The Realms of Arkania Thread

[hrose]

I think GoG's version IS the CD one, minus the music.

3.09 should be the last version released, with all the fix included. For example in the non-CD version I think you couldn't camp in towns, and in GoG's version you can.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Indeed I did. One of my favourite RPG experiences.

Then how many hours did it take you that one?

Uncountable. Would play for weeks, play something else, come back to my save and notes again, add, rinse and repeat. Same with Deathlord.

 

[Wolfus]

What is the difference between the CD version and the Floppy version (on GOG)? Is it JUST the music?

I think so... Also, is there sampled speech on floppy version?

Uncountable. Would play for weeks, play something else, come back to my save and notes again, add, rinse and repeat. Same with Deathlord.

OMG, you mean THAT Deathlord? C64 Deathlord? Impossible to play because of instant-save-after-death? I wanted to play it SO MUCH, but I always gave up after death (and GAME OVER)... I still have original diskettes somewhere.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

OMG, you mean THAT Deathlord? C64 Deathlord? Impossible to play because of instant-save-after-death? I wanted to play it SO MUCH, but I always gave up after death (and GAME OVER)... I still have original diskettes somewhere.

I must shamefully admit that I had two play copies...whenever I saved the game, it was on the 'other' copy, which was then taken out of the drive and tucked away until the next save. If I died, I could just pop in the other disk and reload.

I cannot see how it would be possible to finish Deathlord otherwise without the greatest luck and perseverence. It was a difficult and long game using my dirty tricks.

 

[Albers]

OMG, you mean THAT Deathlord? C64 Deathlord? Impossible to play because of instant-save-after-death? I wanted to play it SO MUCH, but I always gave up after death (and GAME OVER)... I still have original diskettes somewhere.

I must shamefully admit that I had two play copies...whenever I saved the game, it was on the 'other' copy, which was then taken out of the drive and tucked away until the next save. If I died, I could just pop in the other disk and reload.

I cannot see how it would be possible to finish Deathlord otherwise without the greatest luck and perseverence. It was a difficult and long game using my dirty tricks.

-1 Kodex Kred. That leaves you with 87,389.

 

[Kitako]

Am I the only one that didn't use to count hours at those times? Games for me lasted "as long as needed".
Counting hours come for me just in the latest years, and I find my brain sitting there monetizing the experience in form of euros-per-hour. Or maybe I just got burned once or twice by 40€ games lasting less than a weekend.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I didn't count the hours as I played, I just got sucked in by back-of-the-box-blurb that bragged how many hours worth of gameplay you could expect from it.

 

[Morkar Left]

Am I the only one that didn't use to count hours at those times? Games for me lasted "as long as needed".
Counting hours come for me just in the latest years, and I find my brain sitting there monetizing the experience in form of euros-per-hour. Or maybe I just got burned once or twice by 40€ games lasting less than a weekend.

Exactly. I can only give a rough approximations how long I played when counting the days/nights I was playing a game over a couple of weeks.
Nowadays I have not as much time than I had in my youth though counting hours I play is easier. Plus I can't play as long as I could back in the day because I get easier bored and/or my stamania for extensive playing was longer.

 

[ColCol]

I got the free version from Gog and felt like trying to play it again recently. Now, every time I look at the map in the game it freezes. It has been doing this since the beginning. Any ideas as to what I should do?

 

[octavius]

It's very tempting to say "don't look at the map".

 

[ColCol]

It's very tempting to say "don't look at the map".

well, I suppose that might be possible, but it would be a little too annoying. I tired to reinstall, but it still does not work.

 

[ManjuShri]

"Finally, I had a lot of problems with the automap--opening the map would frequently cause the game to crash. If you reduce the size of the map the very first time you open it, you may be able to avoid this problem. The huge, overly detailed maps of all the house facades are distracting and hard to navigate anyway. Regrettably, though a feature has been added to this game whereby you can move your characters on the automap itself (thus eliminating a certain amount of boring movement time in towns you've already visited,) using this option ALWAYS caused my game to crash. Your mileage may vary, but save before trying it. "
http://www.bigorrin.org/star2.htm

Some say running as administrator fixes the problem but brings with it new bugs.
http://af.gog.com/forum/realms_of_arkania_series/automap?as=1649904300

 

[ColCol]

"Finally, I had a lot of problems with the automap--opening the map would frequently cause the game to crash. If you reduce the size of the map the very first time you open it, you may be able to avoid this problem. The huge, overly detailed maps of all the house facades are distracting and hard to navigate anyway. Regrettably, though a feature has been added to this game whereby you can move your characters on the automap itself (thus eliminating a certain amount of boring movement time in towns you've already visited,) using this option ALWAYS caused my game to crash. Your mileage may vary, but save before trying it. "
http://www.bigorrin.org/star2.htm

Some say running as administrator fixes the problem but brings with it new bugs.
http://af.gog.com/forum/realms_of_arkania_series/automap?as=1649904300

Thanks for the help.

 

[SCO]

People are actually playing this without dosbox?

 

[ManjuShri]

GoG's old games come with Dosbox pre-configured for each game.

 

[SCO]

If so 'administrator mode' shouldn't actually do anything.

 

[Fowyr]

All problems are solved.

 

[Wolfus]

True. I just found 486DX4/100 at work and I want to "steal" it to play my DOS games on real HW.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Why?

 

[Mother Russia]

Yes.


Just play it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2365.0.html

 

[Gord]

It's a very cool series of old-skool cRPGs, offering pretty much freedom to the players.
The world of RoA is somewhat cliche fantasy, but that also means that you will likely feel right at home.
According to Guido Henkel, their goal with the series was to be as close as possible to the PnP RPG experience, which they do quite well.
Part 1 and 2 feature extensive traveling on a large overland map, with plenty of possibilities to put your characters skills to good use.
RoA 1 has you following a kind of scavanger hunt while searching for map pieces leading you to a legendary weapon.
RoA 2 is described in the link by VD. Overall RoA 2 is much more polished than RoA 1 (presentation and gameplay), but can be a bit hard at times, as many hints as to what to do next are vague at best.
RoA 3 unfortunately does away with the overland map, instead you are playing in one larger city and it's surroundings. Still, I'd say that it's atmosphere and overall gameplay is pretty good.

Also, if you play, esp. in part 2 it's important to save often and in separate slots, esp. before entering certain cities or areas - there are a few ways to lose equipment (both intended and due to bugs) and die horribly (usually intended if you choose the "wrong" answer/way).

 

[Wolfus]

Why?

You are trolling, aren't you?

 

[Mother Russia]

It's a very cool series of old-skool cRPGs, offering pretty much freedom to the players.
The world of RoA is somewhat cliche fantasy, but that also means that you will likely feel right at home.
According to Guido Henkel, their goal with the series was to be as close as possible to the PnP RPG experience, which they do quite well.
Part 1 and 2 feature extensive traveling on a large overland map, with plenty of possibilities to put your characters skills to good use.
RoA 1 has you following a kind of scavanger hunt while searching for map pieces leading you to a legendary weapon.
RoA 2 is described in the link by VD. Overall RoA 2 is much more polished than RoA 1 (presentation and gameplay), but can be a bit hard at times, as many hints as to what to do next are vague at best.
RoA 3 unfortunately does away with the overland map, instead you are playing in one larger city and it's surroundings. Still, I'd say that it's atmosphere and overall gameplay is pretty good.

They are not 'vague', this is how things were done back in the day. It is up to the player to make up his or her own mind what to do next with the info give, and go to various places in the world (cities, towns, etc) and try to see what other info they can uncover to find the location of their quest. Or wander around hoping fate will lead them to their destination, which is quite fun in the ROA series (first 2 especially). It is only vague and confusing if you are used to quest compasses, exclamation marks on top of NPCs, automatic markers on automaps, and consistent reminders by the character you are controlling that 'I need to do this right nao!' or 'You can't go there! We need to do this first!'

Also, if you play, esp. in part 2 it's important to save often and in separate slots, esp. before entering certain cities or areas - there are a few ways to lose equipment (both intended and due to bugs) and die horribly (usually intended if you choose the "wrong" answer/way).

[/quote]

There is only one way to loose equipment that you do not throw away yourself, and that is if you goto Lowangen and one other small town. This is because both are besieged by orcs and they only let you pass if you give up your weapons and equipment because the reason for the siege is to cut off all supplies to the town and force a surrender. You can still win fights though, if you have mages with full astral energy. But ofcourse, it is extremely tough because, surprise surprise, weapons were invented for a reason. Also, in multiple playthroughs of the original english version of the game I never came across a single bug...maybe you are talking about the original German version?

You cannot die horribly due to a wrong answer way. Technically. However, the game does not handhold you at all, so if you make stupid and/or desperate decisions then yes, you will pay the price with a probable TPK. These choices are few but can include trying to fight your way out of the aforementioned siege; you will obviously be overwhelemd by the thousands of troops there. The battle plays out properly in turnbased fashion though, so you can watch the fate of your pcs in realtime desperation. Apart from that if your pcs are sick and weary and low on life and astral points, yet you don't goto a town and keep wandering, yeah obviously you will eventually be killed. The RoA series, especially the first 2, were the only crpgs ever to make me feel extremely relieved to find an inn or a town (because towns have inns). The satisfaction of finding an inn where i could rest to heal and get well and restock on food (and have my pcs eat their first proper meal in weeks/months) was 10000X greater than finding a +5 Holy Sword in any other rpg or a magic wand of annihilation or whatever. This feeling of relief and joy at something so mundane has, to my knowledge, never been replicated in any other rpg to day. (going onto 18 years now since Star Trail was released in english) Not even in so called hardcore rpgs like Arcanum, ToEE or Baldurs Gate 1.


Stupid fucking popamole!

 

[Gord]

Relax man, I'm not calling it bad...

They are not 'vague', this is how things were done back in the day.

Of course you can find all your objectives with some traveling around and guesswork, it still sometimes means you have to find exactly the right few npcs (arbitrarily out of dozens of other npcs) and ask him exactly the right question (like when you need to leave Lowangen again, or find the dwarven ambassador who was the reason to visit Lowangen in the first place).

Spoiler

And esp. finding Star Trail didn't have anything to do with the hints you got from that young guy, iirc.

By the way, specifically winning RoA1, which otherwise manages the scavenger hunt part rather well, relies on finding one location that is not mentioned anywhere and quite out of the way.

There is only one way to loose equipment that you do not throw away yourself, [...] Also, in multiple playthroughs of the original english version of the game I never came across a single bug...maybe you are talking about the original German version?

Well, you lose everything save for magical equipment and money at that point. Basically nothing that isn't irreplaceable, but some players still like to avoid it by using certain walkarounds (while I otherwise followed the story, I did sell some stuff before entering the town). Also it might be frustrating to buy lots of herbs or potions just to then lose them to the orcs.
The bug happens when you get arrested by the orc patrols that imprison you in that stronghold in the western-most mountain range: You get stripped of your equipment again, but the chests that should contain it are always empty. Might be that it was fixed in the international version, though.

You cannot die horribly due to a wrong answer way. Technically.

Spoiler

You can die e.g. by giving the fire elemental in the swamps the wrong answer, iirc.
The (avoidable with the right answer) fight against the mages when leaving Lowangen with the stone can be extremely hard without preparation - which you will only have done if you know about it.
You can also quite easily die by thirst if you take too long in the dwarven city without finding a certain magical item.
And of course by stupidity, as you said...

Not saying that's a bad thing, mind you. I'm just saying that having more than one recent save can help against too much frustration.