Realms of Arkania Trilogy Rereleased

I saw this over at the competition the other day and noticed no one commented on it here. I'm more or less new so whats the Codex opinion of these games?

And would they be worth a purchase when they come out in the distant future?



Here is the link -

http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=10871

 

If you don't mind only being able to see a few feet in front of you and wandering around buildings that all look the same, by all means play them.

 

i recall some cats 'round here raving about Star Trail, i personally couldn't enjoy the majority of these "blob with arms" type of games. Ask theverybigslayer - he's balls deep into games that are almost as hard to get working as they are to play (and not for reasons of challenging game design).

 

I only tried the first one but I couldn't deal with the interface and the BAD manual. But with a slight graphical upgrade and a massive interface overhaul I'd be really interested.

Anyway, if they just re-release it as is I don't see any reason for buying it:

http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/realms-o ... f-destiny/
http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/realms-o ... tar-trail/
http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/realms-o ... over-riva/

 

This are probably my favorite RPG series of all time.

Here are the key differences

-Unlike many old RPGs has very strategic isometric combat, with action points
-Good dungeons
-Very extensive spell list, a good number of which you will actually use.
-Great exploration/travel system
-Low-magic/low-fantasy world
-Germanic/Scandinavian themed
-Great character system, with 'negative' (ie, character flaws) as well as positive attribute scores
-Leveling system is based on skill increase attempts, not points which I like - creating/leveling a character can take 20 minutes so it's quite strategic
-Tons of stats, skills etc
-Large number of 'classes'/character archetypes, so there are many party configurations possible
-6 member party (+1 or even 2 joinable NPCs)
-Lively towns, random encounters, interesting side quests, the possibility to get drunk/steal/gamble/play instruments in pubs
-In the first game, there's an XP penalty for saving outside of a Temple, which for me is a big plus
-Graphics/art are actually quite good even in #1 for the time
-Not many bugs

I noticed you started a Curse of the Azure bonds LP, if you are able to play that and enjoy it you'll love the RoA games.

Also I don't know what you're on about Mikayel, they're extremely easy to get working. Unless you think installing DosBox is complicated?

 

Bah, idiots like you are to blame for the dumbing down of games.
Since all three games use basically the same engine afaik, they might use the Riva version for all games, which sports free movement in the 3D areas iirc and an improved interface, compared to Blade of Destiny. I don't see how an overhaul would be necessary.

Low? I wouldn't call it low. There's quite a few magic items and NPC casters. Let's say medium. It does have a healthy share of magic, rather than the abundant presence of magic of games like Elder Scrolls.

 

It's low fantasy compared to Forgotten Realms which is the standard.

 

Wanting working fluid interfaces with belts that go around your waist instead of your left hand is dumbing down? I expected more from you, Claw. If you'd said that Riva adressed most of my criticisms (thus admitting that they were valid) we'd both have been happy. You for educating and helping a fellow codexer and me for finding a game that I (hopefully) will like. Now you just look like the worst kind of dumbfuck and I have to live with the disappointment that yet another codexer who seemed alright was in truth a fucking retard.

As far as I have read RoA is very low magic weapon-wise. Slight boni to attack or defense or an unbreakable trait being the most one can expect. And not many of them to boot. Compare that to +5 holy defenders of flaming death in recent D&D games or all the A(RPG)s built around magical items and weapons. The only fantasy rpg with similar low magic I can think of is Drakensang. Which coincidentally sees itself as successor to RoA
But I'm sure you can provide numerus examples of cRPGs with lower magic.

 

i didnt like riva that much (but its still pretty good compared to most other cRPG) but Blade of Destiny and Star Trail are must-plays.

Imho they re among the best cRPGs ever made and for me personally, star trail is THE best cRPG when it comes to actual gameplay.

granted, they re not that great in terms of writing/story but everything else more than makes up for that. enjoyable combat, great dungeons, a travelling system thats been almost perfect ..... and a huge world full of interesting stuff to do......

definitly playing them again over christmas, thats the one good thing that came with SoZ, waking my desire to play an actually good exploration game ^^

 

Because having one minor item slot in the wrong place is a terrible flaw in an RPG. Sorry but that makes you sound like a whiner. I think there are flaws in the interface using this one as the main example is ridiculous.

What do you mean by 'fluid interface'? You mean when moving around the map? RoA1 is step based static perspectives like PoR or EotB, RoA2 has animated transitions and RoA3 is continuous 3D.

I personally think RoA1 was the best because I'm not a LARPer and like clean, functional presentation of the world.

 

Er, Shannow, RoA interface simply involves right-clicking on the screen and perusing through a list of options that you click on.

If that does not float your boat, you click one of the icons on the right hand side.

If that does not float your boat, you click on one of the objects or items on the screen.

I agree that a good interface is a necessary aspect of a game and one has to be a dumbfuck to think otherwise, but what exactly was your problem with RoA's interface?

 

If only it didn't crawl along at a snail's pace. Coupled with the same encounters over and over again it got repetitive and tedious fast.

Hardly. There was a hanfdul of spells that were useful in combat and even fewer outside of it.

Probably the series' strongest point.

Matter of taste, but at least it wasn't the Sword Coast.

Too bad they mostly didn't matter apart from a few random encounters.

And could end up in a save/reload fest if the game decided to screw you over and fail all your important rolls at level up. I'm glad that system never became popular.

Sure enough; most of them useless.

I'll give you that.

True enough.

Questionable design decision, considering saving was mandatory as you never knew when you might get stuck in a dead end.

True enough.

Overall, they were enjoyable games, mostly for the exploration and "adventuring simulator" aspects, but with many flaws that could quickly lead to frustration.

 

Short attention span? You are right about the encounters, the low level goblin ones should have been reduced as you became more experienced, that's probably the biggest flaw to me. The harpy attacks when you're in the mountains are particularly annoying because they don't give much XP don't drop loot, but can be very deadly when your party has been weakened (when you're resting after having just finished a dungeon, on your way back to a town to save the game).

I used at least twenty, in the average fight about seven would be used regularly.

If you enjoy cheating then any game which isn't mandatory iron man (deleting your saves) is going to have flaws. The solution would be to get rid of all random rolls and turn RPGs into 'choose-your-adventure' interactive novels.

Don't see your point here. There were several save slots you could use and I don't think I ever got stuck in a dead end. I only reloaded an old game if one of my characters died, and not even then, sometimes I'd carry on and create a new level one character and pick him up in the next town.

 

Das Schwarze Auge kicks ass. By all means try it out, it´s a classic.

By the way, does anyone know where to get a copy of the first two games in german? I can only find the english translations.

 

I played Star Trail for a few hours. It was pretty damn tedious. The combat was lame, no better than any other turn based combat, worse than Gold Box games. The spellcasting classes were pretty lame since they had a lot of spells that basically did the exact same thing in combat (freeze/sleep/incapacitate an enemy), and so on. I suppose exploring dungeons might have been fun if I ever got that far. Trying to find one's way around town was a massive pain in the ass since the buildings all looked alike, and the map system was a pain in the ass to use.


All in all, it was a boring and frustrating experience for me... I can appreciate that the game had some interesting features (esp wilderness movement and survival) but it wasn't interesting in a particularly fun way. Maybe the game picked up later or something, but from what I saw it was pretty weak.

 

I p. much agree with everything. All moronic pussies who cant stand the interface (i.e. jammie lenister), please get raped in the darkroom of a gay disco. thx.

 

And what about the Spirit of Adventure?
http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/spirit-of-adventure/

 

Wow, never heard of that before. Any good?

 

Don't try to pretend that I'm a moron just to feel superior. I'm getting quite an impression why "normal" people hate fanbois. (And to think that your response was the most reasonable...)
Ok, since you asked with some civility: The game is sluggish. May be DOSbox, may be the game, may be my system, doesn't matter it feels like playing NWN2 all over again. It's especially bad in combat where I have to hover over the enemy for about 2 seconds with my mouse before the game reacts and shows him as a valid target. Then it has the "make all subscreens hard to access" syndrome. No buttons for inventory or char screens. Inventory management is a chore. If I right-click an item I want information about it not access a menue that grants access to the character or spells screen, etc. If I drag an item over the eye I want information about its usefulness/stats not "hammer" or "shortsword". Tool-tips would have been great. Moving items between chars by dragging and dropping over the char's portrait not possible. Instead clicke the arrow for next char is required up to 3 times depending who you want to access (did I mention that it was sluggish?).
Ranged attacks only possible in straight lines. A hex field instead of a square field in combat would also have been better. Weapon categories on par with Oblivion: cudgels, flails, whips are cutting weapons, skraja (axe-like weapon) also cutting, war axe is a two handed sword and so on and so forth.
And yes, item slots for special items like belts and amulets are nice.

Don't forget that this was Claw attacking me for wishing "to dumb RoA" down when I said that i'd expect an interface (especially inventory) over-haul and slight graphical improvements (being able to look farther than two squares and to tell shops from residences as well as a better auto-map would be nice) before I buy a re-release of a game that is freely available. Now tell me exactly what about the suggestions I made has anything to do with dumbing down.
It is fine I you all don't have any problems with the interface. I wish I could say the same because there really is a game I'd like to play underneath that. Not having a problem with something doesn't mean that that something doesn't have potential for vast (but relativly easily implemented) improvements. And telling me I'm the reason for all dumbing down in cRPG history for suggesting RoA is not perfect and can be improved is simply ridiculous.

 

I have to ask, have you ever played an RPG made before 1997? It's a fuckin' DOS game, of course there are no tool tips. Why should you expect right-click to bring up a context menu for the item selected? It wasn't the standard in those days, that's post Windows 95 stuff. That right-click does anything at all is evidence that it was ahead of it's time as an RPG. "Drag-and-drop" similarly.

The lag is entirely due to you not knowing how to use Dos-BOX (maybe read the readme?).

Ranged attacks only in straight lines applies only to RoA1, it was an obvious flaw and they fixed it.

The map is fine, at a time when some RPGs didn't even have automaps, you don't need to see more than two squares ahead because all the tiles of each type look the same (again, as standard). It would add zero gameplay functionality. And you can move with the auto-map open by the way.

I really don't know what to say. If your biggest criticism is the interface you cannot have played any RPG (or any genre) earlier than the mid 90s and liked them. The interface was one of it's best features, RoA do have many flaws that I would criticize them for (story linearity, quest variety, NPCs) which you apparently don't care about. I would never suggest they're perfect (far from it), nor would Claw or Wyrmlord, but you're just grasping... in a way that seems silly.

If you care to try again, use Ctrl-F12 in Dos-BOX to increase CPU cycles, and forget the mouse except to right-click to access menus. Everything can and IMO should be done with the keyboard in this game (very easy to get used to), I think you would enjoy it a lot more.


edit:
Wait... you think we are 'pressuring' you to buy the game? I never bought any of the Realms of Arkania, I wouldn't expect you to. I actually would find it funny if anyone bought this 're-release' in 2008. Maybe that's the problem. Apart from that I don't know why you'd care what I'd think, the game is freely available... I don't place the same standards on games whose only cost is the electricity of few minutes download time.

 

From what I understand they will be completely XP/Vista compatible like what the guys at GOG are doing. I don't speak German so I can't be completely sure. Maybe with the change they will update the interface a bit but I doubt it. But at least we won’t have to mess with DosBox to play them.

 

All they say is that they will be the "full CD versions" with Windows launchers.

 

Oh, Shannow, I think the sluggishness may have to do with the number of CPU cycles. You should keep on pressing ctrl+f12, until it's 20,000. You have to manually adjust speed in DosBox.

Anyway, I agree with MisterStone's evaluation of Star Trail. RoA has a good system but in its actual application, I couldn't find anything fun in my time spent on it.

You know, this complaint applies to alot of turn-based combat games.

Don't fucking show the animations. Seriously, fucking don't. In the Gold Box games, you select the character to move to a certain point, he is instantly standing there. Same in Vogel's games. I don't want to see that orc trudging through half the battlefied before I get my turn. Turn-based combat should be functionally accessible. Animations have no point in it.

 

didn't mean arkania specifically but i remember reading theverybigslayer saying how he had to use different versions of dosbox for certain games and that he would still encounter some problems. regardless, any game that requires an operating system emulator to run is past the point of "simple to get running", so yeah

 

Everything is relative of course, but I wouldn't class the standard in games as "normal" in the first place. "Low-magic" doesn't equal "lower than the average fantasy game" imo.
There is still an abundance of magic classes and NPCs, magical monsters, magic items that should fill up your party's belt and amulet slots plus some magic weapons and armor and finally gods that can do small wonders for you.
You may not be able to fill every single equpiment slot with magic items, but in some cases you'll have more magic items than you can equip.
That's too much magic for me to consider it low, no matter how overloaded with magic "standard" games are.

Low magic, for me, would mean that magic is truly rare or maybe very subtle in the game. If I can make a party of wizards shooting magic missiles - and I mean Fulminictus - I have a very hard time considering it "low magic" and I am just saying that for the sake of explaining my point of view; it's not debateable.

I did state that the interface was improved. Actually, Trails introduced most improvements in the series, but that is all secondary. Bethout has a pretty shitty interface and I haven't seen anyone suggest that it's not worth playing because of that.

Besides, you didn't really post any criticisms for me to admit being valid unless you count the general "interface in need of an overhaul" which I specifically want to state isn't valid. I don't know about the manual, I never read it since I played Trail first, and I felt I only needed a single manual for all three games.

Given that you even linked to a website providing screenshots of all three games - you even went to the trouble of linking to seperate pages for each game, which confuses me alot since I cannot imagine what your intention behind that action was - you could've fucking educated yourself. Took me maybe a minute to find a screenshot of Trail's inventory.
You basically dismissed the whole series based on some flaws of the first one. The RoA series is many years old and has been praised and discussed on the Codex numerous times, yet you could only come up with a two-liner lamblasting the interface. Even my reply to you was deeper than that, and you wonder why I called you an idiot?
Look, just stop behaving like one and I'll stop calling you one. Calling other people dumbfucks isn't really making you look any smarter either.

Bah, I live with that disappointment on a regular basis, although I rarely go to the trouble of pointing out when I feel something someone said made it look like he were suffering from dementia, like Saint's "my refrigator works after 50 years, so it's plausible that computers work after 200, but cars don't."

Good for you. Let's talk about how "low-magic" RoA is again after you've played through the entire series with a single party which is now decked out with magic gear. Swords, armor, amulets, rings, belts, boots and some miscellaneous stuff.
Decked out like a veritable magical christmas tree.

I don't see your point. How is BoD's presentation of the world cleaner or more functional than Trail's?

No, I said "idiots like you are to blame for the dumbing down of games" which isn't the same thing at all. If you're willing to forego a series because of some interface issues, you're sending the message that you want games to be easy to play first and foremost, and the easiest way to do that is to make games simple, which often means dumb.

Oh, and of course your ignorance sharpened my tongue. Well, fingers, technically. I make no apologies. Your post was an insult. Had you posted detailed criticism, you'd have elicited a different response, but for a dismissive two-liner deserved a slap in the face.

PS:
Also, "freely available" is relative. After all, Far Cry 2 is "freely available" so why buy it?