Jorpho wrote:

Last time I checked, there were also plans afoot to release an HD version of The Ur-Quan Masters, but I'm not sure if that ever got finished.

Unofficially there was at least one release and i've tried it. The new Star Trek font choices are terrible 🙁

leileilol wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

Last time I checked, there were also plans afoot to release an HD version of The Ur-Quan Masters, but I'm not sure if that ever got finished.

Unofficially there was at least one release and i've tried it. The new Star Trek font choices are terrible 🙁

Having helped out a little with UQM and the aborted Timewarp project (in the far far past), I remember going through piles of freeware fonts and picking out .TTF equivalents for each font used in SC2, and even making a couple myself (Ilwrath and Chmmr). 😉 Most of what I had found would have been better replacements... IMHO OFC YMMV etc.

Ultima 6 was very cool. It really represents the series at it's peak, with well written dialogue, interesting characters, and a fascinating living world. I can understand why many would consider it the best in the series, but I didn't like playing it because of the horrible interface. When Ultima 7 came out, I dropped it immediately.

I was fascinated with Ultima 7, though I had technical problems with 2 consecutive PCs that barred me from finishing it until very late. It was painfully slow on the first computer, but I persisted in playing it anyway because it was such an amazing experience. I played it a lot but progress was slow because the computer was slow.
The 2nd PC would have been near perfect speed-wise but it couldn't run it without crashing. The 3rd ran it too fast. By the time I got to the end, I ran into a locked door with no apparent way to open, and I was so burned out at that point that I uncharacteristically cheated my way past it. I just wanted it to be over. But it was truly an amazing game. It's at least my nostalgic favorite, but I'm not sure if I'd ever actually play through it again.

Underworld was awesome, though I never finished it. I couldn't find some of the artifacts. I became convinced one of them had disappeared from the world. Every time I loaded my game I got the error message that indicates some overflow or something which caused random objects to disappear. I never specifically noticed such disappearances happen, but that's apparently what the message meant. I installed the patch that was supposed to fix this, but it didn't fix it at all.
I love the setting and mood of that game, where you're scrounging through a dungeon trying to figure out how to survive and eventually thrive on worn out "junk" you find lying around. This is a critical aspect of any RPG in a survival setting - when I found out Bethesda had removed item durability from Fallout 4, I was appalled. My attitude on that point was largely shaped by the experience I enjoyed in Ultima Underworld.
One mechanic of Underworld that I found really interesting was the "lore" skill. If you find a magical item, you don't automatically know it's true nature. The higher your Lore skill, the greater the chance you will notice it's unique properties.

Ultima 8 was.. different. The immersive living world of Ultimas 6 and 7 was cut back, much to my disappointment. I want to replay Ultima 8 sometime. It's certainly not my favorite, but I think it was enjoyable. Never finished it though. That's typical for me - I rarely actually finish RPGs.

If I build a DOS PC I want to get into Daggerfall, but I haven't played enough of it to have a strong opinion about it. I'm also interested in trying some Might and Magic or Wizardry. I think I'd need several lives to actually play all the games in those series though.

Star Control II is possibly my favorite PC game ever made, but I personally prefer to call it an adventure game, not an RPG. But no matter what you call it, it's fantastic. I have mixed feelings about the voice acting and view distance of the landers on the modern version, I had the MSDOS version so that's what I'm used to and tend to prefer.

Good feedback, shamino. Ultima 6 intrigues me because it is the only Ultima I never tried. I was on the Apple II from 1983-1991, so I played all the ultimas through U5. U6 was never made for Apple because it couldn't handle it. But I remember my friend with a 286 showing it to me once. Then when I finally got my first PC, Ultima 7 was just about out, which of course I went straight to, skipping U6.

I love the setting and mood of that game, where you're scrounging through a dungeon trying to figure out how to survive and eventually thrive on worn out "junk" you find lying around.

Sounds like you are describing Vogoners. 😉 If only ebay included durability ratings for the old "junk" we buy.

If I build a DOS PC I want to get into Daggerfall, but I haven't played enough of it to have a strong opinion about it. I'm also interested in trying some Might and Magic or Wizardry. I think I'd need several lives to actually play all the games in those series though.

Daggerfall is one of those massive RPGs that you could spend 100 hrs on. I have it on my DOS PC, but the time commitment is daunting.

I really enjoyed Might and Magic 3-5 (never finished any of them though), and that is one that I'm drawn to playing again because of the good memories. Very satisfying character development and storyline.

The only Wizardry I ever played much of was Wiz8--which I actually beat. It was one of the most fun and satisfying RPG experiences I ever had. It was one of those 100 hr games, though. I did play a bit of Wiz1 on the Apple II back in the early 1980s, but as an 8th grader I don't think I was sophisticated enough to appreciate the depth of the game, so I didn't play it much.

Jorpho wrote:

Last time I checked, there were also plans afoot to release an HD version of The Ur-Quan Masters, but I'm not sure if that ever got finished.

How didn't I remember Star Control II was a DOS RPG? 🙁

GoblinUpTheRoad wrote:

The Bard's Tale series are my favourite DOS RPGs. […]
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The Bard's Tale series are my favourite DOS RPGs.

This was also my introduction to the genre. I remember the data files were easy to hack.

bards tale ii was great. wasteland was one of my ultimate favs, that with Magic Candle 1, Pool of Radiance/Azure Bonds and Demons Winter are so much fun to play!

Magic Candle 1 is so overlooked.

I was reading up on the Eye of the Beholder series. Is it true they are very short games? Based on Let's Play series and howlongtobeat.com, all three EOB games are about 10 hrs long each.

Dungeon Master 1 is fantastic and pretty much created the dungeon crawl genre. Dungeon Master 2 is pretty generic, but still fun. DM 1 also has unique sound support for the FTL sound adaptor which is a proprietary LPT DAC that also offers a 9 pin joystick port pass through. This was pretty much the only way to use Atari type joysticks on the PC until USB adaptors came out. All in all, a great game that defined a genre, and offered unique hardware support (the adaptor came with the game). Well worth playing.

clueless1 wrote:

I was reading up on the Eye of the Beholder series. Is it true they are very short games? Based on Let's Play series and howlongtobeat.com, all three EOB games are about 10 hrs long each.

This is not what I remember, but then again I probably didn't know how to properly play RPGs at the time...

One thing I know for sure: don't waste any time on EOB3, it's rubbish. It was made by some other developer as opposed to Westwood Studios who made the first two episodes. Westwood then went on to make Lands of Lore.

clueless1 wrote:

I was reading up on the Eye of the Beholder series. Is it true they are very short games? Based on Let's Play series and howlongtobeat.com, all three EOB games are about 10 hrs long each.

they are short, IF you know what you are doing, have played them before and know the maps.

first time playing? 10 hours, maybe you get halfway?

BloodyCactus wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I was reading up on the Eye of the Beholder series. Is it true they are very short games? Based on Let's Play series and howlongtobeat.com, all three EOB games are about 10 hrs long each.

they are short, IF you know what you are doing, have played them before and know the maps.

first time playing? 10 hours, maybe you get halfway?

The original game came with a map of the first 3 levels out of 12, so that was a big help, and the last level is just the boss IIRC, so if you have the map that's only 8 levels to worry about. Your party is pretty weak to begin with, tends to make it necessary to focus on health/food, and slows you down at first. No auto-mapping, and lots of maze-type levels requiring concentration and/or some graph paper 😀 so I agree with BloodyCactus, 10 hours would be halfway.

Found EOB2 a fair bit easier than EOB1 even though it's bigger.

later levels require lots of up/down backtracking, the levels get very 'not straight forward'.

Fallout
Did not play significantly in this genre. Remember EOB 1-2 were atmospheric games, played them a little.

Since you mentioned the lovely game trilogy of Bards Tale, then you can always import the characters from that game into Dragon Wars afterwards , and play further along 😀