Alternatives to a game called "Diablo II"?

[gracie123]

Hello Everyone,

I've been wanting to find a offline game that I can buy or download for my PC that is a role-playing game (RPG) that has items, quests, NPCs (non playable characters) and things like that.

I came across Diablo II but I am looking for other games if any out there that are like what I mentioned in the first part of my message.

Can any of you offer some alternatives?

Thanks so much :),

Gracie

[MaB69]

Hi,

For me Diablo is a Hack'n'Slash not really a RPG.
I will strongly consider Oblivion (http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.htm) as a must to have as a RPG

Regards

[Detox]

"Dungeon Seige 2" wasn't bad.

An older but more complicated one that was a LOT of fun for me was "Arcanum; of Steamworks & Magik Obscura."

There is also an expansion for Diablo 2 called "Lord of Destruction" that adds quite a bit to the game including some new character classes (I think 2).

In regards to first-person style RPGs, I would definitely recommend "Gothic" and it's sequel. I haven't tried "Gothic 3" yet.

I would definitely stay AWAY from "Dungeon Lords" though - it seems like it was only 60% finished and the patch didn't do much.

I would bet Oblivion is excellent - haven't played it but I have Morrowind with both expansions and it's great.

[gracie123]

Greetings MaB69 and Detox,

Thank you both so much for your replies! ;D

Detox and MaB69: Can the games be played offline?

I will check out all the games mentioned and if anyone else has any suggestions for a RPG game, please let me know :)

Thanks,

Gracie

[Detox]

Yes - Dungeon Seige 2 has both single and multiplayer capabilities; while at least the first two Gothics are single player only. Arcanum is also single player only if I recall correctly.

[WYBaugh]

You can also check out the Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale I and II, Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind.

Some great old school RPG's can be found at http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com

Bill

[gracie123]

-{ Quote: "Yes - Dungeon Seige 2 has both single and multiplayer capabilities; while at least the first two Gothics are single player only. Arcanum is also single player only if I recall correctly." }-

OK, can I fight monsters on Dungeon Seige 2? Does it have NPCs at like shops, and things like that?

[gracie123]

-{ Quote: "You can also check out the Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale I and II, Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind.

Some great old school RPG's can be found at http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com

Bill" }-

Thanks very much ;D

[Detox]

-{ Quote: "OK, can I fight monsters on Dungeon Seige 2? Does it have NPCs at like shops, and things like that?" }-

That's affirmative.

[gracie123]

Detox, that sounds great! I've been wanting to find a RPG like that for sooo long now... lol

Could you tell me the best choice for a Offline RPG that includes items, NPCs, fighting monsters and such?

Thanks :)

[Close_Hauled]

-{ Quote: "You can also check out the Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale I and II, Neverwinter Nights..." }-
I would recommend these too. I am a big fan of the Dungeon & Dragons rules that these games adhere to. It makes learning how to these games a lot easier.

Of these, I like the Neverwinter Nights series the best. The character movement is really great. During combat, you can actually see your character make realistic moves that match the type of combat. I really love having a character with two swords because of this. Watching him actually block hits with one sword and strike with the other is fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights

I also like Knights of The Old Republic and its sequel Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. These games followed the same D&D rules, but you could choose whether to follow the light or dark side, or be neutral. This decision would affect how NPCs (Non-Player Characters) interacted with your character.

The game play is different too. You can pause in the middle of a fight and choose the next moves that you want your characters to use. You usually control 1 to 3 characters during combat.

You can also build and modify your own weapons and armor, which is way cool. Again, I like two swords on my character. But you can choose just one, or use one or two blasters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_old_republic

Thief: Deadly Shadows is another favorite of mine. This game is way different in that stealth and planning are emphasized more than slash and dash. The music really sets the mood while you are sneaking around trying to steal stuff to complete your missions. I highly recommend playing it in the dark with headphones on.

Your primary weapon is a bow. You use speacial arrows with the bow. On arrow is used to snuff out candles accross a room so that you can make it darker. Another arrow has a choking powder that knocks out your enemy. Regular arrows kill, but you better make the first shot count, or the enemy will just be wounded and call out. They also leave behind a blood stain that another enemy might find and alert other guards. So select the right arrows for a mission, and make sure you have enough of each type for the job. Because you can only carry so many in your quiver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief:_Deadly_Shadows

[Firecat]

I recommend Star Wars KOTOR 1 and 2, Dungeon Siege 2, Baldur's Gate series, and of course, the Temple of Elemental Evil (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/greyhawkthetempleofee/review.html) (click for a link to a review)

[lordpake]

-{ Quote: "I recommend Star Wars KOTOR 1 and 2 ... Baldur's Gate series" }-
I second this one. Arcanum is great game too, as is the Icewind Dale series.

[MaB69]

-{ Quote: "Greetings MaB69 and Detox,

Thank you both so much for your replies! ;D

Detox and MaB69: Can the games be played offline?

I will check out all the games mentioned and if anyone else has any suggestions for a RPG game, please let me know :)

Thanks,

Gracie" }-

Oblivion is only offline

Regards

[Alec]

Gracie,

When you are looking for RPGs, you may want to keep two questions in mind: 1) How "open-ended" vs "story-driven" is this RPG? and 2) What is the setting and context? RPGs are very akin to books in many ways, so you sort of have to have an interest in the context and setting more so than in other games. The games can also widely vary in how "linear" they are in their storyline and in how much freedom they allow you to pursue your own ambitions. It's a tightrope to walk for the game designers, I'm sure, because a good, well-developed, coherent storyline requires some direction and coercion on their part... yet they should always strive to let you create the character you want to create. Here are some RPG classics... led by the current, latest-and-greatest offering: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Awesome. Extremely open-ended gameplay. Huge world. Just does things right. Fantasy setting.


The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Good game. Same as above, but not nearly as good as Oblivion (IMHO). Elder Scrolls series defines and sets the bar for "open-ended" gameplay.


Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Great game. Good story. Middle-of-the-road in open-endedness. Sci-Fi setting (obviously).


Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Ditto above (but not quite as good, IMHO).


Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Classic. Fantasy setting.


Planescape: Torment. Detailed story. Uniquely strange setting of the "Planescape" universe.


Fallout. Another absolute classic. Stylish and witty. Post-nuclear war setting.


Fallout 2. Ditto above.


Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Great game if you ever wanted to be a vampire, even if only a little bit. Highly engaging.


Neverwinter Nights. (Haven't played, but often discussed.)


Icewind Dale. (Haven't played, but often discussed.)

[sosaiso]

One that I have been trying lately, even though it's quite an old game, is Ragnorok online. There are free servers if you look. :T

[Huwge]

If you want a similar game to Diablo check out Sacred. An expansion came out last year also, should find them cheap

[Firecat]

-{ Quote: "If you want a similar game to Diablo check out Sacred. An expansion came out last year also, should find them cheap" }-
Y'know I found that one at the bargain bin, and the price was dirt cheap so I thought it was a bad game.....and now its no longer in the store :(

[WYBaugh]

One game I forgot to mention is Divine Divinity http://www.larian.com/divine.php

This game rocks and is very much like Diablo but with more RPG elements. Not sure where you can find it but you may try Ebay, etc. I know at one time it was packaged with its horrible predecessor Beyond Divinity.

Bill

[gracie123]

I appreciate Everyone's replies so much!!! :) Thank you all. Now, do any of these games involve any sort of "satanic" material? I am trying to find a game that does not include this.

Thanks,

Gracie :)

[Alec]

-{ Quote: "I appreciate Everyone's replies so much!!! :) Thank you all. Now, do any of these games involve any sort of "satanic" material? I am trying to find a game that does not include this.

Thanks,

Gracie :)" }-Yeah, unfortunately many RPG's do include "satanic" material. As I recall, Diablo and Diablo II were pretty bad about that as well. It's not really that the game designers consciously want to promote satanic views or anything, but rather many of the "fantasy" oriented RPG's revolve around the titanic struggles between good and evil; and your character is supposed to be the deciding factor in many cases. So, yeah, it's pretty common that the fantasy RPG's will have a "god of evil" or "evil sorcerer" and his demon underlings that are running amok. In fact, that is pretty much the theme of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion from what I've played of it. I tend to just sort of view this type of game imagery as akin to Greek mythology or something, but I can see how many people would be offended.

If you want to avoid such concepts and imagery, you're probably better off with one of the Sci-Fi themed RPG's. While they also deal with the struggles between good and evil, it's usually in a far less "religious" context. Jedi vs Sith. People vs aliens / mutants. You won't typically see imagery like pentagrams and demons with horns and that sort of thing (of course, there's always exceptions... Doom was Sci-Fi and was LOADED with satanic imagery, although it wasn't an RPG). Also, you probably will want to avoid the Vampire game, since it's pretty dark as well, of course.

[gracie123]

Hi Alec,

Oh ok, well that helps me understand more as to why most RPGs include satanic material. However, I have bought Oblivion for PC today. Is there alot of satanism in it like Diablo and Doom?

Thanks, I'd appreciate a reply from anyone who knows :)

- Gracie

[Paranoid2000]

One point to make about Oblivion is that it can be very demanding with regards to system specification - to be able to see it at its best you will need a very high-end system (see Firingsquad: 3D Performance with Oblivion: High-end Cards (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/oblivion_high-end_performance/)) so if you have an older system you would be better off with its predecessor, Morrowind (plus its Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansion packs).

It may also be less objectionable on "satanic" grounds (you have to deal with vampires, werewolves, kwarma, deadra and cliff racers rather than anything related to Christianity) but this is really going to be a personal judgement only you can make. There are for instance religions in the game whose very existence some fundamentalists may have issues with along with magic. It is very open ended in that you do not have to follow the main quest of the game at all, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of player-made mods for it, which include total conversions like Morrowind4Kids (http://morrowind4kids.com/) which is unlikely to cause any objections!

As Alec has said though, near-future/far-future based RPGs would almost surely avoid such issues. The only fantasy RPG I can think of which does not have some kind of "Big Evil Thing" that has to be defeated would be Ultima IV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_IV) (where your goal is to become an Avatar, eptomising the 8 virtues of honour, honesty, valour, compassion, sacrifice, spirituality, justice and humility) which was released in 1985 and even this had the occasional daemon...

[gracie123]

Hello Paranoid2000,

Yes, I am noticing that it looks like I won't even be able to play the game. I meet the mininum requirments. I will purchase possibly in the future the game you mentioned called Morrowind along with the other 2.

But I do thank you and everyone for your replies... also Paranoid2000, thanks for answering about the satanic material in the game. Appreciate it.

Thanks again everyone,

- Gracie :)

[Trooper]

Hi Gracie,

I am not a fan of RPG type games but more of FPS, (note my avatar). ;D

The best (new) RPG out at the moment it Oblivion. Trust me, you will not regret getting this game.

Looks as if you have got a lot of good answers here tho. Good luck whatever you decide.

[muf]

I've been playing Oblivion for the last two weeks. One word. Awesome! It's fully open-ended. There is a main story arc you can follow, if you want to! or you can just go about raiding dungeon's, exploring, collecting ingredients to hone your alchemy skills. You can perform some of the MANY side quests. The world is huge, with something like 16 million square miles of terrain to exlore. The dungeon's reset themselves every 3 days or so(game days). And as your character gets better and your level increases so does the loot in the dungeon's, and of course the quality of the enemies. Make your own spells, repair your own armour. Hell you can be a slimy little murdering thief if you want! Love it. Best RPG so far.

I run it on a relatively decent spec pc. 3ghz, 1g ram and a ATI Radeon x700 Pro 128mb. I run it at 1024x768 full details and for 80% of the time it runs smooth getting from 25 to 50 FPS. In some area's like around Oblivion gates it can go down to 10 FPS. So you don't need a ninja pc, but you do need a half good one!

muf

[Firecat]

-{ Quote: "Hello Paranoid2000,

Yes, I am noticing that it looks like I won't even be able to play the game. I meet the mininum requirments. I will purchase possibly in the future the game you mentioned called Morrowind along with the other 2.

But I do thank you and everyone for your replies... also Paranoid2000, thanks for answering about the satanic material in the game. Appreciate it.

Thanks again everyone,

- Gracie :)" }-
Oblivion's a great game! You'll enjoy it....if you have the right PC.

@muf: You don't really need a ninja PC, but Oblivion really kicks a GeForce FX 5900 where it hurts most, all over the place (except when you force DX8 shaders I guess)!

[Close_Hauled]

-{ Quote: "I appreciate Everyone's replies so much!!! :) Thank you all. Now, do any of these games involve any sort of "satanic" material? I am trying to find a game that does not include this.

Thanks,

Gracie :)" }-
Gracie,

Here is a very interesting article on this very subject:

Doom 3 Gets Religion
http://www.twitchguru.com/2005/12/03/doom_3_gets_religion/

[gracie123]

Hi, thanks for the article. It was interesting...

I read on a review somewhere that a game called Divine Divinity only had pentagrams but other than that it was OK as far as no other "evil" or satanic things.

Is this true?

[gracie123]

Hi everyone, have another question... is the "Bloodmoon" expansion pack worth purchasing along with Morrowind and Tribunal ? This is regarding "The Elder Scrolls".

Thanks,

Gracie

[Paranoid2000]

-{ Quote: "I read on a review somewhere that a game called Divine Divinity only had pentagrams but other than that it was OK as far as no other "evil" or satanic things." }-Divine Divinity is a very nice medium-length RPG in my view, but the core plot does involve trying to stop the return of the Lord of Chaos who was banished in a previous titanic struggle. In addition, some of the (optional) sidequests are morally questionable (e.g. committing theft or assassination - though I view them more as giving you freedom of choice about how you play your character) and some are adult-orientated (e.g. finding a hidden brothel). One does involve trying to help a (somewhat incompetent) enchantress summon a demon.

It does provide a more "realistic" view of normal life than most other fantasy games (i.e. many of the in-game characters are struggling to survive from day-to-day) and in some cases, you do have difficult choices to make - do you turn in a thief who stole food only because they were starving? Do you offer your own blood to a vampire in order to persuade it to spare a child it has captured? However it is not a game suitable for those wishing to avoid the darker side of life.

With regard to Morrowind, you can get a Game of the Year edition which includes both the Tribunal and Bloodmon expansions. This may be the best choice value-wise.

[WYBaugh]

Hey again Gracie,

As Paranoid2000 wrote, you can pick up Morrowind GOTY which includes the expansions for $19.99 from Target, BestBuy, CompUSA, etc. Excellent value!

I'm also playing Oblivion...amazing game!

Bill

[gracie123]

Paranoid, thank you very much for the information. That helps a lot... :)

Bill, that sounds great :). Do you know where I could get in NEW condition a strategy guide for Morrowind and the 2 expansions?

Thanks,

Gracie

[WYBaugh]

Hi Gracie,

You can order Morrowind GOTY online at GoGamer:

http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer.storefront/SESSIONID/Product/View/001ELDG

and Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000CNUUP/104-0695765-3619101?v=glance&n=468642

Searching at Target, EBGames and Gamestop turned up out of stock so you may need to order online.

The strategy guide can be purchased at BestBuy online:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6187645&type=product&id=1140391903921

Or directly from PrimaGuide

http://www.primaguide.com

Hope this helps!

Bill

[metallicakid15]

i dont know if you would like this but theres a game called fallout thats a modern age rpg(not medival times) but its a pretty old game but still fun

[gracie123]

Hi Bill,

Thanks! That helps a lot. I appreciate the links.

Hi metallicakid15, I will check it out :)

Thanks everyone who's helped me with this issue. This issue is now solved. :)

[Paranoid2000]

For anyone considering Morrowind while waiting for technology to catch up with Oblivion (see the HardOCP: Oblivion Widescreen Benchmarks (http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAzMywxNCwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=) to see what I mean :o), there are hundreds of mods available to enhance almost all aspects of the game. Good places to include:

Morrowind Mythic Mods (http://www.mwmythicmods.com/) - The best place to start with links and descriptions for dozens of mods (Telesphoros' List o'Mods being especially useful). The only downside is that many mods are hosted at FilePlanet which is a pain to download from, requiring you to sign up for a (free) account and wait in line for a download slot.

TheLys (http://www.thelys.org/) - Hosts many popular Morrowind mods (no download queues!) and also has an Oblivion section.

Morrowind Windfall (http://tes.vasya.stepanets.info/) - Home of the FPS Optimizer, one of the best utilities for Morrowind - either for boosting performance with lower-end systems or improving graphics for high-end ones.

Finally, getting back to Divine Divinity, copies of the in-game background music composed by Russian composer Kirill Pokrovsky can be download from his website (http://www.kirillpokrovsky.com/) (see the "Computer Game Music" in the right-hand column). Well worth a listen, whether you have the game or not.