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Legacies of Dondoran has passed 10000 downloads. Big huge thanks to those who tried this out!
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A 40-50 hour epic, featuring an extensive original musical score, and a dynamic skill tree progression system.

Basically, will keep you busy for a long time! Skill tree is HUGE and fun to explore. Lots and lots and lots of loot, the later half of the game is non-linear with a lot of side-quests.

The fan art in the screenshots section was done by Clest. Yes, Ishutal looks kinda like Rika from Phantasy Star 4! Not intentional! :)

For questions: harmonic42@gmail.com

Latest Blog

The journey of Lod -> LoD2 -> Going indie

Hello, RMN!

In response to the popularity of LoD1, and the cancellation of LoD2, this blog will try and tell a colorful tale of the journey that Legacies of Dondoran has taken in its long life. A few quick bullet points:

-Transition to the Indie realm
-Rationale for cancelling LoD2
-Spiritual successorship of Deadly Sin 1 and 2
-The humble beginnings of LoD1

Legacies Of Dondoran
LoD1 took a long time to make. It actually began in late 2000 when I first found out about rpgmaker2000. At the time, I was just a college freshman at the college of music, and had done a little composing, but once I found a way to make games easily, I decided to make one as a platform for my music, since making RPG music was a huge passion/dream at the time.

LoD1 began as the noobiest of noob games you could ever imagine. In fact, it actually used mostly RTP music, and all RTP graphics. It reeked of "Hay gize I made a gam!" As the game developed, I re-made it and re-make it until about the end of the 2nd dungeon, then let it sit for about 3 years.

Then RPGmaker2003 rolled around. The battle system (even though we all hate it now) was amazing to me, with the side view and ATB system. This motivated me to keep going. I picked the game up where it left off and retrofitted it for RM2K3, and finished the rest of the game in about one summer of super-mega-psycho sprint productivity. Once it finished, I rushed to get the thing out there, and onto Gamingw.net. For those of you old enough to remember, the game suffered from numerous bugs and other signs of being very unpolished. I distinctly remember drawing the ire of a certain someone, who commented on the fact that I over-hyped my game and it didn't deliver, but even so I was, in his words, "the darling of GW." :D

Anyway, LoD was a very ambitious first project in size and scope, and it was high profile enough at the time to draw a large amount of critique. Only since I've gone indie have I learned to take critique truly gracefully, so I earned the reputation of the classic butthurt noob that we all make fun of today. The difference was... deep down, I took the comments to heart, and worked to revamp the game and make it better. I did so, and the toughest critics seemed to acknowledge its improvement. Once GW.net basically died, and RMN was born, LoD found new life as one of the first featured games on the site.

Legacies Of Dondoran 2
There were a lot of tales left untold at the end of LoD, such as the life of Alec Tyranos, how the political situation unfolded, whether or not Garm Tyranos (the hero of LoD1) actually survived, the evolution of the holy bloodlines, among others. I decided to make LoD2 a much more mature storyline, focusing on political intrigue and personal inner struggles. By now, I had learned how to use the eventing system with a much greater proficiency than with LoD1, and the CMS of LoD2 reflected that. Only thing I was worried about was the popularity of RPGmakerXP, which had come out in the middle of LoD2's development.

Then came the explosive debut of Aveyond, an RPGmakerXP game that launched a franchise and a cult following, and make its author independently wealthy. I, like so many others in the RM community, scoffed at this game as a joke, since it seemed to use so many "default" style systems and was clearly marketed to a predominantly older and more female demographic. (Good move by the way.)

There was one prolific author among us, whose name is none other than BadLuck, who did not scoff at Aveyond's success, but rather, tried to emulate it with his own ambitious transition to the indie realm with Ara Fell: First Light. (Originally known as AFXP) BadLuck spared no expense in the creation of this project, he truly wanted a high-quality title worthy of being sold for money. Even though it appears to have died in the realm of vaporware, I was kept somewhat regularly updated on its progress, and it was turning out to be a pretty amazing game, visually anyway. It's a shame that game didn't come to fruition.

AF:FL made me feel like I was behind the curve. LoD2 was going to take a long time to finish, and it so happened that I was at sort of a natural break point in its development, with an epic moment just finishing and a new chapter starting. After much deliberation with my good friend Karsuman, (who actually recommended going full-on freelance composer rather than indie games) I decided to give LoD2 one last hurrah with an RMN-hosted event "post what game you have" or something, and it was quite well-received. I distinctly remember Craze saying "ten kinds of awesome" which made me use that phrase way too much... anyway.

And so, I decided I was going to follow in the footsteps of Aveyond/AF:FL and take the leap of faith and go indie.


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Deadly Sin 1


Everything is a learning process, Deadly Sin 1 is good evidence of that in regards to learning about the PC game market. I went into this project basically stark raving stupid about how the indie market works, and I was still in RM community mode, full-on.

For this game, I basically went with a completely new world setting and storyline. It wasn't bad in concept, but looking back, I feel it could have been better executed, especially in terms of dialogue and character development.


My crowning achievement in this game was the evented battle system. Evented from the ground up. I was frustrated with myself in that I couldn't really show it off to the RM community, who might appreciate something like a custom system using only events, but these were the sacrifices of going indie. The PC market at large *does not care* about how hard it was to make your "cool systems." :D

Another big improvement in audio-visual was my upgraded music composition studio. MASSIVELY upgraded. I spent a good 3000 bucks buying a bunch of equipment, including a Yamaha KX8 keyboard, an audio interface, some rokit 5 studio monitors, and a large amount of expensive VST software.

The sound quality difference is pretty obvious though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Sultfg4a0

And so, Deadly Sin 1 went live on a few bigger communities and for whatever reason, did pretty well. Market timing was good, it was different but not too different, and had excellent cover art by a one-in-a-million artist that I managed to find and hire. It had a low budget (not counting all my new sound gear) and provided a nice windfall of extra money, though it would have been very stupid to quit my day job. :P


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Deadly Sin 2, The Spiritual Successor to Legacies Of Dondoran 2


The natural progression was to make a sequel. Deadly Sin 2 reflected a much wiser and more experienced me, as I was able to recruit the talents of three very special people, including RMN's own SovanJedi. Because this was a team effort with a pretty good-sized budget, the production values, custom and unique scripts, and polish were WAYYYY ahead of Deadly Sin 1, LoD1, and LoD2. I was able to get a very slick set of scripts to create the item augment system, the battle system, and the skill menu.


I call this a spiritual successor because it basically took all of the plot elements and world setting elements from LoD2 and incorporated them into the first 2 chapters of Deadly Sin 2. I also took great care to incorporate the higher quality mapping of LoD2 into this game. The game also had a custom mouse interface, a handy monster node system for dungeon crawling, and a quest system.



A lot of folks were upset that Legacies Of Dondoran 2 was cancelled. I can understand, and believe me, it was not easy to let the thing just sit around and die. It was so difficult, in fact, that I had to revive it in the form of Deadly Sin 2's plot. Ever get so sentimental about something that you're just irrational about it? That was me and LoD2. While DS2's commercial status inherently exposed it to a far different audience than the usual RM community fare, I did the best I could to make DS2 truly earn the title "Spiritual Successor." All in all, going indie was a decision I do not regret, though it has been a bumpy ride to be sure. The market is fickle, and the success or failure of games tends to rely a lot more on your advertising, your timing, and how well you target the audience you market to. Not a decision to take lightly for anyone.

Thanks for reading!

harm
  • Completed
  • harmonic
  • RPG Tsukuru 2003
  • RPG
  • 06/27/2007 01:34 AM
  • 09/26/2023 02:55 AM
  • 06/27/2007
  • 450795
  • 84
  • 16130

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Posts

I don't remember personally, but according to a post on page 2, it is in the Shrine of Humility.
nevermind i found it, I finally beat rowdain by the way, but that damn healing spell he had turned what should have been a relatively simple fight into a drawn out borefest.
I just wanted to point out that even though it's been a little bit more than a month since my last post, I still haven't found Evil Pants, although I gave it two more tries. So if any generous soul see this and know where he is, please let me know.
This looked like the (second)best game on RMN and it's rar I can't open rar files .>:(
You can download a trial version of WinRAR for free. Just do a Google search to find it.
My brother Valis talked about this so much...
has any1 ever maxed out all hp agility mp and int? im working on that right now. also just an fyi if u want an end game save just msg me. Krysta has both non-transferable items and every1 is lvl 99 mp is max and hp is close to max for all but gain. hes at about 5k. Also as far as i know i've done all optional quests. gain has meteor tyranos and krysta have moon blade and alma has dies ire.

I love this game. I just got 2 nexus keys, but I've been searching for an hour for the next place...can't find it. I'm going to have to give up on this game as it's just too frustrating trying to find things blindly. :[
Kinda sad, I never knew you could walk right pass Rowan at first. took me about 3 days of fighting him to finally beat him.
A few problems:

1. How exactly can Gain teleport to that particular area at the beginning of the Venom Depths?
2. The puzzle in the Venom Depths prior to the lava area is passable(the one with the fire, the crystals, and the switches), however you cannot GO BACK. I know because I wasted twenty minutes of my life trying to.
3. The Venom Depths are easily the hardest dungeon I've ever played, but this isn't as much of an issue wen you're able to go back and resupply, which I am not.
4. The Grandmaster's Robe is TOO important. Seriously, without it, Gain does very little damage compared to the rest of your party.

Other than that, this game is an exceptional feat. The story's a little off, but this game is very fun.
this was an interesting game, one of the first i tried when i stumbled onto this site, although now i do have a few questions. Its been two weeks since i've downloaded the game and i'm stuck in venom deaths i'm on the 4th part of the venom depths avoiding gwadain but i can't dodge him there because i can't see the path i need to take through. The path in question is invisible so i'm stumbling blind anyone have any ideas??
Is there any skill points over LV50 and why not?
Can anybody tell me best way to beat Deceit? I get the little beggars but then eventually fall to deceit himself. What equipment is good to use for this battle?
harmonic
It's like toothpicks against a tank
4142
Hey everyone, I have returned after much time. Sorry I haven't been able to answer your questions.

You can check my recent blog post: http://rpgmaker.net/games/85/blog/3842/ to see what I've been up to.

I'm pleased to see people are still enjoying LoD! I regret to say that I have been away from it for so many years that I am fuzzy on the details. I bet many players are more versed on LoD than I am at this point.

I finished playing this the other day. Fantastic game and an inspiration to other RPGMaker2k3 projects ;D

My only complaint : It looked like you had a lot of grand ideas at the start. Like this was going to be a very deep game with a backstory and mythos greater than most large commercial projects. But it kind of petered out into Super Villain fluff with Find-The-Legendary-Weapons-And-Armor.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. Are you still working on Legacies of Dondoran VX?
harmonic
It's like toothpicks against a tank
4142
LoD VX turned into Deadly Sin, which was completed July 2009, and Deadly Sin 2, which was completed 2010. I'm not allowed to directly link to them, though, since they are commercial indie projects.

Glad you enjoyed LoD!
im stuck on the final boss and why do i not get Skill points after lvl 50? im stuck on her cause she kills me with spells even after i heal. ive done the arena and in venim depths with all the switches i die fron enemies or those little lights.
also i dont know where to get the final spells ive searched all over the game and i cant find them. moonlight blade,meteor and des ire
hey guys,i have trouble playing this game,it said 'The RPG Maker 2003 is not present or not registered.
BIG BUG!!!!!!!!! UNABLE TO DOWNLOAD!!!!!!!!!!!