A.J.
Mohammad AlHuraiz
bigdaddygamebot
beige
bowlisimo
ckim
cptcarnage
feenwager
friedturnips
George
iscariot83
Jeff Grubb
LiK
mjpilon
Pete Davison
rampantbicycle
RedSwirl
scribl
Shingro
Mike Minotti
unmanneddrone
zegolfQuest for Glory
Mission Start!!
All right, people. It’s been a while since we did a group mission, and recent talk of Quest for Glory suggests that this might be a good one for future podcasting. While the upcoming podcast’s topic is already set, let’s get some discussion rolling on this now so people have some thoughts to share in time for the next one.
Grab the Quest for Glory series from GOG.com here for $9.99.
The VGA remake of Quest for Glory II can be found here.
beige, 
Lou Page, and 9 others are discussing. 
The Squadron of Shame Squawkbox 
impynickers 12:50 am on May 12, 2012 Permalink
Looking forward to starting my so called “adventures” in the town of Spielburg. The question is whether I go EGA or VGA. I know the VGA version slightly better, so I may go EGA for both 1 and 2. Kick it old school. Of the series 2 and 4 are my standout favorites. They have a slightly connected story arch, though both can be enjoyed independently.
QFG is an anomaly. The adventure elements allows it to tell a story in the manner of an adventure game with some traditional puzzles, but at the end of the day you leave the adventure game trappings to actually explore and …. well… adventure. Its an RPG at its heart. Its got the stats. You can improve skills by using/practicing them. Different classes have different approaches to puzzles and combat. It is the only adventure/RPG hybrid I can think of, and it has a flavor all its own that has never been emulated since.
Did you know that when I was 10 I drafted a Quest for Glory Pen and Paper roleplaying game? Isn’t that adorably nerdy? I think it would be hilarious to find that and share with you the loveable antics.
Shingro 3:09 am on May 12, 2012 Permalink
The first time I saw Quest for Glory, it was the old command line version. We bought a new computer from the family’s resident Tech-Guru and he installed it as a bonus item. It was the first time I ever saw the computer as being able to handle serious gaming, and the reason I started messing with the machine in the first place. In a way, Quest for Glory is responsible (along with Betrayal at Krondor) for convincing me to put points into ‘Computer Tinkerer.’ directly influencing my career choice.
It’s also probably the reason I find gated ‘is your skill high enough to achieve this and unlock another path’ mechanics cool. The series of different ways you could complete even the bird’s nest outside the town is really the first time I ever saw or imagined the possibility of branching gameplay mechanics.
Along that line it’s worth noting that QfG is probably one of the best if not the best ‘how do you want to approach this challenge’ game series ever made. With the entire game capable of handing solutions from every class combination, and having some better then others.
asatiir 5:22 am on May 12, 2012 Permalink
Will check out the game once I’m done with Xenoblade, listened to the JRPG episode just a few weeks back and that drove me to start.
beige 2:31 pm on May 12, 2012 Permalink
OK, the life of Ricky the thief begins! SO YOU WANT TO BE A HERO?
Rememberances:
Character creation: Oh man, yeah this takes me back. Took the 20 point hit per attribute to take both parry and magic as initial talents to my already thiefy skill set rather than a big fat 0. Now I have at least 5 points in everything and can at least start learning spells and parrying things. I won’t get some of the wizard specific quests and items but at least FETCH is as useful as I remember it. Still a long way to go towards a perfect set of 100 in every skill.
Goons. Forgot about these guys.
That tree outside town. Still a fantastic place to level up strength and climbing. Poor Ricky, scrabbling and clawing all day until his stamina hits zero. It’s a hard knock life. Cleaning out the stables is mildly profitable and good for statbuilding as well, and at least you can sleep there safely for free, unlike most other places in the world.
Forgot about your “character sheet” being stuck in that weird little menu alongside RUN and SNEAK in the VGA version. Took me a while to find where to check my skills and stats.
Can’t remember if Thieves can use chainmail or not. 500 silvers is a hell of a lot of money. Perhaps I can get a five finger discount after the sun goes down. Also, robbing the old lady is hilarious as ever.
Pete Davison 3:08 pm on May 12, 2012 Permalink
Pierre the Wizard’s adventures have begun. I am a badass spellcaster and quite handy with a dagger, but ask me to climb up something and I’ll just fall over or, hilariously, occasionally die of exhaustion.
If a stat starts at 0 does it just not level up? I’ve tried scrabbling up that tree lots of times but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to my Climb stat.
I have spent the morning mapping the whole game on graph paper. Can’t remember the last time I did that.
Pete Davison 9:51 pm on May 12, 2012 Permalink
QfG1 is down for the count. I will personally reserve my thoughts for the SquadCast on the subject, but once the rest of you beat it, feel free to share what you think here.
Tip: when the game asks you to save your character file at the end, change the “a:glory1.sav” to “c:glory1.sav”. This will save the export file into the folder in which you installed the game — by default C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Quest for Glory Pack\Quest for Glory 1\VGA (or EGA if you played the EGA version). Make sure you copy this glory1.sav file to the QfG2 folder manually to make sure you’ll be able to import it correctly.
cptcarnage 1:26 am on May 13, 2012 Permalink
Wicked!! I LOVE the Quest for Glory games, I posted a tweeted a picture of the old school map bundled along with quest for glory 2 a while back.
Gooood games 🙂 humor was decent too.
cptcarnage 2:03 am on May 13, 2012 Permalink
Found it!
jar155 4:15 am on May 13, 2012 Permalink
Man, I’ve played these games multiple times, but it’s been far too long since I’ve played either of them. I grabbed the GOG.com collection and am starting them up right now. You’re already a game ahead of me, so I probably have no chance at catching up, but dang it, I’m going to try.
theshums 8:56 am on May 13, 2012 Permalink
Just started QFG1 VGA tonight. Been live-tweeting my playthrough @theshums. Using the hashtag #QFGLive if that’s easier.
Man, I love so much about this game. I love the sense of humor, I love the multiple ways to achieve an objective, I love the dialogue trees, the inventory puzzles…even the clunky combat. Yes, it’s super-easy to game the skill systems — I’ve been sneaking everywhere and my Stealth score is already in the 80s after an hour of play — but that’s part of the fun. And I’m surprised at how well the writing holds up.
Looking forward to playing more.
(Oh, and lest I forget: Earl Sinclair cameo. CHECK AND MATE.)
Pete Davison 10:17 am on May 13, 2012 Permalink
Welcome, chaps, good to see you.
Yes, I’ve often been pleasantly surprised how well the humour holds up in old Sierra titles. The puns when you try and talk to something you shouldn’t come thick and fast, for example, and are frequently LOLworthy (or cringeworthy, depending on your outlook). This is, I can’t help but feeling, something that has been lost in a number of recent titles. How often do games have a narrator these days?
beige 2:13 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink
Pete, did you eventually figure out that you have to manually “give yourself at least 5 points” at character creation for one of those “starting at 0 level” stats to level up? You should do it. Never hurts to have a little athletics even if you’re basically a wizard. My thief has all the stats on the board, so he can theoretically level anything up.
Protip: All you need is 5 points in pick lock to do a lot of the “thief specific” quests. You don’t have to be a thief, but if you start breaking into old womens’ houses you can kiss your chance at Paladinhood goodbye.
bowlisimo 7:55 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink
I want to jump into this, but Diablo (and like a million other games here and there). How long do they take? Or are they as long as you are stupid? or as long as it takes you to read gamefaqs?
Shingro 7:56 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink
Wasn’t Paladinhood a Fighter-Only style thing? I can’t remember for the life of me, once I knock my current game project out I think I’ll go in as a mage to carry between all games, but I’ll start a thief on each one to enjoy the crazy puzzle rooms that exist in everyone’s homes. With gold and loot and silver candlesticks as reward for my indiscretions.
Bowli: Well, it depends on how much you’re into min/maxing yourself and whatnot, I’d note Pete went through QfG1 in a maximum time of 6 some hours (assuming he did stand up from his computer at some point or another =))
Pete Davison 8:06 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink
QfG1 is super-short. 2-3 hours tops if you know what you’re doing, more if you’re minmaxing. Certainly no more than 6 hours though, and probably less, even if you spend hours climbing that tree outside the healer’s hut and setting fire to goblins.
The way I look at it, Diablo is going to be one to dip in and out of and treat like an MMO. Story has never been the series’ strong point. You can play QfG alongside it no problem.
bowlisimo 8:07 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink
That’s not too bad for time investment. As for the game itself, right now my perception without reading too much is that this an old style adventure game mashed up with a dungeon crawler like Might & Magic (which sounds like a pretty good idea).
Pete Davison 8:12 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink
That’s reasonably accurate. You remember how in old King’s Quest games there were loads of useless screens in which you occasionally got attacked by monsters that killed you instantly? QfG1 is like that, only you can fight and kill them. You can also grind stats by using them (such as through the aforementioned tree-climbing) and earn money in various ways. There’s no overall time limit, but you do have to eat, sleep and recover HP, MP and stamina. (You die if you run out of HP or stamina.)
Protip: sleep in the location called Erana’s Peace. It’s free, safe and unlike most sleeping places restores all three of your HP, MP and Stamina bars to full.
beige 8:25 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink
@bowlisimo Think of it more as King’s Quest with real-time fighting. No “dungeons” as such, but plenty of hostile territory filled with monsters that you can kill to your heart’s content.
You’re wandering along in idyllic countryside, moving your little mans map block to map block, trying to figure out your way to get to the spring that some guy told you was at the heart of the forest and solve the puzzle there. Then, randomly (because it is night time) some douche brigand or wandering monster ambles in from the left side of the screen. If his little sprite connects with your sprite it initiates a punch-out style battle where you have to push L/R on your arrow keys to dodge his attacks while pushing UP/DOWN to block and stab. You can cast spells and stuff in fights (or pre-emptively) and get better equipment, like magic swords and stuff. Thieves can do acrobatics and throw (poisoned) daggers.
Finish battle, win gold and items. Your stats level up Skyrim style, depending on what you did during the fight. More mana, more endurance etc. results from more fighting Your spells level up too, so cast zap a lot.
Note: Any class can become a Paladin (there is one opportunity at the end of QFG2 and one in the middle of QFG3 to become one) but taking the investiture means that you have to have sufficient “honor” which is a hidden stat that as a player you never get to see, but which is governed by doing honorable deeds. The more sneaky-ass dishonorable stuff you do (*cough THIEVES*) the less your chances of being tapped for Paladinhood.
The Fighter is the most natural fit for promotion into Paladinhood as all those hard-won sword-and-shield skill points and buff athletic modifiers translate directly into proficiency with the flaming sword and the honor shield, but any class can theoretically become one if their honor is high enough at the right time. Wizard paladins are potent swordmage-style magic warriors, and in theory thieves can become paladins if they never behave like thieves for the course of the game, and basically solve all problems the Fighter way. Yeah.
Shingro 3:10 pm on May 15, 2012 Permalink
ALERT!! Having now had the time to really jump into QfG I noticed the sound was really far off from what I remember. Poking around a bit revealed that this game is setup for Roland sound, and not in a good way. I’d CANNOT recommend people turn the sound to soundbaster enough, you get the good whistling, the inconic tunes, the notes don’t get botched post combat: etc.
All you gotta do is run the Install.exe and switch it from Roland to Soundblaster. Depending on Os you might need to do that in Dosbox, but you don’t have to do all the Mount c c:\progra~2 or anything, just open the DOSBOX folder in the installation directory, open another window with the install file, drag the install file onto Dosbox.exe and you’re good to go =)
Additionally: The adventures of Shingro the aspiring wizard have begun! (Though Thiefgro is going to be created afterwards in each game just to enjoy the wonderful puzzle houses =) )
beige 6:45 pm on May 15, 2012 Permalink
Shingro 1:28 am on May 16, 2012 Permalink
Finished QfG 1: I gotta say, if there was ever an indicator that I spent FAR too many of my formitive years on this game… getting 487 of 500 without ever taking so much as a peek at the internet would be it. I didn’t take the time to minmax myself out the wazoo, but I’ve got quite a purse headed into shapier, looking forwards to the endless amounts of mana/stamina that is “3 pills a pop” at the apothecary. Good fun!
impynickers 8:01 pm on May 25, 2012 Permalink
@shingro I noticed the oddity in the sound as well. Of course when I first played the QFG2 in I was using an internal speaker with bloops and bleeps. Nostalgia….. *sigh*
I may just switch over to sound blaster though. There are some odd sound effects in its current state.
Ive gotten mostly through QFG1 EGA edition. Its quite funny to see the minor differences in the art style between EGA and VGA. The main character wears what I could only describe as a super hero costume in the EGA edition, but is much more classic fantasy in the VGA edition with his iconic jerkin. The puzzles as far as I can tell are pretty much the same, just more long winded with the text interface.
beige 5:37 pm on June 2, 2012 Permalink
Back on the QFG VGA train, now that Xenoblade is done. Thanks for the protip soundblaster advice. I’m much happier now that all my iconic old MIDI tunes are back where they’re supposed to be. Easist way I accomplished this was just opening two windows on my desktop – one with DOXBOX in it, and one with the QFG install file, which was up one directory. Dragging the quest for glory setup file from window 1 to the DOSBOX.exe file started configuration for me just fine. No text prompt required.
Protip for those of you playing along at home: I’d forgotten until vestigial memory reminded me, that you can use the numeric keypad to do all your awesome moves and spellszorz. For the thief, this means pressing 3 a lot.
Lou Page 3:17 am on June 8, 2012 Permalink
My first PC game was QFG2 and I loved it. Since GOG Release I played though the first and tried the Fan remake of QFG2. I can’t recommend the remake enough. Almost completely identical except for a new combat system and some small puzzle changes. I was so glad to have no text typing box.
cgrajko 6:28 am on June 8, 2012 Permalink
I finally started QFG, and it’s a lot of fun. I rarely ever say this, but I feel as if I should have read the manual for it first, because I had a bit of a time getting back in to the groove of old adventure games. I haven’t played something like this in quite a long time, but I can definitely see why it’s so appreciated ’round these parts. I got up to 80ish out of 500 in my first hour or so of walking around and talking to folks, so I would say I got off to a good start. Playing as a fighter is not a bad time at all, since it’s made the few times I’ve gotten into a battle fairly survivable.
Pete Davison 7:46 pm on June 8, 2012 Permalink
Started QfG2. Oh my. A 3D maze within about ten seconds of starting. What is this I don’t even… blargh. Time to get the graph paper out again?
Pete Davison 7:51 pm on June 8, 2012 Permalink
For anyone currently suffering like I am, hopefully this will help a bit:
Pete Davison 7:58 pm on June 8, 2012 Permalink
Also, you really don’t get puns like this in games any more. That makes me kind of sad. A side effect of our current “fully-voiced” age, I guess.
beige 8:18 pm on June 8, 2012 Permalink
Pete, you can always run the fancy new QFG remake that is currently linked to off the homepage (it’s what I’ll be playing!) You can still import and export your character, but no text parser and you don’t have to navigate that crazy map. They only did that as a copy protection measure anyway. Failing that, enjoy playing Eye of the Beholder!
Don’t forget, Questers: NUMPAD is for fighting! 9 and 7 swing sword, 1 and 3 dodges and shields. 5 casts awesome magickzorz.
Lou Page 8:43 pm on June 8, 2012 Permalink
Also if you don’t feel like playing the remake remember that the map has an quick travel function once you have been buy one from that guy outside the inn. another tip too is that there is only 4 locations in the desert you need to go to for quests. Everything else out there is to battle for money and stuff to sell. The saurus is a huge joke so once you buy him don’t use him. He runs from battle and it can take hours to find him again.
Lou Page 8:55 pm on June 8, 2012 Permalink
My brain goes faster than I type. What I meant is, “once you have been to the money changer, you can buy a map from the guy outside the inn.” Also if your a thief show the money changer the thief sign.
Pete Davison 3:09 pm on June 9, 2012 Permalink
Restarted on the VGA version. Much easier to get going on. I like my retro as much as (or possibly considerably more than) the next person, but QfG2 EGA’s obtuseness was a little offputting.
Shingro 8:45 pm on June 9, 2012 Permalink
Earth elemental is in the bag! (ha… HAHA! HAH… I…. I’m sorry
) I will say that the combat in QfG2 suuuure is hard as a dagger user >_> by vast and unfortunate amounts it seems… but some solid training with Urhara is bringing me up to speed.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly better combat, but man, some of those critters sure can work you over if you’re not prepared. (instant kill with a brief tell from the scorpion? really? D: )
beige 3:40 pm on June 10, 2012 Permalink
Yo: In case anybody is having difficulty importing / exporting your character, GOG.com’s FAQ has a few paragraphs on how to do it. I was having real trouble finding c:/glory1.sav until I headed over here.
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/quest_for_glory_series/export_and_import_faq/page1
Pete Davison 4:16 pm on June 10, 2012 Permalink
Good call, sir. I ran into this issue but forgot to mention it earlier, I think.
impynickers 5:08 am on June 12, 2012 Permalink
I don’t suspect people need another QFG game to play, but for long time fans looking for something new and fan made look no further than Quest for Glory 4 1/2: So you thought you were a hero. http://www.curlysworldoffreeware.com/games/view/238
The hole thing is light hearted and full of pop culture references. Fairly impressive overall actually.
I have finished QFG1 EGA finally. I was playing from a rusty memory, but it worked.
Thus the hero from the east freed the man from form of beast, saved beauty from brigands band and forced the ogress to leave the land.
I love that in the credits someone is credited as being responsible for the ‘Next Generation Graphics’
I have no doubt the game was impressive in its time, but its funny how we are still talking about graphics in the same way as they did then.
Pete Davison 11:39 pm on June 12, 2012 Permalink
QfG2 has been a slow burn for me, but once I sat down and started to spend some protracted time with it I’m really enjoying it. Even more so than the original, it’s clear that a lot of more recent games have their roots in this game. I’m currently playing through the Yakuza series, for example, and that certainly shares the idea of an entire epic adventure being set in the confines of a relatively small area, as does The Last Story.
Just beat the Fire elemental. Three to go?
Lou Page 12:11 am on June 13, 2012 Permalink
Glad to hear someone besides me has played some Yakuza games. I have only played the PS3 ones and both are great.
On the QFG2 front, yeah you got 3, more to go. After that your only about 2/3’s of the way through the game. Personally, I think QFG 2 and 4 have the best plots of the series. I think you will find 3 more interesting since it does stray from the epic adventure in a small area.
beige 8:30 pm on June 17, 2012 Permalink
Oh man, just finished QFG 2 (remake version), importing to Wages of War now. God damn that ending of 2 is great stuff, still holds up so well after all this time. 16 days of screwing around in Shapier culminating in 3 days of awesomeness of testing your skills in Raseir. As a thief, I was very happy that I’d done a ton of rope walking while I was biding my time – phew. Super glad about the little additions they put at the very end there to give more closure to Khaveen’s portion of the story. I’ll talk about this on the podcast for sure.
Found, but did not bother killing the Pizza Elemental. Screw that secret boss man. He just dropped pizzas on my head and then I died. SO DIFFICULT. Also, not worth it though I understand you can give pizza from his corpse to people for extra honor. Any hope I had of becoming a paladin was gone as soon as I put those x-ray specs on to watch harem girls and 386-era boobies.
HINT: I had difficulty importing my hero until from the QFG2 remake to QFG3 NON remake I did the following:
A) Went to the directory specified in the forums here:
“Any time a non-elevated account tries to save to a UAC controlled folder (like Program Files), the file is instead stored in the VirtualStore folder of that user. The location of that folder is at “C:\Users\\Appdata\local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Quest for Glory Pack\”, with the AppData folder being a hidden folder, “Users” and “Program Files (x86)” may be localized in your language, and being your Windows User’s name. You can also use the %localappdata% alias in the location bar of Windows Explorer that will take you to the AppData\Local folder directly.
So, after you find the VirtualStore directory that contains your file, copy it to the directory the game you want to import is installed at, meaning the “C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Quest for Glory Pack\Quest for Glory 2″ directory, not the one located in VirtualStore. ”
b) Grabbed my save game, went back to the (NON virtual) C:/program files… /GOG/Quest for Glory Directory
c) Now for some weird reason I could NOT import directly when the save was placed directly in that directory, but when I created a NEW DIRECTORY INSIDE THE GOG QFG3 DIRECTORY (I called it “/save”) and moved my saved game in there, I was able to “change directory” within the QFG 3 import screen to “C:/save/” My save game was there, and it imported fine.
TLDR: QFG3 (and 4?) consider “C:/” to be “The Root Of Your Game Directory”. Make a new directory inside it, put your (QF2 remake) save file in there and import away!
beige 11:19 pm on June 17, 2012 Permalink
Protip, since I was running into crashes in Wages of War due to clock cycle foolishness:
ALT-ENTER switches between windowed mode and fullscreen mode in DOSBOX. In the title there in windowed mode you can see the number of cycles running.
CTRL-F11 slows the clock cycles down, CTRL-F12 speeds them back up. I was able to prevent certain infamous crashes that were causing my game to die due to timing glitches by slowing down the clock cycles to 1% and then continuing the game as normal. After you’re past the glitchy spots, speed the cycles back up to 100%.
Unless they’ve patched Quest for Glory 4, I anticipate having to do this to solve the dreaded Error 52 in the mordavian swamps.
QFG3, still great though. More games need to be set in Africa with or without Sandford and Son jokes. Fighting still kind of sucks in this one, but who cares — it’s so not a focus of the third installment.
Pete Davison 11:46 pm on June 19, 2012 Permalink
I beat QfG2 tonight. We’ll talk more about this on the podcast no doubt, but man, that game sure is back-end loaded. I woudln’t call it “dull” (though my girlfriend would as she watched me try and fail to struggle through the early stages without assistance) but it certainly is slowly paced until those last few days. The whole finale sequence is pretty great, though — and I had no problems importing my save from the VGA version into QfG3. Yay. I will start on that tomorrow.
Pete Davison 12:21 am on June 22, 2012 Permalink
Played quite a bit of QfG3 today. NOW we’re talking. With this game, we’ve quite obviously entered a different era of Sierra adventures. While the first two games were quite “directionless” if you didn’t know what you were doing (you can completely fuck up QfG2 in particular if you’re not in the right place at the right time), QfG3 feels a lot more palatable from a modern perspective. We’ve got much stronger characterisation (though seemingly not quite as much sarcastic narration, which is sad) and a greater sense of direction and structure. But alongside that, we still have a pleasing feeling of RPG-style freedom that you don’t get in other, more traditional Sierra adventures that take a much more linear approach.
Looking forward to seeing how it unfolds — and very much looking forward to some hot John Rhys-Davies action in QfG4.