Arokh's Lair - Drakan single player levels, fan fiction and more

Arokh's Lair is a non profit fan site for Surreal Software's games, Drakan: Order of the Flame (PC) and Drakan: The Ancient's Gates (PS2). For the PC version, the prequel to the PS2 game, you will find reviews of single player add on levels, previews of upcoming add-ons, fan art & fan fiction created by talented Drakan fans and more. For the PS2 version, there is a fan art page and a forum where you can chat about the game with other fans and look for help if you are stuck.

Finally, there is a help section which some of you may find useful if you are encountering problems running PC Drakan on your machine. There are also some fixes for the annoying crash that sometimes occurs when exiting the city of Alwarren in Drakan: OOTF.

Latest News

For information on how to play Drakan on line go here.

14th March 2013 - Arokhs Twin

I have been experimenting with wordpress to get the site converted to run under Wordpress as this will make running of the site and posting news much easier. It will allow people to comment on news posts and much more. For a sneak preview of the test site go to www.arokhslair.net/wp which will hopefully be replacing the main site in the coming weeks depending when I get time to do it. For now you will have to visit our forums - there's a topic in the general forum where you can comment. Now that I have half-decent server hardware to run the site on (the old Windows 2000 Server on an old machine was just past it) I can do a lot more and not limited to age of software. It's something I should have done long ago...

3rd March 2013 - Arokhs Twin

Just a quick update today just to let you know we are still here. Things have gone well since we changed to the new forum software last year and we have had a lot of new members admittedly most of them Blade of Darkness fans rather than Drakan. There has been a few tech support requests so people are still playing the game and trying to make levels. Other than that there hasn't been any Drakan news to comment on recently but rest assured any updates will be posted here.

I did a Google search today and found the Drakan 'novel' which is the events of both games in story form has turned up on several eBook sites to which I did not submit. This is OK with me but the story is something I was really never happy with. I read it again today and a lot of parts made me cringe and were poorly written; don't get me wrong the story has had a lot of good comments and reviews so somebody likes it; its just I think it could be better. The trouble is that the book was written by several people and it shows. I can't help feeling that the love between Rynn and Arokh went too far (as the original did until I removed it - the author who that put that in there went too far I think...) Unfortunately I can't remember who wrote what so although I'd like to re-write it I can't really but I would like to change some parts and flesh it out a bit. I'm no professional writer but I might give it a go sometime. Any updated versions will appear on this site and memoware.com and fanfiction.net.

21st August 2012 - Admin

The move to the new server and forum is now complete. The forum has been tested and is working OK however some problems did occur when importing data from the old Snitz forums. Users with symbols in their username were truncated so if you are one of these users please contact me. All other changes are detailed on the forum announcements page at the top of the forums.

18th August 2012 - Admin

There has been a lot of tutorials from the old Surreal News forums rescued by our forum member Shoprat who has put a lot of effort into finding tutorials and other questions and answers on the web and putting them into a handy zip file which is easy to use and find what you are looking for. Most have also been repeated on the forums so if you are struggling with the level editor, a wealth of info can be found there. If you want to download the zip file, it can be found on the downloads page. Thanks to Shoprat for the hard work!

Secondly, We are going ahead with the move from a Windows web server to a Linux web server this week so there will be some downtime of the site. I have re-done the site pages in .php so some links won`t work anymore if you were directly linking to pages other than the index. We will be closing the forum on Tuesday and replacing it with PHPBB; this work will take 24-48 hours to complete. There will be several problems which we will have to live with such as archives will be lost and sticky topics etc but most of the forum data will be imported. Will advise of everything when work is done.

This work is needed due to several reasons - mainly because the site costs too much to run and we don't get as much visitors as we used to. The site also badly needs updating and a better server will allow for more features however a redesign will come with time as I don't have the interest in the site I used to have years ago. I didn't want to bin it off altogether as we are the only Drakan site remaining now so this is the cheapest solution. Secondly the access database the forum uses is getting too large and unreliable; the move to a MySQL database will improve this.

20th June 2012 - Admin

Just to let you know that I have been doing some work on the website converting all pages & scripts from .asp to .php in preparation for the move from a Windows web server to Unix. This is to save costs on running the site as I don't make any profit from it and all costs come from my own money. I have successfully managed to change the forum from Snitz to PHPBB and import most of the forum posts - only the archives were lost & users would have to request a password reset. This is all running on a test site so when the time comes next year I only have to import the latest data and I can make the switch.

This will halve the running costs of the web site. I will stick with Windows & Snitz for now until the hosting expires (or sooner if the forum database crashes again) so if the site is down in the future, we have not gone and will be back, just bear with us. It's something I should have done a long time ago but have been putting it off. The reason I went down the Windows route is originally the site was running off my own internet connection at home from an old Pentium Pro server I kept in the basement. It later moved to a proper host.

Now on to something about Drakan. First of all thanks to the forum member Shoprat the level editor tutorial has been updated with an archive of old posts from the defunct Surreal news forums which will help anyone wanting to make levels or mods for the game.

Secondly, Erik Aho who made the music for Drakan: The Ancient's Gates dropped me an email today to let me know that he has put several of the game music tracks online. These are the original high quality versions which sound better than the original game ones. Link here http://soundcloud.com/erik-aho/sets/video-games

11th June 2012 - Arokh's Twin

Added unreleased upcoming player made levels & series to the single player level reviews and downloads page. These probably will never be finished and all are in a playable state so are worth checking out. Aergoth is a stunning example of what can be done with the Drakan level editor so definitely take a look! Also check out Assassin and Vader Darth's levels which add trading systems, employment and the ability to purchase property to the game. Newest levels are at the bottom. I omitted Joaxin's Relic as this is still in development and is not ready for public release.

7th March 2012 - Admin

I got rid of the webring links on all pages today as the site keeps redirecting you to their site most of the time when clicking on links within this site. This make the site very annoying to use as when you tried to click on a link you got redirected to some random irrelevant site on webring or got an advert displayed. I will pull out of the Drakan Webring scheme now. Also the subdomain http://levels.arokhslair.net now works.

24th October 2011 - Arokh's Twin

Shelim has now got a moddb page for his Drakan 10th anniversary modification which brings the game more up to date with current graphics and supports new Direct X 9 features (the original game used Direct X 6) and also fixes some bugs. The mod will hopefully be released soon which adds some replayability to the single player game. You can find all information on the development forum and at the mod db page here. drakan-10th-anniversary

11th August 2011 - Arokh's Twin

Larian Studios have just announced their new game called Dragon Commander previously known as Project D. There's a trailer at the moment which gives a sneak preview with more details coming next week at Gamescom 2011. This game should be of interest to Drakan fans. You don't get to ride a dragon but actually get to be one. Link to website here.

07th August 2011 - Admin

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.

20th May 2011 - Admin

I have been unsuccessful in getting the forum to work on Linux. Basically means that if I switch to Linux I will loose the forum and will have to start over. This will not be happening.

Also re: below news there is now a demo for Divinity 2: Dragon Knight Saga on Steam.

17th May 2011 - Admin

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.com go 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.

4th September 2010 - Arokh's Twin

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.

18th February 2010 - Arokh's Twin

Just a quick update today. First of all I'd like to apologize for not being in contact with certain people (two of which have been a couple of years - So*u please tell me your new email - the one I have bounces) and also failing to upload fan art etc to the website. This is because I have had several major disasters and setbacks in my family including deaths, breaking up of family, loss of job and soon loss of my family home. Obviously the website and everything else had been put on the backburner for a while but things are improving. I will be moving to another area soon and I will need to transfer everything over once I get settled in. When I get some free time, I will submit your work, just bear with me.

8th August 2009 - Arokh's Twin

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.

20th July 2009 - Arokh's Twin

The domain, arokhslair.com is now in my hands and has been mirrored to arokhslair.net. I forgot to register the .com domain and it was snapped up by compana, a marketing company that sets up adware sites that are commonly mistaken for the real thing e.g common typos and different TLD's so hits go to their adware infested sites instead of the site the web surfer intended to go to. Anyway its sorted now and I won't forget to register domains when they expire.

1st July 2009 - Arokh's Twin

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.

27h May 2009 - Arokh's Twin

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.

06th May 2009 - Arokh's Twin

SetsunaShadow has sent in some fan art which is based on the box art for the Japanese version of OOTF. You can find it in the artist galleries on the art page.

20th April 2009 - Arokh's Twin

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.

18th October 2008 - Arokh's Twin

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.

Note that this patch is for single player only and will prevent you from playing the game online but however an uninstall utility is provided so the game can be reverted to its original form enabling you to play online again. Some single player levels may be incompatible with this patch & installing this patch on anything other than the retail 445 patched release of the game may cause unpredictable results. Download the patch on the downloads page or directly here.

This patch fixes both the 'Alwarren' bug and the crash on game startup on systems equipped with a Geforce 6 or later graphics card. Existing save games are unaffected.

25th September 2008 - Arokh's Twin

Shelim over on the forums is working on a couple of patches for Drakan single player. One fixes the crashing experienced with geforce 6 / 7 / 8 series graphics cards on Windows XP on some systems and the other fixes the crash when exiting Alwarren. The geforce crash fix has already been released but its still undergoing testing and the Alwarren crash is still in development but should be available soon. These will be ready to download from this site as soon as testing is complete. Up to now players had to start the game in developer mode to get around the crashing at game start up and had to download a save to get around the Alwarren problem. These patches however will probably invalidate your existing saves so you will have to start a new game. I need to confirm this...

Many thanks to Shelim for his hard work for the Drakan community!

Archived news