PC game from early 2000s'ish - was an action RPG released half finished with no NPCs

[Tengis]

I was going to comment on another post where people were discussing piracy. This particular game ruined preorders for me until the end of time and made me realize that buying games before you ever see or play them is generally a bad idea.

The game was released with no NPCs in the towns except people that had quests and such. The developer was pushed to release it for whatever reason (I cant remember why). It had tons of bugs and was generally just accepted as being broken until the developer fixed it. They later released a "Gold" version that fixed a lot of the issues (it still sucked though) but they did nothing for the people that had purchased the original game.

I was thinking it was Warriors of Might and Magic but for some reason I was thinking I played as a lizard man?

 

[Megabitz]

Just off the top of my head, I remember most the things you have said being related to Spellforce 2, I think it was broke on release, Patched a bit, Got a gold edition, and now theirs an anniversary edition on GOG, I own the game but i have not played it cause i played a good few hours in the original, I remember the statement of there being just the quest NPC's more so after you get a bit more into the game, was released about 2005 ish i think.

I do remember some of the same being true for a few games of that era though.

 

[Armenius]

Dungeon Lords? There was a playable lizardman race in that game called Zaur.

 

[Tengis]

Dungeon Lords? There was a playable lizardman race in that game called Zaur.

Brooo..... I think that might be it. I found this post on Google and the original version that was released incomplete appears to be buried.

Here is the post I found (long) that describes the exact game that I played:

Options:
1) You can't turn off the shadows.
2) Some options don't make any effects.
Starting the game:
1) There are only 2 female races (maybe that is normal)
2) No hair, fase and skin options.
Playing the game (now this is were it starts :X )
1) No world map, or any map at all.
2) 80% of objekts like tables, fireplaces and stuff like that, is missing.
3) In Fargrove, you may enter only one house (ordinary house, but that's maybe normal too.)
4) No music
5) Some magic effects are missing.
6) 80% of NPCs are mising (only 1-5 per town)
7) When you place the Celestial candle in the Shrine of Celestial Light, the Celestial jurk ignores it.

When you join some guilds, and get a class promotion, it skips 1 class (like: Mage->Socerer/Battle Mage or Warior->Marauder/Knight)
9) Whe you deliver Alisters letter to Davenmor, the quest does not disapear from the log.
10) When you sell scrolls, you get money, but don't lose scrolls.
11) When you drink a potion or cast a spell, you can look in the inventory or cherecter menu, and you will continue to drink/cast.
12) In Arindale, Buildings: there are no objekts, only empty rooms, with 1-2 NPCs.
13) You can't sleep in Arindale Inn and Tavern
14) In the Hall of Lords, when you talk to the guards, in result, they tell you to come back tomorrow (but you can't sleep in the Inn), you find a fireplace, sleep 24h, but the guards ignore it, thas making the main quest incompleteble.
15) You can't complete the 3rd quest to any guild, because you must go to the Forbidden land, and the guards don't allow you to do it. (maybe because of the main quest)
16) All NPCs have problems with voises - you almost can't hear them.
17) To complete some main quests (that are completeble) you need to listen to long BORING monologs and you can't skip them.
18) Some skills are missing, like repair (Marauder) or alchimy and identify (Socerer)
19) NPCs are idiots (maybe that's normal, because it's common in RPGs)

(If you want screens, as proof, I will give them to you, just ask)

 

[Tengis]

Im getting PTSD reading that post over and over. This game, for whatever reason, was hyped to me before it came out. I preordered it at Gamestop (it may have been Electronics Boutique or Babbages) and rushed home to play it. I installed the game and within minutes of running around was like... wtf.

There was an official forum or something at the time with hundreds and hundreds of comments on it after the game had only been out like a couple days. They said they were going to fix the game and never did... to later release a "fixed version" AKA the collectors edition that was still not very good. Here is a listing on Amazon for the piece of excrement collectors edition: https://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Lords-Collectors-PC/dp/B000E66CAM

This game alone ruined preorders for me for life. I also rarely ever trusted buying games without playing them after this and started pirating games before I would buy them.

 

[Tengis]

Even more shockingly is some of the scores I see this game has on some review sites... they are actually decent. Maybe they reviewed the complete game and I was actually the first person that Ashton had on his TV show Punked without even realizing it because it was never revealed to me.