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Old 05-06-2011, 12:36 PM   #271
Pex
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I agree with everything you guys said and to each his own is always my point of view when discussing games, or books or movies. There is no right and wrong. And like I said, I spent some great time with the game, especially when it first came out and then again when revisiting it a couple of years ago (I think I made quite a few posts about it at that time). I just can't help thinking how much better the game would've been with some improvements, but I do that with almost every game I play

Just a few more thought that would've made a game more interesting (IMO):
- a few merchants wanting the same item and you can offer it to the highest bidder,
- haggling when buying/selling stuff
- some thievery (pickpocketing or burglary when you actually steal money)
- not having quests where you actually have to spend more money to do it than what the reward is.

As for favorite RPGs, mine is Realms of Arkania 2: Star Trail (Part one was ok, but not as good as 2 and part 3 didn't have such a big map to wander around, though much better graphics).
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Old 05-06-2011, 03:57 PM   #272
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pex View Post
Just a few more thought that would've made a game more interesting (IMO):
- a few merchants wanting the same item and you can offer it to the highest bidder,
- haggling when buying/selling stuff
I like both of these. I can see where those repetitive "bring me the holy mace" quests might actually *mean* something if you could bid it up over a limited time with competitors, and haggling could be tied to local rep to make it very interesting.

Quote:
- some thievery (pickpocketing or burglary when you actually steal money)
To be honest, I love the idea of burglary and pickpocketing in RPGs, but never seen an implementation I've liked. The problem is that it's so binary, from my perspective: you win, and get everything, or you lose, and logically get very angry marks and the guard after you--which leads to many players simply reloading. It might as well be a 100% success rate, since failure is either too wimpy to matter, or too realistic and not something anybody wants to accept. I've no answers for how this could be done in a way that makes failure acceptable, but still heavy enough to deter constant light-fingered activity.

Quote:
- not having quests where you actually have to spend more money to do it than what the reward is.
Heh! Yes, I agree. Though if you do the raubritters with a lot of merchants buying in, you end up coming out way ahead--and there's that one merchant option where you're offered an alchemist's kit: that alone is worth just about any quest.

You know, somebody should probably do a Darklands clone set in another part of Europe, perhaps France, with more activities, so that the current rights holder can't claim copyright infringement.

Last edited by Borodin; 07-06-2011 at 05:38 PM.
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Old 06-06-2011, 10:50 AM   #273
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To be honest, I love the idea of burglary and pickpocketing in RPGs, but never seen an implementation I've liked. The problem is that it's so binary, from my perspective: you win, and get everything, or you lose, and logically get very angry marks and the guard after you--which leads to many players simply reloading. It might as well be a 100% success rate, since failure is either too wimpy to matter, to realistic and not something anybody wants to accept. I've no answers for how this could be done in a way that makes failure acceptable, but still heavy enough to deter constant light-fingered activity.
Yeah, you have a point there. I guess an alternative to getting caught, but failing burglary anyway is to have the lock jam (like in some games) so you can't keep atempting it, but that's a bit lame. As for pickpocketing, I have to admit that when playing above mentioned Star Trail, that was my main income and I would just reload the game if I got caught.


Quote:
Heh! Yes, I agree. Though if you do the raubritters with a lot of merchants buying in, you end up coming out way ahead--and there's that one merchant option where you're offered an alchemist's kit: that alone is worth just about any quest.
From my memory, raubritters are the only quest that pays off well. Most of the others you either need to sacrify a treasure, or use a very expensive potion or fight a tough opponent (which again leads in having to pay to get healed or for new equoipment).

Quote:
You know, somebody should probably do a Darklands clone set in another part of Europe, perhaps France, with more activities, so that the current rights holder can't claim copyright infringement.
Yeah, to be honest, I always thought the game was supposed to be over a bigger map, or at least have an expansion. After all, what's the point of having St. Patrick, if you can't go to Ireland and use his bonus?

But brand new game with similar gameplay would be great.
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Old 06-06-2011, 09:44 PM   #274
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From my memory, raubritters are the only quest that pays off well. Most of the others you either need to sacrify a treasure, or use a very expensive potion or fight a tough opponent (which again leads in having to pay to get healed or for new equoipment).
Certainly. No matter if other missions pay off, they cost in terms of missing the opportunity of doing several raubritter quests instead in the same time. Not only the reward and specially the loot of each single raubritter quest is much higher, but also you're always told about nearby raubritters, and you can claim rewards from several people over the same head, whereas those stupid quest givers send you from Bavaria to Poland and back in search of one worthless trinket.

Quote:
Yeah, to be honest, I always thought the game was supposed to be over a bigger map, or at least have an expansion. After all, what's the point of having St. Patrick, if you can't go to Ireland and use his bonus?
I think I read something along those lines; at any rate it's obvious enough looking at those foreign saint bonuses.

If I really read it, it was probably in this website:

http://www.darklands.net/faq/faq.shtml
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Old 07-06-2011, 05:46 PM   #275
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Yeah, to be honest, I always thought the game was supposed to be over a bigger map, or at least have an expansion. After all, what's the point of having St. Patrick, if you can't go to Ireland and use his bonus?
Agreed. I never asked Hendrick about that, but then, this was Microprose. They didn't do sequels. Meier has certainly gotten more savvy about that, though I'm not terribly impressed these days with the obvious dumbing-down philosophy he espouses.

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But brand new game with similar gameplay would be great.
Makes you wonder why nobody's picked up that gauntlet, doesn't it? Even the obvious player-made ones (that probably would have been crushed by the rights holders) haven't gotten very far before falling apart.
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Old 10-08-2011, 09:24 PM   #276
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I donwloaded the game, and besides having some minor graphical glitches, which aren't really that annoying, there's no sound. I tried dl'ing VDMSound, but i get a -Could not load 'VDDLoader.dll- error.

Is there a way to fix this? Or can i play it with sound without the use of VDMSound by doing somethilg else?


EDIT: Nevermind, i donwloaded the game from another website, and it works ok.

Last edited by earty91; 10-08-2011 at 10:52 PM.
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Old 10-08-2011, 11:08 PM   #277
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Thanks for reporting, I'm replacing the download. It was OK but the configuration wasn't ready to go.
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Old 30-10-2011, 03:05 PM   #278
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I'm seeing a couple of messages on the Yahoo Darklands group that Darklands is now on GOG. Shame really, since nobody involved with the actual creation of the game will profit from this. But it's the way the business works, and if it didn't, a lot of companies wouldn't be able to sell their assets when closing their doors--unacceptable. So there it is.
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Old 02-12-2011, 12:14 AM   #279
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Man BSGOG (Blocking and Stealing Good Old Games) lose all my support after blocking the download to the games that they (re-launch) i even made a bad idea of buying a game there...

Im not against they making money when they upgrade and make the game compatible with actual systems, but blocking the old version and if i have understand Borodin post not sharing the money with the creators...

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Old 02-12-2011, 06:28 AM   #280
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The creators aren't getting any money cause their business either went bankrupt or they sold the games copyright to someone else. Who ever is holding the copyright for that game is getting money from GoG for it.

And about blocking the download, I assume you mean from this site is that correct? Cause if it is, we did that not them. Abandonia does not host games that are being sold legitimately and has nothing to do with the people at GoG. In fact if anyone else had picked up the game for sale we would link to them.

And now you know and knowing is half the battle.
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