The Bard's Tale 4

Krag

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Qhue said:
Combat video sent out today. Obviously still more of a mocked-up living storyboard than "in game engine" but an interesting take on the turn-based genre
Click to expand...
That combat looks much better (and more interesting) than I was expecting to be honest.

My "fear" for some of these new takes on old games has mostly been if they could capture some of the very rose-coloured memories I have from playing them all that time ago. I think that combat video does a pretty good job with at least that part of it.
 
Qhue

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The alpha for this came out this week and is also being shown at GDC. Canned 20min-ish chunk of content with premade characters but gives a general feel to the whole thing.

I love me some Bards Tale from back in the day, but no way was I high enough of a supporter for alpha access, thus I'm left yelling at the screen watching streamers who seem to be the most dim gamers ever.**


** Or just stretching out the demo with feigned incompetence to try and get ad revenue .
 
Caliane

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not feigned. That retard spends 10 minutes talking over the fucking intro song with equal volume.
And that incompetence follow throughout the vid in gameplay.
 
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Soygen

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Qhue said:

The alpha for this came out this week and is also being shown at GDC. Canned 20min-ish chunk of content with premade characters but gives a general feel to the whole thing.

I love me some Bards Tale from back in the day, but no way was I high enough of a supporter for alpha access, thus I'm left yelling at the screen watching streamers who seem to be the most dim gamers ever.**


** Or just stretching out the demo with feigned incompetence to try and get ad revenue .
Click to expand...
Watching him on the cog puzzle was brutal. These are the retards giving feedback during alpha. Think about that.

I Kickstarted this, but at the early bird digital level, so no early access for me.
 
Caliane

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heres a slightly better vid.

puzzle weapons seem fun. if you dont spoil yourself.
 
Qhue

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Christ I swear everyone who bought into alpha is borderline retarded.
 
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Siliconemelons

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The entire "buying into alpha/beta" was at first a fun way to get the community involved.

But it quickly slippery sloped into what it is now, just another cash grab.

People that are just "playing it" are NOT going to get you the info and stuff you need out of proper beta and alpha testers... so it becomes just in-house testing, and that has the same issues that are known and longstanding as to WHY beta programs started in the first damn place.
 
Pyros

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In some cases it'll be useful for catching bugs and for UI feedback. Content you should mostly ignore I think and that's why they only give partial limited demos for alpha/beta but it depends on what you do with the feedback in the end. I don't buy into alpha/beta tiers for shit like this, but if I do get access, I sometimes use it right before launch for some time saving at launch. For example in Divinity 2 I had beta access with the tier I had(I think every tier had it), but I only played the beta for like 2hours the day before launch, to try to figure out my group composition and what skills to take and what not. It was only slightly useful because the beta client was way behind their internal client so there were a lot of changes at launch anyway.

They did do a fair amount of changes based on beta, but not like actual content changes, and more UI and some stats/balancing changes based on the feedback they got, which I think is useful. They still launched with some terrible UI ideas that were reported though, like how looting consumables added them to your bar constantly.

Pillars of Eternity 1/2 is doing the same thing, they have outdated betas to show the engine, UI and so on, but they don't really care about feedback on other stuff too much, and hopefully that's what they're doing with this too. Catching potential crashes issues early is pretty useful too.
 
Qhue

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I will say the game has a nifty look and feel to it. I like how they have used the gaming grid to replicate some of the feel of the old linear party ranking while still making it a more visually active game. It's not really an Xcom or FFTactics sort of tactical combat simulator, but its also not attack attack attack defend defend cast a spell
 
Caliane

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Man, going back and looking at some of the original posts. Such nostalgia being brought back ha.
Reminders of some of the pain-crushing difficulty in older games. shit like, need torches to see. fall down a pit 3 levels. facing monsters 3 levels too high for you. lose 2 of your party running back... cant resurrect. auto saved....

how is Ultima:underworld going? havent heard much there either.

I notice here, the "estimated date" was oct 2017. obviously past that. wonder what the target is now.
I do like what I see from the last vid. you can get it for $27 now, and seems they intend to raise price to 40 on release. (32% off)
CrowdOx - The Bard's Tale IV

Also wonder how the classes will work exactly. the voicing, etc. I see in the dev updates, there are base classes with sub classes. bard>rabble rouser, brew master, minstrel, troubadour, or war chanter.
practioner> conjurer, magician, sorcerer, wizard> archmage.
Rogue.
So, I think the base characters are preset. which let them do the characters and voices. and you then just specialize them. Also, notice the combat vid from before, does use different character art. While, the game does say up to 6 party members. so, other party members there, or remade characters, or can choose art, but voices are same regardless.
 
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velk

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Caliane said:
heres a slightly better vid.

puzzle weapons seem fun. if you dont spoil yourself.
Click to expand...

Oh god, watching that guy was painful. "<End Turn>... <End Turn>... <End Turn>... NO ! WHAT THE FUCK, STOP THAT !"

Game looks surprisingly good though
 
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Qhue

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Backer Beta was released yesterday and Im really enjoying it. Very much in spirit with the older games but with enough changes to bring it up to speed with modern sensibilities. My one regret is that they didn't include the explicit spells from the original series (ARFI, STFL, etc) but I am digging the new twist on turn based combat that is different than both traditional western or Japanese RPGs
 
Qhue

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Grrrr. Got to the end of the Beta and now I'm jonesin for more. I'm going back and hunting out all the secret stuff / trying to beat encounters that are substantially higher level than my crew.
 
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DirkDonkeyroot

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Qhue said:
Backer Beta was released yesterday and Im really enjoying it. Very much in spirit with the older games but with enough changes to bring it up to speed with modern sensibilities. My one regret is that they didn't include the explicit spells from the original series (ARFI, STFL, etc) but I am digging the new twist on turn based combat that is different than both traditional western or Japanese RPGs
Click to expand...
Maybe they get it a bit later on than where I am, but I hope they have the various illusion/undead/demon summons for party members.
 
Qhue

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DirkDonkeyroot said:
Maybe they get it a bit later on than where I am, but I hope they have the various illusion/undead/demon summons for party members.
Click to expand...

One of the party slots does seem to be reserved for NPC / summons, there is also a 'Gate' spell on the Practioner tree at Novice Wizard. I actually skilled into it with Mage Alguin' apprentice, but couldn't cast it because I think he was already filling the special slot.
 
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DirkDonkeyroot

DirkDonkeyroot

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So I finished the beta build. There's a good game in there trying to get out, but it needs some more time in the oven. Inventory management and vendor tetris are terrible. The map is just plain ole useless if it doesn't let us put notes on it or keep the marks for points we've been to. Qhue Qhue did you know that if you make a character at the AG at creation it's your first characters current level complete with skill points but when you add them to your party and leave they go to level one, but they still have whatever skill points they had at creation? I know it's a bug but it may help you power past some of the harder encounters.
 
Soygen

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This launches next week. I backed this on Kickstarter, so will have a copy whether it's good or not. Any word on improvements since beta?
 
Pyros

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I backed it but probably not playing for a while, I want to play the first 3 remakes before and those aren't done, only first one is done. So by the time I play it should be patched enough hopefully. But eh even if the game is hot garbage, the remake of the first 3 is probably worth the 10 or 20bucks that I paid for this and if it's half decent, that's basically 4 games for half the price of one, so not gonna complain. This looks to be one of the few kickstarters I back that doesn't turn into shit. Divinity was the other one.
 
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