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Decline J_C fails his Codex check...again - Betrayal at Krondor is the best RPG ever, but I'm not feeling it

FeelTheRads

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It was not changed.

See? J_C might be a fanboy of "good games", but at least he's a lovable faggot fanboy and doesn't take himself too seriously. On the other hand, IncendiaryDevice... moar like IncendiaryButthurt.
 
Self-Ejected

IncendiaryDevice

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It was not changed.

Also, if only I had a dollar each time someone wants me banned. I could buy the Star Wars collection on GOG.

I take that back then, I guess you've been punched so many times you actually believe the hype...
 
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Played and finished it for the first time last week, was expecting much, much more.

That's one way to look at it. But since the story is about Gorath, you could also take it to mean his betrayal.
I think Gorath's betrayal took place at Elvandar, not Krondor, hence that chapter's title - "Betrayal".
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Also Gorath is the only cool elf. Rest are fagets.

I don't Gorath even counts as an Elf. He's too badass. The man had like the highest melee attack throughout the entire game, and he one-shotted pretty much any normalfag mid to late game.
If he ever lands a hit! God help your soul if you're trying to fight with low health and no potion or magic to heal you.
 

Absalom

Guest
I think Gorath's betrayal took place at Elvandar, not Krondor, hence that chapter's title - "Betrayal".
You're forgetting when he spilled the beans on the dark elf attack in Krondor to the king. The events in Chapter 1 that drove the rest of the game.
 

octavius

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I played BaK for the first time a few years ago and I don't agree it has aged badly. Sounds more like JC has aged badly.

The only problem with the movement was to make sure you covered all the ground since the automap left a bit to be desired.

As for remembering all the info dumps, MAKE SCREENSHOTS. CTRL-F5. No fucking need to write down everything or have a good memory. Just check your screenshots.

Combat: not Gold Box class, but still better than 90% of the other CRPGs of the time.

All in the game had no serious flaws and did everything from good enough to brilliant; combat, exploration, story, character development, puzzles. Many games did each single component better, but very few games did it all combined as well as BaK did.
 
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You're forgetting when he spilled the beans on the dark elf attack in Krondor to the king. The events in Chapter 1 that drove the rest of the game.

Wasn't that a part of the wizard's plan? As the result the king was misled about the attack, and so were we about the real betrayer. makes u think
 

Absalom

Guest
Wasn't that a part of the wizard's plan? As the result the king was misled about the attack, and so were we about the real betrayer. makes u think
The wizard never actually said he wasn't going to be a dick, so not really a betrayal. Betraying your race on the other hand is kinda a big deal. You could go into the national strife that lead into the misunderstanding that caused the wizard to be a dick, but that's just realpolitik and still not a betrayal, at least not in a literal sense.
 
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I played BaK for the first time recently, so this is without any nostalgia goggles. It definitely has a bit of an accessibility curve, due to the horrible early 3D graphics and primitive interface. The first time I tried it, I lasted about 40 minutes before uninstalling. But some time later, I tried again, and forced myself to play for a while, and once I got past that initial blockage, I was hooked. It's definitely one of my favorite older games now and one of the best RPGs ever most likely.

It's open world a year before even Arena was doing it and done in a much better way than Bethesda games (no pointless filler). The writing and storylines are well done, not Planescape Torment level or anything, but interesting political twists and such to keep the player curious about what's going on. The exploration is excellent despite the graphics because it's meaningful. You aren't just exploring endless dungeons looking for loot, but exploring the world is necessary in order to solve quests and progress the story. You find cool stuff in out of the way villages and towns, or hidden caves. You can get cool optional stuff by exploring and finding clues. This is a really cool element mostly missing from modern games. Quest structure, although sometimes overwhelming, requires the player to think, you cant just follow the journal. Combat isn't the greatest ever, but it's better than a lot of other RPGs. And mages are very useful, in fact I don't think you can win the tougher fights without mages using cc spells. And there is a certain charm to the game too, from pretty menus representing cities to cheesy live action pictures of in-game characters.

I would strongly advise any RPG fan to force themselves to play this game for a while, just to see if it grows on you after the initial reaction.
 
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The wizard never actually said he wasn't going to be a dick, so not really a betrayal. Betraying your race on the other hand is kinda a big deal. You could go into the national strife that lead into the misunderstanding that caused the wizard to be a dick, but that's just realpolitik and still not a betrayal, at least not in a literal sense.
Chapter 6, "Betrayal", starts with Makala snitching Pug's daughter and ends with Gorath pledging to the elf queen. Not sure if the first part qualifies as betrayal, but the second part doesn't take place at Krondor for sure. Maybe it's not the wizard's personal betrayal, but his whole organization, dunno.
 

J_C

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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
That's it. I'm gonna man up and try it again on the weekend, this time taking your recommendations into account.
 

Absalom

Guest
Chapter 6, "Betrayal", starts with Makala snitching Pug's daughter and ends with Gorath pledging to the elf queen. Not sure if the first part qualifies as betrayal, but the second part doesn't take place at Krondor for sure. Maybe it's not the wizard's personal betrayal, but his whole organization, dunno.
It can really go both ways. Point is, without going into the deeper lore regarding the situation, that J_C is a faggot.
 

Photokoi

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Apr 1, 2014
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114
It was not changed.
Now if somebody can overcome these problem and don't care them is another thing. They might not even notice it. It is like when 80% of the Codex can't control a 3D camera in the game, and wines about them in Obsidian (and other) games. And I don't get what are they talking about, because to me, controlling a 3D camera is 2nd nature.
:flamesaw:Kill the LARPer!!
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Anyway, BaK is a real good game; J_C should man up; and people whining about graphics have no clue of what's entertaining (text you faggots).
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Speaking of Betrayal at Krondor's graphics...why the fuck don't we have BaK portraits??

Crane You know what to do.
 

abnaxus

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MxPV7f5.jpg


Best spells in a game ever
 

Xorazm

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Holy shit, this game.....

Let me take you on a little trip, way back in the early 90s when my family had just purchased our first serious PC ever. The thing was a piece of shit by any fair metric, but in my mind it was a mind-blowing piece of raw computing majesty wrought my nerd-Thor himself. The thing had a motherfucking CD-ROM, fer chrissakes - that was like strapping on a warp drive, as far as I was concerned. Most of my gaming experience had come from consoles where I'd had a fair amount of experience with RPGs, but nothing serious. I'd heard that CRPGs were a different beast entirely, that that was where the _real_ meat could be found, but I didn't know quite what to make of it.

A few weeks later I'm picking through the games in an EB somewhere and come across this box:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/Betrayal_at_Krondor6.jpg

Looks kinda cool, guy with sword, bit of magic. Decide to pick it up.

On the way home I cracked open the manual. Remember manuals? Remember that giddy thrill you got leafing through it and getting a greedy glimpse of the game to come?

Well, I had no idea that this game was set in a universe already established by multiple novels. So there I start reading the manual's summary of the backstory and lore and my little mind starting leaking out of my ears. For page after page it went, concentrated doses of glorious high fantasy. And the whole time I'm thinking - they made all this up for one game??? Jesus Christ I knew CRGPS were a different beast entirely but this ....wow.

By the time I discovered the truth it was far too late for me to care. I'd already plumbed the depths of the Mac Mordain Cadal. I'd already explored the frozen wastes of upper Midkemia. I'd already wrestled with the wyverns in Elvandar and charted a path through the broken world of Timirianya. I'd watched Owyn and Gorath go from wary strangers thrown together by fate to a careful friendship. I lived in their world, and they've lived in mine ever since.

It was my first CRPG. It was, in many ways, the best. And I've spent the rest of my life chasing that high.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Those live action portraits tho..ugh. Someone needs to do a modernized version for sure. Why hasn't that become a Kickstarter thing I wonder? Would licenses to these old ass games be that hard to get a hold of?
 

Xorazm

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Messages
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Those live action portraits tho..ugh. Someone needs to do a modernized version for sure. Why hasn't that become a Kickstarter thing I wonder? Would licenses to these old ass games be that hard to get a hold of?

The legacy of BaK is a truly sad thing indeed, locked in a very particular hell made of mismanagement and human ego. I don't believe there's any RPG that has quite the same legacy.

BaK didn't sell particularly well out of the gate, and it wasn't until the game was issued on CD-ROM, adding such flash as an enhanced orchestral score and a few splashes of voice acting that the game really took off (I imagine there's some primitive 1993 version of RPGCodex out there somewhere in which the faithful were ranting about how BaK sold out by tarting itself up with this coat of paint). The game went on to be the best selling game in its publisher's history, but as a result of its late start they bungled the rights to the intellectual property and another company you never heard of snapped up the rights.

As a result of this peculiar situation, _two_ sequels to BaK eventually emerged to capitalize on Krondormania. Return to Krondor was a direct sequel by the new company using a new engine, while Betrayal at Antara was a spiritual sequel by the original company using an updated version of the original engine. Was that confusing? It doesn't matter because both sucked.

But the story doesn't end there. In yet another peculiar development - unique, to my knowledge, in the history of gaming - a video game based on a famous author's work eventually led to a novelization by that very author. And it yet another peculiar twist ...it sucked. Big time.

This led to a bit of friction between the guy who wrote the game, Neal Hallford, and Raymond E. Feist, the author of the novels and creator of the universe. Hallford got annoyed that a lot of people presumed that the still-to-this-day-fantastic writing in the game was done by Raymond E. Feist. Feist, for his part, eventually got annoyed that a lot of people who read his book proclaimed Hallford's writing to be superior.

At some point during the Kickstarter craze, some people tracked Hallford down and asked if there was any way we could get a remake of BaK. His answer, which makes sense given the above, was that the intellectual property existed in a hellish netherworld, and that in any case it would require Feist's approval, which given the history seemed unlikely. Quixotically, Hallford attempted to get a Kickstarter going for a novel he proposed to write based on his outline for his never-produced BaK sequel, but that proposal died an ignominious death after falling well short of its goals.

BaK is a very curious beast on the RPGCodex best-of list, particularly for one so high up. It's one of very few near the top not connected to any major franchise, not connected to any well-known publishers, not enjoying a Kickstarter renaissance. It nailed first-person open world exploration a full decade before Morrowind brought it to the mainstream, and yet is today largely forgotten. It's a very singular game with a very singular legacy, but at this point it lives only in our memories, whispered amongst the die-hards in tones of legend, a peculiar alignment of the stars that came only once and burned brightly before slowly fading into the dark.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Yeah saw all that unfold on Mattchat. Interesting about the Feist annoyed at Hallford aspect. Didn't really know that was a thing. Seemed to me that Feist had given Hallford's version his blessing...regardless of the twin issue Hallford introduced.


Wonder what Neil is up to these days? Last time I saw him on the Codex (back when I was a lurker...oh the sweet anonymity) he was butthurt over people bashing his request for $ for his book.

Really never understood the criticism. It's no different than a patron for a work of art. If I were Neil, I'd try and drum up support for a Patreon account and release his book a chapter at a time.

After all, if even Matt Barton can make 500+ per episode, I'm sure Neil can make the same per X amount of pages.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Yeah saw all that unfold on Mattchat. Interesting about the Feist annoyed at Hallford aspect. Didn't really know that was a thing.

That's because it's not true.

More:

The game went on to be the best selling game in its publisher's history

It sold well, but I'm quite sure it was not the best-selling game in Sierra's history, even at the time of its release. It was one of Dynamix's best-selling titles - ie, the developer, not the publisher.

but as a result of its late start they bungled the rights to the intellectual property and another company you never heard of snapped up the rights.

That's not really how it went down. Sierra held the rights for enough time to make a sequel, but they provided insufficient funding for it - around one third of BaK's. Hallford refused to work on a poorly budgeted slam dunk sequel and moved on with his career. Eventually, Antara got made. We don't know what budget it had ended up having. I don't think there was ever any "bungling" of the IP rights, in the sense that they wanted to keep the IP but lost it by accident. As far as I can tell, they just didn't care about it, so they let it slip away.

Source: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=8953
 
Last edited:

Darth Roxor

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he was butthurt over people bashing his request for $ for his book.

I don't think that was the case.

Anyway, Neal was a BRO and it's a shame he doesn't post anymore.
 

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