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My memory isn't that great, but I rarely get false memories, even of fairly inconsequential nonsense. I recollected the game wasting a lot of time with the doomed bunch of guards following William around, biding time until their inevitable demise - but I completely forgot the goblins etc. Thought they actually captured Bear (for some nefarious scheme of his) and were taking him back to Krondor for most of the chapter (possibly an errant memory of the surviving merc?). Odd. Guess this game is exceptionally unmemorable.
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Apr 30, 2022 09:46
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Update 10: Dungeons & Krondors  So, we're on the beach as this chapter starts. In the book, the party knows this is where they have to go pretty much since arriving at Haldon Head, but can't enter the Spooktemple under Widow's Point because they need A) a code for the lock and B) the remnants of the master vampire's hand as a key to activate the code.     Here, there's no real reason why the party couldn't have ignored the village, walked down here and poked at this super suspicious rock with the symbols on it right away. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8c7VUhIH80   Why don't any of these evil temples ever have good lighting and maybe a nice rug? Wish I could tell you, but I've never been a blood-drenched priest of a mad god. Maybe we have it backwards, maybe they go mad because of poor lighting and lack of rugs.   ...we're just going to ignore the skeletons? If they ignore us, it seems like the polite thing to do.Worth noting that in the book they aren't just armored skeletons, they're like eight-foot armoured skeletons with four arms each of which has a giant scimitar. Anyway, let's just poke at the door at the far end here.  It's a puzzle! We can move around the little triangles to reflect the lasers and the point is to get each laser into its fitting hole in the wall and not the central crystal. However, if we gently caress this up...  I don't think that was right. ...does anyone hear something? I enjoy how the party just stands there like a bunch of idiot goobers while the skeletons walk up behind them and prepare to get shivving.   They're not a challenge in any way. We get more XP if we complete the puzzle without aggroing any of the skeletons, or less than all of them. ... I'm like 99% sure that the XP we get from loving up four times and fighting all the pairs of skeletons gives us more bonus XP than solving the puzzle perfectly in the first go.  Checking the guide, the reward for a "perfect" completion is 1000 XP. There are four pairs of skeletons, for 300XP each... that's 1200XP. Let's get back to the door.  The first four gems are easy enough, but if you do things in the wrong order you end up solving the white or green laser with the other one not "solved" yet. This gives you a countdown of roughly two seconds to get it sorted before it triggers more skeletons or kicks you out of the puzzle and resets to the last "safe" setup you had where there was no countdown.  It takes me a couple of tries to get it right.   The last pair of skeletons drop this unique-looking rapier. Is it better than Woundlord? Hard to tell! Even with the guide! Woundlord does 10 to 20 damage with a "double chance of crits." What do crits do, exactly? What's the base chance? Without the guide, I would have no idea(nor even any idea that Woundlord did this). They have a base chance of 20% and do double damage. Also +25 to hit(percentage points? Probably. Not sure, though). Vanguard does 8 to 18 damage, +25 to hit and +35 to defense. So probably Woundlord is better.  One of them also drops this ring and, once again, not even the guide says what the gently caress it does. Whatever, back to the door.  This is the solution, then press the skull button at the center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbtsh3hiz0E   Welcome to the dark temple. If we had four black pearl amulets and everyone wore one of them, we could avoid the dungeon's first combat encounter.   Tentacles! Surely, whatever mighty aquatic beast dwells here is a threat to us!  Ha ha, no. It doesn't do a drat thing except poisoning us because it can't slap through our armor.   What's this? Is this what they worship? Worse, it's their corporate sponsor. This is a branded demon temple.First up, we'll take the door at the left to enter one of the worst rooms in the game. Worst by a very specific criteria.   Behold! This is the throne room from the vision, which has the bone snakes, from the vision. Two camera angles in which we can see the snakes, or our team. Now, I'm sure there's an angle where we can see everything going on, right?      Not a loving one, and half of these angles are just generally useless. I loving hate this camera.  The snakes are no big deal, they're supposed to have DEATH NAGA POISON!!!! THE STRONGEST POISON!!!! but it seems to have the exact same effect as any other time the party's been poisoned, i.e. not very much(except for that one time with the sewer ninjas). Since it's such an unthreatening encounter, I decide to try out one of Jazhara's Change spells, THE BEAST WITHIN, which I also keep getting scrolls for.   Behold! She now has a skin disease! It's supposed to turn her into a melee beast but: It does not change her health It does not change her armor  And her damage, while it poisons enemies, is pitiful. If it could be cast and attack in the same round, perhaps a good start. Or perhaps if we were fighting a lot of single large enemies where pouring on the poison was super-vital.  Snakes gone, we poke at the chest which...  Actually has a lock and a trap! Between Krondor and Haldon Head there is one(1) pickable chest in the goblin camp and zero pickable chests in all of Haldon Head. So for large swathes of the game, James' lockpicking skills are kind of irrelevant, but here they're back for a few uses.  Of course chest contents are still largely randomized so even a lich's throne room just has the usual bottles of poison(every third potion bottle or so is a potion of poison, which is not a potion of poisoning weapons, or a poison grenade, but a potion of "drink this to poison yourself, moron.") and a few healing potions. It's also worth noting that there's no resting inside the dungeon, so mana regaining is entirely reliant on rare mana potions.   Back to the entry room and out the other door we return to the Hell Of Bad Camera Angles and are immediately attacked by out-of-frame goblins.  The fight has another one of those loving greatsword-and-plate(green, goblin-skin-coloured plate, of course) goblins which take forever to kill.  And of course two goblins coming up from behind on a super garbage angle, because of course they are.  Once the goblins are dead, we duck down the doorway on the left.   At least here there's a camera angle that shows us the entire battle arena, thank God.  I cast Speed of Thought with Jazhara and then send James motoring over to beat the piss out of that wizard in the back, no magic for you.   At which point the goblins respond with the magic of Sword to kill Jazhara and throw a molotov at Kendaric's head. Turns out that Speed of Thought gets cancelled if the caster dies! I am now in danger!  Off screen one of the enemies I killed dropped a ring that guaranteed successful casts on all Mind spells, which Kendaric has. So how about we try out the top-tier Mind spell and see if it wins us the fight?   So what does this spell do? Any enemy that doesn't resist it(only the big sword goblin did) will start attacking other enemies until the battle ends, and when only mind-controlled enemies remain, they'll just fall over dead. This resolves the fight rather easily because even a Big Sword Goblin can't defeat five small goblins AND a big hammer.   Time to pick over the corpses and then let out the prisoners. Priorities.    As usual he has a ring that I have no idea whether's better than the "Shield Rings" I have and he's also inexplicably wearing two rings that do nothing except poison the wearer. Starting to think these evil dark cultists might not be very smart.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr_ntx-97s8 Short version:   The goblins ate all those people! And then they were going to eat me! Oh my gooooooooooood! Shoo, get on out of here, you.     Out of the prison and around the corner, we get to the "meat" of the dungeon.   Which is to say walking around on these platforms and getting attacked by D&D expatriates.  Seriously, they're ghouls with paralyzing claws, that's completely and utterly a D&D thing. I really do wonder if this was originally a D&D licensed game that they repurposed as a Midkemia game.  They go down pretty easily, though, failing to hit Solon and James has a ring that protects him against stunning and paralyzing. It has been irrelevant for 99% of the game, but now it's suddenly important.  Moving away from the first fight, we're tossed into a small internal map. There are five un-named locations around the edges of it, one in each corner and one at the bottom center.  We are practically guaranteed a tiresome random encounter every time we try to go somewhere, though. Most of them are just these pointless squabbles with a bunch of idiot ghouls, but a few of them are nastier.  Ghouls busted, we arrive at our first location, the bottom right sector.   Five ghouls who want to get incinerated and a sewer beast in a cage in the corner. The ghouls go down without any problem, they're not by themselves(foreshadowing!) an issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHKXtOo8TC4  I'll note, though, that you can actually save this one! I, uh, kind of forgot that though and just had the party kill it. Whoops.   Next is the bottom mid location and of course we get waylaid once again... but this time it isn't trivial.   The issue is those three goblin archers. In range of Jazhara and Kendaric and like two full-tilt movement rounds away from even James.   They win initiative, dropping Jazhara.  The ghouls paralyze Solon.  Kendaric gets off one full-screen attack spell but it doesn't do enough damage to drop the goblin archers. He goes down as well.   And James gets whittled down by arrows on the way to the goblins. Now! Having played other games, you might go: "ah, yes, but Solon will simply tank all the hits until he is no longer paralyzed, then enact mighty vengeance  " except his paralysis never seems to end except when the paralyzing ghoul dies.Secondly, I did not save before this! So I cannot simply quit without losing some progress, I need this fight to end so I can redo it.  It takes loving ten real-time minutes for Solon to die thanks to his huge armor and HP ratings.  Anyway, take two.  Literally the only thing that makes a major difference this time is that Jazhara rolls better on her initiative, allowing both her and Kendaric to let rip with target-all spells right away, blasting the archers before they can snipe them.    This leads to a coded door we can't open yet and... aren't these like, loving Klingon symbols? It definitely looks that way to me.  Next up, the upper right corner, but this time we get waylaid not by a random combat, but by a random ghost.     I am still repeatedly baffled by these bits they didn't voice. I guess it's the stuff they either got crappy recordings for or things they realized they needed after the VA's had left for other projects.  Until this playthrough, I never actually understood what this was for, and I only learned that because I read the hint guide to see if I missed anything. Anyway, we have a wand now, so let's get back on track. Again.    So what's amazing here is that rather than like... having shadow monsters emerge by clipping up through the floor or through the walls, or emerging in puffs of dark mystic smoke or something, they're literally just standing there in the corners, un-interactible.    It's a completely inconsequential encounter except that I guess if you completely hosed your initiative rolls, their lifedrain attacks would actually be somewhat dangerous.  This does not happen, though. It's worth nothing that like everything in here that isn't a necromancer or a goblin, these are undead(kind of like... in D&D, where shadows aren't actually shadow monsters, but strength/life-draining undead creatures that just look like shadows... hmmm...) and thus susceptible to Sunray and its upgraded version which I'll bring out later.   The only thing to interact with here is the statue with the glowing bottom.  The bottom has the code for the Klingon puzzle.  And poking at the statue itself has a bunch of gems that we will never be able to sell at a store and...  An amulet way after 99% of the game's enemies with bows unless we get that one loving random battle formation with the goblin archers again.   Next is the upper left door.  There's another necromancer here! Also as a sidenote if the entire party is wearing black pearl amulets that you used to dodge the squidmonsters at the entrance, this guy waves his hands and the entire party topples over like Farmer Alton. Kind of a dick move, game.  This is a pretty unthreatening encounter, really. You just flatten the ghoul on the left, then someone runs over and smacks the wizard, and the skeleton is no real challenge then.   Also it took me like a minute to confirm that the light source at the back wasn't a doorway. It looks like a loving doorway! Anyway, it turns out that if you activate the Scepter of Karrack in here, it blows up the orb in the center which gives you some bonus XP and otherwise affects nothing. Because it's not the right orb that needs to be destroyed, and the right orb we can just explode without a magic wand, apparently. Solon's level-up here is also pretty important since it gives him a second attack per round, making him a lot scarier for the few fights that remain.  This necromancer is also a loving pile of jewelry.  As usual, any enchanted equipment he has does extremely vague poo poo. Like does this Curse(guaranteed crits on being hit) the wearer? Does it slowly drain magic skills like wands drain magic skills when used? Is it all fluff text? And what does it actually do in the beneficial sense? loving game.   This little table to the side contains The Alchemical Catalyst which could've turned that poor monster in the cell into a real boy rather than us just mercykilling it.   There's also a bookshelf in the back we can interact with.  As an interesting note, both scrolls of Chain Lightning and Chaos Storm... cast Chaos Storm. Chain Lightning is of course what the exact same effect is called if you were playing D&D.  And this book, if read by a wizard, just melts off random chunks of their magic skills for no reward. In the game Jazhara goes "WOW GEE HOW INTERESTING A PATH OF MAGIC I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE." In the book, it's Kendaric who picks it up and goes: "What a nice cover!" and Jazhara goes "That's the human skin binding of a cursed tome you incredible moron."   The lower left of the map is next.   Unbelievers! Heretics! Begone! This is very spooky! We're wizards and we'll cast spells at you! Really? While we're at the far end of the corridor and very vulnerable to wizardry? Actually we were thinking we'd wait until you got up close and could hit us with swords. Very polite of you. Like. Were the devs morons? Did they not give a poo poo? Unless these two boneheads somehow both won initiative against us, we just walk up and smash them apart on turn one.  How did you get past the skulls? Smashed 'em. Wait, you skeletons can talk? ...and make rude gestures, apparently. Begone, trespassers! Funny, the skulls said the same thing.Maybe I'm weird, but I always have a soft spot for thinking skeletons and undead in games and like... it's kind of funny to me that in this like eleventh hour of both the game and the dungeon, they pop on us that the undead here aren't all unthinking beasts or constructs, but apparently some of them can both speak and think. Hell, that's more than most of the humans we've killed so far can do!   Behold The Birthing Sun is the near-top Fire magic skill and what it does is that it casts a boosted-up Sunray at every enemy in the fight.   It completely devastates this encounter, blowing up over half the skeletons in one go and leaving the rest both wounded and blinded(??? how are we blinding a loving skeleton?).  The remainder are obviously easily dealt with by James and Solon. Anyway, past this door is the boss of the dungeon, so instead we'll be looping back to the code door to see what it hides. The answer will inevitably be disappointment but I figured at least it's another few screenshots to pad the post out with.   The next challenge, at least for me, was then realizing that those crusty-rear end buttons at the bottom were "accept" and "back out" buttons. A checkmark and an X, I thought they were just decoration.  Ah, yes, four mage skulls with dogshit initiative stats. Whatever will I do.  By the time one of them gets to act, three of them are already dead.  And even if they'd gotten to act first, any one member of the party can take this sort of damage, so unless they're all blasting out Firestorms or something, at least someone will be left over to smash them open like eggs.  Our reward is this big sarcophagus! What will it contain?  A key for a door I've already opened(I think the one the two skulls were guarding? I picked it, which was un-noteworthy), a magic shield no one will ever use(because William uses Greatswords and for Solon hammers are always superior to maces), a magic bow no one will ever use(because outside of one or two fights in the outdoors chapter James is always better off just using a sword), a magic sword that's worse than Woundlord and some trash. Let's just go own the boss.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY7aJe9htmY I can't even do a short version of this because for a boss confrontation there's just so little introductory poo poo-talking or anything. Just "Give me Kendaric!" "No." "Then die!"    The lich immediately vanishes and then skeletons start floating up from the pit on the sides and on to the platform. It's kind of neat that the fight adds more enemies as it goes on, it's the only one that does so.  Of course the lich then re-appears instantly, just farther away. Still, at least it prevents Solon from caving in his skull on round one.   For some reason no spells seem to do any damage to him, and more skeletons keep rolling in.    By this point James has gotten across the arena and starts hacking into the lich, and then something magical happens.   Look it's just. Okay, you want a DARK MAGE to fly up and hover ominously above the arena. I get that. But perhaps rather than just lifting him to the top of the arena where he hangs around in his normal pose like this is a lovely loving flash animation, have his like... pose communicate that he's floating or flying or something. Switch him to a more swimming pose, of sorts, perhaps or just... Guhhhhhhhhhh. Whatever.  So we obviously can't hit him since he's above us. He shrugs off most magic. But you know what magic will never let us down?  The magic of molotov cocktails.   Down you loving go, buddy. Didn't even get a single spell off all fight, some dark wizard he was. Now let's smash his orb.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Glkbe32usk   It would be nice if we didn't get attacked by air elementals this time.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP2Qj0az_LE  One of the things that kind of puzzles me about this whole thing is that the ship literally went down within walking distance of the shoreline, and we've got an undead wizard with a large supply of skeletons and skeleton warriors. Why not just... send some skeletons to haul the ship on to shore? Skeletons won't give a poo poo about drowning, or water, or crabs. I should stop thinking so hard about this. Next update: We finish this loving game.
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May 4, 2022 00:18
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"The tear of the gods would interfere with the necromancy somehow, thus making it impossible"
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May 4, 2022 04:50
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PurpleXVI posted:By this point James has gotten across the arena and starts hacking into the lich, and then something magical happens. This guy feels a little like a puzzle boss, only I'm not sure what the intended solution is. Or if there even is one, some parts of this game feel very, "Wouldn't it be cool if we did this?" So yeah, he shurgs off most magic. But you know one spell he doesn't? Summon Sky Warrior. While he hovered in air, my guys stood around doing nothing while a glowing orb plinked him to death.
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May 4, 2022 06:13
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Cripes I've had lovely DnD sessions that went better than this plotline when I was a kid. Devs really dropped the ball.
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May 4, 2022 09:11
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Wait what you finish the game next time? We're near the end? There's enough plot to be near the end of it yet?
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May 4, 2022 11:43
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I do have to say that I appreciate your short summaries of the cutscenes, cause gently caress if I could be bothered to listen to every one of them. I get early 3D is just kind of jank in general, but this game kind of surpasses that to be so utterly insubstantial that I'm honestly a little confused. Like, I understand that we're nearing the end, but it certainly doesn't feel like it.
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May 4, 2022 13:26
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This feels like the finish to the prologue in most other games, we're at the end? 
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May 4, 2022 13:33
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SIGSEGV posted:Wait what you finish the game next time? We're near the end? There's enough plot to be near the end of it yet? kw0134 posted:This feels like the finish to the prologue in most other games, we're at the end? I think there are two parts to this. Firstly, this game seems to have had some development issues which probably left them short on time and money, especially if they hammered out an entirely original engine for this stuff. Secondly, aaaaaaaaaaall the way back in update 1, we were greeted with this image at bootup just after the intro cinematic:  Note the "book 1" I really think they thought this would sell like hotcakes and had planned to stretch it out into an episodic thing where folks would go: "GEE WILLIKERS, I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT KENDARIC AND SOLON GET UP TO NEXT WEEK!!!!!!" Keldulas posted:I do have to say that I appreciate your short summaries of the cutscenes, cause gently caress if I could be bothered to listen to every one of them. There are a couple of cutscenes I really recommend watching, like the ones involving the witch because her voice acting, while a bit harmed by the audio mixing, is pretty great. One of the things I remember fondly as being decently written and outright funny at points. I think the early 3D cutscenes are also harmed by the animations used, though, like... if you notice almost everyone uses the same three or four gestures: Point At Other Person Hands At Hips Arms Folded Arms Folded And Pointing At Person It makes characters feel like they have less personality.
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May 4, 2022 14:21
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I did listen to some of the witch one though I remember in that one the game was horribly audio-balanced so I couldn’t finish the scene.
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May 4, 2022 14:53
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PurpleXVI posted:I think there are two parts to this. Firstly, this game seems to have had some development issues which probably left them short on time and money, especially if they hammered out an entirely original engine for this stuff. Yeah, the game feels really incomplete, I think there was more stuff intended for Krondor, considering how empty the city feels. I wonder if the random item generation was also thrown in due to time issues, it seems so bizarre you can get the best equipment in the game from random encounters during the tutorial chapter.
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May 4, 2022 15:19
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Split between BiA and RtK is enough effort for one(1) good game.
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May 4, 2022 15:24
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PurpleXVI posted:Seriously, they're ghouls with paralyzing claws, that's completely and utterly a D&D thing. I really do wonder if this was originally a D&D licensed game that they repurposed as a Midkemia game. This... actually would make a lot of sense. The gear system is very in line with (bad) D&D-themed computer games of the time. The spell names aren't Midkemia-based either unlike BaK, which draws on the actual Riftwar books for their inspiration in most cases and iirc a couple of spells in BaK exist in the other books. Sunray in particular is works the same way in this game as the Sunbolt spell in D&D, with Sunray being the AOE equivalent and which this game also has. So far I'd rate this game 3 D&D Heroes out of 5 Temples of Elemental Evil.
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May 4, 2022 17:20
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PurpleXVI posted:
Kendaric and Solon are tasked with escorting a special cow from Haldon Head to Krondor for an annual sacrifice and need to constantly rescue it from goblins, marauders, and hungry wildlife. It turns out that ishap doesn't do sacrifices and Solon was using this as a way to get Kendaric to get out of the city for the second time in his life. Kendaric and Solon are emmisaries from Krondor, sent to deliver a message to a minor Kesh noble, and somehow lose their way and are stranded on an island far from home. Kendaric somehow raises a ship, which Solon is somehow able to repair, but it turns out that the ship was scuttled in order to hide an evil artifact. Tune in next week to see the thrilling conclusion! Kendaric and Solon arrive in Kesh and must compete in an eating contest to secure passage back to Krondor. On the day of the event, Solon is nowhere to be found since he had to save children from a burning building being blockaded by goblins. Kendaric finds that the food is like what he had in childhood and unlocks a hidden ability in order to win the contest. Kendaric and Solon chase a spectral creature through a portal and somehow end up in Antara and being involved in a plot featuring a traveling pope and a talking dog man. The storyline concludes with Kendaric waking up in a sweat, in his own home, and deciding to never drink fermented milk before bed ever again.
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May 4, 2022 17:32
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Evil Fluffy posted:So far I'd rate this game 3 D&D Heroes out of 5 Temples of Elemental Evil. There's actually one spell with a Midkemia name(Sung's Caress) in RtK, but yeah absolutely zip compared to Betrayal where almost every second spell name had a reference of some sort. sb hermit posted:[Solon & Kendaric theme plays] Still sounds like a better game than Return to Krondor.
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May 4, 2022 17:41
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Riftwar Chess, where you play as Arutha or Abdur Kazara-Khan and each move you take you make a smart rear end quip about the other's country/spying efforts.
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May 4, 2022 18:05
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Evil Fluffy posted:Riftwar Chess, where you play as Arutha or Abdur Kazara-Khan and each move you take you make a smart rear end quip about the other's country/spying efforts. add those 3D animations like Battle Chess and I'd buy it
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May 4, 2022 18:15
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Evil Fluffy posted:This... actually would make a lot of sense. The gear system is very in line with (bad) D&D-themed computer games of the time. The spell names aren't Midkemia-based either unlike BaK, which draws on the actual Riftwar books for their inspiration in most cases and iirc a couple of spells in BaK exist in the other books. Sunray in particular is works the same way in this game as the Sunbolt spell in D&D, with Sunray being the AOE equivalent and which this game also has. If you are referring to the XBox action RPG D&D Heroes, I quite like that game. I wish that they would re-release it for a more modern, convenient platform like the Dark Alliance games.
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May 5, 2022 13:07
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Update 11: Finally Free Finally, finally about to finish this. I greatly enjoyed LP'ing Betrayal at Krondor, and I felt I had more positive and funny to say about that than I had bad things, while Antara and Return just felt like me finding new things to complain about every update.  The team's back on the beach, let's do the obvious thing(because it is the only thing we can do) and run down to the waterline.    We've got a mystic fogbridge out across the water that Kendaric is mostly sure won't immediately collapse and plunge us into the briny deep. Maybe you should all just be glad it worked on the second try.  About halfway out there's a very obvious arena where sea zombies attack us.    As usual "Birth of the Rising Sun" annihilates groups of undead like it's no one's business.   At least there's a handy entrance. As a neat detail I think it actually is roughly where Bear's ship rammed the Ishapian ship in the intro cinematic.    We're close to the Tear now, everyone be on your toes. ...does anyone smell something odd? Like a large pastry?  Snippety snop. This crab would be more interesting if James didn't just hack it apart in one round. As usual the goon squad doesn't notice something large sneaking up on them, though.   What's up, Solon? You're very interested in that corpse. Well, he died holding a legendary warhammer that would have been extremely useful several hours ago. Sometimes it does feel like our world is constructed by an extremely incompetent deity. You should take this up with Ishap in your next prayers. The Warhammer of Lactor Brain is the same as the Wrath of Astalon EXCEPT that it does 2.5x damage to the undead. ... There is one loving encounter with undead left in the game, what the gently caress, devs?    Coming up the stairs, we run into a bunch of undead monks. Are these animated by the evil temple? Why aren't they doing the temple's bidding and hauling the Tear to shore or pushing the ship along the seabed or some such? Are they hiding up here because the crab was downstairs?    Whatever, RISING SUN, RISING SUN. Eat poo poo, zombies.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEHQGSr-kWk Short version:  Well, I have good news and I have bad news. Good news first, please. The Tear of the Gods is just behind that door up there, in a small box we can easily pick up. And the bad news? Somehow someone trapped a dragon's soul in the box and it's going to try to murder us when we open the door.   So for this fight, Solon sits in the corner and tries to find the off switch for the dragon soul, which is immune to magic(even molotovs!) and takes minimal damage from all of James' attacks(he gets four per round and does about 5 damage per swing, the Dragon Soul has 260 HP).   And every round the dragon tries to cast Chaos Storm, which absolutely fucks the party up. We just need to survive for four rounds, so chug healing potions and hunker down. It's really all we can do.   Interestingly, it's literally a quick-cast every round, so you can even get lucky and have the Dragon Soul flub some of the casts, like here it fucks up its third cast. After four rounds of combat, however... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2V69B632Uo   Behold! The Tear of the Gods! Can I hold it for a moment? No. Look I just need a moment to phone up Ruthia and Ban'ath- By Ishap, James, I said no.  It's not like I was going to phone up Guis'wa or something. I'm sure you just wanted to ask them something very reasonable. I know, right? Just a bit of eternal luck and fortune.   The walk back to the beach is entirely uneventful. But then the moment we step on the beach...  Uh oh, ambush! The rest is more cutscene than game, so I just folded it all into one video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-iwYT6wTXY Short version:  I think we can conclude William didn't stop Bear.  Hand over the tear and no one gets hurt! I've got gods to phone! Immortality to acquire! Kingdoms to conquer! You know, clasically, that sort of thing usually ends up attracting the ire of the gods. Who's going to stop me? Sung? Kahooli? Cut 'em down! After a quick and pointless chat, Bear sics his goons on us.  The guy on the left takes a beating like nothing else, he's still showing as at high health even after James smashes him over the head with a sword several times, so I'm prepared for a nasty fight.  Speed of Thought from Kendaric so Solon can actually get into the scrum.  And then Jazhara casts Firestorm.  It turns out every other member of Bear's gang is actually super fragile while this one guy on the left just has an insane amount of hit points.  He even eats four smacks over the head from Solon without going down.  But then James finally takes him down and the camera flips over to...  Sidi at the top of the cliffs! Gasp!  And we get to spend literally ten seconds watching this orb slowly crawl down to Bear while neither Bear or the usual idiots react to it.    Bear! It's the end of the road for you!Note that Bear never turns or otherwise reacts to William at all until the very end of this.   Talia! 合体する時間!  Talia and William combine to form Kahoolimech!   William then promptly shows Bear why he should be afraid of Kahooli when he just dunks on him in two swings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM2vWSWaTT0  Have pity on me, I had a rough childhood. And a wizard made me do it! No? Healing potion? Do-over? Blargh. Good luck getting melted down for another life, Talia. Goodbye hug? Aw, isn't it lovely?  So, would anyone care to tell me what the hell's been going on here? If you really care, just read the book.Then there's a hard cut and we return to...   Arutha's courtroom! But wait, they had this modelled, they had a voice actor for Arutha... why the hell didn't we get proper cutscenes for the bits in the earlier chapters that ended at the palace? This really must've had a rough dev history.  Everyone gets praise or rewards from Arutha, and the Temple of Ishap's biggest most secretest artifact gets to hover in the middle of the room in front of like a couple dozen people so someone else can get the idea to gank it next time.  And then cut to credits... but wait! There's something after the credits!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl0_hR2DJvs Ooooh, what a sequel hook! The book kinda does this too, except William flings the whole amulet into the surf, and in the "post-credits," Sidi's wading into the water to try and find it, when he's visited by the Witch's ghost, because it turns out the Witch was actually a secret god who's occasionally trying to convince Sidi not to help end the world. And that's Return to Krondor! What a bungled game. Now I need a break from LP'ing games. If I can find Birthright and get it to run even halfway reliably(it tended to crash at the drop of a hat back in the 98 era), I might want to show that off, but seeing as how it seems to be abandonware, it's on neither GOG or Steam.
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May 6, 2022 01:30
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PurpleXVI posted:Now I need a break from LP'ing games. If I can find Birthright and get it to run even halfway reliably (it tended to crash at the drop of a hat back in the 98 era), I might want to show that off, but seeing as how it seems to be abandonware, it's on neither GOG or Steam. Abandonware sites report that it will run in DOSBOX if you load it as an ISO and set the memory to 16. Testing to see if this is true. It is indeed true, but can only be patched up to v1003. (The windows version can be patched up to v1004, but it looked like there were far more headaches to get it operational in W10 native. I saw a web thread indicating it was possible -- but after playing around with the files for 40 minutes, it became clear that going the DOSBOX route was much less hassle). I'll e-mail you my findings if you decide you want to mess around with it for fun. EricFate fucked around with this message at 04:14 on May 6, 2022 |
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May 6, 2022 02:02
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It really strikes me as odd that Betrayal at Krondor, an extremely well liked game managed to have two completely separate sequels created by two completely separate teams...that both ended up being pretty mediocre. Glad to have seen the LP's of Antara and Return these though, thanks Purple.
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May 6, 2022 02:19
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That was quick! Thanks for showing it off! Maybe Birthright will be better?
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May 6, 2022 03:02
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Purple, I definitely agree that you should have a break, but when you resume I still think that you should try a not-shite old RPG. They do exist, I swear. If you persist in your masochism, upon your own head be it. I wanted to show off that I know where one can find a version of Birthright that should work easily on a modern PC, but I just checked and it's not in English so a non-starter in this case. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 6, 2022 |
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May 6, 2022 03:39
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MagusofStars posted:It really strikes me as odd that Betrayal at Krondor, an extremely well liked game managed to have two completely separate sequels created by two completely separate teams...that both ended up being pretty mediocre. I don't get it either. I could buy a rushed BAK sequel being bad, since they didn't really get sales on initial release and the enduring good rep happened well after launch so they could've changed the wrong stuff if they'd rushed one, right? But these? Both were made with plenty of time to figure out what worked and what didn't in BAK. They're just miserable. I guess not retaining the studio with a catalogue of over a dozen superb titles really does matter
Psion fucked around with this message at 07:18 on May 6, 2022 |
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May 6, 2022 07:12
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Thanks for playing and documenting this saga.
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May 6, 2022 07:45
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This is slightly better than the scenario I was thinking of. I was worried that Sidi had mind controlled William so that after he kills Bear, he becomes the next muscle villain and kidnaps Kendaric to further corrupt the Tear. And the rest of the party has to defeat him before some evil god is summoned or Ishap is lost (or both).
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May 6, 2022 08:00
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This game really is just a mess. I was kind of disappointed that William didn't have the piss-yellow armor anymore.
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May 6, 2022 11:17
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JustJeff88 posted:Purple, I definitely agree that you should have a break, but when you resume I still think that you should try a not-shite old RPG. They do exist, I swear. If you persist in your masochism, upon your own head be it. Hey, I've LP'd some games that didn't suck. Also Birthright at least sucks in novel and interesting ways where it falls flat, in my opinion. It's a real artifact.Also I'd rather LP a game I feel like I know in some detail rather than something completely new to me that I wouldn't have much to say about.
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May 6, 2022 12:48
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Echoing the thanks for showing all these off, even if they fall flat. It's a shame, the setting has so much promise and this could so easily have been an actually good game.
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May 6, 2022 13:12
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Yeah, that was a better LP than this game deserves. About Arutha and the throne room, you can go in there in the murder mystery chapter, and update Arutha on your progress and get some pointless dialogue. I assume at one point there would be more to it, but it doesn't matter much. Just him telling you to hurry up. It is odd they never had cut scenes there beyond that. Yeah, after 2 bad ones in a row (this game ended up much worse than I remember) you certainly are owed a break and/or a good game next.
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May 6, 2022 17:54
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We were robbed of a lovingly crafted 3D banquet. Now that I think about it, so much of the betrayal series is about food but we never actually see any of it, or see anyone eating anything. Then again, we don't see any bathrooms either, although we do get to see sewers.
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May 6, 2022 18:33
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quote:Ooooh, what a sequel hook! The book kinda does this too, except William flings the whole amulet into the surf, and in the "post-credits," Sidi's wading into the water to try and find it, when he's visited by the Witch's ghost, because it turns out the Witch was actually a secret god who's occasionally trying to convince Sidi not to help end the world. Sorta? She's (spoiler for later in the series, i think very late?) a god's dream. Specifically, she, iirc, is Lims Kragma's dream of Arch-Indar. If that or its implications don't make any sense then congratulations for (probably) not reading the end of Shards of a Broken Crown! Might I suggest you continue to not do so because holy poo poo how did Feist keep writing this series after how stupid of an ending that book had? Other parts of the series were bad, but only one thing comes to mind that was worst writing-wise and that has to do with something revealed in the last chapter (or 2nd to last) of Magician's End since it really drove home that Feist sucks at cosmic and theological stuff when going beyond surface level. As bad as this game/story is, a fair amount of stuff from it gets mentioned in later books, some minor and others very much not. I wish this game had been as good as BaK though but at least it's not Antara? BaK absolutely and unquestionably looks and plays better than RtK though. Give me more goofy low budget office cosplay outfits over bad generic paperdolls and 3D models any day.
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May 6, 2022 20:36
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 Turns out I'm bad at taking breaks. But at least this time I'm playing a notably better game.
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May 11, 2022 17:44
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May 11, 2022 19:04
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Did anyone on Betrayal's design team ever release anything concrete about what Thief of Fate (the followup they wanted to make) was supposed to be?
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May 12, 2022 08:45
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Snorb posted:Did anyone on Betrayal's design team ever release anything concrete about what Thief of Fate (the followup they wanted to make) was supposed to be? The only information I've been able to find on this was that it was supposed to be about dealing with a Keshian cult that had some sort of magical tome.
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May 12, 2022 13:20
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PurpleXVI posted:The only information I've been able to find on this was that it was supposed to be about dealing with a Keshian cult that had some sort of magical tome. Sounds like a rough draft for what became Jimmy and the Crawler.
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May 15, 2022 17:01
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