We got a good, close look at Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor at the show, and it looked superb. Despite the game's name, Ruins of Myth Drannor won't continue the story of the original game. Instead, it'll introduce a number of new characters and a new story that focuses on the abandoned elven city of Myth Drannor. However, the game is being developed by none other than Stormfront Studios, the creator of SSI's classic gold-box role-playing games, including the original Pool of Radiance.

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But despite the fact that the game is in production by the same people who developed Dungeons & Dragons computer games of the 1980s, Ruins of Myth Drannor will look anything but dated. In fact, with the exception of the game's rendered terrain, the entire game will be completely 3D and will look substantially different from most other computer RPGs, many of which will still rely on rendered 2D sprites to represent their characters and monsters. Myth Drannor's inhabitants will instead be detailed, motion-captured 3D figures that are modeled to scale (ogres will tower over halflings, for instance).

Ruins of Myth Drannor's story won't involve transmuted bronze dragons or evil spider-gods, but it will involve a new Pool of Radiance. A powerful sorceress is bending the protective magic of Myth Drannor's ruins to her will in order to summon the pool, and the guardian spirits of the city have become restless - even hostile. It'll be up to your party of up to six characters (four slots for player characters, two for nonplayer characters) to stop the sorceress before she can unleash the power of another pool on the lands of the Moonsea.

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Ruins of Myth Drannor will include a number of interesting features in addition to the ones already mentioned here, such as its randomly generated dungeons. Many of the game's dungeon areas will be generated randomly and will often change each time they're visited. In addition, as with the original game, you'll be able to revisit old and new areas (and explore them, conquer the monsters that reside there, and capture any treasure) even after you've completed the single-player game. Furthermore, the randomly generated dungeons will also come in handy in Ruins of Myth Drannor's six-player simultaneous multiplayer, in which you and up to five other players may create an adventuring party and hack your way through a randomly generated area.

And what's more, Ruins of Myth Drannor will be the very first computer RPG to adopt the new third-edition Dungeons & Dragons rules (which are due for public release in the third quarter of this year). This means that the game will include all of the character classes and races in third edition, including half-orcs, barbarians, sorcerers, and monks.

Though the build we saw at the show was an alpha version (that looked as though it may as well have been a beta, if not a final), Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is currently scheduled for release this fall. For now, you can peruse our in-depth preview of the game.
 

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