Let's have an old RPG nostalgia thread

[Ingmar]

If you want to experience the tedium of mapping all over again there's always Etrian Odyssey.

[Rasix]

I do not miss mapping at all.  I miss it as much as setting up your dos environment to get something to actually work.

[sinij]

I've become older and more jaded, but those rpgs really seemed to suck me in a lot more than any modern iterations of the genre have been able to. 

I feel the same way. I blame "must work on console, must work for dur dur console gamer" for dumbing down otherwise great games. Dragon Age could have been one of these Classics, but they had to dumb it down so 6-pack Madden Joe could play it from his couch.

[Sky]

I do not miss mapping at all.  I miss it as much as setting up your dos environment to get something to actually work.

As much as I loved taking copious notes and mapping, I COMPLETELY AGREE.

[WayAbvPar]

I do not miss mapping at all.  I miss it as much as setting up your dos environment to get something to actually work.

As much as I loved taking copious notes and mapping, I COMPLETELY AGREE.

I think I am with you overall, but I think I like the old way better than the amusement park handholding of modern games. I feel like a passenger rather than a participant. Maybe some sort of automap that I could annotate myself? That would be nice feature.

[rk47]

Oh. here's a stupid gem. Might & Magic: World of Xeen

You have a party of 6, just killing stuff....you can't even split them up. They stick together like a human blob. Fighter, mage, wizard, ninjas, etc. Killing slimes, rats, all the way to Dragons and Giants...from swords, clubs, slings, all the way to phasers. I think I was confused when I was a kid, but it was cool enough to warrant repeated plays and burning away evenings after I finished my homework. Strangely, I never finished a single M&M but felt I got my money's worth.

[koro]

Oh. here's a stupid gem. Might & Magic: World of Xeen

You have a party of 6, just killing stuff....you can't even split them up. They stick together like a human blob. Fighter, mage, wizard, ninjas, etc. Killing slimes, rats, all the way to Dragons and Giants...from swords, clubs, slings, all the way to phasers. I think I was confused when I was a kid, but it was cool enough to warrant repeated plays and burning away evenings after I finished my homework. Strangely, I never finished a single M&M but felt I got my money's worth.

Wizardry's like that too. World of Xeen was fun as fuck though.

[MuffinMan]

I miss the old Might and Magic series. It's like Ubisoft was fucking with me when they named the new Heroes game Might and Magic: Heroes.

[Maledict]

Indeed, M&M was great. My only problem is I can't really play World of Xeen - the goG copy I have seems to have a dodgy, slow mouse cursor that partly vanishes off screen, and the entire game plays very slowly. Shame as it's the only one I haven't finished from 3 to 8.

Re. the Dragon fight from dungeon Master on level 14 - there was a way to do it very easily. Just use the green and blue "Freeze Time" boxes whilst chain casting the poison cloud spells on the dragon. It would be toast after a couple of boxes, from the massive stacking damage. Learnt that whilst finishing Chaos Strikes Back - far easier than the 30 minutes it originally took me to kill the dragon jumping around on the stairs and running like crazy whilst wailing for mummy!

(Chaos Strikes Back - now THAT was a difficult game!).

[Strazos]

Most of my experience with PC gaming only goes as far back as, say...Diablo, Warcraft 2, BG1, original Rainbow6, Fallout...my friends had some older stuff, like Commander Keen and Quake. We played Quake 2 and RotT at school.

I could never get into any of the old "first person" RPGs, which is how BG1 hooked me so hard when I saw it coming out.

[Amaron]

This thread has me tempted to actually try and dig up an Amiga Emulator and play Bard's Tale in it's proper glory.   I never got to play the Amiga version of Dungeon Master now that I think of it either.   My dad didn't want to buy a whole megabyte of memory for it  .

[Selby]

My only problem is I can't really play World of Xeen - the goG copy I have seems to have a dodgy, slow mouse cursor that partly vanishes off screen, and the entire game plays very slowly. Shame as it's the only one I haven't finished from 3 to 8.

I barely even remember that Xeen allowed a mouse.  I keyboarded the entire thing and still do.  The mouse cursor being dodgy is something I think I remember on one of my ancient 486s, but I never bothered with a mouse afterward so I don't know if it was a driver issue or just the way it was written.  Clouds of Xeen was actually pretty easy, Darkside was rather difficult, especially towards the end.  And those stupid monsters that break your weapons EVERY TIME YOU HIT THEM.  A big problem with the 2 games... not enough money to train!  If you cleared too much, you'd run out of money and be unable to train your characters anymore!  Could be a problem if you didn't spread the leveling love out amongst the 6 in your party.  My favorite M&M is still 2, with 3 and 7 a close second tie.

[Ingmar]

The RPG I would venture to guess I've spent the most hours on (BG2 is the other possible contender):

[Ruvaldt]

In a similar vein, I think ADOM is the most enduring piece of software on my collective computers. 

[Tebonas]

Do Roguelikes count if they are still in development? :)

Just in case the Roguelike with the most realistic and WAY too abusable job system which is guaranteed to not be in development anymore:



ADOM, Nethack and Dungeon Crawl are a given. I'm cycling through them, Playtime over the years in that order.

[rk47]

Dark Sun is pretty nice too, one of SSI's finest gem. Too bad the sequel is devoid of improvement.

[Maledict]

I never played the original, but really enjoyed the sequel. It felt a lot bigger in scope and options than other RPGs around at the time which focussed purely on combat really.

Oh, what about the old 3D dnd games from SSI? Stone Prophet was my favourite, even if the first time I played it a bug occurred that meant my characters constantly got xp from thin air. When I finally reached the end of the game I was actually high enough level to just Turn Undead the end boss mummy and have him instantly disintegrate.

[Wasted]

When I look back its always books of graph paper and swapping bards tale maps with my friends.

[Tebonas]

Oh, but those graph papers made you remember the maps. I replayed the Pool of Radiance Goldbox series again a few years ago and I still remembered most of the maps of the first two games. My skill broke down with "Secret of the Silver Blades" because the setup and because they started to repeat themself (Down the shaft, passage in four directions).

Ah, good times. I want those from GoG. I don't have disk drives in my PC anymore.

[Xilren's Twin]

Someone touched on an important distinction between these old games and their modern equivalents - ease of information.  Dealing with dungeons traps, teleporters, riddles, puzzles etc without maps only works if joe gamer can't simply look all the info on the internet in 5 seconds.   I remember when playing many old rpg's running into challenges that i couldnt easily figure out, but that was expected.  Heck i think i even called a hint line once for help on some ultima question i had.  The lack of discovery or mystery is what makes most modern games seem souless.  You could seem this shift from importance on game self discovery to "gotta know it now" with the advent of online rpgs like the original UO and EQ.  Even AC with their magic system.  The only real remaining area where that applies is in modern rpg's stories/plots, but even with that you still have to actively avoid spoilers if you want to get the most enjoyment from it.

It's just really hard to recapture any sense of wonder in modern gaming, but i dont think most people even recognize that they lost it.  Just look at much people complain when a game has any sort of hidden information.  Hidden information used to be a good thing...

Oh yeah, another old school rpg I played the heck out of was Autoduel by Origin systems.  Don't think i ever finished the main plot, but catching a bus to atlantic city and breaking the bank at poker so i could design all these dream cars was hours of fun.  Course I also remember the old joystick we had to play this on my Apple IIe to be rather...wonky.

[Murgos]

Obscure information I can buy, hidden information?  No sir, I don't like it.

[Mrbloodworth]

EDIT: Lol, NVM, it points to GoG anyway.

This WAS FREE on abandonia, but now you apparently have to pay for the same thing on GoG. Awesome. 


Might and Magic IV and V - World Of Xeen
 

[WindupAtheist]

I wish someone would do a modern Daggerfall. Proceedurally generate a world 50 times bigger than you need, punch it up with handcrafted points of interest here and there, and then bolt on the obligatory "main quest". Throw in lots of random worldy shit (dungeons occasionally overflow and invade a town that'll send out a call for heroes, etc.) like we wish MMOs would have but never do. But fuck that, make a smaller game and license some shitty Marilyn Manson song to play over a trailer that shows how hardcore you are because there's a woman in a BIKINI in it. That's easier.

[Malakili]

I wish someone would do a modern Daggerfall. Proceedurally generate a world 50 times bigger than you need, punch it up with handcrafted points of interest here and there, and then bolt on the obligatory "main quest". Throw in lots of random worldy shit (dungeons occasionally overflow and invade a town that'll send out a call for heroes, etc.) like we wish MMOs would have but never do. But fuck that, make a smaller game and license some shitty Marilyn Manson song to play over a trailer that shows how hardcore you are because there's a woman in a BIKINI in it. That's easier.

I'd buy it.

Honestly, I have some hopes that in the end Minecraft adventure mode will scratch some of this itch.

[Sky]

Maybe some sort of automap that I could annotate myself? That would be nice feature.

I liked that in Divinity 2. "This cave has 2 chests I need level 4 lockpicking to open"

Heck i think i even called a hint line once for help on some ultima question i had. 

I ran a bbs in the mid-80s that had a pay-wall for Ultima 4 hints (I used a FastLoad cart on my C64 to haxxorz it).

[Malakili]

Maybe some sort of automap that I could annotate myself? That would be nice feature.

I liked that in Divinity 2. "This cave has 2 chests I need level 4 lockpicking to open"

I recall Bioware having this as late as Neverwinter Nights (2002?) which was especially useful for Persistent World servers.   Seems like it should be a pretty standard feature as far as I am concerned.

[WayAbvPar]

Oh yeah, another old school rpg I played the heck out of was Autoduel by Origin systems.  Don't think i ever finished the main plot, but catching a bus to atlantic city and breaking the bank at poker so i could design all these dream cars was hours of fun.  Course I also remember the old joystick we had to play this on my Apple IIe to be rather...wonky.

I found that as abandonware and played it a bit with DosBox a year or two ago. It is still pretty fun designing cars and such, but DAMN it is punitive. If you don't have a clone and you get killed, game over. The terrible controls doesn't make it very easy to stay alive either. Desperately wish someone would make an updated version of this. Darkwind is still fun, but it is really slowly paced. Either a robust single player game or a good MMO (HA!) would be better.

[Mrbloodworth]

Maybe some sort of automap that I could annotate myself? That would be nice feature.

[ghost]

Proceedurally generate a world 50 times bigger than you need, punch it up with handcrafted points of interest here and there, and then bolt on the obligatory "main quest".

Two Worlds?

[MuffinMan]

I wish someone would do a modern Daggerfall. Proceedurally generate a world 50 times bigger than you need, punch it up with handcrafted points of interest here and there, and then bolt on the obligatory "main quest".

I would love for a modern Daggerfall as well but what you describe, except for randomly generating, doesn't that cover Oblivion?

[Ingmar]

It also sounds kind of like Vanguard. 

[Amaron]

I would love for a modern Daggerfall as well but what you describe, except for randomly generating, doesn't that cover Oblivion?

I think Oblivion is ruled out on the "50 times bigger than you need" part.

[MuffinMan]

Not saying I agree but people already complain of the tons of empty space that they felt wasn't needed in Oblivion. I have a love/hate relationship with Daggerfall, I put more hours into just the demo than I have in most single player games. It's what broke me into PC gaming when I was 13. However, the Daggerfall world being large was just smoke and mirrors.

[Malakili]

Not saying I agree but people already complain of the tons of empty space that they felt wasn't needed in Oblivion.

Who are these people?  I will cut them.

[WayAbvPar]

Ditto. Just wandering around and finding random stuff was about 80% of the fun in Oblivion.