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 With a wide variety of mods, fan patches, and fixed up GOG releases of old games, right now is a pretty drat good time to be a fan of old school PC RPGs. Unfortunately, even GOG isn't perfect, and finding out how to get these old games in the best possible shape for your trip down nostalgia lane can be even harder than picking the right nude mod for your Morrowind replay. Even forums favorites like Planescape: Torment can't sustain their own thread, but chances are that if you like one of these games, you've got interest in a few others as well, so let's just put them all in one big loving thread and remember when RPGs had endings that didn't suck. The Games Arcanum  One of the more beloved gems to come out of the now defunct Troika, this game can best be described as a steampunk version of Fallout. GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura Patch Info: Tracking down all the latest versions of everything you need for this game is kind of a pain in the rear end, so I just did it and made an easy to use Arcanum fix pack. Download here (and if anyone wants to rehost that somewhere better than my lovely hosting, please do!). Other Info: I wrote a basic guide to the game mechanics as part of my Arcanum LP, which you can find over here. Betrayal at Krondor Contributed by Berk Berkly  I remember the first PC RPG that got me to say, "WoW, this is really good!" It is Free to Download being of ye ancient lineage and has a couple of sequals/follow ups that aren't quite as good but have some merit. Betrayal at Antara(different universe) and Return to Krondor. Regardless, how can you resist cosplay-uplifting hairdos like these? GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/betrayal_at_krondor Other Info: Tips, guides, and troubleshooting help can be found on this old rear end looking site over here. Castle of the Winds  While the original game was shareware, the author has since given permission for all versions of the game to be freely distributed, making it freeware nowadays. It's a pretty unremarkable dungeon crawler, but it's about as good as you're going to get if you want to play something grid based instead of first person. As far as old school games go, this one's actually one of the most modern among the truly ancient (pre-90s) games. Accordingly, it's surprisingly easy to get into even now. I think of it kind of like Diablo if it had been released 8 years earlier and based off D&D (which it would have been, if it had been released 8 years earlier). You could also think of the game as a bridge between roguelikes and more modern CRPGs (the mechanics are roguelike, but you can save, and should do so often). If you like the idea of old games but have a hard time getting into one, or if you just really like dungeon crawling and/or roguelikes, I'd really recommend giving this a shot. Game Link: The first and second game can both be downloaded here for free, thanks to the generosity of the author declaring it freeware. If you're running Windows 7, you probably also need the Windows XP Virtual Machine, as CotW is 16 bit and Win7-64 simply refuses to run it (the same probably goes for Win7-32 as well, but I'm not using that, so I can't say for sure). Other Info: The download site above is also a repository of any information you might want to know, so if you get stuck or have questions about the game, check it out! Daggerfall Contributed by Cirosan  The follow-up to Bethesda's cult classic Arena and the predecessor to the modern Elder Scrolls games, Daggerfall features an unprecedentedly large game world and a staggering amount of content. Daggerfall is one of the few open-world CRPGs to successfully convey the size and scope of a fantasy world - there's so many places to go and so many things to do that there's people that have been playing Daggerfall since its release in 1996 and still haven't seen everything. A big part of this has to do with the fact that most of the game world is randomly generated: Dungeons and towns that aren't part of the main quest are procedurally made by the game when you enter them. This means that there's no shortage of things to do, but the catch-22 is that there's no FAQ that can help you if you get stuck, since everything's made at random. Unfortunately, Daggerfall's ambition is also its downfall: The game is too big for its own good, the programming is sloppy, and it generally suffers from a lack of polish. It's even possible to fall through the world geometry and be trapped in a colorless void. Unofficial patches have remedied this somewhat, but the best workaround is still just to save often. If you're interested in the progeny of the Elder Scrolls series and a glimpse at the old world design philosophy that once guided the series, give Daggerfall a look. With a game world bigger than the size of England, you're sure to find something that intrigues you. Official Link: http://www.elderscrolls.com/daggerfall/ Other Info: There's a third-party installer, DaggerfallSetup, that can easily make the game run on modern computers. In addition, it also includes a host of official and unofficial patches, including a tweak that greatly increases the draw distance. There's also DaggerXL, an incomplete but promising recreation of Daggerfall's engine with modern technology. The Dark Heart of Uukrul contributed by Bouchacha  I picked this up randomly years ago during my abandonware crawling stages and at the time this was the only "old-school" rpg that stuck with me. "Fresh" is the word that probably best describes this game. Despite coming out in 1989, the overall presentation is incredibly elegant and focused. The graphics are simple but not ugly, and even the interface is relatively easy to work with. The basic premise is you're a group of 4 adventurers tasked with exploring an underground city. Classes are pre-determined (Fighter, Paladin, Priest, Sorcerer) but rolling characters is done via an opaque questionnaire. Combat is turn-based and has quaint animations. Spells and invocations are performed by actually typing in their name from the manual, which can either be annoying or nostalgic. For added hardcoreness, game progress is automatically saved (unless you force-quit), which can infuriating if your sorcerer gets an unlucky hit from a rat and you don't have enough funds to revive him (although you can replace him with a permanent recruit). Most of the info isn't present in-game, so you'll likely be playing this with the manual open at the same time. Game Link: Abandonia Other Info: There's a very detailed review of the game if you'd like to know more, and if you're interested you can even read a completed Let's Play. Darklands contributed by Attention Horse  Probably one of the first and best sandbox cRPGs. Action takes place in medieval Germany filled with european folklore, so it has some low fantasy elements like weird monsters from German legends or alchemy instead of magic spells. Darklands is basically a mix of Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Mount and Blade and Bethesda. First you create your party by going through life of each party member year by year - so if you want to make a team of old veterans that are already experienced in the start of the game but are near death then you're free to do so. After the creation process you start the game without any goals. You can work for various guilds, town mayors, shady organisations. There's a shitload of towns, quests, locations and cool random encounters. Combat works kinda like Baldur's Gate, which means that you can pause the game and give orders to every party member. You have to be very careful, cause Darklands is pretty realistic when it comes to injuries, stamina and wounds. Also, if you like CYOA games then you're gonna love Darklands, because outside of combat and travelling on world map this game basically IS a CYOA game. Every random encounter gives you a list of things that you can do and skills that you can use. The developers of Mount & Blade said that Darklands was a major inspiration for them, and you can definitely see and feel it when you play both games. GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/darklands Other Info: Our very own rope kid wrote an awesome beginner's guide for the thread here. Divine Divinity  It's difficult to describe what makes this game so wonderful. It's obviously modeled after Diablo, but the writing is much more charming, and the interactivity of the world makes for a very fun game to play. The GOG version comes with native widescreen support (not in-game; just run 'configtools.exe' in your install directory) and bug fixes not included in other versions. By far the easiest of everything on this list to get running. GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/divine_divinity Patch Info: None! It's ready to go! Just download it and play! Other Info: The entire soundtrack is available for free on the composer's website, right here (just look at the bar on the right). It's a great soundtrack and I highly recommend it. Dungeon Master Contributed by Ben Soosneb  It plays as a First Person dungeon crawl with a mixture of monster hacking, magic and puzzle solving, with enough variety to keep things interesting. Things are fairly intuitive and simple. All mouse based (although you'll probably figure keyboard shortcuts for things like moving) with fairly clear icons. Unlike a lot of old CRPG's, dungeon master is pretty bug free and playable. There's not a lot of "this is great to play, but only if you know this and this beforehand". The game itself is fairly simple. (Read More) Game Link: You can get a free windows re-make of the game here. Other Info: All the info you could ever want about the game is here. You can try the game in your browser here, download a java version here, or download another java version with some additions here. Icewind Dale II  Everything that's wonderful about Icewind Dale, with the 3rd Edition D&D rules to make it even more awesome and less clunky. While people tend to prefer the more story heavy Infinity Engine games, such as Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, the Icewind series is some of the best D&D based combat on the PC, and IWD2 is its most perfect incarnation. For a game focused around combat, the story is actually quite good, and it works well even though the game lets you create your entire party from scratch (which is the main appeal - because you know you want to make a party stronger than the gods themselves). As the most recent of the Infinity Engine games, this game is the pinnacle of what that style of game had to offer before Black Isle was closed. If there were new games in that style, they would be building upon the legacy of this game. I think everyone should give it an honest shot. GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/icewind_dale_2 Other Info: All the information you could ever want about which patches to install in what order can be found here. I wrote a couple basic tips on creating a party here, though you should feel free to create whatever party interests you. There are several pre-made parties, too, which are all capable of beating the game (by necessity). If that's still not enough, you can download a somewhat more min-maxed party that I put together. The download link and the party description can be found here. Lands of Lore Contributed by Lunael  Adam Bowen posted:Lands of Lore might be the only old-school PC RPG I've ever successfully finished (besides Ultima 1, but that was short and easy as hell). Granted, that was back somewhere between 1998 and 2002, but I tried it again recently and it has held up really well. The interface is a lot less painful than most old PC RPGs and there's voice acting by loving Patrick Stewart. GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/lands_of_lore_1_2 MegaTraveller Contributed by Rhandhali  It's based on the firstest, densest and simulationist-est sci-fi RPGs of them all - Traveller. It could also be subtitled "Retirees in Space!" Experience the joy of computers with whole megabytes of RAM and portable radios that weigh several pounds. Create a party of five PTSD stricken veterans to travel the reaches of the Imperium to save it from a threat from within. (Read More) Game Link: Abandonia Other Info: GameBanshee did a nice little writeup with some play video as well. Planescape: Torment  The most story heavy of all the Infinity Engine games, and one of very few games to truly take advantage of the interactivity in gaming to craft a story with the player as a participant. GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/planescape_torment Patch information: Thanks to GOG being even more uniquely awesome than usual, tracking down patches for Planescape: Torment is incredibly smooth and easy. They've hosted an entire mod guide here with all the information and links that you need. Other Info: I'm far from a PST expert. If you know of a good guide or anything else to link to, let me know and I'll edit it in. Starflight 1 & 2 Contributed by Peas and Rice   I'll grant that a good deal of my love for Starflight comes from the fact that it was breaking ground in a way that no other games did at the time. Before the terms "sandbox" and "open world" were common, Starflight defined what these terms meant to the industry. Intrigued? (Read More) GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/starflight_1_2 Other Info: You may also be interested in the sort of spiritual successor to this game, Star Control 2 (and its own freely downloadable, open source update, The Ur-Quan Masters). Wasteland  You could say this is the one that started it all, really. It's getting renewed interest lately thanks to the wildly successful Wasteland 2 kickstarter. Play the original before the sequel so you can enjoy all the references! Game link: This game is now on Steam. You might also want a little program from here that lets you restart the game while keeping your same characters. Other Info: Take a look at The Nearly Ultimate Wasteland Guide for tips on what kinds of characters to make, and everything else you could possibly want. Lastly, don't forget to check out the Wasteland 2 Thread for information and How to play DOS games on a modern system: DosBox Several of the above require DosBox to play on a modern system. You might also want a front end for it to make loading different games easier (I've had good experiences with DosShell). What if I have a Mac? andrew smash posted:If you're looking to play infinity engine games (baldur's gate, BG2, PST, IWD/IWD2) download wineskin. Anything that says it requires dosbox, try boxer. Other Games If you know more about any of the games below (or any games like them) feel free to contribute and I'll edit it in. This list contains both games that I hope to put in the above section if I can track down the information as well as games which maybe are interesting to read about and remember fondly but not play. The line between the two is not always clear.
Yet Other Games There are plenty of other old school RPGs out there, many of them even more niche than the above. Anything of that sort is fair game in this thread, and I'd be happy to add it to the op so long as there's some way to actually play the game on a modern computer. Other Threads The following games are popular enough that they actually have their own threads with far more detail than I could reasonably cram into this OP. Check them out! Avadon: The Black Fortress: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3409803 Baldur's Gate 2: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3136028 (also has BG1 info) The Fallout Series: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3430112 (1, 2, and Tactics) The Geneforge Saga: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3475850 The Legend of Grimrock: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3433093 Morrowind: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3430891 Other Resources
Thread Highlights
Please Contribute! I can't possibly cover PC RPG history all by myself, so I welcome any contributions: suggestions of what games to add, screenshots, better descriptions, links to helpful resources, etc. The term 'old school' is also pretty relative, so it's not really clear cut what belongs in here and what doesn't. I'd rather lean towards being more accepting, so even stuff like Morrowind and Legend of Grimrock (new, but old style) counts. If in doubt, post anyway. seorin fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Oct 26, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2012 18:32
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A PC RPG thread is a good idea, the RPG thread is awkward since it's a mix of Western PC RPGs and console JRPGs which really don't have that much in common. Though I don't know if games as recent as Arcanum should really count as old school. Games I'd recommend in the OP are things like the Might and Magic series, Wizardry series, Ultima series, Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld, some of the old D&D stuff like the Gold Box games, the Eye of the Beholder games, etc.
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Mar 20, 2012 18:54
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Great thread idea, I love old western cRPGs. Darklands Probably one of the first and best sandbox cRPGs. Action takes place in medieval Germany filled with european folklore, so it has some low fantasy elements like weird monsters from German legends or alchemy instead of magic spells. Darklands is basically a mix of Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Mount and Blade and Bethesda. First you create your party by going through life of each party member year by year - so if you want to make a team of old veterans that are already experienced in the start of the game but are near death then you're free to do so. After the creation process you start the game without any goals. You can work for various guilds, town mayors, shady organisations. There's a shitload of towns, quests, locations and cool random encounters. Combat works kinda like Baldur's Gate, which means that you can pause the game and give orders to every party member. You have to be very careful, cause Darklands is pretty realistic when it comes to injuries, stamina and wounds. Also, if you like CYOA games then you're gonna love Darklands, because outside of combat and travelling on world map this game basically IS a CYOA game. Every random encounter gives you a list of things that you can do and skills that you can use. The developers of Mount & Blade said that Darklands was a major inspiration for them, and you can definitely see and feel it when you play both games. GOG Link: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/darklands Other info: If you have any problems or questions about the game then go here: http://www.darklands.net/index.shtml. It's a cool fansite filled with FAQs, walkthroughs etc. Attention Horse fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Mar 20, 2012 |
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Mar 20, 2012 19:07
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Well this thread makes me feel old as poo poo! I clicked on it expecting Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic, Starflight, The Magic Candle, Tunnels and Trolls, etc. (Not that the games in the OP are bad, in fact they're great, especially Divine Divinity. Avoid the sequels.)
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Mar 20, 2012 19:27
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Playing wasteland now. It's like a frequent death simulator. It's kind of cool noticing things from fallout. It became readily apparent that they got a lot of things from new vegas:OWB from wasteland.
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Mar 20, 2012 19:40
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Attention Horse posted:Darklands I really have to give Darklands a try one of these days. The pixel work looks great for the time it was made. And there aren't many (pseudo) historically accurate RPGs.
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Mar 20, 2012 20:02
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precision posted:Well this thread makes me feel old as poo poo! I clicked on it expecting Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic, Starflight, The Magic Candle, Tunnels and Trolls, etc. Same.  I could never get into Wizardry and I've always felt vaguely bad about that. I like modern Wizardry throwbacks like The Dark Spire, I like Wizardry's contemporaries like Might & Magic (one of my favorite series of all time, actually), but for some reason I just can't get into Wizardry itself, even 7 which is by many accounts the best.
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Mar 20, 2012 20:10
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sethsez posted:I could never get into Wizardry and I've always felt vaguely bad about that. I like modern Wizardry throwbacks like The Dark Spire, I like Wizardry's contemporaries like Might & Magic (one of my favorite series of all time, actually), but for some reason I just can't get into Wizardry itself, even 7 which is by many accounts the best. 7 (and 8) have some great things about them in that the system is expanded on, streamlined and generally combat is more fun, but honestly I'd say 6 is the best; it just has better, and more intuitive, puzzles and exploration. 7 is the first one to try and be sandboxy, and it kind of didn't work out as well as they wanted it to, imo. Wizardry 1-5 are mostly just masochistic slogs (well, 5 isn't THAT cheap/tedious) but I'm with you, they never captured my imagination the way Might and Magic did. Check out the recent LP of Wiz 1 if you haven't, the thread is archived I believe but it's up on lparchive: http://lparchive.org/Wizardry-Proving-Grounds-of-the-Mad-Overlord/
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Mar 20, 2012 20:19
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Great, another thread I have to read. GREAT. ... GREAT!  The early Wizardry games are basically the equivalent of text adventures, in that they are so deeply rooted in their time and place that it seems almost unfathomable to be able to get into them as a modern gamer, though I am sure it is possible. The same OLDER BOY who would play Wasteland on the Apple IIe at the library while I watched with rapt attention would also play Wizardry on it, and though I wanted to play them both, Wasteland was the game that made me feel like I was watching actual magic and that my life would never be the same again. Sorry, Wizardry. precision posted:Well this thread makes me feel old as poo poo! I clicked on it expecting Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic, Starflight, The Magic Candle, Tunnels and Trolls, etc. But I agree, I was surprised to see Divine Divinity posted, but hey, it does -feel- old-school, in addition to being old-school for a lot of younger people! Tunnels & Trolls, ahaha. I owned that game for about 12 years before I could finally muster up the patience to get through the beginning of the game, between the confusingly awful graphics and the completely foreign mechanics. But, you know what, once I did, I was kind of surprised and delighted as to just how much fun the game really was. The Magic Candle, however, remains the primary game that I always wanted to get into but never did. And now my disks are corrupt and there is obviously no way to find a copy on the Internet, that sort of thing is impossible
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Mar 20, 2012 21:18
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Quarex posted:Tunnels & Trolls, ahaha. I owned that game for about 12 years before I could finally muster up the patience to get through the beginning of the game, between the confusingly awful graphics and the completely foreign mechanics. But, you know what, once I did, I was kind of surprised and delighted as to just how much fun the game really was. That game was so weird. Even reading the massive manual it had, everything about it was insanely obtuse. And you had mechanics like, Humans can't start with any attribute over 18, but Dwarves can start with something like 40 Strength?! But if you can manage to actually survive and get around, yeah, there's so much expository text and some really immersive areas/quests. Why in the world they shackled it to a fairly obscure (and honestly not very good) IP like Tunnels and Trolls is a mystery to me - at the very least, the name would lead you to believe it's just a hack-slash-fest. quote:The Magic Candle, however, remains the primary game that I always wanted to get into but never did. And now my disks are corrupt and there is obviously no way to find a copy on the Internet, that sort of thing is impossible Man, that game was so good. How good? So loving good. The world felt really alive, you had something like, what, 40 possible party members who were all fairly unique in their skillsets, you'd often be leaving people in town to literally work jobs while you went and did a dungeon, etc... it's a real shame the sequels dropped in quality severely, to the point where I'd suggest nobody even bother with them.
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Mar 20, 2012 21:40
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Rinkles posted:I really have to give Darklands a try one of these days. The pixel work looks great for the time it was made. And there aren't many (pseudo) historically accurate RPGs. Darklands was way ahead of its time. The pixel art is pretty solid, but it can sometimes be hard to distinguish party members (be sure to give them different colors!). The mouse control is responsive and the real-time+pause system works out rather well. The battles are fairly tactical and stuff like positioning matters. Once you engage with an enemy, you can't disengage them unless they get flanked. If you get flanked, you're hosed. You have to protect your weaker characters by engaging anyone who tries to get around your front line. And I just love the mythology of the game. It's Medieval Germany if all the locally believed superstitions were real. Actual medieval Christian mythology, not any of that ANGELS VS DEMONS tripe you see in Diablo or Darksiders. It's pretty historical and the fantasy elements, instead of magic missiles, are throwing Greek fire and praying to a plethora of saints. Most of your enemies are bandits in ragged armor and clubs, wild animals, and occasionally a giant spider or something. Until you accidentally come across a satanic ritual that you fail to break up in time and then oh god hell literally breaks loose. Man, Darklands is an amazing game.
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Mar 20, 2012 21:46
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I can't find any info on wasteland that compares or lists the weapons.. Is the 9mm better than the 45? The faq I'm reading says to get 9mm, but experience tells me that a 45 should do more damage. Edit: Found the wiki.  Just me and the president, cleaning up the wastes. (I may have tweaked the stats a bit, so sue me) Cousin Todd fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Mar 20, 2012 |
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Mar 20, 2012 22:03
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Thanks for the contributions so far! Everything has been added to the OP. I'm also listening to the opinions on what games might be too new to include, though for now I'm aiming at GOG's rough definition of "old" which is rather expansive. I think feel is also more important than age, so I'm considering including games like Avadon, even though that's blatantly new. Hopefully that explains my position, but I'm definitely open to more discussion on the topic and to changing around the OP to suit what everyone thinks is appropriate.
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Mar 21, 2012 00:25
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For what it's worth, OP, IWD/IWD2 and ToEE are all available on GOG and run on modern systems. Also, for any mac users with nostalgia like me, infinity engine games run pretty well in wine although they can take some tweaking. I don't really have time to write up a guide but if anybody has questions about getting them to work on OS X post here or PM me and i will try to help you.
andrew smash fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 00:34
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Oh, I'm aware they're easily available on GOG, but there are fan patches and stuff you'd want to install for each (like C08 for ToEE). I'll put those up myself eventually when I have more time to go through the patching steps and make sure it all works.
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Mar 21, 2012 00:56
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The big thing I've heard about Temple of Elemental Evil (the newer one) is the Circle of Eight modpack. GoG linky here. It's mostly bug fixes, but it does add some content like new quests as well. Heavily recommended for the "complete" ToEE experience. EDIT: Also, from experience I can tell you that vanilla ToEE is RIDDLED with bugs. So an experience without the drat thing crashing to desktop every half an hour would be fantastic. Spincut fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 01:18
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Spincut posted:The big thing I've heard about Temple of Elemental Evil (the newer one) is the Circle of Eight modpack. GoG linky here. It's mostly bug fixes, but it does add some content like new quests as well. Heavily recommended for the "complete" ToEE experience. Completely agree. It makes the game better, without question. It isn't one of those kitchen sink kind of mods that throws in everything they can think of. ToEE is an amazing game with it.
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Mar 21, 2012 01:20
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I wonder if anyone is still using the awful trainer I made for ToEE.
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Mar 21, 2012 01:25
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Node posted:Completely agree. It makes the game better, without question. It isn't one of those kitchen sink kind of mods that throws in everything they can think of. ToEE is an amazing game with it. Yeah, the Circle of Eight pack is really two things: An enormous patch which tries to fix every bug left in the original game, and restore lost content where appropriate (the publisher decided to shoot for a kid-friendly age rating at the last moment, meaning some stuff had to be cut), and a full-length expansion. The expansion content doesn't even really kick in until you've completed the original game anyway - it just adds a second quest/story hub that picks up where things left off before. There's no reason not to get the NC (New Content) version of the mod. You won't see anything new unless you travel to the city of Verbobonc anyway.
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Mar 21, 2012 01:25
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Spincut posted:The big thing I've heard about Temple of Elemental Evil (the newer one) is the Circle of Eight modpack. GoG linky here. It's mostly bug fixes, but it does add some content like new quests as well. Heavily recommended for the "complete" ToEE experience. Awwww, now I have to dig out ToEE again. I tried Co8 back in the day but ran into a game-breaking bug (basically, whenever a certain battle started the game crashed. Said battle was esstential  ). I really enjoyed ToEE the first time out but never completed it (got sick of running in and out of the Temple just to rest up) and would like to.
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Mar 21, 2012 01:37
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precision posted:Man, that game was so good. How good? So loving good. The world felt really alive, you had something like, what, 40 possible party members who were all fairly unique in their skillsets, you'd often be leaving people in town to literally work jobs while you went and did a dungeon, etc... it's a real shame the sequels dropped in quality severely, to the point where I'd suggest nobody even bother with them. I lost countless hours playing The Magic Candle on the C64 - never finished it, but did manage to get to the other stronghold on the other side of the continent where the other twenty-odd recruitable characters were (who were generally much better than the starting recruitment options you got). Considering the age of the game, they did some pretty neat stuff with it - characters had the ability to take jobs for money (like carpentry, metalsmithing, etc.) which was great for getting essential gear and food, but you were running under a strict time limit of 1000 days on the "normal" difficulty level so that time was always a trade off. They used 2D pixel graphics to great effect too - you'd be wandering around the world along a road in top-down Ultima style, and then you'd have non-combat encounters like coming across a ruined bridge - which would be displayed "side on" using the 2D graphics and gave you options as to how to proceed. You could use a rope or certain magic spells, for example. It's a shame the two sequels just weren't up to scratch, but I did wind up finishing their action-RPG spinoff "Keys To Maramon" in which you were hired to protect the town of Maramon from monsters that emerged from under the town's five towers each night. If you failed to stop all the monsters, various buildings would get damaged for time periods preventing you from using them. During the day you'd rest up, gear up, train, spend time in the library reading books and figuring out how to stop the menace for good - which was great fun because you had this constantly emerging story that kept things interesting despite the game consisting of only one location. There was also a time management aspect as you only had so long to spend doing these things before it was nighttime again and you were forced back into the fray. Good times.
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Mar 21, 2012 02:08
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I might as well post this tech support tip here since I can't find the Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics thread right now. If you're playing Fallout 2 on Windows 7 and your colors are messed up (black pixels appear to be multicolored), right click your desktop and hit Personalize. This should bring up the menu for changing your screen resolution. Leave that window open and launch FO2. I have no clue why this works, but I had this problem and having the screen resolution window open while playing fixed it every time. I think this problem also happens with Fallout 1 but I don't remember for sure.
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Mar 21, 2012 02:20
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How about Daggerfall? Pretty sure you can download it directly from Bethesda for free these days, and to this date it still has the largest ingame world of any commercial RPG (or maybe any game at all?) A lot of it is empty and most of the stuff you do is randomly generated and kind of pointless, but that's the game that brought the Elder Scrolls into true stardom and is probably a nostalgic experience for a lot of people on this forum. If it gets added to the OP, I advise putting in a method to skip Privateer's Hold because gently caress Privateer's Hold. EDIT: It's also sort of a pain in the rear end to get working properly on modern systems, I had to use DOSbox last time.
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Mar 21, 2012 02:26
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I picked up Arcanum and Divine Divinity from GoG a couple of weeks ago and have been playing them sporadically. Arcanum is fun but the combat is pretty lacking in my opinion, and I havn't opened it up since a couple days ago where I ran into those golems in the mine in the main quest line that break your weapons and kill everyone in 1 hit. Maybe I just sucked at it. Divine Divinity is really easy to get into though and quite fun, no idea how i'd never heard of it until I chanced upon it in someones GoG recommendation list. The world is gigantic and its pretty much Diablo II if it was designed entirely with singleplayer in mind (meaning it's superior to D2 singleplayer In My Humble Opinion)
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Mar 21, 2012 02:26
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THE PWNER posted:I picked up Arcanum and Divine Divinity from GoG a couple of weeks ago and have been playing them sporadically. Arcanum is fun but the combat is pretty lacking in my opinion, and I havn't opened it up since a couple days ago where I ran into those golems in the mine in the main quest line that break your weapons and kill everyone in 1 hit. I can't ever play arcanum without abusing the poo poo out of the reflect/dismiss glitch... never have beaten it though. Did daggerfall have infinite worldspace? Because morrowind did. (it was all ocean, but it went on forever.)
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Mar 21, 2012 02:36
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Bilal posted:I might as well post this tech support tip here since I can't find the Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics thread right now. If you're playing Fallout 2 on Windows 7 and your colors are messed up (black pixels appear to be multicolored), right click your desktop and hit Personalize. This should bring up the menu for changing your screen resolution. Leave that window open and launch FO2. I actually encountered this (among other solutions) and was going to put it as part of this thread, but then I found that a Fallout series thread already existed and I didn't want to duplicate, so I posted it over there instead. You can find out about all kinds of different ways to combat that problem, and why it happens, over here: http://blog.macuyiko.com/2009/07/solving-color-problem-red-grass-purple.html Also, the Fallout thread is linked in the OP: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3430112 Zombies' Downfall posted:How about Daggerfall? THE PWNER posted:I picked up Arcanum and Divine Divinity from GoG a couple of weeks ago and have been playing them sporadically. Arcanum is fun but the combat is pretty lacking in my opinion, and I havn't opened it up since a couple days ago where I ran into those golems in the mine in the main quest line that break your weapons and kill everyone in 1 hit. Everyone encounters that point in Arcanum, it's not just you. It really helps to have the dog when you're doing that part (he takes damage, but you can just heal him). Focus on magic to take them down, or if you're a tech character, pyrotechnic axes (or guns, if you're using a gun balancing mod so they don't suck too horribly). I've always felt somehow ashamed that I like Arcanum better than Fallout 2 and Divine Divinity better than Diablo 2. It's like I'm somehow broken, but at least I'm not alone. 
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Mar 21, 2012 02:40
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THE PWNER posted:I picked up Arcanum and Divine Divinity from GoG a couple of weeks ago and have been playing them sporadically. Arcanum is fun but the combat is pretty lacking in my opinion, and I havn't opened it up since a couple days ago where I ran into those golems in the mine in the main quest line that break your weapons and kill everyone in 1 hit. Congratulations, you've just come to the worst part of the game. While arcanum is exceptional for its setting and storytelling (not so much of the main arc, but the characters and side quests), a dungeon crawler it is not. They clearly did not have character builds in mind when they crafted the mines (the big dungeons of the game). If you pick up Dog in your party it makes your combat significantly easier, almost trivially so. Alternatively you can pick up the Krupps balance mod which does a great deal to make tech characters much more viable. In the end though, they will always be less effective that magic characters, as to be effective in combat you not only need to invest points to make your gadgets, you also have to invest in totally separate stats and skills to effectively use them. Unless you're PC is solely crafting items for your party members to use themselves, a tech character will always be less effective than a magic or melee bruiser at the same level. Unfortunate, but then again once you know what's good and what's not, there's so many ways to break the game with any character it becomes a mute point.
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Mar 21, 2012 02:45
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THE PWNER posted:I picked up Arcanum and Divine Divinity from GoG a couple of weeks ago and have been playing them sporadically. Arcanum is fun but the combat is pretty lacking in my opinion, and I havn't opened it up since a couple days ago where I ran into those golems in the mine in the main quest line that break your weapons and kill everyone in 1 hit. To be honest, for the Black Mountain Clan mines and the drat golems in Arcanum, I cheesed it. Recruit Magnus in Tarant, have him whip up a few balanced swords, give them to him, Virgil, and Sodd Mead Mugg if you have him. Then turn on real time combat and let the golems run around chasing you while your party members beat on them. Having Dog from Ashbury really, really helps too. Also, I run a small channel dedicated to RPGs like this over on SynIRC - #crpg. Swing by if you have the chance.
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Mar 21, 2012 02:49
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I still have no idea where to get the tranq gun recipe in Arcanum. Is it just one of the random rotation ones?
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Mar 21, 2012 02:50
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I remember the first PC RPG that got me to say, "WoW, this is really good!" Betrayal at Krondor https://notendur.hi.is/eybjorn/krondor/krondor.html It is Free to Download being of ye ancient lineage and has a couple of sequals/follow ups that aren't quite as good but have some merit. Betrayal at Antara(different universe) and Return to Krondor. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/betrayal_at_krondor Regardless, how can you resist cosplay-uplifting hairdos like these?
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Mar 21, 2012 02:50
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seorin posted:I've always felt somehow ashamed that I like Arcanum better than Fallout 2 You're definitely not alone in this. I adore Fallout 1 and 2, they are one of the best cRPGs of all time (if not the best)... but I think I love Arcanum more. I always thought that Arcanum had more options and was bigger than Fallouts. I don't even know if its true, but it certainly felt that way. When I realized the horrible truth that I like Arcanum more that Fallout I felt like I cheated on a lover or something. I'm also ashamed that I liked Fallout 3 more than New Vegas.
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Mar 21, 2012 02:55
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I finished Arcanum with an un-tweaked tech/gun dwarf and enjoyed the fact that it required more planning and thought than the other playstyles.
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Mar 21, 2012 03:05
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My first real introduction to PC RPGs (not counting Temple of Apshai on the C64) was by way of the Sega-Genesis port of this gem. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday. It's based on an ill-fated attempt of the Dille family to mine their family's IP through a 2nd Ed AD&D based sci-fi tabletop RPG. I still have my copy of the game (PC version, I rented the port), and it's sequel - Matrix Cubed. Set in a post apocalyptic world where the Earth has been abandoned as a dumping ground and trash heap, Buck Rogers put you in the role of freedom fighters for the New Earth Organization (NEO). Your faction is dedicated to restoring the Earth to it's former glory by freeing it from the influence of RAM, or the Russo-American Mercantile. You bounce around to different parts of the solar system - the Moon, Mars, Venus, various Asteroids thwarting attempts by RAM to develop and deploy a new doomsday weapon. All of the inner system planets have long since been colonized, from Mercury to Mars, the latter being the cultural and manufacturing center of the solar system and the seat of RAM. Genetic engineering is rife, from subspecies of humanity better adapted to living in places like the acid-swamps of Venus or the low gravity environment of the Moon to races like the Spacer who are capable of existing unaided in the vacuum of space. In place of magic weapons, you have technology. Armor and weapons manufactured on certain planets would provide a range of bonuses similar to magic armor - Lunar weapons being the best and Earth made weapons being the default. The game also had space battles! Very early on in the game you are given command of a ship, the Maelstrom Rider and can take it into battle with other ships. Each member of your party would be responsible for a different aspect of crewing the ship, such as navigation, gunnery or repair. The game featured a percentage based skill set in addition to the AD&D based combat mechanics. Skills like navigation, gunnery, jury-rig and repair would come into play during the game's space battles. Skills like Zero-G movement would allow characters to move more effectively during boarding actions. The setting is VERY different than what most people recall of Buck Rogers, either from the TV show or the old serials. I remember my disappointment being palpable when I rented a VHS copy of the Buck Rogers movie, wondering where my genetically engineered freaks and needle guns were. There aren't a lot of good screen shots out there, but this is one of the less-remembered Gold Box titles out there.
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Mar 21, 2012 03:21
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Ratios and Tendency posted:I finished Arcanum with an un-tweaked tech/gun dwarf and enjoyed the fact that it required more planning and thought than the other playstyles. You must be some kind of patience guru. All I can stand to make when I re-play the game is an Elf who sold his soul.
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Mar 21, 2012 03:27
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I'm on a crummy 13" Macbook Pro and looking to pick some of these up - any ideas of how to get these running on OSX?
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Mar 21, 2012 03:40
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Jefferoo posted:I'm on a crummy 13" Macbook Pro and looking to pick some of these up - any ideas of how to get these running on OSX? Which ones? If you're looking to play infinity engine games (baldur's gate, BG2, PST, IWD/IWD2) download wineskin. Anything that says it requires dosbox, try boxer.
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Mar 21, 2012 04:05
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Berk Berkly posted:I remember the first PC RPG that got me to say, "WoW, this is really good!" BaK was awesome because you moved your FMV characters around a crude 3D battleground and it made it not suck somehow. Also read Raymond Feist's Riftware books, which are set in the same universe. Or just read Magician and skip the rest because they get increasingly crappier as they go on.
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Mar 21, 2012 04:20
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Jesus these nato guns in wasteland... They burn through a whole clip on auto, but devastate stacks of enemies.. and they add an extra keypress to an already slow combat system. the game world is a lot smaller than I thought it was. I hope they make it bigger in wasteland 2. I never played a game where I had to press keys all over the drat keyboard in order to do the simplest things. Using skills is counterintuitive, and you aren't told when they might be applicable. Wandered into cochise, which I take it is an endgame area... managed to kill one tank before I fled for my life. Got 2k xp all at once. loving Barack Obama is hogging all the xp... socialist my rear end. I make him evade most of the time now just so my character can keep up. Think I might hook up a gamepad and set some macros to the keys for commonly used skills. What the gently caress kind of perception skill requires me to actively search the square im standing in to see if there is a hole right under me... and searching that square is like.. 5 button presses. Shits rough, and I'm cheating like a motherfucker.
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Mar 21, 2012 04:32
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And now for the part where I contribute to the thread: Twilight: 2000 You remember that post-apocalyptic RPG that came after Wasteland and featured an isometric view and party combat, based on a well-known PnP role-playing game right? Fallout, schmallout son: I'm referring to Twilight: 2000 by Paragon Software, based on the popular(ish) GDW role-playing game. Updated to include additional cool features Some of Twilight: 2000's awesome features:
Twilight: 2000 was a quirky game on its best days. At its worst, it was actually unwinnable. Here's why.  You build a squad and you choose four characters to go out on any given mission. You only get the chance to create characters at the beginning, and this is your primary source of extra guns and ammunition - not to mention languages. Missions are somewhat procedurally generated, which is to say they're made of up several random elements, including mission objectives (usually "kill enemy troops and get supplies" but occasionally "kill enemy troops and get a vehicle.") Another element is what language of the several dozen eastern European dialects your contact might speak. If a character can't speak the language, you send back to base for the one who can. If none of them can - you're not going to complete the mission.  The game cycled through its several mission templates to the point where you eventually ended up travelling farther across the map (also random) than the fuel you got from any mission - and your ammo stash eventually depleted. For all I know the game is winnable but in the 50+ missions I ran with my well-equipped party I never once fought Baron Czarny or got to the end of anything except "stop the guys in this tank from terrorizing our town! But wait, there's more. You could fast-travel across the map but you could also drive across an extremely crude 3D landscape. Here's a picture:  You also conducted vehicle battles in real time in 3D - usually tank on tank but if you were unlucky enough it was you in a 2.5-ton truck against a tank. It was usually easier at that point to get out and hope you had someone with a TOW-II missile launcher in the party, or just to reload your game. And of course the awesome intro movie. This should give you a good feel for the overall quality of the game: stilted text, World War III being represented by stock footage of an F-14 doing a barrel roll, and of course Baron Czarny's laughing mug. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgts9uPUeQk Update Character creation was straight from the PnP version. What they didn't bother to tell you is that easily half the skills your characters could get were utterly useless in the CRPG. I'll let Capilarean explain: Capilarean posted:Oh, I remember this one. You didn't mention that in the (admittedly pretty cool and involved) character creation, more than half of the skills presented to you were not actually used in the game. The rationale behind that was apparently that you might want to print out the character sheet and use it for the PnP game. You did get to chose several different "tracks" during character creation which gave you your list of skills: military, school, or jobs (you could switch as well.) Eventually when war was declared you'd be drafted into the military anyway, but if you went to college and were smart you went to officer candidate school. The character creation may actually be the best part of the game and is (as Capilarean mentioned) really useful for rolling characters for the PnP game. The number of turns you get (years in school, military, or the job) was random so sometimes you'd have one "turn" and end up with a young character, sometimes several and end up with an old character. Horse Armor circa 1991 Whenever you quit the game into DOS you'd be reminded that you could mail a check to Paragon for  and receive in the mail an expansion disk with "the Colonel," additional voices (and supposedly game content but I'm not sure what it ever changed.) None of my friends or I ever did this, but the expansion is available on most abandonware sites these days, as is the game. It goes to show you that the idea of game companies charging extra for additional content isn't new by any stretch of the imagination: it's just much easier for them to do it when it doesn't take 48 hours to download a 1.44MB floppy's worth of data from a BBS.Find it! It's on abandonware sites I can't really recommend Twilight: 2000 as a great game but it's certainly interesting as a piece of history, since it blended isometric 2D / turn-based combat with 3D real-time combat. Peas and Rice fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 04:56
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I made it through Arcanum just fine as a crazy mechanical technologist- with speed rings and a focus on speed while using the mechanized rifle, you can blow away entire crowds of people in a single turn. I also saved up money and built an army of mechanical spiders which later became an incredible army of 8 super-rape automatons. I didn't actually get a chance to do much to the final boss because they all crowded around and annihilated him. I still never managed to beat the undead pirates that are supposed to be the hardest (optional) fight in the game.
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Mar 21, 2012 05:38
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