Good Old Games - Ishar 1 & 2 Available

That won't ever happen. Myrthos meets all the site costs but doesn't post most of the news. I post a lot of news but I don't have anything to do with money - I don't even see the monthly hosting bill. Given that we all do this as a hobby, none of us are going to waste our own time in return for ad income that might buy a cup of coffee.

Then, I guess I thank everybody who keeps the site. As for GoG.com news, personally, I'd like you to keep up with the news since:
1. Gog.com's business model is legal and their goods would suite the liking of those who come to this site.
2. There are good games only known for a certain people, who may drop by and leave comments on them…just like in this thread.

PS It seems that Wulf asked these questions simply out of curiosity. IMO, it would be good for both RPGWatchers and guests to clear up things at times.

I tried playing ishar 3 when it was released, wasn't that good.

I sent the link in and here's why I think it's relevant for RPGWatch:

This is the first time in over ten years that these RPGs are commercially and legally available. They are interesting games that have many fans, and this information should be of interest to old-school RPG-players who there are many of here.

Abandonware is not legal (a game isn't made "freeware" just because it's old or not being sold, period), and should never be relevant to a legitimate site such as RPGWatch in the first place. If they started posting links to illegal sites, I'd remove them from my bookmarks instantly.

I'll just add that I played (tried) all the Ishar games back in the day - and even then they were pretty horrible compared to the alternative games of the same genre (EoB, Anvil of Dawn, Dungeon Master, Black Crypt, etc.).

They DID have decent visuals - and I distinctly remember Silmarils (french developer) being known for their aesthetics before anything else.

That's just my take, though, but I wouldn't recommend wasting money on those games.

God, bringing back some memories . . . very unclear ones that I'm struggling with.

I have recollections of the game mechanics being quite annoying at times and it often being unreasonably hard, but the worlds & fights were reasonably interesting. Well worth messing about with a bit at that kind of price if you like that sort of thing but not classics.

Decent, 3D graphics at such an early time but not such a great game is largely what I'm seeing from reviews from back in the day for these.

Again, it looks like a game called Crystals of Arborea is a precursor to this series? Does anyone have information on that one?

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
Decent, 3D graphics at such an early time but not such a great game is largely what I'm seeing from reviews from back in the day for these.

Again, it looks like a game called Crystals of Arborea is a precursor to this series? Does anyone have information on that one?

Wikipedia is your friend: "Crystals of Arborea was published by Silmarils in 1991. It precedes Ishar both chronologically and by its gameplay. Morgoth, the main antagonist of Crystals of Arborea, is the father of Krogh, the one of Ishar: Legend of the Fortress. Morevoer, most of the heroes of the game, Jarel's companions, can be met in Ishar or even in Ishar 2."

BTW, I liked Ishar 1. Couldn't get Ishar 2 to run, and never bought I3.

Just thought i'd mention I think Ishar 1 was good but Ishar 2 was the best game in this series…As far as I recall anyway heh.

Originally Posted by Dusk
As for GoG.com news, personally, I'd like you to keep up with the news since

+1

I'd rather just read the news here than go to many different sites. I don't really visit many other sites anyways and I don't visit GoG unless I see some kind of deal here.

As for Ishar I had trouble getting it to run correctly the last time I tried it. This was before Dosbox I think.

Does anyone of you know who holds the rights of the Ishar series nowadays ?

At least someone at GOG should know … I'm interested in learning that.

The publisher in the game's page is listed as DotEmu, a company that is still well and alive. So I assume they are the current owners to the rights of the game. http://dotemu.com/

They seem to be working on publishing old "classics" on phones, pcs and such…It seems they have mostly old Microids, Silmarils and Lankhor titles. All 3 of them being french studios that are no more… (Well I think Microids still exists in some form but isn't the same as the former Microids)