If that's the only thing about this place that makes you embarrassed to be here, maybe you should cling to that final vestige of shame.Any chance we could develop a new nomenclature around here that didn't make me embarrassed to read posts?
Personally, I've always felt someone should do something with that in modern games, mixing in set encounters with random encounters, but having a set ecosystem. So, there's only so many enemies in the enemy pool available for random encounters, which pool gets replenished in response to certain actions by the player.
I think Telengard (awesome name, by the way, I've still got the box + cassette for my C=64 =)) was meaning that there are separate random encounter pools, each tied to a faction. You'd have random encounters from various pools but due to your actions towards one faction or another some pools will refill faster and some slower (or shrink), skewing the random encounters towards the factions that you've made loathe you and away from those you've gained favor with or avoided.
Anyone played BT3 with the fan made patch?
It seems to be a work in progress, since the last update was only 14 days ago.
Typically for geekware, it lacks any kind of instructions on how to use it, and unfortunately the forums at http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/board/ are down. But just installing the DOS version of with D-Fend Reloaded, unzip the patch files into the same folder and then replace THIE.EXE with thiefp.exe works, but I'm not sure what the other files, including a BAT file, are for.
With this fan made patch the DOS version of BT3 should be less painful to play. Anyone tried it?
Hi, the Adventurer's Guild board isn't down, it's been updated and has a new URL. Use this one.
http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/forum/
I haven't used that BT3 patch though.
Thanks. I registered, but it looks like it may take some time for my account to become active.
I saw your username there, though. Any chance you could ask how to use the patch?
This is the relevant thread.
Hi, the Adventurer's Guild board isn't down, it's been updated and has a new URL. Use this one.
http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/forum/
I haven't used that BT3 patch though.
Thanks. I registered, but it looks like it may take some time for my account to become active.
I saw your username there, though. Any chance you could ask how to use the patch?
This is the relevant thread.
drifting said:+- Monsters now do breath attacks properly
+
+- Monster attacks now inflict special status (critical hit, stoning, etc)
+
+- Divine Intervention spell correctly converts illusions to monsters
+
+- The Up Arrow key now works as the 'K' key
+
+- Fixed a bug where a monster would not get to attack if its attack priority
+ was lower than the party's
+
+- Horn of Gods and Wand of Fury now work correctly.
+
+- Set a maximum negative AC of -50 to match the Apple version. It would wrap
+ if the AC got too low.
+
+- Use the proper saving throw values for monsters. This brings the DOS version
+ in line with the Apple II version.
+
+- Fixed the group size when a new monster group is create by summoning.
+
+- Clear the "make monster hostile" dungeon square flag after it is checked.
+
+- The "make monster hostile" dungeon square now only effects the party if there
+ is a monster in the party.
+
+- Fixed Tarjan's attack to call the summon() routine 10 times with Black Slayers
+
+- COSMETIC: Print a blank line between attacks from a breath attack or spell
+
+- COSMETIC: Print an '!' after the kill string
+
+- COSMETIC: Fix the reward output after (L)eaving a chest. It would print
+ "Each character receives XX XP, and". Added " you received 0 pieces of gold"
+
+- Added casting of spells by 4-letter code as in BT1 and BT2
+
+- Light spells now stay active when hitting an anti-magic square
+
+- Fixed Sorcerer Sight spell to detect all special squares ahead
+
+- Corrected the monster rosters for the levels.
+
+- When on an anti-magic square, spells that are cast now fizzle.
+
+- Print full spell name under "Known Spells" screen of a magic user
+
+- Removed getc() from dunsq_doTrap().
+
+- Made the outdoor levels use the outdoor background and ignore the light
+ spell value. This matches behavior on the Apple II
+
+- COSMETIC: Clear the screen after certain actions in the dungeon main loop.
+ For example, detect messages would stay in the text window when turning on
+ a square.
+
+- Added scrolling speed commands to battle text as in BT1 and BT2
+
+- COSMETIC: Fixed the spacing of "XX points of damage" in a breath attack or
+ spell attack.
+
+- Added check for poisoned status to the periodic check loop. Character HP
+ will now be drained as expected when poisoned.
+
+- Fixed the drop rate for Harmonic Gems
COSMETIC: Fix the reward output after (L)eaving a chest. It would print
+ "Each character receives XX XP, and". Added " you received 0 pieces of gold"
So while I will never hold the BT games up as a shining example of good RPGs, I salute those who played and enjoyed them. Remember, you have faced death itself in the form of 99 Berzerkers, 99 Berzerkers, 99 Berzerkers and 99 Berzerkers.
I'm about to start BT3 using the fanmade patch said:Hi - I really want to try BT3 again as it was my favourite. I did purchase the new Bards Tale game for the sole reason to have access to the original trilogy. I completed BT1 a number of months ago.
I was really disappointed that the versions of BT2 and BT3 included are crappy EGA PC versions - I reckon I played BT3 on C64 or Amiga with superior graphics.
Can you tell me what version of BT3 you are using and whether you have decent - and I mean more than 4 colours) graphics?
Thanks
BT1 was released on a LOT of platforms, they even got an Amstrad CPC version out in 1988.
BT1 was released on a LOT of platforms, they even got an Amstrad CPC version out in 1988.
Amstrad CPC was a popular micro-computer in Europe (especially France) and UK, that's completely unsurprising (to me) that it would get Bard's Tale. The Speccy, C=64 and CPC clung on for ages against the 16bitters, they kept getting releases long after their use-by dates expired. Some of those releases were jaw-dropping coding feats, too. >_>
Telengard didn't work like this. It's also easy to verify: Telengard was written in basic (for C64/Apple) the PC version was in C. You can download the disk image and walk through the code yourself. I know because I heavily modified the game/graphics when I was younger/bored. Charisma affected random encounters actions towards you, and that's it.I think Telengard (awesome name, by the way, I've still got the box + cassette for my C=64 =)) was meaning that there are separate random encounter pools, each tied to a faction. You'd have random encounters from various pools but due to your actions towards one faction or another some pools will refill faster and some slower (or shrink), skewing the random encounters towards the factions that you've made loathe you and away from those you've gained favor with or avoided.
So it just rolls three dice for each stat and puts the scores in an array s(I) (line 1500) if you hit anything other than enter (line 1515), it rerolls (line 1400)1400 print"<ret> to use stats"
1500 fori=0to5:q=0:forq1=1to3:q=q+int(rnd(1)*6+1):nextq1:s(i)=q
1510 printmid$(s$,i*3+1,3);str$(s(i));" ":next
1515 gosub16000:ifc$<>chr$(13)then1400
I'm a HUGE fan of the Bard's Tale series, being partial to the C64 versions myself. The first Disk based crpg I purchased was The Bard's Tale, and I played it to death. It's very hard to defend it around here, as it is *very* difficult a low levels, there is no save anywhere, and you could only save off your characters in the Adventures Guild. Think I finished my first run with characters around level 120 or so due to getting lost so often in dungeons.
There was a lot of newness and creativity in the Bard's Tale games, and I could not wait for the newer versions to come out. Unlike Gregz I believe the games got better as the games went along. The developers had do to do something to ramp up the challenge for new players and players importing alike. Players like me took the same party from BT1 -> BT2 -> BT3. I believe that since you could finish BT1 then continue leveling, they had to scale the difficulty upward in each future game. So BT2 added real time puzzles. Finish the puzzle or everyone dies. BT3 added a lot of creatures with all kinds of death and crit abilities.
Also, as the games progressed, the spells got better and they added more dynamic features. While BT2 snares were damn near impossible at the end they added a level of excitement and fear to the game. Fight your way up three levels of horror, then, armed with no knowledge, jump into the snare and hope for the best. Also, they did open up the world and added lots of nice features. In BT3, they added all that automapping, artifacts and 10x the story of the previous 2. There are other technological advances, but I believe they got better, not worse.
A lot of quite popular dungeons are still fondly remembered here: Harklyn's Castle and the 400 Berzerkers in BT1, The Grey Crypt (antimagic dungeon) in BT2, and Tarmitia and fighting Stormtroopers and Wasteland Scavengers (a tie in with Wasteland, or I thought at the time) in BT3. Bard's Tale belongs in the "pantheon" but its a LOT harder to go back and finish BT1 than it would be to finish U5 or Wasteland. That's understandable: those games are incredible. But BT1 was just as much a technological marvel as they were when they came out.