Betrayal @ Krondor thread

[xSamhainx]

Since the poll deciding BAK vs EOB has been decided, I figured it would be good to just make a thread for BAK stuff instead of adding onto that one. There's a lot to say or comment about the game, and undoubtedly a lot to ask. It's opening up already and I'm still in chapter 1. I have to admit….. I'm learning a valuable lesson here from this ugly, crusty old game - it's actually turning out to be pretty fun!

Here's an interview w/ Raymond regarding the game.

If you have any good BAK or even Raymond Feist sites, resources, or tips let me know but be cool w/ the spoilers of course.

Thanks Gorath for the BaK help web link

 

[Gorath]

BaK is one of the best RPGs ever made.

 

[GothicGothicness]

I can only agree with Gorath.

 

[holeraw]

I have a copy of that for more than a decade now and I remember I played long enough for my party to change at least once, but I had to stop because my pc decided to die… ungrateful thing, after all those nice viruses I got for it. But I've hearing a lot about it recently so a few days ago I decided to dig up my copy. I managed to make it work in dosbox (which took me couple of days because I have no internet at home), I got myself a pack of blanc papers and a pen, I played for a couple of hours and… I lost interest…

sigh… not very inspiring I know… but it seems I've got too used to the comforts that contemporary games offer, and it gets harder and harder to 'force' myself to persevere with older games.

So you guys keep talking about it so I might give it another try in the next few days

 

[Galaad]

Just have to chime in, BaK is one of my all time favorite. Although being a fan of the Riftwar Saga really did help there, I think that the game is one of the best RPG ever.

Admitedly its a bit hard to get past the graphics at first, but if you take time to actually read the text and explore Its well worth it. I've been playing the GoG version for the past few days and I'm not getting tired of it at all.

 

[xSamhainx]

One thing that kills me is writing, I know it's horribly lazy of me - but I just hate writing. I can type faster, and it's even legible. So to make games like this tolerable where extensive notekeeping is essential (at least for me) I'll have a laptop to one side, and the game on the other. So I'm keeping notes in Notepad, and my patented RPG Quest Spreadsheet. Keeps things moving along nicely, and i can just do a ctrl+f and search whatever I need to find. Also have the ref card, manual, and map (good old GOG) up as well.

It's a challenging game, Ive started over multiple times already, I think this time Ive got the rythmn down and can carry it thru to the end. Comes down to knowing how the combat/spells/time all shakes out.

 

[epithumia]

That's the cool thing about retrogaming using dosbox; set an appropriate scaler and either run windowed or Alt-Enter when you want to look at your notes.

 

[Charles-cgr]

I read Magician Apprentice & Master and the ones that followed as well in the early 90s. When I got my hands on Betrayal at Krondor (a few years later, probably long after it came out)... I never could get it to work on my 286 laptop. That thing must have been really dysfunctional because it died when I played MMI from a MM I-V pack that came out in the late 90s.

I have a lot of catching up to do.

 

[xSamhainx]

kinda bummed because I'm having a hard time capturing the game in FRAPS, I want to update my game blog w/ details of my adventure but it doesnt seem to work.

Flamecast rocks. Just dont get too close!

 

[GothicGothicness]

I think dosbox has built in screenshot funcitionality ? ctrl + F5 ?

otherwise you can solve it in windowed mode.

 

[xSamhainx]

after further research, Ive discovered that there's movie-recording utility in dosbox as well. Cool ='.'=

dosbox keys and functions

 

[GothicGothicness]

we want screens and movies from BAK as a thank you

 

[azraelck]

I had no idea DOSBox had a movie thing. I was never concerned about screen shots, always just used UOSU. Now I'm going to have to play with it and get a Dark Sun playthrough recorded.

I originally got my copy out of a book. Which, incidentally, came out of a bargain bin. Had the game as a bonus in a sleeve on the back. It's still there, I use backups for all my older games now.

 

[Corwin]

Unfortunately, my copies of the Darksun games are on 3.5 floppies and I no longer have a drive for them!!

 

[JDR13]

I'm pretty sure Dark Sun has been freeware for awhile now.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I still have floppy drives. For both formats.

A few years ago the 5 1/4 disks of Ultima … don't remember which game exactly … I had once bought on a flea market weren't readable anymore, but the 3 1/2 's still were.

By the way, today I read that even Samsung is giving up producing diskettes now … So buy them as long as they are still available !

 

[azraelck]

I still have all my old 5 1/4" floppies, but no drive. I have a portable drive for the 3.5" disks, and have been going through them to the point that I only have one box left to dig through and back up before tossing. I had several of the Zork games on them, as well as a few others, but I don't know if any work still.

I have a collection with both Ravenlofts, both Darksun, Al-Quadim, Dungeon Hack, and Unlimited Adventures all in one box set on 5 CDs. Though they're all backed up on a flash drive now. I've got to check, but I think the only one not on the computer is the first Ravenloft.

 

[zakhal]

I threw all of my 3,5" away years ago. I had two floppydrives but both broke years before that even. I was happy to destroy all my floppies. I hated them with passion, almost as much as I hated data cassettes.

Everything brakes but not all. I bought quality dvd writer 5 years ago and its still working perfect. Even after running all kinds of games on it that have DRMs that are suppose to break dvd-drives.

Oh seems like serious offtopic! Ok Back to the track. In the 90s I had to buy krondor twice because one of the original floppies broke.

 

[Corwin]

Ha, I can beat that. I had to buy 2 copies of U9, because the first came with a disc missing and they refused to send me a replacement!! If only I'd known what U9 was really like at the time!!!!

 

[azraelck]

I'd never have bought a second copy when it was manufacturer's malfeasance that was the cause of needing it. I've raised ten kinds of hell over stuff like that, usually ending in me never buying that company's product or service ever again. I get my replacement/refund as desired as well.