Gawddammit: BETA-TEST YOUR PRODUCTS, you fuck-noodles!

The BBQ Pit
1

I went out and bought (note that I bought it, before reading on) the D&D computer game “Pool of Radiance”. I was excited as it’s a remake of an old favorite, the graphics looked great and it was turn-based!!! (I hate non-turn-based rpgs).

Anyway, I know something’s horribly wrong when I go to install it. Specifically, it in-fucking-sists on going into my c:/program files directory. :rolleyes: Hey assholes: ever think that most of us don’t wan’t a 1.2 gig! game cluttering up our c: drive? I keep my C: partition tiny and don’t install stuff on it for a reason.

So I go on all sorts of pirate-sites looking for a crack for the game so I can install it. After fighting my way through literally ten-billion-trillion pop-up sex ads (TEEN VIXENS WITH BIG DICKS! NAKED WEASELS IN HEAT AND ON CRACK! PATHETIC 30-SOMETHINGS TRYING TO LOOK 15! NINJA DONKEY-SEX!) I find a crack that’ll allow me to specify a directory. The crack also requires that I manually edit my registry. This is no big deal for me, but I dread to think what a newbie-user is gonna do to his system when he tries.

It takes me about a day to hunt down the crack (I only found one site that had it!) and a few minutes to edit the registry. The game loads. I create my character. The game begins. And, this being D&D and all, I find characters in a fight. No prob.

But…

Those of you who are gamers will understand: there’s a tacit agreement that random wandering monsters won’t use strategy and tactics. While random Orcs should know to “Take out guy wearing pointy hat and dress first. He make fire-from-fingers! Him also wimp!” a good GM doesn’t do this, especially at low levels, as it’s not fun to have your magic-user whacked every battle. Every single wandering monster should not be a combination of General MacArthur, Tacticus and Sun-Tzu. But pile onto the magic user they did.

In addition, they’ve apparently never heard of “game balance”. Again, for those non-gamers out there, “game balance” is something a good DM does to insure that the monsters that the player-characters face is in the vague realm of “beatable”. In other words, a 1st level magic user with no real armor and 4 hit points shouldn’t go up against an ancient-spellcasting-SwackIron-Dragon right out of the gate. They’re throwing wraiths at the characters who’ve barely had a chance to get to second level.

Third. I know it’s hard to construct a non-linear adventure, but at the same time, do they have to be so obvious about it? "Here’s a plot-coupon. Take it to those people and cash it in for instructions about where to go for your next plot-coupon.

Fourth: the interface bites. It’s completely comprehensible, but it’s user-unfriendly. You have to navigate through two or three menus (there are hot-keys to bring up menus, but…) just to attack. Every time you attack. :rolleyes:

Fifth: There’s no “run” option. And…the…char…ac…ters…move…too…fuck…ing…slow…ly. It takes 'em 30-40 seconds to plod across the screen. It’s like watching a movie in slo-mo.

Sixth: You’ve disabled all the control keys (alt, tab, cntrl, del, the windows key) so I can’t switch (alt-tab) back to Windows? Fuckers. What the hell was the point of that?

Seventh: They’ve added a :rolleyes: nifty feature. They’re paying attention to casting times. So when a monster sneaks around back to attack my magic-user and he tries to cast “Magic Missile”, apparently the game figures the magic user is lowering his defenses and give the monster an extra attack as though the character had turned his back and run. Good way to make sure that the magic-user doesn’t get too powerful: kill 'em before they advance in levels.

Look: the game looks pretty, it’ll probably fun to play, once I gain a bunch more levels, but at the moment it seems like the designers didn’t bother to actually try the game after writing it.

I think I want my $40.00 back.

Fenris

2

Oops…left out a sentence: That when a monster is next to a character and the character tries to take an action (especially a magical one) the monster gets a free, extra attack.

“Back, foul monster! Alaka-”
**::**Monster rips out magic user’s intestines ::
[sub]“zam…?”[/sub]

Fenris

3

And the moral is, never, ever, ever, buy a game without playing a demo, and more importantly than that, reading a variety of reviews and word-of-mouth about it. Previews cannot and must not be trusted.

4

There is actually a ‘run’ option – I believe it might be the right Alt key, IIRC. It’s in the instruction manual.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh… welcome to the wonderful feature known as the ‘attack of opportunity’. One of 3rd edition D&D’s more realistic (if a pain in the ass) features. The concept being that if you’re in hand-to-hand combat with someone, and you take an action that will effectively prevent yourself from defending yourself (such as casting a spell or using a missile weapon), your opponent will take that opportunity to launch an attack while you’re defenseless. Moral: don’t cast a spell or use a missile weapon while an opponent is 5 feet or less away from you. take a 5-foot step back and THEN cast. (Unfortunately, the instruction book doesn’t do a great job of explaining how the attack-of-opportunity works.)

I gotta say I like the game, but to anyone who may be unfamiliar with 3rd edition D&D rules, some things just ain’t gonna make a lot of sense. The game seems to be primarily designed for 3rd edition gamers.

5

I think the above deserves a rant all its own. What is it about crack sites and porn?!

I didn’t know about this connection until a few months ago when I tried to find a crack for some program or another. At least 20mins of closing porn pop-ups later I gave up. I couldn’t find anything but porn. Actually, that’s not true… I wasn’t “finding” porn, it was being (cough :D) thrust upon me.

6

Yes, attacks of opportunity suck in this game, as quite often, you’ll try to just take a step back to cast a spell, they’ll get their attack and instantly kill you. Of course, the monsters never do anything to get an attack of opportunity on you.

The other is the absolute absurd way it gives you stat points. You’ve got enough points to set one stat to 12, the rest to 11. Now, I normally think of my heros as, well, heros. Guys and girls that can do things normal people can’t. A character of all 10-12 scores IS just a normal person in 3rd edition. To even have a chance in the game, you’ve got to Min/Max your character. I’ve got a fighter with 1 charisma (dwarf), 3 intelligence, and the rest of the stats set to a decent level. He hits maybe 1/2 of the time.

My sorcerer doesn’t fare much better, and all of my characters are Min/Maxed. I’ve got, by far, the dumbest party ever as intelligence doesn’t help in the game at all. I’m not really sure how you’re supposed to play a decent paladin, which requires not only Charisma, but Wisdom, Strength and Constitution to be effective.

I don’t think it needed beta testing, I think it needed to be made by people who didn’t just use cheat codes to play through the game.

As a note, I much prefer 3rd edition. This game is not for me :wink:

John

7

But if you take a step back, the monster ALSO gets a free attack and will disembowel you. And since the main tactic programmed into the AI seems to be: Get crotch-to-crotch with the magic-user and gut him first, it kind of makes the character less-than-useful. I’ve been having to save the game before every encounter.

Fenris

8

I feel your pain, Fenris. In 3rd edition, you’re supposed to be able to take a 5-foot step away from a monster so that you can do things like cast spells, et cetera. If you take only a 5-foot step AND NO MORE, you’re safe. If you move more than 5 feet, that provokes the attack of opportunity. Monsters only have a 5-foot reach, so if you step foot outside that reach, you’re okay.

The only problem being that, in the game, you have no idea where that 5-foot mark is. You can take a step back, start casting and find out you’re still within the monster’s reach, and WHACK. Conversely, you can take a step back, find out it’s more than a 5-foot move, and you’ve just instigated another WHACK attack of opportunity. What they really should have done in the game is put some sort of cursor animation in that tells you exactly where that 5-foot mark is so you can move accordingly. That kinda pisses me off, too. I still enjoy the game, but I’m looking forward to the next 3rd edition game so they can fix all the things that piss me off about this game. Not being able to pick my skills and feats makes me mad.

9

The people who run the ads seem to have the impression that anyone who would be interested in the download sites are pre-pubescent, hormone-drenched males who can easily be lured to their porn sites if they see them enough. You’re not…right?

10

basks in the happy knowledge that she has a wonderful group of actual gamer people with which to waste time/game with every weekend

Ahhh third ed D&D were’ starting a new campaign on Friday…purrrr…

Wait. deer in headlights I’m DMing!?! How’d I get into this?

whimper

11

cleosia, I guess those sites are expensive to maintain, and what legitimate company is going to advertise on a page that has legally-dubious content?

In this case, the user was not breaking any laws that I am aware of, but often people use cracks to :::shock horror::: pirate software. Porn sites and crack sites are at about the same level of iffyness.

12

For the love of gawd, leave the game on your machine!

http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2001/1416.html

It’s not often when the Adrenaline Vault feels the need to put out a warning, but a newly discovered “bug” in Ubi Soft’s just released Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor compels us to act.

We have uncovered a probable bug in the installation program for PoR that could wipe out a user’s Windows 9x system files during the uninstallation process.

13

I am so glad I am poor and busy this season. Otherwise I would have splurged for Arcanum and this apparent jackal of a game.

If Black Isle fucks up NWN, I think I will just give up on computer games forever.

14

go get Direct Connect if you want to get ummm … some free stuff…

I use it to see if the latest game is a piece of shit before I go buy it, no pr0n or anything on DC

15

Cazzle that’s why I stressed that I had bought the game. People who pirate software have no business complaining about the software. :slight_smile:

Lovelee. :eek: Thanks for the warning! If I decide to remove the game, I’ll do it manually (via the registry, etc.)

Fenris

16

…I can’t get the left mouse button to work on this game which means I can’t attack anything (although it does work on the character creation screen). That’s pretty cool: the first game I’ve ever gotten which is completely unplayable. Hell, even Anarchy Online wasn’t this bad.

17

Wow… you’d be better off with the original PoR from the sound of things. You know, before they added “Fix” and I used to find a safe spot to camp and Rest for 3 months, 2 days and 8 hours because it was easier than re-memorizing and casting 250 Cure Light Wounds spells :smiley:

On a barely related note, I downloaded Curse of the Azure Bonds over the weekend as abandonware. 'Cept my system is too fast for it. Walking around is fine, but in combat I can’t read any of the messages, see any of the combat animations (like seeing who that fireball is hitting), or watch the enemies move around so I can see what they’re up to (now they just warp to a new spot and whack me too fast for me to see). Stupid 500MHz processor. So much for reliving my wonderful SSI RPG days on my old Commodore.

18

Wait: it gets better!

There’s this room. As far as I can tell, you can’t go on until you get past this room. In the room are: Two Orcs, an Orc-Leader (2d10 hp and 21 armor class, which in Mark 3 is good, despite how back-asswards that sounds to us old-timers) and a fucking Wraith (7d10 HP, AC 18 and can’t be hit except with magical weapons.) The fucking Wraith is trapped in a pentagram-type area. Remember: my characters are SECOND level.

#1. If you enter combat mode, you can NEVER leave it. Ever. until all the creatures are dead. (Unless I missed something in the manual)

#2. If I sit there and wait, so will the monsters. (I had the idea that the Orc-Leader and the Wraith would take each other out, leaving me to mop-up the remains. No such luck.

#3) If I go into the room but not into the pentacle-like-area, I can take out the two Orcs, but not the Orc Leader, who’ll cut me to ribbons.

#4) If I cast Sleep, I have a 50/50 chance of knocking out the Orc Leader. I can’t kill him in his sleep, though. AC is too good. If I Sleep 'em, and check out the rest of the room, there’s no exit. Apparently the Fucking Wraith is standing on it. Oh, and I can’t exit combat mode if I decide to leave with the Orc Leader asleep and the fucking Wraith ‘alive’ (I also have no chance of turning the fucking Wraith)

#5) If I rush into the pentagram, to free the fucking Wraith in the hope that it’ll go after the Orc Leader, no such luck. It’ll kill the party in an orgy of butchery.

So
#6) I’m stuck. Fuck. $40.00 down the toilet for about 15 minute of role-playing. Assholes.

As it is, I’m gonna see if I can take it back where I bought it (along with a cleaned-up version of the OP and some reviews I found) and demand either a refund or store-credit.

Fenris

19

I agree that it’s not a very well designed game, but some of your gripes aren’t quite fair.

You can assign F2 through F12 to various menu options, so you don’t have to go through the menus. And I don’t know what you are talking about saying you have to go through the menu every time you attack - if you have the weapon you want to use equipped, all you have to do is click on the monster.

There is so a Run option - I believe it is one of the Shift keys. Be warned that if you are running you are more likely to be ambushed and less likely to spot hidden doors.

Attacks of Opportunity, it’s a new feature in 3E. Just keep your casters out of the way, don’t use missile weapons when in melee range of a hostile, and be careful about running away. Once you get to some casters you will be very glad you have them.

Now, about that wraith in the room…just keep trying, he’s not that hard, I think I got it on the third try. The trick is to take out the wraith first, the orcs won’t attack until the wraith is dead - he’s fairly tough (7d12), but your characters shouldn’t have too much trouble as they should all be 2nd level and have either magic weapons or magic attacks. Use all your magic missiles on the wraith, BTW, don’t waste spells on the orcs, unless you want to save one sleep for after the wraith is dead. I didn’t need one.

I have one big gripe about the game that you missed - the way turning undead works. In every other version of D&D I have played, turning undead makes them try to get as far away from the cleric or paladin as possible. This would be excellent combined with attacks of opportunity, but in this game they just stand there doing nothing when they are turned.

BTW, you may want to reroll if you made your characters so they all have 11 and 12s in their abilities. That’s just unnecessary. Pay attention to the bonuses to the right of the abilities when you are creating the character - if you can’t get a + you like on an ability, lower it as far as you can without getting a - you can’t handle. Remember that Intelligence is pretty useless on ALL characters, except rogues - you want a high Charisma on your sorceror, and a high wisdom and decent Charisma (for turning) on your Cleric. Charisma is worthless for characters that don’t use sorcery and don’t turn undead, lower it as far as you can. Dexterity is nice, but in 3E wearing heavy armor pretty much destroys your Dexterity bonus to AC - if you plan on wearing plate later on, anything more than a +1 bonus on your Dexterity is a waste. Put it into Constitution.

STRONGLY recomend making a half-orc barbarian with a 20 Strength. He will have little trouble hitting those Orc Leaders and most hits will be upwards of 14 damage with a great axe. You will of course need a Sorceror, and when I play again I’m considering giving him a decent Wisdom and skimping on the Dexterity and Constitution, so he can take a level as a Cleric. Rogues are pretty neat as well, but I would pick up some levels in Fighter as well on your Rogue for the hit points and martial weapon proficiency.

20

Give the Mo’Slo utility a try. It’s worked fairly well for me, about the only game it couldn’t brake my system enough to play perfectly well was the original Starflight–it was playable then unless there happened to be critters on the planets. If there were, they ran around so fast that they could kill my entire landing party before I could give them the order to stun the thing.

http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/