Making a Drakan Fancomic!

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SnowDrake
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Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by SnowDrake »

Hey everyone! (hope I've posted this in the right spot!)
So, I've been in and out of this site for a while despite being a fan of Drakan ever since I was a little and I finally made an account.

I actually wanted to ask your opinions, I'm making a fancomic of Drakan. This is a project I've wanted to do for a while, and I've started the plot and art for the comic!
Now, this is where the opinion basis is going to come in, I've played and watched play through a lot and I wanted to "revamp" the narrative and character designs. This is due to a passion I've had to bring the plot up to date as, whilst I love both games, I feel as though the plot and characters could be presented differently! I was wondering if anyone here would be interested in giving it a read when I start updating it/giving me some critique on characters and story flow!
As stated before, it's a very big revamp, character names are used but I wanted to develop Rynn and Delon, along with Arokh as strong characters and where the story could potentially go! In other words, it's not an exact copy of the plot presented within the games! i wanted to give it a try to make something fresh! (Perhaps it's best to say that it's heavily inspired by the events and characters of Drakan.)

Sorry, realise this is kind of a weird post Dx but I was just curious if you guys would be interested in seeing a story inspired by Drakan?

All the best! :D

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Arokhs Twin
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Hi and welcome to the forum. Absolutely yeah I think a fan comic would be a good idea and I would be interested in taking a look at any work in progress. There was a German comic done for Drakan OOTF but I don't think it made it past 3 issues as it was sold commercially from what I remember. The character development is lacking especially in OOTF, they definitely could have done more with this but the technology limitations at the time wouldn't have helped.

There is a community unofficial novel of the entire Drakan franchise called the Order Reborn plus a few fan made stories that pad out the characters somewhat and there's a few that give a bit of backstory on Arokh such as where he came from, how he met Heron etc. I presume you have read these already but if not they are here if you want to check them out. https://www.arokhslair.net/wp/fan-fiction/ Most fan fiction is an alternative to Drakan:TAG as many OOTF fans wrote their own version when it was revealed TAG wasn't coming to the PC. These stories contradict each other but are worth checking out.

I'd also recommend reading "beginnings" by FireTalon. This is a great read of the fight between dragons and man and how the Order came to be.

"Arokh the dragon" is one take on how Heron and Arokh met.
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SnowDrake
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by SnowDrake »

Thank you so much!

I've not read all the fan fictions, but I've read all the character profiles the site has to offer and it's been really helpful, and very informative in helping me flesh out Arokh as a character. I feel as though making him quite arrogant could be very good to contrast Rynn's personality, making them an ideal duo!

On wow, really? I had no idea it had a comic I'll have to look online and see if I can find it! I get what you mean, technology was very limited and time was an issue in the development, but the game always struck a chord with me. I mean, personally, who wouldn't want a game that allows you to freely ride a dragon in open landscapes? It was definitely a very ambitious project for the time, thankfully the Ancient Gates helped to build up the world more. I want to try and incorporate both narratives into the story so that I can try and make the link a clearer one! (I hope!)

I'll definitely check out more of the stories, they will be great for inspiration!

Thanks for getting back to me! I'll be sure to post here when I've uploaded some pages and you can tell me what you think! :D

All the best!

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Arokhs Twin
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Here's a link to the comic https://www.weltbild-marktplatz.de/app/ ... 1b483c1eb6 it was only a one off and was set before the game's story. Seem as Arokh and Rynn hadn't met until the events of the game the comic is contradictory. It is on sale for 9.89 euros. It was probably written before the game was released.

As for Drakan, yeah. They are unique games and I'm surprised no developer has taken on the dragon combat mechanic. The only games that come close are Larian Studio's Divinity2: The Dragon Knight Saga / Divinity2: Developer's cut (not to be confused with Divinity: Original Sin 2) & Dragon Commander. Divinity 2 was a major disappointment in the fact that ground enemies disappear when you take flight so you can only fight airbourne enemies.
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SnowDrake
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by SnowDrake »

Have you played the Drakengard series? That's got some good dragon fight mechanics, rider as well. It's quite like a hack and slash, and the world is linear but it's enjoyable.
The narrative starts of similarly with a pact being made with a dragon, only there is a price for this pact. In the first game, the main character gives up his voice to make a pact with the dragon, it's produced by Square Enix. A decent play, it's on the PS2, but it's pretty rare now.

Ahh, okay, so it might have been a comic set to build up hype but didn't really go anywhere. Does anyone actually own the Drakan name now?

All the best!

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Arokhs Twin
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Hey yeah I remember Drakengard. Never finished it though but I got close to finishing it. Can't remember which game I played now; could have been the first game or the sequel. It's the one that had multiple endings where one was were you ended up in modern day Japan and got shot down and killed by a fighter jet.

As for the drakan franchise, several copyrights have expired worldwide but here in the UK the trademark still belongs to Sony. A planned remake in the unity engine fell foul of copyright laws.
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

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Had someone planned to make a remake? Is that the one here on the site? I saw that someone was teasing one.
Gosh, that's a pain, why does it have to be the UK? DX I guess I'll have to change the name of the comic then, especially if it's trademarked still. Even if it's a non-profit comic, Sony is not a company to mess with. Makes me wonder when the time will run out here, seems strange for it to expire in other countries but not in the UK. Also strange that they still protect game that they've clearly no intention of re-vamping.

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Arokhs Twin
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Without extensive checking it's difficult to say what has / has not expired and in which country. When I last checked "Drakan" was still copyrighted in the UK and USA and gets renewed every year. "Drakan: The Ancient's Gates" is still live until 2020 "Drakan: Order of the Flame" has expired. In other countries I don't know. The full game has been on my abandonware to download for years and Sony hasn't noticed nor cared. However one of the guys who made the music for TAG had to take it off his soundcloud due to copyright law.

Drakan was originally trademarked in the UK as Drakan:OOTF was published by Psygnosis (a UK company) which became part of Sony and they took over all their trademarks. That's probably why it continues to get renewed here. The copyright holder is listed at a London address which looks like a law firm for Sony.

Copyright law and Intellectual Property law are very complicated and I don't understand them or exactly how they work. They are two different things. Basically regarding the remake several of us including one of the ex Surreal developers had an extensive discussion on our Discord group and even the Surreal employee couldn't confirm other that Sony holds all copyright and IP on the games. He did do a lot of research which concluded in that it is OK to make a remake as long as it is a requirement to own the original game and it must be non-profit. One of our discord members is a lawyer but not copyright / IP law and even he couldn't tell us anything for definite. However to be on the safe side the remake has been abandoned for now.

A second project by Zalassus is not a remake as such it is a re-write of the game engine in C++ or more specifically he's writing a game engine that will use all of the drakan assets so it will play exactly like the original but work on modern computers with better frame rates etc.

As for Sony renewing the "Drakan" trademark speculation was that there may be another game in the works or planned for the future. However it seems that it's just Sony's copyright team renewing all trademarks for their games regardless of if there will be more games or not.

Edit: another point I want to make is that there is a new brand of computer hardware called Arokh and that is blatant IP theft unless the word Arokh isn't copyrighted but I imagine at one point it was along with Rynn. Games publishers do this to prevent other companies making games with characters the same name as theirs - that is if the name is "made up" e.g Arokh and Rynn. You can't trademark John and Mary for example if Rynn and Arokh were called John and Mary instead. That would be utterly stupid though if they were. :)

Our discord group link is https://discord.gg/YsNZTpd if you want to join.

The drakan remake site is here https://drakanremake.wordpress.com/
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SnowDrake
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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

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I'd love to join! Thanks for the link!

Ahh, okay, I won't pretend to understand copyright law either, I looked every where to see if the trademark belonged to anyone. I suspected it would still be under Sony but more in their vault, I have no real clue. You've actually cleared up quite a bit for me! It means I could still call the comic "Order of the flame", as it's no longer trademarked.
Sad to hear about the remake having to be abandoned though, it's a shame it can't even have a KickStarter to get it going as that would immediately bring up the profit issue. Even if all money went onto creating assets/commissioning model artists for the game.

Ahh, okay, so it's more redefining assets and re-rendering them? That would be so cool! I have the original disk, but currently my PC refuses to play it. I'm not exactly a tech savvy kinda person, so I may just have to wait.

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Re: Making a Drakan Fancomic!

Post by Arokhs Twin »

The community patch fixes almost all bugs and makes the game playable even on windows 10. It has an auto installer; all you need to do is install the game (full install) then run the CP patch. It should go smoothly and work. Save games are even compatible as long as they were made with V445 of the game.

BTW the discord has a 10 minute wait for new members before they can post messages. I had to do this to combat spammers joining and posting objectionable content and other spam. I go as Teekus on there.

As for the copyright, my bad. I was getting the UK and USA mixed up. I've checked the UK government website for trademarks and "Drakan" plus "Drakan: Order of the Flame" are trademarked until December 2028. "Drakan: The Ancient's Gates" has expired.
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