tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post8446320260976067801..comments2024-03-28T14:39:04.452-04:00Comments on The CRPG Addict: The Two Towers: Won!CRPG Addicthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01238237377918550322noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-60507605287050782952019-05-28T12:23:19.796-04:002019-05-28T12:23:19.796-04:00Just a note that this game is still listed as unpl...Just a note that this game is still listed as unplayed on your spreadsheet. :)Joe Pranevichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12997014242774219758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-2187994814362096232019-03-24T18:25:23.506-04:002019-03-24T18:25:23.506-04:00Entirely in keeping with the ridiculous gonzo tone...Entirely in keeping with the ridiculous gonzo tone of the "Shadow" franchise, and therefore great.<br /><br />I'm not worried about Shadow stuff being treated as canon. It's clearly "Michael Bay does Middle Earth" (or really Kevin J Anderson does Middle Earth but that's a less immediately clear reference). As long as they keep throwing out stuff that turns Middle Earth into a ridiculous place where superheroes with fists full of rings of power are running around, it works for me.GregThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01532920274312703426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-42043970080496012722019-03-22T13:14:03.727-04:002019-03-22T13:14:03.727-04:00Good Old Games says that there will be a sequel to...Good Old Games says that there will be a sequel to Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, a great game. I hope the cancelled sequel to my favorite vampire R.P.G. if one does count Chrono Trigger, Bloonet 2000 will become a reality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-52324961710952249472019-03-22T01:41:24.548-04:002019-03-22T01:41:24.548-04:00VK. 1992 installed base was already on the high 28...VK. 1992 installed base was already on the high 286 for a minimum.<br />This game runs on an xt and anyway uses a 1990 game engine. It's way lower quality on a graphical point of view than it's contemporaries.<br />1992 reviews of the game (mobygames) have the same opinionshankaohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06194425920878224732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-49515622275320650462019-03-20T14:38:39.945-04:002019-03-20T14:38:39.945-04:00Well, you can tailor your game to the low end hard...Well, you can tailor your game to the low end hardware without harming the gameplay and atmosphere to the extent Two Towers did.JarlFrankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08139422412722665286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-68451291414075393202019-03-20T13:23:03.731-04:002019-03-20T13:23:03.731-04:00Yeah, I mixed up U7 and UUW. Anyway, all I'm s...Yeah, I mixed up U7 and UUW. Anyway, all I'm saying is that it was perfectly reasonable for Interplay, not in the least economically, to tailor the game for the hardware available to an average consumer at the time rather than trying to push its limits. VKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-83639870494231067152019-03-20T12:47:04.565-04:002019-03-20T12:47:04.565-04:00Maybe, Tristain. But having time/budget constraint...Maybe, Tristain. But having time/budget constraints, they may have thought "whatever, it works for pen&paper, so let's not think too much about what else we can do with our small budget".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-64286226015716560652019-03-20T11:58:13.823-04:002019-03-20T11:58:13.823-04:00@Vk and also @Jakub Ultima 7 as many 2D titles of ...@Vk and also @Jakub Ultima 7 as many 2D titles of the era didn't have any graphic settings and that's why in my example i used Ultima Underworld (i could be wrong but maybe in U7 you could turn on/off some shadows that where a real hog as a the time it was all software without any accelerator cards). U7 is also a strange beast as the code was more sculpted and chiselled than written. On lower configurations the scrolling was jerky as hell and the mouse unruly (and let's not talk about loading times) and yet what you could play was enough to convince you that you really needed that upgrade. On the other hand the real difference between the two towers and Ultima 7 is that<br />the latter has competent and strong artistic direction.<br />Which is why, going back to VK's point, even if it would have been possible to choose lower graphic settings on U7 (and you can't) it wouldn't have looked as bad as the two towers does.<br /><br />P.s Totally off topic: I was thinking, maybe the way in which the game switches among parties reflects the harsh judgment the designer had about the book. Something like:"...and let's the game constantly and randomly switch party as in those damn book that I'm supposed to like because everyone else does."Ronconautahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12644199312156727426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-21952306973825431592019-03-20T11:38:28.773-04:002019-03-20T11:38:28.773-04:00U7 had no ways to influence the toll it took on yo...U7 had no ways to influence the toll it took on your system, no graphics settings, no nothing; it either ran, or it didn't. The most you could do to take some strain out of your base memory was remove mouse support... but even Iolo would comment that this was a bad idea in the extreme.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07545594892368959774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-58419450215685478622019-03-20T11:30:11.736-04:002019-03-20T11:30:11.736-04:00I would even say that Sam, by his exemplary servic...I would even say that Sam, by his exemplary service, combined with the dire circumstances, emancipates himself from the role of "mere" servant, growing into a true friend of Frodo's. I would put the point where that happens at Cirith Ungol: the two of them not only enter the enemy's land together, Frodo also gets captured, and Sam must shoulder the burden of responsibility for a quest that the whole world hangs on. He does so admirably, and even though he gives back ring and burden to Frodo after freeing him from the Orc tower, the two are of equal stature after this. Certainly, they are honored equally by the armies of the West on the Field of Cormallen, and both are perceived by the wise as sharing in the same great burden of being ringbearers. Sam does follow Frodo to pass into the West in his old age, after being nine times mayor of the Shire - surely a mark of distinction in as objective a sense as Middle-Earth can confer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-18306150104840004562019-03-20T03:27:17.459-04:002019-03-20T03:27:17.459-04:00Hey, come to think of it, what kind of graphical q...Hey, come to think of it, what kind of graphical quality settings did U7 have? It's been many years, so maybe I just don't remember, but I'm pretty darned sure that U7, like U6 before it, had no graphical settings at all.<br /><br />Regarding the differences between Magic Candle 3 and Siege, I don't think this is an indication that it wouldn't have been possible to make an RPG on Siege's engine. Certainly, neither memory nor disk space considerations were a barrier - an RPG wouldn't require more memory or disk space than Siege needed, given that the latter supported the display of hundreds of soldiers, and tracked a lot of additional data, too.Jakub Majewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04346544936010598248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-34886972920950279402019-03-19T23:44:30.270-04:002019-03-19T23:44:30.270-04:00It's definitely possible to get Siege working ...It's definitely possible to get Siege working in DOSbox using recent versions. However, I do not recall the settings tweaks that were necessary. Great game, but not an RPG.Bluerazorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08417137714916057380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-33164964269845911972019-03-19T19:36:03.297-04:002019-03-19T19:36:03.297-04:00@Jakub Majewski
I loved Siege as a kid. It's ...@Jakub Majewski<br /><br />I loved Siege as a kid. It's difficult to get running in DOSBox though, or at least it was when I last tried.<br /><br />The game engine would be used in Walls of Rome as well and received improvements to the speed issue you mentioned. Properly designed, the engine would have definitely represented LoTR's massive battles quite well.Raifieldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08478524519453417677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-64909089780426671132019-03-19T17:09:39.111-04:002019-03-19T17:09:39.111-04:00I don't think the game world looks sparse beca...I don't think the game world looks sparse because interplay was trying to evoke the P&P experience, I think they had time/budget constraints.Tristan Gallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16769219573533545742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-91342706425436938962019-03-19T16:41:00.300-04:002019-03-19T16:41:00.300-04:00Not at all, Gnoman, I'm simply being essention...Not at all, Gnoman, I'm simply being essentionalist - i.e. I'm neglecting some of the nuances in order to get to the heart of the differences between pen & paper RPGs and cRPGs. And to be fair, I was going to address that point as well, but I ran into the 4000 character limit, so I gave it a rest :).<br /><br />I know that some game masters will go into much more detail - but I've also read more than enough articles from veteran RPG game masters and indeed game designers that specifically warn game masters to curtail such instincts. Description should be provided as much as is needed, but not beyond that, because it will disrupt the flow. In the forest example I used, I don't think a good GM would continue to provide the players with a flow of details once they were in the forest. A good GM would provide an initial impression of the forest, and then let the party more or less flow through the forest until they came across a more specific place inside that forest, or came across an event, or until the players themselves stopped to ask for more detail. He certainly wouldn't tell them that hey, there's a bird's nest on that spruce two metres to the north, and there's wild fruit on the tree to the south. CRPGs do that, because CRPGs provide a visual reconstruction of the environment - and that's why I think Interplay's LotR games have more in common in that aspect with pen & paper than with cRPGs of their time period. And yes, a good GM will occasionally provide flavour text about wild animals and the like, but this is precisely what Interplay's games do - as you walk through an environment, you get the occasional flavour text (...especially in forests, since the two games both have unique, special forests that bear a bit of extra description).<br /><br />With enemies and items, again, a good GM will be very careful when it comes to excessive detail: a part of the experience is that players are rewarded for asking the right questions about their surroundings, and that means withholding things until players ask. The GM only lets us know that there are orcs hiding behind the bushes, if the GM wants us to know... or feels that one of the party members is perceptive enough that it would be unfair to withhold such information. This, again, is exactly how Interplay's games handle these aspects - you're sometimes warned about those orcs around the corner, when the game wants you to have warning, but often you get much less warning.<br /><br />With regards to dynamism, you are correct - the pen & paper RPG is extremely dynamic, actually far more dynamic than the cRPG. I don't dispute that, and that's what I mean about Interplay failing to address the limitations the computer imposes on the RPG experience. See, normally, where cRPGs lose the dynamism of having a GM free to make things up on the fly in reaction to characters, they make up for this loss with simulationism, which provides a replacement dynamic. Even in 1992, with the likes of Ultima VII, simulationism was quite well advanced - you had enemies roving the countryside dynamically, NPCs with behaviour schedules, and so forth. This is something Interplay more or less abandons, limiting itself to the level of simulation you would see in a pen & paper RPG - except that it doesn't have the freedom of a GM who can, if prompted by the players, tell them that the baker does indeed leave the bakery and go home in the evening. There's a tiny bit of simulationism in the first game (the hobbits have different responses at night, and, IIRC, you get more wolf encounters in the Shire at night), but the game did not try to develop simulation. Instead, it winds up being a kind of static pen & paper RPG - by which, again, I don't mean that pen & paper RPGs are static, but rather that this is what a pen & paper RPG would be like if the GM only prepared static, pre-prepared materials from his notes.Jakub Majewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04346544936010598248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-62152722252038041202019-03-19T16:01:19.661-04:002019-03-19T16:01:19.661-04:00You seem to have a rather skewed view of how TTRPG...You seem to have a rather skewed view of how TTRPGS work. The experience you describe is certainly possible, but is the mark of a bland or underprepared GM. It is much more common (not just in my experience, but in all the stories I've had related to me) for TTRPGs to have a far more dynamic world than a CRPG allows - the GM cannot simulate the world at all times, but he can (if properly prepared) extrapolate how it would be - which is not only comprable to what you'll find in Ultima VI and others, but much more responsive.<br /><br />Likewise, you're not going to get one initial description of an area and then just "you're walking through the forest", a good GM will regularly describe terrain features (often calling for unnecessary Spot-check equivalents), add flavor text about animals running around, and similar. <br /><br />Even when a GM is using random encounter tables (not a given, most seem to prefer hand-crafting encounters), the monster(s) don't just spring out of the ground in front of them - the table causes them to exist, but then the encounter is no different from a hand-placed fight. Gnomanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13920812227941556716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-43840654794210428692019-03-19T11:38:26.706-04:002019-03-19T11:38:26.706-04:00I was not being critical towards Tolkien, I unders...I was not being critical towards Tolkien, I understand he is a product of his time, and so are his characters.<br /><br />As you say, it is difficult for someone that grew up in the last decades to relate with this kind of "good servant" relationship even if, as said, Sam is in general portrayed in a very positive light.Vincenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-38454373147544152402019-03-19T08:23:41.727-04:002019-03-19T08:23:41.727-04:00Chet, on the note of: "The game does an awful...Chet, on the note of: "The game does an awful lot of telling rather than showing."<br /><br />Your playthrough of The Two Towers has very much strengthened my opinion of what lies at heart of these two Interplay games, their central concept: they are pen & paper RPGs turned digital. I think I've already mentioned this under the first entry on this game, but I'll say a bit more.<br /><br />These games seem to imitate the pen & paper RPG experience so extensively, it's hard to see this as accidental, or even simply as a case of the lead designer unconsciously invoking the same methods he used as a pen & paper designer.<br /><br />1. The games introduce new locations and events by telling, not showing. Text, text, text - try to imagine this text being spoken in the voice of a D&D dungeon master: that’s what’s happening here.<br />2. Beyond the textual introduction, the visuals are only backgrounds. They are simple, detail-less (the details provided by textual descriptions), like a game board. Imagine the D&D experience: the dungeon master introduces us to the forest we're entering, telling us about the dark trees, yadayadayada, but after that, it’s oftens just: "you're walking through the forest" (until something important happens). This is very much the feeling the game's visual design gives us here - "you can see you're walking through the forest, man, why would you need any more detail?"<br />3. Items and enemies are introduced in the same, sudden way they are so often in pen & paper RPGs (at least when dealing with random encounters). The party has no awareness opponents are coming, until they suddenly show up. This is the exact opposite of what Ultima VI was doing at this same stage, generating enemy encounters offscreen, to a distance, so that often you would get warnings ahead of time ("you hear something to the west") even for the most basic random encounters. Here, we only get warnings for special encounters - just like in a pen & paper RPG session. And same with items. We walk into a place, and we don't see any items until the dungeon master indicates to us that they're there - and he only does so when he's satisfied that someone in our party would notice them (perhaps by invoking the perception skill, for instance).<br />4. The skill system is, of course, practically directly taken from the pen & paper Middle-Earth Role-Playing (MERP), which also seems to have inspired some of the non-book elements added to the game world.<br />5. Finally, the weird stat improvement system, where stat changes are triggered by successfully performing a particular action (...or something along those lines, as I'm still not sure I properly understand the system), is very much what happens in those pen & paper RPG systems where XP points are given out by the dungeon master - a system that feels highly arbitrary to players (indeed, is literally arbitrary in the sense of being determined by an arbiter). Interplay's LotR games simply removed levels and XP points from the equation, and instead reward the player characters with direct stat boost handouts. But the same kind of arbitrariness determines what the rewards are given out for.<br /><br />Overall, unlike other cRPGs, the game is not really a dynamic world simulation system, but rather literally takes the role of the dungeon master. And it doesn’t work very well. It was an interesting experiment in 1990, when computer RPGs were still very close to their pen & paper roots, but already by 1992, these mechanics feel weird and inappropriate when compared with other cRPGs. At this time, other cRPGs were quickly progressing to be their own thing distinct from pen & paper, to make the best use of the computer’s capacities and address its limitations. Interplay instead took a u-turn, abandoning the benefits of making an RPG on the computer, but without addressing any of the limitations a computer imposes on the RPG experience.Jakub Majewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04346544936010598248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-45094609421604352772019-03-19T05:13:19.753-04:002019-03-19T05:13:19.753-04:00You miss my point though. Of course, playing U7 on...You miss my point though. Of course, playing U7 on medium graphical quality was just as fun - but did it <i>look</i> much better than LoTR? Something makes me doubt that. As for siege representations, it's one thing having a whole game revolving around a siege engine, and completely another thing - having it shoved into an RPG engine, given the memory and disk space considerations. Tellingly, Atabek's own Magic Candle 3 was also visually much closer to LoTR (or more exactly Ultima 6 because the visuals did represent more details than LoTR) and only had enemies visible on the map in the special combat rooms.VKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-17053608084615930602019-03-19T04:30:00.914-04:002019-03-19T04:30:00.914-04:00On the note of what the technology of the time cou...On the note of what the technology of the time could and could not do: note that in the same year as The Two Towers, Mindcraft released a strategy-RPG game called... ahem, Siege. For all of its warts (and it had many: a real-time strategy game that would pause at times for minutes, to give the computer AI time to think), Siege was a game built precisely to evoke the sort of grandiose sieges we saw in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. There were hundreds of troops involved in each battle, there were siege engines, and... man, if you can find a copy of the game and try playing it, you will surely agree that yes: 1992 did have the technology to evoke the battle of Helm's Deep with "full fidelity".<br /><br />Note, by the way, that at some point before or after the release of Interplay's The Two Towers, one of the founders of Mindcraft Software, Ali Atabek, was employed by Interplay. I strongly believe that had Interplay followed through with Part Three, Atabek's presence would have been very strongly felt in that game.Jakub Majewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04346544936010598248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-9917299566365439252019-03-19T04:21:09.158-04:002019-03-19T04:21:09.158-04:00Vince, that is indeed the whole point of Sam as a ...Vince, that is indeed the whole point of Sam as a character - Tolkien acknowledges that Sam is a tribute to the officers' personal servants (known as batmen, not to be confused with, you know, Batman) during WWI, who faithfully served their masters under the most dire circumstances.<br /><br />You have to understand the society before you criticise the man. At the time, it was very much the view that there is nothing wrong whatsoever with being someone's servant, not only in the sense of being in someone's employ, but also in the sense of being satisfied with being subservient. People of the time would have found it downright bizarre that today we have thousands upon thousands of de-facto servants - call them secretaries, personal assistants, whatever you will - but our society actually expects these people to secretly or overtly resent their position of subservience. In other words, we find it acceptable for someone to be summoned at midnight by their boss - but only if that someone resents the command (...even as they obey it, because, you know, they don't want to get fired).<br /><br />Tolkien describes an attitude of an earlier, and arguably far better time, when it was the ideal that the servant could in fact be devoted to their employee, could in fact see the state of subservience as reasonable and natural - and the mirror of that ideal is the ideal of the good master, who treats his servants so well, that their service to him is not at a cost of personal honour - that they are not ever required to lower or demean themselves in any way.<br /><br />If this bugs you, it's because, quite naturally, we find it so hard to read Tolkien as he wrote it - we can't help reading it with 21st century eyes.<br /><br />One further note on the subject: in the Lord of the Rings, these very same debates about the master-servant relationship actually play out repeatedly. We have Sam, who serves his master freely and contendly, because his master treats him properly - more often as a friend than as a servant. And then we have Grima and Saruman, which is a starkly different relationship, built on force and resentment.Jakub Majewskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04346544936010598248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-19923374965725093112019-03-19T03:44:36.390-04:002019-03-19T03:44:36.390-04:00Sam is indeed a positive character and it is alway...Sam is indeed a positive character and it is always described as good-hearted, selfless, brave and resourceful (if a bit prejudiced), but his subservient relationship with Frodo always kind of bugged me, he is more like a loyal servant than a "friend", kind of a stark difference with how Merry and Pippin are portrayed, in relation to Frodo.Vincenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-7250474244261494282019-03-19T03:21:53.138-04:002019-03-19T03:21:53.138-04:00The Ring grants power according to its wielder'...The Ring grants power according to its wielder's strength, meaning that Frodo would not be able to master the Ring and use it against Sauron. So, part 3 definitely ends in Sauron's victory.<br /><br />If Aragorn, Gandalf, Saruman, or maybe Denethor had taken the Ring, it would be different - Sauron could be defeated, but then you've got Sauron II to deal with.Anonymoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-8781269259919508892019-03-19T01:03:06.701-04:002019-03-19T01:03:06.701-04:00Wow, what a cheap shot at Tolkien. Everything I r...Wow, what a cheap shot at Tolkien. Everything I read in LOTR treats the working classes respectfully. He has so many opportunities to look down on them as deplorable, and he takes not a one of them. Even when the Proudfoots pronounce their own name wrong it's treated gently. <br /><br />Tolkien said that if Frodo found himself unable to destroy the Ring, he would have thrown himself into the Cracks of Doom. No sneering classism. Harlandnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6162314467762792782.post-23417564711565816892019-03-18T21:23:38.335-04:002019-03-18T21:23:38.335-04:00@VK True, not many, but in 1992 "full fidelty...@VK True, not many, but in 1992 "full fidelty" was something to aspire to. It was normal to buy software before you had the full kit for it. Mostly for three reasons: A)Titles had a very short shelf-life and trying to find a game even a few months later could be hard B)Playing on medium or even low graphic settings<br />was just as fun or, in the case of simulators, just as accurate and C)You were already saving for the next upgrade anyway, probably XD<br />While still expensive things where already moving fast at the time.<br /><br />Videogames kinda leaded the charge, rolling demos of F1Gp and Indycar racing sold more 486 than any other marketing camping XDRonconautahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12644199312156727426noreply@blogger.com