Replying to Dungeon Crawlers - First Person Style!

Oh, I liked Daggerfall a LOT, although it had real-time fights. I REALLY enjoyed the "mercenary" aspect, being able to join this guild or that and do nothing else but rob graves and do missions for the guild. What killed it for me were the bugs. I grew sick of "losing" quests due to a certain NPC not spawning or that a certain monster I was to kill didn't appear in a three-cubic-mile dungeon, yikes...

Apart from the "good old ones" like Dragon Wars or Might and Magic III, IV+V and (to a much lesser extent) VI the RPG I liked best was Wizardry VIII. It had exactly the right balance of combat (YAY for deep, tactical turn-based mayhem!), story, puzzles & exploration. And it had VERY customizable characters, including portraits and colorful, sometimes VERY humorous voices. Should be in bargain bins near you. If you can stand RPGs even to a small extent, get it ASAP. It converted even a die-hard FPS-loving friend of mine to RPGs, since you could simply order "turn-less" fighting, very hectic, very actiony, but just not my cup of tea...

BlackFurredBeast, on May 24 2005, 03:58 PM, said:

Personally, I tend to prefer action because of it's intensity, and because it usually doesn't bore (unless your name is Diablo 1&2 or Dungeon Siege...). But I have to admit that Baldur's gate had it all right with his hybrid turn based/real time. Wisdom is in balance, as they always say.

And I think I've already said it but I will say it again : to hell with Elder's Scroll, none of them were good.

To me, Dungeon Lords looks like a quick attempt at Jedi Knight III, fighting system-wise...
Man, I HATE real.time fighting engines :-) If I want real-time fighting, I'd play a FPS :-)

I don't like it, but Dungeon Master Java seems like a good dungeon crawler. It's an updated and improved version of FTL's classic Dungeon Master, and it's freeware to boot - last time I checked...

There's also this new game Dungeon lords, that is supposed to be a dungeon crawler...

Hmm, does anyone know any good freeware dungeon crawlers more along the lines of Wizardry and Might and Magic?

Ignatius, I didn't finish it (yet), but I greatly enjoy Arx. It's very much like the early classic Ultima Underworld, with the nice little details, although I am at odds with the gesture spellcasting system, therefore I just load up the most useful spells in the 1-3 slots and play more melee-style :-)

Right now though I'm playing DoomRL like mad - there's demons to kill!!! *G*

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BlackFurredBeast what did you think about Arx Fatalis? Did you manage to get to -and kill- Akbaa the allmighty?  

I honestly enjoyed that particular game. It had an innovative spell-casting system and realtime fights that made my skin crawl. I hated the constant zone-hopping though :/

Perhaps the best 3-d dungeon crawler EVER?  

Heya,

I own Dungeon Siege, but I'm deeply disappointed with it. I expected a Diablo-esque hack'n'slasher, but instead got a Real-Time tactics game with a mild RPG coating. Nah...

Regarding *band: I play Vanilla (=no mods) Angband pretty often, and some other roguelikes too :-)

But Mordor I'll check out, just for kicks anyways...

Thanks for the info though...

Dungeon Siege might almost qualify, but it's maybe a bit actiony for you. Mordor distinctly lacks graphics but is nice and addictive, as is Zangband TK (though it's top-down)

Are there any _good_ and _new_ dungeon crawlers in first person view out there? I have played Morrowind (meh), Arx Fatalis (yeah!) and both Dungeon Craft and Dungeon Master Java, but except for Arx, they didn't really appeal to me. I've always come back to Wizardry 6/7/8, the first Lands Of Lore or the EOB series - THAT's the way dungeon crawling should be. Oh, I _have_ played Anvil of Dawn recently (I did happen to find it in my attic when moving from Frankfurt to Cologne), but that too didn't hold my interest for too long - it's nice-looking, but I really hate pressure plate related puzzles :-)