be found around up to 80fps (72fps) if I'm not mistaken in film, during research into the making of the showscan format.
"Douglas Trumbull, who undertook experiments with different frame rates that led to the Showscan film format, found that emotional impact peaked at 72 FPS for viewers." - Wikipedia.
Rip TB
I've never been dissapointed by a Larian game, they're always trying to do new things and have fun with it as well. Bugs aside, which typically aren't insurmountable or gameplay destroying, I still replay all of their existing games and I'm super excited for their new ones. I got a Beta code for Dragon Commander, and although I've only played the Multiplayer campaign, it's a lot of fun if you like games like Risk.
Wow! This game looks way more appealing than I thought. From a "let's wait" to "day 1". Thanks for the video!
F
Not sure if you have been told TB, but the room at the start you couldn't get access to is the Princess room if I remember what Swen said on his 'turn one' play.
Does anyone know if these 'problems' that TB is talking about has been fixed?
Getting stuck in conversations? Yes. Beta was beta...
RobiePAX You sir, are everywhere.
I know that and I like the combination; my point was that for it to really succeed AS an RTS, it absolutely must improve those aspects of the game and while I think I would like the other aspects, it doesn't seem like it'll be much of a game if the RTS aspects are not fixed.
The smaller parts of the game are nice and could be nicely matched with various genres, but they still need to make the main part of the game (whether RPG, Beat 'em up, Fighting, or in this case RTS) up to scratch.
Thank you for restoring some of my hope in having words keep their meaning.
There are RTS and strategy games as well, where it's not about tactical movement or use of abilities. In those cases, it IS about the decision making, policy decisions, and very much about preparation. Those are games you win before the battles even begin. This game probably wasn't going for that, you're right, but I feel there is a place for that. AI War works very much on blobby gameplay, but there are so many decisions to make outside of combat that it doesn't really matter.
i dont think it does, because Medieval 2 is based on Rome 1 engine. Rome 2 seems to be greatly improved and will probably beat TW sales. Now you are able to land units from the ships directly into the battle, cities are far bigger now and have multiple capture points,better diplomacy, smarter AI that considerates every action and calculates its attitude to you, new battlefield tactical view, etc... check out a wiki i am quite excited.
I have a question I can't seem to find the answer to. Is your character, the Dragon Knight, the very same from Divinity 2?
No. This is a prequel.
Hello TotalBiscuit, I've got a couple of questions if you can answer -
Can you "level up" your dragon in the sense that it gets progressively stronger via obtaining equipment or increased stats/base damage, or is it purely based on unlocking new spells?
Also, are there multiple types of dragon you can choose to become, each with unique abilities, or is that something that is in the multiplayer portion only?
Lastly, does your single player campaign transfer in any way to multiplayer?
Thanks!
I had high hopes for this game and this video has showed me that these hopes were well placed. Thank you for this video, not only will I get this when it comes out of beta but I'm gunna do some GOG surfing and bin digging to grab the older divinity games too.
Real Time Strategy usually doesn't involve so many interactive character decisions and is focused much more on the war gameplay, à la Starcraft (1&2), Age of Empires series, Command & Conquer series, Warcraft series, Supreme Commander, Sins of a Solar Empire and others.
Hopefully they'll improve the battle system a lot and fix any and all major bugs before release, because to me this looks promising, but the battle controls are almost non-existent.
Formations such as in AoE II would be nice.
they just added a patch to allow for more dragon form shortcuts , you can now create units and buildings from dragon form, as well as assigned control groups
That's absolutely true. I play the closed beta myself and MP is much more strategical than the battles shown in TB's video. It's a pity that TB only previewed the SP part of Dragon Commander because a game like this is predestined for MP in the long run. And it's worth to mention that you can play both, the pure RTS part (skirmish on bigger maps with 2vs2 and 4vs4) and the turn-based campaign mode in MP against real human players who also have a dragon which lead to some cool "dogfights".... ;)
I bought this game for the diplomacy and romance content. I am not big on the whole RTS battles, but I still might enjoy them if they are good and if they are not super hard. It would be cool if they made a DLC that let you be an empress taking over and they had male romance options. I pre ordered it and am excited to play it. ^-^
I wonder if the combat would be fixed if it was played in phases, and after three phases (in which you can build and plan inbetween each one) whoever has done the most damage (determined by the costs of the units and buildings) will win the match. It'll force you to protect your valuable units, too. Perhaps if the units were given stricter orders that they would only carry out each phase, it would also mean you don't have to worry about them, but you wouldn't want to plan wrong.
I really love these videos even though I don't play PC games. Great work CB
the card "summer sales" is just so wonderfullly timed
Actually it can. It also isn't all about the visuals. Higher fps means input can be interpreted more quickly, making the game more responsive. There are diminishing returns certainly, but the difference is there.
It does have a meaning. You can't use it to directly compare people, but it will give you a sense. For instance Bush was the only president (afaik) with an IQ lower than 130. There is a correlation between IQ and intelligence.
See it as the amount of horse power in a car. That number alone doesn't say very much about the actual top speed, but generally more horsepower does mean a higher speed. It is _a_ metric in a complex system. It tells a part of the story, but not the whole story.
I was looking around on the games website and on the front page if you click on the Emperor box it takes you to something that has love and marriage listed and under that it says "Many princesses will bid for your hand, but when you have made the decision whom to marry, that is only the beginning. Each princess has her own background and personal struggle. It will be up to you to guide her to the best of your abilities, keeping in mind the often conflicting sensitivities of your councilors".
i started from rome and i never really understood how city control worked on manual control, whatever i did they always rebelled unless i put it on automanage, and later games kind of simplified it, but yeah i agree with you. what do you think of rome 2?
Looks pretty appealing to me I gotta say...Do I need to have played any other Divinity titles to get any lore or story here? or is it alright to play off the bat.
I have to disagree with the "all the other stuff is in preparation for the battles.". All of it is fun. Some people go through the battles to have the fun of conquest and role playing interaction with the characters.
5:37
The Skeleton, the one without any internal organs (which includes lungs), coughs.
You can without enough training and a 120fps monitor. The eye can be trained just like a lot of parts any body. However, you don't simply have to SEE the 60fps difference between 60 and 120. you can also FEEL the difference.
Also he is wrong about the ressources.
You have a set amount of recruits in the area, if all are used they are out, no more comming, the one with more recruitment citadels will drain the recruits remaining, which pretty much means you win if you can keep units (especially troopers to capture building).
It actual works better than on first sight, as the game is different enough from the otherwise "basic" RTS that you need to look at it further. Really works in PvP much better.
When I saw the trailer for this game it grabbed my interest immediately. Now that I see some actual gameplay, I can easily say this looks better than most games coming out this year
you've... changed from aggressive to cool, I will say that I appreciate that
Oh I wasn't charging in alone on my first play through, I even kitted my dragon to be quite the support with auras and heal with a couple hard hitting offensive skills. Near the end I somehow manage to grasp how to use Dragon form but it ultimately just ends up being a tad useless for me since I can just win battles by auto-resolve. Like I said before the RTS element really needs an overhaul and I still say this is a great game.
I watched other vid, you can swap back to RTS mode after being Dragon, dunno which button though, maybe the version that TB played doesn't have it implement yet.
The land RTS elements, and indeed even the turn-based world map, remind me VERY heavily of Star Wars: Empire At War. Which is good, because I fucking LOVED that game, and put more time into it than probably any other RTS I've ever played.
You can play a co-op multiplayer campaign....against AI or against human players. The only thing missing in MP is the Raven and the RPG parts. The campaign strategy map with the turn-based moves and the RTS battles are all possible to play with or against other human players.
What a *fantastic* game concept! :] TB, what if it went from RT combat to turn-based? You could check in at each battle during each turn, move some pieces about, etc.
I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this game I think. Once it's fully released, if they've solved some of the problems, and/or if the multiplayer looks good, I'll get it. Here's hoping they make a great game, because I love the concept.
Yes. The first 'trailer' on Steam is a pretty good talk-through of the features, and kinda works well as a non-review WTF Is... video.
This turned out better then I expected. Will definitely have to get it. Even if its not full out strategy I think there is enough other elements to make it an interesting game. And yeah, you get to play a dragon. :P
In the main game the enemy will also have dragons later on in the single player from what I've heard on the video's they have shown.
Living only a few kilometers away from Larian Studios itself, I'm a big supporter of their games.
I do agree on the criticism though, their strengths have always been the RPG elements: dialogue, narrative, decisions. They might have to work on the RTS part a bit more, stealing from other games is always a nice way to make sure your game has the right vibe to it. I hope they get that right, blobbing with no actual strategy is not good. :I
I hope this one will do well in the end! :D
I'm guessing he's referring to multiplayer. In multiplayer beta, there are currently only maps meant to be played with 4 people. If you start a match and play them with only 2 people, there are a lot of recruits and resources and a match can indeed carry on for a while.
In single player, and especially chapter 1, which is meant as a tutorial, the maps are small on purpose, and don't have a lot of recruits...
Only two units in the game (Hunter, Imp Fighter) do NOT have some kind of anti-clustering ability or attack, so there are loads of ways to counter blobs.
The amount of recruits is based on the country's population. These early maps don't have a high population, but they're small, so it's quicker to beat the enemy than run out of resources. This chapter is essentially a tutorial which is intentionally easy to beat with simple gameplay.
That is Divinity's major asset, there story, scripting and vocals. Every game I've played by them, I could care less about the mechanics, for they were shite; yet the story, man are they good.
Okay, I will admit that I couldn't get Fraps to work for me... so I use DXTory.
With DXTory, my file's FPS is seperate from my screen's FPS.
Going to the channel page of this channel and checking the about section has the system specifications of the rig TB uses... and under recording, it says DXTory.
Also, in other videos he has said that he uses DXTory.
So... his files might be 60fps@1080p... but his screen could be that or other.
Actual you can build in dragon form, in quite a convenient way actual (press Z, X, C, V for the factory).
Its different, not the basic Starcraft like RTS, as you actual become a dragon with a WASD movement, it has to be different, and especially in PvP its quite cool, quite different than the classic RTS we have in quite some numbers and different variety.
Could easily see the game with more units, more abilities and more of anything in combat, it does pretty much anything right beside that.
One thing to say. The animation and voice acting for Catharine is Brilliant! I feel I have heard her somewhere.
My main issue with the politics is, it just doesnt feel like you are making a difference, as if it exists solely for increasing relationship with the species... For example, theres one choice where you can choose to turn the empire into a Republic, have people vote for their president, they choose the dwarf who most likely cheated, but you dont see any change, even in the end theres no special mention of it happening...
Actual the AI is the biggest lay down.
If you ever try this in a PvP game against other players, you quickly see its much more deep and micro management of units and the opponent finally has its dragon on its own and doesnt just build a big blob of units (as they just die to dragons).
Also, if you get used to it, building and commanding units from dragon form works fairly well, its just much different than the basic RTS you would allready know.
Battles themself are quick, but you fight many.
So was the gameplay style shown on TB's previous video on the game scrapped completely or are there aerial battles that are like that? A shame if it was scrapped, it looked a lot more fun than its current state.
I really like Larian Studios, they always make really interesting worlds, and with Divine Divinity they made my favorite game of all time so i will probably give this game a try, even so i am much more excited for Original Sin.
The Battle System definitly needs some improvement, but i trust that Larian will try their best to improve it before launch.
You, sir, deserve my respect for giving credit where credit's due. That is, Imperium Galactica.
Games much faster, you have auto hotkeys set to your unit buildings and you can still make groups for 1-9 and controll your army and even cast spells of them (tab through) and dodge and move your dragon, picking key units and countering spells with your own.
It has a surprising deep combat if you get used to that. Thing is, making combat more like Starcraft wouldnt work in dragon form (too many units, especially buildings wouldnt work).
2v2 in PvP is just brilliant fun.
Use your army in front and follow with the dragon. With shamans that heal you and dodging volleys of rockets, you wont die.
Sure, if you just fly in alone into a base filled with anti-air, dont be suprised to die like the fool you are doing that.
Also, you can just rush above the base and fire, simply dont stop moving and hit your target, then fly behind a mountain so the rockets smash into that, then attack again.
Its much better if you get the feeling of it, which is much more dynamic.
There is no confirmation on that, but there are request on the Larian forum about it so it's quite likely. ;)
Adding a little info on the subject, according to a study, (the kind that measures intelligence with numbers, like IQ), women and men have better performance on (but just a little) different subjects (ej. hand/eye coordination, logic problems solving, etc), each gender being "better" on an equal amount of subjects. Also showed that with a little of practice, each gender can be as "good" as the other on every subject, and is caused by social standards (the old conception boys/sports- girls/dolls)
Instead of overheating, maybe blowing fire should decrease in damage as hold the ability and slowly charges back up as when you don't use it?
Thanks for the video, this actually looks like fun. Been hoping it ended up really nice and not with King Arthur Syndrome.
"Hello Commander" in Northern is like the Dwarves in Shadow of the Horned Rat.
About 24:30, I came across some Larian Dev casting of this game on Twitch. Two of their better players playing the game in a versus mode. There is lots of strategy in this game for the devoted player. It is not just "blob of units... Advance!". Maybe in Single Player but isn't Starcraft and SC2 kind of the same in Single Player?
The point: PvP seems to have loads of strategy elements. Single Player (from what I see in your vid) looks to work like Single Player usually works, exploitable.