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I've only beaten the first 4 but i will probably go back to the series once i finish Lands of Lore (which is really good). Really enjoyed what little i saw of ultima 5 but it had a noticeable jump in difficulty, is there any good starting advice for that game? Genpei Turtle posted:1 and 2 are basically unbeatable without a guide because of the unintuitive things you need to do to go forward Man, i came so close to beating 1 without a guide but needing to pick up the skull in the last fight with a keyboard key you don't use anywhere else in the game was bullshit
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| # ? May 16, 2013 13:32 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 14:50 |
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Clever Spambot posted:I've only beaten the first 4 but i will probably go back to the series once i finish Lands of Lore (which is really good). Really enjoyed what little i saw of ultima 5 but it had a noticeable jump in difficulty, is there any good starting advice for that game? Kind of exploity, but the go-to advice for becoming powerful quickly is to loot Lord British's vault over and over. You'll need Skull keys to get in, (You can get them in Minoc by searching a dead tree IIRC) but the loot is very good, and respawns every time you go up and down the stairs or go to sleep. (the latter is better since you won't need multiple Skull keys) Your Karma will be reduced to 0 but you can just give money to beggars over and over again to get it back up.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 13:43 |
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The Worlds of Ultima games are definitely neat, but the interface is kind of an awkward proto-U6 that requires a lot of inventory juggling. The Underworlds are amazing, a fully 3D dungeon-crawling engine that predates Wolfenstein 3D's simple 2D maps rendered as 3D. Their graphics are somewhat painterly, which I think has helped them to weather the years, but the big draw is the way in which they make you feel very lonely in a sprawling, sometimes literally alien world.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 14:04 |
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The Ultima Underworld games are amongst my classic all time favorite games. If I didn't have a Gold Box avatar I'd probably have a Underworld avatar. I really enjoyed the World of Ultima games too. Has there ever been an attempt to make an exult styled 'modern' engine that reads the U6/WoU data?
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| # ? May 16, 2013 15:58 |
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Fintilgin posted:The Ultima Underworld games are amongst my classic all time favorite games. If I didn't have a Gold Box avatar I'd probably have a Underworld avatar. If only somebody would make a actual working Underworld interpreter/engine thingy. Forgedbow fucked around with this message at May 16, 2013 around 16:38 |
| # ? May 16, 2013 16:35 |
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Speaking of the Ultima Underworld games, exactly where is the community that is still researching the games? It can't just be SDA, can it? I mean, finding bugs like the "turn item into ash, ash has unlimited charges" one, then spreading the news, takes effort. Actually, I might have gone through a lot more effort to find things in the game if someone hadn't done a drat good job writing FAQs for them more than a decade ago.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 16:45 |
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Hmmmm maybe I should give Underworld a try. It should run in DOSbox just fine, right? Is it accessible and enjoyable today? Anything I should know before I give it a try? And Nuvie sounds awesome. Hope they manage to get it right. As someone else posted, if Ultima 6 had a larger viewable area it would definitely be a better game. EDIT: awww doesn't look like they support higher resolutions.  It would also be great to play Ultima 7 without combat and magic spell fuckery to just play through that adventure's excellent story and massive, massive, living world. BadAstronaut fucked around with this message at May 16, 2013 around 18:41 |
| # ? May 16, 2013 18:29 |
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DOSBOX runs it perfectly, I think, better than perfect since you can modify the control scheme if you like. It's a almost-not quite WASD movement scheme, which can trip you up if you play modern games at all. The game is accessible, just keep in mind it's still a Ultima game; good note-taking goes a long way. Fists are doable, swords are great, all other weapons are blah.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 18:47 |
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Does it have conversations with keyword highlighting and that? How are NPC dialogue interactions handled? Or is there not much of that? I think I remember the game had annotated auto mapping - Is this correct? What sort of notes does one need to take? I had books full of ultima 6,7 and savage empire notes...
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| # ? May 16, 2013 18:57 |
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BadAstronaut posted:Does it have conversations with keyword highlighting and that? How are NPC dialogue interactions handled? Or is there not much of that? I think I remember the game had annotated auto mapping - Is this correct? What sort of notes does one need to take? I had books full of ultima 6,7 and savage empire notes... Conversations are mostly click-the-choices types of affairs. There aren't a lot of NPCs in general though--UUW2 has more I think. There's an automap and you can write notes wherever you want on it. A text file with extraneous notes might help, but for the most part the map will have enough space to jot down most of the notes you really need.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 19:07 |
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Thanks. Is there any sort of adventure-ey puzzle solving? Or is it more of a kill a monster and find a key affair? Is there anything in the environment to interact with?
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| # ? May 16, 2013 19:13 |
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BadAstronaut posted:Thanks. Is there any sort of adventure-ey puzzle solving? Or is it more of a kill a monster and find a key affair? Is there anything in the environment to interact with? Yeah, there definitely is, but it's mostly within the context of exploring a big dungeon. There's a lot of environmental stuff, items, etc to interact with. The only main complaint I have is that some of the items aren't immediately obvious as necessary and really easy to lose if you're not paying attention. Like in UU1 I remember having to scour previous levels looking for where I dumped something I needed to make a bowl of soup or something.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 19:17 |
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^^^ On that note you'll find you'll want to make multiple caches, with as much access as you can muster, for all the crap you find. You don't need to gather every single mushroom and grass sprout in the game, but you should try to have one of everything somewhere where you can reach it. Also makes it so you don't have to haul all those gems and golden sceptres throughout the entire Abyss with you, There's a bit of interactivity, as I recall mostly involving lever puzzles. As for notes you'll need to track quests yourself, as there's no ingame journal. The annotation system is kinda clunky, keep in mind all maps have a sizable margin that you can write notes on. Be warned there is some first-person platforming. Shift+J will do a standing forward jump, and will be your bestest friend in the game. Forgedbow fucked around with this message at May 16, 2013 around 19:29 |
| # ? May 16, 2013 19:23 |
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Tuck important items away, too, in your nested containers. If you're clumsy it's rarely possible to grab an item from your inventory by mistake when you're fighting, and fling it ahead of you. When I was a kid I couldn't win it once because once, because I was missing a Plot Item that I knew I had had earlier, and I'm about 99% sure that's because I accidentally tossed it in a lake or lava pool somewhere.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 19:30 |
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Oh, that reminds me, very important this. Certain versions of the game feature the "Inventory Bug". When loading your game keep an eye out for the message "Error in object list" or something like that. It seems to be randomly caused by changing levels, and it doesn't take effect until you save then load that save. It will cause random items in your inventory to change into other items, or disappear completely. There is a patch floating around that fixes it, I believe the GOG version has it included already, but it would be best to save in multiple slots as you play.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 19:37 |
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GOG has all Ubisoft games 50% off, in case you want to pick up some of the Might&Magics.
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| # ? May 17, 2013 13:43 |
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After not being able to play Blood Dragon thanks to UPlay I am now terrified that I will never be able to play Might & Magic X
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| # ? May 18, 2013 00:32 |
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Quarex posted:After not being able to play Blood Dragon thanks to UPlay I am now terrified that I will never be able to play Might & Magic X I've already decided not to buy it because of that.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 01:03 |
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Forgedbow posted:Be warned there is some first-person platforming. Shift+J will do a standing forward jump, and will be your bestest friend in the game. Life gets so much easier when/if you get the Jumping Ring. I think the guy who drops it only does so 50% of the time.
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| # ? May 18, 2013 01:13 |
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I enjoy 4 the most, because it hits a great combo of a free-roaming sandbox model with a story that does give you a purpose- you're not levelling up to beat the evil guy but to fulfill the virtues. Got kinda stalled out navigating through Hythloth, even with the clue book tho. Will have to go back and finish it proper sometime. The one I really grew to dislike was Ultima 2, though- apparently most of it was done by different people, and the math is hosed and makes the grinding really oppressive. It's like a video game metaphor for being poor in America- working (fighting monsters and going around the map) takes more out of you than you put into it, so you can't stay fed and healthy without turning to crime. Seriously if they meant it to be like this it would be clever but I have a feeling they just got the random number generator wrong. The Ultima Save Game editor may make it playable, though there's still the loopy "puzzle" solutions.
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| # ? May 19, 2013 17:18 |
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4 and 5 are my favorite Ultima games, but I liked playing 2400 AD better than both. It's sort of an in-between technology wise game where you only control one person and you fight off the robot regime put in place by evil oppressive aliens. I just started playing Might & Magic I recently and while this early grinding is a little bit of a pain, it's a much more pleasant experience than I was expecting. Once I got used to the combat, I found it flows better than I expected. In fact, there's a sense of polish here that I was completely not expecting from the first game in this series. Maybe I just got my rear end kicked too much by the first Wizardry. I'm a little worried how much my Knight misses, though, even after my Cleric uses Bless-- and my Cleric doesn't have that many spell points either, so I might need to go back and roll stats forever again to replace them. Everyone else seems to quite competent. How many entries in this series allow you to reuse a previous party? I'm pretty sure you can go from I to II, at least.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 00:33 |
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Potsticker posted:4 and 5 are my favorite Ultima games, but I liked playing 2400 AD better than both. It's sort of an in-between technology wise game where you only control one person and you fight off the robot regime put in place by evil oppressive aliens. Yeah, Accuracy is a pretty important stat in M&M1, since to-hit bonuses from weapons cap out pretty low. Some enemies like Sprites can also cast a curse, which can make it hard for anyone in your party to hit in melee at all; if that happens you might just want to try and run from that fight. There are ways to permanently increase stats later in the game, so no character is hopeless in the long run, but it's keeping them alive that long that's the problem. Picking good places to grind based on your party's current levels and abilities is kind of an unavoidable part of the game. The game starts to open up once your casters hit level 5 and get access to third-level spells. You can import from I to II, although their stats and levels will be limited by caps; you'll be strong enough to trivialise the first town and its dungeon, but not too much beyond that. You can't import into or out of III. IV and V are basically two halves of a single game: as long as you have both games installed you can travel back and forth between them freely with a single party, and in fact there's a bonus postgame quest chain that requires you to do exactly that.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 05:22 |
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Thanks for the info. It looks like most of my party has between 10-13 accuracy. So far the only thing I really have trouble with is Anti-Magic zones. Which gets marked on my map in a hurry as something to stay away from. That bit in Scorpigal where it turns off your light every move was really annoying, too. Do the monsters get harder in areas as you level up? I ran into some dinosaur things in town that I wasn't expecting and they promptly ate my head off.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 05:43 |
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I bought the Avernum bundle a while back and have finally started playing Avernum 4. Having played a little way into the game with the default party I'm thinking I'd like to re-roll with some custom characters. The skills page tooltips do a good job of explaining which skills I only need one person to have and which ones I should spread out, but are there any skills I should avoid putting too many points into due to diminishing returns, or any skills that everybody needs to be high regardless of their role in combat? Also is it worth getting any of the traits that increase/decrease your XP gains in exchange for bonuses/minuses?
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| # ? May 21, 2013 06:10 |
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chiefnewo posted:I bought the Avernum bundle a while back and have finally started playing Avernum 4. Having played a little way into the game with the default party I'm thinking I'd like to re-roll with some custom characters. The skills page tooltips do a good job of explaining which skills I only need one person to have and which ones I should spread out, but are there any skills I should avoid putting too many points into due to diminishing returns, or any skills that everybody needs to be high regardless of their role in combat? From my experience with the Avernum series, yes, there are numerous skills with diminishing returns. But I don't like giving out hard numbers on exactly how much, because it varies on a per skill basis. For example, Magic and Priest need a lot more skill points than something like, say, Strength, even though Strength is still important. Spreading out your points can also give you a better chance at unlocking special skills like Parry or Sharpshooter, as they require having minimum levels of certain specific skills. quote:Also is it worth getting any of the traits that increase/decrease your XP gains in exchange for bonuses/minuses? Personally I thought it was. I would normally pick one relevant trait for my mage and priest (such as natural mage), and two traits for my fighter-types, and the XP penalty was never significant enough to hurt me.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 08:30 |
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Daler Mehndi posted:From my experience with the Avernum series, yes, there are numerous skills with diminishing returns. But I don't like giving out hard numbers on exactly how much, because it varies on a per skill basis. For example, Magic and Priest need a lot more skill points than something like, say, Strength, even though Strength is still important. Cool, thanks! Sounds like I don't need to worry too much about crippling my characters.
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| # ? May 21, 2013 09:01 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 14:50 |
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Potsticker posted:Thanks for the info. The third-level cleric spell Lasting Light will help a bit with dark areas, since it'll give you 20 units of light in a single casting: one unit is consumed for every step you take in a dark area. Anti-magic zones will tend to remain a huge pain in the skeleton right up into the endgame. I don't think enemy encounters in M&M1 get stronger depending on your level, but I couldn't swear to it: there's a lot of randomness in monster encounters in most areas, so one time you could run into nothing but pushover enemies and on your next visit you could see something that one-shots your party. I do know that in Might & Magic 2 enemy encounters will sometimes have larger groups of monsters if you're overlevelled for an area, but even then the effect on difficulty isn't usually dramatic. Basically, though, you want to remember which monster types have abilities that can totally destroy your party, and try to run from those until you can deal with them. Keep in mind that the Bribe option exists if you're desperate to avoid a fight, and enemy responses to bribes are fairly logical: humanoids like gold, magical creatures like gems and animals like food. chiefnewo posted:I bought the Avernum bundle a while back and have finally started playing Avernum 4. Having played a little way into the game with the default party I'm thinking I'd like to re-roll with some custom characters. The skills page tooltips do a good job of explaining which skills I only need one person to have and which ones I should spread out, but are there any skills I should avoid putting too many points into due to diminishing returns, or any skills that everybody needs to be high regardless of their role in combat? * Make sure the character you give Tool Use skill to is a mage, since it increases the power of the Unlock Doors spell. This is a weird little mechanical quirk that applies only to Avernum 4 and not to any game before or since. * Most characters can benefit from a small investment in Dexterity and bow skills: physical fighters so they have a ranged attack, spellcasters so they have an attack that doesn't consume spell energy. It's not mandatory, but it's helpful. * Parry is really, really good for your melee characters. You unlock it by investing in Dexterity and Defence, and it gives you a chance to block damage from incoming melee attacks entirely. * Endurance only becomes better as the game goes on: you'll want at least a few points in it on everyone. quote:Also is it worth getting any of the traits that increase/decrease your XP gains in exchange for bonuses/minuses? Yes. Divinely Touched, Natural Mage, Pure Spirit and Elite Warrior are all amazing traits and well worth the XP cost; XP gains are based on your level, so characters with penalties will end up getting more experience, partially making up for the penalty. Nephil and Slith characters also generally have an edge over humans. Thuryl fucked around with this message at May 21, 2013 around 09:51 |
| # ? May 21, 2013 09:43 |
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