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Post by xerxes on Dec 7, 2011 23:58:39 GMT -5
I first went to Highpool which is to the north-west of the starting point. Go in to the first building you can and find a memo. Talk to the kid in the south west corner of the town about the topics on the memo, giving you a quest. Yeah, I did that. But wasted most of my time tonight screwing around in that cave. There's some nasty folks in there. I also tried grinding for about 40 minutes or so, which earned me zero promotions. Either quest completion is where the precious EXP is at, or you need to rely on weapons and gear to slog your way through this thing. Think Alan Pavlish answers hate mail? |
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Dec 8, 2011 3:30:22 GMT -5
Thanks feynman and Sketcz, we need all the help we can get. I still haven't gotten anywhere significant. Has anyone found an early quest they think is a good start? I did nothing, that was all Feynman with his fancy knowledge! Have you done the "kill the rabid dog in the cave" mission from the starting town? After that, there's a town to the West, a farming community, that need you to kill some strange cyber-bunny farmer guy. You need to spend a while wandering their southern field until you bump into him. Be prepared to kill a whole bunch of monster bunnies though. From what I recall, they're supposed to give you food as payment, but I think i ended up with nothing at all. Can't recall, it's been a while, but I thought: hmm, that was a waste of time. |
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Post by Snarboo on Dec 8, 2011 16:43:18 GMT -5
Alright, so I asked the boy in the southwest corner of Highpool about the cave twice, at which point he told me it was between two trees next to the creek. I go there and look only to find nothing. Is there something I'm missing here?
Also the game froze twice at the Ranger Center when I was trying to create a new party. I can tell this is going to be a long game.
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Post by Feynman on Dec 8, 2011 17:10:31 GMT -5
Stand directly between the two trees, then (U)se a character's Perception skill. It will ask you which direction to use the skill in. Press the spacebar to use the skill on the tile you are standing on, and a message will appear saying you discovered the cave. After that, you'll have to (U)se a rope in the same way to enter the cave. When in the cave, there are many piles of rubble that seem to block your way, (U)se a character's Climb skill on the rubble to move across them.
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Post by Snarboo on Dec 8, 2011 17:23:21 GMT -5
Stand directly between the two trees, then (U)se a character's Perception skill. It will ask you which direction to use the skill in. Press the spacebar to use the skill on the tile you are standing on, and a message will appear saying you discovered the cave. Ah, so that's why my perception skill said it found nothing! I had no idea you could use it on the tile you were standing on. Thanks man. |
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Post by annoyedgrunt on Dec 8, 2011 18:30:07 GMT -5
I also tried grinding for about 40 minutes or so, which earned me zero promotions. Either quest completion is where the precious EXP is at, or you need to rely on weapons and gear to slog your way through this thing. I've had two promotions so far and some how one of them went to the useless party member you pick up in the first town. Not sure how that happened but hopefully that means my other guys will get there soon. My game keeps freezing up in the field of crops. It happens at different times so there's no one incident triggering it. Is there anything that can be done to make this more stable? |
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Post by Snarboo on Dec 8, 2011 20:24:47 GMT -5
This game has the most inconsistent tone. The first quest I encounter has me go into a cave to kill a rabid dog that has already killed at least one child. I then have to fight its grief stricken, teenage owner after exiting the cave.
A few moments later, I slip on some rocks in a pond and fight mutant children that attack me with slingshots.
Or how the farming community further out has a section where you literally slip on banana peals and rotten fruit, which causes your character to take damage.
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Post by xerxes on Dec 8, 2011 21:42:48 GMT -5
Every pre-Baldur's Gate CRPG I've played has tone issues. I blame Monty Python's widespread popularity among old school 1970s computer nerds.
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Post by susanismyalias on Dec 8, 2011 21:46:48 GMT -5
This game has the most inconsistent tone. The first quest I encounter has me go into a cave to kill a rabid dog that has already killed at least one child. I then have to fight its grief stricken, teenage owner after exiting the cave. Holy shit I love it. |
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Dec 9, 2011 3:24:36 GMT -5
Ah, so that's why my perception skill said it found nothing! I had no idea you could use it on the tile you were standing on. Thanks man. I know, right? I kept using perception on the adjacent block, which is where I thought the cave entrance would be - where it logically should be, but the game was having none of it. Took me a while to work this out. I had this same problem a lot later on - you have items and skills you can arbitrarily use on any block, which requires navigating a rather cumbersome menu, and it got to the point where I was trying everything on everything because... You just never know... EDIT: Also, how is it you guys are getting crashes? I played the DOS release, on DOSbox via the D-Fend front-end. Never had a single crash over many hours of play. Running on Win XP. |
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Post by Snarboo on Dec 9, 2011 8:49:55 GMT -5
Also, how is it you guys are getting crashes? I played the DOS release, on DOSbox via the D-Fend front-end. Never had a single crash over many hours of play. Running on Win XP. I should note that it's not DOSBox that is crashing, but rather the game just freezes up and refuses to do anything, forcing me to close out the DOSBox window manually. As to why it's freezing so much, I can't say. It could be the fact that I'm running the game at very low cycles, around 500 or so, or because I set the virtual hard drive to 10 megs. Maybe trying to simulate the original experience as closely as possible isn't such a good idea.  |
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Post by Feynman on Dec 9, 2011 12:14:01 GMT -5
Running the game in DOSbox at default settings (3000 cycles), it never crashes, ever.
Anyway, I started a new party and I'm taking a bunch of screenshots so that I can write a small guide on how to build a decent party and solve the first few quests. I'll post it in this thread later today.
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Post by xerxes on Dec 11, 2011 21:41:01 GMT -5
Is there any use for the dreadnoks hanging out in Quartz? Cuz I just killed a bunch of em. Password was NOT "swordfish." Also kicked Ugly John's ass. Hired some chick.
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Post by xerxes on Dec 12, 2011 21:50:26 GMT -5
My thanks to Kurt and the staff for giving the Club a place of honor on the main page.
Also, Snarboo and I will need another participant in this podcast as I think Zogbog is having computer issues. Any first-time players wanna try?
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Post by Snarboo on Dec 13, 2011 9:14:12 GMT -5
I just made it to Quartz yesterday and I have to say this game is really starting to frustrate me. Not so much the combat or basic mechanics, I've got those down, but rather the text parser used for the conversations. The game generally gives you very few hints on what you're supposed to say when talking to people. If you don't know what to ask, you're screwed. In fact, that seems to be a running theme in this game. Don't pick the right character skills at the start of the game? You're screwed. Go somewhere you're not supposed to? You're screwed. Get yourself into an unwinnable situation that you can't get out of because there's only one save file? You're screwed. At this rate, it's pretty much a given that I'm going to need to restart this thing. I'm definitely making backups of the save file next time so I don't get myself into a bind. The flavor text the game asks you to look up is also completely pointless, and could have easily been kept in game. I have no idea what purpose it serves, although it does seem like the game is trying to give me hints on what I'm supposed to do. Outside of those issues, I'm surprised by how forgiving the game is if you play by its rules. Combat isn't outright deadly if you lose all of your hit points, and being able to heal outside of battle just by walking is a real life saver. I just wish I knew what to do and where to go. Then again, I imagine the entire point of the game is to die and retry. There's no way to know exactly what to do unless you've played the game numerous times. Edit:Just noticed the blurb on the front page. Thanks for highlighting this, Kurt!  Edit 2:I've put this off long enough, but here's a simple guide for playing the DOS version of Wasteland using DOSBox on a Windows PC: - First, install DOSBox. I recommend installing it in the same folder where you keep your games.
- Download Wasteland from Abandonia, then extract the zip file somewhere. I recommend creating a folder for DOS or old games, then putting Wasteland into a folder that has no more than 8 characters, say "Wsteland".
- The DOSBox wiki has a useful guide for setting up DOSBox for the first time and mounting a directory. If you cannot view the wiki, you'll note that when DOSBox opens that you are greeted by a DOS prompt. To mount a drive, type "MOUNT C *folder with your old games here*", minus quotations. You can also mount the folder Wasteland is in directly, but I don't recommend this.
- To navigate to your new virtual drive, type "CD C:\*Wasteland folder here*". If you're having trouble finding it, type "CD C:\" to reach your virtual C Drive, then use the "dir" command to view the entire directory.
- Once you've navigated to the folder where Wasteland is, type wl.exe to start the game.
- That's it! The default settings should be more than enough to run Wasteland. Wasteland uses PC speaker sounds and EGA, sparing you the need to set up audio and video settings like other DOS games.
- Further tips: If you prefer to run in fullscreen, hit ALT+ENTER. DOSBox allows you to use advanced scalers to customize how it looks. I recommend "normal2x" and "normal3x" if you're running in a window. I don't recommend lowering the cycles, but if you want the authentic experience, hit CTRL+F11 to lower the cycles. 500 seems to be the sweet spot, but keep in mind that this makes the game unstable.
Unfortunately I do not have a Mac, but I assume the process is fairly similar. |
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