A Black Falcon
Member
Jugendstil said:
I-IV would work, with audio compression for IV, but V? That's a two CD game... it's possible I'm sure, but not easy...
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Quest for Glory Series Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter A Black Falcon
- Start date
I-IV would work, with audio compression for IV, but V? That's a two CD game... it's possible I'm sure, but not easy...
godofcookery
Member
A Black Falcon said:I mentioned a lot of those points (the removal of multiplayer, realtime battles in the world, the lame battle system, scrolling screens, gameplay changes, etc), but the point about the questionable quality of the graphics is a good one. If it's five years newer than QFGIV, why does QFGIV look better, overall?And those character models... they didn't look very good then and they look pretty awful now. At least the backgrounds are decent, even if they aren't up to classic QFG quality.
I didn't know that the characters were voxels. Interesting.
Oh yeah... and Dynamix's last game? Really? They had other games around that time too, though... StarSiege, StarSiege: Tribes, Tribes 2, Return to Krondor, etc...
Yeah, apologies, it was a small post i did for another forum about 5 years ago on this game, thought I'd include it just for the sake of another point of view. And also, i meant Yosemite, not Dynamix.
The technology choice was really weird, it seemed like a way to get out of making a viable engine. Not knowing a damn thing about development, its a really uninformed opinion, but it didnt help my perceptions of the game in the least.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Holy shit. I remember playing Shadows of Darkness. I really loved those old point and click adventure games...
godofcookery
Member
QFG4: Shadows Of Darkness
there is a bit of an odd story behind the title of this game. At the end of the first three Quest for Glory games, the title of the next game would be shown as a sort of teaser for those who completed the game. The teaser title for the third game shown upon beating the second game was called Shadows of Darkness. Of course, the QFG3 ended up being named Wages of War. (This small detail had me cook up this strange theory in my head that the third game was thrown together as a wedge between QFG2: Trial by Fire and its TRUE sequel QFG4: Shadows of Darkness. I suspect that it has a lot to do with my opinion that the third games seems unfinished and lopped together. weird.)
there is a bit of an odd story behind the title of this game. At the end of the first three Quest for Glory games, the title of the next game would be shown as a sort of teaser for those who completed the game. The teaser title for the third game shown upon beating the second game was called Shadows of Darkness. Of course, the QFG3 ended up being named Wages of War. (This small detail had me cook up this strange theory in my head that the third game was thrown together as a wedge between QFG2: Trial by Fire and its TRUE sequel QFG4: Shadows of Darkness. I suspect that it has a lot to do with my opinion that the third games seems unfinished and lopped together. weird.)
Shake Appeal
Member
I just remembered how much more fun and skillful the combat was in QFG2 than in any of the others (you had a lot more options with the numpad for high/low attacks etc.), which is very odd when you consider it. I suppose it was also the most complicated and perhaps conventional point-and-clickers revolted.
godofcookery said:
No, you got it right. The third game was never supposed to exist. Originally, the series was set to be four games with each one having a separate theme(Elements+Cardinal direction+Seasons, iirc). After releasing QFG II, the developers didn't want to send the hero directly to Mordavia as originally planned so they built QFG III as a bridge between the two.
I believe there's a very good entry about this at Wikipedia if you search for "Quest for Glory."
A Black Falcon
Member
Wraith said:
Yup. Wikipedia covers it quite nicely. I mentioned this in the first post, but not in great detail (though I did mention the themes and that Wages of War was added later and wasn't originally going to exist). The Wikipedia article explains how each of the four games (not including Wages of War) has a theme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_glory
Wikipedia said:
Wikipedia said:
razzle dazzle root beer for ever
too bad part 4 was so buggy
anyone else full on thief/paladin/magic user?
this mofo has a good let's play series on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/user/LateBlt
too bad part 4 was so buggy
anyone else full on thief/paladin/magic user?
this mofo has a good let's play series on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/user/LateBlt
A Black Falcon
Member
xir said:
The CD version of 4 fixed almost all of the bugs, and added awesome voice acting too... it's too bad that so many people had written the game off by that point. It's a truly amazing game.
Mejilan said:
My opinion:
1-VGA = 4 > 3 > 2 > 1-EGA > 5
As I said in the original post, I just don't like the parser in QFG because of how many things I know I'm failing to ask people because I don't know what to ask them about. Being able to see your conversation options was a vast, vast improvement, I'd say. But I started with the VGA version of the first game, not one of the parser games, so I also started out used to the newer style, and then much later going back to try to play the old style was made even more difficult...
I'm oldschool enough to have started with the original in EGA. But I didn't have a computer then, so I only had sporadic access to the game. I have the original QFG Anthology that came out years ago, and IIRC, those were the CD-ROMs versions, and included the updated VGA build of the original.
I should reinstall those, one day. Or maybe just see if they're playable yet on the PSP, though I suspect not.
I should reinstall those, one day. Or maybe just see if they're playable yet on the PSP, though I suspect not.
A Black Falcon
Member
Mejilan said:I'm oldschool enough to have started with the original in EGA. But I didn't have a computer then, so I only had sporadic access to the game. I have the original QFG Anthology that came out years ago, and IIRC, those were the CD-ROMs versions, and included the updated VGA build of the original.
I should reinstall those, one day. Or maybe just see if they're playable yet on the PSP, though I suspect not.
I'm not sure when we got QFG1 (VGA)... could have been anytime from '92 to '94, really, though it's probably sometime in '92 or '93. All we had then was a 386 with a PC Speaker (no sound card), so for greatest nostalgia factor, I'd have to listen to the PC Speaker audio.
Later I replayed it on a newer computer with a soundcard, though, so I know the soundblaster audio too.As for the collections, there were two, the QFG Anthology (1996) and QFG: Collection Series (1997). Both include QFG1-EGA, QFG2, QFG1-VGA, QFG3, and the CD version of QFG4, along with a short printed manual and most documentation as text files on the CDs (that unfortunately loses you all of the great artwork in the original manuals), along with the games, on one CD, in a jewelcase.
However, the Collection Series version includes a second CD, in its own jewelcase, with the Quest for Glory V soundtrack on it and a demo of QFGV on the disc. For anyone buying QFGCS because it's the best collection (as it is), make sure you're getting this disc too, and not just the main game disc! The QFGV soundtrack is really, really good. Amazing music... not an amazing game, but amazing music.
(1-3 are floppy only, apart from the collections; 4 had a floppy version and a voiced and patched cd version; and 5 comes on two cds)
I think mine is the '96 edition, then.
Edit - Huh. The CD's not in the box. But I did find various hintbooks and official manuals to 1 and 2. I forgot that I have the floppy versions of that too. I junked the floppies long ago, but I kept the documentation. I never owned 3 and 4 until I picked up the anthology, however. I also found a small notebook full of my notes and personal point lists for my earlier QFG 1-4 runs. I can't believe the shit I detailed back then. I swear, had I not grown up to be so lazy, I'd be one of those amazing GameFAQs contributors.
Edit - Huh. The CD's not in the box. But I did find various hintbooks and official manuals to 1 and 2. I forgot that I have the floppy versions of that too. I junked the floppies long ago, but I kept the documentation. I never owned 3 and 4 until I picked up the anthology, however. I also found a small notebook full of my notes and personal point lists for my earlier QFG 1-4 runs. I can't believe the shit I detailed back then. I swear, had I not grown up to be so lazy, I'd be one of those amazing GameFAQs contributors.
A Black Falcon
Member
Mejilan said:
Anthology's box and disc art has the box divided into four parts, with one quarter for a bit of each game's box art. It has a standard large PC game box. Collection Series, however, has one image on the cover, from QFG3 I believe, and, like the boxes for all of the Collection Series collections, is horizontally aligned (so it's longer than it is tall).
Crisis averted. Found the CD. Just the one. And yes, the box is a large one with Quest For Glory Anthology in the middle, and the rest of the box art divided into quadrants, each dedicated to one of the games.
As a bonus, I also found my old Dark Sun 1 and 2, Complete Ultima VII, FFVII, FFIX, and dozens more old PC CD games!
As a bonus, I also found my old Dark Sun 1 and 2, Complete Ultima VII, FFVII, FFIX, and dozens more old PC CD games!
A Black Falcon
Member
Mejilan said:
Well, as I was pointing out, QFGCS has the two discs in separate jewel cases, so just finding one wouldn't mean much... but that is definitely QFGA because of the name and four-quarters design, yes.
Also, awesome stuff to find...
Meier said:I ended up being a Paladin in DragonRealms because of QFG. Thought I'd be able to heal myself like I could in that... not so.
Really? Usually Paladins get some basic healing magic... they do in D&D for instance. Warcraft II also.
Mejilan said:
I have some stuff like that... bunches of pages of notes for Timelapse and The Curse of Monkey Island, a QFG1 map, keys for CaveQuest, etc...
A Black Falcon said:
No, if I had the 2-disc version, I'd have found both discs together. It's just the one.
Oh man, when I first got my hands on Ultima Collection... Well, needless to say, I just found my many notebooks that detail my progress through Ultimas 1-9. Many notebooks. And every single dungeon map, drawn by hand on graph paper. Man, the memories. I can't even begin to tell you how much I would NOT be able to do that again.
A Black Falcon
Member
Mejilan said:
Yeah, I was just saying that they are in separate cases. Which helps ebay stores, of course, so they can sell the QFGCS, with just the main game disc and case, for an inflated price without actually needing to include the other disc, which is what makes it different from the first collection (though that one isn't exactly cheap either).
The only Ultima games I actually have are Ultima I and Ultima Underworld, and they're from PC Gamer's Classic Game Collection (on the magazine CD one month in 1999 with a bunch of other great games)... but yeah, I believe it. That's a very, very complex series, and they don't give you anything ingame to keep track of it with... QFG isn't quite as bad because it's not as complex, but... well, I have a QFG4 savegame which I haven't played in a couple of years now, I think. I'm in the middle of the game somewhere. But where, and what should I do next? I have no idea...
When I tried to play Wizardry VI in 2005 or something (might have been '06, I forget exactly), I actually did start graph-mapping the first few areas, helped by a partial copy of the strategy guide (got Wiz VI from a 1996 or 1997 issue of Computer Games Strategy Plus, it came with some other text files including the manual (scattered among like 15 randomly named text files) and strategy guide (fortunately all in one piece, but just a text file so the maps weren't included)... oh, and the game actually came cracked, so you didn't need the copy protection... yes, a legit cracked game... but yeah, I didn't get far before I quit. It's just so time-consuming, and these days you expect the ingame automap to take care of it... (though Etrian Odyssey has a great compromise between the two, it's a much simpler game design-wise than a Wizardry, that's for sure!)
Meier said:
I never played MUDs. That does sound like an annoying healing system, though...
A Black Falcon
Member
Mejilan said:
EO doesn't really have any puzzles, though. Those old ones often had puzzles... usually really cruel ones like "you need to find the desk in the room to read the note on it, but because you can't see any furniture, the only way to find it is to face each direction in each position in the room and hit search until you find it" (Wizardry does this through the seventh game...), but puzzles.
EO also has less text (script) than some of those old games, and less plot as well. They were mainly dungeon crawlers, sure, but they also had plots. Still, yes, EO is a great game, and there is a story. But it's mostly just (fun) dungeon crawling.
I don't miss things like "map it yourself on graph paper", "you get one chance to unlock the door, and if you fail and jam it you'll need to reload your savegame because you'll never get it unjammed (hope you saved recently! Oh yeah, you only get one save file)", and that above thing with searching, though. Or the horribly annoying "character generation (which classes you can select) is based on one random number generated in the middle of character generation. You have no re-roll button, and can't go back, so you need to keep going through the process over and over until you get a high enough number to get the class you want" system Wiz VI had, either...
Wizardry VII and before are evil...
VI and VII are both great games, but they're pretty hardcore. VII has a few modern touches like a map you eventually get, but VI... yeah, forget it.The Quest for Glory series is from around the same time as those games, but is far, far less evil... which is a good thing, really. It's why QFG is still quite playable while those other games are only for the serious hardcore.
crowphoenix
Banned
I loved this series so much. I used to start every summer for a few years playing through the games in order, but I'd go back to four every few months. I always played a noble thief and gave him magical abilities. :lol Such a fun and rewarding game. Every little thing you did had some affect on you. I only beat four twice as it was one a limited time that I had my computer set in such a way that it could get past the swamp glitches, but that never stopped me from starting it up and doing everything else until that point.
My comp won't run the game and that's a damn shame. I'd love to be able to play 1-4 again. Make my thief in 1 and slowly transform him into a great paladin warrior. Baba Yaga was as amazing evil presence in the game.
My comp won't run the game and that's a damn shame. I'd love to be able to play 1-4 again. Make my thief in 1 and slowly transform him into a great paladin warrior. Baba Yaga was as amazing evil presence in the game.
TheJollyCorner
Member
so many wonderful memories.
To this day QFG4 is still one of my favorite games of all time.
I had the pleasure of communicating with Corey Cole way back in 1994 on The Sierra Network (TSN), which eventually became The ImagiNation Network (INN). He was really nice, but was very frustrated at the time with the way Sierra was starting to handle projects. He didn't think QFG5 would ever be made at that point.
I also tracked down QFG4 music composer Aubrey Hodges back in early 1998. He made me a QFG4 Soundtrack on CD, signed, as well as an extra CD with some new stuff he was doing for other projects. Great fella.
one thing has bugged me- and I didn't even have the sense of mind to ask Aubrey when I met him- but what is the name of the classical piece used in the Mordavia Inn lobby?
To this day QFG4 is still one of my favorite games of all time.
I had the pleasure of communicating with Corey Cole way back in 1994 on The Sierra Network (TSN), which eventually became The ImagiNation Network (INN). He was really nice, but was very frustrated at the time with the way Sierra was starting to handle projects. He didn't think QFG5 would ever be made at that point.
I also tracked down QFG4 music composer Aubrey Hodges back in early 1998. He made me a QFG4 Soundtrack on CD, signed, as well as an extra CD with some new stuff he was doing for other projects. Great fella.
one thing has bugged me- and I didn't even have the sense of mind to ask Aubrey when I met him- but what is the name of the classical piece used in the Mordavia Inn lobby?
Dreamwriter
Member
I so loved the Quest for Glory series back in the day. I actually played Hero's Quest, though I didn't finish it until the later VGA remake. Unfortunately, I had to get outta computer games for a while just as QFG4 came out, so I never played 4 or 5. Maybe one of these days I'll track down a copy of the collection and play them all...
You know what's evil, the first Might and Magic. A friend of mine was playing through that, didn't need to map stuff out, he was great at memorizing layouts in his head. But pretty much the last puzzle in the game *REQUIRED* mapping it out - the puzzle is "What is my name?", no further clues at all anywhere in the game - and the name is spelled out in that dungeon map. My friend had to buy the strategy guide (which were a rarity at the time compared to the modern era) to figure it out.
A Black Falcon said:Wizardry VII and before are evil...
You know what's evil, the first Might and Magic. A friend of mine was playing through that, didn't need to map stuff out, he was great at memorizing layouts in his head. But pretty much the last puzzle in the game *REQUIRED* mapping it out - the puzzle is "What is my name?", no further clues at all anywhere in the game - and the name is spelled out in that dungeon map. My friend had to buy the strategy guide (which were a rarity at the time compared to the modern era) to figure it out.
The Quest for Glory series was what really got me into PC gaming when I was young. I loved playing the mage and maxing out my stats, and being completely OP for the next version. The storylines were all great. Except in Trial by Fire, I was stuck on the Fire Elemental encounter for a week because I had the right idea, I just had to type it in the right order (put empty flask down, THEN use flask to get the fire elemental in the empty one :lol ).
I remember buying the "Hero's Quest" board game (I think from Milton Bradley?) and being horribly disappointed with it...
I remember buying the "Hero's Quest" board game (I think from Milton Bradley?) and being horribly disappointed with it...
Dreamwriter said:
That may be one of the most ingenious puzzle ideas I've ever heard of... it's brutally evil, of course, and rather obnoxious, but given that you were generally expected to be mapping out the dungeons, I can't say it was unfair. Perhaps an esoteric hint somewhere along the line would have helped, though...
A Black Falcon
Member
Mark V said:
Yeah, I never liked parser stuff very much... that's why I prefer the VGA QFG titles.
Hero Quest? Hero Quest was awesome! I loved that board game so much... it's still probably my favorite boardgame ever. It's like D&D, but simple. The actual furniture props and how with one board you got many designs because of where you put wall blocks, furniture, etc was a great idea. I liked TSR's DragonStrike too, but that one, while it had four boards, just had each one as a set field... no changing it with walls, no setting up the layout with furniture, etc, it was just what was drawn there. It makes it less variable. I did like that there were four maps though, it gives you some options for an adventure (to travel between them). The movie that came with Dragon Strike was one of the greatest things ever though...
Oh yeah, and they had to change the name, I believe, because Hero Quest had a computer game based off of it. UK release only, I'm pretty sure, but it existed.
Quest for Glory is pretty much the only big Sierra adventure series that I haven't played. I've played most of the Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Space Quest, and King's Quest adventures. I've even finished Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist (starring Liquid Snake) and The Adventures of Willy Beamish. Police Quest was always my favorite. King's Quest was mostly crap. If only I had played QFG instead of KQ. I need to pick up Gabriel Knight from somewhere too.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
GK is the best of the bunch, really.
I don't get the hate for 5 though... at the very least, it's a nice ending to the series.
I don't get the hate for 5 though... at the very least, it's a nice ending to the series.
A Black Falcon said:
I liked the parser style because of how opened it felt. You really had to "think" to solve the puzzles, except (as noted above) when you're thinking is right on but taking one step out of order screws you over. Just taking the "use" icon and clicking around the screen in the VGA version felt like a dumbed down version in some respects, but the series was still damn good.
I should also add that I bought and loved "Advanced Hero's Quest" - a similar but more complex table top RPG that used a random dungeon tile system. Hero's Quest was a good way to introduce my non-RPG friends though to table top style RPGs back in the day.
A Black Falcon
Member
Mark V said:
But you have to guess what they called things, you are restricted in what you can do by what you can think of the words for... I think graphical interfaces were definitely an advance. Simpler sure, but better overall.
The biggest difference, though, is conversations. One try with trying to get through a QFG2 conversation without being able to see the options for what I could ask was more than enough. So horribly frustrating! I know I'm missing important things, but there's just no way to know without a guide or telepathy to guess what the designers wrote that you could ask... starting from QFG1 VGA, that's a massive, massive step back.
I should also add that I bought and loved "Advanced Hero's Quest" - a similar but more complex table top RPG that used a random dungeon tile system. Hero's Quest was a good way to introduce my non-RPG friends though to table top style RPGs back in the day.
It's Hero Quest, not Hero's Quest.
I've never actually played Advanced Hero Quest, though I have seen it. It's by a different company from Hero Quest, I'm pretty sure. Hero Quest is actually set in the Warhammer world, if you didn't know... but yeah, Hero Quest did placeable tiles to reshape the rooms and had plastic furniture items to put in the rooms to configure them, Dragon Strike (TSR) had four different boards (two double sided ones, to be precise) to set adventures in and also had a bit more complex game system with feats (strength or dexterity), saving throws, three different die sizes (d8, d10, d12), etc... it also came with the most awesome D&D movie ever. It's half an hour of awesome ridiculousness. Look it up on Youtube... There was another game sort of like them I remember seeing but also never played. Dark World, or something?
infinityBCRT
Member
A Black Falcon said:I mentioned a lot of those points (the removal of multiplayer, realtime battles in the world, the lame battle system, scrolling screens, gameplay changes, etc), but the point about the questionable quality of the graphics is a good one. If it's five years newer than QFGIV, why does QFGIV look better, overall?
I didn't know that the characters were voxels. Interesting.
I think the magical spell effects were voxels, and perhaps at time the characters had some voxel effects on them, but I don't think the models were voxels-- they were extracted as polygons by a group of people who tried to port the game to the morrowind engine. And I also remember in the erasmus scene seeing the polygon makeup of the character.
I think QFG5 was a little on the short side, but I enjoyed it. They rushed that game out-- there are a few reasons why it looks odd
1) They scaled down the backgrounds a lot. Originally it was all 16-bit colours, but I think they brought it down to 256 colours
2) The backgrounds scale terribly due to no 3D acceleration
3) 3D models look bad because theres no 3D accleration/no antialiasing
On a CRT Monitor back in the day it didn't look as bad as it does now on supersharp super high-resolution displays.
They wanted to cater to a larger audience so they didn't go all out with the graphics, and I respect them for that, but if they had included an option to have smoothed backgrounds & antialiased models by using D3D, it would look a lot better by today's standards. Grim Fandango, which was released the same year, took the right approach by having 3D support. However, full on 3D would not look good by today's standards. Take a look at Thief from 1998:
My eyes are burning.
A Black Falcon
Member
I don't know, even in 1997 I think I thought it looked kind of ugly...
As for Thief, bah, that game is amazing!
Sure, you're right that old 3d is harder to adapt to than old 2d, though, and that certainly is part of the problem... that the 2d backgrounds in QFG5 look fine, but the characters put on top of them look absolutely terrible. Grim Fandango did do a bit better job of managing the issue than QFG5, and yeah, I'm sure the hardware acceleration is part of why... if the characters were indeed polygons and not voxels (because voxels are, of course, not hardware acceleratable), then it should have supported 3d acceleration as an option for smoother character models, I agree, It would definitely have helped, because those character models never really looked good, and going back they look awful...
I really don't mind mid/late '90s 3d (still love the N64 and late '90s PC games, etc), but some games certainly have aged better than others. Of course, it helps when the GAMEPLAY is great, and holds up over time... QFG5's average gameplay was always its biggest fault. Great gameplay helps bring up everything else, and that game just didn't have it.
infinityBCRT
Member
I haven't gone back and played QfG5 since I first beat it so I can't say how its aged. When I originally played it, I thought it was a little rushed. There was a ghost in the bar which did absolutely nothing because they had to cut out the role he played. I felt it was fight heavy, felt like Diablo in a way (although one of the rites that involved fighting was fun). And there wasn't nearly as many things to talk about to people as there was in previous games. I remember I didn't get stuck at any point and it didn't feel like it took me too long to beat. Although as I get older I do prefer shorter games.
I only ever got to play the original (was called Hero's Quest for me). Never completed it either. I seemed to be forever stuck at some part in a cave where some guy was sleeping, and I was supposed to cast fetch to retrieve a key of sorts and it never worked for whatever reason.
Anyway, not sure if this has been posted anywhere yet but for those interested Quest For Glory II has been redone for today's PCs as a free download. You can grab it here:
http://www.agdinteractive.com/homepage/homepage.html
Anyway, not sure if this has been posted anywhere yet but for those interested Quest For Glory II has been redone for today's PCs as a free download. You can grab it here:
http://www.agdinteractive.com/homepage/homepage.html