Arokhs Lair – A Drakan fan site

I never noticed until now that the levels.arokhslair.net sub domain has not been working since the move to a new server several months ago. Doh! This is due to stupid windows server 2008 running on the new machine so there isn’t anything I can do about it. Well, actually maybe there is but I just can’t be arsed right now. Please go to player made levels on the menu to the left.

I know it’s not Drakan but I thought I’d tell you dragon fans about a new game I have been playing recently called ‘Divinity 2 – The Dragon Knight Saga’ which is a 3D action RPG made by Belgian developer, Larian Studios. Having played lots of games over the years this is the only one that I really enjoyed as much as Drakan. You do get to play as a dragon from about a 3rd into the game and it’s a game that will keep you enthralled for months. Just make sure you get Divinity2: Dragon Knight Saga NOT Divinity 2: Ego Draconis as DKS is a remastered, much improved version with the add on pack Flames of Vengeance included. PC users will not be able to buy a retail copy however you can download it from Steam or Larian’s web site. The game is also available on the Xbox 360. More details at http://www.divinity2-saga.comgo buy it, you will not be disappointed!

Also you may have noticed that the forums have been intermittent. This is because I was experimenting with various ways to keep spambots and knobheads from posting crap or setting up bogus accounts with links to porn sites etc in their profile. This required code changes which had to be tested with the forum off-line so sorry about that. I was also looking at ways to get the site working on a linux server which is a problem as the forum uses Microsoft SQL Server as a back end. Linux servers are cheaper than Windows.

I just heard Surreal Software has been closed back in June by its parent company Warner Bros with employees being split up and moved to other WB studios Snowblind and Monolith. Their games that were in development have been cancelled with ‘This is Vegas’ being the biggest loss. Of course this definitely means no Drakan 3 so to those people who keep emailing asking if there is a 3rd game, sorry there isn’t. The only thing that might happen is the former surreal staff leave WB and set up their own studio and make a similar game although in the current economic climate this may not be for a while. Rip Surreal and good luck to Stuart, Alan, Heron and others that worked there. If any of ex surreal employees read this please visit the forum and say hello.

Someone dropped me an email recently to say he has found a workaround for no music when running the game on Vista. The fix can be found on the tips and help page. Thanks to S. Kobold for this.

Also a Drakan fan under the name of Wan Dragonica sent me a link to some fan art hosted over at deviantart. It’s not possible to put it on this web site so here is a link to it. Drakan-Arokh-Rynn-130054506.

Finally, it is now 10 years this month the game was released so a massive get together is being organised. A lot of the old players will be there so please check the forums and the event calendar for more information on the upcoming multiplayer event. There are a couple of threads where you can talk to old friends and new. If you can make it and Drakan works on your current PC, please come along!

Please go to www.drakanbonded.com for further information and to register your participation in the tournament.

I have now been able to get some more web space to host almost all Drakan files. Single player levels were previously hosted on my ISP web space, they have now been moved to this server. I am still restricted to the same amount of bandwidth so I will see how this goes. Multiplayer levels are hosted on my home server and will hopefully be moved to this server next month for faster downloads. Bookmark http://levels.arokhslair.net which will redirect to wherever files are hosted eliminating the need to update bookmarks if server / web site is changed.

Due to the demise of planetdrakan.com some levels and Drakan files listed on this web site can no longer be downloaded. Andrey’s server also seems to have a problem unless the password has been changed. With his server now being the only place where most Drakan files are hosted this is a problem. I have some single player levels on this web site but due to bandwidth & webspace restrictions I am unable to host much more than this. I will look at updating the links / password for Andrey’s server and the possibility of hosting more files later this week.

First post of the year as there hasn’t been much to post about in the drakan community but however things are picking up. A couple of indie developers are looking into making dragon themed games and Shelim who did the 445++ patch (below) has made a Drakan themed classic scrolling shoot-em up where you fly a dragon against an onslaught of other dragons over a sieged town. For more info please see this post on the forums.

Testing of Shelim’s unofficial 445++ patch has been completed and final tweaks to the code have been made so this is now being released to the Drakan community. Some undetected bugs / problems may be present so if any are encountered please let either me or Shelim know over on the forums. Please do read the installation notes thoroughly before reporting problems.

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