You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.

$1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.

Damn near free so I had to post. I yoinked it.

--
Zag

West of House
There is a small mailbox here.

>read leaflet
"WELCOME TO USENET!

USENET is a game of adventure, danger,
and low cunning. In it you will
explore some of the most amazing
territory ever seen by mortals. No
computer should be without it!"

Related:
$3 https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_bards_tale_trilogy

I don't think I could handle Wasteland 1 (either version), reviews seem
brutal for it: too hard, too old, too minimal, etc. Reviews for TBTT seem
much more positive.

>You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.
>$1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.

rms

On Wed, 28 Feb 2024 09:47:55 -0700, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, rms
wrote:

>Related:
>$3 https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_bards_tale_trilogy
>
>I don't think I could handle Wasteland 1 (either version), reviews seem
>brutal for it: too hard, too old, too minimal, etc. Reviews for TBTT seem
>much more positive.
>
>>You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.
>>$1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.
>
True. Wasteland was more interesting to me, but it is *brutally* hard.
Always was and you can't remaster it to be easier. Especially when you
start running into mechanicals.

But Bard's Tale is just a dungeon crawl. No story. No real lore. You
can't do much other than move and fight. BT3 has a few little puzzles, I
guess. I'm sure it's more playable - even stock BT3 is playable after its
QoL improvements - but it's near entirety is just combat after combat and
teleporter/spinner annoyances. That's the entire game.

For BT3, I got as far as Kinestia last replay (4 or 5 years ago) and
said, "Well now, this is just a grinding annoyance at this point."

So I'll take at least the ability to give a slot machine a whirl. Or
failing a swim check to get across a river in the dungeon and being
forced out into the world map from there to take a ride down the entire
river as a result, leveling up your swim skill in the process. I'll take
the radiation zones you can only see at night because that's when you can
see the glow. Thought. Things to do. RP even, for what it was worth bitd.

Wasteland is probably too dated to be playable for anyone not overwhelmed
by nostaligia, or looking for a brutal challenge, but it is a much better
RPG.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

On Wed, 28 Feb 2024 10:02:46 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.
>
>$1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.
>
>Damn near free so I had to post. I yoinked it.

I never played Wasteland back in the day but I did buy the remaster at
some point. No idea if I will enjoy it. But I do like old school RPGs
remastered so there is that.

On Wed, 28 Feb 2024 13:09:35 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>But Bard's Tale is just a dungeon crawl. No story. No real lore. You
>can't do much other than move and fight. BT3 has a few little puzzles, I
>guess. I'm sure it's more playable - even stock BT3 is playable after its
>QoL improvements - but it's near entirety is just combat after combat and
>teleporter/spinner annoyances. That's the entire game.
>
>For BT3, I got as far as Kinestia last replay (4 or 5 years ago) and
>said, "Well now, this is just a grinding annoyance at this point."

I got as far as somewhere in BT2. The game had darkness squares, no
magic zones and spinners (I think) all at the same time which really
was messing with my hand drawn maps so I gave up.

I own the Bard's Tale Trilogy remaster though so I will try again at
some point.

On 2/28/2024 11:09 AM, Zaghadka wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Feb 2024 09:47:55 -0700, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, rms
> wrote:
>
>> Related:
>> $3 https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_bards_tale_trilogy
>>
>> I don't think I could handle Wasteland 1 (either version), reviews seem
>> brutal for it: too hard, too old, too minimal, etc. Reviews for TBTT seem
>> much more positive.
>>
>>> You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.
>>> $1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.
>>
> True. Wasteland was more interesting to me, but it is *brutally* hard.
> Always was and you can't remaster it to be easier. Especially when you
> start running into mechanicals.
>
I still vividly remember burning thru clips on auto-fire at an insane
rate. :)

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On 2/28/2024 8:02 AM, Zaghadka wrote:
> You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.
>
> $1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.
>
> Damn near free so I had to post. I yoinked it.

Didn't that come with Wasteland 2? I'm pretty sure it came bundled.

I hadn't played it back in it's heyday, but I had tried to play it a
couple times much much later, but it was far too difficult to get into.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

Zaghadka wrote:
> You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.
>
> $1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.
>
> Damn near free so I had to post. I yoinked it.
>
No I prefer to play games like M.U.L.E. or at least something with
objects that are Pac-Man sized not four pixels in a sniper scope.
Something that does screen management well is 1941.

"rms" <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> writes:

> Related:
> $3 https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_bards_tale_trilogy
>
> I don't think I could handle Wasteland 1 (either version), reviews
> seem brutal for it: too hard, too old, too minimal, etc. Reviews for
> TBTT seem much more positive.

I remember trying the original Wasteland, I think it was a freebie with
Wasteland2? But, after wandering around for a bit I had to admit I
didn't know how to play the game so I quit and didn't look back. Didn't
really get into Wasteland 2 either.

I remember reading a novel or novella made out of the original Wasteland
game's plot. It was quite interesting, I could barely put it
down. Something about a mad AI. Extremely worn out topic for sure but I
prefer that over a crazy religious cult which I believe was the plot in
Wasteland 2.

On Wed, 28 Feb 2024 10:02:46 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>You want a nostalgia burst from the original Wasteland.
>
>$1.50 USD on GOG.com rn.
>
>Damn near free so I had to post. I yoinked it.

I already own it, of course (albeit on Steam. And original floppies,
natch.)

The original game never really grabbed me the way it did some. It was
this weird mixture of gamestyles; part Ultima, part Bards Tale, with a
mix of Pool of Radiance. The combination never quite gelled for me. I
remember trying to play it numerous times when it was still fresh and
new, and each time giving up after a while. Others mentioned the
difficulty, but I don't recall it being too hard (or at least, not
much harder than other games of the era). But neither the gameplay nor
the setting made me want to engage with the game.

I do particularly remember being annoyed that the game used a
'paragraph book' to enhance it's story. This was a fairly common
feature when the game came out; you'd get to a point in the game and
it would instruct you to read 'page 92, paragraph 3' from the book to
flesh out the setting and story. The developers used this technique
both because disk-space was too expensive to spend on descriptive
text, and as a form of copy protection. But by the time I actually got
around to playing the game, technology had improved to the point that
paragraph books were old hat, and it made an already old game feel
even more archaic.

At some point I /finally/ got to the end of the game. To this day I
don't remember anything about the quest. Mostly I played it, I think,
to check it off the list of games played. You know, back when our
libraries were so minimal the idea of having a a backlog of hundreds
of games seemed ludicrous (merely the idea of OWNING hundreds of games
was laughable!).

My experience with "Wasteland" soured me on the post-apocalyptic genre
in general, I think. I'd probably enjoy the Fallout games more if the
spectre of "Wasteland" wasn't hanging over it.

Still, I agree; the price is a good one if you're into old RPGs or the
franchise in general. Although you can frequently get the original as
a free add-in when you purchase one of the remakes...

Thanks for the update, Zag!

rms <rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:
>Related:
>$3 https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_bards_tale_trilogy
>
>I don't think I could handle Wasteland 1 (either version), reviews seem
>brutal for it: too hard, too old, too minimal, etc. Reviews for TBTT seem
>much more positive.

I don't know about the remasters, but the original Wasteland game is a
fair bit easier than the original Bard's Tale game. Expect a few total
party wipes playing the first Bard's Tale at the start as you try to
build up a party that can survive the dungeons. In the second be prepared
for the awful combined anti-magic spinner darknesss squares that Mike S
mentioned constantly disorienting you. Oh, and the timed puzzle rooms
at the end of each dungeon, full of anti-magic spinner darkness squares,
and if you fail to complete them in time, total party wipe.

I remember some difficulty at the start playing Wasteland, but it was more
a figuring out the game and figuring out where it was safe to go problem.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //