Re: Favorite games
 

I think he is talking about before Windows. Yes yes, I know it is hard to believe there was a time before Windows.

Master of Magic would not run in DOS unless you allocated more memory in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files. Even then it could be pretty hard to get the game to run, because your cd-rom or other hardware might be hogging so much memory that it was impossible to play MoM, so for instance on my computer, after I got a cd-rom, I had to disable it everytime I wanted to play MoM.

I used a bootdisk to solve the problem on my old pre-windows system.

Re: Favorite games
 

Just tune it once, and then save that configuration as the default setting and you're good to go. That's what I did (for other DosBox games)
Though I also forgot how I did that :S

Re: Favorite games
 

Angband
Battle for Wesnoth
Dominions III
MoO 2
HoMM III
Final Fantasy VII
Vampire: Bloodlines
DotA
Wizardry 8
GalaCiv II

This list is not pretending to be complete, but close to it.

Re: Favorite games
 

1. Edit the config file
2. Change 2 lines.
2. Forget about it.

Simple enough for me. Besides, I'm 98% sure K.O. uses Linux at home. Perhaps not exclusively Linux, but...

To anyone considering the new version of Crawl, it's a good idea to join ##crawl at irc.freenode.org . That's where players and developers hang around. And the bots are very useful.

-----------------

My favourite games ? Too many to list. Some of my favourites:

Archon, Archon Ultra(PC)
DooMII (I didn't have an IBM PC at the time DooM was around)
Master of Magic
The original Command&Conquer
Emperor: Battle For Dune (it had serious flaws, but it also got many things right and tried new things)
Heroes of Might and Magic, especially II, III, IV
Magic Carpet 2
Dungeon Keeper 1,2
Horde
Ultima III (on Atari 65 XE)
System Shock 2
Deus Ex 2
Thief 2: Metal Age
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Quake 2
Quake 3 Fortress (Team Fortress mod)
Planescape:Torment
Little Big Adventure 1 (a.k.a. Relentless)
Worms 2
UFO: Terror From The Deep
Sacrifice
Nox

Re: Favorite games
 

Its in the config file of dosbox.
MoM require special settings like granting more resources from the system than defaut. At least in my version. Problably later versions of Dosbox require less tweaking.

Re: Favorite games
 

I never had to change any settings to run MOM in Dosbox . Even frameskip and CPU cycles are optional, they're for performance. And yes, Dosbox is an open-source project and it progressed a lot.

Re: Favorite games
 

The game runned very slow and sound didnt work (this im not sure) but after changing config it was just perfect.

Re: Favorite games
 

> Simple enough for me. Besides, I'm 98% sure K.O. uses Linux at home. Perhaps not exclusively Linux, but...

Windows/linux on my working station.
Mac for mail and browsing.

Re: Favorite games
 

Uh, as is VDMSound. It's GPL'ed software that's on SourceForge, too. As I said: If you're on Windows, it might be an easier solution to get some old DOS game up and running. Not that DosBox is short of awesome.

Re: Favorite games
 

I use VDMSound to run MoM now. It has some really great options including sound card emulation. I am not sure if DosBox allows that?

Re: Favorite games
 

Sure, actually DosBox even took the sound emulation off an earlier version of VDMSound, over five years ago. DosBox might even emulate more hardware than VDMSound (including the Gravis UltraSound instead of just the SoundBlaster 16), but that shouldn't worry you.

People who didn't grew up in the DOS age might feel it easier to use VDMSound, which takes little more than some right click, instead of navigating around in a DOS environment, too. But what you want to use is up to you.

Re: Favorite games
 

In no particular order:

Evil (amiga; having difficulty putting it on PC)
Adventure Construction Set
Archon 1&2
Dungeons&Dragons: Pool of Radiance
Lords of Magic: SE
Dungeon Keeper 1 (with DeeperDungeons; some 2)
Civilization 2 (some 3&4)
Heroes of Might & Magic 3: WoG (some 2)
Diablo 2 (some 1)
Neverwinter Nights 1 (with latest new patch & HotU exp)
Dominions 3 (some 2)

Honorable mention:

Adventure (old atari)
Maze Craze (old atari)
Prince of Persia
Need for Speed 3&4
Settlers (I forget which version)
Dungeons&Dragons: DarkTower (arcade)
Gauntlet series
Chaos (amiga)
Worms (amiga version, not PC)
Ultima IV
Lords of the Realm 2 (I spit at 3)
Titan Quest: Immortal Throne

Re: Favorite games
 

Kohan: Ahriman's Gift
X-Com: UFO Defense
X-Wing
DotA
Total Annihilation
Soul Calibur I & II (It's on a console, technically, but I love the game so much my top 10 list would be incomplete without it)
Master of Orion 1
Dominions
Age of Wonders
One Must Fall

Edit: Pool of Radiance? Didn't that game auto-format your HD as part of a nasty, commonly-occuring bug?

Re: Favorite games
 

In approximate order from an old timer:

Civ 1
Heroes Might and magic 1
Civ 2
Dominions 3
Waterloo
Europa Universalas 1
Oblivion
MOM
Age of Wonders
Daggerfall

Re: Favorite games
 

You seem to have already figured that out, but for others: run 'install' to configure sound. I've chosen Sound Blaser Pro (later) and it works. Then just type 'magic' .

You adjust CPU cycles with CTRL-F11 (lower) or CTRL-F12 (higher). Higher is not necessarily better. There's an optimum value for each CPU. I'm currently running at 12416 cycles and I can't notice any delays. My CPU is Core2Duo E6750 . Dosbox verion 0.72 .

Re: Favorite games
 

In no particular order:

Dom3, Disciples 2(the GOLD edition for this game is pure addiction), Ratchet & Clank series for PS2/PS3(gotta love those),
Earth 2160(I was heavily addicted to this game for a while), Total Annihilation(a true classic and an important lesson in RTS history), Total Annihilation: Kingdoms(TA with a fantasy twist), Morrowind(a great game...once you acquire a few mods that is), Two Worlds, Europa Universalis 3(a very good game... although you get kinda bored after playing it for too long in one session).
Oh, I almost forgot: Banjo-Kazooie series for N64(that's right, I'm a platformer geek. Sue me:)

Re: Favorite games
 

Ooh, I just have to add Warlords IV. You either hate it or ignore it. I love it... or loved it. I lost the CD a while ago and now the game is just to dang hard to find. "sobs"

Re: Favorite games
 

Fun thread!

My all time top 10:
1. MOM. The game mesmerized me for more than 10 years.
2. Dominions III (dom II, dom PPP)
3. Diablo (and to a lesser extent Diablo II). I lost countless nights sleep over this one.
4. HOMM III.
5. Disciples II.
6. Warlords battlecry II.
7. NWN and expansions.
8. Kohan.
9. Warhammer shadow of the horned rat
10.LOM, Lords of Magic.

Other great games in no particular order.
AOW
Krondor (betrayal at)
7 kingdoms
Warlords III
Starcraft
Warcraft II
HOMM II
MOO I+II
GalCiv I+II
Zangband
Leylines
Etherlords II
Magic the gathering (microprose)
Total annihilation
Total annihilation kingdoms (the game sucked in terms of balance and finish but was fun nonetheless)
Myth the fallen lords
Majesty
steel panthers
starcon II
dune
Conflict: Middle East
RISK/TEG http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Digger http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Favorite games
 

Speaking of Digger....
http://timberfrog.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=102

Re: Favorite games
 

Thank you Torin, llamabeast. Obviously I like it too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

After reading the thread again, I see that I'm forgetting great games all the time. Argh, my poor leaking head.
I've never playd any HoMM, MOM, Fallouts, ... lots of others. I moved in with a computer as late as 2001, so I'm lacking a lot with my reflexes and keyboard control. Many great games are just impossible for me. So alot of my gaming consists of watching other people play. This is also the reason why my list contained so many games that have no 'time' in them.

Re: Favorite games
 

in no order

Fallout 1& 2& tactics
Dominions 3
Alpha Centori
Incursion
Dwarven fortress
Civ 2&3
Victoria
Heros of might and magic 2&3
Masters of Orion 2
Might and Magic 6&7 (i don't know why)
Oblivion

Re: Favorite games
 

The NWN part of the question was answered. Though I'll rehash anyway, it's a mod game, and a MP game. It was certainly quite strong in both those areas, and enjoyable for some months, which puts it ahead of 98% of most games. Outside of that context however, I wouldn't waste going through the mediocre first act to get to the halfway decent following acts.

As for Morrowind, well it's a gem, but it has it's flaws, and it's also covered in some mud, that's for sure. It has three major flaws, and three major virtues. I'll begin with the former;

The storyline is not particularly exciting, in fact, I barely bothered with it, and a few friends who also played, felt the same way. This is mitigated seriously by the first virtue, that it's a game where you don't have to follow the story, or any path at all. This is a game of free-form exploration and adventure. While the combat system isn't great, it's enjoyable enough and I've experienced a few exciting and close fights. You're walking down a beach, and you find a familiar ship half destroyed, and sticking out of the water. Perhaps there's some treasure inside, and it's worth checking out. Much like it's predecessor, and it's follower, this is a large part of it's appeal. Exploration is interesting due to a world environment that has some serious time spent on it (despite some bugs) and in large part to the graphics and high quality music score. Which leads me to the second virtue, the Morrowind setting is quite interesting in and of itself, and has a certain atmosphere and life to it. The magic system is different from most others, and also extremely freeform, which leads me to the second flaw. The game is unfortunately too easy, due in large part to magic being far too powerful and expansive, and the alchemy and enchanting system which any analytical person or munchkin will soon crack to reach deific wealth and power. This problem is further aggravated by the level scaling of the monsters, which means you'll never face anything out of your league, even though that synergizes with the exploration / go where you please, aspect. The final flaw ties in with the first, and that is that the dialogue is not that great, but that's forgivable to a degree, when you consider the amount of npcs and the scope, as the game world can take several real life hours to cross just from one side of the other, if you feel like walking.

The last part, is to remove the mud from the gem, of which I mean, not a virtue of the game itself, but a virtue of the developers (who released powerful mod tools) and the player community and to take advantage of expansive and varied mods which can change/place a dozen things you thought should be in the game, and a dozen things you hadn't thought of. Morrowind had (and still has to some degree) a very robust modding community, and to ignore it is to ignore half the game.

While this is a game that is probably never coming back from the shelf onto my harddrive, it brought me a few months of enjoyment, and I think anyone else who enjoys the exploration subsect of RPG's would have similar enjoyment.

@PyroStock:
"Lords of the Realm 2 (I spit at 3)"
I have to heartily agree. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I found this extreme change and decline in terms of a sequel even worse than Moo3, or Fallout 3.

@Potatoman
"Pool of Radiance? Didn't that game auto-format your HD as part of a nasty, commonly-occuring bug? "
Heh, it was pretty bad that it came out like that. Though I'm pretty sure there was (eventually) a patch for that. I remember reading about the uninstaller for Myth 2 doing the same exact thing. Though, that didn't get shipped, they caught it and actually destroyed the entire printing of the cd's, and then remade it again. If I recall correctly, it cost them all the profits that game made. That highly ethical move, (and the game being very solid with a few 'edge of your seat' moments) did move to me to buy copies for 6 of my gamer friends.

Edit:
Thanks everyone, there's a few games here I've never heard of, and I'll be checking out. A few of those sound like they're out of print.

Re: Favorite games
 

I tried MW with mods, but it still didn't catch. I also tried Daggerfall, but it didn't really catch either. I guess I need stronger goals to truly enjoy a game.

Re: Favorite games
 

I have to entirely agree with Saulot on Morrowind (and Oblivion). I thoroughly enjoyed playing both games, but when I stopped playing them I never even considered replaying them. They sneak into the bottom of my top 10 because of the former and stay at the bottom because of the latter.

Re: Favorite games
 

I liked morrowind a lot, even the story really.. I played daggerfall too and tried it when every morrowind fan liked it even better than morrowind but really.. it's just not as good.

Oblivion.. I don't know why some pplz like it less than morrowind.. better graphics, better story. just a different setting, better mechanics too really.. also a great game

Re: Favorite games
 

Mm.

In rough chronological order, a few of my favourites...

Lords Of Midnight & Doomdark's Revenge (Spectrum)
Rebelstar (Spectrum)
Elite (Spectrum/Amiga)
The Chaos Engine (Amiga)
Lure of the Temptress (Amiga)
Masters of Orion I (PC)
Deus Ex (PC)
Medieval: Total War (PC)
Morrowind (PC)
Counter-Strike Source (PC)

After a lifetime's gaming, it's a shame to miss out so much, although I could easily remove some and replace them with classics like Manic Miner, Speedball 2, Sabrewulf, Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, Half-Life, Civilisation, UFO, Star Control 2, Eye of the beholder 2, and many more.

Re: Favorite games
 

Played alot of games since 25 years and in no particular order here are some of my favorites:

Dominions 3 (But ofcourse http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )
Civilization 1-4
UFO: Apocalypse
Jagged Alliance 2
Chaos Overlords
Medieval Lords
Empire
Stars!
Reach for the Stars (The OLD version)
Emperor of the Fading Suns (although it was very buggy MP games was extremely fun)
Victoria
Crusader Kings
Europa Universalis 1-3
Wastelands
Elite
Dwarf Fortress
Battlefield 2
Operation Flashpoint
SWAT 4
World War II Online
Star General
M.U.L.E.
Frantic Freddie
Lords of Conquest
Railroads West!
Deuteros
Imperialism 2
Colonization
Master of Magic
Reunion
Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri
Space Empire 4
Battles of Napoleon
Colonial Conquest
Advanced Tactics
Rise of the West
Swords of Aragon
Warlords 1 (and only 1)

Re: Favorite games
 

Ah, I forgot Deus Ex. Definately one of the all-time great games, in my opinion. They don't make them like that anymore. It'd probably bump out X-Wing on my list.

I am rather surprised that at the lack of System Shock 2 in this thread's lists, though. It, too was great, and far better than Bioshock.

Mechwarrior 1, Star Control 2, Molez, V-Wing, Cyber Empires, Tyrian, Master of Magic, Jagged Alliance 2, and Counter Strike deserve honorable mentions.

Re: Favorite games
 

SS2 was mentioned at least once. I've been thinking of playing it, but thought I'd have to play SS1 to enjoy it.

Re: Favorite games
 

I've never played SS1, but loved SS2. It's almost impossible to get SS1 to run on modern computers, unfortunately. Plus, SS1 is a pseudo FPS that doesn't have mouse support, so it'd be very difficult to actually play these days.

Re: Favorite games
 

I downloaded the demo for this one. I can't say that I hate it as it's not that bad a game (I haven't played the predecessors either), but it's not really hard to win against the AI in this game, is it? That makes playing SP games rather pointless to me. It does seem a little over-simplified. If you liked this game, then I'll recommend Armageddon Empires to you.

Re: Favorite games
 

I like Warlords 1 and 2, and none of the others in the franchise. Warlords 2 was just the original with a random map generator and some upgraded features. Everything after it was a complete departure.

I can't find the original, but Warlords 2 is abandonware and available on the net.

Re: Favorite games
 

How could I have forgotten that one? This setting was absolutely AWESOME, and could easily support multiple games of multiple genre's (much like the many Warhammer and Warhammer:40,000 franchises).

This is a game that NEEDS to be remade. There was a pretty active web community and two popular user made mods that fixed a lot of the bugs and added units, but sadly recently the website housing them has gone down. EDIT: Strike that, it appears to be back up. http://www.kborek.cz/forum/phpBB2/ is the web address if anyone is interested in learning about this awesome game. The wikipedia page is informative, too.

I can still remember the thrill of drop shipping my legions and tanks, led by my noble swordmasters, into Holy Terra in retribution for the church destroying some of my labs. Go House Hawkwood!

Re: Favorite games
 

What was the software from ID: Castle Frankenstein..

How about the original: Hack, Rogue, StarTrek.

Also Darklands - which was incredible, Fallout, Insane Asylum, Populus (The almost original God Game).

Sentinel - which seems faded in retrospect. Civilization.
Beta tested Evercrack. Quit it at 7th Level.

Sanctum:Digital Addiction. www.nioga.net.
Chron-x

Neverwinter.

Panzer General.
Spaceward Ho!
Rails West on commodore 64

Re: Favorite games
 

And, for the old-time Mac users out there, who can forget Marathon, the progenitor of Halo? Many a good night wasted playing MP Marathon at the office.

Re: Favorite games
 

you really didn't have to play to SS1 for enjoying the second, just read a summary of the story.

I forgot Deux Ex 1 and SS2 too (... and Fantasy General, and Genesia, Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Dune 1, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Syndicate, Thief II: The Metal Age, Ultima VII: The Black Gate, Arx Fatalis, Rainbow Six)

Re: Favorite games
 

Forgot my first loves...
Lords of Midnight/Doomdark's Revenge (ZX Spectrum)
The Hobbit (ZX Spectrum)
Football Manager (ancestor of the modern CM/FM on ZX Spectrum)
Jeanne d'Arc (TO7/70)
Ogre (Apple II)
Archon (Apple II)
Revolution/Insurrection/Freedom something ? (Apple II, not sure for the name, a game where you fighted a dictator in south america and had many ways to win, with options like drug traffic to fund your army or being more honest and trying to get international popularity or US/USSR support making the other your ennemy)
Wizardry I-III (Apple II)
Ultima II-IV (Apple II)
Bard's Tale (Apple II, the recent PC game using the name is Diablolike crap)
Colonial Conquest (Atari ST)
Defender of the Crown (Atari ST)
Dungeon Master I-II (Atari ST)
Populous I-II (Atari ST)

Re: Favorite games
 

My all time hits:

All Silent Hill games (brilliant! Creepy, intelligent)
GTA San Andreas (clever humor, great cultural stereotypes parody)
Portal (the endgame song is hillarious)
Gothic 1 and 2
Fallout 2
Dominions 3 (single player AI is limited though and I was not still able to find a MP game)
Mount and Blade (but the development is slow)
Wesnoth (most polished open source game)
Legacy of Kain series (everything with Raziel and Kain :-) )
DreamWeb (yay!)
Perihellion (cyberpunk at its best)
Shadow of the Beast series

Re: Favorite games
 

Most buggy open source game. I'd love it if you weren't some sort of beta tester all the time.

Re: Favorite games
 

Could you elabore on the 'buggy' part ? I'm interested.

Re: Favorite games
 

If anyone is intrested in Hamachi play Im on to:

Fallout tactics
Age of wonders SM
Age of empires conquerors
Master of Orion 2 (maybe needs something else instead of hamachi)
and of course Dominions 3 (blitz play)

Re: Favorite games
 

My favorites (I remember atm):

C64:
Raid over Moscow
Ultima IV + V
Bard's Tale III
Wasteland
Pool of Radiance
Gunship
Typhoon of Steel
Pirates
Maniac Mansion
Elite

Amiga:
Star Control 2
Populous
Warmonger
Starflight

SNES:
ChronoTrigger
Legend of Zelda: A link to the past

PS2
Panzer General I + II
X-com: Enemy unknown
Vandalhearts 2
Final Fantasy VII + IX
Shadow of the Collossus
Burnout 3
Civilizations 2

PC
Jagged Alliance 2
Baldur's Gate I + II
Fallout
TES 3: Morrowind
Combat Mission 1 + 2
Gothic 1 + 2
X-3 Reunion
Dominions 3
Dwarf Fortress
Space Rangers 2
Rome + Medieval Total War
Hearts of Iron 2
Battleground Europe (world war II online)

xbox360
there is no good game on the xbox360 *sigh* I was so disappointed by oblivion *double-sigh*

Re: Favorite games
 

Oh, I don't want to pollute this thread more than I already done, but there have been a couple of bugs that already existed since the 1.2x version, which duplicated your units in the recall list whenever you saved+loaded the game when you played some of the scenarios. I reported it, first in the forum, then in the bug tracker. I was told more than once that the bug is fixed and I should replay the campaign, from the beginning, to this 9th or 10th mission. I did, at least three to four times, with each update, and the bug was still there. Then there's another bug which is probably tied to the save/loading mechanism and "outdated" WML code which corrupts the replays of your scenario. I don't think they ever managed to fix that. So, I waited half a year with active play testing, then still received notifications from the bug tracker for half a year even though I stopped caring, and it seems like either the whole WML thing has become too complicated that even the devs can't understand it anymore, or they are too lazy/busy to fix things - or maybe there are too many other bugs that they can't be assed to fix such a thing. For me, replaying the same campaign at least four times, just to find out that yep, it's still broken, wasn't any fun. I don't wanna be a beta-tester like that. If you want more info, then PM me about it...

Re: Favorite games
 

Ah, Pool of Radiance!

Great old days. With a hand-outs booklet and a bizzare cardboard dial with runes and stuff for copy protection.

Re: Favorite games
 

Hmmmmmmmm.

Waaaaaaay back:
---------------
The Ancient Art of War
Incunabula (Avalon Hill oldie)
Archon


Slightly less way back:
-----------------------
Much of the 'Gold Box' series from SSI
Netrek (bronco, and a little bit of chaos and hockey)
Neuromancer
Wasteland
Xconq
Bolo (The AppleTalk tank game, that is)
Strategic Conquest
Scorched Earth :p
Mechwarrior II


(subcategory: BBS door games :p )
Hack and Slash
Legend of the Red Dragon
Usurper
BRE/SRE
Mechwar



More recent
-----------
Dominions III
Jagged Alliance II


Still evaluating
-----------------
Empires in Arms (Matrix adaptation; high potential, but currently very buggy)


Love-hate
---------
Combat Mission:BB
AOE II:AOK

Re: Favorite games
 

I loved the Gold Box games. I still have Curse of the Azure Bonds -> Pools of Darkness, complete with crazy copy protection rune wheels, but I can't find Pool of Radiance. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Favorite games
 

Neglected to mention Space Empires IV.

Civ II and SMAC might go on my love-hate list.

Pool of Radiance is probably fairly rare. There still seem to be some Forgotten Realms software collections available used via AMZN.

Re: Favorite games
 

I just downloaded the old rulebook from Pool of Rad for nostalgia's sake. Pretty funny remembering flipping to the journal to read the clues and rumors or spending time switching the color of beard on my character's sprite.

Why did those games seem so much more fun than most of today's over produced materials?
- Grumpy 36 Year Old

Re: Favorite games
 

Ahh, SMAC was the best of the Civ games, for real. The story, the characters, the voices and movies when you got certain techs.. it was all so well done. A masterpiece.

Pool of Radiance! God that takes me back..

Has anyone mentioned Bane of the Cosmic Forge? (Wizardry 6) That one had a great story, too. I just love the Wizardry games, especially 6 and 7. 8 was good too, but very unbalanced at high levels. Magic either killed you in about 5 seconds or was completely useless due to anti-magic screens.

How about also.. Starflight? Anyone play that one? That was the first computer game I ever played. I got to pretend I was Captain Kirk.

Re: Favorite games
 

Sid Meyers Alpha Centauri was a game by Brian Reynolds, under the Sid name. He was the programmer behind it. Please don't give Sid any credit for it. He may have created Civ, but SMAC was a whole other animal.