Pool of Radiance

Larec · Post by **Larec** » October 21st, 2006, 1:24 am

EOB was golden. While I didn't care for (or finish) the 3rd one, the first two were long standing addictions of mine.

And everyone knows...any D&D game that has Gelatinous oozes as an enemy (EOB2, ToEE) is gauranteed to be good!!!

Little known rule.

PaSquall · Post by **PaSquall** » March 25th, 2007, 1:06 pm

BasiliskWrangler wrote:Larec: You mention the Beholder games. I absolutely love those Eye of the Beholder/Dungeon Master/Bloodwych type games with the "click-step" pseudo-3D first person engine. In fact, deep in the Basilisk Lair we have a pretty cool-looking prototype Eye of the Beholder style engine that we are playing around with for some possible future project....

As a big fan of EOB and EOB-like clones (once or twice a year, I create a big 25-levels megadungeon in Dungeon Hack and happily play for days ; oh, and I intend to replay the entire EOB series during summer holidays + possibly Lands of lore), I'll only say one thing :

PLEASE, MAKE IT HAPPEN !!!

In fact I even toyed with the idea of making a game like this. Although I could probably write a decent story, design maps, secondary quests, campaign setting and do some chara-design, I'd need to find really dedicated people to do the coding and the graphics... Near impossible

So please do it !!!

GSV3MiaC · Post by **GSV3MiaC** » June 14th, 2007, 4:53 pm

The three giant leaps I can remember in gaming were Pools of Radiance (first D&D on the PC), Eye of the Beholder (1st person view, albeit 90 degree and click step) and then Ultima underworld (free rotations etc.) although I think something else (Shadowcaster?) got there first.

Since then it has been pretty much downhill all the way. 8>.

Guess my age is showing ...

Oh the graphics, music, cut-scenes and similar junk are much better (well, more plentiful) now, but the gameplay has gone no-place. Can you imagine the 'Yoof of Today' sitting down for an overnight session with coloured pencils and squared paper?? No, me neither.

Gothmog · Post by **Gothmog** » June 15th, 2007, 10:53 am

I always rememer the scene when my friend and me sitting in front of my Amiga, playing Dungeon Master. I noticed some dust/ash on the ground. I told my friend, who was busy with drawing the map at this time, when i suddenly saw a REAL HUGE FIREBALL coming at our direction. Well our party were grilled!! but we find the Dragons Lair!

GSV3MiaC · Post by **GSV3MiaC** » June 15th, 2007, 11:02 am

Yep, the only thing worse than not finding the dragon is .. finding the dragon. I remember a P&Paper D&D game once where our low level party opened the wrong door and got creamed (half of us ran away, the others died real fast).

So we went back to base camp, the deaders re-rolled some new characters, and we set off again. One of the previous-corpses wanted to open exactly the same door .. so the rest of the party killed him. The DM laughed for about 10 minutes. Sadly, if unsurprisingly, the idiot proved an idiot in real life so we had to 'let him go' - often thought that a P&P D&D game would be a good interview technique, if you had the time.

GSV3MiaC · Post by **GSV3MiaC** » June 15th, 2007, 11:08 am

Larec wrote:EOB was golden. While I didn't care for (or finish) the 3rd one, the first two were long standing addictions of mine.

And everyone knows...any D&D game that has Gelatinous oozes as an enemy (EOB2, ToEE) is gauranteed to be good!!!

Little known rule.

You can add 'Hack' to that list, or ADOM, or whatever. I particularly hate the oozes which multiply ..

Yes, EOB went downhill with #3 (although the ending of EOB1 on the PC was the lamest thing I ever came across), although Lands of Lore went downhill even faster - #1 was almost classic, with those critters that would disarm you of all your weapons, and the ghosts which were almost immune to everything (except <spoiler>).

I can't think of too many series which did not go downhill - I guess Ultima, and Wizardry, probably both peaked in the middle, simply because the PC technology was not there for the early episodes, but even they went out with a fizzle (although the last Wizardry (8?) was still good fun, apart from the tedious missile fights with 6 groups of 7 assorted spitting monsters).

farvardin · Post by **farvardin** » December 21st, 2007, 5:36 pm

Dungeon Master was my favorite. I played it when I was 13-14 years old

Black Crypt is good too.

I hope if Basilisk make a first-view game like this, they won't make it 3D, real 3D can be quite boring now...

denisvj · Post by **denisvj** » December 21st, 2007, 10:48 pm

Bring back EOB

I started rpg with EOB 1 , I miss that kind of games.

PaSquall · Post by **PaSquall** » December 23rd, 2007, 4:19 am

GSV3MiaC wrote: Yes, EOB went downhill with #3 (although the ending of EOB1 on the PC was the lamest thing I ever came across)

I've just replayed (and finished for the first time) EOB3 some weeks ago and frankly it isn't that bad. The storyline isn't great, but the challenges are neat and some of them even "innovative" for the EOB series at the time... Got stuck some time in the thicket

... And the wizard's guild and Lathander's temple have good traps and riddles. And I like the fact you can get NPCs to join your group (or not).

sapper_astro · Post by **sapper_astro** » December 23rd, 2007, 7:06 am

There were basically three variants of First person RPG's back then:

a) The walking blob party with turn based battles ala Bards Tale, Wizardry, Dragon Wars, etc

b)The walking blob party game with real time combat ala Dungeon Master, EOB, StoneKeep, etc.

c)The party travels in first person, but when combat strikes things change to a tactical map containing the characters and the adversaries ala Goldbox games, Dark heart of Uukrul, Ultima dungeons, etc.

Nowdays there are none of these, and it is a pity. I wish there were more games made using all of these variants.

Feidb · Post by **Feidb** » December 23rd, 2007, 10:10 am

I also started with the Gold Box series on the C128/64. Great games but still a pain with the lack of automap. I also played all the Phantasie with the crappy graphics but addictive game play. I had Eye of the Beholder but only loaded it and played a few minutes of it and never really got started. Can't remember why. I also played Bard's Tale 1, but never 2 or 3.

I played Dragon Wars which was pretty good and Stonekeep. I also played Ultima Underworld which I really liked.

I played Wizardry 7 but could never get into the earlier ones. Then I played Wizardry 8 and actually finished it.

However, my favorite of all time is Might & Magic. I've played the entire series, some multiple times, and the only one that sucked was the last one when they tried 3D and the company was going under.

I also liked Arena: Elder Scrolls and Morrowind. However, I never really liked Daggerfall, especially with that Vampire tract and those very confusing 3-D maps. Oblivion is okay but just too big for it's britches.

I heard much about Lands of Lore so when Westwood came out with LOL 2, I got it. Biggest mistake I ever did! That game sucks!

Anyway, my only wish here is that Eschalon be first person, party based, but I'll still take it the way it is.

Sakar · Post by **Sakar** » December 23rd, 2007, 4:21 pm

I really like PoR's setting and design. I love the idea of an old city overrun with baddies and in ruins with a new, settled area being used as a staging ground for taking the city back. Easily one of my favorite RPG adventures.

I actually still have the Gold Box "Silver Anniversary" edition which includes a bunch of SSI's gold box crpgs, complete with one HUGE manual (all of em in one) and copy-protection wheels!

Feidb · Post by **Feidb** » December 24th, 2007, 2:50 pm

Yesterday I needed another fix and tried loading Wizardry Gold on my XP system and running it in Windows 95 mode. Ran like crap. In fact it was so bad, I uninstalled it. Guess I'll just have to wait for Might & Magic Tribute and Eschalon: Book 2.

Rune_74 · Post by **Rune_74** » December 24th, 2007, 4:27 pm

Hmm checked out the might and magic tribute...downloaded the very rough beta from a year ago....seems they are moving very slowly any idea when they plan on finishing it?

PaSquall · Post by **PaSquall** » December 24th, 2007, 4:39 pm

Feidb wrote:Yesterday I needed another fix and tried loading Wizardry Gold on my XP system and running it in Windows 95 mode. Ran like crap. In fact it was so bad, I uninstalled it. Guess I'll just have to wait for Might & Magic Tribute and Eschalon: Book 2.

Does it run better via DosBox ?