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Tendales posted:Like, the turning animation was obviously created by someone who has never actually physically rotated in his life. Instead of any kind of actual rotation animation, the view of 90 degrees to the side just kind of scrolls into view. So if you're looking at a fountain in front of you, then the fountain slides off the screen to the right at the same time that the side view of the same fountain slides in from the left.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:04
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Ornamented Death posted:Lands of Lore came out in 1993, though. Assuming the demo Tendales played was 15 years ago, that was still a method that was ten years out of date.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:16
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Ultima 8 had perfect jumping puzzles. The avatar would refuse/shake Regarding the caves, thank god they looked good because the game was almost entirely made of caves. Bleh. The bit that really got me was there are huge chunks of plot missing. Like the infamous birthplace of Moriens, which they apparently forgot to implement and so to continue the game you had to skip that and go on to the zealan temple (and post-patch they'd basically just rewritten a sign so you'd know you had to carry on), and also a chunk of the sorcerer's plot. Chev fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Feb 12, 2018 |
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Feb 12, 2018 01:56
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FuzzySlippers posted:I think going to the expansion area early gets crazy equipment?
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Mar 12, 2018 23:31
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Got some corrections for the settings for 1 to 5 and the links between them. However, the short correction to prof Cirno's version is that 1-2 are not standalone, 1 to 5 form a single metanarrative. Anyway, corrections to what Libluini said: Yeah, MM1 and MM2 happen on a giant colony ship containing multiple artificial bubble worlds (globally called nacelles or VARNs) meant to be used to implant civilized life on planets throughout the universe. MM1 happens on one of those bubble worlds, VARN-4, and MM2 happens on the containing ship's hub, which is also a bubble world, CRON (which is in fact the name of the ship itself). It's worth noting this ship, CRON, is one of many, but it occupies a central place in the 1-5 saga because that's the one where the recurring villain did villainous things. 3 does NOT happen on board of that ship but on a bona fide planet, Terra, on which some of the colonization nacelles have already landed and integrated by the time the story starts. 4 and 5 happen on a separate colony ship, unique in that it's architecturally very different from the others: It is a single flat two-sided world eventually revealed to be the seed for creating a whole planet from scratch (whereas the CRON/VARN types contain multiple worlds that need existing planets to land on). Two interesting points worth noting, one kinda meaningless but the second more amusing: first, there's usually some confusion as to whether the VARNs were flat. If we go by what's told in MM5, Xeen's architecture was unique, but that may just be its two-sided or not-on-a-bigger-ship nature. Second, until MM7's retcon that the MM3 adventurers' ship went off course, the idea is that the same party can have gone through all of the first five games, mirroring someone playing them in order but acknowledging that for someone starting further down the line their party would just be people native to their start game. MM1's VARN-born adventurers go through the gates to another world and arrive to CRON (MM2), save it and are beamed down to Terra (MM3), then take a ship to follow the agents of the ancients to Xeen (MM4-5) where they are instructed to beam down before their ship burns up. This is retconned in MM7 by saying they instead drifted to Enroth, which had already been colonized by a VARN from some other colony ship. Chev fucked around with this message at 20:32 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 15:35
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The circumstances are a bit different for each of the big three. Ultima was "I'm LORD BRITISH king of the computers and richest boy wonder in Austin and I'mma throw everything I ever seen or heard of in my games", dragons, hobbits, balrogs, tie fighters, time bandits, larp buddies, wizard of oz, demon computer with punch cards and so on. It was never medieval fantasy or sci-fi, it was eclectic fantasy from the get go and only got reined in once the setting became Britannia (and, presumably, more people than just Garriott where handling writing). Might & Magic's thing, supposedly inspired by a Star Trek episode which should surprise no one given the number of trekkie references in the saga, is that the sci-fi bits are a late game revelation in each relevant game. Your characters never start directly knowing it's a sci-fi world in disguise, you learn it pretty late (though your characters can have seen science stuff and not have recognized it as such earlier in each game, like a wandering soul in one game being a literally unscrewed robot head that's still talking). Wizardry did the endgame sci-fi reveal in Wizardry 6 when the team (or just the lead?) changed but before that it was pure fantasy, and after that it was overtly a sci-fantasy mix. So Might & Magic's thing of having each game hide the sci-fi side is still pretty unique. Chev fucked around with this message at 22:09 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 22:01
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Chairchucker posted:The games that I'm most happy to see on that list (Wizardry 8 and Alpha Protocol) have some serious flaws.
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Sep 1, 2018 10:27
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Zereth posted:RPG Maker is top-down unless you mutilate the poo poo out of it so no?
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Oct 26, 2018 10:34
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BadAstronaut posted:gump (what's the origin of that term?)
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May 10, 2019 02:27
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Basically the C64 disk drive had its own CPU on which you could load your own loading routines, so it was mostly a matter of figuring out how to write faster ones (although that added speed could come at the expense of the disks and/or hardware). That's also how copy protection worked, by creating loading routines that were bullshit in some unexpected way that made them incompatible with what disc copiers would usually look at.
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Aug 14, 2019 10:59
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It has extra comedy value in the intro of SI when Lord British does a super terrible job voicing Lord British.
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Aug 21, 2019 01:18
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Skwirl posted:Does Might and Magic 3 have an auto map, how about 4+5? I think I bought them all on GOG during a sale. In 2-3-4-5, automapping is available through the cartographer skill, which you'll have to learn (usually pretty close to your starting point) if none of your party members have it from the get go (Sorcerers do in 3-4-5). Conversely, if all of your cartographers are KO, your automap won't update. There's also the wizard eye spell that offers you a top down view of the surrounding squares but doesn't actually add them to the map.
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Aug 21, 2019 16:14
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Yeah, in 3 I'd advise getting at least a robber/ninja for the thievery skill, which can only otherwise be learned in an inconvenient place, and a druid/ranger for water walking (which is a must-have in MM3). You can compensate deficiencies with Hirelings, which can become expensive in the long run, or by rolling an extra character anytime during the game but it'll be a pain to level them up and get them the appropriate titles. Much simpler to have them from the get go. My usual party layout is knight/paladin/ranger/robber/cleric/sorcerer but there's lots of room for other approaches.
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Aug 21, 2019 22:59
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Libluini posted:Now I'm wondering why this isn't a thing already. There are strategy games where you can't fight battles, the game just calculates the outcome for you (Dominions 5, for example) and shows you the result, so why isn't there anything like that for RPGs?
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Dec 11, 2019 13:12
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Libluini posted:Not really. Personally, I can't even think of games like Princess Maker as RPGs, my brain puts them into the same category as economy simulation games or visual novels. I think you could say they're like a hybrid of both? They're telling a story like a novel and at the same time give you tons of stats to manipulate like Football Manager 2000 or something.
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Dec 13, 2019 12:31
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Skwirl posted:I haven't played any Wizardry games, but isn't there a Wizardry 8 that's largely respected by the people who played Wizardry 7? Works the same with Wizardry 8. Simply by virtue of existing in the 3D era it's had a number of alterations to the formula and it's plausible for Grimoire to decide harken to Wiz7 rather than 8 (independently of Cleve's history), and just one glance at the game itself makes it obvious which game it chose to follow.. Skwirl posted:Does it let you import your Wizardry 7 characters?
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Dec 16, 2019 16:48
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Skwirl posted:I was asking if Grimoire let you import your Wizardry 7 characters, since it was billing itself as the true sequel to Wizardry 7. Was it the original Bard's tale that could basically import characters from all big name RPGs of its era? Skwirl posted:Also, haven't played any Wizardry, but is there a specific reason some people who loved 7 hate 8?
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Dec 16, 2019 19:06
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90s Cringe Rock posted:I'm surprised none of the modern retroish rpgs have tried that as a gimmick. "Insert your old Wizardry disk into a USB floppy drive and import your characters into Pillars of Kingmaker 3: Original Torment! note: some character adjustments may be made" That being said while it's not retro there's the wonderful case of Frog Fractions 3's ability to import Mass Effect savegames, which later triggers a ridiculous puzzle that you can only solve if you've got the right flags in your imported savegame.
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Dec 16, 2019 21:13
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Instead of playing Wiz4 I suggest a more entertaining and user-friendly equivalent that'll still give you a similarly enjoyable experience, like repeatedly driving an ice-pick through your foot.
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Dec 18, 2019 10:30
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That's making the reverse mistake from the Wiz8 one. Again, Grimoire is claiming to be a Wizardry VII successor. The japanese Wizardry games and Wiz-clones are derived from Wizardry V, Bradley's refinement of the original Wiz formula: you versus The Dungeon, alternating deeper and deeper delves interrupted by having to come back for air, so to speak, in the local town. They add some bells and whistles and side activities, like the sea voyages in Etrian III, but they fundamentally never let go of that central premise, which in the japanese tradition is a pillar of Wizardry. Bradley, it turns out, wasn't interested in having it be a pillar at all: in Wiz V he added more events and interactions in the dungeon itself, in Wiz VI he got rid of the town in favor of having its services scattered among NPCs and items in the dungeon and made the plot a branching affair, and Wiz VII gets rid of the central dungeon. Instead of a linearly organized dungeon Wiz VII is an extremely freeform open world. It has multiple towns, multiple dungeons, a diplomacy system with multiple opposing factions you can ally yourself with, multiple starting points, multiple endings. Some of the quest items might have moved around to another location by the time you reach them! It's that freeform experience that Grimoire is claiming to be the successor of, which is why the japanese Wizardry games and Wiz-clones aren't substitutes for it at all, they're adressing a different niche. If you were looking for a Wiz5-style game you weren't looking for Grimoire in the first place, regardless of its obtuseness and whether it's a good game or not. The Might & Magic games would be a closer equivalent to Wiz7, although more streamlined and less experimental. So again, it depends on what you're looking for.
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Dec 20, 2019 11:41
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moot the hopple posted:Arx Fatalis was originally going to be UU2 and is very fun if you haven't played it. UU3, not UU2. UU2 had been out for a couple years when the very first pitch for Arx was created. It's also worth keeping in mind that "was gonna be UU3" should actually be read as "was shot down as a spontaneous UU3 pitch to EA from a third party", which is not quite the same thing.
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Dec 21, 2019 21:54
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Arivia posted:Quake was originally supposed to be an RPG starring Quake, one of their RPG characters.
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Apr 15, 2020 15:28
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szary posted:I know it was 1990, but Eye of the Beholder came out the same year and had fully mouse-driven interface with paper dolls Max Wilco posted:I think Eye of the Beholder came out in '91, but yeah, it looks a lot more approachable.
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May 19, 2020 00:09
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I do feel it's fine to have some groups that are all "if you're not with us you're against us" though.
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May 21, 2020 10:29
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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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CYBEReris posted:when i tried swords of xeen my first impression was that it felt like a kaizo romhack of the xeen games instead of a game in its own right
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Aug 24, 2020 20:12
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The Joe Man posted:...but enough about Ultima 8! This is kinda weird because U8 is when they dropped the Voodoo memory manager, the piece of garbage that made U7 and SI such pains to run, and U8 required a pretty reasonable 450K of conventional memory and 4 megs total.
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Oct 21, 2020 22:55
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Cardiovorax posted:I admit, I would be kind of interested in seeing what a second-person perspective game could possibly be like. Text adventures, maybe? They're narratively second person, if nothing else. No idea how that would work visually, though.
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Nov 5, 2020 01:31
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IMHO the big difference that everyone tends to forget between Ultima and what came after is that Ultima isn't "be good or evil", it's "be good or get lost". None of that rewarding both sides crap, you either strive to be the virtuous man you're supposed to be, or you fail. It's the most moral of all morality systems.
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Dec 4, 2020 17:56
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GorfZaplen posted:It's based off a french podcast so I feel pretty confident in saying it's bad
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Jan 6, 2021 20:25
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Well, Naheulbeuk will turn 20 this year and had been successfully spun off into novels and comics (and an animated series currently in dev hell). It's a long-running transmedia property albeit a small time, france-only one, so it's something more established than some random youtuber thing. It's just that it's a low budget crowdfunded game that's relying on having the same jokes as the podcast for the same reason, say, obduction was trying to have as any Myst-like things as it could, and also the basic premise is "laugh at these bad adventurers acting like they're in a kinda bad game instead of like normal people" and it 's nowhere as meta when the product actually is a kinda bad game.
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Jan 6, 2021 20:44
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Heck, Naheulbeuk isn't even a podcast, it started years before that name was coined and the associated push-audio-to-device method established so it is just described as an audio series. To the early days Naheulbeuk listeners podcasts are a young people thing! The french term was MP3 saga (because that was back when MP3 was becoming a big thing in audio sharing).
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Jan 7, 2021 15:42
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Yeah, there's a number of parts of the game that were never implemented, basically going from the moment Vividos sends you on a pilgrimage to the moment you enter the enclave, with Hydros somewhere in the middle. So in this specific case freeing Hydros was meant to start a questline where, directed by Devon, you'd have to go to the sorcerers for help to keep Hydros in check and so start with Beren, the only readily accessible one, who'd then open the passage to the enclave. In the final game freeing Hydros just cools down some lava but they didn't correct the dialogue to address that. At least for Serpent Isle they'd sort of managed to write around the cuts but for Pagan they just didn't get to it. Also missing: an undead invasion of Tenebrae, likely caused by the avatar expediting the necromancer succession process by assassinating Vividos (because the idea would be the Avatar angered or freed all of the titans), but instead in the final game they just assume you're gonna go get Lithos' heart because you're a kleptomaniac and the pilgrimage just leads to the Zealan temple for no reason and Devon just has Hydros' tear in a box. And as a modern gamer you probably played the already patched version, with at least a sign indicating where Moriens' birthplace is supposed to be (and also reworking the jump controls and disabling the moving and disappearing platforms). Chev fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 21:02
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Eeeeh I like the setting and the soundtrack, and the idea of the weirdo magic systems. But in practice everything's got problems. It's not well written, it's not well implemented (even though the most horrible stuff has been patched and the horrid performance should be remedied somewhat by 26 years of technological evolution), you spend most of your time in grey caves or grey ruins, the magic system is too dependent on your easily cluttered inventory and exceptionally fiddly. It's interesting to try for a bit to see just how much of what the previous games did right was sacrificed just so they'd get a bigger character with enough animations to do stilted Prince of Persia movement in the framework an isometric RPG, or any other idea that was completely misguided although you can see how each of them would fit in the general context of how the immersive sim genre came to be conceived. Also in the big picture a powerful motivating factor back then would have been that you get to see the lead-up to the final game in the saga except, well, the actual U9 didn't start where U8 ended. Chev fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 22:46
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Yeah, I mentioned the patch in my previous posts. It's probably actually harder to find the unpatched version of U8 these days. You've gotta understand, though, that it merely makes the most terrible aspects of the game a bit less terrible, with the patch notes literally saying stuff like "that place you were told to go to as part of the main plotline now exists" or "the game can no longer be broken by stealing that hard to access key item that you'll eventually need the only time the plot makes you go next to it". (It also included a letter from Lord British to fans that's very funny in hindsight, saying they'd learned all the right things from feedback on U8, and U9 would be a return to form) Chev fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 00:01
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Gynovore posted:If patched Ultima 8 is worse, forget it. Chev fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 10:47
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No pile, paladins only have the one (and evidently it isn't "drinking responsibly").
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Jan 24, 2021 18:51
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FuriousGeorge posted:Speaking of Wizardry 8, are there any mods considered essential for a first playthrough? Not really looking for rebalance or gameplay changes, just bugfix and look-nice-on-a-modern-display stuff.
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Jan 25, 2021 00:52
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Regarding 7, just like it's a bad RPG bolted on top of an amazing sandbox, I'd argue the worldbuilding is great but the main plot isn't Like, U4-5-6 got praised for doing away with the cackling end boss or having a story where the big red demon things aren't villains, but then you get U7 where from the get go there's a big red cackling demon villain that's very obviously evil, with no twist regarding his motivations (well, there is one a couple games later but the twist is that he's evil!!1!). The only innovation is you don't get to fight him, you'll have to buy the whole
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Feb 1, 2021 13:03
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FuzzySlippers posted:I think you can give it a little more credit. It's been a century since I played it, but I vaguely recall that part of 7's plot is that the Fellowship only works because of the massive disparities in LB's society. So them being evil or not evil is an aside compared to the society only being as strong as it's weakest pieces. The end is that LB sucks and should be seeking redemption in 9. CYBEReris posted:I always thought the Guardian being a cackling evil kind of worked because he was an alien influence worming his way into another world's society through the gaps in its internal contradictions. The appeal of the plot isn't in the villain itself but tracing the path of the conditions that led to his presence. Heck, the conditions that led to the guardian's presence in those worlds aren't societal flaws. He managed it in Britannia because he had sent three bigass machines to induce said flaws, and in Pagan because they were gonna be destroyed otherwise and merely didn't know the guy destroying them and the guy saving them were the same. There's no moment in the guardian tetralogy where you're actually trying to better society as a goal by means other than driving the guardian's specific machinations out. You can make small things better as entirely optional asides that do not matter for victory. And then, of course, if you're talking to the circumstances that led to the guardian's existence in the first place, we have to go into the most idiotic twist in the universe where for some reason a single person showing that everyone can be at their best with effort is somehow the source of ultimate evil, and it says nothing about those societies. What you do get to see is all societies or organizations that tried alternatives to the virtues get them comically wrong. All the fellowship rules are actually about discrimination, the serpent isle colonists' principles are superficial and lead them to strife and again discrimination, Pagan cults are about literally feeding your people to monsters, the Zealans were impulsive. The ophidians fared a little better but their balance was rigged, entirely reliant on a cosmic order and polarized towards two opposing sides, and once the mediator was removed they just happily exterminated each other (and for that matter the general setup of the serpent isle towns suggests the three principles of balance, when everything's working right, are matches for the three britannian principles). Chev fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Feb 1, 2021 |
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Feb 1, 2021 14:24
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