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Boldor posted:Does it still have the two odd mechanics from BT1? (At least the PC version; haven't touched the Apple ][ version much.) The first, I don't think so, unless there are separate rules for monsters and PCs. It's always hard to tell because hitting things is never particularly difficult past a certain point, but there's a bestiary that lists the max AC that enemies can hit, and there doesn't seem to be a correlation between what their ACs are and what ACs they can hit are. The monster HP not being tracked is new to me! I'm going to guess that's only the PC version (the PC versions of the BT games were always very buggy, especially BT3) unless my memories of the Apple II/C64 version are totally inaccurate. While grinding the infamous Berserkers in that version I noted that one Mindblade would take out about half of them and two Mindblades would take out all of them. (with the occasional single-digit number of monsters remaining) If cumulative damage wasn't a thing in that version I can't see that holding true. How would not tracking HP even work? Just pull the damage number, a random HP value from the HP range for the monster and if the first number was higher kill it, and otherwise you just have to try again? Also another thing is I suspect they changed the weird scaling on weapon damage such that in the original damage tended to skew toward the lower end of the range your weapon could do. The Joe Man posted:It's extremely easy if you're playing "new" mode. You'll die of boredom before dying in-game unless you're trying to be reckless. I didn't find the difficulty any different, outside of the lack of balance shared inventory had--and that doesn't make a difference in the first few levels when you don't have any magic items. Though if the non-Legacy EXP requirements to gain levels are low enough I can imagine the first few levels being pretty easy unless you take on something far tougher than you should be.
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Jul 3, 2020 04:18
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Pretty darn sure that mob HP was tracked. There were a few fat monsters that had to be whittled down, like Mangara.
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Jul 3, 2020 05:40
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Genpei Turtle posted:The first, I don't think so, unless there are separate rules for monsters and PCs. It's always hard to tell because hitting things is never particularly difficult past a certain point, but there's a bestiary that lists the max AC that enemies can hit, and there doesn't seem to be a correlation between what their ACs are and what ACs they can hit are. This doesn't seem to apply to the monsters, only your characters. Genpei Turtle posted:The monster HP not being tracked is new to me! I'm going to guess that's only the PC version (the PC versions of the BT games were always very buggy, especially BT3) unless my memories of the Apple II/C64 version are totally inaccurate. While grinding the infamous Berserkers in that version I noted that one Mindblade would take out about half of them and two Mindblades would take out all of them. (with the occasional single-digit number of monsters remaining) If cumulative damage wasn't a thing in that version I can't see that holding true. How would not tracking HP even work? Just pull the damage number, a random HP value from the HP range for the monster and if the first number was higher kill it, and otherwise you just have to try again? Yeah, the original PC version basically rolls hit points and compares it to the damage you did. If it doesn't kill the monster, oh well. It takes many, many Mind Blade spells to actually take out 396 Berserkers on IBM. Genpei Turtle posted:Also another thing is I suspect they changed the weird scaling on weapon damage such that in the original damage tended to skew toward the lower end of the range your weapon could do. That's another strange rule, but I don't think it's as strange as the above. Gynovore posted:Pretty darn sure that mob HP was tracked. There were a few fat monsters that had to be whittled down, like Mangara. Mangar is one of those end-game bosses that dies if you give him a mean glance. It's his friends that are hard to dispose of. That was the standard complaint back in the day for the Apple ][ version as well -- a big fuss was raised about this in Computer Gaming World for instance.
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Jul 3, 2020 21:45
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If anyone wonders what I'm using to analyze the game binaries, you can use one of:
Also, if you read about old computer games, there will be a lot of talk about  how efficient old games were .Not games converted from 8-bit systems to 16-bit systems, that's for sure. That covers a lot of older classics.
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Jul 6, 2020 05:11
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NSA 
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Not 100% old school, but I’ve recently been playing Drakensang: The River of Time and have been liking it. (except for the meh RTwP combat) Is the first Drakensang a good buy or are there enough QoL improvements in RoT to make it hard to go back to?
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Jul 24, 2020 01:17
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Genpei Turtle posted:Not 100% old school, but I’ve recently been playing Drakensang: The River of Time and have been liking it. (except for the meh RTwP combat)
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Jul 24, 2020 01:44
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You jogged my memory and it turns out that I in fact have the Drakensang complete saga on disc. Never played any of them, but if I had 10p for every game I own that I have never played I would have enough money to buy quite a few more games that I would also never play.
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Jul 24, 2020 04:26
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Those Drakensang games are unsung classics. I have probably posted this exact same thing in this thread, but it really bothers me when they are called "generic fantasy," as they are so much more like Grimm fairytales than like what we think of as typical generic fantasy in an RPG. There is just so drat much delight and whimsy to accompany the darkness, and it is a really nice change of pace. Plus any game where no dwarf has a Scottish accent instantly gets novel design street cred from me. They feel like exactly what they are, weird alternate universe D&D offshoots with all the unnecessary complexity--all the fun that can come with said complexity--but without the over-familiarity of actual D&D (well, unless you are German).
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Jul 24, 2020 08:53
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Dr. Quarex posted:Those Drakensang games are unsung classics. I have probably posted this exact same thing in this thread, but it really bothers me when they are called "generic fantasy," as they are so much more like Grimm fairytales than like what we think of as typical generic fantasy in an RPG. There is just so drat much delight and whimsy to accompany the darkness, and it is a really nice change of pace. Yeah, I really like both the setting and the system. Although it's obtuse as hell and the manual basically doesn't explain it, once I figured out the interplay between stats and skills everything kind of made sense. I love that they set it up so that you can train a skill as high as you want but if your governing attributes for that skill suck you're still going to be bad at it compared to someone that's naturally more talented. The system does seem very different than the same Dark Eye system used in the Realms of Arkania games though. I prefer the Drakensang method of doing it--is it just based off of a later version of the tabletop Dark Eye rules or something I wonder?
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Jul 24, 2020 15:44
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Genpei Turtle posted:The system does seem very different than the same Dark Eye system used in the Realms of Arkania games though. I prefer the Drakensang method of doing it--is it just based off of a later version of the tabletop Dark Eye rules or something I wonder?
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Jul 24, 2020 16:31
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Dr. Quarex posted:Plus any game where no dwarf has a Scottish accent instantly gets novel design street cred from me. That, by the way, dates to 1961. It long predates the Lord of the Rings movies and even D&D. What I've never been able to satisfactorily figure out is where dwarves flying griffins comes from. The original Warcraft (1994) has neither. Warcraft II (1995) does have dwarves flying griffins. Who, yes, have Scottish accents. But that's not the first reference I know of, because Warlords II (1993) most certainly does have dwarves flying griffins, and so does Warlords I (1990). These dwarves lean more Irish than Scottish. Dwarves in Betrayal at Krondor (1993) are also Scottish/Irish, and are the earliest voice-acted dwarves in computer games I can think of offhand. I don't think Midkemian dwarves fly around griffins, though. Certainly not in Betrayal at Krondor, which is wyvern-positive but griffin-negative. I don't have much familiarity with Warhammer, but to my knowledge griffins are more human-affiliated there -- like Heroes of Might and Magic III or V. And most of Warhammer post-dates Warlords I, anyway. Dwarves flying griffins are not A Thing in 1st or 2nd edition AD&D, that I know of. Though most of AD&D 2e also post-dates Warlords I. It's certainly not from Tolkien. So where did dwarves flying on griffins come from?
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Jul 25, 2020 02:21
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Boldor posted:Dwarves in Betrayal at Krondor (1993) are also Scottish/Irish, and are the earliest voice-acted dwarves in computer games I can think of offhand. I don't think Midkemian dwarves fly around griffins, though. Certainly not in Betrayal at Krondor, which is wyvern-positive but griffin-negative. Learning that there's actual voice acting lines in the game recently hosed me up.
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Jul 25, 2020 02:29
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Everyone should have a West Country accent all the time, at least in Stardew Valley
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Jul 25, 2020 06:08
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moot the hopple posted:Learning that there's actual voice acting lines in the game recently hosed me up. A lot of people will never have heard the voice acting in Betrayal at Krondor, partly because there's not much of it, and more importantly because there's no way in the original release to get both the best music and the voice acting, so many people won't even know it's supposed to be there. There's a fan patch that fixes that.
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Jul 25, 2020 17:56
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Boldor proving he can shut us down on not only the technical but also the historical side of retrogaming I do wonder if riding griffins is related to being Scottish, considering my own Scottish side's heraldry and its prominent possible-griffin (but I am sure the griffin is hardly unique to Scotland) Tolkien's giant eagles being misremembered perhaps? Probably not, unless the animated versions were worse than I think.
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Jul 26, 2020 01:16
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I actually googled for it out of curiosity and it seems to be weirdly unknown when that started, or why. You're not the first people to ask yourselves where that comes from, as it seems.
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Jul 26, 2020 02:16
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Boldor posted:But that's not the first reference I know of, because Warlords II (1993) most certainly does have dwarves flying griffins, and so does Warlords I (1990). These dwarves lean more Irish than Scottish. Before I got to that part, I was going to say Warlords as the first reference I'm aware of. It certainly seems to be the likeliest influence on Warcraft. I don't know if Steve Fawkner is on twitter, but he may be reachable to ask. I know Lords of Midnight and TSR's Dragons of Glory boardgame were inspirations for Warlords. Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jul 26, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 12:55
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I internet searched it and they blamed Tolkien.
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Jul 26, 2020 13:54
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Chairchucker posted:I internet searched it and they blamed Tolkien. Are there any griffins at all in Tolkien?
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Jul 26, 2020 23:01
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Skwirl posted:Are there any griffins at all in Tolkien?
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Jul 26, 2020 23:07
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Maybe the dwarves needed a flying unit and eagles were already taken?
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Jul 26, 2020 23:13
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I'd search around warhammer battle because the transition from eagles to griffins would have been obvious given the structural constraints of pre-plastic figure design.
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Jul 26, 2020 23:42
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Skwirl posted:Are there any griffins at all in Tolkien? Sorry I thought we were still in a roundabout way talking about Scottish dwarves.
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Jul 27, 2020 08:24
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I think Tolkien said once that his dwarves would've had a Hebrew-sounding accent, because that's what he based their language on.
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Jul 27, 2020 08:36
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Boldor posted:That, by the way, dates to 1961. It long predates the Lord of the Rings movies and even D&D. That book is also the origin of D&D paladins and green, regenerating trolls. Another fun bit: D&D elves resist sleep and charm effects for purely gamist reasons. Someone pointed out that in Chainmail, expensive elven units could be easily shut down with status effects, so in AD&D they have those resistances. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jul 27, 2020 |
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Jul 27, 2020 15:41
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Boldor posted:A lot of people will never have heard the voice acting in Betrayal at Krondor, partly because there's not much of it, and more importantly because there's no way in the original release to get both the best music and the voice acting, so many people won't even know it's supposed to be there. I had the game when I was really young, it was too hard! Just wandered around a beach I think, lost. One time at a used book store I found 'Betrayal at Krondor: The Novel," so i got a novel that reads like a video game on my shelf (just for nostalgia). I was really into UO back in the day. We had our own shard.
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Jul 28, 2020 17:01
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Hannibal Rex posted:Before I got to that part, I was going to say Warlords as the first reference I'm aware of. It certainly seems to be the likeliest influence on Warcraft. I don't know if Steve Fawkner is on twitter, but he may be reachable to ask. I don't think Lords of Midnight has griffins. (Dragons, elves, orcs, etc. do appear.) Dragons of Glory does have both dwarves and griffons, but I don't think they're closely allied. Elves use both pegasi and griffons; dwarves can readily move through mountains without flying units, and dwarves/elves aren't independent factions anyway, as Dragons of Glory is a two-faction good vs. evil game. It's bad for game balance if dwarves as a now-independent faction in Warlords (8 factions on a map is standard) have zero flying units and elves two, so it makes sense griffins move over in Warlords. Maybe that's it? Cardiovorax posted:I think Tolkien said once that his dwarves would've had a Hebrew-sounding accent, because that's what he based their language on. Tolkien Dwarves are part Norse, part Jewish, but not particularly Scottish. It's similar to how Gondor is part Egypt, part Byzantium, but not particularly Western Europe. (Similar, in that Tolkien is unsubtle about all these references, but people assume other influences mistakenly.) excellent bird guy posted:I had the game when I was really young, it was too hard! Just wandered around a beach I think, lost. One time at a used book store I found 'Betrayal at Krondor: The Novel," so i got a novel that reads like a video game on my shelf (just for nostalgia). I'd personally recommend the game much more than the novel.  I do remember how the novel emphasizes how strong the two-round, one-target disabler Despair Thy Eyes is. It is just that strong in the game too, and yet it's still a pale shadow of Hold Person/Monsters in 1st/2nd edition AD&D, or Blind in Heroes of Might and Magic I/II/III, etc.
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Jul 28, 2020 22:43
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JustJeff88 posted:Gold Box Companion is a game changer - I would not play those games without it. holy poo poo 12 year old me playing these games on a commodore 64 when they were new, I'd have given my left arm for this
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Aug 1, 2020 00:15
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Slippery posted:holy poo poo 12 year old me playing these games on a commodore 64 when they were new, I'd have given my left arm for this Genuinely chuffed that you feel this way! I had nothing to do with its creation, but I hype it up to the point of obnoxiousness because it's that much of an improvement.
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Aug 1, 2020 03:45
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Boldor posted:Dragons of Glory does have both dwarves and griffons, but I don't think they're closely allied. Elves use both pegasi and griffons; dwarves can readily move through mountains without flying units, and dwarves/elves aren't independent factions anyway, as Dragons of Glory is a two-faction good vs. evil game. The setting of Warlords was also based on Steve Fawkner's personal D&D campaign, but your rationale makes a lot of sense.
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Aug 1, 2020 07:47
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Halloween Jack posted:
Thank you for this fun fact 
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Aug 7, 2020 02:37
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Gold Box Companion has now been updated to v2.60. It can now show a lot of the game's scripts and internal state, now with some of my comments on the game's internal operation. That won't work for Pools of Darkness / Dark Queen of Krynn / Treasures of the Savage Frontier -- I haven't gotten that far yet.
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Aug 13, 2020 21:28
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Boldor posted:Gold Box Companion has now been updated to v2.60. Always happy to hear about further improvements to this wonderful software. I couldn't play the GB games without it these days.
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Aug 14, 2020 01:41
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Beat Quest for Glory 4 for the first time ever, after many tries and destroyed savegames dating back to the original buggy QFG4 release. Verdict: pretty much hated everything in QFG4, only beat it due to completionism, and have about zero desire to ever play QFG5. Started playing Star Trek: 25th Anniversary RPG and am oddly enjoying it, excluding the time filler low-rent spaceship combat bits. Also have Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire installed, but haven't played it all due to Lord British "rat-tail" fatigue.
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Aug 14, 2020 05:22
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quantumfoam posted:Beat Quest for Glory 4 for the first time ever, after many tries and destroyed savegames dating back to the original buggy QFG4 release. QFG4: Owns QFG5: Terrible ST 25th: Owns ST Judgement Rights: Owns Savage Empire: Owns How could you hate QFG4? How could you hate these guys?!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUAIvhik724
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Aug 14, 2020 05:36
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quantumfoam posted:Beat Quest for Glory 4 for the first time ever, after many tries and destroyed savegames dating back to the original buggy QFG4 release. Whoa weird take, 1 and 4 are my favorite parts. Which one did you like the most?
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Aug 14, 2020 06:17
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And what is rat tail fatigue?
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Aug 14, 2020 10:37
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I'm going to assume it's the Ultima version of MMO bear rear end fatigue, where you get sick and tired of "collect X animal parts"
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Aug 14, 2020 12:00
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QfG5 was my first one and i still quite like it, i get why people dont though it put a lot of emphasis on the janky combat and felt a bit like a weird reunion tour than a proper entry. Now that i think about it pretty sure 4 is the only one ive never gotten around to, should do that soon.
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Aug 14, 2020 15:23
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BadAstronaut posted:And what is rat tail fatigue?
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