Let's talk about the upcoming CRPG adaptation of Paizo's old adventure The Dragon's Demand that I recently mentioned [ > ] because it has already been unlocked in Battlegrounds [ > ].
First off, watch the KS trailer. It's very interesting.
Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand Kickstarter Campaign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlM0MdE ... XVyolQO3wj
So finally we're getting climbing and swimming in a CRPG. Though the swimming is kinda fake since it's merely flying underwater; there's no swimming animation. But we'll let it slide. At least you're underwater. So that's progress. But the climbing animation is real progress. And the flying is also nice, though it was done first in Solasta.
Of course, also nice is that they're adapting a real adventure instead of a programmer scribbling his own. This adventure, however... is 64 pages. All the while Owlcat's Adventure Path adaptations are 600 pages each. So this is literally 1/10th the size of ONE of Owlcat's TWO CRPGs.
But... maybe since it's so few pages, they can churn them out faster? Let's check when the game will be out.
November 2026 lmao. And that's the BETA. So we're looking at 2027. So nearly two-years' wait since the end of the KS to play 64 pages lol.
But that's not even the worst of it. The worst of it is that this game ALREADY looks WORSE than pretty much any good Cult Engine 3 picture I've ever seen, and by 2027 we'll also have Cult Engine 4 online, with full AssCreed and Souls graphics and animation. AND infinite content. AND infinite players in a world. Meanwhile their 64-page adaptation won't even have multiplayer lol. Yes they plan to add it in the future and also to release more "games" on this "platform" that they're building. But when are these further games coming out? If their first comes in 2027, their second will be 2029? 2030? And will be... what? Another 64 pages? All the while we'll be jacked into the matrix with CE4.
Or take the house they let you build. The adventure will take 30 hours they say. And they will let you build a house. But what will you do with it? The whole point of a house is to serve you BETWEEN adventures. WTF will you do with a house after the game is over? What's the point of building anything in such a short game?
The programmers have completely lost the plot. These guys should be, at the most, making their own VTT, but they would probably fail at that since they're so far behind, so they should just be modding their animations into existing VTTs and selling their assets in marketplaces. No roleplayer will hold his breath until 2027 to play their 64 pages where one player controls half a dozen characters all of whom are immortal. We will be done with this adventure long before, and it will be fully roleplayed by a full team of players. There's no need for their software.
THEIR GAME DOESN'T EVEN HAVE PROPER ANIMATION LIKE THE ORIGINAL BALDUR'S GATE DID WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER. WHAT'S THE POINT OF A STEAM CRPG WHEN IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE ANIMATION?
The most this will accomplish is whet the appetite of some Steam gamers for GMRPGs, and when they see the pics coming out of our VTTs the smarter of them will cross over. So I am glad for that. The more Pathfinder Steam games come out, the better. They don't even need to be great games. Though they are (by Steam standards). They just need to be good enough to advertise Pathfinder.
November 2026.
