Another Old School Game
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| Author | Topic: Another Old School Game |
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Agent
Member # 8030
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written Wednesday, December 12 2007 19:38
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quote:Here's a lunatic idea: completely alter the mood of the game by looping the intro of "Play That Funky Music." Not only is there an insanity bonus, but an overwhelming sense of disco. -------------------- "There's a hole in the bucket, dear Excalibur, dear Excalibur..." Posts: 1384 | Registered: Tuesday, February 6 2007 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 7367
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written Friday, December 14 2007 08:36
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quote:No offense, but how can you even tolerate this game? The walking speed is so sllllllllllllllllow, and the game designers are too lazy to do anything about it. Posts: 5 | Registered: Wednesday, August 9 2006 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 8131
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written Friday, December 14 2007 10:14
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The speed hasn't bothered me, and quick travel gets across the world pretty quickly. The developer is hardly lazy and has been very responsive to bug reports and has quickly issued fixes for several problems. Increased movement may come in a later patch otherwise there are plans for increased walking speed in Book II. I personally don't feel like the walking speed as is hinders my enjoyment of the game. To be frank it's been my experience that the walking speed hasn't bothered most users of the game , but it may be a deal breaker for some. I'd suggest playing around for a while and you'll find a game with a rich stats system, solid story, and plenty of entertainment. -------------------- http://www.goozex.com/trading/asp/join.asp?idr=412684821 alexkaltsas.com Posts: 145 | Registered: Sunday, February 18 2007 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Friday, December 14 2007 15:24
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Walking speed in Eschalon isn't much worse than Avernum depending upon your computer's hardware. I would prefer keyboard movement over mouse. Besides you can use the change in walking speed to determine when you are approach a monster. My main gripe is it's a small world (island) after all. There are large areas of nothing followed by all the monsters piling up at once so you have to run away to recharge. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7633
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written Friday, December 14 2007 15:54
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The Exile II music was a piece called CARTHAG.MOD (download here). The metadata says it came from a Connecticut dial-up BBS which was active in the early 1990s. Posts: 66 | Registered: Saturday, November 4 2006 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 7367
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written Friday, December 14 2007 17:06
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quote:It's far worse than Avernum. In Avernum I can walk across the entire map in less then 1 minute. In this game it took me more than one minute to exit the village. Its too bad, the game looked like it had potential. Posts: 5 | Registered: Wednesday, August 9 2006 07:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Friday, December 14 2007 18:29
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I just downloaded Eschalon and gave it a whirl. It looks nice, but it does play very slowly. The walking speed would be tolerable if I wasn't forced use the mouse once per every square I move. Having to position the mouse properly, given the 8 directions you can move and the size of the grid squares, requires a little bit of guesswork -- and quickly becomes annoying. Having to hold down the mouse button constantly is ridiculous. It's a basic tenet of user control design that having a cursor controlled by a mouse allows a lot of flexibility, but only when the user is in control of when they use the mouse. The cursor is more versatile than the keyboard, but it's slower to adapt, and users tend to develop unique ways of using the mouse for certain tasks and the keyboard for others to make their work flow smoothly. The "press a button to walk in a straight line until you press another button" feature doesn't help at all. Even when you walk in one direction there are enough random trees, walls, etc. that you typically have to change direction a couple of times to keep going. The thing I find mind-boggling is that there's no keyboard movement option at all. The arrow keys aren't used for anything else. The keypad isn't used for anything else. And it wouldn't take away from the mouse movement option in any way. Why oh why is there no keyboard movement option? The game looks beautiful, and some of the UI elements are very nice. But I'm afraid this one is a deal-breaker for me. It makes moving around, something so basic that I shouldn't have to put thought and effort into it, into an irritating burden. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central "Slartucker is going to have a cow when he hears about this," Synergy said. Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 9887
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written Friday, December 14 2007 19:47
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I have to agree with Slarty. Playing the demo I had lots of fun creating the character (I like that kind of thing) and began playing. I noticed right away that the movement slow, inaccurate and tedious. Also I'm a person who loves to explore, and I find that unless pump quite a bit of skills into combat, I end up not being to go anywhere other than where I'm supposed to, due to the fact that I miss over half the time. It has good possibility, but mediocre execution. Edit: Also you get lost with out a cartography skill of at least five-ish, because you can't read the auto map. [ Friday, December 14, 2007 19:48: Message edited by: The Ratt ] -------------------- Hmm... Ornks, gazers and guacamole. What kind of food would you get? =:T:= Posts: 454 | Registered: Monday, August 20 2007 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Friday, December 14 2007 23:03
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I found when I've mostly cleared an area to use "w" for walk and slightly shift the mouse to steer. Still it takes time to stop. Cartography of 1 will give a basic outline and if you go south to do the sextant quest you can trained for 5 levels. 7 or 8 gives most details. I'm shocked by how much got through beta testing as basic interface problems. Keyboard commands were left out that could ease playing problems. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Friday, December 14 2007 23:23
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Eschaton is the Realmz of 2007. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central "Slartucker is going to have a cow when he hears about this," Synergy said. Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 8030
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written Saturday, December 15 2007 17:52
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The game being compared to Realmz has convinced me to download the game. However, I haven't played it yet. -------------------- A Bile Crux Posts: 1384 | Registered: Tuesday, February 6 2007 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, December 15 2007 19:07
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quote:This is not a kind comparison. —Alorael, who really hopes that's untrue. Few other games have managed to be expensive, buggy, unbalanced, and typo-ridden yet still (apparently) successful like Realmz. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Saturday, December 15 2007 19:40
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Realmz had numerous flaws. Realmz was successful despite those flaws because it got a lot of things right. It had vibrant, inviting graphics, much like Exile III. It was easy to figure out how to play and let you jump right in. The demo scenario was open-ended -- which works great at low PC levels, as it allows the player a lot of freedom without causing much game imbalance. My experience with Realmz was always that it would be fun for a while, and then the lack of depth in combat and the obtusely visible seams in everything else would conspire to make me disillusioned with it. Eschalon is similar, I think: it gets a lot of things very right, but has some very ugly flaws. The other similarity is that Realmz and Exile were often compared, as the two contemporary Mac indie RPGs. Eschaton and Avernum are in a similar position now. As RPGs go, all four of those games have a lot in common, and they all derive fairly closely from Ultima, with some influence from Wizardry and other games. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central "Slartucker is going to have a cow when he hears about this," Synergy said. Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Lack of Vision
Member # 2717
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written Sunday, December 16 2007 17:35
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I downloaded Eschalon and am finding it a lot of fun. I think it gets a lot of the little details right, and a few wrong. Performance isn't great, but acceptable, on my below-specs G4 Mac, but it runs as smooth as can be on my Macbook Pro. I think the graphics are a step above Spiderweb (for whatever that's worth) and the sounds and music are substantially better as well. There are a couple of things that bother me - some of the encounters are unbelievably difficult, to the point of being frustrating; the fact that your character must be male; and the plot is pretty hackneyed (at least as far as I've seen). But I have liked this game enough to register it. In a weird way it reminds me of a single player version of Ultima Online. And realmz... well... let's just pretend that silly piece of hippo dung was never invented, shall we? Z -------------------- Pan Lever: Seventeen apple roving mirror moiety. Of turned quorum jaggedly the. Blue? Posts: 186 | Registered: Thursday, February 27 2003 08:00 |
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