I've tried, but I just can't stomach the older classics

Stabwound

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I first started playing CRPGs in the mid 90's, with games like Dark Sun and Might and Magic 4/5, so I'm pretty accustomed to those. I never really played anything older than that, because they just didn't interest me.

Lately I've been trying to play some of the early CRPGs, and I just can't. I've wanted to try the Goldbox games for a while, but I started the first Krynn game and it's just way to archaic to the point where it isn't fun. Same thing with the early Wizardry, Might and Magic, Ultimas, etc. I'm not hung up on graphics, but there's just a point where it becomes annoying to play the games because everything is just so clunky. The necessity to manually map areas is also one of the major killers... I just can't bring myself to do it.

Does anyone else feel the same way? I'm kinda disappointed in myself, but... oh well.
 
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I don't play areas where I've got to map areas either.
Therefore, I don't play many of the older games.

I've once tried some of the oldest M&M games, but sorry, I couldn't stand the graphics. With the later games I had no problems.

But all in all I fear it partly has something to do with being used to something. If you aren't a small farmer in the the Andes in south america, you will have many, many problems to acclimate yourself with their rough life. No current, for example. Although the amount of cables is slowly spreading.

In a way this is similar with these games: They require some sort of ... "hardened stomach" in order to be able to digest them.

We are so much used to things like an automap. It is handy, a great tool, but in fact it's luxury. One could play a game entirely without, but we are so much used to it that we will soon find ourselves lost within the game and complaining.

Same goes for so many small things that make our lives so much easier without us noticing them.

Let's take street lamps in real life, for example. Just try to imagine a world without street lamps. And no highways at all. And many more and much bigger woods than today.

Our saying to "put a candle into the window" is hardly understood by us nowadays.

Centuries ago, it was essential for "coming home". Only a light seen over several kilometres within otherwise complete darkness (no street lamps ! no streets at all !) can guide someone safely home.
And then there are what my disctionary translates as "ghost lights" or a "will o'whisp". Considering that a candle in a window in otherwise COMPLETE darkness is the ONLY "beacon" guiding home, such a "ghost light" is actually very dangerous, because it not only lets people miss the way, but even worse, they make people get stranded within a moor or a swamp ! Misguided people might go drowning !

This is just an example of how much well, "luxury" influences our lives without us actually noticing them.

Same goes for things like an automap.
 
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The CRPG's of the 80'ies doesn't make much sense to me. They pretty much requires you to read a hefty manual to understand them and the system limitations doesn't offer much narrative for storytelling. Actually, there aren't any games from the early 80'ies at all which I would be able to recommend now. Visually, Dungeon Master (1987) was stunning compared to the competition. WonderBoy III (1989) is a platform RPG, but it's still a really fun game.

Things started to improve during the 90'ies, 1991 in particular with titles as Eye of the Beyonder and Ultima VII, both taking a huge leap from previous generations. RPG's kept improving from there, up to the second half of the 90'ies in which they started to experiment with 3d, which in my opinion looks butt-ugly today. The RPG rennaissance begun 97 with Fallout and later Baldur's Gate, that still used a 2d engine. If they hadn't I doubt they would have been as sucessful as they were. With few exceptions, 3d games didn't begun to look appealing to me until 2000 and beyond.

If you want to look for "old treasures", I say focus on the 90'ies and beyond.
 
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I don't play areas where I've got to map areas either.
Therefore, I don't play many of the older games.
I use "strategy guides" for old games. I consider it very much essential if you want to play through old games - lots of old games. Othervice I would propably die of old age before finishing even 1/10 of them.

Ive played through and enjoyed i.e wizardry 1-3, ultima akalabeth, pool of radiance, hillsfar and wasteland. I didnt use guides all the time - only when I got stuck or needed som maps.

The 90s games are of course considerable better. I like the way they look even - nice alternative to the modern 3D holocaust.
 
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I use "strategy guides" for old games. I consider it very much essential if you want to play through old games - lots of old games. Othervice I would propably die of old age before finishing even 1/10 of them.

I agree on that one.
 
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My version of the EOB Trilogy comes with maps of the first few levels.

Even with them, I had great difficulties ...

I just assume from that time that I'm just not good in orienting myself within tunnels and dungeons alone.
 
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My version of the EOB Trilogy comes with maps of the first few levels.
Even with them, I had great difficulties ...
I just assume from that time that I'm just not good in orienting myself within tunnels and dungeons alone.

I actually played those with the cluebooks... I guess that's an advantage. Those games are quite hard too. I remember there were point of no returns in the 2nd game, so if you took those routes, you wouldn't be able to return.
 
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About graphics, are you unable to play ascii games? For me it's not a problem even if graphics at any level can be a plus, they are never a requirement. For a game without automapping I would tend to agree that it's a "no go". But I played recently two games, Dungeon Master and Citadel Adventure of the Crystal Keep.

DM has ugly graphics and no automap. I surprised myself by being able to play a game without automap. I used Calc grid to quickly map but also didn't map each step but map series of room after have explore them more freely. In Citadel I map only few levels with a similar method until I found in game map tool and soon after auto mapping trick but also for the last two levels where the automap is disabled. Both games had been great fun time and mapping never a burden but often a tool to think about puzzle, take a pause and write notes.

A recent game bring back manual mapping, it's Etrian Odyssey to make it a central part of its gameplay. I played a large part of this game and if the in game map tool are well done and the whole works well with the two screens of the DS, I don't think this really bring a lot to the gameplay but also it didn't detract it. In fact it is almost automapping because you have an option to automap ground where you walk and it's up to you to add the details, doors, objects, walls, and so on.

One point is that I couldn't map anymore on paper as I had to do in game like Pool Of Radiance. Using a calc just beside the game screen running in a window emulator is a much more fast and comfortable method particularly because both can fit at same time on my 30" monitor, it's a detail that helps. :)
 
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I love some of the old classics for the C64, I do not think the graphics was that horrible as some people say at all. Especially bards tale and the M&M games, but there were also many other great C64 rpg's which remains fun up to this day. I just which my disk drive did not start to eat disks for breakfast :(
 
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One point is that I couldn't map anymore on paper as I had to do in game like Pool Of Radiance. Using a calc just beside the game screen running in a window emulator is a much more fast and comfortable method particularly because both can fit at same time on my 30" monitor, it's a detail that helps. :)
I have noticed the same when I have i.e gamebanshee "strategy guide", pdf game manuals (gold box adventure journals) and emulator all open side-by-side on my 52". Very handy. :)
 
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The first cRPG I played was probably Ultima III (unless you count rogue and NetHack).

I tried replaying it a while back. I gave up after about 30 minutes.

As you said, it's too clunky to be worth the bother. For me, the games worth replaying start somewhere around the Infinity Engine, and even so I haven't been able to get beyond Candlekeep with Baldur's Gate. (BG2 I did finish, eventually, and I loved PS:T.)
 
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I cant play anything but Nintendo games in the pre-Fallout era.

that's pretty much my gaming epochs, BF (before Fallout) and AF (after Fallout)
 
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It may well be true that user interfaces have undergone some evolution, and that certain interface procedures - i.e., right-clicking for a contextual menu, WASD movements in 1st person games - have become something of a standard, so that their absence in older games begins to bother us, and you retrospectively shake your head in puzzlement at why RPG developers back then felt it necessary to offer up 26 different commands to interact with your environment, when "USE" would have done for 20 of them. Nonetheless, I would not lay the blame entirely at the feet of the games, but of ourselves as well. Is it possible that even we who cut our teeth on four-color 8x8 sprites have less patience these days? Or that we simply had more time on our hands back then (that one is certainly a Yes in my case)?

But given some patience, and some time to spare, I feel that the threshold isn't higher today than it was back then, and the reward often worth it. Last year, I used one such opportunity to catch up on some of the earlier Ultimas that I had missed back in the days by playing U IV and U V for the first time (back then, I had joined the series at VI). Admittedly, combat was clunky, and I mapped the dungeons by peering at gems and taking screenshots of the DOSBox window... but found them immensely playable nonetheless, and leaving the last room behind to come face to face with the Codex itself was undoubtedly the most immersive RPG experience in many years - after all, immersion has more to do with the imagination than with the eyes.
 
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Nostalgia :)

I don't mind them at all because I grew up first with Intellivision then C64 then Dos. It takes a little getting used to at first but the memory kicks in and I remember why I loved these games so much in the first place. Admittindly, I still have problems with mapping and I can't seem to find the old yellow graph paper anywhere :(

By far the best games next to the Ultimas were Starflight 1 and 2. Anyone who can stomach the graphics should try out one of the best sandbox space games ever. I find myself replaying those more than any of the others.

@Atrachasis Great idea using dosbox screenshots, I didn't even consider that when I replayed. I'll have to do that next time, thanks.
 
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Well, I am working on Betrayal at Krondor and Might & Magic II a little at a time, and while they are certainly klunky, there is also a certain charm. I don't know if I will ever finish them, though ...
 
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Well, I am working on Betrayal at Krondor and Might & Magic II a little at a time, and while they are certainly klunky, there is also a certain charm. I don't know if I will ever finish them, though ...

I don't know about M&M II, but Betrayal at Krondor is pretty long. Especially if you are like me and have to look in every nook and cranny.

Just a friendly hint, write down what people ask you to do or you'll forget :) They'll send you all over the map.
 
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I found it funny, there are very few new games I could enjoy! They are too easy to learn and too easy to play and do not hold much challange neither do they have much mystery or excitement, now I hear people saying exactly the same reasons to why they love the new games, but cannot stand the old classics.

Betrayal at Krondor
Is superior to most new games, with a much better plot, exploration, great riddles and turn-based combat, even the music is better.
 
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I found it funny, there are very few new games I could enjoy! They are too easy to learn and too easy to play and do not hold much challange neither do they have much mystery or excitement, now I hear people saying exactly the same reasons to why they love the new games, but cannot stand the old classics.
This is one way to look at it though I have another. I guess it depends on how/why we play games. I mostly play games for the experience, not for the actual gameplay. What I remember from Baldur's Gate is the story of the Bhaal spawn, not the specifics of the engine. The reason I even attempt to redo a tough encounter over and over is because I want to find out what happens next, not because I enjoy it (in fact I HATE frustratingly difficult encounters and if the Witcher hadn't been as captivating as it was, I would have tossed the game in the trash by the end of Chapter 1).

With this approach to gaming I find just as much enjoyment in the games of today as I did in the games of yesterday. Sure, there is a lot of crap on the shelves but that was true back then as well however we only remember the good stuff. Sure, a game like PlaneScape:Torment doesn't come along often, but they didn't back then either.

Is superior to most new games, with a much better plot, exploration, great riddles and turn-based combat, even the music is better.
I liked "Betrayal at Krondor" but in all fairness I think your nostalgia is making you a bit biased in this case. The plot was good but it had several things going for it that many games don't. For one thing the developers had the fully fleshed out world of Midkemia including the backstory for the setting to use that noone else had touched before. Secondly they had access to the author who helped them with the story (a story which Raymond E. Feist later turned into a novel). That, no doubt, helped with the plot and the details of the story telling.

I don't see how the exploration was any better than, let's say Morrowind or Oblivion in terms of secondary content/sidequests. In size of the secondary content, both of the latter games far surpasses BaK.

There is no doubt, however, that puzzles and riddles in games have changed over the years. Their role has become smaller and thy are less important nowadays but their shape and use has changed as well. In the old days you would often get word riddles or other puzzles like the ones you can find in magazines alongside the crossword puzzles but that was the only way they could make them. Today there are entire levels in games like Tomb Raider that are designed as one huge puzzle. With the introduction of 3D graphics the textual aspects of the riddle/puzzle component become more or less obsolete. At least in the eyes of the publishers paying the developers to make the games. :roll:

The music is a matter of taste. The music in BaK was great but better than in games of today where we're talking about real instruments and not midi impersonations? ... not in my opinion.
 
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I don't see how the exploration was any better than, let's say Morrowind or Oblivion in terms of secondary content/sidequests. In size of the secondary content, both of the latter games far surpasses BaK.

It was better in BaK simple because there was interesting things to find, I explored forever in Obl. / Morrow. without finding anything of interest or that fit into the story, in BaK everything fit into the overall story, and you could learn more about the world and why things were as they were, etc etc. What I found in Obl. was randomly generated dungeons of no interest what-so-ever to me, in morrowind it was better but still not so interesting and story intensive as in BaK. I meant the quality of the exploration not the quantity.

play games. I mostly play games for the experience, not for the actual gameplay.

Does it not mean, that publishers could skip the gameplay and just make movies? or interactive stories instead?

The music is a matter of taste. The music in BaK was great but better than in games of today where we're talking about real instruments and not midi impersonations? ... not in my opinion.

I mean the CD version music.

Secondly they had access to the author who helped them with the story

Yes, why not spend some money on an author to help with the story? instead of spending massive amounts of money on technical stuffs and great graphics, just look at fallout 3 ? why not use a part of the budget on a great writer, instead of flying heads and over-the-top violence ? and make it a great classic instead of a decent game. No matter what we think of the game, I think we can all agree that the writing sucks ?

In fact I think you hit the head on the nail, why not hire writers to help on the stories?? in these big budget games???

a good story, lasts forever, and is a memory for life, good graphics is cool until the next game with better graphics is released.
 
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I started after King's Bounty (1990) with M&M and those games. However, the oldest game I ever replay now though is probably Heroes of Might & Magic (1995). HoMM is not really an RPG though, and the gameplay is not affected or made clumsy as time passes by. The oldest RPG I ever replay is Baldur's Gate from 1998.

By the way, did you know that we just passed the 10 year anniversiry of Baldur's Gate? I had no idea, but I looked it up in wikipedia, and it seems the release date was 30th of November, 1998. Congratulations BG!

I find it odd that we didn't see any articles about it, someone going back to see how it aged after 10 years and such. Maybe writing a new review and comparing it to games today.

The reason why people still play games based on the Infinity Engine without playing older games is quite simple: IE introduced a whole new interface, one that is still in use today (hence it doesn't feel clumsy or slow). Certainly, games today have better textures and what not, but the essence is still the same - character portraits, both click and keymapped menus, spells and so on, hotkeys, etc.
 
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