Bard's Tale, Wizardry, and Might and Magic...

[Falkentyne]

I think some people need to step back and look at the history of these games in question.

Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown was not the first.
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord was the first game.
The combat system was an attempt to abstract the D&D type game formula in a way that computers (of the time and of the primitive knowledge available) were able to handle well.

These games were also basically combat simulators. All you did was fight and solve some riddles. This was fun back during those days when these game types were brand new.

Now before someone says the combat system in BT1 was new or unique--it wasn't.
Besides using a wizardry type format, does anyone here even remember the ORIGINAL game that the Bard's Tale 1 combat system was derived off of? One of Michael Cranford's first games?

I doubt very many people have played the ORIGINAL copy of this game here (no one I knew even heard of its existance back when I was in high school).

Maze Master.

It was basically a primitive Bard's Tale.
All of the familiar stats and condition layouts were there, just far more primitive.
Bard's Tale 1 was based on this format, just far more refined, and was the first full color grid based game if I recall. Most of the monsters were traditional monsters from traditional Dungeons and Dragons games, with some nice strange twists all over (Soul Sucker? Eye Spy? Old Man), etc.

The FRFO spell (Freeze Foes) would allow you to hit monsters with a -10 armor class after a few casts. Usually -10 (LO) monsters were unhittable by any melee attack regardless of your level. -9 AC (Greater Demons, IIRC) were next to unhittable.

Yes the game became VERY magic heavy at the end, mainly because your warriors couldn't even hit anything, but thankfully this only happened with the very last dungeon levels. This overall, was done pretty well.

Bard's Tale 2 was pretty much a joke of a game.
Too many bugs existed.
Infinite casting items (charges bug?). Summoned monsters unable to use "Breath" attacks on the Commodore 64 version. Apple II version having infinite time in the Snares of Death if you didn't move manually, due to there not being a RTC (Real time clock) available, which the Commodore 64 had.

And the "To hit" problem. -10 AC, which was L0 in this game, was still the unhittable AC. The problem was monsters could get LOWER than -10, all the way down to -21 (L+). Yet you couldn't hit them regardless. The Dreamspell allowed you to hit anything. I believe FRFO was still in the game, but it was NOT worth having to cast it 5 times on a monster group to be able to kill them when you can just cast spells and deal with them in 2 rounds. Monsters had no problem hitting player characters who were -10 or lower however. This was a huge design blunder.

Bard's Tale 3 was a well done game. Didn't feel as "good" or "Sinster" as Bard's Tale 1, but the combat system was much much better, and warriors were no longer just useless meat shields for the mages. Stlil magic heavy but MUCH better than BT2.

Might and Magic adopted the Wizardry / Bard's Tale type of combat system. MM2 turned this into a complete monty haul / monster mash fest. Might and Magic 3 redid everything to much better effect.

The Ultima series took tactial combat to a different level. I still believe Ultima 5 was the high mark for good, fun top down tactical combat FOR THE TIME (Ultima 6 was a step backwards (on the combat level, not world interactivity) and Ultima 7 was a big step backwards).

The Gold Box SSI games gave the old wargame type tactical feel back to computer D&D, in a very successful way (and in a more unique way than any of the other series).

-----

Now let's look at this.
Might and Magic III was miles different from MM1, much like Bard's Tale 4 is miles dififerent from BT1. Did Might and Magic 3 get this much hate when it got released? I believe the only MM hate started occuring when they went full 3D with Might and Magic 7, making some compromises in the game design (clouds and Darkside of Xeen were well done games).

Let's just see how BT4 turns out in the end. We really don't need another Wizardry combat system clone anymore. That system is old and tired out now.
The last game I remember using that format was Shifting Suns' Devil Whiskey (The Bard's Legacy somehow got abandoned). It was okay if you wanted an old BT type combat clone but I'm glad it's gone.

It's hard to see what could have been done differently for this reboot. We definitely can't do a "Gold box" reboot like the Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate reimaginings that Pillars of Eternity did. We have Divinity Original Sin 2 also. Legend of Grimrock was an Eye of the Beholder inspired game. It's really hard to see what niche BT4 had to carve for itself without becoming a combat simulator. Let's see how it goes.

[ZiN]

Thanks for the effort, a nice summary, but not entirely accurate. Also, if your intent is to "defend" BT4 and dismiss criticism, it is misguided:

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

I think some people need to step back and look at the history of these games in question.

If you mean the pople criticizing BT4, then you're preaching to the choir. Most of the old-schoolers know the history of Bard's Tale perfectly well.

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

These games were also basically combat simulators. All you did was fight and solve some riddles.

I also remember navigating through a few simple dungeon levels.

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Bard's Tale 3 was a well done game. Didn't feel as "good" or "Sinster" as Bard's Tale 1...

Descending to the Festering Pit and cutting out Tslotha Garnath's bleeding black heart, after impaling him with the Nightspear, or learning that Cyanis went mad, because Tarjan forced him to watch Alliria being tortured to death, didn't feel as "sinister" to you?
Becoming the new gods after travelling through time and space and saving the world didn't feel as "good" to you?

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

the combat system was much much better, and warriors were no longer just useless meat shields for the mages. Stlil magic heavy but MUCH better than BT2.

So, because it is magic heavy it is bad? The games were designed by Michael Cranford to be magic heavy, because he liked magic and who doesn't? By the way, BT3 was the "magic heaviest" of all, especially the late game, where without NUKE, DIVA and EAMA you were pretty much screwed.

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

It's hard to see what could have been done differently for this reboot.

It is hard indeed, but a few of us actually try and discuss and come up with ideas anyway, because we like talking about Bard's Tale and by backing this "reboot", we thought we would actively involve ourselves and help shaping the game with our ideas.

[Falkentyne]

I was a big D&D fan. Bard's Tale 1 had that D&D feel and had the most balanced combat overall, with damage more akin to traditional type RPG's.
Bard's Tale 2 was the first game besides Final Fantasy to start bringing in thousands of points of damage. Once you start dealing 5000+ damage, well...bigger numbers really start meaning less in scale. Scorpia mentioned this in her own review.

Bard's Tale 3 was magic heavy, but your warriors were NOT useless, unlike BT2. That was my point. Meaning in BT2 your warriors could not even HIT anything later in the game wtihout using the Dremspell.

And yes, my feeling about 'sinister' is a bit different than yours. You are a completely different person than me. You don't suffer from an extreme autism disorder. You dont have bizarre fetishes or an intense attraction to chess. We are different people. That doesn't make my opinion, nor yours, any less valid. But attacking me is just completely uncivilized.

[ZiN]

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

I was a big D&D fan. Bard's Tale 1 had that D&D feel and had the most balanced combat overall, with damage more akin to traditional type RPG's.

Of course, I was also a D&D fan, just like you and Michael Cranford. "That D&D feel" is what is missing from all these modern RPGs and that's why I'm so disappointed, because I had so much hope for BT4.

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Bard's Tale 2 was the first game besides Final Fantasy to start bringing in thousands of points of damage. Once you start dealing 5000+ damage, well...bigger numbers really start meaning less in scale.

That's a bit of an exaggeration: The strongest spell in BT2, MAMA does 200d4 damage, so 99% of the time it will do around 500. (In comparison BT3's NUKE does 900d4 )

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Bard's Tale 3 was magic heavy, but your warriors were NOT useless, unlike BT2.

Well, BT2 had the Grey Crypt where your magic-users were also useless. Not to mention some extremely evil MP drain zones (eg. Oscon's Fort). Warriors were needed.

[SpectralShade]

i didn't feel my melee characters were useless in BT2 back when I played it on the amiga. I would drain empty on mana before I got anywhere if I had to rely only on my spellcasters.

[Falkentyne]

Originally posted by ;1733212454823426702:

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

I was a big D&D fan. Bard's Tale 1 had that D&D feel and had the most balanced combat overall, with damage more akin to traditional type RPG's.

Of course, I was also a D&D fan, just like you and Michael Cranford. "That D&D feel" is what is missing from all these modern RPGs and that's why I'm so disappointed, because I had so much hope for BT4.

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Bard's Tale 2 was the first game besides Final Fantasy to start bringing in thousands of points of damage. Once you start dealing 5000+ damage, well...bigger numbers really start meaning less in scale.

That's a bit of an exaggeration: The strongest spell in BT2, MAMA does 200d4 damage, so 99% of the time it will do around 500. (In comparison BT3's NUKE does 900d4 :nuke: )

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Bard's Tale 3 was magic heavy, but your warriors were NOT useless, unlike BT2.

Well, BT2 had the Grey Crypt where your magic-users were also useless. Not to mention some extremely evil MP drain zones (eg. Oscon's Fort). Warriors were needed.

My apologies. I haven't played Bard's Tale II since 1987 (while I've done BT1 runs on the C64 emulator even as recent as 15 years ago), so I didn't remember if the damage was just in the hundreds or thousands. But when you were used to BT1 damage where it ranged from the single digits and averaged in double digits (until much later in the game), BT2 was a complete shock to me. Scorpia mentioned this in her BT2 review, and I knew about that feeling even before I ever read her review (I didn't have access to Computer Gaming World in highschool--blame my mentally ill religious fanatic bible thumper mother for that).

[🆂tartup🆃im]

Definitely a great post. I remember those old games, including Maze Master, and even older games like Dungeon.

I'm excited that these genres are doing well. Games like Eye of the Beholder, Wizardry, and Might and Magic, all have special places in my heart. I hope BT4 does well.

Also, for anybody interested, I found this URL recently: http://www.dungeoncrawlers.org You might like the dungeon crawling games listed there for historic reasons!

[LordNavarre]

to be honest the first game was Akalabeth on Apple, to use this kind of maze crawler.

https://www.myabandonware.com/media/screenshots/a/akalabeth-world-of-doom-3/akalabeth-world-of-doom_1.png


http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/c2c95912cd00971eddcaf03508cee273/201302243/akalabeth_thumbnail.jpg

[Spocks Toupee]

My Monks were amazing in BT 1 and 2, not as much in BT3, I remember making a Hunter in order to convert him to a Geomancer, and converting one of my Archmages to a Chronomancer
(Were those the two new classes?)
I haven't played BT3 in 30+ years.

[Falkentyne]

Pretty sure it was Geomancer and Chronomancer. Wasn't the Chronomancer required to warp between planes ?

And what happened if you completely ran out of Harmonic Gems? Was that even possible? How would you recharge your spell points without a Mage Staff (Staff of the Magi)?

[Old Man]

I played mm1 back in the day . We used graph paper to draw in the map... Still was fun. First of this type for me. I was used to the Zork series. They were text adventures. We played ultima 1-9. I loved the ultima underworld series. Of course I had just upgraded from a IBM PC 8086 processor to a 286 model... lightening fast with a 40 megabyte hd. Also played Bt1, but didn’t finish it...

[Falkentyne]

I still haven't played Wizardry 8. I *LOST* my old Wizardry 7 saves back in 1996 when I was trying to move my games from my huge stacks (500?+) of 3.5" floppies to CDROM disks (my friend had a CD Burner, I didn't get my first until 1999), and sometime during my warcraft 2 days, I lost my Wizardry 7 saves. I knew good stuff that I had transferred from Wizardry 6-7 wouldn't make it to 8, but several years ago, I started playing Wizardry 6 again, on DOSBOX, so I could get the cool items. It was tedious but not horrible, and I finished it, and transferred to Wizardry 7. Then I went partway to the Funhouse area and........stopped.

Yes, I stopped. Why?
The combat. The random encounters. It was just tedious. I mean it was tedious the first time when I beat wizardry 7 in 1994. Do you guys REALLY want fights like that again? The issue isn't that the fights are even HARD. It's that you can't breeze through monsters that you can one shot and be missed nonstop by them!

I wouldn't mind some random encounters in BT4, as long as you could literally "auto resolve" any 1 shot fights. As I said let's see how this game goes. As long as it's definitely longer than 15 hours to complete your first playthrough, that's decent (seems to be around 30+?).

[perrilin]

My favorite 'old school' dungeon crawler was Wizardry 6 'Bane of the Cosmic Forge.' To me, it epitomized the optimal mix between story and mechanics.

Although I also loved the Ultima, other Wizardry, Bard's Tales, and Might and Magic games.

Might and Magic: World of Xeen had a HUGE amount of side quests to do. I think it was one of longest games at the time in that genre

[hybridial]

I think the issue is, InXile kinda sold the game as being what they believe the fans of the old game want. Since what they are delivering is quite different, its understandable they might be unhappy about it.

Believe me, I was a (3D) Ninja gaiden fan. I watched my favourite action series fall on its damn sword with the third game that was a terrible game in every way that completely misunderstood not only how to be a good Ninja Gaiden but even a good game. That event honestly played a part in me not buying consoles anymore, because that happened to most series' by big companies that I was into.

What I hope from Bard Tale IV, given I have no connection to the old Bards Tale games, too young, heck too young for any game that's even been mentioned in this thread so far, is a decent RPG game. I did play Wizardry 8 and from that I could see how this style could be a lot of fun. I also find the art style pleasant which is always a plus.

[kusho]

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

I still haven't played Wizardry 8.

I kinda envy you, W8 is absolutely amazing, i played it right after M&M 6-8 and it felt like the next lvl of evolution. Combat was just brilliant with the 360 deg positioning, and you couldnt just turn off turn-based mode and run away if things go south like in M&M. Random enemy groups were annoying as hell (and not really easily beatable as they were scaling with time/player strenght) but fortunately they were visible and avoidable most of the time.

I ended up making my own mod to scale up difficulty to insane levels and adress some issues like magic being too overpowered later on; was tons of fun having my friends die over and over trying to beat the moded game i was barely able to beat myself ;)

Oh, and that brilliant voice acting, i can still hear my ninja saying: "Ordinary men fear the power of darkness; I revel in it"

[Soloquendi]

There are a lot more of us old time gamers on here than you think. We just don't squawk about every little thing.