Ten things WFTO does better than DK2 and vice versa

[Korvek]

I have recently played both WFTO (War for the Overworld) and DK2 (Dungeon Keeper 2). I started to think about why the games are different, how WFTO may be improved, even if it is a future edition, and what exactly it is missing. With this, I decided to write this thread. Before I begin on my very first Steam discussions thread, readers must be reminded of four caveats:
1 - I may allude to story plots and certain aspects of the games which may spoil the surprise for those who have yet to complete them.
2 - Everything is, of course, my opinion. I am not suggesting that anything stated in this post is a fact. Nevertheless, bear in mind that I play and enjoy both games, albeit I have played, and tend to enjoy, WFTO more.
3 - For the most part, I shall be focussing solely on campaign and skirmish aspects of the game, albeit I shall make mention of additional features as minor points. This is because the campaign/skirmish modes were the reasons for which I bought both games.
4 – Everything stated herein is only the case as of the present version. Therefore, it should be borne in mind that any concerns raised may well have been addressed in later versions.

The purpose of this thread is twofold: firstly, I wish to write my ideas and suggest how I believe WFTO may improve in the future; secondly, I feel that many discussion threads of this nature tend either to not engage fully with the concepts which I shall be discussing, or seldom bring all such points together. As one may have guessed features which belong in both games are omitted since these points aim to compare the differences between the games. In short, I shall outline ten points which WFTO (War for the Overworld) and DK2 (Dungeon Keeper 2) do better. They shall be ordered with the most important first and the least important last. I shall be beginning with what I believe WFTO does better.

[sander]

Цитата допису Crythor:

Am i the only one who thinks DK1 is far better then DK2?

Me too. I always thought DK2 was just a poor imitation of DK1 with proper 3D graphics.

We aren't alone: http://www.pcgamer.com/why-dungeon-keeper-has-never-been-beaten/

DK1 has a raw energy to it which has is un-equaled in its descendants. I can understand why people may not be able to get into it due to the age of the technology (heck I can barely play DK2), but it had a lot of cool things which never made it into any of the later games. As well as a lot of things which were just bad ideas (like the boulder trap!).

As for DK2 IMHO it doesn't stand out as much, but I have been trying to play it recently now that I have finished all the Brightrock built campaigns.

I would say the initial bad ideas in DK2 were the training limitation to level 4, and the stunning when dropping the creatures immediately stand out.
The warlocks do seem to be more powerful than the cultists which I have to admit was something I missed in WTFO.
There is a much clearer relationship in DK2 to what rooms (and room size) cause which creatures, and I think there is a 1 to 1 relatioship whereas some rooms in WTFO don't bring any creatures.
The Rogue's having the ability to spy in other dungeons while possessed sounds neat. I do think WTFO is missing a trap defuser creature like the Thief/Rogue.

WTFO is so much better though. I think any discussion of shortcomings should also include how many other games tried to pick up the DK mantle and failed to meet WTFO (despite some having other merits) such as Startopia, Evil Genius, Dungeons 1/2, Impire, and Dwelvers. Brightrock may have stumbled out of the gate, and you may complain about the DLC, but their overall management allowed them to actually finish a worthy successor where so many others failed.

As for WTFO, its overall a tremendous improvement overall in terms of scope and they have fleshed out a lot the gameplay elements and added a number of their own elements.

Some of the game elements are a little confusing for me still mainly around the areas of sub-creatures such as the undead and beasts (do beasts need a hatchery?), but I figure as I continue to play around more to find these out. Hopefully map makers will become more creative in terms of educating me. :)

I would say that WTFO is a victim of its success where most of the problems come into play when building massive levels and management problems that come from them. I find the late game play to generally be tedious especially attacking the now ubiquitous bombard/rampart batteries. I have enough faith in Brightrock that I'm sure they are working on something to make this better.

[Cat]

Цитата допису nutter666:

Цитата допису Night Cat:

I wouldn't remember DK2 enough to compare these so easily, but some things I'd see:
-DK2 rolling boulder trap, please, give it to us.

I don't think people properly realise how much this would suck in MP. How do you fancy attacking your opponent's base, you knock down a wooden door and immediately lose your entire army (because they are crushed by a boulder) and then they counter attack and kill you whilst you're army-less? Instant game over just because of a boulder trap?

Uh so let us have it and make it break to pieces after it dealt 40k damage or something. Make it less viable in MP somehow, it was still a very fun trap. Just for the lols.

[Korvek]

40k damage is quite a lot. In fact, it could take out at least half an army, if not an entire army, especially during the early-mid game. Thinking about it, 40k damage has the potential to kill Two titans at once. 4k damage might be better, or perhaps just 2-3k damage. Alternatively, the trap might be alright under one of these circumstances (the idea here is to ensure that this trap Never becomes overpowered and game-breaking):
A - Dealt non-lethal damage (perhaps just rolls past an enemy and only deals 250-500 damage, smashing after it hits five enemies).
B - Was only available in the map editor/campaign levels.
C - Dealt very minor damage (30-40 damage) and pushed all enemies it touched back a square, up to ten squares.

I am fine with the concept of the trap though, and see no reason why it could not be added under one of these circumstances. Even if it was weak, it would still be nice to have, especially for map makers.

[nutter666]

The only time a boulder trap would be remotely fair/usable in WFTO would be as a map maker tool, spawnable only in the editor for use in "special" scenario maps, where losing your entire army wouldn't be the end of the world since you'd have all the time in the world to rebuild it.

It doesn't work in a MP Environment because if it's lethal and actually kills stuff, it's OP. If you nerf it to the point that it doesn't actually kill things then it looks ridiculous (a huge boulder that size would either crush anything in it's path or bounce off whatever it collided with, there would be none of this, it rolls over without killing the minion business).

[Woudo]

Цитата допису Spindizzi:

I was having problems at times with imp impasse banners appearing all over the place in great numbers, I don't know if I'm misusing some built in macro feature somehow, it seems to just happen and I'm not sure what I might've been doing to cause it.

Цитата допису Noontide:

The Impasse issue sounds very unusual indeed, as far as I know, we've never seen a report of similar activity and I can't imagine any way that impasse would appear other than direct user input as not only do you have to select the spell you have to select its location as well.

If you left-click Impasse or Worker Rally and then left-click the All Minions button, it'll drop an Impasse/Rally on every single one of your minions wherever they are on the map. It's an easy misclick to make and I imagine most people don't know you can clear all flags by right-clicking Impasse/WorkerRally.

[Biervampir [AUT]]

Цитата допису Woudo:

If you left-click Impasse or Worker Rally and then left-click the All Minions button, it'll drop an Impasse/Rally on every single one of your minions wherever they are on the map. It's an easy misclick to make and I imagine most people don't know you can clear all flags by right-clicking Impasse/WorkerRally.

Nor did I D:

1300 hours and still nuub

[WFTO Dev | Brightrock Cian]

Цитата допису Spindizzi:

Brightrock Cian;

Dungeon Keeper 2 ran ok back in the day as far as I remember, but it probably wouldn't be that stable on modern windows.

As for the offer of help with bugs;

I was having problems at times with imp impasse banners appearing all over the place in great numbers, I don't know if I'm misusing some built in macro feature somehow, it seems to just happen and I'm not sure what I might've been doing to cause it.

I uploaded a crash dump of a crash to desktop you can view here if this helps. On google drive so I think it needs chrome browser;

Link [drive.google.com]

This crash happened when I was attempting the "Miracle" achievement, shortly after I got imps to quickly build an outpost and wall in Mira's base to stop her destroying the first inhibitor.

I'm looking at the crash log now and it looks like the crash occurred when attempting to allocate more memory. If you could possibly send me a save file from when this happened I could attempt to replicate the crash so we can get a better look at the cause

As for the impasse banners it sounds like you may have clicked the impasse banner onto the rally flag button, this will place a banner ontop of each unit. It's an issue that'll be fixed next patch

[Spindizzi]

Yeah that's the one, pretty straightforward, I should've just tried to recreate, probably would've found it straightaway. it's two fold as you probably know.

If you click the impasse banner than click the rally button, it puts rally flags on every unit.

If you click the peace band banner than the rally banner, it puts every unit in peace band.

I'm constantly misclicking these and messing up my games.

On top of that can you please make it easier to keep track of what creatures are in peace band, I currently end up going from creature to creature with the peace band + and - to figure out whether or not a creature is in or out by what it allows me to do with whichever control I have selected. I'd be much happier if for example every creature currently in the peace band was illuminated when you select the peace band controls.

Цитата допису Brightrock Cian:

I'm looking at the crash log now and it looks like the crash occurred when attempting to allocate more memory. If you could possibly send me a save file from when this happened I could attempt to replicate the crash so we can get a better look at the cause

I remember windows complaining I was low on hard drive space around that time so that probably helps explain it. I've cleaned up since then.

I can send you the nearest save if you like but I'd say it isn't reliably reproducable as it's what I loaded from after the crash to get past the same section again successfully anyway.

I have some other bugs too but I think I'll just submit everything to the bugtracker instead of going on about the here at length.

To put another bug briefly, skirmish A.I as an ally seems to get stuck forever in rallying to the same spot if you destroy an enemy skirmish A.I it was attacking.

Цитата допису Noontide:

Mira and Korvek themes can be quite a challenge and in a way

With the Mira theme, most of the achievements were already done by accident, just had to do ones like that odd Rhaskos defibrillator.

With the Korvek theme, I thought it was going to be really hard but Master AI's aren't actually that strong apart from being very agressive expansionists, their imps are usually more of a pain than their actual units, just have to be careful of an early beast rush.

Then the later the game gets, the more they fall off from all the stuff they don't use, can pretty much just walk in their base and kill them at will because they don't build traps or doors while the player can have a far bigger army, supplemented with uprising, sentinels, vampires etc...

My memory isn't too good but I'm half certain the skirmish A.I in Dungeon Keeper 2 did at least build doors I think, as for traps, I can't remember, spike traps around Dungeon heart possibly.

Цитата допису Tenebrais:

I liked the Boulder trap in DK/DK2, but it wouldn't really work in WFTO with its rally and recall mechanics. You can't just pick up creatures that are about to get crushed if they're on enemy soil.

I loved that trap and I've seen both people saying it would be too powerful and too useless.

Recall has somewhat of a delay so I don't think it'd be that impractical and if you make a significant portion of an enemy army wormhole out to avoid a boulder I'd say it has value.

Цитата допису Padelboot:

I also miss the guard room and the ability to set patrol routes.

I miss this these too to a degree but like you I'm not convinced patrol routes are that practical anymore, I think the garrison is supposed to serve this purpose now even if Augres are somewhat slow and enemies might just decide to run right past them, nice if we could just assign any creature to a garrison for defending bottlenecks, that might even be possible because come to think of it I've not actually tried.

Цитата допису Crythor:

Am i the only one who thinks DK1 is far better then DK2?

For me its number

1: Wfto
2: Dk1
3: Dk2

with huge gabs between each.

I told myself to try Dungeon Keeper 1 ages ago, just I never gotten around to it. I think I only originally played Dungeon Keeper 2 because I borrowed the disk off a friend, remember the good old days when games were on disk and you could swap them like books? :D

[CedLeVrai]

I bought this game one or two years ago, but I just activate the game today...and seen that it was the undusted (ça se dit en anglais?) version of Dungeon Keeper -II-. I played DK II many years ago in buying the limited edition with a figurine, but mine was broken :((.
If my PC can play this, I will play it.
(I buy more games stronger thant the config of my PC, so I must wait sometimes 5 years before play a game...when it survives to the change of OS).
So, thank you for this big commentary on differences between DK II and WotU. Even if it's in english...pouark.

Et maintenant, en route vers de nouvelles aventures!

[CedLeVrai]

Spindizzy said:

"I told myself to try Dungeon Keeper 1 ages ago, just I never gotten around to it. I think I only originally played Dungeon Keeper 2 because I borrowed the disk off a friend, remember the good old days when games were on disk and you could swap them like books? :D"

Yes, the good old big boxes, book, additional maps, audio CD of the OST, snif, Steam is not very practical if we play a game in solo in the jungle, the desert (cold or hot) and in North Corea (lol).

I selled a few of them but the others are with me, like a graal ^^
DVD cases are less artistic but, those which need Steam have no utility, except that their prices get lower than on steam (I have many games bought by games surplus).

[Korvek]

No worries, I hope that you found the commentary helpful. If you wish for me to explain any specific point, just ask.

[Bohandas]

I think that one thing WFTO did much better than DK2 was making the villain protagonist seem actually villainous

[Padelboot]

Цитата допису Bohandas:

I think that one thing WFTO did much better than DK2 was making the villain protagonist seem actually villainous

Could you elaborate?
I personally thought that DK2 did a good job on making the villain protagonist villainous, considering the very early levels where the narrator explains how nice the places are...just so you can destroy them immediately. Also I believe that the DK2 heroes were charactarized more goodly than the Empire in WFTO (actually I don't remember much about it).

Plus in WFTO it seems more like Mechendaus is just giving out orders with the player character doing what he says. Granted the same can be said with the narrator and the player in DK2, but for some reason I had this feeling more in WFTO's main campaign.
I will exclude Heart of Gold here, because Kasitas characterization fits her goals and missions in HoG very well and I thought it was consistent there. It felt like Kasita really has an interest doing what she does. Oberon? ...not so much.

[Korvek]

Agreed Padelboot. The Lords of the Land were explained, and even referenced during the level. I did not really feel as though I represented the forces of 'evil' because I did not feel as though I was fighting the forces of 'good', as explained previously because I believe that the guise of 'the Empire' is largely meaningless and distracting.

I similarly agree with your point on characterisation. Both the hero units and their respective leaders represented a 'goodly' side, even if the narrator criticised them, the greedy lord springs to mind.

The last paragraph largely echoes my views on a lack of story plot. Mendechaus does indeed simply give orders, there appears to be no connection between events and levels, and there seems no real reason to follow them. DK2 was able to elude this criticism with its level 'standardisation', namely that every level required a portal gem, so the goals were clear and why we were obtaining them was explained. The fact that the ending was consistent with the initially explained goals helped to solidify the idea that collecting these gems was helpful all along.

WFTO's ending, on the other hand, just seems an attempt to create something interesting when there was not too much in the first place. With that said, the explanations from the developers as to why this was more than satisfies me that although it was not ideal, it was the best which could have been done under the circumstances.

[Crythor]

One thing i want to point out is eventhough DK/DK2 and WFTO have the same voice actor i find that the way he talks in WFTO is much better and gives mendachous (?) a very good (or bad? ;) ) atmosphere and i couldnt be happier with his performance!