Learning from Drakensang Online

Just recently, the German tabletop RPG "The Dark Eye" ventured forth into a new chapter in its roleplaying life. Drakensang, part of The Dark Eye's franchise, went online in its browser game form. Though entirely different from the Drakensang PC game, the online iteration still has the same mechanics as any Dark Eye TTRP. Just as plot, lore and gameplay mechanics are important to any gaming experience, the presentation of the game is an essential factor in any gamer's selection process.

Brief Background

Drakensang Online was created and developed Radon Labs, now owned by browser game publisher Bigpoint GmBH. Radon Labs was also responsible for the development of the Drakensang PC game a few years back. For the Drakensang games, Radon Labs created their own open source 3D engine called Nebula Engine. Surprisingly, the Nebula Engine was lenient enough to cram one whole game into a readily-available Java-scripted browser-based iteration. Everyone had expected the game to be like the typical client-based MMORPG, with a fairly-relevant file size.

The Simplest Presentation

Drakensang Online's presentation and content is not as mind-blowing as one would perceive from the previous paragraph. Drakensang Online looks like a Playstation 2 game, or something at par with the old Neverwinter Nights PC game. It's not fully a bad thing too. We're actually looking at the possibility of online gaming at its thinnest and slimmest size possible, while still capable of being presentable and eye-catching enough to garner a certain appeal.

Has anyone tried or played Earth Eternal or perhaps Runescape? Videogame technology, through the years, has evolved into a hyperrealistic state. So much so, our custom-made characters already resemble real life people. Gone are the 8-bit or 16-bit games. Much to our chagrin, installing these games is not exactly a space-saver in our PCs. MMORPGs any smaller than 1 Gigabyte are slowly becoming scarce. Last I checked, World of Warcraft plus all the expansions already makes up nearly 20 Gigabytes already, if I'm not mistaken.