Arokhs Lair – A Drakan fan site

It has been a few weeks since the last MP event, so we planned to arrange another MP event. We played 23th August 2020. Because of timezone some of users played before these matches. There are couple changes for MP including shorter time of one round( before there was 25 minutes) we change for 15 minutes as it should be enough and we’ll be sure that we could play on more maps instead be bored on one map. We played mixed maps: QoD, ground, air and additional fan made maps. On Drakan Discord we’ll introduce on #faqs-and-multiplayer-rules some updates MP rules soon, this channel has been updated mostly for FAQs. Also please, if you have ideas for next maps, also let me know, we’ll try to make next multiplayer maps for next MP matches, make sure you have recent new MP map pack, if you have problem with installing it, also let us know.

Thank you for playing, it was really fun to play. Players: YanGez, Melber, Jav95, Jage and Rev. It was quite short and we have some difficulties because game crashes probably reason was server issues. Teekus already made changes for server so for next MP matches should be everything OK

Recently in 28th of July 2020 there were Multiplayer matches where played 9 players! It was really high number of players in comparing to previous matches after Drakan revival project. Noone expect that server will be full that would host for maximum 8 players.

Players:Teekus, [LGC]Arthrebi, [LGC]retolo, Jav95, Melber , Szymana, Blaczumba, [LGC]Loliburta and me YanGez

According to moderators approval, for won matches title of Combat Master {CM} awarded for Jav95. Jav95 is with us quite long, since August 2018, he was also very good player before this event. Because map list was approved and considered as balanced, Jav95 used his combat skills, intelligence in game and of course strategy in ground maps that made him winner of these matches. Of course, he has to defend his title, if there will be player that wants to get Combat Master title, he has to win in duel map both ground and air. We wish that new ranks will encourage other players to arrange new MP matches, and above all players will have fun.

There is still title {SDM} stands for Supreme Dragon Master, but actual owner of this title Mechanist is inactive in Arokh’s Lair forums and in Drakan Discord Channel, we hope that someday he’ll return, let leave this title to him. Combat Master {CM} rank is of course newest innitiative of moderators of Arokh’s Lair

For more info, join our Drakan Discord channel
https://discord.gg/nCMrU4p

Screenshots:

As many of you know from our Discord community Yangez93 has been hard at work making new multiplayer maps for Drakan which are a bit different to the normal maps and make a nice change. These are now considered final versions and will be running on the multiplayer server from today. So if you want to join the server for a match you will need to download and install these maps even if you already have these on your computer. They have been updated in the last couple of days and if you don’t update your copy of the game you will get an error when joining the server or when the level changes you will be kicked automatically.

They can be found on the MP downloads page or direct link here. Please note that the file name is subject to change should any bugs be found and maps need to be updated. It was easier to put all new maps into a single download so that once you have installed the community patch any additional maps since the CP’s final release can be downloaded all at once. To install extract and copy the multiplayer folder to your drakan install folder overwriting any files if prompted.

Note that this only applies to the UK server (ID Arokhs Lair CP153.01 in the server browser) at the moment. The Poland server (ID Arokhs Lair www.arokhslair.net) may get updated in the future but if / when this happens it is unknown.

Speaking of the community patch, this is now considered final and since it’s developer has gone AWOL and we have no source code it won’t be getting updated with new maps.

The forum software has been updated to the latest version which now enables me to use a more advanced captcha system which seems to have stopped the flood of spam registrations we were getting recently. Unfortunately visitors from China still have to pass an additional captcha check as there was just too many spammers hitting the forum and overloading the server.

This also means the theme for the forum has been changed. Visitors will see the standard PHPBB theme until they register and log in where it will switch to the site theme. I’m still working on fixing this.

Also the discord link has been updated as the old one seemed to have expired despite me setting it to never expire. So if you couldn’t join our discord server before, try again and it should work.

Drakan: Order of the Flame was released in the USA exactly 20 years ago today. Several of us managed to get a few multiplayer matches in however sadly I couldn’t make it but that does not mean that I won’t play again in the future. Drakan’s playerbase has increased thanks to the community patch but it seems to be dwindling now. A handful of us still play so if you are interested in multiplayer check out our discord server. BTW the EU release date was 20th August 1999 so hopefully there will be more matches on that date. There are currently two active servers on which you can play on bringing the total number of players playing at once to 16.

As a side note I have implemented secure HTTPS across the whole site which broke some things. I think I’ve fixed it but if any content isn’t working for you let me know on the forum or email the webmaster address.

Finally I think this will be the last year this website will exist in this form at least. I’ve renewed both arokhslair.net and arokhslair.com but I probably will not do so next year and instead move this website to a subdomain of my personal web space so it will not be lost. I may even host it at home on my netgear NAS box as I’ve already tested this and it works albeit slowly on the forums. I will make my decision on this depending on visitors, forum posts and cost of web hosting.

In addition to the usual assortment of minor fixes, this version of the Community Patch also includes some fairly major usability improvements to the Level Editor – opening up completely new possibilities to Drakan map making for the first time in the last 19 years.

Another major feature is that it now allows patching the Spanish version of Drakan, in addition to the previously supported English and German versions. On top of that, the patch installer received a Spanish translation as well, thanks to Discord user Javixx95.

In fact, in terms of added content, this is easily the most significant patch release to date.

A detailed list of the new features can be found in the CP’s readme file – but for reference, here’s a quick overview of the other major changes which haven’t been mentioned already:

• 32-bit textures are now supported (tested up to a size of 2048 by 2048 pixels!),
• Digital Elevation Models can now be imported directly into the Level Editor, taking most of the tedium out of landscaping new maps,
• Exporting transparent textures has been made possible in the Editor,
• New default settings for dgVoodoo2 mitigate the previous issue of in-game text being blurred when dgVoodoo2 is enabled,
• UCyborg’s fixes now allow the notoriously troublesome “Lens Flare Effects” to work properly in most cases.

The game servers have been updated to the new version. Please remember to apply this update if you want to play Drakan multiplayer; the patch can be downloaded from the usual place.

The latest community patch has been released by Mechanist. This makes changes to several maps which we found to be unbalanced and other improvements have been made to make gameplay more fair. You will need to install this to be able to play on the multiplayer servers. It is not required to update if you have an earlier build if you play only single player.

I have updated the tech support pages as they were out of date and no longer relevant. I have put some information on there for new visitors who would like to play the game and how to install the community patch which replaces the 445 patch.

Speaking of which there is a new version (135.03) which contains updates to some of the multiplayer levels to fix bugs and balancing.

Regarding the previous post about the community patch – there has been a small update so the build number is now 135.02. If you play multiplayer you will need to update to this version.

Also I need to update the tech support page with detailed instructions on how to use the community patch as it’s pretty much a fix all issues patch and renders a lot of things on the support page irrelevant. I should get chance to do this at some point this week but in the meantime the community patch does have a good readme which you can take a look at.

Mechanist has been hard at work creating a community patch which will make updating the game much easier especially if you play multiplayer. The patch contains the latest AIO patch and any updated SP and MP community made levels and bug fixes to existing ones. If you play Drakan single player only you can download the AIO patch but it’s recommended to use the community patch.

To install the patch you will need the full version of the game installed. Note the 445 patch is not required anymore as this patch supersedes it. Then download and run the latest community patch, which can be found on our downloads page and the installer will automatically detect your Drakan installation and update the files as needed. It will work exactly like the 445 patch installer except for it will also update any maps / levels required for multiplayer. Current build 135.01rc0, game version should show 377/447 after install.

Thanks to Mechanist for his hard work!

On a side note I found that the master server query is intermittently not showing one or both of the game servers. If you do not have any servers showing in the available servers list manually add them by clicking on ‘Add Server’ and enter the details for the two multiplayer servers which are 193.93.90.104 (port 38013) and 212.169.37.181 (port 27046). You can also see the status of any multiplayer servers on 333 Network’s website at http://333networks.com/s/drakan

There is also a forum discussion topic which can be found by following this link.