As long as I've played computer games—since 1984 if memory serves, when we got an Apple IIe—I've enjoyed encountering entertaining bugs. Bugs or kinks in a game that don't prevent you playing but do afford you an interesting way to use the mechanics of the bug to your advantage.
The first game I really embraced this in was Ultima III. A basic graphic D&D-like game of a character and friends Vs monsters but with hidden depths and extreme playability. We had drag out fights at home before mum and dad got back from work—we were coming home to an empty house from early high school onward—over who got to play the computer.
One of the bugs in Ultima III involved the strategic movement map. You moved your character icon on this movement map which had basic geographical features like forest, mountains, rivers, settlements and so forth. And as you travelled along this map wandering monsters would spawn and they'd attempt to intersect your path. Given the arrow key and floppy disc nature of the game's limitations then it was often a foregone conclusion; they would get you. The map would then change to a tactical map and you'd get to move your characters, or attack if you had a spell or ranged weapon, the computer would move the enemy and so on. When the last monster died you would be returned to the strategic movement map and a small treasure chest graphic to represent the loot in the square where the monsters died.
So what was the bug? Monsters couldn't inhabit a square on the movement map if there was a treasure chest there. But your icon could since you had to hop over it to collect it. Since the nature of the monster determined the quality and quantity of the loot gained—easily killed monsters gave fuck all loot—it was no biggie to leave the chest on the map unclaimed. You could readily engineer wandering monster encounters so you killed the monsters on a particular square on the map. Thus it was we built a roadway of treasure chests, three chests wide, allowing journeys between settlement locations, your icon travelling down the middle column, with wandering monsters impotently shaking their arms up and down hard up against the outer line of chests.
In Ultima IV, a massive game that spanned about five floppy discs (1), if you travelled along on the strategic map and then swapped out the game disc for the dungeon disc—for when your party entered a cavern or cave mouth icon that lead to a dungeon complex with 3D wire graphic corridors—then after a while the strategic map would warp and on the map would appear dungeon icon tactical screen graphics like door symbols, chunks of wall ... and treasure chests. Yes, the ubiquitous chest. For though the monster blocking chest bug was absent in Ultima IV, a treasure chest from a misapplied dungeon disc did not vanish upon looting. If you were willing to deal with the inevitable trap going off every 20 or so loot actions you could get yourself near unlimited coin if you so wished.
Now it's 30 years on and I'm playing a game that itself is over 13-years-old; Baldur's Gate. I'm playing an edition that came via four DVD discs for the entire run of the game series, the two core versions and the two add on expansions. I've downloaded the patches that's needed to play the game through without issue, but some of the odd entertaining bugs remain.
One of the bugs is the encounter with Gorpel Hind. You meet Gorpel in the city of Baldur's Gate, in the NW section of the city map, at the inn of the Helm and Cloak. Gorpel and three members of his adventuring party greet you and ask about your adventures. If you follow the proffered chat narrative you swap slabs of manly appreciation text, each exulting the other's accomplishments. It's following your rejoinder and the narrative's conclusion that in through the door of the inn steps another adventuring party. They rudely demand you make way for them but if you refuse then it kicks off with inter-party violence. Only Gorpel and his boys have got your back and join you in the ensuing smack-down. If you win the battle then the five or so deceased pony up with some decent loot; Bracers AC 7, +1 longsword, +2 battle axe to name just three.
By now, given you're around sixth level in ability given you made the city part of the map, the party who haughtily demand you step off are not a ridiculous challenge. They have a decent set of offensive weapons and spells but if you buff up and use a couple of choice spells like entangle or charm you should be right (2).
But since Gorpel and his lads join in, and you can't control their actions, then Gorpel and his pals can get can get in harm's way. There's a small chance, small, that one or more of them will die.
So where's the bug? The bug is that you can keep clicking Gorpel to start the manly swapping of tales narrative and each click spawns the evil party. Clicking and completing the narrative cycle five times means five copies of that party having appeared.
Battling five copies at once is certainly more of a challenge, the screen now home to 30 bad guys. However if you set it up right you can catch most them with entangling spells and fireball the bulk to cinders. At the expense, that is, of Gorpel Hind and chums. Because I lost an entire Sunday of solid gos at personal computer time—theBoy is old enough now he can entertain himself happily for hours at a stretch—trying to kill x5 helping of bad guys without Gorpel and Co. snarking it. Without, that is, the barman also dying.
Why does the barman die? Because for some inexplicable reason, about most of the time you run the encounter, one of Gorpel's party tries to attack the barman as the violence kicks off. I don't know if that's a separate bug or a sneaky burr thrown in by the programmers but fuck me it's irritating. While Gorpel's party don't usually kill the barman the barman's NPC status colour ring— a circle around the feet of the character that represents their relationship to you: green for ally you control, blue for a NPC you can interact with, red if an enemy—blazes scarlet, with you considered his enemy. And if one of your characters kills him then you cop a staggering -10 in reputation (typically going from the maximum score of 20 back to your initial value of 10) in exchange for 15 exp. That and the Helm and Cloak becomes forever denied to you to rest in since the only one who can give you a room just died at your hands.
So if I manage to win the x5 copies fight with Gorpel still alive—I don't give a fuck about his posse—then every single time I've succeeded there then the barman was either dead—likely at the hands of Gorpel's men and your reputation thus unsullied—or the barman's status circle was the angry red. Either way, angry or dead, then no room for me (3).
I've tried so many scenarios. The webbing and entangle and fireball. The blocking Gorpel's path with entangle spells and skeletons or batches of summoned monsters. The lot. And if I win, and now I'm winning the x5 copies battle almost every time without loss of characters, and Gorpel lives ... then the barman doesn't ... or doesn't want a bar of you.
I feel like WOPR in WarGames, the AI computer that seizes control of the US arsenal, running multiple nuclear war scenarios and realizing that the only winning move is not to play.
But ... but if I don't keep trying then all that time will be for nought, right?
And if I don't try then who else will think of Gorpel and the barman from the Helm and Cloak?
Exactly.
UPDATE: It's a week later. Just realised I'd spelled Gorpel with an a instead of an e. I have nipped in to fix it! Oh, and it's six enemies in the party, not five. So I amended that as well.
(1) As in floppy floppies; the five and a quarter inch bendable efforts!.
(2) You can of course buff up before the fight but that's effectively cheating.
(3) And now in danger of accidental death at your hands because if unattended your character will automatically attack an enemy in range.
The first game I really embraced this in was Ultima III. A basic graphic D&D-like game of a character and friends Vs monsters but with hidden depths and extreme playability. We had drag out fights at home before mum and dad got back from work—we were coming home to an empty house from early high school onward—over who got to play the computer.
One of the bugs in Ultima III involved the strategic movement map. You moved your character icon on this movement map which had basic geographical features like forest, mountains, rivers, settlements and so forth. And as you travelled along this map wandering monsters would spawn and they'd attempt to intersect your path. Given the arrow key and floppy disc nature of the game's limitations then it was often a foregone conclusion; they would get you. The map would then change to a tactical map and you'd get to move your characters, or attack if you had a spell or ranged weapon, the computer would move the enemy and so on. When the last monster died you would be returned to the strategic movement map and a small treasure chest graphic to represent the loot in the square where the monsters died.
So what was the bug? Monsters couldn't inhabit a square on the movement map if there was a treasure chest there. But your icon could since you had to hop over it to collect it. Since the nature of the monster determined the quality and quantity of the loot gained—easily killed monsters gave fuck all loot—it was no biggie to leave the chest on the map unclaimed. You could readily engineer wandering monster encounters so you killed the monsters on a particular square on the map. Thus it was we built a roadway of treasure chests, three chests wide, allowing journeys between settlement locations, your icon travelling down the middle column, with wandering monsters impotently shaking their arms up and down hard up against the outer line of chests.
In Ultima IV, a massive game that spanned about five floppy discs (1), if you travelled along on the strategic map and then swapped out the game disc for the dungeon disc—for when your party entered a cavern or cave mouth icon that lead to a dungeon complex with 3D wire graphic corridors—then after a while the strategic map would warp and on the map would appear dungeon icon tactical screen graphics like door symbols, chunks of wall ... and treasure chests. Yes, the ubiquitous chest. For though the monster blocking chest bug was absent in Ultima IV, a treasure chest from a misapplied dungeon disc did not vanish upon looting. If you were willing to deal with the inevitable trap going off every 20 or so loot actions you could get yourself near unlimited coin if you so wished.
Now it's 30 years on and I'm playing a game that itself is over 13-years-old; Baldur's Gate. I'm playing an edition that came via four DVD discs for the entire run of the game series, the two core versions and the two add on expansions. I've downloaded the patches that's needed to play the game through without issue, but some of the odd entertaining bugs remain.
One of the bugs is the encounter with Gorpel Hind. You meet Gorpel in the city of Baldur's Gate, in the NW section of the city map, at the inn of the Helm and Cloak. Gorpel and three members of his adventuring party greet you and ask about your adventures. If you follow the proffered chat narrative you swap slabs of manly appreciation text, each exulting the other's accomplishments. It's following your rejoinder and the narrative's conclusion that in through the door of the inn steps another adventuring party. They rudely demand you make way for them but if you refuse then it kicks off with inter-party violence. Only Gorpel and his boys have got your back and join you in the ensuing smack-down. If you win the battle then the five or so deceased pony up with some decent loot; Bracers AC 7, +1 longsword, +2 battle axe to name just three.
By now, given you're around sixth level in ability given you made the city part of the map, the party who haughtily demand you step off are not a ridiculous challenge. They have a decent set of offensive weapons and spells but if you buff up and use a couple of choice spells like entangle or charm you should be right (2).
But since Gorpel and his lads join in, and you can't control their actions, then Gorpel and his pals can get can get in harm's way. There's a small chance, small, that one or more of them will die.
So where's the bug? The bug is that you can keep clicking Gorpel to start the manly swapping of tales narrative and each click spawns the evil party. Clicking and completing the narrative cycle five times means five copies of that party having appeared.
Battling five copies at once is certainly more of a challenge, the screen now home to 30 bad guys. However if you set it up right you can catch most them with entangling spells and fireball the bulk to cinders. At the expense, that is, of Gorpel Hind and chums. Because I lost an entire Sunday of solid gos at personal computer time—theBoy is old enough now he can entertain himself happily for hours at a stretch—trying to kill x5 helping of bad guys without Gorpel and Co. snarking it. Without, that is, the barman also dying.
Why does the barman die? Because for some inexplicable reason, about most of the time you run the encounter, one of Gorpel's party tries to attack the barman as the violence kicks off. I don't know if that's a separate bug or a sneaky burr thrown in by the programmers but fuck me it's irritating. While Gorpel's party don't usually kill the barman the barman's NPC status colour ring— a circle around the feet of the character that represents their relationship to you: green for ally you control, blue for a NPC you can interact with, red if an enemy—blazes scarlet, with you considered his enemy. And if one of your characters kills him then you cop a staggering -10 in reputation (typically going from the maximum score of 20 back to your initial value of 10) in exchange for 15 exp. That and the Helm and Cloak becomes forever denied to you to rest in since the only one who can give you a room just died at your hands.
So if I manage to win the x5 copies fight with Gorpel still alive—I don't give a fuck about his posse—then every single time I've succeeded there then the barman was either dead—likely at the hands of Gorpel's men and your reputation thus unsullied—or the barman's status circle was the angry red. Either way, angry or dead, then no room for me (3).
I've tried so many scenarios. The webbing and entangle and fireball. The blocking Gorpel's path with entangle spells and skeletons or batches of summoned monsters. The lot. And if I win, and now I'm winning the x5 copies battle almost every time without loss of characters, and Gorpel lives ... then the barman doesn't ... or doesn't want a bar of you.
I feel like WOPR in WarGames, the AI computer that seizes control of the US arsenal, running multiple nuclear war scenarios and realizing that the only winning move is not to play.
But ... but if I don't keep trying then all that time will be for nought, right?
And if I don't try then who else will think of Gorpel and the barman from the Helm and Cloak?
Exactly.
UPDATE: It's a week later. Just realised I'd spelled Gorpel with an a instead of an e. I have nipped in to fix it! Oh, and it's six enemies in the party, not five. So I amended that as well.
(1) As in floppy floppies; the five and a quarter inch bendable efforts!.
(2) You can of course buff up before the fight but that's effectively cheating.
(3) And now in danger of accidental death at your hands because if unattended your character will automatically attack an enemy in range.
Hang on, it's cheating to buff up before the fight, but not to spawn 25 dudes to loot their body that many times??
ReplyDeleteI'll let Austin speak for me...
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