INTRO:
It is not very often that a game-maker would attempt to take something that has been established and alter it for something else entirely. Yet, Liquid Entertainment has done it, after having secured a contract from Atari, who in turn had obtained a license from Hasbro, which own the rights to Dungeons & Dragons and apparently has no issue with RPG gameplay being converted to RTS gameplay.
However, far from having performed a hideous job that would have angered every fan of Dungeons & Dragons, Liquid Entertainment has made a game that can be considered as having designs that are not entirely adaptations of the rules of the tabletop game. In fact, its gameplay hardly resemble any Dungeons & Dragons video game that had been made by its time (not necessarily for the worse); neither does it resemble Liquid Entertainment's earlier RTS games, namely Battle Realms.
PREMISE:
Perhaps as a sign of what would come (and have arrived), this Atari-published, Dungeons & Dragon game is set in the world of Eberron, which has a setting that is quite different from that for the world of Toril (which is the usual staple of Dungeons & Dragons story campaigns). Of course, those who are well-versed in Wizard of the Sword Coast's products would know this already from the title of the game.
Anyway, the story is about the struggle of three factions to secure the eponymous MacGuffin artifact of the game – specifically a Dragonshard that happens to be far larger than the rest. Much could be said about the lore of this massive artifact, but all of it would be in the realm of spoilers and more importantly, it has next to nothing to do with the gameplay other than being a goal of the game's three factions. On the other hand, the smaller versions of said artifact do contribute to the gameplay.
TWO MAP LAYERS:
Dragonshard makes use of multiple layers in maps, specifically two: one for the surface, and the other for the underground. This is not a new feature in RTS games by its time, but it is a rare one and a first for Liquid Entertainment. A tap of a button transits the camera between both layers without much of a hitch, so the developers perhaps deserve some credit for getting the technical functions of this feature right.
Anyway, the surface layer is where bases can only be built, and only at specific nodes on this layer; there is no reason for this limitation, other than deliberate game design. This can cause some disbelief, as well as the impression that Liquid Entertainment is going for very simplified base-building, especially considering what it has done for Battle Realms, which has far freer and more sophisticated base-building.
The Underworld layer is where the player searches for loose and/or hidden caches of treasures, including gold, which is one of the two resources that will be described later. This is also where dangerous monsters lurk, protecting the more lucrative of treasures. This layer is also often the only way to reach the bases of opponents, as the surface layer may have obstacles that prevent movement of land-bound units. Consequently, the underground layer does not support the use of flying units.
The Underground layer is also where Liquid Entertainment introduces a gameplay feature that is better associated with RPGs. This feature allows units to "rest" while underground, regaining health and energy more quickly than they would if they just stand or move about. However, the resting and waking animations may make them briefly vulnerable if any enemy happens to chance upon them, so the player has to be careful as to where they rest.
However, this design also raises the question of why the same feature is not implemented for the surface layer. On the surface layer, units can only regenerate quickly by either being in special places with regenerative benefits (more on this later), or near player-owned nodes. This limitation also encourages a cheesy exploit of having units staying near the entrances to the underground layer, if only to have them getting into that layer to rest and recover.
RESOURCES:
Typically enough for a game with high fantasy settings, gold is one of the resources that the player has to gather. It is spent on just about every purchase option that base buildings offer, as well as the recruitment of any unit. Gold is usually found in the underground layer, thus giving an incentive to search and clear out the underground layer. Gold can also be gained via "taxes", which are practically a trickle of automatically gained gold income. The amount of taxes obtained over time is proportional to the number of buildings that the player has, so there is an incentive to simply build up given the opportunity, though there is the risk that the player would lose the investment if the enemy destroys the buildings before the player breaks even.
The eponymous dragonshards are more remarkable in design than gold, if only because it enters the game world in interesting ways. Unlike gold, which is already spawned into the map as loose caches, dragonshards not only appear as loose caches, but also fall onto the surface layer like rain, forming deposits of dragonshards that can be gathered by just about any land-based unit, though there are units that are particularly skilled at gathering them. The rain of dragonshards falls in random places on the map, though always at places where land-based units can reach.
The third resource is "experience". Instead of the usual designs for experience systems for RTS games at the time. Experience is gained from the usual killing of enemies and completing of objectives, among other means such as expending scrolls of 'experience'.
Gained experience goes into a pool, not unlike that for any of the other two resources. It can then be spent on increasing the "level" and thus combat capability of regular units, so this provides an impetus for players to start scouring the map and engaging in fights to accrue experience.
On the other hand, players who have experience with Battle Realms and its yin and yang system would be quite familiar with this experience system, so it is nothing remarkably new.
NODES:
The surface layer has a few nodes for the purpose of base-building. These nodes have different numbers of slots to accommodate buildings with; generally, the starting nodes for the players – called the "Nexus", fittingly enough - are the biggest with the most number of slots, up to 16. However, these slots are ultimately limited, as will be apparent when the player learns about the limitations on building a varied army.
The Nexus nodes are the first nodes that the player obtains; ownership is lost if its filled-in slots are cleared and its otherwise useless central structure is destroyed. A formerly occupied Nexus node that has been demolished completely can be taken over by another player, who needs to rebuild the central structure and convert it for their faction. However, the conversion takes a sometimes impractically long time, requires the expenditure of a lot of resources and can be disrupted at any time during the conversion.
Depending on the design of a map, there are expansion nodes that offer more slots (generally up to four) to build in. In fact, if the player wants to unlock all units of a faction, he/she will need to secure these and use their slots, because as big as the Nexus nodes are, they do not have enough slots for this purpose. However, expansion nodes are much more difficult to defend, as they are scattered over a map.
All nodes have walls that prevent land-based enemies from simply barging in and destroying buildings. These walls can be broken down by enemies, of course, but this takes time that gets even longer if the player upgrades them to be more durable. The Nexus nodes can also be upgraded to have defensive towers that automatically attack nearby enemies.
Broken or damaged walls can also be repaired, segment by segment, or in their entirety, for the expenditure of some resources. The repairs can take some time, especially if the walls have been completely demolished.
BUILDINGS:
Every node has a limited number of slots, with the bigger ones obviously having more slots. Buildings can be built on these slots in order to make use of the game's experience and unit cap systems, which will be described later.
These buildings do little more though; they otherwise sit where they are and are vulnerable to raids. This is an old design trope in the RTS genre by the time of this game.
Unfortunately, the player has to build these buildings anyway, due to limitations that have been deliberately included to prevent any player from raising permanently powerful units. Before the player can increase the level of regular units, the player must build a number of the building types that are associated with said units. Moreover, these buildings must be adjacent to each other, which add to the hassle.
For example, there must be at least one Lorehold in order to upgrade Clerics to level 2, and up to four Loreholds are needed in order to upgrade Clerics to level 5. These Loreholds must be one slot (in terms of distance) away from each other, so this means that an entire wing of a Nexus node, or an entire Expansion node must be occupied by them.
Such designs allow crafty players to make the best of quick raids by targeting one of the buildings in a cluster of the same buildings, if only to slow down their opponents' progress. Of course, if their opponents have already upgraded the units' levels, this is for naught, as the units retain their level if the building is destroyed, though the raid may help in other ways, which will be described later.
This means that as a match between players wears on, their units will inevitably increase in power. Moreover, an observant player would notice that this progression is not that much different from the usual "teching-up" that has been seen in typical RTS titles.
However, there are a couple other limitations that are introduced to add to the complexity of base-building.
One of these limitations concern one of their statistics, which is energy. Although the levels of units may stay permanent once they have been achieved, the capacity of their energy reserves - the use of which will be described later – is dependent on the number of their associated buildings, which also must be adjacent to each other.
Energy reserves are needed in order to use said units' special abilities, the most powerful of which often require massive chunks of their magical reserves. Although their default magical reserves are usually enough for one use of any special ability, higher reserves are needed for repeated use, which may be instrumental during pitched battles.
The second limitation concerns the cap on the number of units of one type that the player can field. Although the player can recruit any kind of unit right from the start, only one of each kind can be recruited. To be able to recruit more, the player will need to build buildings that are associated with the units; the number of these buildings determines the cap.
For example, each Lorehold that the player builds allows the recruitment of one additional Cleric; in other words, the player can have as many Clerics as he/she has slots to build Loreholds on (though the player is better off getting a mixed army).
Therefore, a quick raid on nodes to demolish specific buildings is a tactic that remains viable throughout a match. However, the reduction only affects units that are recruited later, and not units that are already on the map and fighting. Still, enemies not being able to immediately order a replacement unit due to the reduction in the limit may play into the player's hands in the long-term.
If the player is looking for quality instead of quantity, he/she may appreciate the buildings that have little to do with the recruitment of units, but instead bolster their statistics. These buildings (called "monuments" in-game), when built such that they are adjacent to buildings that are associated with certain unit types, will increase specific statistics of these units.
For example, the Monument of Haste, when placed adjacent to the Fighting Arena of the Lizardfolk, increases the movement speed of the Fighters that are trained through the arena; this is a handy buff for these melee-oriented units.
UNIT MOVEMENT:
The units in this game operate as 'loose' units, i.e. units that have no notion of formations or any other arrangements that govern their movement relative to each other. This is not unlike Liquid Entertainment's earlier title, which was Battle Realms, so the player can expect units in an army to end up being separated from each other due to their different movement speeds.
Fortunately, the designers have included a movement command that forces an army to move at the same speed as the slowest member. This is convenient, though it also exposes some gaps in the designs for believable movement animations; the faster units simply have their animations slowed down to match the slowest.
Alternatively, the player can have units running pell-mell to where the player needs them to be; this consumes their energy reserves.
DAMAGE TYPES:
By the time of this game, the RTS genre has gameplay features that play rock-scisssors-paper between units by utilizing the damage that they deal and the protection that they have against damage. Dragonshard would not be left out.
There are five types of damage in this game; they are merely there for mix-and-match purposes, i.e. having no further sophistication than percentage-based modifiers to calculations that the game would make when determining the damage that units would take when they are harmed.
Champion-type damage can only be dealt by Champions via their regular attacks, and as to be expected of damage inflicted by such vaunted characters, they bypass every form of defence that regular units have. Physical damage is usually inflicted by melee-oriented units, whereas magical damage is generally associated with spell-casting units. Fire damage is typically inflicted by units that are obvious fire-bugs, whereas poison damage is expectedly performable by the sneaky sorts.
REGULAR UNITS:
Every regular unit has three statistics that govern its capabilities: the usual hitpoints and energy. In addition to these typical designs, regular units are organized into squads, which is a design that is not unheard of in the RTS genre but was otherwise rare during its time. To Liquid Entertainment's credit, it has added some nuance to the latter design, which will be described shortly.
When on the surface layer, units appear as squads, led by a relatively impressive-looking person who is in turn followed by lesser, more mundane versions of himself/herself/itself. The leader is called the "captain", understandably enough. The number of squad-mates is dependent on the level of the unit, with each level after level 1 granting one additional follower.
During battle, he/she/it is helped by her squad-mates, who attack the same target that their leader is attacking. Squad-mates absorb most incoming damage first, thus acting as meat-shields of sorts. However, their tendency to stick close to their leader means that they can be susceptible to area-effect attacks.
When in the underground layer, however, the squad-mates of the captains disappear; during a preview of the game, the developers have mentioned that this is deliberately so, in order to have units accommodating to the tighter space in the underground layer. This removal of squad-mates is compensated for by increments in the hitpoints of the captains. However, squad-mates that have been slain in the surface world do not contribute to the increments.
The game does remember how many squad-mates were with the captains when they enter the underground layer and will restore them to the captains once they exit the underground layer onto the surface. However, the game will modify their hitpoints and those of their squad-mates according to how much damage that the captain has sustained in the underground layer.
To replenish slain squad-mates, the captains have to approach any node and wait for timers to revolve for the recruitment of each follower, as visually indicated by bars underneath the usual bars for health and energy.
It has to be mentioned here that healing abilities without area-effect qualities are more difficult to use on squads, because only individuals are targeted. Therefore, they are more useful in the underground layer than on the surface.
Upon promotion to higher levels, the Captains of regular units can gain two special abilities in addition to their default one; the second level grants one, whereas the fifth level grants the third, which is usually of greater tactical value than the other two. The third and fourth levels generally grant what can be considered upgrades for the first and second special abilities.
Such designs in the progression of the skills provide versatility to regular units first, followed by enhanced power; this is a wise game design, as it makes the early stages of a match more unpredictable, while perhaps contributing to the formulation of strategic builds too. However, Liquid Entertainment could have made the game more sophisticated by providing the player with more flexibility in choosing which special ability to unlock or picking upgrades to existing special abilities.
As for the cosmetic designs of the units' special abilities and the units themselves, they appear to be mainly based on the player character classes in the Dungeons & Dragons table-top RPG, specifically the Eberron variant. To cite some examples, there is the Cleric, a character class that is very much associated with Dungeons & Dragons, as well as the Cleric's trademark (and oddly named) "Cure Wound" spells.
However, players who have experienced Battle Realms may also recognize the inspirations in the designs for some special abilities; for example, one of the Dwarven Berserker's abilities is very similar in function to the martyrdom abilities of the Ronin and Samurai units in Liquid Entertainment's earlier game, which give an impression that there has been some recycling of designs.
CHAMPIONS & JUGGERNAUTS:
Champions are Dragonshard's take on the "hero" variant of units. Champions are powerful units with special abilities that can turn the tide of battle if pulled off at the right time; these special abilities are always available for use, provided that they have the energy to power them.
In the campaign mode, the player must pick a Champion in lieu of the others and must use this Champion for the rest of the level. In other game modes, the player can recruit them from the central building.
Although each champion has appearances, statistics and abilities that are different from the others, he/she/it does have some similar overarching designs, which is a wise game design as it makes remembering their powers easy.
Every Champion, when selected over the others to lead the player's forces with, offers the entire army, including units that are far away from them, a small bonus to one of their statistics. Increases to hitpoint and energy regeneration rates are common bonuses, for example.
A Champion also has a special ability that can be used as long as its cooldown timer has run down and the Champion has enough energy; fittingly, it is called a "Battle" skill, as it tends to be useful during fights.
The third ability that Champions have can be somewhat considered to be Dragonshard's facsimile of "ultimate powers", to borrow a term from the Massive Online Battle Arena genre. However, it cannot be used as simply as Battle skills; instead, they have to be engaged in battle and inflict enough damage in order to accumulate enough 'points' to fill up a meter underneath the meters for their health and energy. Once this meter is full, they can pull off this ultimate skill at any time.
Although this is not a new design, Dragonshard does deserve some praise for implementing this "charge" system. Champions are likely to be engaged in battle most of the time, and these "ultimate" powers can turn the tide of battle as they grant buffs on all player-owned units on the map.
However, the pervasiveness of skills that provide buffs for the entire army in the designs of the Champions can seem to detract from the individual, unique appeal of each Champion. Only their Battle skill would set them truly apart from each other, yet when compared against the myriad of abilities that regular units have, it may seem to be little differentiation.
On-screen, Champions are noticeably larger most than most regular units, as well having different visual designs. For example, there is a champion that happens to be a large steam-driven golem for the Order of the Flame, which generally has few big-sized units.
Champions do not die permanently when slain. They can be revived at a Nexus node, albeit for steep fees. They do not benefit from the experience system and do not have any followers, which is an understandable game-balancing design. On the other hand, they seem to be little different from typical "super units" that are common in the RTS genre at the time.
The single-player campaigns only allow the use of a single Champion for each chapter, because each Champion (of the two factions that are featured in the campaigns) appears to have roles in the stories of the game's two campaigns. More importantly, the campaigns have a system of progression that grants them new gear as the player makes progress; there will be more elaboration on this later.
Juggernauts are also "super units", perhaps more convincingly so than Champions. They can only be brought into the battlefield late into the game, and with tremendous expenditure of resources. They are typically very powerful and often have auras that either enhance the capabilities of friendly units or de-buff enemies that get caught in them. However, Juggernauts are only usable on the surface layer, which may be an understandable limitation.
MAP OBJECTS & CREATURES:
Both layers have objects that reward exploration, or at least map control. They may either provide a one-off resource boost, or locations where retreating armies can use to recover or rendezvous at.
Among these, the ones that players would covet the most during the early few minutes of a match are treasure chests. Most of these treasure chests are often guarded by monsters that have to be cleared away first; unguarded and unlocked treasure chests are rarely found, and even these are usually hidden behind secret walls or after removing some other similar obstacle. Anyway, they can be opened for an immediate boost in gold reserves.
There are locked treasure chests, which have to be unlocked using units that can deal with locks; each faction has one, such as the Rogue for the Order of the Flame faction. Unfortunately, this also has undesirable design consequences; if the player wants to be able to open chests that he/she comes across, he/she has to have these units around, yet they are not built for durability in combat. If the player does not micromanage them well and prevent them from drawing too much aggression, they die very quickly.
Places of Power are strategic locations which can be controlled in order to grant special benefits on the owner's army, such as improvements to durability. Teleport Circles can be used to move from one spot on the map to another. Such magical locales are not new to high-fantasy RTS games, but do contribute to Dragonshard's very fast-paced gameplay.
Some map objects are quest-centric, and interestingly enough can only be used by specific units, though most of the time, the Champions may suffice. For example, there are plaques that can only be deciphered by the more canonically studious of characters.
Most map objects are indestructible or otherwise cannot be interacted with, but some others can be destroyed in order to reveal a path. In the story campaign, they often hide paths to treasures or more enemies, whereas in multiplayer, they act as objects of tactical value and risk, e.g. rocks that can be destroyed to open paths between bases.
There are also dangerous terrains to contend with, such as rivers filled with small killer fish. Gameplay-wise, these are terrain types that apply damage over time to units that happen to be left on them by careless players, though aesthetically, they would seem more refreshing than the usual river of lava or acid.
In addition to inanimate things on the map that players can interact with, there are often creatures that are not aligned to any faction, and more often than not are hostile to anything and anyone else. They are there to guard treasures, as well as be sources of experience points, if the player can muster the strength necessary to defeat them. They are particularly featured in the story campaigns, being the antagonists of many secondary quests.
USER INTERFACE:
The user interface is Dragonshard is mostly satisfactory, yet having little that is remarkably different from what the user interfaces in other RTS games at the time have.
However, players would likely appreciate the army management screen, which allows the player to keep track of the units that they have in their armies. Considering that any one player would only have a handful of units, this screen would not be too cumbersome to use. More importantly, this screen allows the player to expend experience points to increase the levels of units, without having to select buildings to do so.
Consumable items, such as potions, can be found in maps, usually among other treasures. When collected, these go into an inventory that can be accessed at any time, as visually indicated by a column of icons on the side of the screen. This is not a new game design as it has been done before in titles such as Armies of Exigo, but it is notably rare.
CAMPAIGNS:
Although the story in each campaign appears to involve each of the characters that are important figures in the faction that is associated with the campaign, the player can only take one of these characters into any level as a Champion.
This character is the one that earns the currency that is associated with the campaign and is simply called "Reward Points"; completing every campaign level grants some of this currency. Specifically, each objective, whether primary or secondary, grants some reward points upon completion.
Reward points can be spent to purchase special gear for the character, thus providing some sense of progression and semblance of the RPG element of powering up characters. Reward points can also be spent on purchasing expendable items, though they are better off spent on more permanent gear.
The player can replay levels in order to achieve secondary objectives that were not fulfilled the first time around, but every achieved objective appears to no longer grant reward points if they are "achieved" again in the replay. Therefore, this would suggest that there is a limited pool of reward points, and thus suggest that the player should be careful in making his/her selections.
This limitation also shoehorns in some artificial "replay" value. That said, regardless of how many times a player plays a level, it concludes in the same way. The consequences of achieving or failing secondary objectives do not pose any consequences to the development of the story of any campaign.
However, there are some levels where the player can reliably receive reward points regardless of how many times it is replayed; these are typically levels where the Champion is granted a piece of gear via playing the level, instead of using the intermission between levels to purchase gear. Once obtained, this gear is replaced with a small amount of reward points whenever its associated level is replayed.
Therefore, a player can ostensibly 'grind' these levels to unlock all of the gear for any Champion, thus removing the artificial replay value that has been mentioned earlier – for better or worse.
Fortunately, there is some convincingly appreciable replay value in the designs of a few of the levels that come from a few of their secondary objectives. These secondary objectives may change according to the Champion that the player has chosen to play these levels with. The rewards are categorically the same though, e.g. usually an artifact for the Champion.
Nevertheless, most of the objectives would come across as very familiar to seasoned RTS veterans. Fortunately, they are usually difficult enough to provide significant challenge. This is especially so for secondary objectives, which often require an advanced army. Then, there are levels that have timers, which can wreck the nerves of anxiety-prone players.
In addition to clearly defined objectives, there are side distractions of certain levels can be quite fun, such as mixing ingredients in a lab to brew some potions that would be helpful later. However, some of them occur in levels where there are more pressing concerns, such as an A.I.-controlled player with a base that is actively working against the player. These worries make these side endeavours quite difficult to appreciate.
The final level of either playable campaign would be the most thrilling of the levels, fittingly enough. Where previous levels had enemies with dubious or rigid A.I. scripting, the enemies in the final levels are a lot more opportunistic, and have more than one way to doom the player to a game-over screen.
As mentioned earlier, the game allows the player to replay levels that have been completed earlier. However, this may cause some disbelief when they are replayed, as the player can choose champions that are unlocked through progress in the campaigns to replay the earlier levels with. There is no gameplay issue with such a convenience, but it also shows that Liquid Entertainment had no plans for story designs that have considerations further than a player's first playthrough.
It is worth noting here that some items that are recovered during levels can be stored for other levels in a common pool called the "item vault". The player can select some of them to be brought into another level, but not all of them.
FACTIONS:
There are three playable factions in the game, though only two are playable in the single-player campaign mode. Both of these factions are conveniently committed to the preservation of the world whereas the third has sinister intentions. Thus, such a limitation in the designs of the single-player campaign mode not only suggest that Liquid Entertainment did not have the opportunity/capability to develop a campaign for this third faction, but also suggests that it is unwilling to develop campaigns for convincingly "evil" factions.
(This omission has also occurred for Battle Realms and its expansion, so the latter suspicion can seem strong indeed.)
One of the factions is the Order of the Flame, which is a zealous faction that typically thinks that it is always doing right, even when it is barging onto foreign lands if only to fulfill their goals. The Umbragen is the aforementioned "evil" faction, and does not appear to have any remarkable personality designs beyond the maliciousness that is typical to those who are "evil".
The Lizardfolk would perhaps be the only ones who seem refreshing enough, though only to those who are not already well-versed in Eberron lore or otherwise have not known about races of sentient reptilians in high-fantasy fiction.
CHARACTER DESIGNS & VOICE ACTING:
If the player has experienced Battle Realms, he/she would find that most of the voice-acting in Dragonshard is of a similar quality.
The voice-overs of units are mostly comfortable to the ears, with the ones for the more outlandish of characters being campier. For example, Lizardfolk units typically insert stereotypical hisses into their statements, whereas the Umbragen speak with snarls and such other stereotypical inflections.
However, the voice-overs for some NPCs can be grating to listen to, especially those that are calling for help, such as unsettled spirits. Of course, one can argue that such characters should sound pitiable, but others would consider their voice-acting to be quite forced.
With respect to the personality designs of the Champions, there are three types of Champions. One of them is of the natural-leader archetype, another of the wise-old-man sorts, yet another of the cunning and sneaky variety and the last is the usual violence-prone brute. There would not be much of anything amusing to be heard from them, though there are a few memorable lines, such as a certain character's callous remark about being dead and resting.
An observant player may notice that during battle, voice-overs for unaligned creatures take precedence over those for units that are aligned with the factions. This is odd, but perhaps may have been intended to help the player know when they are defeated so that his/her army can move on.
An entertaining nuance that Liquid Entertainment has included in the voice-over work and unit designs is that units who are victorious in a fight would celebrate this moment visibly and audibly. Ultimately though, this nuance would be difficult to appreciate, as the player is likely to have them shuffling over elsewhere, cutting their celebration short.
MULTIPLAYER:
Dragonshard has a multiplayer mode with match conditions that are quite similar to those in Liquid Entertainment's earlier games, though they may be faster-paced in this title because of its much simpler game mechanisms.
Oddly though, one of the conditions is mandatory: Raze, which requires the destruction of all enemy buildings in order for a player to win, is always turned on. This suggests that some of the game's coding may have been recycled from Liquid Entertainment's earlier RTS titles. If the influence of Liquid Entertainment's earlier RTS title is discounted though, this is a fitting requirement, as nodes are always at fixed locations, thus preventing any stalemate that may arise from players who have a tendency to hide buildings at unfrequented portions of maps.
Making use of the game's implementation of nodes for base-building, the developers have also included the winning condition of Expansion, which requires the player to capture at least 50% of the nodes on the map and hold onto them for a limited amount of time. A similar winning condition is "Control", except that Places of Power are the objectives.
The winning condition of "Artifacts" encourage players to explore the map in order to look for and hunt down its denizens, who then yield the MacGuffins that have to be collected to achieve the threshold that is needed to win the match.
These winning conditions are very appropriate for a game with simplified RTS gameplay such as Dragonshard, but are otherwise nothing new.
GRAPHICS:
The buildings within a node have the same function across all three factions, but visually, they are very different. The Lizardfolk have very organic-looking buildings, the most impressive of which is the central building in the Nexus, which is a gigantic brood-mother of a lizard.
Being a Dungeons & Dragons game, the models for humanoid characters are garbed in outlandish and sometimes garish clothing, with the female ones typically showing more skin than would be practical. There would not be much that veterans of games with high-fantasy settings had not seen, especially in the models of the characters and units of the Order of the Flame.
However, the Order of the Flame does have some impressive-looking units, such as the Warforged units; steampunk, metal-clad golems were rather rare in video games with high-fantasy settings at the time, so they may have some visual appeal to jaded players. Of particular noteworthiness is the aptly named Bastion, which is a hulking brute.
The Umbragen look appropriately vile and inhuman, with their Juggernaut unit being particularly gruesome to behold, as it was a ghastly creature that has been made even ghastlier.
The Lizardfolk understandably has reptilian themes in their visual designs. Followers of high-fantasy games would not be strangers to their visual designs that are intended to portray them as a savage but otherwise noble race, though other players may have trouble seeing them as more than just anthropomorphic animals.
However, the in-game cutscenes sometimes betray how simple-looking these models really are; for example, when monstrous beasts are introduced, in-game cutscenes play, using camera angles that are intended to show how fearsome they are. These camera angles unwittingly betray how edgy the polygons for models are, as well as how drab certain textures (especially those for ruined environments) can be.
Suspiciously enough, the range of zooming for the camera controls is very limited. Yet, if the developers had intended to hide the fact that the textures are not really that sharp and detailed when examined up-close, then they have figuratively shot themselves in the foot by having the camera zoom in on characters during cutscenes, thus revealing this graphical limitation.
Dragonshard has shadowing that creates appropriately shaped shadows. However, the limitations of these shading decals would be revealed when units go near lighting sources in the underground layer; the shadows do not move according to the relative orientation of the light sources. Of course, one can argue that this is a limitation of graphics technology at the time.
Dragonshard is quite liberal with the particle effects though. Looking at the particle effects that Dragonshard has and which Liquid Entertainment's earlier title, Battle Realms, lack, such as sparks that fly what metal weapons clash, one could consider that Dragonshard is a step-up in this aspect of graphics. On the other hand, Dragonshard was not cutting-edge at the time and would not provide enough entertainment for those who have a fixation on visual pizzazz.
MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS:
The soundtracks are composed by Lennie Moore, who has composed soundtracks for games with high-fantasy settings before, such as War of the Ring and an acclaimed but old and obscure adventure game, Outcast.
However, Liquid Entertainment's limited resources means that in lieu of the full orchestra that Moore has access to when composing tracks for War of the Ring, parts of the soundtracks in Dragonshard are digitally made; this would especially seem so to players who have experience with authentic and electronic acoustics. Nevertheless, the tracks are quite appropriate for the settings of the game, sounding decently epic during battles and such, especially during the last few levels of the campaigns.
On the other hand, the first few levels of the campaigns appear to lack music. This is perhaps to accommodate the tutorials in these levels.
As is expected of an RTS title by Liquid Entertainment, much of the sound effects in the game occur during battles. Weapons clashing and liquids being spilled and sprayed about comprise most of the sound effects in Dragonshard, followed by twinkling, whooshing and humming, among other noises that are typically associated with the discharge of magic.
CONCLUSION:
Dragonshard is a satisfactory attempt at creating a game based on Dungeons & Dragons, albeit of the Eberron canon instead of the more traditional Toril one. However, the game would not seem to be a blend of RTS and RPG gameplay elements as claimed by Liquid Entertainment. In fact, what Dragonshard has done has been done by other RTS titles before, though to the developer's credit, the gameplay in Dragonshard is excitingly fast-paced. Overall, Dragonshard would come off as a simplified version of Battle Realms, albeit with more features that reward exploration of a map and coated with a veneer of Dungeons & Dragons.