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Risen

Zeus

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,523
Clockwork Knight said:
If you're gonna remove the arrow, you need to have plenty of landmarks, like IRL. Morrowind had both the arrow and landmarks.

The nice thing about the LotRO "area blobs" is that they lead you in the right direction, without getting all GPS precise about it.

Let's say some Pig Farmer wants you to fetch some toadstools growing in a tree in the north end of a nearby forest.

It's very unlikely he'll have a detailed map to provide you, and even if you have a map of your own, he's not going to know exactly where to mark it just by looking at it. But he CAN circle a general estimate, representing the sort of, "If you see the fallen log with initials carved in it, you've gone too far" directions people give.

I like it, because I can glance at the world map and immediately track down the right forest, enter the forest and immediately hone in on the general area where the tree is, and then once I get within, I don't know, a few blocks of my destination, the game forces me to explore a little.

Of course, if the Pig Farmer came along and served as a guide, a pinpoint destination would make sense.
 
Joined
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Zeus said:
Clockwork Knight said:
If you're gonna remove the arrow, you need to have plenty of landmarks, like IRL. Morrowind had both the arrow and landmarks.

The nice thing about the LotRO "area blobs" is that they lead you in the right direction, without getting all GPS precise about it.

Let's say some Pig Farmer wants you to fetch some toadstools growing in a tree in the north end of a nearby forest.

It's very unlikely he'll have a detailed map to provide you, and even if you have a map of your own, he's not going to know exactly where to mark it just by looking at it. But he CAN circle a general estimate, representing the sort of, "If you see the fallen log with initials carved in it, you've gone too far" directions people give.

I like it, because I can glance at the world map and immediately track down the right forest, enter the forest and immediately hone in on the general area where the tree is, and then once I get within, I don't know, a few blocks of my destination, the game forces me to explore a little.

Of course, if the Pig Farmer came along and served as a guide, a pinpoint destination would make sense.
The most important thing is to get the player to pay attention to the environment, and not just in order to enjoy the scenery. It doesn't much matter what you have on the map to mark the location where you're supposed to go, as long as you don't have the freaking magic arrow to draw your attention away from having to feel like you're travelling in a real world instead of guiding your bloomy faggot in shining armor from place A to place B. My God. All the talk about immersiveness and I'm the only person who understands the VERY BASICS of the concept. The basics are that the game should maximize things that make you feel like you're actually living in the game world, e.g. forcing you to travel by following landmarks instead of staring at a fuggin' magic compass. Likewise, the game should avoid stupid shit that draws the player's mind away from its immersion in the game world (avoid the magic compass!!1!). (I'm not after travel simulators, just some basic sanity in game design.)
 

Mangoose

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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24,725
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I'm a Banana
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity
Zeus said:
Clockwork Knight said:
If you're gonna remove the arrow, you need to have plenty of landmarks, like IRL. Morrowind had both the arrow and landmarks.

The nice thing about the LotRO "area blobs" is that they lead you in the right direction, without getting all GPS precise about it.

Let's say some Pig Farmer wants you to fetch some toadstools growing in a tree in the north end of a nearby forest.

It's very unlikely he'll have a detailed map to provide you, and even if you have a map of your own, he's not going to know exactly where to mark it just by looking at it. But he CAN circle a general estimate, representing the sort of, "If you see the fallen log with initials carved in it, you've gone too far" directions people give.

I like it, because I can glance at the world map and immediately track down the right forest, enter the forest and immediately hone in on the general area where the tree is, and then once I get within, I don't know, a few blocks of my destination, the game forces me to explore a little.

Of course, if the Pig Farmer came along and served as a guide, a pinpoint destination would make sense.
What server do you play on?
 

Zeus

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,523
Mangoose said:
What server do you play on?

Ah, I let my subscription expire. I had a three month free trial thanks to a $5 retail copy of the collector's edition, but I just don't much like the idea of paying a monthly fee. Fun while it lasted, though. They really let you off the leash in that game.
 

Phelot

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2009
Messages
17,908
Apparently it was supposed to be a Myst sequel, so the game itself would probably be funner if you were a hardcore Myst fan, but that's just what I've heard, but seriously, a quest about sweeping?

It's a Myst sequel.
 

Admiral jimbob

gay as all hell
Joined
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Messages
9,225
Location
truck stops and toilet stalls
Wasteland 2
What's the most fun path to take in this game? Just started it, whatshisname's dragging me to the Don's camp. Melee combat is entertaining and a bit better on the action side than most action-RPGs, but it looks like I won't get a good feel for the magic until I'm actually starting down that path.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
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I think I had the most fun with an archer, although it's most reliant to what you find entertaining:

- going pure melee provides many a rage quit

- going for archery provides machine gun firing speed which can eliminate whole hordes of monsters before they even get to you

- going for magic is a bit of a mix of both previous ones, since you can't just shoop fireballs like an autocannon because you'll run out of mana and will either need to finish stuff off in melee or make a pit stop and drink a few mana potions.

All in all, the ranged builds (magic/archery) are seriously more powerful than melee, mostly because there are like three types of opponents with ranged attacks, which is one of Risen's greatest flaws.
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
^ I'd say Melee is more fun, especially after you get a few points in your skill and can do some decent damage to enemies. Magic is 2nd most fun cuz you get cool situations like killing a group with a fireball, freezing 3 enemies to run up and hack to bits with your staff, etc.

Archery is indeed very powerful... until you get caught blind by two lizard men in a corner.

Of the three builds i liked playing a pure Mage more than anything else tho... you also get to use your utility spells a lot more -- like the speed rune or levitation, without fear of wasting precious spell scrolls or blowing money on them.

As for ranged attacks - you only have to fear magical ranged attacks, otherwise a shield will block it entirely or you can side-step it (bit harder with arrows/bolts tho).
 

Twinkle

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 14, 2009
Messages
1,426
Location
Lands of Entitlement
I liked melee the most. It's so manly going on your enemy face-to-face without resorting to cheap pew-pew. And I liked the challenge - even several regular lizardmen could own you if you got lazy.

Magic and archery makes the game much easier.
 

someone else

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2008
Messages
6,888
Location
In the window
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
You people criticizing the angry dude ought to make your own angry video game video. Being on the Codex ought to give you lots of experience.

It can even be the new Codex Kool Thing.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
Risen was pretty much butchered for XBawks to fit its shitty controls (no shields lololo) and heavily outdated hardware

Thankfully PC and Xbawks versions were done by different studios and so the glorious PC gaming master race won again
Speaking of controls - it took 4 games for PB to make them right but whatever
 

Admiral jimbob

gay as all hell
Joined
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Messages
9,225
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truck stops and toilet stalls
Wasteland 2
This is actually pretty awesome. It has the classic symptoms of this kind of game where it's probably going to be at its most memorable when I'm poor, wielding a cheap thorn club and limping from ruin to ruin just to get by and afford my next training session, but I'm having a blast doing just that as it is. It's inspired me to give the original Gothics another go as well.

Though archery is absolutely fucking useless at the moment. I've decided to go swordsman/archer, so when does the latter start becoming remotely viable?
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
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POOPOO MCBUMFACE said:
Though archery is absolutely fucking useless at the moment. I've decided to go swordsman/archer, so when does the latter start becoming remotely viable?

Well, it's 'remotely viable' somewhere in the middle of the skillbar, pretty good at like 8/10, and laser Jesus killing machine after maxing out, so I'd advise you to max it out as soon as possible (and don't forget to help yourself with artifacts that boost it. Once you max smithing, you can craft a Fucking Awesome (TM) amulet that gives +10 agility and +2 archery).
 

Shannow

Waster of Time
Joined
Sep 15, 2006
Messages
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Location
Finnegan's Wake
MetalCraze said:
Speaking of controls - it took 1 game for PB to make them right and 2 to perfect them but whatever. They managed to fuck them up (=only slightly better than similar action games) again in later games.
Fixed
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
Admiral - going sword/archery might be a bad idea because you'll split yourself in LP on str/dex, going for a crossbow is a better idea as you won't have to waste LP on dexterity to increase its attack power and it gets much faster when you increase its skill. Dex not only increases damage done with ranged weapons but also is required to use bows, crossbows on the other hand require strength to use but are damage contingent on dexterity as well. Anyway, if you plan to be a melee fighter primarily and fall back on a ranged weapon, I'd say you should use a crossbow instead.

That is, unless you plan to just dump your points into DEX and use one of the dex based swords (I remember 3 of them and each was pretty decent for its dex requirement).

Either way, maxing smithing is a very good idea as the better amulets can give you some neat stuff - and one even enables non-magi/warriors of the order to use magic crystals (albeit, at a very low level).
 

Felix

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
3,356
Is there anyway to take the Don' sword without cheating, that is the only sword equivalent to master sword in Gothic from what I've seen.
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
The Rapier is also a dex required one handed sword that does 38 damage and grants +2 to sword skill.

The don's katana is apparently the best dex based one hander but I have only seen it in weapon lists on sites and never in game. I know he is immortal for the beginning of the game, but I'm not sure if there's a point where he maybe loses that status and you can fight him. I imagine if such a case does come around you'd have to kill nearly his entire entourage, but eh. Sometimes even King Rhobar needs to go splat.

I always thought the sword Don Esteban had equipped was the Fine Sword that Romanov also had.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
11,079
I think there was some glitch where you could get a duplicate and still give him the sword, but they seem to have fixed it in one of the patches.

Ah here it is :

Risen Patch v1.10

Golden sword for the Don: this sword could be duplicated by stealing
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
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ghostdog said:
I think there was some glitch where you could get a duplicate and still give him the sword, but they seem to have fixed it in one of the patches.

Not the same sword. The golden sword has 30 damage and 25 strength requirement.
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
Gobbo said:
The Don has a katana? Holy shit. :shock: It seemed like a simple fine sword, gotta replay.

the model he has equipped is a fine sword's model, but if you check an item list like this: http://www.worldofrisen.de/english/rdb_items.htm?id=153

you see a katana with a dex based attack requirement (highest dex based melee weapon too, I think), which would be great in the game but it appears you can only get it via a console cheat or by somehow getting to a point that you can kill the don.

My assumption is that the don's weapon simply has no unique in game model so they used the fine sword. His armor is pretty awesome too - has same stats as pre-titan-lord end game armor but looks like a pimped out captain's uniform.
 
Joined
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Superior Plane
Shannow said:
MetalCraze said:
Speaking of controls - it took 1 game for PB to make them right and 2 to perfect them but whatever. They managed to fuck them up (=only slightly better than similar action games) again in later games.
Fixed
Yeah, Night of the Raven had the perfect controls and balance. I pity people whose dull false expectations make them unable to hard-love that golden bitch.
 

Gobbo

Novice
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
69
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in the backwoods
Mikayel said:
My assumption is that the don's weapon simply has no unique in game model so they used the fine sword. His armor is pretty awesome too - has same stats as pre-titan-lord end game armor but looks like a pimped out captain's uniform.

I kinda feel sad that they dropped the Don pretty quickly. He's a cool character, I wanted to see more of the faction struggle that was so well presented in chapter 1. :?
 

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