Circle of Lorent Review

"Travel to the Lands of Lorent and prepare for a challenging journey!
Battle the spiders of the Sacred Valley and the undead of the Dwarven Crypts!
Defeat the challenge of Hawk-Ra's Maze and retake the Towers of Radeem!
Restore access to the circle of Lorent and destroy the Evil Hawk-Ra!"
...Wait, doesn't this Radeem guy also have his own bazaar? Yup.

What you get in the downloaded zip file is:
- dsmap: Map circle_of_lorent with 12 regions. Has a proper amount of quests & lore entries. Only one multi-player start-pos tho.
- dsres: Divided into "main" and "special", not sure why. Plus three "difficulty choices" files called Base, Advanced and Uber. They might correspond to the Regular, Veteran and Elite world-levels; not sure why he didn't use the same mechanism.
- A detailed readme

Pearls from the readme:
"Fixed a bug that causes characters to become useless and invisible if they died wearing custom COL armor." WTF what was he doing?
Special note about the finale sequence: "due to limitations in my abilities as a code writer" oh yeah "Attempting to save the game after these points will possibly lead to a corrupt save game file" ok

That sounded encouraging, so I dove right in! Stay tuned for the next update!

The map did have some very stupid problems. I never made it all the way to the end. Good Luck and maybe you can fix it. LOL

For a quick first look, I decided to open the map in multi-player with a cheated drdeath character and a speed hack. Here's what I found.

- The MP start-pos has no text. There's only one start-pos so it's technically not necessary; it still looks broken.
Also it's no problem that there's only one start-pos, because you start at the place with all the teleporters that can bring you anywhere.

- There are companions available also in multi-player. As we all know this kinda works but is not without issues.

- Rusty-looking teleport platforms with tiny statues, initially deactivated (not "selectable"), you need to open them from the other side, or have a certain object in the inventory (this is for easier re-use across multiple MP sessions).

- I really liked the landscaping! From the initial oak-and-lemon forest with giant deer, through the valley, the forest and the swamp, the dungeons and halls and the maze, to the spooky evil mountains, all these areas have a certain look-and-feel that shows that this map was made by someone who cares.

- There are a few counter-examples as well.

For example, the dungeon rooms are not revealed via global cap-fade but via room fade, which doesn't look good.

Then there's this useless piece of terrain inside a rock wall, which is probably just an oversight:

Caves are not closed off properly, you clearly see the map border - I'd call it lazy but creative. (Note also how even these regions are lit with ambient & directive lights instead of point lights - again a bit lazy, but this is a fan-made map after all.)

Z-fighting occurring in the swamp (and also up on the tower of the Last Stand, and more)

Do all these node texture borders count as bad design, or are they just meant to be really really really well-trimmed?

And then this field of grass full of shade objects. The idea was good, but ingame it just looks broken, with z-fighting, overlapping transparency issues etc.

- I also really liked the level design. First, because it's not completely linear but it is always clear what to do and where to go; and second, because the region design is very intricate - lots of times you see places that you'll access later, or that you've been to before, and have these little aha moments when you realize how it all fits together.

So that's it about the landscape - in the next post I'll talk about enemies and SFX, so stay tuned!

- The map contains a lot of spiders and spider-related enemies such like stalagnids and mucosa. They use textures that don't actually fit, but still kinda do.

- A lot of the enemies, including the spiders, cast magic. Also in general, there are lots of SFX effects on enemies and their attacks, which is quite cool. A lot of effort just for visuals.

- A lot of enemies, especially the spiders, spawn in bunches from generators. That's quicker done than placing each enemy individually - but I wish something like a bush had been used to obscure the spawn point. The spiders appear right in front of you from thin air, that doesn't look good.

- Enemies that carry weapons, such as skeletons, usually have comically enlarged weapons. A bit whacky but I like it.

- Some enemies move very fast, or very slow.

- Here's just a bunch of giant Unguis stacked together, which creates a fun-looking enemy:

- There are these statues floating 3m above ground that attack you and summon other enemies. They teleport. And wiggle when they die.

- There are these trolls that, when they die, spawn larger trolls.

- These are the minions of the endboss, the Dah'Wahs. I like how they each are unique and have an own name.

- There are also a lot more SFX - one example is this blue ray when you open basically any chest.

- And then there's an invincible "Walker" in the Maze, and the endboss Hawk-Ra which can only be killed by combining a ring and a spell and then smashing a summoned lava sphere. You either have the items and know how to use them, or you're f*cked.
Hawk-Ra, and some enemies in the Hall, deal such great damage that my drdeath char was seriously hurt. But we can talk about CoL's progression madness another time.

So to conclude, this relatively small map contains a great variety of enemies, and they all have something special about them that makes them interesting to fight.
And a lot of care was taken to make interesting visual effects. The lands of Lorent are brimming with magic!

Stay tuned for the next post - probably gonna talk about the single-player experience.

Now, jumping around in a map with a cheated char is all fun and stuff, but how is it to actually play the map seriously?
I started a single-player game to find out. Also, I hadn't managed to kill the evil wizard Hawk-Ra because I didn't have the all-important ring with me, so I wanted to finally do him.

- I hired the companion right at the start point, and found out she doesn't have a companion talk skrit - so clicking on accept or decline works, but then they simply say the same sentence again and you have to close the conversation dialog. This could be a bit more polished, it's just a little boilerplate effort.

- This map uses progressive equipment items, meaning their stats increase dynamically with the character's level. For example an armor with +3 defense per level. Such mechanisms are used in several maps and mods, and the items need to be re-equipped for the stats to be re-computed.
Honestly, I don't like progressive equipment all that much in practice. It takes the fun out of loot progression. Once every character wears the Dwarven Chain, you can essentially sell any armor you'll ever find without batting an eye.

- There are also shoes that make your characters go faster. This is really fun - there's a reason why I did the multi-player session with a speedhack. Of course, it takes the fun out of loot progression for shoes, because no matter how strong they are, you're not gonna want to exchange the fast ones.
Maybe a speedup based on rings or amulets would solve that issue. Or by making a "Radeem's Haste" spell, dunno.

- Note that the items, including the progressive equipment, are part of the pcontent loot pool, and will therefore drop when playing other maps. So it's best to remove CoL when you want to play other maps in-between or afterwards. And it's a serious issue because the items are very much overpowered. Which brings us to an important point...

- The PROGRESSION on this map is completely insane! Essentially, you start at level 1, get handed an overpowered sword and an overpowered ring, and then you go and fight overpowered enemies. So, naturally, you level up much faster. But it doesn't take long until you meet even more overpowered enemies and need even more overpowered equipment, which the map is happy to provide. New enemies initially destroy you, and ten minutes later you just walk through them. Fights are very intense even in later parts of the map, because the steep progression and the overpowered armors and weapons mean that HP are lost very quickly. This is DS progression on overdrive.

- Speaking of items, there are "charms" that apply enchantments by simply having them in the inventory.

- The map also features a little crafting system, just as a gimmick. You can turn potions into stronger ones and whatnot. Nothing required to defeat Hawk-Ra. The crafting cube & spell are found at the other end of the crazy flying carpets room:

It looks all fun and stuff, and it mostly is, but sometimes you're stuck on one of these platforms and then it goes sooooo sloooowly aaargh.

Next up: story & storytelling, nermals & appleseeds, rat-man and other companions, the ending and the bugs. Stay tuned!

- The story of Lorent: In mountains close to Ehb, a group of mages known now as the Circle of Lorent, together with some Dwarves, founded the land of Lorent. They built the temple and teleports, cool towers and halls and whatnot; those days are gone, and you find the peaceful little country under threat of a massive horde of evil creatures. You have to defeat them and the evil wizard Hawk-Ra who is behind all this, and Lorent Shall Rise Again!

So far, so standard, which is perfectly fine. The story is beautifully told. Through people you meet (like Radeem-Eli, son of the land's martyr hero), the conversations you have with them, item names, lore books, well-made NIS (non-interactive sequences) introducing you to new places. The story, places and characters have depth.

- The map features two new creatures to summon: the Nermal (for nature mages) and the Fermal (for combat mages). They are weird blobs of moving rock. The sound they make when charging at an enemy is perfect.


There are Grandus and Maximus variants of them as well, but sadly I lacked the level or mana to cast them.
Also, very sadly, they are not statted properly. Their stats are very low and only grow minimally with levels, which means they die quickly and are therefore not very useful.

- The map also features a funny spell that simply summons a bunch of trees. Completely useless obviously, but I love the idea. Unfortunately it is bugged and doesn't stop casting by itself (this is caused by a missing semicolon in the template).

- YES this is a companion with a rat's head and tail in the Fermal picture! Its name is Xaa, obviously referring to the modder Xaa, world-famous in Dungeon Siege modding. Xaa created Lands of Hyperborea, and has helped Trailstorm with Lorent. How does the rat-man work? I'll explain in a later post.

Here's a list of the companions:
- Yourself
- Dneirfa a.k.a. Farm Girl, right at the beginning, starting at lvl 0 just like you. "Dneirfa" is "a friend" spelled backwards, geddit?
- a Dwarven archer that joins you after finishing the crypts quest
- Radeem-Eli, son of martyr hero Radeem, melee fighter
- Xaa the rat-man, whom you meet in the Hall of the Fallen Watch, behind the Maze. Xaa has level 55 in all four classes, but seems to have trained melee first, because its strength is much higher than its dexterity and intelligence. Wielding a weapon with 3000 dps, which barely makes a difference at that point, as I said, progression in CoL is on overdrive.

- The ending: when you're through the dwarven crypts, the forest & swamp, the Maze, and the Hall, and have climbed the evil mountain fighting the Dah'Wahs, you get to Hawk-Ra's lair. You need to put the ring on the ground that you hopefully kept from the beginning, and cast the spell that you hopefully found in some hidden chest together with the handbook, a lava sphere appears, you smash it, and if you're fast enough, Hawk-Ra is dead before he even appears.

You might want to save the game now, but don't bother - DS will crash when you try to load it. I don't know why. Seems weird to me that such an otherwise well-executed map has a crashing bug with its endboss.
Anyways, beyond Hawk-Ra's lair you see a hellish fiery desert, and now you can also teleport there, to fight even more and stronger enemies. Probably meant as a fun region for multi-player.

The second place you can now reach is the Circle, where you meet Radeem himself, and Jastra, the founding mage. Again, beautiful landscaping, and a NIS with credits.

Lastly, the third place you can now reach is the lost Dwarven city of Bashir-Faraj, which sadly isn't actually implemented - it was supposed to be built in an expansion. Yo Trailstorm, u still around?

Not to forget the Lower Crypts are also a bonus endgame area. So there's lots to see and do after the "end".

- One more word about bugs. The endboss savegame crash is of course the main issue here. However just FYI I had another weird issue in the Hall somewhere, where SOMETHING invisible was causing havoc:

WTF.
Anyways, that's about it, I guess? I also had a look at the map in Siege Editor, so that's up for the next post... and then a conclusion. Stay tuned!

- In Siege Editor you can see that the rusty teleporters are simply made with a cover object, to hide the "Helios Utrae Basilicus" which wouldn't make sense in CoL (Lorent is not located on the Utraean Peninsula). (I like that he took the effort to hide it.)

- I thought initially the lighting is all ambient, but a lot of it is directional. Also outside the dungeons. The directionals are however never on-timer, so there's no day-night cycle taking place.

- The Nermal is based on a rock beast model, but with maljin animations applied to it. Simple and very effective.

- The Appleseed spell has a missing semicolon and therefore the mage continues to cast it until you tell them to stop. I've found more semicolon issues in some conversation files where accidentally colons are used.

- Xaa the rat-man does not have a (visible) head or tail in Siege Editor. The head and tail are added and kept in place via an object manager; the same mechanism that manages the separate arms of the goblin robo suit in KoE.
When you equip Xaa with a helmet, it is simply placed on the invisible head, and the rat head overlaps it. It looks very well in most cases, but not for some helmets.

More random stuff:
- I forgot when talking about equipment: the map also features item sets. They are not LoA sets tho, CoL predates LoA; instead some kind of custom implementation.
- Often too much loot for the group to carry; as mentioned CoL predates LoA with its backpacks, but a simple mule would come in handy.
- The Endless Waste past the endboss has a quest to find some gnome. The gnome is towards the south-west.

So, IN CONCLUSION: This is an awesome map. I love the storytelling, landscaping & level design, and creative enemy design.
I don't care much about the progressive items and other gimmicks. The progression on speed is not my case. Also there's the savegame crash bug.
But despite these things, I had a blast playing Circle of Lorent, and I definitely recommend it for you too!