|
I can't believe Grimoire is an actual game. I remember huge flame wars on usenet with Steve and that must have been way over ten years ago. Unrelated: I found this Starflight remake that looks pretty complete. Has anyone tried it? I only ever played the Genesis version of Starflight and I've always remembered the game being impressively epic.
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2013 23:58
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:37 |
|
|
I never thought we'd see another true sequel to Might and Magic. I can't believe it. If they are serious about releasing this year has it been in development a good while or did they just develop it at a breakneck speed?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2013 00:15
|
|
|
I wonder if these gritty remakes even make financial sense though. You are chasing a larger market but that market also demands tremendously higher game budgets and advertising. It would seem more sensible to make a lower budget niche games that can still turn a profit (Firaxis XCom vs XCom fps).
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2013 01:49
|
|
|
Maybe this is heresy considering how much love Grimrock got, but I think a modern game in real time on a grid is awkward. Real time and no grid like the later M&M game is fine, but I hope if they are going back to Xeen style they also do the pseudo turn based combat of those games.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2013 00:07
|
|
|
Yeah I preferred the larger size of the older M&M games and since I adore character creation giving me more character creation is always a good thing. Maybe they are emphasizing replay value on the new M&M? They did mention a much shorter game than the old ones and if there is gameplay variety on replays being able to pick from a large class selection will emphasize that.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2013 21:54
|
|
|
I've always associated the M&M games with weird inconsistent difficulty but maybe it's just how I play them. MM 4-8 you'd blow through waves of monsters barely noticing until you hit something that wrecks you on the first hit and you'd have to scramble to get ready for a difficult fight. I thought 4-5 were better tuned than 6-8 difficulty wise as 6-8 had much larger waves of easy enemies and when you did hit a difficult fight it was much less clear how the fight was going. I've never played MM3 but I should go back and try it as its graphics probably hold up better than 6-8 (early 3D is terrible).
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2013 23:44
|
|
|
I think the low point of any game is the sewers. I really wish games had less trudging about boring dank locations. Proper dungeons with traps and interesting lore can be cool. Caves are often boring, but done well they can offer interesting vistas. Sewers are never good.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2013 11:45
|
|
|
I need to give Wiz8 another try. For some reason even though I put hundreds of hours into Wiz7 (and still never beat it!) I never got much further than the tutorial dungeon in 8. Something about the combat felt more like drudgery but maybe it wasn't the game and just my own preferences at the time.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2013 22:37
|
|
|
I presume part of making it HD is cleaning up the UI which I found in the original even more dense and difficult to deal with than Darklands (and boy is that saying something) so I'm pretty excited by this.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2013 23:55
|
|
|
I never actually played the Magic Candle games but I remember thinking their ads looking cool in computer games magazines back in the day. I did play a ton of Siege and Ambush at Sorinor which were RTS before that was even a genre.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2013 22:22
|
|
|
MMX Trailer Still looking good to me. I love how much of a call back to MM4 this is despite the smaller party size.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2013 04:04
|
|
|
What's the alternative to point based interaction that are still tied to the rpg mechanics? I think the problem is just having the states be pass/fail. If there was a gradient of pass and fail states (with different rewards or whatever) then it wouldn't feel so ridiculous. That is extra work, but I'd always rather see a smaller number of better designed scenarios.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2013 00:45
|
|
|
Skill checks that auto fail or succeed outside of a specific range prevent that fairly easily. If >14 Charisma is success and <10 auto fails then having a roll for anything between prevents rampant save scumming while being less frustrating than watching your 13 Charisma character fail all the speech checks.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2013 03:45
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:Maybe it's just me, but the game seemed balanced around turn-based, and real-time never seemed to work well/be fun to me, so I did all turn-based all the time. It lets the monsters close with you and stuff, so you can't just backpeddle machine-gun arrows forever or whatever. The only thing I liked about real time is that when you become absurdly overpowered you can just walk around mowing down those huge packs quicker. OTOH, I think maybe they had such a ridiculous number of spawns because of the real time mode. I hope M&M11 keeps it turn based even if they lose the grids.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2014 00:46
|
|
|
One of my favorite crpgs growing up was Dark Sun which I think was kind of an evolution of the gold box games but I never played those originals. I really need to give them a try sometime. Dark Sun is a game that doesn't get enough props I think. It's one of the few classics that has an interface that holds up pretty well.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2014 07:17
|
|
|
I felt the same way about Dark Sun 2. I tried a number of times but I've never completed it. It's weird how it is extremely similar and yet it feels all wrong. The art in DS2 is also way worse than the first one. Its got a weird Poser quality to it. Dark Sun is turn based. The setting is interesting and as I remember it plays like something halfway between BG and earlier rpgs. It isn't pure combat but has some dialogue based quests and puzzle solutions. It's been a few years since I've played it but it has a lot more depth in its combat than many other rpgs though I don't know how it compares to the gold box games.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2014 11:06
|
|
|
ExiledTinkerer posted:We really need more proper Dark Sun games, though I guess a more likely imaginative stretch at this point would be at least one for the upcoming Dragon Kings Project P&P setting-thing that one of the original Dark Sun world creators has going. With people so mad for anything apocalyptic at the moment you'd think that someone would want to bring back a fantasy post apocalyptic setting. I'm playing through M&MX at the moment and man is the HOMM setting used in it so drat boring. Just replacing the setting with something interesting like Dark Sun would do wonders.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2014 01:57
|
|
|
RPG is such a messy label in video games it seems pointless to debate it. Refining it down to 'crpg' seems obtuse now that many of the games most in the style of old crpgs are made on consoles (if you can stomach the anime). When I think of the best elements of old computer games using the mouse or "saving anywhere" (which seems to be a holy edict on rps) aren't particularly important. Ultima 7 is one of the few story based games I really like. I could never get into Witcher and a lot of other story heavy rpgs most like, but Ultima 7 has a lot going for it. The story is mostly non linear and a straight up detective story. Unlike games in the post-MMO era there isn't a bunch of side quests in every town that you tick off running down your quest log. Instead you ask questions at your own pace following up leads. There are a lot of fun things to find that make exploration worthwhile. The story itself has an interesting interplay with the earlier games and is better then you would expect from being set in LB's crazy larp setting. They were playing with some interesting things in U7 and SI and it's a shame U8 didn't work out and U9 was a half assed Zelda. It probably would've been best to keep the turn based combat of earlier Ultimas though there were fun chaotic moments. The game that probably best captured my favorite elements of U7 was Arcanum which also suffered from bad combat though it at least had interesting character development.
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2014 02:57
|
|
|
I'm no pixel purist so to me Wizardry 7 with some filters for running it at a high res actually looks better than Wizardry 8. 7 also benefits from being able to just throw it into a dosbox while 8 can be a pain in the rear end. Maybe I'll try running 8 in a VM or something because I can't get it to run properly in a window and every time it starts it does that annoying thing where it turns on and off all my monitors a dozen times and screws up my whole desktop and window layouts from running at a low res.
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2014 00:25
|
|
|
When 7 and 8 were released there were some complaints because they didn't change enough from 6 but they were still fine games. Going straight through 6-8 might feel a bit of a slog with how similar they are. My own personal rankings would be: 1. World of Xeen 2. M&M 7 3. M&M 8 4. M&M 6 5. M&M X. I never played 1-3 and only heard terrible things about 9. 7 and 8 both offer solid though minor improvements over 6. 8 changes up the setting a bit. X isn't bad just mediocre. The story and setting are bland even by M&M standards and lack the goofiness of earlier games.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2014 08:15
|
|
|
What do people think is the best old school real time first person dungeon crawler? Back in the day I never liked the EoB two step style gameplay so I didn't play much of them and always preferred turn based, but finally playing Grimrock has made me interested in going back and giving them another shot. I should note I've played all the turn based ones (Wizardry, Might and Magic, etc) and the free roam 3D real time (TES 1/2, Ultima Underworld and such) just not the real time grid / step movement games. FuzzySlippers fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jun 29, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2014 23:52
|
|
|
It's a shame the console versions of EoB and the other first person real time grid based dungeon crawlers (that needs an acronym) are terrible as I think the gameplay would work well with a controller. The real time panicked clicking around in the interface to hit all the little icons on your party feels goofily awkward. Otherwise Dungeon Master holds up pretty well.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 01:17
|
|
|
As part of Divinity Original Sin's Ultima 7 vibe it has some tunes that are very reminiscent of it which made me happy. I definitely get nostalgic about that old crpg midi style.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2014 21:32
|
|
|
I think before Ultima 9 went sideways that was supposed to be part of the arc of the 7-8-9 games. Presumably the original vision of 9 would have been a good finale coming from the issues raised in 7/ SI with the avatar and the virtues and then with all the murkiness from 8. Instead we got a terrible action game with a nonsensical plot and some leftover cut scenes from the original direction. I had the collector's edition box of Ultima 9 preordered and I think it's probably my top gaming disappointment. Did anyone ever play through the 9 mod that changed it to some of the original script? Did it make it any better?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2014 06:44
|
|
|
Feels pretty hard for me to credit U9 for much as there were plenty of open world games before it. Certainly Arena predates it by quite a bit and the TES games in general seems like the most influential 3D open world games outside of GTA3. I also don't remember U9 being terrifically non-linear. I've never returned to it but at the time as hyped for U9 as I was I really tried to enjoy it. I endured a lot of crashes, performance problems, and had to restart because of quest bugs. I was in the crowd that liked U8 so I wasn't opposed to major changes in Ultima and I was an early U9 defender on usenet but reaching the end was pretty disheartening. Beyond the technical the poor dungeons and incoherent plot seem hard to overlook. U9 did have a great soundtrack though. Maybe returning to a patched and modded up U9 might be a different experience though.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2014 09:01
|
|
|
I've been trying to google this but I can't find any numbers. Any ideas on how many distinct grid cells were in old grid based rpgs like World of Xeen or Wizardry 7? Maybe just the average for the dungeons?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2014 05:12
|
|
|
I wonder if they had any tools for their designers at all on those old games. Building something crazy big like Wizardry 7's overworld would be intense just in like text files or something. Thanks for those numbers. I've been working on a grid based rpg for a while and was doing some automated testing of my map editor / generator and I wanted some realistic numbers to throw at it. In the best of all possible worlds it's all modifiable so if someone feels like recreating some old dungeon good to know it's max is higher than any of that, but that's all for the future. I actually do my walls like M&M1/2 because the system supports modern environments and having walls the same size as tiles was looking weird. I hadn't realized any old games did that too.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2014 10:04
|
|
|
CountingWizard posted:I just don't understand how SSI's Goldbox games have failed to receive a single remake/update/re-release/hq version. My current dev project contains something of a first person turn based rpg construction kit. My initial plan was to do first person navigation and third person overhead combat like Realms of Arkania / Goldbox / BaK and I had a prototype but every person I showed it to who hadn't played those old games found it absurdly confusing to switch the view frequently like that especially without retro visuals. I always liked that style because it meant detailed combat yet fast clean navigation (no herding cats around BG style) but it might be a tough modern sell. So now my combat is loosely based on Wiz8.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2014 00:04
|
|
|
I'm assuming the old D&D games are in some kind of legal limbo since none of them are on GOG which is definitely a shame.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2014 21:38
|
|
|
I haven't played WoR since way back near when it was released but it was infamously buggy then. Shattered Lands is amazing though definitely in my top 20 crpgs. Combat is turn based and really good.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2014 05:04
|
|
|
Seems fine. I know there are broken combinations if you feel like power gaming but combat isn't so hard to make it necessary. One thing that really suffers in WoR is the art. SL's pixel art still looks good but WoR uses some wierd looking half poser 3d that is ugly.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2014 20:32
|
|
|
It feels like a pretty odd choice for Xulima in a modern game. So your party just disappear while you're walking around? I'd be curious how players not used to old school games respond to it. You lose out on a lot of tactical options by having first person menu based combat, but the devs still had to solve all of the problems of an isometric game.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 21:52
|
|
|
Not much reason to pay for the name I'd think. Few enough people would respond to it and those that do would probably already be jumping at something described as a 'historical rpg' anyway. 2k might own it if they bought all the old Microprose ip. The original idea for the franchise of a bunch of different historical crpgs set in different places and time periods would be so drat cool like a not terrible Assassin's Creed.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2014 01:37
|
|
|
If Ubisoft expected M&MX to sell near Child of Light that would be crazy. Child of Light has both a distinctive setting and gorgeous stylistic art. Everything in M&MX that wasn't combat was boring and given a half rear end treatment. The art was fine if you were comparing it to ugly decade old games like Wiz 8 but compared to anything released more recently (or even WoX) it was pretty ugly and suffers when compared to Grimrock's visuals. If they didn't have the budget to make a decent looking game with the sort of mildly realistic style of Grimrock then they should have gone for something simpler and more distinctive. I also think they picked the one genre where their drm scheme actually affects sales. Most consumers don't know or care about drm but I bet a way higher than average number of old crpg fans are grumpy about it. I know they gave a free copy to the crpg addict and even in his brief review made time to complain about their drm.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2014 01:42
|
|
|
SolidSnakesBandana posted:I thought the graphics were great. Using the rope arrow had a real Thief-y vibe. I'd kill for Dark Messiah's combat in Skyrim's world. Not Skyrim, but I'm looking forward to playing with this Daggerfall for Unity toolkit. If crazy people manage to get Daggerfall running properly (oi scripting) then it would be awesome to play around with integrating different combat systems. I still get nostalgic about adventuring in DF but I always hated the combat and I've prototyped plenty of wacky melee combat systems in Unity it'd be fun to try to integrate.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2015 00:58
|
|
|
I've never gone back and revisited Daggerfall so I dunno how it holds up but at the time it was a pretty unparalleled feeling of exploration. Yeah it had a lot of big empty filler but compared to Arena it was bursting with content. Ultima, Darklands, etc had better realized worlds but DF was more immersive. Obviously it was a good choice in subsequent TES games to go smaller and more detailed but DF had its own quality. I played that sucker at release, pre-ordered, no patches, and still had a ball for hundreds of hours. Never did beat the drat thing though. If this project gets going we can actually solve a lot of these complaints. Modding has a lot of awkward challenges you don't have to bother with if you can just code it straight up. I can crank out a better map and a minimap in Unity without much trouble. Even changing the dungeon generation is a possibility using the base content. If the base game is somewhat stable and can be forked it'll be great to create a variety of DF fan edits tweaking all these features. I glanced at some of the code and it seems to be decently organized. Similar projects have failed but they always went soup to nuts creating a big open source engine to house DF which is a crazy task. Using Unity is saving them a lot of work. Unity has a lot of problems but its perfect for DF.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2015 00:18
|
|
|
I like each of the TES games and I think they have never really deviated from aiming to be exploration heavy action rpgs. They do simulated worlds but only so far as it helps the adventuring and exploration (not Ultima 7 style shenanigans). They've made changes but it feels like a pretty consistent through line from Arena to Skyrim to me. Skyrim actually improves some of the sim elements as there is a lot more environment interactivity and baking bread stuff than most of the previous games. Oblivion was definitely the low point of the series overall, but for my money Morrowind is actually the worst for combat and character development. Previous games had more rpg fu to be able to amuse yourself customizing everything and rolling different ridiculous characters. Later games had more detail in the action elements (especially in the archery which is excellent in 4 and 5) so you aren't just wiffing your sword back and forth watching bars go down or "missing" on a hit. Character development wasn't great in Oblivion, but at least in Skyrim there are substantial choices you can make so it's not just a process of your character becoming less bad. Morrowind is the middle child. Most of the options felt pretty similar so customizing your character wasn't very exciting. You could break it in a few amusing ways but not as fun as DF. Now the world in Morrowind is amazing and fun to explore and the story was better than any other TES game but I'd still say the basic gameplay had problems and the series improved from there.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 27, 2015 07:09
|
|
|
I'm pro level scaling. I'll stop playing a game if I accidentally break the difficult entirely so anything a game can do to try to keep it interesting is okay with me. People usually say it kills the sense of progression if the game keeps scaling everything to the same difficulty but I've never played a game that actually did it to that degree. It's goofy fiction wise that bandits show up in TES4/5 with glass weapons more expensive than the entire contents of some towns, but by that point I'm usually steam rolling them anyway so at least that helps them put up some kind of resistance. I stopped playing JRPGs back at FF7 so I dunno if scaling is so bad in those games. Of course I know some players specifically play rpgs to break them over their knee and so this disrupts that but that's a motivation I've never understood. It's like those boring victory lap eras in a Civ game where I've won but need to grind it out. Better to just restart and get back to something interesting.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2015 21:13
|
|
|
After not enjoying D:OS or WL2 that much I had wondered if maybe I just didn't enjoy isometric combat heavy games much anymore outside of nostalgia, but PoE is pretty fantastic. Combat is so much better than the old IE games. The changes they have made to the formula add a lot to it and hard mode isn't frustrating or reliant on cheap exploit tactics but just a lot of fun. I was never a RTWP fan (in IE or Darklands) but the slow and fast combat speed modes help a lot and I'd map them to easy keys to make sure you use them frequently. The world and writing is also great but don't try to read all the soul stories. They'll just exhaust you and aren't important.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2015 21:12
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:37 |
|
|
There's a great interview somewhere with the principal Stonekeep programmer on all the things that went wrong. It sounded like there was a good game that had a lot of Idea Guy crap piled on top of it along with some feature creep. It also has a pretty slow start and a lot of bugs at release but I dunno if those all got fixed. I never really got much past the initial tileset (the bog standard brick walls) so I had no idea of the game's breadth until I saw a youtube gameplay montage clip.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2015 20:44
|
|