Rajaah's CRPG Blog

Kajiimagi · Apr 27, 2023

Found the baldurs gate 1/2 ee combo games last night on PS store for $12.49. So now I own them on yet another platform.

BigDirty · Apr 27, 2023

Rajaah said:
View attachment 468549
Working on Fallout, in Necropolis now. Looks like this is a pretty short game. There are 3 main quests in the game and each one presumably only takes a few hours if you know where to go. You do the Water Chip quest first, then the other two in any order, then done. So I'mma try to knock this off before I get back to Throne, also gives me a break from BG. Finding this a lot less fun than BG overall but it's okay as a sort of period piece of late 90's nuke fears.

View attachment 468535
This Desert Eagle is sexy. Sold all my extra stuff to get it. I know I saw someone else who sold magnum rounds earlier but can't find them. My main issue right now is ammo scarcity. I'll probably just need to avoid more fights.

View attachment 468564
Man, this overseer guy gives me the creeps. In any case, water chip got. I pretty much beelined through Necropolis (getting lost about 8 times on the way). Never even met Set, and didn't have to fight anyone on the way out cause I just booked it past them as they aggro'd. That's one main quest down, two to go.

Level 6 now. Got Small Guns to 125% and I think that's probably sufficient. Energy Weapons is sitting down at 10% and not tagged, hopefully I'm not hosed in the endgame. Kinda regret tagging Speech instead of Energy Weapons. Then again, Speech has probably saved me some trouble that I don't even know about yet.

Also got Lockpick to 100%. I've got 40 points left over. Any suggestions? I could work on Science next. If it's like FO3, I might need high Science to do some things. Or maybe start dumping into Energy Weapons now?

Gonna do the super mutants main quest next and leave the master for last, since he seems to be considered the final boss. And something about being able to one-shot him with high Science by activating a nuke? I might need to do that since I'll likely be level-deficient when I get there if I keep booking it around.

it seem slike you looked up a lot of information about the quests and where to go to get them done , this would explane why you think of this as a short game

Rajaah · Apr 27, 2023

BigDirty said:
it seem slike you looked up a lot of information about the quests and where to go to get them done , this would explane why you think of this as a short game

Yeah I looked stuff up for sure. Once I spent a couple hours trying to find a second Rope I was pretty much doneski. It isn't 1997 anymore when I can spend weeks / dozens of hours on a single retro game.

In other news, got some new ones:

These two (and the two Fallouts) would be perfect for Enhanced Edition two-packs. Not sure why they stopped making those.

Burns · Apr 27, 2023

Rajaah said:
Yeah I looked stuff up for sure. Once I spent a couple hours trying to find a second Rope I was pretty much doneski. It isn't 1997 anymore when I can spend weeks / dozens of hours on a single retro game.

In other news, got some new ones:

View attachment 470927
View attachment 470928
These two (and the two Fallouts) would be perfect for Enhanced Edition two-packs. Not sure why they stopped making those.

My guess would be that the newer the game, the more complicated the rights holder situation is and they may take a long time to negotiate. Beamdog also decided to make it's own game and become a publisher, so maybe they are just done with the headache of dealing with EA (Bioware owner) or Interplay (Black Isle owner) suits.

The Fallout IP is lost, since it is owned by the shitheads at Bethesduh and after New Vegas they are probably worried about getting shown up by another studio again. Even if they are just remastering an old game.

Also, studios thinking of working with Bethesduh may look at the New Vegas deal and have second thoughts. They would not agree to royalties, so it was a flat payment then a bonus if New Vegas hit a 85+ metacritic score. It only got to a score of 84, so Obsidian didn't get any share of delivering a good (selling) game.

Kajiimagi · Apr 28, 2023

So I bought all the Baldurs gate games when they came out and I've played them on PC and I think a tablet but it's weird as hell using a PS5 controller LOL. Also for the life of me I cannot figure out how to reorder my party. One thing I will say though , this is really slick and easy to read. I tried on PC w/ 4k monitor and I was getting terminal eye bleed.

Rajaah · Apr 29, 2023

Burns said:
Also, studios thinking of working with Bethesduh may look at the New Vegas deal and have second thoughts. They would not agree to royalties, so it was a flat payment then a bonus if New Vegas hit a 85+ metacritic score. It only got to a score of 84, so Obsidian didn't get any share of delivering a good (selling) game.

That's super messed-up. No wonder people don't like Bethesda. And to think I used to defend them just 'cause I like some of their games.

Which reminds me, I need to play Morrowind one of these years. Got it for XBox in like 2006 in a bargain bin, never got going with it because of the obscene loading times, got the PC version (the full series boxset) in 2014, played Arena and Daggerfall, didn't get to Morrowind, every year I make a tentative plan to get to it this time, and never do.

Kajiimagi said:
So I bought all the Baldurs gate games when they came out and I've played them on PC and I think a tablet but it's weird as hell using a PS5 controller LOL. Also for the life of me I cannot figure out how to reorder my party. One thing I will say though , this is really slick and easy to read. I tried on PC w/ 4k monitor and I was getting terminal eye bleed.

Reordering the party is like...hold down L2 (I think) to bring up the party wheel, then there's a button to configure party or something like that, or you can "drag and drop" characters around the ring. I wish I could remember 100%.

Also pressing right on the D-Pad switches control from mouse movement to analog stick movement which is a lot nicer with that controller.

Kharzette · Apr 30, 2023

Rajaah said:
View attachment 468784
This dialogue is something else, man

Looks like I'm totally hosed by picking Fast Shot as a perk. Being locked out of aim mode means I can't one-shot anything mid-late game with my Desert Eagle, so I keep hitting impasses with foes I just don't have any way to beat. Working on farming money for a Plasma Rifle and trying to get my horrible Energy Weapons skill up in the meantime.

View attachment 468871
Got the Power Armor and a rifle. Glad I didn't spend a huge amount on the lesser Combat Armor, cause the Power Armor quest didn't take long and it's way better.

Farming Deathclaws for some extra exp, then I'm gonna do the hydroponic repair quest to upgrade the plasma rifle and the Power Armor.

View attachment 468905
Did all that, now I'm doing last two dungeons. Was able to get warped right to the mutant leader and take him out, now I'm lookin for the Master.

Alright, my Speech tag finally paid off, was able to talk my way into being taken directly to the Master, so I didn't have to actually do either of last two dungeons.

View attachment 468907
Wow, this guy looks like a real mess. I've seen this image before and I think I assumed it was from "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" or something.

View attachment 468920
Done, defeated the Master head-to-head at level 13. TBH though, when I went to the Overseer to end the game, it turned out I hadn't blown up the Mutant Base. I thought killing the Lieutenant was enough. So I had to get back in there, but couldn't go the same way I went before, so I found the tape, then went down to B3 and ran into the yellow laser walls, then ran all the way back out and got a radio, then ran all the way back and used it but it didn't work... then I realized I'd spent like 40 minutes doddering around since I defeated the Master, and just couldn't be arsed with this shit anymore. So we'll just pretend I figured out how to connect the radio to the damn yellow doors and get back to the lowest floor that I'd already gotten to previously and hit the right switch to blow that place up too. I'm gonna go Youtube the ending.

Game's done as far as I'm concerned. Towards the end I couldn't wait for this one to be over with. Pretty clunky game that shows its age now. Was cool for a while to witness some gaming history, but towards the end I was so ready to be done with it and I kept running around doing busywork to get through this door or that door and damn, this was the closest I got to straight-up croaking in this crusade so far.

Took about 12-14 hours over the past two weeks, so at least it isn't a long game.

Back to Throne of Bhaal, we'll see if I can finish that before the 19th like I'm planning.

Side note: I've discovered that cats really like the music of Fallout 1. It tends to contain a lot of Middle-Eastern sitar and various... I don't know, ambient beta wave sounds that I can't describe. Cat responding to all of it. This is a good example:

All of Mark Morgan's music is great. I listen to his stuff alot to code.

Tuco · May 1, 2023

Rajaah said:
Which reminds me, I need to play Morrowind one of these years. Got it for XBox in like 2006 in a bargain bin, never got going with it because of the obscene loading times, got the PC version (the full series boxset) in 2014, played Arena and Daggerfall, didn't get to Morrowind, every year I make a tentative plan to get to it this time, and never do.

Morrowind holds up pretty well on a replay, in my opinion, because I consider it to be one of the last of that era of CRPGs before everything got WoWified (for better or worse) with more hub-centric quest markers and also because the modding scene is very strong for it. So it plays more like a retro-remake than a super old game.

Caliane · May 1, 2023

I stalled out on my temple of elemental evil playthrough.

Its kindof insane Troika made this (2003)right after Arcanum. (2001)
(hell, this came out after icewind dale 2.) (which looking at that, I'm releasing when I think "icewind dale, its actually icewind dale 2 I'm remembering)

Tim cain: Interplay: fallout, stonekeep, Star trek:starfleet academy, Fallout 2. Troika: Arcanum, ToEE, Vampire:the Masquerade bloodlines. Carbine: ncsoft. obsidian. Pillars of Eternity. the outer worlds.

The command wheel is interesting, but very not useful. the pacing design is odd. spent 3 days, and 1 char level, just walking around the first town doing fetch talk to everyone quests. get 25 marriage proposals.

I got to the second town, was not having much fun... and got completely distracted by starting up 2 new Wrath of the Righteous campaigns.
(Started an Evil Kinetisist, planning on going demon. but was having such a hard time RPing evil ha. was starting to lean towards CN/trickster.. but even said fuck it. started a LG Shaman to go level 40 Angel spells. That run is going good. just cleared Grey garrison.)

I'd have a hard time suggesting ToEE even in a retrospective like this. I'm not seeing much of value.
back on page 1, you have ToEE on phase 1, and Arcanum in phase 3 "optional". yeah, no. while Arcanum is much longer, and a buggy mess. its unquestionably more pivotal and inspirational of a game.

Rajaah · May 1, 2023

Tuco said:
Morrowind holds up pretty well on a replay, in my opinion, because I consider it to be one of the last of that era of CRPGs before everything got WoWified (for better or worse) with more hub-centric quest markers and also because the modding scene is very strong for it. So it plays more like a retro-remake than a super old game.

The impression I get is that Skyrim's main advantage was the graphical enhancements and atmosphere, but Morrowind was the superior game. With all of the mods it has, Morrowind at this point probably looks just about as good as Skyrim does. So is it safe to say that in 2023 Morrowind is the pinnacle ES game?

I hope there's a mod for fast travel because, even though it adds to the world to have to hoof it everywhere, I can't do that in the modern era. Especially with Morrowind's slow movement speeds. Those things and the super high miss rate in the first 6-8 levels or so are the things I'd mod out.

Oblivion is probably 50/50 between the two in terms of what people want from ES between gameplay and visuals etc.

I've got Morrowind and Oblivion on disc for PC and I have Skyrim on PS5 (it was on sale for $8 or something recently for the PS5 Legendary Edition with expansions). I'm not a big mod guy and Skyrim was fine to me the way it was from what I played of it. Don't mind modding the others to bring them up to speed though, especially if they're better games overall.

Caliane said:
I'd have a hard time suggesting ToEE even in a retrospective like this. I'm not seeing much of value.
back on page 1, you have ToEE on phase 1, and Arcanum in phase 3 "optional". yeah, no. while Arcanum is much longer, and a buggy mess. its unquestionably more pivotal and inspirational of a game.

Just changed things around and put TOEE after Arcanum. I'll almost definitely get to Phase 3 as well so it isn't really optional anymore so much as "things I'm leaving for last". Could even label them as years if you wanted, 'cause P1 is all I expect to get through in 2023 at best.

What's the best way to get Arcanum? I've got most of that list at this point, except most of the Phase 3 stuff. Some of them seem like they're better to just get on GOG rather than disc, like System Shock 2 which lacks any kind of cool big box and has issues running on modern hardware off of disc.

Added asterisks to the first post on the ones I haven't gotten ahold of yet. Probably get PF1 and 2 on PS5, KOTOR1 on Switch, and the rest on PC either for the cost, mods, or just not being available on console (I prefer console by a lot).

Caliane · May 1, 2023

yeah. gog has patches to make sure things run on modern systems. often the unofficial fan patches. in this case, the unofficial patch is seperate.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Welcome to an industrial revolution in a world of magic! Imagine a place of wonder, w

www.gog.com

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com

Download the best games on Windows & Mac. A vast selection of titles, DRM-free, with free goodies, and lots of pure customer love.

www.gog.com

Unofficial Arcanum Patch

Burns · May 1, 2023

Caliane said:
I stalled out on my temple of elemental evil playthrough.

Its kindof insane Troika made this (2003)right after Arcanum. (2001)
(hell, this came out after icewind dale 2.) (which looking at that, I'm releasing when I think "icewind dale, its actually icewind dale 2 I'm remembering)

Tim cain: Interplay: fallout, stonekeep, Star trek:starfleet academy, Fallout 2. Troika: Arcanum, ToEE, Vampire:the Masquerade bloodlines. Carbine: ncsoft. obsidian. Pillars of Eternity. the outer worlds.

The command wheel is interesting, but very not useful. the pacing design is odd. spent 3 days, and 1 char level, just walking around the first town doing fetch talk to everyone quests. get 25 marriage proposals.

I got to the second town, was not having much fun... and got completely distracted by starting up 2 new Wrath of the Righteous campaigns.
(Started an Evil Kinetisist, planning on going demon. but was having such a hard time RPing evil ha. was starting to lean towards CN/trickster.. but even said fuck it. started a LG Shaman to go level 40 Angel spells. That run is going good. just cleared Grey garrison.)

I'd have a hard time suggesting ToEE even in a retrospective like this. I'm not seeing much of value.
back on page 1, you have ToEE on phase 1, and Arcanum in phase 3 "optional". yeah, no. while Arcanum is much longer, and a buggy mess. its unquestionably more pivotal and inspirational of a game.

ToEE really needs at least a couple mods, Circle of 8 being the most important. From what I remember, it was the best implementation of DnD rules until Pathfinder came out. I probably wouldn't rate it as highly, now that I have played both the Pathfinder games.

A couple weeks ago, I started a replay of PST:EE, as it has been a long time, and I never played the EE. The story and characters are still one of the greatest ever made in an an RPG, but I guess Pathfinder just ruined combat for a bunch of other games, as I don't remember the combat being THAT terrible and tedious (in PST).

Rajaah said:
The impression I get is that Skyrim's main advantage was the graphical enhancements and atmosphere, but Morrowind was the superior game. With all of the mods it has, Morrowind at this point probably looks just about as good as Skyrim does. So is it safe to say that in 2023 Morrowind is the pinnacle ES game?

I hope there's a mod for fast travel because, even though it adds to the world to have to hoof it everywhere, I can't do that in the modern era. Especially with Morrowind's slow movement speeds. Those things and the super high miss rate in the first 6-8 levels or so are the things I'd mod out.

Oblivion is probably 50/50 between the two in terms of what people want from ES between gameplay and visuals etc.

I've got Morrowind and Oblivion on disc for PC and I have Skyrim on PS5 (it was on sale for $8 or something recently for the PS5 Legendary Edition with expansions). I'm not a big mod guy and Skyrim was fine to me the way it was from what I played of it. Don't mind modding the others to bring them up to speed though, especially if they're better games overall.

Just changed things around and put TOEE after Arcanum. I'll almost definitely get to Phase 3 as well so it isn't really optional anymore so much as "things I'm leaving for last". Could even label them as years if you wanted, 'cause P1 is all I expect to get through in 2023 at best.

What's the best way to get Arcanum? I've got most of that list at this point, except most of the Phase 3 stuff. Some of them seem like they're better to just get on GOG rather than disc, like System Shock 2 which lacks any kind of cool big box and has issues running on modern hardware off of disc.

Added asterisks to the first post on the ones I haven't gotten ahold of yet. Probably get PF1 and 2 on PS5, KOTOR1 on Switch, and the rest on PC either for the cost, mods, or just not being available on console (I prefer console by a lot).

Morrowind was the last Beth game that I completed with zero mods (well, the only other game I completed, since then, was Skyrim, due to mods making it MUCH better). That said, with how much mods improved Skyrim, I would probably look for a curated mod collection list for Morrowind, if I was going to play it again today. Something that makes Cliff Racers fuck off would certainly be nice.

DirkDonkeyroot · May 1, 2023

Rajaah said:
Yeah I looked stuff up for sure. Once I spent a couple hours trying to find a second Rope I was pretty much doneski. It isn't 1997 anymore when I can spend weeks / dozens of hours on a single retro game.

In other news, got some new ones:

View attachment 470927
View attachment 470928
These two (and the two Fallouts) would be perfect for Enhanced Edition two-packs. Not sure why they stopped making those.

They didn't do Icewind Dale 2 because black isle lost the source code for it unfortunately. It would be a great EE game to have.

Tuco · May 2, 2023

Rajaah said:
The impression I get is that Skyrim's main advantage was the graphical enhancements and atmosphere, but Morrowind was the superior game. With all of the mods it has, Morrowind at this point probably looks just about as good as Skyrim does. So is it safe to say that in 2023 Morrowind is the pinnacle ES game?

I hope there's a mod for fast travel because, even though it adds to the world to have to hoof it everywhere, I can't do that in the modern era. Especially with Morrowind's slow movement speeds. Those things and the super high miss rate in the first 6-8 levels or so are the things I'd mod out.

Oblivion is probably 50/50 between the two in terms of what people want from ES between gameplay and visuals etc.

I've got Morrowind and Oblivion on disc for PC and I have Skyrim on PS5 (it was on sale for $8 or something recently for the PS5 Legendary Edition with expansions). I'm not a big mod guy and Skyrim was fine to me the way it was from what I played of it. Don't mind modding the others to bring them up to speed though, especially if they're better games overall.

Just changed things around and put TOEE after Arcanum. I'll almost definitely get to Phase 3 as well so it isn't really optional anymore so much as "things I'm leaving for last". Could even label them as years if you wanted, 'cause P1 is all I expect to get through in 2023 at best.

What's the best way to get Arcanum? I've got most of that list at this point, except most of the Phase 3 stuff. Some of them seem like they're better to just get on GOG rather than disc, like System Shock 2 which lacks any kind of cool big box and has issues running on modern hardware off of disc.

Added asterisks to the first post on the ones I haven't gotten ahold of yet. Probably get PF1 and 2 on PS5, KOTOR1 on Switch, and the rest on PC either for the cost, mods, or just not being available on console (I prefer console by a lot).

I'd argue that Skyrim is the pinnacle ES game. It really is a stellar game, with or without mods. I wouldn't play Morrowind in 2023 without heavy mods, but I'm a big mod guy.

Caliane · May 2, 2023

Burns said:
ToEE really needs at least a couple mods, Circle of 8 being the most important. From what I remember, it was the best implementation of DnD rules until Pathfinder came out. I probably wouldn't rate it as highly, now that I have played both the Pathfinder games.

oh, thats interesting. Ill look into some mods. I probably should have checked the GoG forums first.

Temple of Elemental Evil (ToEE) Mod Installation Guide (Co8, Portraits, Temple+), page 1 - Forum - GOG.com

Download the best games on Windows & Mac. A vast selection of titles, DRM-free, with free goodies, and lots of pure customer love.

www.gog.com

yeah, it is fairly "true" to a dnd game in terms of implementing skills. they are all there, even if thers no use for them. attributes are rolled, not point buy. roll for Hp. save scum that 1-3 Hp on fighter/paladins... All talk for multiple sessions before heading out on a journey is fairly normal in tabletop. etc. just wasn't very fun. lack of party personality/banter. general lack of content.

Kajiimagi · May 2, 2023

Inspired by Rajaah , I am paying the Baldurs gates games on PS5. I don't remember the last time I played the 1st Baldurs gate game but holy shit have I forgotten ~~most~~ all of it. All I really remember is Minsc (and Boo!). Now that I am no longer playing 2 games (Baldurs gate and wtf is going on with this controller) and can enjoy it, I am having a really really good time.

Kharzette · May 2, 2023

The main thing I remember about temple of elemental evil was the cool circle spells and attacks of opportunity by archers on casters, which was kinda cool.

Kajiimagi · May 2, 2023

Biggest thing I remember about TEE was I was able to use fireball /cone spells without nuking my teammates. I may play that again later but Arcanum is 3x a better game, bugs and all.

Rajaah · May 3, 2023

Kajiimagi said:
Biggest thing I remember about TEE was I was able to use fireball /cone spells without nuking my teammates. I may play that again later but Arcanum is 3x a better game, bugs and all.

AOEs nuking your teammates was the single biggest annoyance in BG for me. Made me avoid using casters eventually, when I wanted to be bombing AOEs instead. Especially Entangle, what a useless spell. Tie up the enemy, win battle, stand there with your characters getting snared over time by your own AOE for another 15 seconds.

Was also checking out Tactics Ogre Reborn at the time and friendly fire was a real issue with casters in that game too, constantly blasting other characters who got in the way.

I had some CRPG burnout when I finished Temple of Bhaal, but now I'm getting psyched back up to do more. Gonna start with Icewind Dale in a couple weeks, after I get done with FF5 and 6.

Burns · May 3, 2023

Rajaah said:
AOEs nuking your teammates was the single biggest annoyance in BG for me. Made me avoid using casters eventually, when I wanted to be bombing AOEs instead. Especially Entangle, what a useless spell. Tie up the enemy, win battle, stand there with your characters getting snared over time by your own AOE for another 15 seconds.

Was also checking out Tactics Ogre Reborn at the time and friendly fire was a real issue with casters in that game too, constantly blasting other characters who got in the way.

I had some CRPG burnout when I finished Temple of Bhaal, but now I'm getting psyched back up to do more. Gonna start with Icewind Dale in a couple weeks, after I get done with FF5 and 6.

Proper group positioning, scouting/prepping a room, and friendly fire is part of the difficulty curve of playing a caster. Fireball, Cloudkill, and Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting are extremely powerful spells that can just start deleting mobs. Even if you are using it, primarily, to nuke a caster + 1 other Archer, it's still effective. It's not like you NEED to hit all enemies, every time. Best uses (that I can remember) for Cloudkill and Horrid Wilting was to sneak into a room with one character, so you can see far enough inside to target the ground in the middle, sneak back out, have your caster drop a cloud smack in the middle of the room, then shut the door. Fireball was just a good nuke to hit back line mobs; throw it against the back wall and you usually hit the enemies, but not friendlies.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues with the real time with pause combat is that it makes positioning, for optimal AoE spell use, much more tedious. Conversely, I rarely have much of an issue with friendly fire in turn based game, such as DoS 1 & 2, the Pathfinder games (w/ TB on), or even stuff like Xcom (old or modern).

Regardless, obviously my best advice is to git gud, scrub!

Some games let you turn it off in the difficulty setting though, so there is that. Pathfinder also added a meta magic ability that modifies spells to not hit friendlies.

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