Best 'Realms of Arkania'?

[QUOTE=Alrik Fassbauer;38497]I also like Startrail more, but I must admit that playing the whole party over three games is a unique experience
[QUOTE]

I'm currently trying to do that mega-epic approach for BG 1 & 2. It'll give me 200+ hours of roleplaying magnificence.

I'm going to also have to try it for ROA 1, 2 & 3, because the first time through I played them 3, 2, 1 (which was stupid).

Originally Posted by mute
Fired up star trail in dosbox and realized how many thing thet really got right. Hm, my o my. I never finished Shadows over riva.

As i understand it it doesn't function under dosbox?

I'm using Dos-Box Defender, Version 2, and find it's working great. Gosh I love d-fend v2, all my dos classics, in an orderly icon, and I just double click to play with no config. I've pre-configured all my Dos-Box games to run full screen, at a cool and crisp 640x480.

Originally Posted by roqua
and its hard not to since the next map piece is held by djhadgadgadhua asjdhasjdsfddjhfdasls who lives in guuuuuyfgshdvgdkffff. I dont know how to spell his name but I know exactly where his house is in the city, whose name I also can't spell, etc.

The names in the German version of the game are based on REAL names from nordish countries ! I think especially Norway.

Well, now I am getting Star Trail as well. Still haven't gotten any of them yet …

I never paid any attention to the names, but then again, I'm from Norway so maybe they seemed natural. I know quite a few games use Norwegian names whenever someone is supposed to be "Viking-ish", so I stopped paying attention to it.

I've never played any of the RoA games but I recently checked them out. I read up on them as well as watched some videos of them in action on Youtube.

I was a little disappointed when I found out that combat was isometric as I had previously thought it was first-person.

It's not that I don't like isometric, but I would prefer the entire game to be isometric if combat is going to be that way. I don't like exploring in first-person and then randomly switching to iso.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Well, now I am getting Star Trail as well. Still haven't gotten any of them yet …

A little word of 'advice' (for lack of a better word)…

Make sure when you play that you take your time and outfit your characters properly… especially in the first two games. It is very easy for your characters to catch illnesses (like a cold) just because you didn't have good boots for them to wear, or you forgot to get them each a bedroll…

That's one of the things I personally loved about those games though… you really had to play the role of your characters beyond anything that most games even consider. Many see the micromanagement as a pain… but talk about upping the realism factor.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The names in the German version of the game are based on REAL names from nordish countries ! I think especially Norway.

Thank you for the explanation on talents earlier.

Yeah, I figured the names were authentic. But, they might as well used Chinese characters for how they sound and look. I like the authenticity, but it's hard to distingish netween jhfdfdsjfasljdflk;;;' and jdsadjaisjdiahdffok;lollo. I don't think they should change anything, I was just trying to explain that I played it enough to not even need to try and decipher names and places like Ultima and it's deciphering.

All the posts about ROA, good and bad, tips and hints. They just wants me to replay them, and i do hit my head for not remembered them more vividly then the other "block busters".

The isometric battles is everything. I love the spells, the sounds, the moves.

Hm. I must alter my rpg replay list me think. Yesterdays play time in star trail really wants me to finish Shadows over Riva.

I will also start playing my first RoA Game sometime soon.
From reading the posts here it would seem that
the wisest choice would be to begin with RoA1 and
then export the party to RoA2.

So be it!

I started to make a party today….the first one is very old though and clunky in the character generator….I wish they could have used normal names for spells…

In the German versions, parts of the spell names are based on Latin words.

anyone have a web page with the list of spells and what they do?

In English ? Uh …

Maybe this helps ?

BOD : http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos…ta/564655.html
Riva : http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos…ta/198611.html
ST : http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos…ta/564989.html

From Replacementdocs :

BOD : http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.772
Riva : http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.1742

Interesting read. Was glancing along the walktrough. I remembered some episodes in the beginning of Star Trail, and that hideous dwarven pit… i know i had trouble couple of times the first time through.

Also, the sleeping bags, the blue cough, the healing herbs. Food, and water.

Read the review about BOD and the mentioned the repetitve music. Me always loved it.

Ah, all nostalgic now.

Oh yeah,

old auntie Nostalgia filling all of your hearts and spreading all over the place.
My, my!

Btw, while we´re talking `bout "spreading".

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
…
P&P background information is shattered between three boxes : The box called "Dunkle Städte, Lichte Wälder" (Elves & Dwarves), the "Thorwal-Box" and the "Orkland-Box".

Al, dear ol´ mate, just a little hint:

The word you´ve been actually wanting to use for quite some posts now already, is:
"scattered"
It´s for when pieces of a bigger whole are distributed amongst different places each.
"dispersed" would be another synonym.

"shattered" on the other hand is rather for "Old Shatterhand", the guy who knocks down his foes with just one strike of his fist against their temples in the Wild West of Karl May (if you remember ).
Similar meaning has "crushed", for instance.


Just stopping by,
Ragon, The NLT Mage

I loved all three, and playing with the same party from the beginning makes things a lot easier.

My favorite is probably Star Trail. Something about that one over the others really felt like a PnP game.

Least favorite part in the series is probably going into the ant hill in SoR.

Originally Posted by mute
The isometric battles is everything. I love the spells, the sounds, the moves.

I didn't particularly like the interface in the battles, it was a bit clunky and slow.

But the battles themselves were great, you had to really know your characters and their strengths, not to mention having a really good control of your available spells and when to use them, as just blasting flame lances about is too stupid. Even for someone with fairly good knowledge of 2nd edition DSA like me (they used 3rd edition for RoA), it still takes quite a bit of thinking.

No kidding about playing with the same makes it easier. Some fights are half-way impossible if you don't carry over your team.

As for my personal favourite: Probably Star Trail. I'm not sure why, I guess it's that it has the polish of part III and the expansiveness of part I. The differences are minute anyway, but II is my favourite

Many see the micromanagement as a pain… but talk about upping the realism factor.

The micromanagement was probably my least favourite part of the DSA games, but I never mind it much because the interface is so intuitive, and you can learn how to keep an eye out for your people without spending an infinity of time or clicking buttons a lot. It's not intrusive micromanagement, in other words, you just have to keep it in the back of your mind. Really well done, if you ask me, though it's still micromanagement.

Some of the old "hardcore NLT gamers" (NLT = ROA) in the Drakensang Forum believe that the micromanagement was one thing that made this game so special. They (including me ) would like to see it back - but of course no-one does such things nowadays anymore.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Some of the old "hardcore NLT gamers" (NLT = ROA) in the Drakensang Forum believe that the micromanagement was one thing that made this game so special. They (including me ) would like to see it back - but of course no-one does such things nowadays anymore.

Well, it was pretty unique, and I do recognise how it makes the game "more real" and can draw you into the world more as you have to take care of your PCs better.

It's just "not for me," so to speak, I don't like it on a personal level, but I recognise it is a very cool feature, and very well done for the Northland Trilogy games.