taxalot plays Quest for Glory

[Unkillable Cat]

You're both right, I knew that QFG3 was added into the plan, but I couldn't remember 100% who had ordered it. Thanks for the clear-up.

Sceptic I never said I disagreed with you 100%... just on some things. For example I prefer to play as a Thief, but QFG2 is not my favorite in the series (but QFG4).

 

[HanoverF]

I played a thief in QfG 1 and 2 and when I imported him into 3 he was a paladin

 

[Cael]

Thief/Mage basically allows you to do most of the stuff in the series. Being a pure fighter or paladin closes off a lot of things to you.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Another question : anyway to import your dosbox QFG2 character in a ScummVM QFG3 ?

http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Quest_for_Glory_III

It is possible to import a character from the previous Quest for Glory games into Quest for Glory III and continue from the stats earned from those games. If you want to use a saved character from the original sierra interpreter, you will need to rename the character file to "qfg2-[character-filename].sav" and place it in the ScummVM save path, otherwise the file won't get listed on the import screen.

 

[TheWorld]

Quest for Glory 3 is the first one I have played in the series and so I am very fond of that game. It's definitively not among the series best (my ranking is 4 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 5, where 5 is the only one I don't really enjoy) but it's still a game full of charm.

For once, I think the setting is beautiful. Tarna (even though you are limited to few locations) is a joy to visit, and other locations, like the tree and the Simbani village, are equally beautiful. Rakeesh and Uhura are among the best characters in the saga, and they are joined by a few other nice characters, like Kreesha and the vendors in Tarna. Unfortunately the thief gets very little cool stuff to do in the game. The warrior and the wizard, instead, have some of the best set-pieces in the saga.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'd say my ranking is 4-1-2-3-5, even though 4 is the buggiest of them by far. Other than that, you can't go wrong playing any of 1-4 imo. 5 was just unfortunate, but there are still good things in it. I think it falls a bit because they were trying to get multiplayer elements into it, as well as the transition to 3D models which is brutal in every game around that time.

 

[FireKing]

QFGI and QFGII EGA versions are the best ones out of the series by far.

 

[taxalot]

I am playing QFG3 and I must say I find the experience a bit puzzling.

The story is great. The setting is great. The art is great. But after progressing a bit, I'm not entirely sure how the game expects me to figure out what to do. I reached a point where I pretty much knew not what to do to get the story moving forward. I train a bit. I go out and fight monsters. I got the dispel potions, had the vision in the temple and quickly lost track of whatever the hell I was supposed to do.

Eventually, I had to check on a walkthrough : apparently, I needed to give food to the thief three nights in a row ? The hell ? How is one supposed to figure that out ? Just to tell him about Rakeesh although that seemed like it achieved nothing ?

Then I hear a prisoner is supposed to appear somewhere ; but to trigger this, I have to... train my spear throwing skill ? What ? Well, he's still
not there, I guess I'll train some more.

And how was I to figure that this one time, because there was an empty extra seat in the inn, someone would show up and talk to me while sitting down was always a useless action ?

Did I miss something ? Was anything about this hinted anywhere ?

 

[Cael]

I am playing QFG3 and I must say I find the experience a bit puzzling.

The story is great. The setting is great. The art is great. But after progressing a bit, I'm not entirely sure how the game expects me to figure out what to do. I reached a point where I pretty much knew not what to do to get the story moving forward. I train a bit. I go out and fight monsters. I got the dispel potions, had the vision in the temple and quickly lost track of whatever the hell I was supposed to do.

Eventually, I had to check on a walkthrough : apparently, I needed to give food to the thief three nights in a row ? The hell ? How is one supposed to figure that out ? Just to tell him about Rakeesh although that seemed like it achieved nothing ?

Then I hear a prisoner is supposed to appear somewhere ; but to trigger this, I have to... train my spear throwing skill ? What ? Well, he's still
not there, I guess I'll train some more.

And how was I to figure that this one time, because there was an empty extra seat in the inn, someone would show up and talk to me while sitting down was always a useless action ?

Did I miss something ? Was anything about this hinted anywhere ?

That is pretty much classic Sierra. They do all sorts of obscure things. In QfG2, there was no warning of one of the elementals and if you didn't happen to stumble upon it during the 2 days it is there, you get a game over.

 

[SCO]

QFG3 is the weakest qfg precisely because of bad pacing and unobvious triggers. Many other QFGs had 'points of no return' or stand-alone segments be initiated by the player, but most didn't place idiotic requirements, provided alternate paths, or just let you die. You can tell it was rushed, especially at the end, even QFG5 has better reactivity.

Many of the things you're mentioning about (the stat requirements for certain classes for fallbacks) pass unremarked if you're the typical Qfg obsessive optimizer player - these exist in order not to get into a walking dead situation for a 'event', probably because of complaints by idiot lucasarts players previously.

QFG3 aggravates this because it really really wants to give a party at the end. Sometimes this is used to good effect (like the opportunity for a fighter to become a paladin in the middle of this game by Rakesh intervention if you do certain things, which was previously only available at the end of qfg2 - for all classes thou), but the problem is that it doesn't actually have the necessary fallbacks and alternate paths to muddle through not getting a npc for their 'band of brothers' narrative (more like band of NTR lol), so you're forced to go through all of the npcs sidestories and you can't go 'oh yeah, i had more to do to get that guy'.

BTW, the QFG with the best combat system is hilariously or not, the QFG2 VGA fan remake. The genie stat bonuses all actually do something important besides saving training time on the sequel import.

 

[Sceptic]

I'm not entirely sure how the game expects me to figure out what to do. I reached a point where I pretty much knew not what to do to get the story moving forward. I train a bit. I go out and fight monsters. I got the dispel potions, had the vision in the temple and quickly lost track of whatever the hell I was supposed to do.

People attribute weak pacing and unobvious triggers to QFG3, but most of those are actually scripting bugs that cause hints or conversations to not appear, which leaves you having to guess what to do or consult a walkthrough. I'm not excusing them because stuck is stuck, no matter the reason, just pointing out differences between bad design and bad QA.

Eventually, I had to check on a walkthrough : apparently, I needed to give food to the thief three nights in a row ? The hell ? How is one supposed to figure that out ?

The thief is supposed to come to you (you really can't miss it; the game goes in cutscene mode when he approaches you) in the market, during the day, and asks you to come talk to him at night. When you do come back he says he's starving, and if you give him money he even emphasizes it's useless to him because nobody will sell him anything. Figuring out you should give him food is pretty obvious at this point. And when you leave he begs you to come check on him again - another hint. Unfortunately the initial daytime cutscene script fails to trigger sometimes, and so you never know he's waiting for you unless you randomly walk into the market at night.

Then I hear a prisoner is supposed to appear somewhere ; but to trigger this, I have to... train my spear throwing skill ? What ? Well, he's still not there, I guess I'll train some more.

Not quite. Each class is told of a class-specific thing you need to do (train for the initiation ritual, get the mage staff, or sneak around and try (and fail) to find the Lost City). Part way through these the prisoner appears. It's not as unobvious as you think... unless some scripts fail to trigger, leaving you wondering what you're supposed to do next.

And how was I to figure that this one time, because there was an empty extra seat in the inn, someone would show up and talk to me while sitting down was always a useless action ?

This is the only one I'll actually disagree with you on, because I never even imagined someone having trouble with it, and it's certainly not a complaint I've ever heard in the 27 years the game's been out.

Did I miss something ? Was anything about this hinted anywhere ?

Pretty much of all them are supposed to be hinted, and most of the time you can't actually avoid seeing the hint... unless a scripting bug occurs.

QFG4 is notorious for bugginess, but QFG3 wasn't much better. I think the only reason it got a (relative) pass was because none of the bugs were actually game-breaking. They do make it very hard to play blind unfortunately.

 

[taxalot]

Okay. I think I am about to give up on Qfg3. It is getting likely I have hit a show stopping bug.

The Laibon tells me the price to buy the leopardwoman. He will not allow me to give the items though I own them all. If I leave the hut, I can never go back in. I have zero idea what to do. No walkthrough seems to acknowledge the issue.

 

[Cael]

Okay. I think I am about to give up on Qfg3. It is getting likely I have hit a show stopping bug.

The Laibon tells me the price to buy the leopardwoman. He will not allow me to give the items though I own them all. If I leave the hut, I can never go back in. I have zero idea what to do. No walkthrough seems to acknowledge the issue.

1 robe, 1 spear, 5 zebra skins?

Did you use the dispel potion on the leopardwoman?

 

[taxalot]

Okay I am just a terrible human being. It turns out that I merely have 1 zebra skin. And I am outnof money.

I guess it is grinding time, although i have avoided combat altogether since the start of the game. There is not much i fear that my thief can handle, but I am bound to find some weak crap and progress from there.

I also tried stealing the drum and got killed each time in the process. So that is another skill I will have to work on.

 

[Cael]

Okay I am just a terrible human being. It turns out that I merely have 1 zebra skin. And I am outnof money.

I guess it is grinding time, although i have avoided combat altogether since the start of the game. There is not much i fear that my thief can handle, but I am bound to find some weak crap and progress from there.

I also tried stealing the drum and got killed each time in the process. So that is another skill I will have to work on.

*facepalm* *whacks taxalot upside the head*

It is a Sierra game! Read everything! Remember everything! Write everything down!

Or you're in deep doo-doo :D

 

[taxalot]

It is hardly the first Sierra game I play. But this is clearly the most confusing one. While the solution to a Sierra puzzle is not always obvious, it is always a clear there is a puzzle. In QFG3, a lot of triggers appear to be random.Having to enter and exit a random screen to make the leopardwoman appear was just insane.

 

[Cael]

It is hardly the first Sierra game I play. But this is clearly the most confusing one. While the solution to a Sierra puzzle is not always obvious, it is always a clear there is a puzzle. In QFG3, a lot of triggers appear to be random.Having to enter and exit a random screen to make the leopardwoman appear was just insane.

Yeah. QfG3 has a lot of broken triggers, which makes things interesting above and beyond the usual Sierra shenanigans.

 

[taxalot]

And... completed.

What a terrible game, in all seriousness. Not to mention the problems with the irrational triggers to make the stories move, this was the only difficulty present in the game for me. The rest was easy as pie. But there is also just the lack of stuff to do. When you look at the others that were quite self-contained also, this game is incredibly small in scope. I don't think as a thief I managed to steal anything yet apparently I solved the game with the majority of aventure points scored. The city was tiny. There is a lack of overall activities to do and it's also incredibly short.

Oh well, QFG4 is next and from what I read might suit my expectations a lot better. I want to play Life is Strange : Before the Storm that I picked up cheaply on sale before I do though, as a break and change of pace.

 

[mediocrepoet]

QfG3 is pretty good but small in a lot of ways. It's the worst one by far for thief though because of the types of settlements in the game. I think they were more interested in portraying a type of setting than feeding all the class types, and generally succeeded but it kind of screws thief playthroughs.

 

[Cael]

The approach to solving problems are still different for each class. Even how you take out the Demon Mage is different. There isn't much places that you can steal stuff for fun and profit that other classes don't get, but that is about it. Even the other games only give you 2 or so places you can steal stuff that is not strictly required for game completion.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The approach to solving problems are still different for each class. Even how you take out the Demon Mage is different. There isn't much places that you can steal stuff for fun and profit that other classes don't get, but that is about it. Even the other games only give you 2 or so places you can steal stuff that is not strictly required for game completion.

That's true, but thief was one of my more favoured classes in general for QfG and I found 3 to be disappointing with what they had for it since breaking in to things and stealing crap is a big part of that class. Like paladin had additional conversations, mage had the duel and building your staff, etc. Fighter sort of doesn't count because after QfG2, fighter is more like paladin -, rather than paladin being fighter +.

 

[TheWorld]

And... completed.

What a terrible game, in all seriousness. Not to mention the problems with the irrational triggers to make the stories move, this was the only difficulty present in the game for me. The rest was easy as pie. But there is also just the lack of stuff to do. When you look at the others that were quite self-contained also, this game is incredibly small in scope. I don't think as a thief I managed to steal anything yet apparently I solved the game with the majority of aventure points scored. The city was tiny. There is a lack of overall activities to do and it's also incredibly short.

Oh well, QFG4 is next and from what I read might suit my expectations a lot better. I want to play Life is Strange : Before the Storm that I picked up cheaply on sale before I do though, as a break and change of pace.

I remember getting stuck for a long time in QFG3 when I was a kid because I didn't understand you could use the mouth icon on your character to say things XD. There are some points in the game where you can't proceed without doing that. I don't remember ever having many problems with broken triggers. It's true that you have less direction but usually by exploring the different locations and then coming back once in a while to the jungle or tarna I could get everything.

I think you will enjoy the 4th one more. When it came out it was a riddled mess of bugs but I think you can play it without problems today (I completed it several times in dosbox without issues). Some great characters in that one (I still remember fondly the old guys at the pub)

 

[Serus]

And... completed.

What a terrible game, in all seriousness. Not to mention the problems with the irrational triggers to make the stories move, this was the only difficulty present in the game for me. The rest was easy as pie. But there is also just the lack of stuff to do. When you look at the others that were quite self-contained also, this game is incredibly small in scope. I don't think as a thief I managed to steal anything yet apparently I solved the game with the majority of aventure points scored. The city was tiny. There is a lack of overall activities to do and it's also incredibly short.

Oh well, QFG4 is next and from what I read might suit my expectations a lot better. I want to play Life is Strange : Before the Storm that I picked up cheaply on sale before I do though, as a break and change of pace.

I remember getting stuck for a long time in QFG3 when I was a kid because I didn't understand you could use the mouth icon on your character to say things XD. There are some points in the game where you can't proceed without doing that. I don't remember ever having many problems with broken triggers. It's true that you have less direction but usually by exploring the different locations and then coming back once in a while to the jungle or tarna I could get everything.

I think you will enjoy the 4th one more. When it came out it was a riddled mess of bugs but I think you can play it without problems today (I completed it several times in dosbox without issues). Some great characters in that one (I still remember fondly the old guys at the pub)

I once played QfG3, got stuck at some point in the middle of the game - didn't have a walkthrough (or even no easy internet access back then) so I abandoned it. Left a sour taste in my mouth. The game also felt small and empty compared to 1 and 4. QfG1 and 4 on the other hand are glorious, I have to play part 2 one of these days. Part 5 was meh. QfG1 is probably the only adventure game I have ever finished without any hints or walkthrough at all. But then i've always sucked at adventure games. And yes part 4 is cool both when it comes to actually creepy/horror moments and good humour.

 

[SerratedBiz]

So maybe I'm an outlier, and maybe my game was magically released bug-free (as in both the original floppy discs and, later on, the Anthology version), but I've finished QfG3 multiple times with every class without any game-breaking bugs or missing triggers or anything else.

I understand that being part of the bandwagon is the cool thing to do in the Codex, but QfG3 is a solid game. The fact that you couldn't figure out that clicking the mouth on yourself allows you to say things is your problem - namely, that you didn't read the manual - not the game's. It's akin to ragging on QfG2's maze (which people have already done in the other thread) because you couldn't follow the manual's directions to get to the money changer.

 

[Serus]

So maybe I'm an outlier, and maybe my game was magically released bug-free (as in both the original floppy discs and, later on, the Anthology version), but I've finished QfG3 multiple times with every class without any game-breaking bugs or missing triggers or anything else.

I understand that being part of the bandwagon is the cool thing to do in the Codex, but QfG3 is a solid game. The fact that you couldn't figure out that clicking the mouth on yourself allows you to say things is your problem - namely, that you didn't read the manual - not the game's. It's akin to ragging on QfG2's maze (which people have already done in the other thread) because you couldn't follow the manual's directions to get to the money changer.

So let me see:
- "I personally haven't experienced something therefore it doesn't exist". Check
- "Someone doesn't like something I like/have different opinion than mine, he must be part of some "bandwagon", no way he just disliked something on his own". Check
- A nice big strawman to end the post (TheWorld haven't even hinted at his lack of knowledge about a game function being the problem of the game). Check



5/5, would read post again.