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Let's Play Betrayal At Krondor (COMPLETED)

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Dialogues play out Deus Ex style.

It's your actions and triggers that influence what you say.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Wyrmlord said:
Dialogues play out Deus Ex style.

It's your actions and triggers that influence what you say.

I thought it was something like that. You can skip triggers and omit parts of the story though, or do them in different order, right? Seeing as there's a freely navigateable map I presume there's some degree of non-linearity involved. Not that I mind a good linear story, just wondering if, should I be playing BaK, I would have an exact same story as you, or would it be different.

Oh, and are you omitting any sort of non-essential "random" encounters that have dialogue involved? Are they involved, or is it more of a "You encounter a Goblin band. Fight/Pay/Run?"? You were encountering some random-seeming fellows on the road in the first chapter, hence I'm wondering if the road in general is lively, or not quite as much.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Random encounters? Everything in this game is handplaced, actually.

As for the dialogues - yeah, a lot of the things in this game can be done in different orders and experienced differently.

You see, you collect the story. You go around and explore the world, and every small situation sheds some small part of the big picture. Some, you might miss, some you might pick up, and in any possible order. Sometimes, some parts of the big picture directly relate to each other and reveal a startling fact that can lead you down to a very useful and rewarding clue and quest.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Well, I didn't quite mean "random encounters" to be Fallout-style random, more like randomly stumbling across something during exploration/travel. That's apparently the case as you pointed out, though, which's great. I missed this game when it was new, unfortunately, and it seems to be just the sort of a game I've been wanting to play for a while now, both well-written and without hand-holding.

Thanks for the LP, and do give us moar!
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
We start out right here in Dimwood Forest.

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So we decide to take the game's hint, and head east.
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First encounter we see there is of a certain person who helped us at Highcastle.
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We have four clues so far.

The rift machine is near a body of water.

An escaped rogue moredhel also came out of the rift machine.

Moreaulf is in the area.

Squire Philip, Owyn's friend from the beginning of the game, is fending off attacks by Moreaulf's troops.

Wandering around just this same area, we have another encounter.
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So we find out that there is a device needed to disable the rift machine, before we even go there.

And on top of this, it is behind an illusion of a mountain. So this narrows it down to any place adjacent to a water body behind it a mountain. That makes our job quicker.

While doing one last sweep of the east, we find a note here:
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A password to be used by companies of Moreaulf. It is convenient.

There are goblins on the bridge south.
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Immediately, we run into Moreaulf, who is commanding forces here.

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We go where Moreaulf told us and we find chests there.
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No Waani. Just a note.
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No problem. We go to Philip.

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Here is what we need.
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Now, at the illusionary mountain.
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Here is the machine.
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To be continued...
 

Erebus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
4,763
I had forgotten all about this chapter, except for the ending. I do remember I expected Patrus to turn up alive later in the game (Bene Gesserit quote : "Do not count a human dead until you see the body") and was surprised that he didn't.

Security measures do not seem to be the moredhels' strong point...

I remember finding the foreign world Owyn and Gorath have arrived to quite intriguing.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
I too like the foreign world in the sense that it just shows a brief sign of what the after-effects of any world that fought with the Valheru are. The most chilling thing being that this is what the people of this world did to themselves just to prevent a Valheru rule.

This entire game shows a brief flirtation and just a small glimpse of the enormous cosmic horrors of a thing few understand, and something that is left to be, with the main characters left with only a hint of what they would have had to face.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
Unfortunately the silly costumes and bad direction ruin a bit the atmosphere. Thankfully the writing is excellent. What wouldn't I give for all those characters to be hand-drawn.
 

ShavenApe

Novice
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
Messages
55
Most awesome :D

I really wish someone had pointed this gem out to me when I was younger.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
ghostdog said:
Unfortunately the silly costumes and bad direction ruin a bit the atmosphere. Thankfully the writing is excellent. What wouldn't I give for all those characters to be hand-drawn.
And thus came the hand-drawn Betrayal in Antara.

Which then also included VA, and bad VA at that.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
ghostdog said:
Unfortunately the silly costumes and bad direction ruin a bit the atmosphere. Thankfully the writing is excellent. What wouldn't I give for all those characters to be hand-drawn.

Ah yes, this is probably the main reason I didn't play it back then, well-spotted. Fortunately by the time of Torment I was less of a graphics whore.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Personally, I found the blocky graphics of the world initially daunting, because I thought, "I have to explore a giant map made entirely of all these crude shapes?"

What was most disturbing to me was that I was walking east and walking west and yet feeling like I have ended up in the exact same location, because it looked similar.

I have no idea how my mind became so accustomed to it. These graphics were dated even by the standards of 1993.

That said, the game earns its atmosphere, and does not impose it. There is a strange mysterious feeling to the forest at Elvandar precisely because it is so large and unmarked and obtrusive. There is a feeling of an adventure precisely because the size and scale of the game makes it feel like one. There is a feeling of helplessness in many situations because the game does make you helpless.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Well, during the course of this LP I've gotten quite used to the style of BaK. It seems like a mixed bag though, BaK dialogue interface looks better to me than BiA, there's just too much empty space there with BiA. The map that was briefly shown seemed a bit "easier" than BaK though.

Not sure about the "cartoony" characters, I might actually prefer BaK style despite the blockiness and other drawbacks.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
BIA looks good but I agree, that the screen looks a bit empty. How does it compare to BAK in the story and gameplay department ?
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
ghostdog said:
BIA looks good but I agree, that the screen looks a bit empty. How does it compare to BAK in the story and gameplay department ?
I only know of Erebus and Lonely Vazdru who have played it to completion. I have not played it.

It's criticized for linearity.
 

Erebus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
4,763
ghostdog said:
BIA looks good but I agree, that the screen looks a bit empty. How does it compare to BAK in the story and gameplay department ?

The art in BiA is better than in BaK, but not exactly impressive either.

The technical elements of the game are very close to BaK (it's meant as a spiritual sequel, after all).

You're not quite as free to move around as in BaK. The world is quite large and, in my opinion, more original and interesting than Midkemia. There are a huge lot of minor encounters (usually when you visit houses) : they're usually of good quality and contribute a lot to the atmosphere of the game. The writing style is different from BaK's, but it works fine too.

The story's probably not as good as BaK's. The plot's about as complex but the structure could have been better and we don't always have the same feeling of intensity as in BaK.

The PCs are reasonably interesting (about as much as Owyn and his pals, anyway), but they fall under the (admittedly common) cliché of "unlikely adventurers chosen by chance". What I like about the PCs of BaK is that, except for Owyn, they couldn't have avoided being involved in the story : either because of the path they had chosen for themselves (Gorath) or because of their allegiance (James, Locklear...), they couldn't possibly have stayed away from all this.

While I like the ending of BiA, it doesn't quite solve everything.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I recall combat in bia being more of a chore for some reason. Maybe it had more complex training mechanics. I also remember a shit load of dialogs and minor quest, but, critically, none or almost none that stick in the mind like some BaK ones - i don't know/remember why.

I remember playing BaK in dos. Then i got a pirate cd with all the lucasarts/sierra/dynamix adventures + quest for glories + some rpg + ultimas + centurium + rome 92 ad + darklands.

I thought all games were like this and the future was going to be awesome.

Then the world turned out to be shit and the cd literal flaked away while being washed in water (not by me) for some reason, turning it into a transparent boomerang.

One of the sierra games i most admired there, besides Gabriel Knight, was Conquests of the Longbow. That guy who is constantly spamming his admiration for its intelligent multi-solutions is right. Sierra tried and lucasarts excelled - but mostly didn't try.
 

Erebus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
4,763
SCO said:
I recall combat in bia being more of a chore for some reason.

The combat system's basically the same as in BaK and I find it pretty good (it even has wounded or losing enemies running away !). You don't have truly memorable fights but most of them are reasonably entertaining. One annoying thing is that, in the four middle chapters, you only get to manage two PCs : that makes strategy limited and some fights unfairly difficult (I once had my two guys ambushed by six archers and died before I could take the slightest action).

The most serious problem with BiA is that the farther you get in the game, the buggier it becomes. In the last chapter, doing anything at all (especially access your inventory) stands a chance of crashing the game. It doesn't make it impossible to finish the game (I did), but it's certainly annoying. There's apparently a patch to fix this but it doesn't work with my version (because Sierra hates foreigners), so I can't tell how well it works.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I crashed in the end puzzle. (The whole end sequence and reveal smelled like shit pulled from you know where), so i never did end it.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Problemrproblemproblem

In Chapter 8, Of Lands Afar, in the southeastern side of the map, which opens up later in the chapter, the game keeps freezing and stopping.

Is there, I don't know, a patch for this. I've played it three times before, and I have encountered minor glitches in that area, but now, I can simply not continue playing when I am in that area.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Pfft, all I need to do is stay there long enough to get the Strength Drain spell and the Valheru armour before it crashes again, and I can still continue.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Ah, that should do it.
 

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