tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post5199689776504548467..comments2024-03-28T15:25:30.216-04:00Comments on The CRPG Addict: Gateway to the Savage Frontier: Won!CRPG Addicthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-48268318557083241922016-08-23T14:04:01.619-04:002016-08-23T14:04:01.619-04:00Not that it helps open it, but Stuffit was pretty ...Not that it helps open it, but Stuffit was pretty much the default file compression format on Mac up until OS X or so (possibly slightly earlier than that). Certainly in the OS 7 or 8 days. So anything from that era of Mac will probably be found in .sit format. malkav11https://www.blogger.com/profile/06785046340353526574noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-91521722107259329152016-08-20T11:35:38.383-04:002016-08-20T11:35:38.383-04:00I read some of them as a kid and liked them but co...I read some of them as a kid and liked them but could never find all of them. I've been r reading his Berserker series lately and quite enjoying it.Canageekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03770924810559440307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-87187526440198740542016-04-12T03:08:18.907-04:002016-04-12T03:08:18.907-04:00Standard muscle cuirass, unless you think she'...Standard muscle cuirass, unless you think she's got rings over the breasts going straight into the skin, which would be a weird thing to think. The real bronze muscle cuirasses had nipples and abs, just like some of the bat suits. So it's not like the nips are a gratuitous addition for the lady version. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11630415436281765460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-34138465046737487552016-04-12T00:31:54.169-04:002016-04-12T00:31:54.169-04:00I think it's similar to the muscle shirt worn ...I think it's similar to the muscle shirt worn by BonoGerry Quinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04078394659680797175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-78721533972170356112016-04-11T23:25:26.360-04:002016-04-11T23:25:26.360-04:00Good zinger, Kenny, although the question of wheth...Good zinger, Kenny, although the question of whether a major commercial release from 1991 featured nudity is at least worth debating.<br /><br />For what it's worth, I would agree with anonymous's interpretation if the character didn't have blue skin in the first place. Taken in isolation, the piece of armor could be seen as skin with at least one nipple on the left side. But since her skin is blue, it's clear that the top of her torso is bare and the mid-section and abs are a sculpted piece of armor.CRPG Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-58201677249331952132016-04-11T23:15:06.705-04:002016-04-11T23:15:06.705-04:00Okay, but I think you might be thinking of the off...Okay, but I think you might be thinking of the official D&D product of 1988 rather than the shareware game I was describing.CRPG Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-46673666067071947692016-04-11T22:03:35.395-04:002016-04-11T22:03:35.395-04:00The Dungeonmasters Assistant does not come with a ...The Dungeonmasters Assistant does not come with a plot because it is actually a program performing its titular task, that is, assisting the Dungeon Master.<br /><br />It basically handles all the encounter/treasure tables, NPC information, monster background and all the stuff that we can download as an app for our smartphones nowadays.<br /><br />The actual approach to implementing this program is to have a few people sit down, roll up a character each (except the DM) and save it into the program, the DM then narrates to the players and let the program do the logistics of calculation and die-rolling.<br /><br />It's useful if you do not have a huge gaming table, not enough dice, pencils, character sheets and whatnots. Else, it is, at best, a novelty product.Kenny McCormickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01553499727945099493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-72501226042631495752016-04-11T21:49:40.457-04:002016-04-11T21:49:40.457-04:00@Anonymous - I'm not sure who's nuts but I...@Anonymous - I'm not sure who's nuts but I guess zooming in to a heavily pixelated low-res caricature of a female hominid just to check out if there are any anomalous protrusions on barely depicted mammaries would actually be a dangerously close contender.Kenny McCormickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01553499727945099493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-66061826813347161132016-04-11T14:11:57.674-04:002016-04-11T14:11:57.674-04:00You identified more plot holes than I did, but in ...You identified more plot holes than I did, but in general your questions echo my feelings about the story.<br /><br />It's funny how the first two comments in this thread say exactly the same thing that I said in my final review. I didn't read these until after I'd written the review.CRPG Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-71880787741656963912016-04-11T14:10:41.910-04:002016-04-11T14:10:41.910-04:00It was a complex maze, but easily solvable by just...It was a complex maze, but easily solvable by just following one wall.CRPG Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-57999312539134634192016-04-10T22:47:34.341-04:002016-04-10T22:47:34.341-04:00I've played all the games to death. :) To me, ...I've played all the games to death. :) To me, it's like comparing a maze area with the Area view on. It makes it too easy to navigate. Compare that to some of the claustrophobic and confusing mazes in Dark Queen of Krynn. Maybe it's the fact that I've played it so often and know it so well. I suppose it might have felt more maze like if the combats weren't a straightforward 4x2 rectangle. If you had to go say up once then right twice then up again, it might have had more of a maze feel. <br /><br />I think it was a clever idea, but it didn't quite come off. Richard Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-47024966167768783432016-04-10T20:53:57.980-04:002016-04-10T20:53:57.980-04:00I've played all the games to death. :) To me, ...I've played all the games to death. :) To me, it's like comparing a maze area with the Area view on. It makes it too easy to navigate. Compare that to some of the claustrophobic and confusing mazes in Dark Queen of Krynn. Maybe it's the fact that I've played it so often and know it so well. I suppose it might have felt more maze like if the combats weren't a straightforward 4x2 rectangle. Richard Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-26112751111579032722016-04-10T19:10:17.164-04:002016-04-10T19:10:17.164-04:00For item 3...did you actually play the game...with...For item 3...did you actually play the game...without a FAQ or maps? That section always seemed the *most* maze like of any section of any GB game. old wow bastardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13219195579845781590noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-53221725804062388192016-04-10T17:45:19.034-04:002016-04-10T17:45:19.034-04:00As a minor point, the game's 'love affair&...As a minor point, the game's 'love affair' with various monsters likely is an artifact of it being carried forward from heavily limited computer hardware; if you look at the files with tools like Gold Box Explorer you'll see that the game is still divided into 'disks' with numbers, as a carryover from games like Pool and Curse when this was actually meant to be played on games without hard drives! This is why you can't see character portraits outside New Phlan in Pool--they were stored on disk 3! I actually played Pool on an Apple II, and can still tell you what disks each dungeon is on--all of Valjevo Castle is on disk 5, for example. For Curse, each major part of the game has its own disk; I forget how things work with Gateway but suspect it is similar. So the 'love affair' monsters are the few ones they crammed on the 180K disk!Null Nullnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-62959645245225652172016-04-10T06:12:00.485-04:002016-04-10T06:12:00.485-04:00For anyone who wishes to attempt to answer these b...For anyone who wishes to attempt to answer these burning questions, the clue book (which contains the narrative structure as GB cluebooks always do) and the adventurer's Journal are at replacementdocs.Tristan Gallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16769219573533545742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-44506426270245765952016-04-10T06:10:19.584-04:002016-04-10T06:10:19.584-04:00Further questions:
Why did the party take the sta...Further questions:<br /><br />Why did the party take the statuettes to Ascore aka exactly where Vaalgamon wanted them?<br /><br />What was Vaalgamon doing at Ascore?<br /><br />Would the undead have killed Vaalgamon anyway if the party hadn't shown up?<br /><br />If the party hadn't shown up, would the armies of orcs, trolls and Zhentarim have met at Ascore and had high tea with the mummies while planning world domination?Tristan Gallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16769219573533545742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-48854305080215309502016-04-10T05:54:54.355-04:002016-04-10T05:54:54.355-04:00I think the story got messed up somewhere during t...I think the story got messed up somewhere during the development process.<br /><br />1) The statuettes were created long ago and combined to be a giant monster repellent.<br /><br />2) The monsters are preventing lucrative travel from the Moonsea region to the Savage Frontier.<br /><br />3) The Zhentarim want to make the journey safe again, so they can bring an army through the desert and establish themselves in the Savage Frontier.<br /><br />4) Amanitas gives the party a ring that will reverse the monster repelling power of the statuettes and make them attract monsters.<br /><br />5) This is where the story goes awry - At the climax, three armies are descending on Ascore simultaneously, the monster attracting beacon is activated, and monsters destroy the armies.<br /><br />Where did these armies come from, and why did they all appear at the same time? An army of trolls? Since when did trolls organise? How the heck did an army of Zhentarim cross the desert when the entire plot revolved around them needing the statuettes to do precisely that? How did Amanitas know that turning the statuettes into a monster beacon would be useful? How did the monsters immediately arrive en masse to Ascore? Would't Toril benefit from a trade route between the Frontier and the Moonsea region?<br /><br />The ending was a narrative clusterf....Tristan Gallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16769219573533545742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-82663033084199065092016-04-09T21:20:15.303-04:002016-04-09T21:20:15.303-04:00Glad I'm not the only one who lost the gist of...Glad I'm not the only one who lost the gist of the game. Places were visited, foes were slain, but I'd have to go back to the previous posts and take notes to determine what the narrative was.Raifieldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08478524519453417677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-19252008269633449402016-04-09T19:09:43.622-04:002016-04-09T19:09:43.622-04:00For number 6, I meant Sundabar, not Secomber, obvi...For number 6, I meant Sundabar, not Secomber, obviously. Richard Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-91549082062551642812016-04-09T16:08:35.639-04:002016-04-09T16:08:35.639-04:00Hm. This was somewhat hard to follow as far as the...Hm. This was somewhat hard to follow as far as the game's story is concerned. It just didn't seem to have well done narrative elements like "rising action" and "climax". Left me pretty cold. Still seems to have been a good game. It just didn't have much to say.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-80068660707761175812016-04-09T14:13:46.164-04:002016-04-09T14:13:46.164-04:00It looks like the female counterpart of the "...It looks like the female counterpart of the "muscle cuirass" which were the ancient greeks famous formarcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-79100099669345788662016-04-09T06:08:44.710-04:002016-04-09T06:08:44.710-04:00A few random thoughts about the final stanza of th...A few random thoughts about the final stanza of this game:<br /><br />1. As you pointed out, you get no acknowledgement for killing Vaalgamon, and the game assumes that you didn't kill him. Boo. Lazy programming - the game manages a contingency if Krevish is dead or absent (Amantis appears and gives the same speech instead), so surely it could have managed this. <br />2. Speaking of Krevish, are you kidding me? Let's look at this logically, shall we? He willingly let your party be used to kill the Banite and get dragged into the plot, pretended to be weak and foolhardy the whole time... to what end? He couldn't use his knowledge to help earlier? He used his priceless ring of wishes as a low level healing device instead of teleporting the party to the plaza or turning Vaalgamon into a radish or thwarting the Zhentarim plot to begin with? When it comes down to it, Krevish is either an utterly inept secret agent, or this is a pointless plot twist for the sake of a plot twist. <br />3. The final battle is original, but probably shouldn't have made it through play testing. Having a birdseye view of the maze all the time means you never get the impression of being in a maze. <br />4. Why wasn't Vaalgamon standing in front of the entrance to the plaza? "Yeah, we'll just set up over there to the right. That should be cool. I mean, when did they ever try to get an advantage by going around me? Apart from the last time?"<br />5. The bit in the end sequence about "the tale of your escape would take an entire afternoon?" Come on. If it's a heroic story, let me act it out. Isn't that the point of a game? It doesn't have to end when you kill the Big Bad. <br />6. One little aside: I love the fact that you actually have a consequence from picking the stupid option at the statue in Secomber. That said, why don't you have the same result if you go to Llorkh after getting all the other statuettes?<br /><br />OK, that's quite a rant. I like this game (the dungeon design is consistently solid), but I think the role playing options - unlike the other Gold Box games - are just daft. The characters don't act like actual people in a fantasy world, they act like people that do what the plot requires of them at that point. Richard Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-51169395871893847442016-04-09T03:26:02.935-04:002016-04-09T03:26:02.935-04:00I've always found that when enemies are able t...I've always found that when enemies are able to inflict stat penalties/drains on my characters that persist beyond the end of combat for any reason in any RPG/roguelike, it's just not a fun or interesting mechanic.HunterZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17049065099652976143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-91559203788718741882016-04-09T02:34:39.335-04:002016-04-09T02:34:39.335-04:00Looks like my message disappeared again. Grrr.Looks like my message disappeared again. Grrr.PetrusOctavianusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-71526872511889705432016-04-09T02:02:54.353-04:002016-04-09T02:02:54.353-04:00@OWB ahh yup. You're right, resto didn't h...@OWB ahh yup. You're right, resto didn't have a generalised effect until later editions, Heal is the spell that would have been most likely to restore ability damage (or Wish). Cure Disease is supposed to restore the ability scores after a week or so, except in the case of certain diseases which are left untreated for months (eg Mummy Rot).Tristan Gallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16769219573533545742noreply@blogger.com