CRPGAddict

[Morblot]

Pool of Radiance (the original) is great after you learn to deal with its somewhat kludgy interface. I'm a dumbass millennial with no backbone but it was so good I finished it anyway without any walkthroughs or FAQs or gold box companions*. Even drew my own maps!

(*Granted, I had read the CRPG Addict blog about it, but that's all.)

 

[BruceVC]

I have been browsing on GOG to loot at the most cost effective and practical way to buy these games

http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/list-of-the-must-play-games.55367
Just take any game from the first part of the list. If you like its subgenre or elements - it should be right up your alley. For example, if you like exploration-heavy RPGs, Exiles, Wiz7 and Might and Magics are a must. Focus on the TB-combat? Nahlakh. Strange worlds? Aleshar, Exile 1-2, Dark Sun...

How did you find Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, I heard the creator and developer is a Codex member? What an achievement creating a game more or less by yourself

 

[BruceVC]

Pool of Radiance (the original) is great after you learn to deal with its somewhat kludgy interface. I'm a dumbass millennial with no backbone but it was so good I finished it anyway without any walkthroughs or FAQs or gold box companions*. Even drew my own maps!

(*Granted, I had read the CRPG Addict blog about it, but that's all.)

Its good to know younger people also enjoy these Gold Box set games

 

[Morblot]

Its good to know younger people also enjoy these Gold Box set games

Well, I'm 35, so not exactly young anymore...

I wonder if people who've never used DOS running on real hardware have the stomach for PoR?

 

[Fowyr]

How did you find Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar,

Absolute masterpiece with some wrinkles.
Citing myself from 2017:

New players? Fuck new players. Reasoning like yours gave us Fallout 3 and other abominations. I was sold when I held game in my grasp and saw that it's Wizardry. It's buggy, sometimes cumbersome, but fucking brilliant Wizardry. Fuck you all with your balance, fuck your "muh UI", fuck your "muh Armorplate is not visible in the charsheet"! Nothing of it matters! Because it's fucking Wizardry. It's the only game that could scratch my Wizardry 6/7 itch since fucking Wizardry 7!
My sage can't raise Music even for +1 in new version. Is it bad? Yes, it's bad, but it's a fucking Wizardry.
I can't raise throwing by flinging 50 daggers in general direction of bugs and moths? Fuck throwing. Most of throwable things are broken anyway. And it's a fucking Wizardry.
Stealth is not raising? Ok, but I already have two characters with Stealth 100 from version 1.0

Nothing fucking matters. Nothing. Because this mad megalomaniac Cleve brought the old magic back. He made fucking Wizardry!

Just look at exploding insects. Look at magic screen. Look at dungeons. Read purple prose. Disarm trap on the chest. Solve puzzle.

Yea, it's Wizardry. And I'm happy.

I heard the creator and developer is a Codex member? What an achievement creating a game more or less by yourself

He came to Codex because thought that it was full of trolls who belittle his unfinished game. Stayed for the atmosphere.
By the way, check another great Codexian game:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/note-of-the-outskirts-blobber-by-cryptrat.136541/

 

[BruceVC]

How did you find Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar,

Absolute masterpiece with some wrinkles.
Citing myself from 2017:

New players? Fuck new players. Reasoning like yours gave us Fallout 3 and other abominations. I was sold when I held game in my grasp and saw that it's Wizardry. It's buggy, sometimes cumbersome, but fucking brilliant Wizardry. Fuck you all with your balance, fuck your "muh UI", fuck your "muh Armorplate is not visible in the charsheet"! Nothing of it matters! Because it's fucking Wizardry. It's the only game that could scratch my Wizardry 6/7 itch since fucking Wizardry 7!
My sage can't raise Music even for +1 in new version. Is it bad? Yes, it's bad, but it's a fucking Wizardry.
I can't raise throwing by flinging 50 daggers in general direction of bugs and moths? Fuck throwing. Most of throwable things are broken anyway. And it's a fucking Wizardry.
Stealth is not raising? Ok, but I already have two characters with Stealth 100 from version 1.0

Nothing fucking matters. Nothing. Because this mad megalomaniac Cleve brought the old magic back. He made fucking Wizardry!

Just look at exploding insects. Look at magic screen. Look at dungeons. Read purple prose. Disarm trap on the chest. Solve puzzle.

Yea, it's Wizardry. And I'm happy.

I heard the creator and developer is a Codex member? What an achievement creating a game more or less by yourself

He came to Codex because thought that it was full of trolls who belittle his unfinished game. Stayed for the atmosphere.
By the way, check another great Codexian game:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/note-of-the-outskirts-blobber-by-cryptrat.136541/

I know I keep saying this but I never played any of the Wizardry games either but the main reason for me not playing all these older RPG , that include Ultima and M&M, was because I grew up in the last 15 years of Apartheid in the 1980's or so and sanctions prevented access to much fantasy products. But I did buy fantasy goods in London and the USA in the 1980's where I was fortunate enough to go on holiday once a year

So I also have added the Wizardry series to my list and I particularly like the history and design of Grimoire so that is definitely at the top of my list of classis RPG to play

 

[Fowyr]

I know I keep saying this but I never played any of the Wizardry games either

Just keep in mind that it could be easily divided into several categories.
Original series (Wiz1-3) - purest and quintessential dungeon crawlers
A very special game for fans (Wiz4), just like Chaos Strikes Back is Dungeon Master with hardcoreness to the max. Plus some interesting ideas like wandering NPCs (as I remember) that later became a staple.
Unfinished Bradley's game plus Wiz1-3 that became Wiz5.
Bradley's games - Wiz6-7. A lot of exploration, dungeons, open world in Wiz7, new character and magic system...
Wiz8 - it tried to became Wiz7, but lost all great dungeons of the original.
I liked all of them, more or less, but make your own mind.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Its good to know younger people also enjoy these Gold Box set games

Well, I'm 35, so not exactly young anymore...

I wonder if people who've never used DOS running on real hardware have the stomach for PoR?

DOS was like a speedrun for the goldbox, bardstale, might & magic and wizardry. Go back to c64 or appleII and patience you must learn.

LOADING ....
PLEASE WAIT .................
PLEASE INSERT Disk 3 side B
ACCESSING.....
PLEASE WAIT .......

Might & Magic 2 c64.... lordy the fuck!
And I thought the Bardstales were slow.

 

[Harthwain]

I wonder if people who've never used DOS running on real hardware have the stomach for PoR?

What are you talking about? You don't have to know DOS (which was a nightmare to navigate through) to be able to appreciate good games made for that system. Especially now, when you can easily find instructions how to run them in DOS emulators, step-by-step.

 

[Mortmal]

How did you find Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar,

Absolute masterpiece with some wrinkles.
Citing myself from 2017:

New players? Fuck new players. Reasoning like yours gave us Fallout 3 and other abominations. I was sold when I held game in my grasp and saw that it's Wizardry. It's buggy, sometimes cumbersome, but fucking brilliant Wizardry. Fuck you all with your balance, fuck your "muh UI", fuck your "muh Armorplate is not visible in the charsheet"! Nothing of it matters! Because it's fucking Wizardry. It's the only game that could scratch my Wizardry 6/7 itch since fucking Wizardry 7!
My sage can't raise Music even for +1 in new version. Is it bad? Yes, it's bad, but it's a fucking Wizardry.
I can't raise throwing by flinging 50 daggers in general direction of bugs and moths? Fuck throwing. Most of throwable things are broken anyway. And it's a fucking Wizardry.
Stealth is not raising? Ok, but I already have two characters with Stealth 100 from version 1.0

Nothing fucking matters. Nothing. Because this mad megalomaniac Cleve brought the old magic back. He made fucking Wizardry!

Just look at exploding insects. Look at magic screen. Look at dungeons. Read purple prose. Disarm trap on the chest. Solve puzzle.

Yea, it's Wizardry. And I'm happy.

I heard the creator and developer is a Codex member? What an achievement creating a game more or less by yourself

He came to Codex because thought that it was full of trolls who belittle his unfinished game. Stayed for the atmosphere.
By the way, check another great Codexian game:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/note-of-the-outskirts-blobber-by-cryptrat.136541/

I know I keep saying this but I never played any of the Wizardry games either but the main reason for me not playing all these older RPG , that include Ultima and M&M, was because I grew up in the last 15 years of Apartheid in the 1980's or so and sanctions prevented access to much fantasy products. But I did buy fantasy goods in London and the USA in the 1980's where I was fortunate enough to go on holiday once a year

So I also have added the Wizardry series to my list and I particularly like the history and design of Grimoire so that is definitely at the top of my list of classis RPG to play

Learned something new there, never knew apartheid was preventing to play rpgs ! Way to ruin one childhood, what an horrible system on both side of the fence...I bet even eastern block were playing such rpgs.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Goldboxes are must play games. Dark Sun as well. Ravenlofts - only if you like the Dungeon Master clones.

I respect you a lot, given our past interactions and silently reading of different threads (because I can’t vote yet).

Have you ever made or planned an all-time “must play” list? There is a Chet’s list, some more or less mainstream lists compiled by Felipe, but it would be interesting to access your take on the matter.

I've been thinking that us Codexers need to get together at some point and do a pre-Fallout top RPG list.

 

[Grauken]

Learned something new there, never knew apartheid was preventing to play rpgs ! Way to ruin one childhood, what an horrible system on both side of the fence...I bet even eastern block were playing such rpgs.

Lol, nobody had private computers or western games. Maybe some high ranking officals, but not normal people.

 

[Fowyr]

Lol, nobody had private computers or western games. Maybe some high ranking officals, but not normal people.

That's why local HAM radio journals had schematics for home computers on 8080 since '83.
Also a lot of playing was done on the university mainframes and other machines.

 

[Grauken]

Lol, nobody had private computers or western games. Maybe some high ranking officals, but not normal people.

That's why local HAM radio journals had schematics for home computers on 8080 since '83.

The schematics don't help you much if you don't have the infrastructure to actually build the chips and the rest

Edit: btw. not saying that there weren't computers in the East block, just not in private hands. Usually, build for the state departments and even there not widely available

 

[Fowyr]

The schematics don't help you much if you don't have the infrastructure to actually build the chips and the rest

Lol whut?
That's Intel 8080, Intel 8086 and Z80.

 

[Nutmeg]

Family uad a 286 in Yugoslavia from '85. Later got a 486 from Western Germany.

There were Eeastern clones of most Intel chips e.g. for the 286 specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U80601

 

[Grauken]

The schematics don't help you much if you don't have the infrastructure to actually build the chips and the rest

Lol whut?
That's Intel 8080, Intel 8086 and Z80.

I should have been more precise, they didn't have the infrastructure to mass manufacture PC for personal use. Happy

 

[Grauken]

Family uad a 286 in Yugoslavia from '85. Later got a 486 from Western Germany.

There were Eeastern clones of most Intel chips e.g. for the 286 specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U80601

That definitely wasn't the case in East Germany, I knew nobody who had a PC and the first ones we got were after the fall of the wall. Maybe it was different in other countries, though I doubt that personal PC were widely available before the end of the Soviet Union

 

[Grauken]

Here's an interesting overview about the topic https://hackaday.com/2014/12/15/home-computers-behind-the-iron-curtain/

On production and availability (reminds me a lot of access to cars then)

The biggest problem was a lack of modern technologies. There were a lot of skilled and clever people in eastern countries, but they had a lot of problems with the elementary technical things. Manufacturing of electronics parts was divided into diverse countries of Comecon – The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. In reality, it led to an absurd situation: You could buy the eastern copy of Z80 (made in Eastern Germany as U880D), but you couldn’t buy 74LS00 at the same time. Yes, a lot of manufacturers made it, but “it is out of stock now; try to ask next year”. So “make a computer” meant 50 percent of electronics skills and 50 percent of unofficial social network and knowledge like “I know a guy who knows a guy and his neighbor works in a factory, where they maybe have a material for PCBs” at those times.

Home Computers not in homes (this was pretty much my experience as well)

Let me say a little remark about “home computers”. Ondra or PMD-85 were home computers as we understand this term now: single case with keyboard, cassette tape as storage and TV for video out. But “home” is strongly misleading in the conjunction with Czechoslovak computers. The price of these computers was really fantastic – six month average salary or so, so the majority of production was bought by schools, clubs, industrial plants or research institutes. Technically, there were home computers, but almost nobody had these computers really at home as own, personal computer.

Though it seems the Czech had better access to imports, which wasn't as easy in East Germany, so experience might differ

So the question is: What did we have in our households as our real home computer? Simple answer is: Everything we could smuggle from Western Germany, Austria or Britain. The most popular brands were Sinclair and Atari. You could buy, unofficially, of course, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Atari 800 XL at prices about one month salary. Sometimes some official importer went mad and bought 1000 pieces of Sharp MZ-821 and sold them on the local market. The same situation was with Sord m5 – there were about 1000 m5s in Czechoslovakia. At the end of 80s some Amigas or Atari STs appeared in Czechoslovakia, but again individually imported.

 

[Fowyr]

but you couldn’t buy 74LS00 at the same time.

Only you could. On the local flea market or, sometimes, even in the shops. It's was a most used chip (with its TTL brother 7400) after all, everyone wanted it.
Yep, home computers were rare things, but don't think that no one had them or that their numbers were not raising.
EDIT:
(autism) x 1 Grauken
That's the pot calling the kettle a n.iggеr.

 

[V_K]

It would really help to define what years exactly we are talking about. In late 80s USSR (I'm thinking 1988 onwards), personal computers definitely were a thing - an exotic thing, granted, but still. From about 1993 they stopped being exotic.

 

[Grauken]

It would really help to define what years exactly we are talking about. In late 80s USSR (I'm thinking 1988 onwards), personal computers definitely were a thing - an exotic thing, granted, but still. From about 1993 they stopped being exotic.

Up to 1989

 

[BruceVC]

How did you find Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar,

Absolute masterpiece with some wrinkles.
Citing myself from 2017:

New players? Fuck new players. Reasoning like yours gave us Fallout 3 and other abominations. I was sold when I held game in my grasp and saw that it's Wizardry. It's buggy, sometimes cumbersome, but fucking brilliant Wizardry. Fuck you all with your balance, fuck your "muh UI", fuck your "muh Armorplate is not visible in the charsheet"! Nothing of it matters! Because it's fucking Wizardry. It's the only game that could scratch my Wizardry 6/7 itch since fucking Wizardry 7!
My sage can't raise Music even for +1 in new version. Is it bad? Yes, it's bad, but it's a fucking Wizardry.
I can't raise throwing by flinging 50 daggers in general direction of bugs and moths? Fuck throwing. Most of throwable things are broken anyway. And it's a fucking Wizardry.
Stealth is not raising? Ok, but I already have two characters with Stealth 100 from version 1.0

Nothing fucking matters. Nothing. Because this mad megalomaniac Cleve brought the old magic back. He made fucking Wizardry!

Just look at exploding insects. Look at magic screen. Look at dungeons. Read purple prose. Disarm trap on the chest. Solve puzzle.

Yea, it's Wizardry. And I'm happy.

I heard the creator and developer is a Codex member? What an achievement creating a game more or less by yourself

He came to Codex because thought that it was full of trolls who belittle his unfinished game. Stayed for the atmosphere.
By the way, check another great Codexian game:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/note-of-the-outskirts-blobber-by-cryptrat.136541/

I know I keep saying this but I never played any of the Wizardry games either but the main reason for me not playing all these older RPG , that include Ultima and M&M, was because I grew up in the last 15 years of Apartheid in the 1980's or so and sanctions prevented access to much fantasy products. But I did buy fantasy goods in London and the USA in the 1980's where I was fortunate enough to go on holiday once a year

So I also have added the Wizardry series to my list and I particularly like the history and design of Grimoire so that is definitely at the top of my list of classis RPG to play

Learned something new there, never knew apartheid was preventing to play rpgs ! Way to ruin one childhood, what an horrible system on both side of the fence...I bet even eastern block were playing such rpgs.

Apartheid wasnt stopping you playing RPG but the sanctions from the UN stopped certain imports, including PC equipment and most games, from being easily available in the country

And I had a fantastic childhood, I wasnt exposed to any Apartheid related violence in the 1980's and I got to go overseas to London and Austria once a year so Im definitely not complaining about my childhood

 

[Morblot]

I wonder if people who've never used DOS running on real hardware have the stomach for PoR?

What are you talking about? You don't have to know DOS (which was a nightmare to navigate through) to be able to appreciate good games made for that system. Especially now, when you can easily find instructions how to run them in DOS emulators, step-by-step.

It was a poor choice of words on my part. I didn't mean to imply you'd have to know DOS; I, too, am familiar with GOG.com's handy DOSBox shortcuts

What I tried to say is that I wonder if people, presumably younger, who've never before had to deal with a clunky keyboard-only interface, low res 16 color graphics and PC speaker sounds have the strength of character to dig through all that to find the gem hidden underneath. I did, but I grew up with the EGA graphics and the beeper sounds of e.g. the early Apogee games, so the shock was considerably lessened.

 

[Fowyr]

It was a poor choice of words on my part. I didn't mean to imply you'd have to know DOS; I, too, am familiar with GOG.com's handy DOSBox shortcuts
What I tried to say is that I wonder if people, presumably younger, who've never before had to deal with a clunky keyboard-only interface, low res 16 color graphics and PC speaker sounds have the strength of character to dig through all that to find the gem hidden underneath. I did, but I grew up with the EGA graphics and the beeper sounds of e.g. the early Apogee games, so the shock was considerably lessened.

Just ignore him, that's a local butthurt subhuman retard.
BTW, PoR's interface, as you remember, was already better in the CoAB. It only took addition of "fix" button and remembering that spells you memorized last time.