Game News Kult Patches Up To 1.3

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: 3D People; Kult: Heretic Kingdoms

3D People has released a new patch for Kult: Heretic Kingdoms to update their enjoyable, innovative but relatively unreceived fantasy CRPG to version 1.3. This upgrade adds considerable mod support, and a variety of performance related upgrades including memory management and usage improvements, and decreased loading times.
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You can grab the patch at the <a href=http://www.3dpeople.de/Kult_Heretic_Kingdoms_Patch_1_3.exe>official site</a> or from <a href=http://www.3dgamers.com/games/kult/downloads/>3D Gamers</a>.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Nice. Time to fire it up again.

I fully support this game and I just hope it has at least a mediocre recieving when released in the states this year. It truly is a decent game both in innovation and story.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yeap. My only big qualm (I wasn't expecting much, as it's not an AAA title) with playing the game were the loading times and the memory problems. Nice to see that they've fixed it.

 

[Lady Armageddona]

I have to admire 3d people, who in only bout 3 months have made up all the cons of Kult with only 3 patches.
Except the game being quite short, but since now there is a mod utility, that may salvage it.

 

[taks]

any word on when the game will be available in the states?

taks

 

[Fresh]

3D People has released a new patch for Kult: Heretic Kingdoms to update their enjoyable, innovative but relatively unreceived fantasy CRPG to version 1.3.

In what way is it innovative? I havent played it.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

In what way is it innovative? I havent played it.

The attunement system is the innovative feature. It plays out alot like the skill system in Final Fantasy 9 did, but takes it to a new and better level. To put it quick and dirty, when you equip an item, you can learn the ability that the item has attached to it. You can mix and match and get different combinations. Some of these are magical, others are like the perks from Fallout and there are tons of them.

Add a great storyline and you've got a top notch cRPG. And, yes, I too am pretty pleased with 3D People for the support they've given this game. I cannot wait to see what they can do with more money.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I've been replaying Kult with the newest patch (I forgot about 1.2) and it looks a LOT better now that it supports resolutions up to 1600x1200 (I'm running at 1280x960) with 24 bit or 32 bit (a waste) graphics. Most monitors can only output as much as 16.7 million colors, so anything higher than 24 bits is a huge waste, which explains why Nvidia cards are so horrible on the Source engine, since that engine renders its graphics in 24 bits, the Nvidia cards have to interpret them or something like that, but I digress.

Looks awesome at high res.

Here's the change list from 1.2:

Patch 1.2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fixes the following problems:
- fixed accidental crash with camping plus savegame
- fixed crash when opening the quest window
- fixed not disappearing HexMark in Vale of Tears
- fixed a few movement map problems
- fixed a few minor graphic problems
The following -UNSUPPORTED- features are also in this patch:
- it is now possible to alter the resolution and color mode.
In the config.cfg you can find gr_resolution and gr_color, which both can be changed.
Valid resolutions are:
gr_resolution= 1 for 1024x768 (default)
gr_resolution= 2 for 1280x960
gr_resolution= 3 for 1600x1200
gr_color can be 16,24 or 32
Extreme zooming out in higher resolutions can cause slowdowns and we recommend against
doing so!!
- fixed gameplay on Windows 95/98/Me. This is how to enable play on these OS:
Change font display from ttf to graphical.
(you can switch graphical and ttf fonts in the config.cfg file, gr_font= 1
is for graphical, gr_font= 0 for ttf, default is ttf)

 

[suibhne]

Where did you guys pick up Kult? I'm used to GoGamer as my source for imports, but they don't seem to have carried the UK printing of this.

 

[Shagnak]

I've been replaying Kult with the newest patch (I forgot about 1.2) and it looks a LOT better now that it supports resolutions up to 1600x1200 (I'm running at 1280x960) with 24 bit or 32 bit (a waste) graphics.

Well, I don't know what they/you mean by "32 bit colour", but back when I did a bit of multimedia programming, we used the last 8 bits of 32 bit colour as alpha bits - for transparency etc. In respect to "number of colours" there was no difference between this and 24 bits.

As pointed out for example here: http://plug.org.in/pipermail/plug-mail/ ... 06170.html
(note that the info about Radeon cards is rather obsolete)

Though "monitors only supporting 24 bits" is sounds right to me (8 bits per colour channel - RGB), does this really mean that the other 8 bits are a waste? Perhaps more colours can be "manufactured" via mixing and alpha transparency? And if they can, can we see them? (well, the geezer in the above link obviously reckons he can...).

I don't know why 24 bit vs 32 bits stuff is an issue, I try to avoid all that fanboy flamefest stuff, but I have seen it bandied around everywhere. But surely converting from 32 bits to 24 bits is simple? A simple bit-mask will do it . But perhaps even that is an extra processing step per pixel, so that is what introduces performance issues?

Lotsa question marks there. Err...next time I'll just resist

 

[Shagnak]

And back on topic somewhat:

Whats with the distributors of Kult?

Is this title available in the UK? If so, why don;t we have it down here in NZ?
We're part of the Commonwealth, so if there is no local AUS/NZ version we usually get the UK version. And I can't find this game anywhere locally!

 

[Sol Invictus]

I admit I had to download the game because I couldn't buy it online anywhere much less in a retail outlet. It kind of sucks when you have to resort to piracy just because the publishers aren't doing their jobs.

 

[Lady Armageddona]

I do believe that some time ago I read on RPGDot that the game is available in the US. I am not entirely sure how, since I don't live in the US and basically don't care much, but If you check on the Dot, I am sure you can find out more.

 

[Jed]

What's the setting like for this game? How does the combat play out? Any short-hand comparisons?

 

[Dhruin]

Merscom is the US distie. I reviewed it but I'll let regular Codexers give their opinion.

Ed. Spelling.

 

[Karl]

Pretty good review from IdleThumbs: http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=58

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

What's the setting like for this game? How does the combat play out? Any short-hand comparisons?

You play an inquisitor who is set the task of finding and destroying a sword of immense power. Along the way you are faced with many moral decisions that will ultimately affect people (and sometimes places) around you as well as what ending you get.

Combat is played out just like any normal action-RPG (i.e. - Diablo 2). Nothing new there.

I love the game though. The story is spectacular, as is the moral choices ladder spread throughout the game. You can cause different effects through the different choices and, while pretty much superficial and not anything world changing, it gives a better illusion of immersion.

For example: you may run across a merchant dealing in stolen goods whom you can either turn into the local guard and recieve a bonus for making the moral choice, or you can not turn him in when the chance arises and later on in the game he ends up having a huge stock of high quality items at low prices, but you've also let a criminal go and this might affect certain NPCs you encounter later.

Combine that with the Attunement system, and you've got a decent game all in all.

 

[Jed]

Hmmm, I might have to track this down, Otaku. Thanks for the info.