Pool Of Radiance 2

It feel so good to be a small part of a truly international community.

(My gameing evening today has been changed to numb mindwrestling with Excel. It is almost as fun as dwelling in the deep of Myth Drannor - okey, well it is stats isn't it?)

One thing i really love with Pool of Radiance is the name "Myth Drannor" - Me who know nothing about AD&D lore like the eerieness of that place.

-- heck, i think the company will survive without numbers - question is if my stat living alterego will do the same. Who will roll their lives when i'm not around?

Okey ... I'm going home...

POR2 is the game that i can not really decide it is good or bad. When it was released in 2001, i bought it and played it much, but never finished it. Graphics were good, combat system was well implemented and it had a nice atmosphere. Bad points are combats takes lots of time and the game repeats itself too much. Not enough monster types disappointed too. If devs have increased the speed of combat, implemented more monster types, more interesting quests and less dungeon repeat; then it would have been a RPG hit.
And, i think when Troika was developing TOEE, they have implemented much more things from POR2. Although, they said that TOEE engine came from the Arcanum engine, it stands like an improved engine of POR2.
As for the install bug, if you install the game other than C: (which is the game's default install directory) (for ex D: ) and then uninstall it, game just simply delete!!! all of your C: drive which includes Windows. But, they released a patch for it and you can install the game by executing this patch without fear.

I have heard of this "erase C:" bug before, and every time I read about it again, I can do nothing but shake my head that THIS bug was unnoticed !?!?!?!

PoR2 remains one of the very few games that I played for a couple of days and quit before I was done. I got bored with the endless turnbased combat.

And I have enjoyed plenty of turnbased games, in PoR2 it just became too many of them.

I won't argue about ToEE - its the better game. If they implemented the entire campaign of PoR2 using the ToEE engine I would be in heaven. But that doesnt mean PoR2 isnt a good game in its own right. Its a dungeon crawl - like D&D was in the 7th grade!

I have plenty of games i never finished. Many of them is great RPGs from Bioware. Some not so great. But one of few games i want to finish is POR2. I just want to find out whats happened, as it brings out my old school feeling to why i started to play computer games in the first place - Bards Tale. (I know, i repeat my self!)

I think its impressive that this bug slipped through, but it was caught early and it was in specific condition it apperared. Nevertheless very serious, if you uninstalled it.

I have more playstopping bugs in Gothic 3 that make me not WANT to play the game. (until its fixed). My point is that this bug was used much as an illustration to how unfinished POR2 in many reviews on the internet. But... Still, i am loving it soo much i can't help it.

Tried Wizardry 8 for a while ago and got extremly bored with the leveled random encounters of enemy that was unnatural grouped together.
... and the slow pace of the fights.

So, perhaps one finds things in game other than the apparent flaws that shines through. And i think its fine. I think its cool that i like this game so much seeing so much great things haveing plenty good tactical battles. And others don't!

Point being: Don't shy away from any games cause the "net" says it bad. And also, do not like it. Cause, whats a flaw in someones eye is that feature you become in love with!

I have finished that game 3 times. Seriously, if you like close fights in a turn based environment and have installed patch 1.4 and the speed patch you'll be having a blast. The only real drawback I'm having with the game, is that you can't chose your feats and skills.

What kind of speed patch ? I thought this was only for Pool of Radiance 1 ?

What sort of game is it, when you can't choose skills and feats!! Come on!!!!! That's at the heart of the D&D system!! That's a large part of what's involved in Roleplaying in a CRPG!! Good Grief!!!!!

This thread is an enigma.

True, feats and skills are the heart of D&D.
In PoR2 you are developing your characters by chosing its classes (and the skills and feats come with them/ e.g.: your first level pick is thief and you get backstabbing and opening chests...your second level pick is barbarian and you get faster movement and rage and so on).
Sounds like lazy programming to me and as i said, i didn't like it. It's not true to D&D, but if you take it on its own it can be overlooked.

There is defenitly a speed patch for PoR2 (I don't have a link, but that should not be to hard to find)

I think that feat and stuff are something i don't really think is important. I do choose "recommend" in Kotor and in NWN2 cause i don't know what it means anyhow. And recommend, should suppose that i am not able to break any future quests!

And I also don't think that a RPG necessary need to use feat to be a good rpg. At all.

It think the part "exploration" is what is important to me, and thats why games like nwn2, kotor1-2, and Planescape, died for me. They don't hold my interest. I don't want dialog i want to do stuff.

And i think killing undead is the dearest thing for me.

(Sorry, all the critic lifted against this game has been heard before and also my points. I am just glad this thread is getting bumped! )

Creating the character YOU want, not what a dev says it should be, HAS to be integral to Roleplaying, otherwise you can't PLAY the ROLE!! All the other stuff is important, like story and exploring, but you can get that in an adventure game for example!!

I agree, almost. Altough when we did rolepaying session in my youth we ended up realizing it was the story and exploration that made it. I don't know AD&D rule so i don't care if its correct or not. We ended up with dices as guidance instead of rules. But its a loong time since i played ...

I love adventure games. Too.

... and this isn't making this game bad. At all. As a rule slave to AD&D it sucks. But rules doesn't make or breake a game.

I find it interesting that people will bend over backwards to defend a critically flawed game like Gothic 3 and POR2 gets treated like something you stepped in.

Who cares about Feats? You arent going to choose Cleave? Spell Penetration? Sure I'd love the ToEE implementation but POR2 makes all the right decisions anyway.

ToddMcF2002 said:

I find it interesting that people will bend over backwards to defend a critically flawed game like Gothic 3 and POR2 gets treated like something you stepped in.

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Uh, Todd ... I think you have some PoR2 on your boots ...

ToddMcF2002 said:

Who cares about Feats? You arent going to choose Cleave? Spell Penetration? Sure I'd love the ToEE implementation but POR2 makes all the right decisions anyway.

Click to expand...

Emphasis mine - this is basically what is defined as 'dumbing down'. Like how Mage Knight Apocalypse has an auto-levelling scheme and no death penalty ... it takes care of everything for you. It can still be fun for many, but takes away much of the role-playing control from others.

Hate to raise an old thread like this, but I started playing the game again recently and was wondering if anyone who did play could answer some questions for me.

I've been playing the game on windows XP, but it crashes pretty often, since it's not a supported OS >.<

I tried compatability mode for windows 95/98, but the sound becomes stutter-ie and I guess I rather go with crashes than no sound.

I was just wondering if anyone had some workarounds for this, guess in the meantime I'll go bum TOEE off my friend, friends are a great way to play games cheap

A couple of people here are actually big fans of the game and may be able to help you. I can run almost any game under XP, so I don't know why you're having a problem!!

I read in the forums over on ubisoft that turning off hardware acceleration, AA, and a few other's would help, I just need to get that software for the new card I put in, doesn't help I'm still blindly learning about my computer

I'm sure theres other ways of improving gameplay, I hope atleast, and everyone here seemed like good fans of the game.

The safest place to find information is at the offical board. There are still very helpful people there. (or atleast there was some month ago). I am running POR2 in Windows XP SP2 no problem. But if i remember correctly; the time before that i had to run it in compatibility mode... hm, go figure. New hardware i guess?

I am not sure about the last sentence though. I think we, the fan of Por2 is countable on a man, that lost both his hands, fingers.