Let's have an old RPG nostalgia thread

[Strazos]

Yup. I need to jump back in and finish that game at some point - I'm pretty close to the end...but geez can that game be punitive.

Also, in the IWD games, I normally went Fighter, Cleric, Fighter/Mage, Thief, Paladin, and Bard for face character, as I do in most games when presented with full party generation options. I think in IWD2 I swapped that paladin for a monk.

[Rasix]

I did play both and I can't say that I remember which is which, except for the 2e vs. 3e ruleset, so I probably was thinking of IWD1.  From a min/max perspective I seem to remember that 2 handed weapons are really much much better than two weapon-fighting in IWD2 -- does that seem right?

I remember something about the devs having some problems getting dual wield in the engine at the time.  It was kind of "hacked in".  You couldn't even see the other weapon on the character. 

This makes me want to fire it up again just a little.  I didn't even like the game compared to IWD1, but I'm somewhat of a sucker for the Infinity engine games.

[Merusk]

Fake Ed: Found some/ all of them. The IWD2 pics are here: http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=109718

Hey, now I know where Kael grabbed most of his leader portraits from! 

Yep, though I still can't find where he grabbed some of the Evil Elf avatars. Some of those are my favorites.

[WindupAtheist]

EDIT: Should note that they have some of the best RPG soundtrack music ever, too.

So yeah, this is definitely true thus far. The music walking around the first village made me think of this.

Edit: So there was this gnome guy with an airship, and a spell to repair the airship, and the spell required a component that he couldn't remember, but it was listed in a book which he had left in his lab... but the ship was already repaired and he DIDN'T need me to find his book. Then I met another band of adventurers in a bar, and they had the usual cocky dickhead attitude, yet there WASN'T a giant adventurer barfight where I could kill them and take their loot. I DON'T KNOW THIS WORLD!

[WindupAtheist]

Bahaha. I love the RPG parody worked into the dialogue in places.

[Xilren's Twin]

I was getting ready to recommend Megatraveller based on the old sci fi pen and paper game; skill based, full of neck beardy goodness, rules on everything from weapons, to armor to starship creation, planetary systems, jump travel etc, plus a character creation system that is random to the point where you can actually die when attempting to get experience in a military service, or get injured and then die on the operating table.  You even start losing stats from aging if you stay in service too long.  It's got a 150 page plus manual chock full of detail and history and sets you up as ex military people working for the security arm of a megacorp looking to track down a division chief traitor who is supplying illegal arms to dissidents on many worlds, so they will cause unreset and tie up imperial troops while the enemies of the empire launch a surprise assault and start the 5th frontier war...
All that plus a large number of worlds, trading 30+ types of cargo, varied law level and tech level worls where you may have to sneak weapons through starport security.  Sounds good, sign me up.

So, I took an hour to successfully navigate a half dozen characters through creation, covering my starship roles and weapons options, and fire up the game to promptly figure out why i never played it back in the day...the combat.  Instead of being turn based and deep, they made it real time where you have to pause and give simple commands to get your guys to target or move, and the game throws you into a fight as the very first thing that happens.  3 of my characters died before we ever did anything.  Ugh, don't think I'll keep playing this one.  Maybe I'll try the second game to see if it's improved at all.

[Tebonas]

Megatraveller character creation was wicked fun. I think I never went more than 15 minutes beyond that, though.

[Murgos]

So, I took an hour to successfully navigate a half dozen characters through creation, covering my starship roles and weapons options, and fire up the game to promptly figure out why i never played it back in the day...the combat.  Instead of being turn based and deep, they made it real time where you have to pause and give simple commands to get your guys to target or move, and the game throws you into a fight as the very first thing that happens.  3 of my characters died before we ever did anything. 

This is exactly what I remember about Megatraveller.

[Mrbloodworth]

What? You need your hand held? Man up! 








Sorry, reading to many "old games were better threads".

[Goumindong]

What else is there? What's the scoop on Temple of Elemental Evil? I know Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is supposed to be a total shitheap that makes your computer explode.

ToEE is a good adaption of turn based 3.5 rules. The fan patch from the cirlce of eight is at the very least required (and works with the GoG version just fine) if not the mod-pack in order to run a relatively bug free game.

The game has a decent amount of talking and some quests cannot be finished certain ways unless you have the right conversation skills. There are entire plot lines for evil/neutral parties but they're hard to get to work sometimes. In addition if you're good this means the last part of the game can be kinda dull.

The game suffers from all the same problems that 3.5 PnP combat suffers from with the exception that since they tend to throw so many combat encounters at you, buffed fighters tend to do pretty well (Either the special sword, or polearms/combat reflexes/enlarge person). Mid to late game crafting becomes overly powerful. Archery is weak, especially in the early game until the late game where it becomes kinda useful for taking out enemy wizards.

There are some traps but not many(and they can all be bypassed), so rogues aren't necessary. Wizards/Clerics tend to rule the roost due to combat buffs and offensive spells/control spells being good against the horde of enemies you're likely to face.

The game pulls a few "dick moves" on you, like the afore-mentioned hill giant (you have to know its there pretty much, and sight ranges mean that you can't get any engagement advantages), and an ogre with class levels in the first dungeon.

But it is overall not a bad game, especially with the fan patch.

[Strazos]

I think you only have a party of 5 in this one, right?

[rk47]

This thread inspired me to fire up ToEE again. Everyone is still 2nd level and I have to figure out a way to kill a Hill Giant and his pet brown bear (which has 3 attacks. something like 1d12 1d12 3d6 or something horrible). If anyone other than my front line fighters gets hit, they are dead. Not down, dead. Had my 24 HP dwarven fighter catch all 3 from the bear in one round and went from full health to DEAD. I wonder if I am here too early? 

Web. Entangle will ensure victory. Of course you still have to buy everyone crossbows and bolts. There's just no way to melee that thing in early game except cheesing with bless and immobilize.

[WayAbvPar]

Got to 3rd level and tried again (several times). Finally got him with a couple of Summon Monster IIs to do extra damage while my cleric kept the front line guys up with Cure Moderate and Cure Light. Tough fight, but damn that dude was rich! No magic, but a bunch of gems, 497g and 20p.

[Ingmar]

I fired up TOEE myself a couple months ago, I forgot how godawful stupid the henchmen looting was.

[WayAbvPar]

Yeah I am leaving all the henchmen out. More loot and XP for me. Also, more reloads, but I can live with that. Just had it crash and hang on me for the first time. Hope it doesn't continue.

[Strazos]

I found the game to be mostly stable, if not somewhat buggy in the UI.

[WayAbvPar]

The UI  is a travesty. There are some hidden tricks and shortcuts, but it is laborious to use for the most part, and really interferes with the game. Up to 4th level now, and just got into the Temple itself for the first time. It was really a good combo of a short cinematic, a couple of pages of flavor text (which is one of the things I like most about the adaptation- the descriptions of each new area really feel like something a DM would read to the players), and some good graphics/level design.

All in all, really glad that Co8 'finished' it, and glad this thread reminded me to go back to it.

[Tannhauser]

Despite its flaws, I love ToEE.  Co8 also did a "Keep on the Borderlands" mod, but I have no info on it.  If anyone has an opinion on that shit let me know. 

/archery is weak
//fireballs vs. goblins are hella fun

[Mrbloodworth]

Been playing X-com terror from the deep ( The best one ), Does it count for this thread?

I had forgotten how hard it is at the beginning to keep your people alive, my current game is like a part time MacDonalds hiring scheme.

[Cadaverine]

Despite its flaws, I love ToEE.  Co8 also did a "Keep on the Borderlands" mod, but I have no info on it.  If anyone has an opinion on that shit let me know. 

/archery is weak
//fireballs vs. goblins are hella fun

I checked out Keep on the Borderlands.  I haven't gotten all that far in to it yet, but if the tutorial is anything to go by, it's not going to be worth the effort.  In the tutorial, you're introduced to an npc that joins your party.  The text indicates that it is Ariel, a wizard.  Except it's not Ariel, it's some druid.  Who can't use the wand of fireballs they give you to blast a group of zombies with.  And since you can't rest in the tutorial, she doesn't have any spells, making her pretty useless. 

The graphics could use some work, as well.

[kERRA]

I'm still bitter that the armor in Ultima:Exodus had no effect other than wasting the time I spent acquiring it.

[WindupAtheist]

Man I had forgotten exactly how overpowered mages are in endgame Throne of Bhaal. All that talk in FAQs and stuff about party composition and gear acquisition, and the only real question is "Can the other five guys clean up whatever is left after the mage throws the kitchen sink at everything?"

Improved Alacrity, Time Stop, Dragon's Breath, Horrid Wilting, Horrid Wilting, Horrid Wilting, then everything else I have memorized for good measure. Time Stop ends, rest of party mops up a few staggering survivors. Insane.

[NowhereMan]

Hah, I remember that. I used to try and avoid using wizards too much because Grrrr *finger twiddlers* but every now and again I'd just have them unleash hell on a room. Of course then I'd try and kill one of the dragons or similar and of course it turned into a magic game of, "What the fuck should I be trying to dispell or pierce or whatever now because it just insta-killed my fighter with the anti-magic sword?"