tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post6409829270517036751..comments2024-03-28T13:59:51.408-04:00Comments on The CRPG Addict: Game 354: Ragnarok (1992)CRPG Addicthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-29592741730060119532024-03-12T00:54:38.205-04:002024-03-12T00:54:38.205-04:00I played it as a kid, and emailed the developer wh...I played it as a kid, and emailed the developer while he still had a website up and email listed; Got a nice reply for him. He put out both games for free some time ago. They are probably why I enjoy nethack so much.Canageekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03770924810559440307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-73429389576532312512024-03-10T15:16:56.538-04:002024-03-10T15:16:56.538-04:00"Why do video games always make bears so dang..."Why do video games always make bears so dangerous?"<br /><br />In early eras bears were terrifying; There is evidence early Europeans wouldn't actually say the proper name for them, for fear of summoning one; and that our word 'bear' is descended from the term they used to avoid saying the true name of the bear species. <br /><br />(If you want citations on that, I'll have to ask my fiance, they are the linguist, not me) Canageekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03770924810559440307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-80550410705292268052024-03-10T15:14:11.173-04:002024-03-10T15:14:11.173-04:00I strongly suspect that Scroll of Wonder is a refe...I strongly suspect that Scroll of Wonder is a reference to the Rod of Wonder from D&D, that also generates random effects. Canageekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03770924810559440307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-91536442208484987002020-02-12T15:43:07.303-05:002020-02-12T15:43:07.303-05:00I appreciate you sharing this here. I've been ...I appreciate you sharing this here. I've been in e-mail contact with Mr. Vawter, and now I can avoid asking him the same questions!CRPG Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-69415118507299361902020-02-12T00:11:25.158-05:002020-02-12T00:11:25.158-05:00These were my dumb fan questions:
1. How did you ...<b>These were my dumb fan questions:</b><br /><br />1. How did you first conceive of Ragnarok? <br /><br />2. How did you and Thomas Boyd meet?<br /><br />3. To what degree did other rogues influence the creation of Ragnarok? <br /><br />4. When you started Norsehelm, did you envision it as a way to make a profit on games you created on the side, or did you see it as a fully formed business venture?<br /><br />5. Whenever I play the game, I am struck by the unusually depth of the mythology. Was research required, or did you always have an interest in Norse mythology?<br /><br />6. Were the two of you in charge of different aspects of the game?<br /><br />7. Did the game make a profit (If I can be crass enough to ask)?<br /><br />8. Many of the creature names I haven't seen in any mythology books I've read - Secitts, Zardons, and Sandiffs, for example - did these come from other sources?<br /><br />9. Did you feel that any other books, movies, or games influenced Ragnarok's creation?<br /><br />10. How did you get started creating games?<br /><br /><b>And here is what Rob Vawter replied with:</b><br /><br /> 1/2/3/10:<br />Tom and I were good friends in college who played video games together, including Hack, Rogue, and NetHack, all of which were fun, but not as satisfying to us at they could be. One day, Tom proposed that we make our own game. I initially laughed, but then realized that although we were not CS majors, we were both tech-oriented with some programming background, and could actually do it. The game started out with no real design and a non-graphical interface.<br /><br />4/5/8/9<br />We were hobbyists who eventually saw an opportunity for business. We thought Norse mythology was a very interesting and unique direction to take the game. I performed extensive research to expand my rudimentary knowledge. We both had limited D&D backgrounds, and used some of those ideas for items and creatures. However, we added our own ideas to expand in interesting areas, both in names, and in creature powers/types - secitts, zardons, bartoks, and sandiffs are some examples. <br /><br />6 <br />Not really. We each did approximately equal parts of everything: programming, art, design. Tom was the superior core implementation programmer, and I was a better adaptive re-use programmer. Tom is much better at the larger scene artwork, and I like to think I led on the smaller art assets. Both of us were heavily involved in level, creature, and item design; AI; and game balance implementation. Both of us lacked business experience. Which segues nicely into...<br /><br />7<br />If you accept the traditional definition of "profit" as a monetary output that is greater than the monetary input plus the resource input plus the loss of opportunity, then no.<br />Kohlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-58665447991389448042020-02-10T23:28:08.405-05:002020-02-10T23:28:08.405-05:00Pedro - You are correct. I have it on good authori...Pedro - You are correct. I have it on good authority that the developers intended that as a potential outcome. Odds aren't particularly high if you fail to complete quests.Fupus IIInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-35400084834695645832020-02-10T14:50:08.188-05:002020-02-10T14:50:08.188-05:00Please share your Q&A with one of the creators...Please share your Q&A with one of the creators!Yaw Botternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-77040839752372069842020-02-10T05:01:14.332-05:002020-02-10T05:01:14.332-05:00Interesting, thanks! I wonder if it was intentiona...Interesting, thanks! I wonder if it was intentional from the developers. Like as in Temple of Elemental Evil that has one "good" ending without even getting into the Temple itself iirc.Pedro Q.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03572150497835442981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-17005442452102935552020-02-09T14:56:22.227-05:002020-02-09T14:56:22.227-05:00I love, love, love this game. I was going to writ...I love, love, love this game. I was going to write a whole panegyric to it, but I realized the resulting wall of text would eat my entire Sunday. So I'll just leave you with a couple of things:<br /><br />1. Early on, the running out of physical memory thing isn't all that likely or common. It becomes all but inevitable late in the game, especially if you have long play sessions and a ton of stuff in containers. All you have to do is save your game BEFORE you run into errors. When physical memory is starting to get low, exit, reenter the game and load. You can check the physical memory by pressing F10. If you check your world map, or other memory intensive tasks, you'll lose your inventory, or the contents of storage, or objects depopulate. Don't let that happen -- it's very easy to avoid once you know how. <br /><br />2. The "better" sound isn't all it cracked up to be. Valhalla has a 4000/200 turn save limit choice that enhances the experience, and a few other nice features, but the sounds get repetitive quickly, add little, feels a bit hokey, and, most saliently for a roguelike, slows play. I Alt-S when I play Valhalla.<br /><br />3. I was a big enough fan to write one of the creators in '10, who was kind enough to write back and answer some of my questions. If your interested I could send him a message and see if it would be okay if I could release the Q&A. It was a lot of dumb fanboy questions on my part, written in a haze of sleep deprivation stress, caffeine and procrastination while I was supposed to be studying for my Board of Certification exam, but I thought you might find it interesting.<br /><br />4. As far as the difficulty is concerned, from the versions I've played, they were constantly tweaking the permadeath. Of the versions I've played, I THINK 1.9 and 2.1 deleted your saves. 2.5 had 200 turn "permasaves", and Valhalla had the 4000 turn permasave. Which version you play greatly changes the difficulty, as does the number of exploits, powers, polymorphs, and resistances you use. One of the things I love about the game is how unbalanced it can become. You can end the game teleporting into rooms, killing everything with heat radiation in 1/6 of a turn, and moving on. You can also end up fingerless and legless, dragging yourself from fight to fight with a grappling hook while periodical going insane. It's not the hardest roguelike I've played (I think I'd have to give that to Nightmare mode Zangband) but it's my pick for most fun.Kohlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-59559985043793206992020-02-08T02:21:20.840-05:002020-02-08T02:21:20.840-05:00Each time you play a roguelike, you make me want t...Each time you play a roguelike, you make me want to go back and try to beat Nethack.gboukenshahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12106689617071459570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-38355447782745505232020-02-07T19:24:07.778-05:002020-02-07T19:24:07.778-05:00This makes me think of one of my all-time favorite...This makes me think of one of my all-time favorite video gaming stories, from a <a href="https://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/adams/qanda1.html" rel="nofollow">panel/interview with Scott Adams</a>:<br /><br />*****<br /><br />Jerz: Oh, Scott, could you tell us the story about the bear and the parser.<br /><br />Adams: Ok, here’s a very good example of an unintended side effect. I told you about my first game Adventureland. Well, to conserve space in the 16K world, I only looked at the first three letters of the nouns and verbs that people typed in. There’s a section where there’s a bear on a ledge and you’ve got to get past this large bear and, being a pacifistic game, you’re not going to be able to kill the bear no matter which way you try. You can give it honey if you want, but honey is one of your treasures and you’re going to end up wasting your treasures.<br /><br />Jerz: That’s why I didn’t get the full score!!<br /><br />Adams: There is an alternate solution. What I wanted the player to do was to yell at the bear, to scare it off. You could also “scream” at the bear too, as an acceptable synonym.<br />Well, I got a fan letter in that just had my whole company rolling in the aisles. It said:<br /><br /><i>We got to that bear on the ledge. We tried giving it the honey and he ate it up and boy that was a treasure and that was no good. So we reloaded the saved game and we went back to that bear. We pushed that bear, we prodded that bear, we tickled that bear, we have gotten so upset with that bear we could get nowhere.</i><br /><br />Now the following is rated PG-13 so if you don’t want to hear it, please close your ears. Ok. Continuing...<br /><br /><i>So we finally said "Screw the bear!!" And the game replied, "The bear is so startled he falls off the ledge!"</i><br /><br />(Roaring laughter.)<br /><br />They thought I was a genius programmer!<br /><br />*****PK Thunderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14416777230563913195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-51737413189750214882020-02-07T13:59:37.869-05:002020-02-07T13:59:37.869-05:00This is your first comment in like two years. I gu...This is your first comment in like two years. I guess I should have talked about bears sooner.CRPG Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-27657489794335563602020-02-07T11:21:56.125-05:002020-02-07T11:21:56.125-05:00I was recommended a different one because it is st...I was recommended a different one because it is strong and has great armour.<br /><br />I doubt fingers are very important... because you can get more fingers!Gerry Quinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04078394659680797175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-44349824277591483592020-02-07T09:05:17.070-05:002020-02-07T09:05:17.070-05:00Sure. ROT13ed:
Lbh qba'g npghnyyl arrq gb pbzc...Sure. ROT13ed:<br />Lbh qba'g npghnyyl arrq gb pbzcyrgr nal bs gur dhrfgf - V cynlrq ng yrnfg bar tnzr jurer V whfg jrag qverpgyl gb Ivtevq, jnvgrq, naq gur tbbq tbqf jba. Vg jnfa'g nf pyrne-phg nf jura V pbzcyrgrq gur dhrfgf - V guvax vg raqrq hc jvgu gjb be guerr tbqf fheivivat engure guna nyy bs gurz - ohg vg jnf fgvyy n jva.Harannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-52926036317095770372020-02-07T07:00:29.081-05:002020-02-07T07:00:29.081-05:00CorrectCorrectPedro Q.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03572150497835442981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-10552231719187280642020-02-07T07:00:09.743-05:002020-02-07T07:00:09.743-05:00Can you ROT13 that minor bug? Don't remember i...Can you ROT13 that minor bug? Don't remember it myself, but then I only finished the game once (with all mainquests complete)Pedro Q.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03572150497835442981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-76561958508225740862020-02-07T06:49:18.743-05:002020-02-07T06:49:18.743-05:00I notice the distinctive gradients of DeluxePaint ...I notice the distinctive gradients of DeluxePaint in the cutscene graphics. That itself has a certain nostalgia.dzdthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06546063512375699302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-38184474934843195142020-02-07T05:40:26.092-05:002020-02-07T05:40:26.092-05:00Did you perhaps take an item from the shop without...Did you perhaps take an item from the shop without paying? Chet says in his entry that shopkeepers bar the door the moment you take something...Modrannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-22756122118744404782020-02-07T01:35:14.875-05:002020-02-07T01:35:14.875-05:00I was always thinking about my dream job: a shephe...I was always thinking about my dream job: a shepherd in Transsylvania. <br />But I realized it would not be fun when comes the bear for the sheep.Lord Hienmiteynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-53511097242348175402020-02-07T00:45:10.632-05:002020-02-07T00:45:10.632-05:00CRPG Addict wrote: "If I have one complaint, ...CRPG Addict wrote: "If I have one complaint, it's that the game is a little bit over-generous on providing these items, both as random treasures and enemy loot drops. By the end of the first 9 screens, I had two Rings of Agility, a Ring of Crystal Skin, a Ring of Regeneration, a Ring of Protection, a Ring of Third Sight, and I'd found a bunch of Potions of Strength (which add permanently to strength) and Potions of Experience. But co-creator Robert Vawter says that many players considered it "less forgiving" than NetHack despite the lack of permadeath, so perhaps it gets a lot harder after you leave Midgard."<br /><br />Ragnarok is definitely a lot harder after the forest. Yaw Botternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-80612062767119577252020-02-07T00:41:49.148-05:002020-02-07T00:41:49.148-05:00Technically, it's believe it's possible to...Technically, it's believe it's possible to wear 16 rings! Yaw Botternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-10182835611119847372020-02-06T22:22:29.335-05:002020-02-06T22:22:29.335-05:00I spent a lot of hours on this back in the day, it...I spent a lot of hours on this back in the day, it's a delightful game. And how many roguelikes let you wear ten rings?Ryan Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18063361293476758622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-17218542132975070932020-02-06T18:32:15.780-05:002020-02-06T18:32:15.780-05:00Very fond memories of Castle of the Winds. :-)Very fond memories of Castle of the Winds. :-)GregThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01532920274312703426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-34584182561915866712020-02-06T14:39:57.595-05:002020-02-06T14:39:57.595-05:00Is this the same game that was called Valhalla in ...Is this the same game that was called Valhalla in Europemprodnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-87718143709689931012020-02-06T12:48:32.432-05:002020-02-06T12:48:32.432-05:00A bear? Bears are sweet.
Besides, you ever see a b...A bear? Bears are sweet.<br />Besides, you ever see a bear with forty-foot feet?<br />Wonkohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05147422102351323674noreply@blogger.com