Coming back to RPG games.

Need help shopping.


Hello all.
I am an avid pc gamer.
I play racing sims and fps for the most part.
I have been kicking around the idea of picking up a rpg game
but have not played a good pc rpg since Ultima III (not kidding).

What I am looking for is a party style multi,character creation rpg (like Ultima or older D&D games) that will work on a win 7 64 bit machine. I would prefer it to be available via direct download and fairly recently released.
Looks like every thing out nowadays is single character based.
Thanks for the help.

Black Isle, Bioware, Obsidian and Troika. Begin with the earliest titles and go from there. Not every single one of those are partybased but the vast majority of the games those companies have done are.

Depends how far back you're willing to go. Drakensang, NWN2 and Dragon Age are the only fairly recent ones, of which Dragon Age is the most polished, NWN2 the most complex, and Drakensang somewhere in the middle (in addition to being somewhat different).

If you're willing to go a bit further back, I'd start out with Baldur's Gate 1 + Add-on + 2 + add-on, all installed at once and then with a mod called EasyTuTu installed on top of it (it adds all the features of BG2 into BG1 by upgrading its engine etc). It doesn't get more epic than that.

Would like a game that will shake hands with win 7. Don't feel like testing different compatibility modes and config files to get the game up and running.
Graphics gravy is a +.

Do any of these games have character/class creation for individual party members?
One of the joys of the games I played in the past (ie.Ultima series) was being able to roll with any class/combo party I wanted too. I think that this "feature" is most important to me.

toolguy said:

Would like a game that will shake hands with win 7. Don't feel like testing different compatibility modes and config files to get the game up and running.
Graphics gravy is a +.

Do any of these games have character/class creation for individual party members?
One of the joys of the games I played in the past (ie.Ultima series) was being able to roll with any class/combo party I wanted too. I think that this "feature" is most important to me.

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Icewind Dale series. Made by Black Isle and use same engine as Baldur's Gate.

Baldur's Gate, with its level 6 cap (level 7 with the expansion, oh yippee), is terribly overrated.

Coming from racing and fps, you're going to need something with a little more twitch and a little less drudgery, me thinks. I'd love to recommend Wiz8 since it fits your "build the perfect party" desire perfectly, but I don't think that will keep you excited. So, let's think action rpg, and party based, that pretty much locks you into Dungeon Seige 2. Not the greatest game ever made, but should give you that party min/max while still being "frantic" enough to ease you back into the more strategic rpg mindset.

dteowner said:

Dungeon Seige 2.

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Well, maybe you should get first Dungeon Siege and than use it for Ultima V - Lazarus Remake .

Other party based that should work on 64 bit … Wizardry 8, Dragon Age, Arcanum (with Unofficial and Hi-Res patches).

Well if your into action type games and you want that to translate to an RPG then perhaps Dungeon Siege might be up your alley, If you want a good sophisticated Story based RPG with action elements then i reccomend any Infinity Engine game, though i am partial to Planescape Torment, Both the Baldurs gate and Icewind Dale games were top notch as well.

I'd would Reccomend Planescape Torment First.

Play all Troika's games first. You won't regret.

Actually the style of fighting that the older rpgs were (turn based?) is what I am looking for.Punch in spell,fighting move ect..let it play out (drink some coffee) and have another go.
I was looking at Wiz8 and character creation looks great but I don't see the game available for download and it looks a bit dated.
I would like to test out my new laptops power a bit.
I am assuming there are no "newer" games out there that fit my need.

Party play.
Open party creation.
Turn based battle.
Game engine newer than say 2008.
Medieval type theme.

Thanks for the ideas..been checking them out all day.

toolguy said:

Party play.
Open party creation.
Turn based battle.
Game engine newer than say 2008.
Medieval type theme.

Thanks for the ideas..been checking them out all day.

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err... newer than 2008 and u want TB with team? You won't find any. The last cRPG that fits your requirements (except being new) is Temple of Elemental Evil (which is from 2002 or something).


And go play all Troika's games as I said (TOEE is one of them).

Building your party from square one is extremely rare these days. You could look at the Spiderweb games, but they're not going to push your video card at all, either. You're going to end up with a game where you build your character and recruit henchies, but one that allows you to develop those henchies as you wish. Also pretty rare. Drakensang fits that bill and I enjoyed it for the time I played it (got distracted by a different game and never finished). Don't know about Dragon Age as I haven't paid attention to that one.

The days of "spreadsheet RPG" like Wiz8 have passed, and I for one miss them terribly.

Yeah, but Drakensang is boring piece of shit with retarded characters and dialogues and over-shiny-next-gen-graphic so I wouldn't recommend this. Dragon Age was mediocre for me but I can see why someone would like it. Anyway there are better games to recommend him.

Konjad said:

Yeah, but Drakensang is boring piece of shit with retarded characters and dialogues and over-shiny-next-gen-graphic so I wouldn't recommend this. Dragon Age was mediocre for me but I can see why someone would like it. Anyway there are better games to recommend him.

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Excuse me?
I recommend both of those games and even more, but I'm with Madigan when it comes to a question "what RPG to start with?":
Planescape:Torment first then start exploring other games.

toolguy said:

Party play.
Open party creation.
Turn based battle.
Game engine newer than say 2008.
Medieval type theme.

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There´s basically none fulfilling all the requirements (taking the fact you want to test you laptop power into account).

The closest you can get is Dragon Age, which however employs real time with pause battle system and you´d need a mod to make party creation/development more opened.

But as a number 1, I´d probably recommend Mask of the Betrayer.
It was released in 2007 but its engine is very unoptimized, thus it should fulfill your laptop testing criteria fairly well, gameplay is more-or-less party based, but you have to recruit party members first and since it´s a high level campaign their first 15 or so level development is set in stone, setting is somewhat medievalish, battle system is somewhat turn based.
However, its story and characters is the best what you can get in a newer party based cRPG, plus character development is quite complex so the fact that other party members come prelevelled shouldn´t pose much of a problem in regards to character developing fun.
Although the game is branded as an expansion, in practice it easily works as a full game. Ties to the main NWN2 campaign are very few and the game´s relative short playtime (say 20-25 hours) is more than enough compensated via possible routes you can get to its end, in other words it´s highly replayable.
I guess that by now, the Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold which contains original campaign as well as Mask of the Betrayer should be sold for the price that is worth "the expansion" alone.

PST and MotB are great games but I wouldn't recommend them for a beginner (well, he already played some old cRPGs but had a very long break). They're just... idk how to say it... 'hardcore' when it comes to atmosphere, dialogues (well PST at least) and story.

I'd say he should play two or three another cRPGs before playing them.

dteowner said:

Baldur's Gate, with its level 6 cap (level 7 with the expansion, oh yippee), is terribly overrated.

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Um….. what?

That's like saying the Red Wings are overrated.

Probably only NWN2 and Dragon Age that are new enough to satisfy those requirements. NWN2 main story is a bit slow (gets better about halfway through), but the expansions MotB and SoZ are both excellent - MotB for story, and SoZ for character building.

Just a side note from someone using 64 bit Win7, all those games will play on it!!

Definetly, I can confirm that. I've played Baldur's Gate 1-2 (EasyTutu), Gothic 1-2, MM6-8, HoMM3-4 etc all on Win7 64 bit. It's rock solid, and I rarely see any problems, even when playing older games.