First post, by Sardonyx
As some probably know, the Temple of Apshai Trilogy was just released on Steam yesterday. They're distributing the DOS version with DOSBox.
After playing it for a bit, I noticed it plays very oddly for Apshai. For one, the monsters do almost no damage, to even lightly armored characters. I've never gotten any experience, even from completely clearing a level. And the amount of silver it gives out is crazy. A couple trips in to the room with a copper ingot will easily net thousands of silvers. There's no challenge at all - and that's bizarre for Apshai. It's usually quite difficult starting out.
It's been a while since I played so I tried the versions of Trilogy for C64 and Atari, as well as the original Temple of Apshai for C64 just to make sure it's not bad memory. Even with the same character stats, those versions are as difficult as I expect.
Overall I noticed in the version on Steam:
- The monsters do very little damage
- The game never gives any experience (always 0)
- The game gives way more silver than items are valued at
- Monsters don't move when resting (taking 0 steps)
I also tried downloading a few different versions for DOS I found online and they play identically to the one on Steam.
So...has the DOS version always been broken? Is this a case of a bad/trained/hacked copy being put online and everyone's passing around that copy, including the current rights holder? Is this some type of copy protection that's taking all the challenge out of the game?
Just wondering if anyone has any more info on this, or ideally if someone has an original DOS version on disk they could test or compare to what's on Steam/online.