New Release: Realms of Antiquity The Shattered Crown

[jwild]

Here lies Chester, a magnificent quester...

[+adamantyr]

6 minutes ago, jwild said:

Here lies Chester, a magnificent quester...

Hopefully Chet is honored and not like "So I'm DEAD here? And Irene too?!"

[+adamantyr]

Also...

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1539750/Realms_of_Antiquity_The_Shattered_Crown/

 

[Brent Ellison]

Alright two system questions for ya:

* Does increased affinity in a school of magic reduce costs for those spells?

* Does the ranged skill affect wands?

BTW, whenever the CRPG Addict gets around to playing this game he's going to love it. It really hits all the notes for an amazing RPG, particularly in tactics & content variety. The world also feels like much more than a generic fantasy setting with the collapsed Empire, the forts everywhere to contain various out-of-control evils, etc.

[+adamantyr]

3 minutes ago, Brent Ellison said:

Alright two system questions for ya:

* Does increased affinity in a school of magic reduce costs for those spells?

* Does the ranged skill affect wands?

BTW, whenever the CRPG Addict gets around to playing this game he's going to love it. It really hits all the notes for an amazing RPG, particularly in tactics & content variety. The world also feels like much more than a generic fantasy setting with the collapsed Empire, the forts everywhere to contain various out-of-control evils, etc.

Affinity adds a bonus to power's base value and double that for range value. It does not affect spell cost in fatigue. I had considered that in early design, but found it could create situations where spells became too trivially easy to cast. Instead I focused on just making the spells more noticeably potent when you had affinity.

 

Yes, wands use ranged skill to determine hit chance.

 

Thank you! I really did use his GIMLET system while doing a lot of the design, to address shortcomings that were all too frequent in old-school CRPG's.

 

I suspect, though, he rated games like Ultima IV and V a long time ago, and he will not be as generous with his scores. He's admitted that Ultima III's score is a little high.

 

 

[Brent Ellison]

Yeah I thought the GIMLET had to have been involved - it really hits all the notes!

 

OK, I guess that means that affinity basically doesn't affect binary spells then (Light, Stealth, etc)? Just making some choices about how to spend my skill points...

[Brent Ellison]

Hmmm... am I right that the sorcery skill also doesn't decrease fatigue costs?

[+adamantyr]

4 minutes ago, Brent Ellison said:

Yeah I thought the GIMLET had to have been involved - it really hits all the notes!

 

OK, I guess that means that affinity basically doesn't affect binary spells then (Light, Stealth, etc)? Just making some choices about how to spend my skill points...

It does, it will increase their duration potential.

[+adamantyr]

1 minute ago, Brent Ellison said:

Hmmm... am I right that the sorcery skill also doesn't decrease fatigue costs?

Correct. Fatigue costs are fixed.

 

Generally speaking, the more you have things impacted by character choice, the more likely you will have strange imbalances in places later. I decided that having every class gain some stamina per level was a better mechanic for increasing your ability to cast spells over reducing cost. Having both would just lead to high level characters being TOO powerful.

[Brent Ellison]

Ah yeah, I also didn't realize that leveling up gives you stamina. Between that and the duration increases that covers what I was hoping it'd do anyway! (which is of course less fatigue spent on sweet sweet Stealth)

[mr_gw454]

Hi Adam,

 

Love the game and appreciate you providing regular updates to keep everything running well.  

 

I normally play this on my real TI hardware, but would like run this under MAME and was wondering if you might be able to provide an RPK file for the cart image?  I need MAME is that is the only emulator that will work on my Raspberry Pi and has the features to support ROA (like AMS support).  

 

I thought someone (mizapf?) already posted one here on AA, but can't seem to find it.

 

Thanks!

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by mr_gw454

[+mizapf]

I never posted a RPK for it because it is a commercial product. If you have one I could help you to create one, but certainly for personal use.

[+adamantyr]

34 minutes ago, mizapf said:

I never posted a RPK for it because it is a commercial product. If you have one I could help you to create one, but certainly for personal use.

Thanks, Michael! If you ever want to write up full instructions on how to set the game up I'll be happy to add them to my website.

[mr_gw454]

6 minutes ago, adamantyr said:

Thanks, Michael! If you ever want to write up full instructions on how to set the game up I'll be happy to add them to my website.

I meant an RPK as part of the ZIP updates you include in your emails to us registered folks. 

 

Thanks!!

[Asmusr]

1 hour ago, mr_gw454 said:

I meant an RPK as part of the ZIP updates you include in your emails to us registered folks. 

 

Thanks!!

It's a disk game only, AFAIK. RPK is a cartridge format.

[+adamantyr]

13 minutes ago, Asmusr said:

It's a disk game only, AFAIK. RPK is a cartridge format.

Yes, disks are always required. The cartridge is mainly to speed up the game load (cart is faster than disk), and it also offers a means by which you COULD run the game on a 180K drive system, albeit with a lot of swapping.

[mr_gw454]

51 minutes ago, adamantyr said:

Yes, disks are always required. The cartridge is mainly to speed up the game load (cart is faster than disk), and it also offers a means by which you COULD run the game on a 180K drive system, albeit with a lot of swapping.

I only thought the cart replaced the 1st disk (you still needed the 2 other WORLD disks).  I guess you still need all 3 even if you boot from a cart?

 

 

[+adamantyr]

9 minutes ago, mr_gw454 said:

I only thought the cart replaced the 1st disk (you still needed the 2 other WORLD disks).  I guess you still need all 3 even if you boot from a cart?

 

 

Yep, you have to have all three. The game disk contains your saved game data, as well as the monster data, in addition to the game binary and loaders.

[mr_gw454]

27 minutes ago, adamantyr said:

Yep, you have to have all three. The game disk contains your saved game data, as well as the monster data, in addition to the game binary and loaders.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[Brent Ellison]

Another system question: Does the Critical skill affect ranged weapons? That's the only skill not mentioned in the manual...

[+adamantyr]

Just now, Brent Ellison said:

Another system question: Does the Critical skill affect ranged weapons? That's the only skill not mentioned in the manual...

Yes, critical applies to melee and ranged attacks. Page 7 of the manual states: "Your character's chance to land a critical attack in melee or ranged combat."

[Brent Ellison]

Oh ok, I expected it under the Skills section like in the ztats screen. Crit training for my Ranger then!

[Brent Ellison]

Spoiler

Wow, deep cut with the daemon in the violet tower. Thought I was the only person that ever read that series, even though it was a million entries long...

 

[Brent Ellison]

Spoiler

So I got the seven shards and I'm in the Pristine Tower. The sorcerer there tells me I need seven shards to remake something, and offers me guidance to find them... which is strange because it seemed like I needed all the shards to get to the tower. However, I can't interact with the device that says it has seven glowing slots. Did something go wrong or am I missing something obvious?

 

 

 

[+adamantyr]

Spoiler

That's odd, that should be working... You may want to shut down and reload the game from scratch and see if it persists. If it does, send me your game folder zipped up here in a private message and I'll troubleshoot it.

 

You actually only need the seven Words of Power to enter the tower, not necessarily the shards themselves.