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Benedikt
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
Posts: 31
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[quote="Anonymous"]
That said and all aside anything with "turn-based" in its description deserves a look.
.[/quote]
[quote="Wastelander"]
Though being turnbased doesn't necessarily work, remember the combat in Wizardry 8, truely awful!.[/quote]
it's just case of liking - imho combat in w8 is far the best i ever saw  (and believe me, i saw much )
ben
www.dungeony.cz |
Wed Sep 17, 2003 10:26 pm |
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Jung
Most Exalted Highlord
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 411
Location: Texas |
I just played the demo a while, and is seems a lot like Baulder's Gate and its spinoffs. BG can be fun, but it doesn't really feel like roleplaying to me, like Gothic or MW.
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"You two are a regular ol' Three Musketeers." |
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Fri Sep 19, 2003 4:33 am |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
I doesn't remind me of BG or any of the IE games at all. It definitly has some bugs but this is the best game I've played in a long time. You might want to wait for a patch if you are a casual RPG'er but if you have been waiting for a great RPG I would get this game as soon as I could. |
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Sat Sep 20, 2003 9:01 pm |
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RedTiger
Village Leader
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Posts: 93
Location: Center of Chaos |
Except for the D&D tie, it's pretty different from BG. I'm not too far into the game since as soon as I got it the power went out, but I'm totally loving the radial menu for commands. and Elmo is awesome! |
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Mon Sep 22, 2003 3:58 pm |
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hollaholla
Guards Lieutenant
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 161
Location: at my computer desk!~ |
So does anyone here have any more extensive thoughts now that the game has been out ofr over a week and people should have had time to play...i will admit that i got it to tide me over for some other games and really enjoyed thus far...that said, havn't gotten to far into it, but the character creation was great..beyond that i can't offer much...what do others have to say?
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**I just chose a new avatar because I just saw the characters for the new Final Fantasy and got ....excited!!! |
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Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:37 pm |
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the mighty stamar
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 602
Location: arcata ca, humboldt county |
Im enjoying it, but Im playing it VERY slowly.
It has not been addicting like Gothic or DD or any game I was really into this year.
It takes a lot of concentration. Both TOEE and lionheart were set at high difficulty relative to the monsters I wonder if this is a trend. |
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Mon Oct 06, 2003 3:16 am |
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RedTiger
Village Leader
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Posts: 93
Location: Center of Chaos |
if it is, i think it's a great trend to start. I like games that are challenging enough that it takes time to play. sometimes if you just breeze through a game it feels like you just don't get your money's worth out of it. I'm definitely getting my money's worth out of this one right now. |
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Mon Oct 06, 2003 5:27 pm |
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Zephyr Elvirion
Baron of the Court
Joined: 23 Mar 2003
Posts: 336
Location: New Zealand. |
Well...... I read another review, looked at some more screenshots and bought another game I had a bid on with eBay. ToEE's not for me, but I can see it's going to do well with AD&D fans.
And I still think the box pic looks like a pigs head 
_________________
There're 3 sorts of people who're good at maths - those that are and those that aren't. |
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Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:30 am |
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Sir Markus
Counselor of the King
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 369
Location: Columbus, Ohio USA |
I'm about 15 or so hours into this game, and despite a slow start, I'm really starting to enjoy it a lot. Its a tough game, battles are hard, and the wide array of spells and skills can be overwhelming.
I'm not real keen on having to 'memorize' spells, however. The thing that's annoying about this is you never know exactly what spells you need for a given situation. So what invariably happens is you run into a monster or group of monsters that require a certain set of spells to defeat, so then you have to find out what spells those are by dying repeatedly, go back to the inn, switch your memorized spell list, rest, then go back to the battle. I just don't like this whole spell 'memorization' thing; it's frustrating and doesn't add to the fun, IMO.
Another irritating thing is the ridiculous 'quicksave, quickload' routine. For one, quickload is mapped to the F9 while quicksave is mapped to F12, which is exactly opposite of 99 percent of other games where the quickload is on the right side of the quicksave/quickload Fkey set, with quicksave on the left. It's confusing, and most gamers will probably find themselves accidently saving when they want to load, and loading when they want to save, at least until they get used to doing things backwards. The Fkeys cannot be remapped, at least as far as I can tell.
To make things worse, the quickload DOES NOT load your quicksave. It loads the autosave, which is always at the top of the save game screen and cannot be deleted. Quicksave works fine, but if you want to load it, you have to hit ESC and load it manually from the front screen. It never ceases to amaze me how game developers still manage to screw up save routines in games.
There are also numerous MINOR bugs. I haven't run into any major problems, although the game runs a little sluggish on my AMD 1.7 ghz, Geforce 2, 500 MB RAM.
All those warts aside, I have really grown to like this game. It has nice atmosphere, music, cool spell effects, neat monsters, and good character/NPC animation. The interface is for the most part top notch, although I found myself using the ESC key to exit out of windows, which takes you to the front options screen. Overall the interface is excellent however. Automapping is fair; buildings in the town aren't labeled, however, which makes it frustrating and time consuming to find NPC characters and shopowners, especially with there being 40 or so buildings. After a few hours of play, the locations of shops in the town become familiar enough, however. There is an option to put down 'markers' on buildings are mark them yourself, but I don't think it's too much to ask game developers to have the automap mark itself as one explores the game.
Combat is pure turn based, and has WAY more tactical elements than most CRPG's. It's very labor intensive, moves slowly, requires thought, and it's easy to make mistakes in battle that turn the tide against your party, requiring you to start over. Fortunately, it's possible to save the game during combat, that way if you're in a particularly difficult battle, and have a great round, you can save your progress. That way if the next round goes poorly, you can back up and start the round over again. Battles are HARD and I recommend saving frequently especially if you have a good round.
Quests are numerous, and the quest book is no frills but works just fine. It shows quests completed and quests not completed, and how long each one has/was active before completion.
Overland travel is handled similar to Arcanum, however in TOEE you can accept or decline encounters. NPC's can be met in overland travel to.
The game starts slow, so this one really requires about 5 or 10 hours to get into, just becuase it's so different from other CRPG's and there's not doubt this requires some brainwork to figure out; if one isn't willing to do the work to figure this game out, it will be nothing but frustration. It's kind of old school with its turn based only combat, but for a crusty old gamer like me, it's just what the doctor ordered.
Recommended only for hardcore, patient CRPG gamers. |
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Wed Oct 08, 2003 7:50 pm |
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Guest
Guest
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What are you doing on RPGDOT if you don't like turn based???
Ever hear of AD&D ?
Wizardry 8 kicks ass, although some battles are realy long , it just makes you feel better once your party vanquishes it's foes! Play quake or something dude, or build more effective partie.
Neverwinter nights does the turn based scheme rather well don't you think?
I know that thousands stand behind me when I claim that the best rpg games will undoubtably include some form of turn based combat unless of course Virtual Reality becomes mainstream and you can pick and cast spells in realtime.
I think that for the time being, user interfaces and game controllers (joystick, keyboard, mouse) are truly the limitation.
You see, for twenty years now, 'turns' are a key factor in roleplaying games. Warriors have a certain number of attacks per round,some spells take turns to cast.
We could get rid of the official 'turn' and instead let time go by normaly .. then again, the warriors will seem slow (attacks per round MUST still be honored) , spell casters will seem dumb (spell casting time) .. it would make combat seem clumbsy and stupid as your warrior refuses to swing his sword.
With turn based, you hang on by the seat of our pants, knowing that the creature you're facing is guaranteed to swing at your pathetic hide with 2 HP remaining and will get a bonus attack as you flee like a yellow belly.
So you hit the 'next turn' button ... and are hapilly surprised that the creature missed both of his attacks and that your PC has moved to relative safety. Now hopefully you'll be able to drink that potion before you get your ass kicked on the next round, as the creature will most likely hunt you down.
Turn based is all about tactics too, and I for one am not ready to part with it, just because Wizardry 8 was a bit tedious for some. |
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Thu Oct 09, 2003 4:50 pm |
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Zephyr Elvirion
Baron of the Court
Joined: 23 Mar 2003
Posts: 336
Location: New Zealand. |
I've tried a couple of turn-based RPGs and didn't like them, hated them, loathed them!
What's usually over and done, dusted and decided in under a minute takes forver with a turn-based game 'hangin by the seat of yer pants' I was hangin' by the coffee pot in under a minute it was so tedious - watching the water come to the boil was more exciting. And Wizardry 8 <yawn> didn't like it, hated it, loathed it. (I know one person who'se gonna jump on me for that  ) Yeah, NWN was better. At least the turns take place within the game and you don't have to actually 'play' each one. Most of the games these days have the turns built in to the combat so you don't have to switch to each player for every sword swing.
I admit <hands up> that that's MY opinion and what's yours is yours. Hey, it'd be boring if we all like the same games.
_________________
There're 3 sorts of people who're good at maths - those that are and those that aren't. |
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Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:33 pm |
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~NOBODY~
The One And Only
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 1824
Location: Vivec, Jobasha's Rare Books |
quote:
Originally posted by Sherrin
And Wizardry 8 <yawn> didn't like it, hated it, loathed it. (I know one person who'se gonna jump on me for that )
Dte? |
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Fri Oct 10, 2003 11:23 am |
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EverythingXen
Arch-villain
Joined: 01 Feb 2002
Posts: 4342
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I'm going to have to disagree with most of what Sir Markus said. Just showing there are different strokes for different folks once more (whatchu talking 'bout, willis? ).
I'm also about 15 to 20 hours into the game. There's only one battle I've had to reload (twice)... and it wasn't because I lost but because I hate dead characters (wizard took a crit from a greataxe. SPLASH.) Though the giant frogs are kind of annoying and like to target the fighters (they become less annoying when you realize that while they're grappling they're denied their dexterity bonus and your rogue can massacre them).
To the contrary, I've found the game fairly easy. I'd play Iron Man, but I'm a little too addicted to pickpocket for my own good. I'll do it with an evil party who won't care if they're detected... just kill the guy who detected you.
There's no denying that knowing D&D 3.5 edition rules is an asset, naturally. I've been dealing with spell memorization in a roleplaying game for ... oh... about 18 years now. I know which ones are keepers and which ones are situational.
If I wanted to destroy the game (as in send it kicking, crying, and screaming to the depths of the abyss while crying 'it's not fair... it's not fair!!!') I could. One fighter (until level 4, then multi to paladin... though paladin until level 3 is a good start too, if you're human), one cleric (sun and strength are the best domains), one rogue with two weapon fighting (for double sneak attacks while flanking), one wizard (for 'situational' spells... spells that are cool but used infrequently - mix with a few tried and true staples, and make liberal use of scribe scroll), and one sorcerer (to scream the can-can at the top of his lungs and launch nuke spells until he passes out).
A sorcerer who specializes in summoning spells and takes augment summoning is cool, too... but you're better off having your cleric or wizard (or bard) pack the summons.
My review party is close to that. Fighter can't be a paladin, sorcerer slot is filled with a bard for summons, party enhancement, kill power (hold person = killed a level 10 fighter in one shot), and to heal the cleric if the fight ends with him KOed. Plus he's the party 'face'... talks to all the NPCs and gets ALL the special dialogue options. Bards rock.).
I'm loving the turn based and rules implementations. A note is to always use the radial... don't trust the computer to move or attack for you! It will do stupid, stupid things... like attack a foe, kill it, and then hit the corpse with its second attack instead of hitting another active foe within reach.
I love the placement of the quicksave, quickload keys. Far too often I save when I mean to load in a game... with this 'backward' configuration I have to actively THINK about what keys to hit. No accidents so far. Also I like that it quickloads autosave first... it takes me back to the beginning of a fight or just entering a house, typically. Which, I admit, would probably be annoying if I saved during a fight (which I do not, ever. Had never even considered doing so...).
Magic items are annoying. I hope the patch fixes the 'broken' crafting skills. There are a LOT of wondrous items on that list that I'd love to build but can't because the game has erroneously NOT assigned the proper spell pre-requiste to it (SPELL_NONE). Maybe that's just my install? I don't know. If they don't want you building items on that list they should not have included those items on that list.
Speaking of crafting... do it. Oh god do it. It will infinitely increase your survival. My fighter was quite happy with the gauntlets of ogre power and amulet of health the wizard made. He's also happy about the many scrolls of enlarge person the wizard has crafted. A wand of cure light wounds will eliminate after fight downtime. It costs the same to make as 30 potions of cure light wounds, but is good for 50. Now that's a bargain. A wand of ray of frost or acid splash (trivial gold and xp cost) makes sure that your wizard can do SOMETHING at least (other than miss with a crossbow) every round they're not casting a big spell. A wand of fireballs makes the sorcerer cry (so make one for him too, and then pass one to the rogue or bard with a high use magic device. Very few fights can stand up to three fireballs a round, so far...).
I'm hoping the game gets harder, though I don't think I'll get bored with it ... unlike IWD2 (which I didn't like the difficult combat during thanks to the twitches of automatic scripting and speed of combat resolution like all IE games). The excellent combat mechanics are FUN and it's a thing of beauty to watch the fighter trip someone, and then watch the poor fool stand up and get hit by the fighter, rogue, and cleric.
_________________
Estuans interius, Ira vehementi
"The old world dies and with it the old ways. We will rebuild it as it should be, MUST be... Immortal!"
=Member of the Nonflamers Guild=
=Worshipper of the Written Word= |
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Fri Oct 10, 2003 12:07 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Yes, I've got to agree with pretty much everything Xen said. I don't have his comprehensive D&D expertise so I've found it challenging but I wouldn't say it was hard. Some D&D experience or a lot of reading is almost mandatory, though.
The combat engine is brilliant - most fun I've had with combat...ever? You can clearly see the effect of every feat and skill which is fantastic. Equip a char with a glaive (which has a long reach) and Combat Reflexes and watch them slice and dice from behind another character. Watch your rogue use those Dodge feats and Tumble skills to avoid AoO and flank an enemy then look at the damage mount. I've never used my rogues so effectively in combat before.
The hyperlinked info is revolutionary. Click on the "miss" or "hit" in the die rolls to see the roll and every modifier - you can work out exectly what's happening and know what's effective and what isn't. The key is to really work that radial menu - don't just have a char standing there - Ready them against Approach or whatever.
I love the interface. The radial menu works for me and I much prefer the text to icons.
Just to balance this so I don't sound like a raving fanboy, the quests suck. Lame. Pathetic.
But the combat rocks! |
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Fri Oct 10, 2003 12:36 pm |
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Wolfgarou
Guards Lieutenant
Joined: 29 May 2003
Posts: 163
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I bought Greyhawk the day it arrived in my local store and honestly, I was quite disappointed. I have no problems with turn based RPGs (i played both Fallouts, PoR:RoMD, wiz8, and LOVED Arcanum), but find the battles quite tough. I don't consider myself a hardcore D&D player (i just know the basic rules, 2nd ed not 3rd) but I'm having a tough time playing it (I know how to create a good DnD party so it isn't a factor). And with the sluggish engine, buggy gameplay and poor quests, it went straight to the shelf.
I know many people claim they hate the turn based combat (hence the game), but i think it's more due to the technical problems of the game engine. It's slow and buggy, the interface is horrible and for some like me, the radial text system isn't as intuitive as the icon systems of BG and NWN. I wouldn't bash the game as it's actually quite an achivement to have the rules built in to such detail so here's my advise for CRPG-ers:
-Hardcore RPG fans, get this game if you can wait for the patch and don't mind the weak quests.
-Non-hardcore RPG guys (like me ), get NWN and it's upcoming expansions, OR if you REALLY don't mind turn based gameplay and are willing to take the steep learning curve, get TToEE.
-normal gamers, stay away from this game!
Please don't flame me for this coz I think it's unfair that non-D&D gamers waste their gaming money on a game that they wouldn't like just because hardcore fans enjoy it. FYI, I might consider playing it after the game is fully patched up and for now, I'm playing NWN:SoU, bought with the money I saved for Lionheart...
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The world is small, nasty and complicated, and everybody dies alone... - Sam Fisher |
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Wed Oct 22, 2003 5:02 pm |
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