Just finished it - my afterthoughts - 22/07/06 07:54 AM
hi,
i know this game is very old by now, but nevertheless i just spent around 40 hours with it (and if i was a programmer, feedback would always be welcome).
-performance-
the game ran very smoothly on my geforce4ti though even with the latest patch there was random crashing to desktop (around 20 times, which costed my more than 3 hours redoing things). often occured when i was changing rings.
multitasking wasnt possible either...
-graphics-
done well, though i disliked the fact that most armor/weapons didnt change the look of the character at all. combining this stuff should result in an individual look (see diablo2)...
custom character icons are so easy to do - this would have been a nice little touch.
-sound-
easily the best part of the game, best track is played when you enter the farmer community.
-story-
i did like the external story & manual very much, there flew a lot of effort into it. but what happened ingame was rather dull and very predictable. i was extremly disappointed of how things were going after you arranged the meeting of the 7. the whole resurrection, desert and exact-diablo-cloning (very boring final map) without any real npc interaction/story seemed like a rushed afterthought to lengthen the game.
there were no likeable characters in it. the only good/fun moment i had was when a dwarf told me he couldnt tell the sex of humans because of their habit to shave...
-combat-
the combat in the game is not strong enough to stand on its own (thats one of the reasons why the end of the game imo... sucked). i created a meleewarrior, what resulted in extremly dull gameplay. due to a bug i couldnt bind weapons to quickkeys (just spells&potions), so my planned bow-melee-combo wasnt possible. there is not much you can do with the warriorskill tree except improving weapon damage and avoiding a bunch of really useless skills like "play dead". i did use some skills of the other 2 trees (like lockpick&pickpocket which you HAVE to get in order to join the thieves gild - bad idea), but most of them werent very interesting either. maybe playing a mage would have been more fun, but i doubt it would have been more effective. this brings me to the point that the game is heavily unbalanced on "normal" settings. the first 10 hours you have to run in fear as soon as you see a heavy orc and die a LOT while exploring the map and encountering without any warning strong monsters which are hiding behind bunches of very weak ones, but in the 2nd half you become almost immortal. during the final 20 hours i died just one time -by stepping into the toxic swamp.
the subbosses at the end were annoying because of their blinding-spells. i dont know if investing into "true sight" would have fixed that, but up until this point of the game i saw no need for it since i never had any trouble with invisible enemies.
the loot/gear was also extremly(!) disappointing. besides hunting bows und axes there was almost nothing of interest. i finished the game (with ease) by using some onehanded exceptional [nocando] sword of stunning (50-95, Stun4) which i bought halfway through in rivertown market! whole final maps gave me just 2 deathblades which were both worse.
-quests-
i couldnt solve some of the quests and after reading a FAQ after finishing the game i do know that a part of my failures was due to bugs. besides this and some feedex-quests it was ok but nothing special or very motivating.
what i hated was the fact that certain things werent triggered as long as you didnt fullfill certain demands. e.g. i found 3 of the 4 treasure maps (in the FAQ was stated that the 4th one was labled manuscript instead of treasure map, so no wonder i oversaw it!) and the hidden cave only to wonder where the balls and the bowl were. the whole easteregg thing (2002 gold coins) seems to be impossible to solve without external knowledge, which is always frustrating.
the fact that the 3rd elven item was an non-id-ed staff was plain mean. at this point of the game i wasnt collecting any staffs anymore since i was swimming in gold, so i searched my [nocando] off elsewhere.
the 3 holy items quest was also very frustating since i found them all but not the "hidden church" which wasnt a church after all but some (triggered? i didnt saw it when exploring the area the first time...) hidden hole NEAR a non-hidden church. rechecking my old savegame after reading the FAQ resulted in a sword which was WAY inferior to the one i described above, so it wouldnt have done me any good.
another point was that i was desperate for the "sword in the stone" since it seems to be the best weapon of the game(?) and tried for 30 mins to stuff another blade into the stone. why not just name it "forsaken sword" so that you know that there is NO way of ever using it AND solving the demon quest/not getting every character of the dark forest map killed?
-conclusion-
i give this one a "D" which means "enough to do the job, but lacking some things". i think by rebalancing the combat and doing further questfixing it could have gotten a "C" within 1-2 good patches.
thank you for reading...
i know this game is very old by now, but nevertheless i just spent around 40 hours with it (and if i was a programmer, feedback would always be welcome).
-performance-
the game ran very smoothly on my geforce4ti though even with the latest patch there was random crashing to desktop (around 20 times, which costed my more than 3 hours redoing things). often occured when i was changing rings.
multitasking wasnt possible either...
-graphics-
done well, though i disliked the fact that most armor/weapons didnt change the look of the character at all. combining this stuff should result in an individual look (see diablo2)...
custom character icons are so easy to do - this would have been a nice little touch.
-sound-
easily the best part of the game, best track is played when you enter the farmer community.
-story-
i did like the external story & manual very much, there flew a lot of effort into it. but what happened ingame was rather dull and very predictable. i was extremly disappointed of how things were going after you arranged the meeting of the 7. the whole resurrection, desert and exact-diablo-cloning (very boring final map) without any real npc interaction/story seemed like a rushed afterthought to lengthen the game.
there were no likeable characters in it. the only good/fun moment i had was when a dwarf told me he couldnt tell the sex of humans because of their habit to shave...
-combat-
the combat in the game is not strong enough to stand on its own (thats one of the reasons why the end of the game imo... sucked). i created a meleewarrior, what resulted in extremly dull gameplay. due to a bug i couldnt bind weapons to quickkeys (just spells&potions), so my planned bow-melee-combo wasnt possible. there is not much you can do with the warriorskill tree except improving weapon damage and avoiding a bunch of really useless skills like "play dead". i did use some skills of the other 2 trees (like lockpick&pickpocket which you HAVE to get in order to join the thieves gild - bad idea), but most of them werent very interesting either. maybe playing a mage would have been more fun, but i doubt it would have been more effective. this brings me to the point that the game is heavily unbalanced on "normal" settings. the first 10 hours you have to run in fear as soon as you see a heavy orc and die a LOT while exploring the map and encountering without any warning strong monsters which are hiding behind bunches of very weak ones, but in the 2nd half you become almost immortal. during the final 20 hours i died just one time -by stepping into the toxic swamp.
the subbosses at the end were annoying because of their blinding-spells. i dont know if investing into "true sight" would have fixed that, but up until this point of the game i saw no need for it since i never had any trouble with invisible enemies.
the loot/gear was also extremly(!) disappointing. besides hunting bows und axes there was almost nothing of interest. i finished the game (with ease) by using some onehanded exceptional [nocando] sword of stunning (50-95, Stun4) which i bought halfway through in rivertown market! whole final maps gave me just 2 deathblades which were both worse.
-quests-
i couldnt solve some of the quests and after reading a FAQ after finishing the game i do know that a part of my failures was due to bugs. besides this and some feedex-quests it was ok but nothing special or very motivating.
what i hated was the fact that certain things werent triggered as long as you didnt fullfill certain demands. e.g. i found 3 of the 4 treasure maps (in the FAQ was stated that the 4th one was labled manuscript instead of treasure map, so no wonder i oversaw it!) and the hidden cave only to wonder where the balls and the bowl were. the whole easteregg thing (2002 gold coins) seems to be impossible to solve without external knowledge, which is always frustrating.
the fact that the 3rd elven item was an non-id-ed staff was plain mean. at this point of the game i wasnt collecting any staffs anymore since i was swimming in gold, so i searched my [nocando] off elsewhere.
the 3 holy items quest was also very frustating since i found them all but not the "hidden church" which wasnt a church after all but some (triggered? i didnt saw it when exploring the area the first time...) hidden hole NEAR a non-hidden church. rechecking my old savegame after reading the FAQ resulted in a sword which was WAY inferior to the one i described above, so it wouldnt have done me any good.
another point was that i was desperate for the "sword in the stone" since it seems to be the best weapon of the game(?) and tried for 30 mins to stuff another blade into the stone. why not just name it "forsaken sword" so that you know that there is NO way of ever using it AND solving the demon quest/not getting every character of the dark forest map killed?
-conclusion-
i give this one a "D" which means "enough to do the job, but lacking some things". i think by rebalancing the combat and doing further questfixing it could have gotten a "C" within 1-2 good patches.
thank you for reading...