Looking for an older RPG

[Gilliatt]

@kmonster, the length of a Wikipedia summary has nothing to do with the profundity, richness or quality of a story. I can write a 10 lines summary of PS:T and a 2 pages summary on Pac-Man, but PS:T will still have a richer story.

In BG, you actually live the story, while in IWD, it unfolds while you fight monsters. The IWD story was, like I said, very cliché and simple. The game was fun, but the story was not an important part of it.

To give another exemple, the Rainbow Six games have a background story, they have briefings between missions, character descriptions, etc. But still, the games have no story, it is just about killing tangos and rescuing hostages. It does not mean that it is stupid or boring, just that there is no story.

As for the rest of your post, I agree with you.

@ Maggie, no Gothic is not a game that you can play with your mouse only, neither are the Might and Magic games. That being said, when you are done with Diablo, I strongly suggest that you retry Divine Divinity. I have not played it yet (it is still on my shelf), but I heard good feedbacks about it. Maybe when you will be more familiar with RPGs you will understand it better.

[fable]

About the "is IWD a real RPG ?" thing: Icewind Dale is obviously a real rpg from my POV and all gaming magazines and game sites classified it as rpg. Spending more time talking and wandering around aimlessly than fighting the evil guys like in BG isn't really typical for CRPGs.

I would suggest it *is* typical of CRPGs, including series such as Ultima, Magic Candle, Wizardry, etc. These are classic RPGs. The fact that gaming magazines reviewed IWD as an RPG is their choice; it no more makes it so than their calling Diablo an RPG makes it one, or having orgasms over Oblivion truly makes it a superb life-invigorating experience. That's not to say the game magazines are wrong, or wrong most of the time; only that they don't function as genre-defining media. This is entirely apart from dungeon crawls, that go all the way back to the original Rogue. Perhaps I misspoke in defining IWD exclusively according to its strategy elements. I think it also has significant dungeon crawl aspects.

[maggie60]

Hi-

Can someone tell me the name of the first Icewind Dale and how I figure out which ones come next. Or if there is a book that will help me?

Thanks

Maggie

[dragon wench]

The titles of Icewind Dale series are:

Icewind Dale I
Heart of Winter (expansion for IWD 1)
Trials of the Lure Master (free downloadable second expansion for IWD 1)
Icewind Dale II

If you can, try to find [url="http://www.amazon.com/Vivendi-Universal-020626721141-Ultimate-Collection/dp/B00009ECGH"]The Ultimate Collection[/url] which contains all of the above (except Trials of the Lure Master which you download).

All IWD games include guides on the discs themselves.

[maggie60]

Dragon-

Thank you very much for the list, I looked to buy, then did not know which came first and I want to start from the beginning. Thanks so much for all your help, it is appreciated very much.

Maggie

[DesR85]

May I ask if Gothic is point and click, meaning I use my mouse to play the game? The game sounds good

As what Gilliat had mentioned, it's not a point and click. The Gothic series plays more similarly to RPGs like Fable, except that the first two Gothics' combat system reminds me of a broken version of Time Commando's fighting mechanic. Frustrating is how I'll put it. The third one is much better, except that it's designed in a way that it'll aggravate you in the long term.

[Curry]

May I ask if Gothic is point and click, meaning I use my mouse to play the game? The game sounds good

It's not a point and click game, it's a 3rd person RPG and you use both the keyboard and the mouse to control the character.

the first two Gothics' combat system reminds me of a broken version of Time Commando's fighting mechanic. Frustrating is how I'll put it.

The combat system is a bit hard to learn but it's great game once you do.

[Aerris]

Try with Abandonia there area lot of intersting oldies(if u are interested in rouge-likes try Incursion(DnD system)