Prelude to Darkness is a pretty damn awesome RPG

[luj1]

Anyone got access to v1.7? It seems 1.8 is rather unstable, and knowing I got an ancient piece of laptop that can't handle a lot of games properly, I'd like to get an access to 1.7

There is something called "Fix 4" for 1.8, maybe that helps?

 

[Lord_Potato]

I tried both 1.8 and 1.7, and my statement of "crash every 5 minutes" was hyperbole.

It ran stable enough, but when crashes happened they were so annoying (freeze that got me stuck in the game window with no way to close it, forcing hard reboots) I stopped playing at some point.

There are also areas where you have to be careful with your camera angle if you don't want the game to crap itself, etc. No matter which version you play, the game has issues and for the majority of players these issues make it unplayable. Rough gems often become classics, but not when the roughness is of a gamebreaking nature.

I played a bit more, you get random encounters JRPG style; as in invisible enemy groups ambushing you; also, i didn't create a combat focused trio, the thaumaturge is a "decent" archer but the druid is useless and the guardian, is apparently the main character so when he dies, it's game over and as he's the tank ...
Of course, enemies are tough, groups of 4-6 enemies against your early party of 3 and they're all have combat oriented builds with a lot of HP.

I'm sure a PnP version of their game would be great but this is hard to love.

I actually created similar crew to yours.

Guardian - sword&armor + flame magic
Bard - missile weapons + lots of civil abilities (speech, music, tinker, stealth)
Druid - other civil abilities (nature, healing, Gift of the Goddess, literacy for the journal).

Which means I also had one melee tank, one distance fighter and one support character with no combat skills. However, I managed to recruit the warrior lady from the Kellen tavern quite early (Hysric?). And soon later the butcher boy (Nylis) also joined the team. So before moving out of Kellen (where none of the difficult combats happen) I had a party of 5. Maybe don't explore too much outside the walls until you build your strength?

 

[Darth Canoli]

I talked to the adventurer woman from the tavern but her answer made me think i had to resolve some quests for her to join me so i was trying to reach the farm, i'll try to get back to the village before getting ambushed.

The wolves den fight isn't as hard as the brigand's ambushes as they don't start the fight surrounding you, but in the end, they killed the tank/MC before i could kill a second wolf (out of 4), another game over, i can't wait to come back with some help.

This is the kind of engine that allows you to appreciate every cRPG ever made.

There is something called "Fix 4" for 1.8, maybe that helps?

Any link ?

 

[Darth Canoli]

So, i could reach the city, paying attention to npc hints, turns out the northern and southern roads are dangerous because of thieves attacking travelers, east and west are fair game and of course there's rats grasshopers to slaughter.

There's also two quests that seems solvable (the "inventor" and the tavern's wench).

Seems more stable on Win XP sp3 compatibility mode but still caught a nasty bug where after clicking too much on the rotating screen arrows, you're caught into an infinite rotation loop ...
Well, no need to hard reset, just logged off windows and logged back in and voilà!

Now let's bring some milk to the madman after he made us lick his feet ...
What wouldn't i do for some xp ?

 

[Lord_Potato]

While the random encounters seem like something from a jrpg, at least you can avoid them with Stealth skill. And sometimes its the best choice actually (combat does not give direct exp, and meeting a bunch of river dragons when unprepared can end in a tragedy).

 

[Darth Canoli]

Well, i don't mind tough encounters and even seemingly invincible enemies early on as long as there's as you're warn in-game (and you are, i just didn't pay attention).

Good to know stealth works that way, i just didn't pick it with any party member yet, focused on cha related non combat skill for the druid for now, the guardian is combat focused and the thaumaturge too, as far as his weak skills go.

I guess you can learn new skills at some point ? How does it work, do you have to pay a trainer like the hunter training the ranged skill (if you already know the skill) ?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Still don't know yet. A guy in Academy teaches you thaumaturgy but its the only trainer I've met so far. You can also learn by doing things - my bard got a point in armor (thus getting the skill) by getting hit. Propably if you give someone a weapon they will finally start receiving points in the appropriate skill even if they had 0 before.

I don't know how you can learn skills like nature or stealth from 0.

 

[Ninjerk]

Amazing that after all these years, the game seemingly has been hardly mapped out for others to follow.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Solved the "tavern" quest, got the warrior to join me and met some travelers just by waiting outside the eastern town's exit.
Also got a druid joining the party from the same area, she appeared just like the travelers and on top of that, taught a spell to my druid.

Now we're ready to kick some asses!

And the hunter warn you about strange noises in the river area (probably the water dragons you mentioned).
I like this game, a shame it's so slow but for now, i can take it.

Next stop is probably that Lupus cave.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Killed these wolves and some errand ones as well.
The battle system is more complex than it seems to be at first glance.

I really like how they implemented the "delay turn" action, speed is both initiative and action points and each action point you spend reduces both for the current turn so if you can attack twice, you won't attack twice in a row, everyone else having more ini than after your first attack will act before you.

And getting back to the wait (delay action) button, you'll lose 3 speed/AP/ini each time you wait so it's still better, most of the time to wait for your opponents to get closer but it cost you some AP and if your opponents are way slower, you might have to wait twice, loosing 6 AP for this turn.

It should really become the standard, it's just brilliant.

On the downside, got another spinning screen bug while fighting the butcher, good thing is the game crashed as well, saving me some time.

 

[fantadomat]

Anyone got access to v1.7? It seems 1.8 is rather unstable, and knowing I got an ancient piece of laptop that can't handle a lot of games properly, I'd like to get an access to 1.7

There is something called "Fix 4" for 1.8, maybe that helps?

I have a 1.7 version,but haven't installed it yet. Is the game very buggy or what? Also should i upload a link here with the 1.7 or is that against the rules,Infinitron ? If i can't well...PM me and will put it on megaup.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Also should i upload a link here with the 1.7 or is that against the rules,Infinitron ? If i can't well...PM me and will put it on megaup.

Nice of you to offer, but Adolf Satan already did so in this post.

Also looks like it's been linked at the end of the initial post of this thread now.

 

[laclongquan]

Its always helpful to have several backups. Never know when its down for good.

If people did such things in the last decade.... we wouldnt haveto find 1.4 or etc

 

[Darth Canoli]

Short guide to alleviate the "auto-eject" feature :
- Don't play too much with the rotation arrows, pick your view and let it rest
- When you right click a target, don't right click it again
- Always save after you did something
- Always save before you think about doing something
- Keep a lot of separate saves, just in case
- When a fight ends, save before even picking the loot (you'll thank me later)
- Save after picking the loot too (not just because of the crashes but also the random encounters, specially on hard mode)
- For some reason, trading a lot of items in one trading session often bring a crash too, just trade a few items, save and trade again ...

Mostly, if you click too much or don't treat your mouse and keyboard like a crystal glass, it's going to crash.

In spite of all of this, it's fun, mostly due to the great character progression system but exploration and quests are interesting. Not sure about the story, it slowly unravels and it's feel like it's going to be good but i can't say for sure so far.

Didn't find the missing child in Kellen, any hints ?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Concerning the kid, no clue yet. Tried to talk to other children, scouted nearby caves, nothing.

 

[Darth Canoli]

There is a couple of interesting features, like the "open classes"

Background system
It's a mix between Arcanum/Fallout (background + no class restriction) and wizardry (you improve skills by doing and get some free skill points to spend as quest rewards).

Still, you can clearly create your own class, for example, "brigands monks" can be lethal, dealing way more damage than any other thieves, limited by their weapons quality.

Exploration
Exploration of an area isn't limited, like in Arcanum and of course, there is no quest compass (there is a compass though, showing you the direction of the desired known location).
It's interesting how the absence of fog of war is what makes it more real or interesting, because there is no fogged area pointing out what you're searching for, so if you don't follow NPC hints (there is some skill checks too sometimes to follow some tracks or get more information), in some area, you'll just run in circles without finding what you're searching for.

It can be annoying at times but i think it's brilliant.

Magic Weapons
I also really like how magic weapons are handled, the most powerful i've seen so far were quest rewards, they're scarce and you can buy some enchanted weapons from some blacksmiths (only 1 out of 3 had enchanted weapons to sell so far) but they're really scarce, Dark Sun Shattered Lands style (maybe a little less in Prelude).

I'm far from having completed the game but these are the good bits keeping me going in spite of having to fear the next crash to desktop.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Finally, after a week of almost no time to play today I finally managed to devote 4 hours to PtD.

Exploring the Citadel. Lots of content. Seems like it's the Tarant of the Valley. Many different quests, some politics and intrigue. However, the sewers are freaking buggy. Just got ctd after a big victorious battle. That was mildly infuriating.

Anyway, pressing on. I've got some leads concerning the main plot, pointing me to next two locations I did not visit yet. However I think I will linger in Citadel for a while, questing and gathering strength before greater challenges.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I've reached the Citadel too, the voting quest is quite good.
Regarding the sewers, didn't visit them yet but i'm not surprised, the dweller cave in Kellen was quite buggy too, specially the bottom with a last single creature to fight.
I wonder if that's going to happen in every cave/dungeon ...

Somehow, it reminds me of Grotesque Tactics : Evil Heroes where some caves were really unstable too (the one with the golem, early on for instance), the engine looks similar too.

 

[Ninjerk]

How's it shaping up relative to other games (in overall terms as well as stylistic comparison, if there are any relevant ones)

 

[fantadomat]

For a second time i get baited in to installing this malware. This time i managed to get to save button before the game froze my whole pc. How are you people playing it when the game is broken beyond believe?

 

[Darth Canoli]

For a second time i get baited in to installing this malware. This time i managed to get to save button before the game froze my whole pc. How are you people playing it when the game is broken beyond believe?

With a mouse ...

That said, is the game engine highly unstable ? Yes!
BUT, are the game mechanism or quests broken ? Absolutely not!

So, when it crashes, you're back to desktop before you know it and the game is extremely fast to launch.
When it freezes, CTRL + ALT + SUPR --> Log off --> Log in.

It's really a small price to pay to play some incline, soon enough, you'll learn to save after each micro-management so crashes are of no consequences.

Spoiler

One thing has about 99% chances to crash the game, when bartering, stacked equipment, vendor side when there is already something else in his trading window, you get the unstack window and if you confirm, it's Hiroshima all over again ...

 

[fantadomat]

For a second time i get baited in to installing this malware. This time i managed to get to save button before the game froze my whole pc. How are you people playing it when the game is broken beyond believe?

With a mouse ...

That said, is the game engine highly unstable ? Yes!
BUT, are the game mechanism or quests broken ? Absolutely not!

So, when it crashes, you're back to desktop before you know it and the game is extremely fast to launch.
When it freezes, CTRL + ALT + SUPR --> Log off --> Log in.

It's really a small price to pay to play some incline, soon enough, you'll learn to save after each micro-management so crashes are of no consequences.

Spoiler

One thing has about 99% chances to crash the game, when bartering, stacked equipment, vendor side when there is already something else in his trading window, you get the unstack window and if you confirm, it's Hiroshima all over again ...

Didn't you read my post? I said that froze when i tried to save. If it was just unstable and crashed from time to time,i would have been fine pushing trough. But that garbage is freezing my whole pc,i won't endanger it even if it is the best thing out there. The game is broken malware in my book lol. I have no idea how shit you have to be at codding,to make it that broken. It is impressive in its own way. It is a lot worst than fucking ToEE.

 

[Darth Canoli]

As it's an old unknown game, it might come from your antivirus, so you need exceptions + probably a compatibility mode (xp sp2 / 3 ?) and i'm mostly answering for anyone else wanting to try it, it's not for everyone, too much incline.

 

[fantadomat]

As it's an old unknown game, it might come from your antivirus, so you need exceptions + probably a compatibility mode (xp sp2 / 3 ?) and i'm mostly answering for anyone else wanting to try it, it's not for everyone, too much incline.

I have played plenty of old incline games. Just finished replaying "hard to be a god" . Still this is the worst made of them all. Even ascension to the throne with its blue screen of death is not that fucked up. Yeah also i know my shit and have no anti-virus malware. The game is just coded by total retard.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Concerning the kid, no clue yet. Tried to talk to other children, scouted nearby caves, nothing.

I finally found the little bugger!

Spoiler

In the Kellen area, from the northern farm (Salvo's i think) he's hidden in the woods not far east /north-east.
Interesting quest reward ...