🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <D0AtC...@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca (BEACON me201 account) writes:
>150,000 word story; to the unique Spellmaker system where you create
>thousands of spells from over 80 combinable effects. Includes full
>character generation, 18 unique character classes, 2,500 magical
>items, and over 400 cities, towns and villages for you to explore and
>adventure on your quest to find the Staff of Chaos.

        Though this game does indeed have the mosprmising engine found in
any RPG to date, there are some major flaws which the game pretty bad.  First
off, magic users are the only true effective class.  Second of all and most
important is the fact that there is absolutely no plot.  The plot sucks,
the quests suck and are the same each time.  This was the downfall of the game
in my opinion.  NPC's are worthless.  Overall the game world is great, but
the interaction with the story sucks

	Someone mentioned in a post a while back about the offset, or was it byt
e <are they the same thing>, number for the money in star trails.  Can ya mail
me the byte or post it here?  Thanks

BEACON me201 account (kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:

: I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The games world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about anything including make your own spells.

I have to completely disagree.  This is one of the most repetitive RPG's I've
ever encountered.  Once you've played the first couple of hours, you've done
everything you'll ever do.  ALL you do is kill monsters and answer the
occasional riddle.  I couldn't believe what a rut this game was in:

  Go see some guy, guy needs a favor, you do favor, guy gives you
  location of staff piece, you get staff piece.

You have to do this EIGHT times.  I died of boredom by the fifth.


: Games such as Star Trail, Darksun, Ravenloft, Krondor - while good just don't compare.  If your looking for a game I recommend that you check this one out.

: ARENA Background:

: The first chapter an all-encompassing CRPG. Nine years in the making,
: Arena heralds a new level of CRPG interactivity and depth. From its
: first person, full screen, 360 degree rotational movement; to the over
: 150,000 word story; to the unique Spellmaker system where you create
: thousands of spells from over 80 combinable effects. Includes full
: character generation, 18 unique character classes, 2,500 magical
: items, and over 400 cities, towns and villages for you to explore and
: adventure on your quest to find the Staff of Chaos.

400 cities?  Who cares if they're all the same.

: Happy Gaming over the Holidays,

: ]<apley


: BTW: Where is ARENA II?!

Like most RPG's, this game was bloated with spells, classes, places,
people, etc. that were absolutely unnecessary.  I had a decent sword
and I created one mega-spell that would destroy anything.  After that
it was a walk to the finish.  Too bad I died of boredom on the way.
More could have been done with this game to save it.  At least the
graphics engine was really nice.

--Nolan Wall--
gw...@peruvian.cs.utah.edu

BEACON me201 account (kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:

: I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The games world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about anything including make your own spells.

: Games such as Star Trail, Darksun, Ravenloft, Krondor - while good just don't compare.  If your looking for a game I recommend that you check this one out.

: ARENA Background:

: The first chapter an all-encompassing CRPG. Nine years in the making,
: Arena heralds a new level of CRPG interactivity and depth. From its
: first person, full screen, 360 degree rotational movement; to the over
: 150,000 word story; to the unique Spellmaker system where you create
: thousands of spells from over 80 combinable effects. Includes full
: character generation, 18 unique character classes, 2,500 magical
: items, and over 400 cities, towns and villages for you to explore and
: adventure on your quest to find the Staff of Chaos.

: Happy Gaming over the Holidays,

: ]<apley


: BTW: Where is ARENA II?!

--
   i have one thing to say THIS GAME HAS TOO MANY BUGS!!!!
i got tired of my computer crashing when i played it.
maybe bethesda should test there games more thoroughly.
 

	This is hands down an average rpg. After getting about the fifth staff piece i
was bored solid.The only good thing about the game is the spellmaker.The game is
too repetitive, and too easy. I would rather play nahlakh than this, or even an
old Gold Box SSI game like champions of krynn...;-)

-- 
Mark.A.Bradburn				              
Mathematical Biology				      
National Institute for Medical Research		     Tel:- 081 959366  ext 2396	
The Ridgeway					     Fax:- 081 9138545
Mill Hill
LONDON
NW7 1AA

 > : I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The 
   :games world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about      :anything including make your own spells.
|> 
|> I have to completely disagree.  This is one of the most repetitive RPG's I've
|> ever encountered.  Once you've played the first couple of hours, you've done
|> everything you'll ever do.  ALL you do is kill monsters and answer the
|> occasional riddle.  I couldn't believe what a rut this game was in:
|> 
|>   Go see some guy, guy needs a favor, you do favor, guy gives you
|>   location of staff piece, you get staff piece.
|> 
|> You have to do this EIGHT times.  I died of boredom by the fifth.
 
Thank goodness!  I thought it was just me!
After seeing all the magazines simply drool over this game, and then 
hearing some good reports, I thought Arena was going to be great.  I *did*
think it was great, until I got to about the third piece of the staff, and
started realizing, say, haven't I been here before...

Totally repetitive, no plot, no originality.  Nothing.
Decent engine, but combat and such are a breeze; no strategy required.
What a shame.  I sincerely hope "Daggerfall" is better - and by "better",
I mean that they actually put some *effort* into the gameplay.  Otherwise,
Bethesda is going to be seriously disappointed.

-Robert

Lawrence Abrams (l...@mathlab.sunysb.edu) wrote:


> 	Someone mentioned in a post a while back about the offset, or was it byt
> e <are they the same thing>, number for the money in star trails.  Can ya mail
> me the byte or post it here?  Thanks

11004 decimal

Martin
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Martin G. Tschmelitsch   at TU Graz            m...@flinux.tu-graz.ac.at

               "I'll be back."  - The world famoust Styrian

Mark Andrew Bradburn (m-br...@nimr.mrc.ac.uk) wrote:
: 	This is hands down an average rpg. After getting about the fifth staff piece i
: was bored solid.The only good thing about the game is the spellmaker.The game is
: too repetitive, and too easy. I would rather play nahlakh than this, or even an
: old Gold Box SSI game like champions of krynn...;-)

I am tempted to agree with Mark here, but then, I was utterly disgusted
with the game after a few days of playing it.  Repetitiveness is one of
the worst things possible in a game whose world is as huge as Arena's. 
ICK.  and I agree with what he says about the damn combat.  It is so
simple that it isnt even funny.  You just end up hacking away without even
thinking twice about your wounds or anything very much.  Every place after
a while seems to be the same, and you know it by hand eventually.  
All together, a decent try, but it majorly falls short.

---WildCard


-- 
I am He who howls in the night;        Psychopompos
   I am He who moans in the snow;      written by H.P. Lovecraft
I am He who hath never seen light;
   I am He who mounts from below.

In article <3bv7nr$r...@castaway.cc.uwf.edu>, rma...@trivia.coginst.uwf.edu (Richard Madden) writes:
|> BEACON me201 account (kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:
|> 
|> : I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The games world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about anything including make your own spells.
|> 
|> : Games such as Star Trail, Darksun, Ravenloft, Krondor - while good just don't compare.  If your looking for a game I recommend that you check this one out.
|> 
|> : ARENA Background:
|> 
	<snip snip>

|>    i have one thing to say THIS GAME HAS TOO MANY BUGS!!!!
                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> i got tired of my computer crashing when i played it.
|> maybe bethesda should test there games more thoroughly.
|>  
I couldn't agree more!!! I finally got so fed up with the bugs and
"go get this patch, no you need this patch" that I just took the
game off my hard drive and filed it away in the cabinet.
The game has a very high concept, but Bethesda just wasn't able to 
keep up its end of the bargain

Just my $0.02,
Steve-O
-- 

=============================================================================
   Steve Robbins			Associate Software Engineer
   srob...@inri.com    		Inter-National Research Institute
   (804) 249-1234			Lysistrata had a good idea.
=============================================================================

gt2...@prism.gatech.edu (WildCard) writes:

>Mark Andrew Bradburn (m-br...@nimr.mrc.ac.uk) wrote:
>: 	This is hands down an average rpg. After getting about the fifth staff piece i
>: was bored solid.The only good thing about the game is the spellmaker.The game is
>: too repetitive, and too easy. I would rather play nahlakh than this, or even an
>: old Gold Box SSI game like champions of krynn...;-)

>I am tempted to agree with Mark here, but then, I was utterly disgusted
>with the game after a few days of playing it.  Repetitiveness is one of
>the worst things possible in a game whose world is as huge as Arena's. 
>ICK.  and I agree with what he says about the damn combat.  It is so
>simple that it isnt even funny.  You just end up hacking away without even
>thinking twice about your wounds or anything very much.  Every place after
>a while seems to be the same, and you know it by hand eventually.  
>All together, a decent try, but it majorly falls short.

>---WildCard

I also thought ARENA became very repetitive and boring once I stopped 
oogling over the graphics.  The game had the potential of being the 
greatest RPG ever created because of it's game engine.  The first-person 
perspective took up 85% of the screen.  The world had dozens and dozens 
of cities and towns with their own races.  Each region of the world had 
it's own particular climate.  Time was based on a monthly calendar with 
special holidays that affected certain towns.  Light-source shading and 
other special effects made this world seem like a living world.  I liked 
the fact that non-helpful NPCs were walking around aimlessly, because it 
was eye candy.  It made the cities look populated, not deserted.  So 
many details, but Bethesda dropped the ball when it came to the 
storyline.  Every true RPGer hates linear gameplay, because you do not 
have any control of your destiny.  Though the open endedness is apparent in 
ARENA, Bethesda did not give the player more options than just finding 
some new artifact in a dungeon, delivering goods, or just running amok 
across the country side killing everything.  Anyway, Bethesda claims to 
have learned from their mistakes, and promises a new graphics engine, NPC 
interaction, involving story line with multiple sub-plots and quests, all 
with the same open-endedness.  Hope this is true - many other companies 
have seen the impact the graphics of ARENA have made.  Of course, Ultima 
Underworld is still king of the 3-D, first person, games.  

Remember, this is only my opinion.  No flames, please.  Thanks!

Dave T.   

	I have to agree with the other person, the engine is good and
some of the graphics are ok but the plot was severly underrated and
poorly designed.  I constantly thought that I was performing the same
tasks or and or again just in a slightly different setting for a 
different purpose.  I also was repulsed by the fatc that the NPCs were
very static and boring.   The background music would add some scope to
the game during the times you searched out the lower tombs & catacombs
but otherwise was just noise.

In article <D0AtC...@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>, kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca (BEACON me201 account) writes:
> 
> I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The games world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about anything including make your own spells.
> 
> Games such as Star Trail, Darksun, Ravenloft, Krondor - while good just don't compare.  If your looking for a game I recommend that you check this one out.
> 
> ARENA Background:
> 
> The first chapter an all-encompassing CRPG. Nine years in the making,
> Arena heralds a new level of CRPG interactivity and depth. From its
> first person, full screen, 360 degree rotational movement; to the over
> 150,000 word story; to the unique Spellmaker system where you create
> thousands of spells from over 80 combinable effects. Includes full
> character generation, 18 unique character classes, 2,500 magical
> items, and over 400 cities, towns and villages for you to explore and
> adventure on your quest to find the Staff of Chaos.
> 
> Happy Gaming over the Holidays,
> 
> ]<apley
> 
> 
> BTW: Where is ARENA II?!

Well, yes and no.
First off, its not 9 years in the making, its 9 man years in the making..
BIG difference.. if it was 9 years int he making, it would be 20 times
obsolete by now..

Not to nitpick but where did you get this, off the back of the box?!
I don't have mine handy, and I dont feel the need to look it up..
just saying.. how about offering YOUR opinion on it, instead of reading
what the nice folks at bethesda thought would be great on the back.

Now, for my rebuttal.
This game is great. The graphics are great, the story is great, and the
sound is great. This game is also terrible. The NPC interaction is terrible,
the plot interaction is terrible, and playing any class other than a mage is
terrible.

While there ARE 400 full size cities in the world, they all pretty much
look the same.. ive been to over 50, and other than the different kinds of
people that walk around in different kinds of area, and the different settings
and building types.. theyre kinda .. similar.. I mean theyre all either A.
randomly generated or B. generated with some spare schematics.. and the NPCs
dont have much of a personality.. you can talk to them, and odds are the same
that Joe Bob the Adventurer, and Mary Sue the Tailor will both know where
the lair of the great evil dragon is.. (unrealistic? I think so.).. btw,
those aren't the names they use, they use real ones.

Also, the plot is great, overall, but the simple things you need to do to
get it are not. As scorpia of CGW said of many CRPGs, you are reduced
to little more than a medieval "Fed-Ex" boy.. "You want money? Do this."
"You want that Ebony Dai-Katana? Do this." "You want the location of the
Ice Bandits? Do this." It gets tiring to have such a linear plot. Sure you
can go off and side quests and do whatever the hell you want, massacring
townspeople, looting, robbing pillaging, or rescuing damsels from dragons,
it really matters not.. you can come back to the main quest anytime..
but my bone to pick is that the main quest itself is so linear..

Like I said, the engine is great, but shows a weakness. The game is very easy
to win as a battlemage, is moderatley hard as any other kind of mage, and if
you are a thief/rogue warrior/knight/barbarian/ranger, good luck beating the
game.. any class that doesn't have SOME sort of magic in it is almost doomed.
This game requires so much use of it that its really unfair. Yeah, you can
get a shield of levitation with your warrior, and levitate, but as a mage,
you can just cast it and it costs you 10-20 mana.. when you have 20-30
mana up potions with oyu, this is no real problem..

In other words what Im trying to say is:
This game is very very good. But it does have its flaws. It gets repetative
(the dungeons and towns) but it is also great (graphics, sound, story),
and overall, I'd recommend this if you dont mind plowing thru some kinda
boring parts for a good payoff. To enjoy the game and not be POed at it..
play a battlemage.. :)
--Alex.

Richard Madden <rma...@trivia.coginst.uwf.edu> writes:
 
>   i have one thing to say THIS GAME HAS TOO MANY BUGS!!!!
>i got tired of my computer crashing when i played it.
>maybe bethesda should test there games more thoroughly.
 
AMEN to that every time I cat a spell it crashes a REAL PISSER!
 
Angrily,
 
Kwasker

On Thu, 8 Dec 1994 akw...@delphi.com wrote:

> Richard Madden <rma...@trivia.coginst.uwf.edu> writes:
>  
> >   i have one thing to say THIS GAME HAS TOO MANY BUGS!!!!
> >i got tired of my computer crashing when i played it.
> >maybe bethesda should test there games more thoroughly.
>  
> AMEN to that every time I cat a spell it crashes a REAL PISSER!
 
Yes!!!  Another thing that bothered me was the lack of an interesting plot.
Get a piece...have a dream...get a piece...have a dream...get a 
piece...have a dream...

Does anyone see a pattern forming?  

--Lawerence--

In article <D0AtC...@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca (BEACON me201 account) writes:

>I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The games
>world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about anything
>including make your own spells.

>Games such as Star Trail, Darksun, Ravenloft, Krondor - while good just don't
>compare.  If your looking for a game I recommend that you check this one out.

>ARENA Background:

>The first chapter an all-encompassing CRPG. Nine years in the making,
>Arena heralds a new level of CRPG interactivity and depth. From its
>first person, full screen, 360 degree rotational movement; to the over
>150,000 word story; to the unique Spellmaker system where you create
>thousands of spells from over 80 combinable effects. Includes full
>character generation, 18 unique character classes, 2,500 magical
>items, and over 400 cities, towns and villages for you to explore and
>adventure on your quest to find the Staff of Chaos.

>Happy Gaming over the Holidays,

>]<apley


>BTW: Where is ARENA II?!

I'd have to disagree.  Arena isn't a bad game.  It has some really cool ideas 
but.....

... some really annoying bugs exist.  The plot, such as it is, is very very 
thin.  The game itself is very very linear and apart from one or two riddles, 
not much of an intellectual challenge.

By no means is it the  "hands down the BEST RPG!!"

Soon Lee

In article <hk2W2s8...@delphi.com>, akw...@delphi.com writes:
> Richard Madden <rma...@trivia.coginst.uwf.edu> writes:
>  
>>   i have one thing to say THIS GAME HAS TOO MANY BUGS!!!!
>>i got tired of my computer crashing when i played it.
>>maybe bethesda should test there games more thoroughly.
>  
> AMEN to that every time I cat a spell it crashes a REAL PISSER!
>  
> Angrily,
>  
> Kwasker
Interesting.... 
The only problem I have ever had with the game is that consistently
freezes when i attack with my fists.  Other than that I have had no
problems at all.  I'm not running any patches either.
Laura

>In article <D0AtC...@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>, kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca (BEACON me201 account) writes:
>> 
>> I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The games world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about anything including make your own spells.
>> 
>> Games such as Star Trail, Darksun, Ravenloft, Krondor - while good just don't compare.  If your looking for a game I recommend that you check this one out.
>> 
>> ARENA Background:
>> 
>> The first chapter an all-encompassing CRPG. Nine years in the making,
>> Arena heralds a new level of CRPG interactivity and depth. From its
>> first person, full screen, 360 degree rotational movement; to the over
>> 150,000 word story; to the unique Spellmaker system where you create
>> thousands of spells from over 80 combinable effects. Includes full
>> character generation, 18 unique character classes, 2,500 magical
>> items, and over 400 cities, towns and villages for you to explore and
>> adventure on your quest to find the Staff of Chaos.
>> 
>> Happy Gaming over the Holidays,
>> 
>> ]<apley
>> 
>> 
>> BTW: Where is ARENA II?!


I think the overall game is very good, and although some of the quests
can get redundant, the game is still enjoyable.  Maybe not the best
CRPG hands down, but well worth the money.

--
						
							-PJ

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