«

The patch seems to be just what I needed and it's all looking good now! Thanks Doublejack (and everyone else), hopefully I'm there now!

[styxer]

I bought this game years back, played it ALOT.

Sold my old computer, forgott to make a backup of the saves before formating AND lended the game to friend who lost the CD...

But now, 12 years later, I'm back on track!!!!

Thanx a lot for all the posts, and I think I have some old notes from game in a drawer somewhere..

Just today I finished this game. I won't post any spoiler info unless someone specifically asks for it, but I did want to share two things that may be very helpful.

1. Conquering the various cities and towns is completely optional. There may be a way to end the game via that means, but I did not find it. I ultimately took control of all 23 cities and towns in the game, and the only thing I got out of it was money from taxes, and experience points from killing countless guards. I felt it was important to state this because I spent a considerable number of hours assassinating lords and reagents, and if I were to play over again I'd skip it.


2. Someone in an earlier post stated that as they got near the end of the game they found it to be buggy. This is 100% accurate. However, once I was able to ascertain what was happening it was no longer a problem. In other words, the bugs don't impede you in winning at all.

Here's the deal: The final dungeon is designed in such a way that you can actually get OUTSIDE of the dungeon's walls and into the void that is around it. This was evidently done deliberately by the level designer, as there are multiple gaps in the walls. This is the case on more than one level of the dungeon. There are a couple of odd behaviors that result from this ability.

First, there are staircases that you can approach from "the back side". When you go up or down a staircase from the opposite side it was intended to be used, you pop into the next level of the maze also on the opposite side. So it's easy to get disoriented if you do this, and in some cases the auto-mapping feature will cease functioning because you are outside the confines of the dungeon.

Secondly, if you are in the void and you walk too far away from the dungeon, you will literally walk off the map (or grid). When that happens you don't fall Instead, the game becomes corrupted. The text on the screen becomes garbled, you can't click on the buttons, some buttons disappear, etc. Basically, really weird things start to happen. Eventually the game will lock up completely and you have to re-start DosBox. So avoid this by staying close to the dungeon's walls and not walking off into space.

Now, I believe the reason the level designer put the gaps in the walls was to let you walk around the perimeter of the dungeon. Once you do that on a couple different levels, it will become very obvious where secret rooms are hidden. The final dungeon is massive (much larger than any other in the game) so if you had no other way of knowing where these rooms are, it could take hours and hours of checking for secret doors.


That's pretty much it. Overall, the game is a lot like I remembered it so long ago, and I'm very pleased to complete a journey that I knew one day I would finish. I think it was worth the effort.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(doublejack @ Jul 18 2007, 10:11 PM) [snapback]300096[/snapback]</div>

There's a procedure to get this game up & running without any hacking or crack. The availability of the manual makes cracking the copy protection (which has yet to be fully defeated) a moot point. Here's how to get the game working:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Svend Karlson @ May 8 2007, 06:21 PM) [snapback]289645[/snapback]

Game is now playable in 4 easy steps:

1. Download the main program zip from this site & install it
2. Do NOT run the crack file, just delete it
3. Download the 1.013 patch zip & apply it (if you cannot find it, message me, I'll email you it)
2. Download the manual from this site (essential, unplayable without it)

The manual is needed because without it you cannot get past the manual copy protection built into the game (the supplied crack doesn't remove all the protection) & the patch is needed because the main executable file has already been 'cracked' even if you don't run the crack supplied, which triggers an additional copy protection measure that will cripple your game after about 6 hours of playing.

I've now been playing for quite some time, it's just as I remembered it, sort of.

In answer to the question about the theives tools above, I cannot say for certain, but there is a theives guild in a tower inside Teal. Theives tools may be inside, but presently I cannot fight past a band of cutthroughts to progress beyond the very beginning of that tower.
[/b]

[/b][/quote]


If anyone happens to have the 1.013 patch for this, I would love to have it, seeing as how I cannot find a reliable link to download it from. Please email it to me at [BEEEP]@hotmail.com
Any help is appreciated.

For those of you who want to play this game without the crack woes!!

I am a friend of one of the designers of this game. If there are still enough of you wanting to give Disciples of Steel a try then ill locate my friend and ask him to help us!

[_r.u.s.s.]

yay, be sure to keep us updated then

[Vandermillion]

Whoa, never knew that people still played this game =D. I played it when I was a young brat and I'm already a graduate engineer now. Hmm, I remember I only used one character till the end with a spare blacksmith and priest for out of combat stuff. For assassinating regents etc, I just used a wrath of god to clear all the troops and a deathstrike to finish off the regent. It's a quick solution . You can end the game by winning against the 'demon' army with a stronger army, but since I was stingy, I chose to simply fight them with my party, bring lots of mushrooms (to refil mana for priest) and wrath of god till kingdom come and you're done =D. As for bugs to abuse, one I don't think they fixed was there is a date where you are notifed of the end! Gee, just stay on either the elf island or the demon island and time won't move. You can occupy cities before that and make your army in the elf city till you're content. By the way, most of the time you don't even need to assassinate regents, doing their entire quest chains more often than not gives you the entire kingdom, except some which either pledge to join you against the demon army or forces you to assassinate them. Well, good luck! So grateful there were people who also enjoyed the game like me. The only tips I can give are, get annihilate for magic, kill your first death knight with annhilate + maxed magic bolt. Get death strike, go zap-happy, get wrath of god, show them who's God =D. *6 hours later* have 300-1000 for all skills. Nice huh?

P.S: Sorry for the huge wall of text. Was just excited to see humans who played this game too. My manual had literally fallen apart on me. I even wrapped it >_<;

[Vandermillion]

Hmm, lots have changed, sound works, you start with 1000 exp, cap for skills tend to be 500 unless you save up a lot of exp and push it beyond the cap in a mini-bug. Enemies are somewhat easier than before, yeah, started a while ago and am now exploring the Lost City of Terine. Bugs still in place, and seems I can still bypass certain quests. However am pretty lost for Demata's quest chain >_>; meh

[Vandermillion]

Umm, this is embarressing but for the hermit who guards the Light-forged armor, what is the "Speak the magic word, or go away and come back another day"? I used to kill him but want to know what it is =P

[MrFurious]

Hi fellas,

I'm glad some of you enjoyed the game even after all this time.

I wish i could have afforded a real QA squad to polish the game from start to finish. But not much of that existed back then, just a group of guys making a video game! I finished the Atari version in late 90 and got it boxed up in '91, and then ported it to the PC that year. I had no idea the simple anti-crack and anti-cheat i added to the game would cause so much trouble. Sorry so many of you wasted your time on that.

I'll look through my stuff and see if i have anything to contribute to the site. Most of the original digital art and whatnot has since gone to data heaven (i still have my 4 color negatives for the original box art assuming the heat hasn't destroyed them in my garage).

I just have to say "WoW", thanks for some of the kind words here and the fact that someone(s) were interested enough in the game to keep it alive is fantastic.

Martin "MrFurious" Kruse, Lead Programmer, Cartographer, Level Designer, Graphics placeholder maker, and Feeble storyteller.

And to Boxleitner for embarassing me with "did you know he wrote a game..." stories to my customers.