So Dungeon Lords ! A game that went under the radar of many players or that was ignored by most after reading the reviews it got, the game was really panned by various critics for being incredibly rushed and bugged. The vanilla game comes with many missing features, skills, and even the mini-map doesn't work ! I totally understand the critics but when I bought the game I was ignorant of the review the game got and I'm glad I didn't inform myself before buying it because this game is a game I love and cherish even though flawed. The game has been patched since then and the biggest problems are now fixed, it is playable now thanks to them !
So the game starts with Character Creation as many WRPG do, the game features many races and the playable ones are the following :
(Character creation is not that fun to read I know sorry !)
Human : Basic stuff, I think we all know what humans are in WRPG now, jack of all trades. Elf : Nimble, smart, frail, again pretty stereotypical Dwarf : Stocky, Strong, not so agile, your usual dwarf Thrall : Small orcish thing, Agile and Smart, perfect for Stealth or Magic oriented character Urgoth : Big bad stupid orc, strong as hell, dumb as an ox Wylvan : The race for furries, a fox/dog thing, very agile, kinda frail, reminds me of The Elder Scrolls Khajiits Zaur : Lizardmen, strong and agile, perfect warriors, not as strong as Urgoths though
All of those races except for Humans and Elves are only playable as male, which is kind of a problem since in Dungeon Lords there's a great advantage in playing a female character : Female characters get access to one more guild and thus get access to that guild's quests, they also get access to the female only classes Valkyrie and Enchantress which are quite good. Female Humans and Elves also start with a higher Intelligence score, and Int is a really useful stat in Dungeon Lords.
For this playthrough I decided to go with a female Elf.
Next is the class, there are 4 basic classes in the game : Fighter, Mage, Adept (cleric) and Rogue, later in the game you get access to higher tier classes (For instance Paladin or Battlemage), in total there are 29 classes (3 female only).
I went with Rogue so I could get the greatly useful '' Identify '' skill and because it's higher tiered classes interest me the most.
After selecting the class you get to spend points in the various skills available to you using the EXP given to you at the beginning, leveling skills in Dungeon Lords is different than in most WRPG. For every monster that you kill you get a certain amount of XP, you can then spend the accumulated XP in your skills and stats. There are also levels that you reach after gaining a certain amount of XP but a level up only gives you a bonus of XP to spend (Not sure of this, from my observations its how it works though).
I decided to spend points in :
Light Weapon Light Armor Archery Repair Identify Inspect : A skill that allow you to see how to disarm a trap or pick a lockbefore attempting to
Last step is the Heraldry, Dungeon Lords has an Heraldry system that is pretty nice. Basically you get those Heraldries as rewards from quests and other achievements, they give permanent passive bonuses to your character, there's a ton of them so it's nice ! In Chargen you get to choose between 5 heraldries : One that rise your accuracy, one that makes your Arcane Magic (think elemental magic) better, one that makes your Celestial Magic (White Magic) better, one that makes you more agile and the last one that makes you luckies (better drops from chest and stuff).
Went with the luck one since the other ones aren't that good imo
(Part 1/2)
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
Named her Alice since Alice's the best female name period. So let's start!
Game starts simple, you're in a forest and a messenger call for you, he has a letter for you and tells you to go to the city of Fargrove.
Letter :
Ain't gonna do that right now though, I have a forest to explore ! Forest is pretty empty, it was not made as an area you're supposed to spend a lot of time in, only contains 3 chests and 2 wooden shacks (Got a sweet elven dagger in a chest though!). The forest is packed full of deadly creatures though so it's a perfect place to grind !
Grinding : Grinding 2 : Grinding 3 :
Melee combat in Dungeon Lords is pretty simple, left click to attack and right click to block if you have a shield, the type of attack you use depends of the direction you move when left-clicking, standing and moving forward will start with a thrust and then horizontal slashes, moving sideway will only go with horizontal slashes and moving backward will make you use overhead vertical slashes, perfect for flying enemies like bats.
Grinding went pretty well but I still died once. Death is pretty harsh in Dungeon Lords, when you die you lose all the XP you accumulated (though you don't lose your progression to the next level, so for instance if you needed 2k to get to level 2 and got 500 and died you'd have 0xp but would only need 1500 more xp to get to level 2 anyway), you also lose one point in one of your various stats, in my case is was Agility, which is alright since Elves have a learning bonus for Agility so raising the stat costs less XP than for other races.
Death :
Grinded to level 5 ! Spent points in many skills and got my Light Weapon skill to 5.
So after my grinding session I made my way to Fargrove, town that isn't that hard to reach since it's fairly close to the starting area and there's a road leading to it.
Problem though ! The town gates are blocked and the guard guarding them tells me it's because Lord Davenmor's daughter has disappeared and thus the Lord decided to stop people from entering or leaving the city until she is found.
Soon after my discussion with the guard a goblin comes to me and tells me that he knows a secret way to Fargrove, way that he'll show me if I follow him. Heh, he looks shady but it's my only option !
And I was right, the goblin's intentions weren't good, i's a trap !
Still, the goblins went down pretty easily ! When they ambushed me they opened the way to a passage leading to the sewers of Fargrove.
Sewers full of annoying as hell slimy things, those things blow a choking gas that makes you unable to do anything but move for a short time, it's really annoying when you get it by it when fighting numerous opponents.
The slimes are still easy if you're careful, the gas is easy to dodge when constantly moving. I continued exploring the sewers and find some locked chests and doors.
The way lockpicking works in Dungeon Lords is pretty simple, there's a bar filled with various icons and a number of icons below it. When the lockpicking game starts the bar will start filling, what you have to do it click on the icons below the bar when the red fill goes over it, not sooner, not later. Pretty easy when there's only one icon to click, gets trickier when there are 3-4 though ! For this trap it was pretty easy since the icon I had to click was at the far end of the bar, hard to miss.
Found a pretty cool dagger in one of the quest, failed the identification but since I don't get any penalty for wielding it I'll use it, it's probably better than what I have anyway
Continuing my exploration of the sewers I quickly stumble on some Goblin Archers.
Ranged combat is pretty simple in this game, it's all on autoaim so you don't have to actively aim at what you want to it (fortunately because aiming in 3rd person sucks), you will miss alot if you sucks in Archery / Thrown weapons though.
Seems like the way out of the sewer is blocked ! The bridge is lowered and the goblins positioned a ballista right on the other side, quite a pain that ballista since it knocks you down if it hits you.
The key that rise the bridge wasn't that hard to find, though I still had to fight a good amount of slimes, goblins and rats ! With the key in hand I rose the bridge and kicked the ballista goblin's ass, they give a lot of xp at least, and they're bad at melee (duh). Wasn't the last of my troubles in the sewer though because I had to fight my first magic caster, a goblin mage ! (Ah and yeah, I got a pretty ballin' new hat).
The goblin dropped a magic tome when it died, which is pretty awesome !
Part 1/2 (or 3)
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
Magic in Dungeon Lords is quite special, you don't have Mana but every class of magic works differently.
Arcane Magic (Fireballs, Magic Missiles, Frost Spells) uses tomes, a single tome gives you a single charge for a given spell, charges recharge over time and if you get more than one tome of the same kind you'll have more charges so basically if you want to cast a lot of spells don't raise your int or you magic skills, go fight magic users !
Celestial Magic (White magic) is pretty similar to Arcane Magic but instead of using tomes it uses Crystals that use Mana. For instance a crystal of Peace (makes monster passive for a while) has 100 mana, casting the spell depletes it all, the mana regenerate over time. Getting more crystal of the same kind raise the mana pool of the spell so you can cast it more often. Almost the same as Arcane magic but if your crystal has 150 mana and you use the spell you'll then only have to wait for 50 more mana to cast it again.
Nether Magic (Black Magic) is completely different. Its charge don't regenerate ever, to use those spells you have to mix ingredients to make them, so if you want to be a Nether Magic user you'd better have a healthy amount of ingredients to make those spells. The great thing about this class of Magic is that you get access to awesome spell soon if you know the recipes.
Last magic class is Rune Magic, this one I don't really know how it works since I never used it, it think you have to combine runes to make runewords or something, IIRC each runes has a Mana pool. I could totally be wrong though, been a while and as I said never used Rune Magic.
Anyway ! Out of the sewers I am ! I now find myself in some kind of building in pretty bad shape. There are tons of goblins there as well, I'm getting kinda tired of fighting those guys I tell ya ! At least they drop tons of healing potions.
I gained a level in identify while in this building and got to identify my dagger, apparently it's a toxic dagger, awesome. A bit later I found a lift, though the lever that activates it is broken, or rather missing, gotta find a new one !
I searched for a while and found one quickly.
Next I went back to the lift and used the rod I had just found in the hole, used the thing and woohoo! Outta there ! I guess I was in some basement because I am still in a building !
(makes me think of OoT Forest Temple's corridors !)
Ohey ! Looks like I'm in some kind of theater ! It's now filled with goblins though, how surprising !
Goblins aren't the biggest problem I ran into though ! There was a War Troll in the building and goddamn this thing is strong, I drank quite a big amount of potions to bring that thing down, at least it gives good xp ! (Like as much as 100 goblins).
(Part 2/3)
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
And it's down ! Lost my pants in the process though. In Dungeon Lords armor can break, and if it does it's gone forever so the repair skill is EXTREMELY important, pretty much vital. The Troll seemed to be the last thing I had to fight before finally leaving this place. Fargrove here I come !
Looks like a ghost town ! Hopefully nobody's gonna get false ideas at the sight of a young elven woman with no pants.
And that's it for part 2 ! Next will be Fargrove. Fargrove will probably take a while, IIRC the city is big and there are tons of things to do.
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
Apparently Fargrove ain't a ghost town, though it will probably become one soon seeing how badly things go around here, there are thieves everywhere, rats, snakes and even the occasional goblin groups. The guards do their best to fend them off but they're overwhelmed really. The thieves obviously attack the civilian, one of them I saved and gave me 50 golds (cheap as sin since I had 10k already).
Still ! Even if Fargrove is quite a mess the city is pretty interesting, there are many shops (I've got myself a full chain mail armor, can't equip it yet though) and guilds, don't know which one I'll join yet, the Sisterhood is a lock but I can join the others too, no idea if there's a limit, ain't gonna risk it though. As I walked through town I found a tavern called Fargrove Inn & Tavern, how unoriginal. Inside I chatted a little with the bartender, dude had tons of things to say, I bet he hears all kind of rumors working there. I also talked with the chambermaid who told me about the Sisterhood.
She told me that if I wanted to join the sisterhood I had to find Sister Dhara, no idea where though. I continued exploring the town and found a door with some guy behind asking for a password, password that I don't know. I guess it gives access to a pretty shady area or building, that's what I get from the flaming skulls anyway.
Soon after I found a fortune teller in her tent, I asked her to see my future and I got an heraldry for it, the '' Knave of Swords '' which makes me more accurate with melee weapons, better at parrying hits and also raise my damages, pretty nice overall.
And then next to her there was this guy shouting about his troll, makes people pay to get a close look of it, totally secure he said.
Heh, Troll was much harder than the one in the theater, and gave thrice the xp too ! Got myself some levels in Medium Armor and Shields so I could get a little bit closer to being able to equip my chainmail armor.
Ah also I fought ninjas.
City is huge and there are still places I had yet to explore so I continued walking, found some huge castle but as I got closer I was attacked by troops of an opposing kingdom ! Troops who used the Moon Bridge to teleport into town.
They went down and the melee guys dropped a pretty ballin' medium shield, gives a lot of resistance to many elements, awesome.
The '' castle '' was just a magic shop, since I'm a rogue it's not really interesting for me so I didn't stay long in there. 2 minutes later I'm in Japan.
(Part 1/2)
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
Well not really, it's just the place where you get the quests for the oriental-themed classes (Monk, Samurai, Budoka, etc). You can also buy weapons like Sais and stuff there. I then decided to continue the main quest a tad, I had to go in the Monastery to see some dude so I went and told me to go see Seer Augustus in his private Sanctum. Apparently Seer Augustus was in trouble because his house was invaded by some lich thing with telekinetic powers, candles and **** flying everywhere.
I killed the thing and talked to Seer Augustus, unfortunately I was too late and he died. But before dying he gave me a Life Celestial Crystal that allows me to bypass the death penalty if I ever die again, can use it more than once but I have to wait for the mana to regenerate between each use. He also told me that a great evil loom over the land and that I'm the champion and stuff, basic fantasy story. Dungeon Lords' main story ain't it's strong point it seems, anyway from what I've seen so far. And that's where I stopped ! Next part will probably be the continuation of the Main Quest, or maybe I'll try finding the password to that place so I can see what's behind that door !
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
And yeah it's a fun game, when fully patched the bugs aren't a major hindrance anymore though there are still some inaccessible doors and chests impossible to unlock the game is very playable. The XP system is imo what makes the game really fun, you have a lot of freedom over your character so you can do pretty much whatever you want, from a dark magic using fighter to a stealthy cleric.
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
Haven't done much today, pretty much only grindan ! I still fought a Vampiress in the slums though, was tough but it gave me tons of XP, managed to get my Parry level to 7, might be pretty good at not getting hit now.
And some huge groups of mobs, almost died a few times there :
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
So today I went and advanced a bit on the Main Quest, I met with some lady named the Celestine and she asked me to revrieve a Relic of Power from the Catacombs of Fargrove to I went.
Dungeon was pretty awesome but it was full of freaking annoying monsters like the ghosts, those things are awful, if they hit you and you don't block you're frozen for like 10 seconds and they'll cast it again before the effect wears off. And if there are more than 1 of them you're pretty much ****ed if you don't block. Other monsters were like zombies, mummies, skeletons, bats and giant headless things.
Deeper in the dungeon I found the relic, but access was blocked by a huge metal cage, to get access to the item I had to find a magic password.
So I searched around and got to a place where there was a Tomb Guardian, that thing is a *****. It uses some kind of chocking gas attack that makes you unable to do anything but move, kinda like the Slimes in the sewers but 10x harder to dodge and it casts it often. Fortunately it didn't had a lot of HP so the fight was short. Killing it got me the magic password and I got access to the Relic ! The Horn of Galdryn !
Woohoo ! Next I was ordered to take the Horn to Mage Allister or something, not sure of the spelling to have it examined but no ! Instead I went and did a quest for the Guild of Mystery (Thief Guild), they wanted me to find a treasure map in an abandonned house that was once inhabited by a man and a woman who hated one another so much that one night they both killed the other, the man poisoed the tea of the woman and the woman chopped the head of the man of. Fun stuff !
I got into the house and checked everywhere to quickly notice that the door leading to the basement was locked. To open it I had to fight some Demonic Entiy which was easily the worst *****ing thing I had to fight until now. Seriously this thing was awful, it stands in the air so it's kinda hard to hit for a melee character and it keeps flinging spells at you that pretty much stunlock you. And the worst? It has lifeleech on its spells, so yeah you better dodge'em.
I still managed to beat it though ! It gave me access to some more room in the house where I got the key to the basement. There I fought the headless body of the man and the ghost of the woman (pretty much stronger version of the mobs in the catacombs).
Anyway ! Killed them, got the map and got the hell outta here ! At least the guild paid well for my work. Oh and I fought mimics in this place ! Good'ol mimics.
And that's it for today ! Hopefully I'll be done with Fargrove soon, damn there's a lot of things to do in that single town.
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Best LPer ever, Gix ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt5YKmP7ecY
(makes me think of OoT Forest Temple's corridors !)
