That pesky alien invasion!

Some of us have very tight budgets and that extra few dollars can help in some cases, or one might want to only buy when they're going to play(to reduce backlog a bit/etc).

And those cases weren't games simply not being around any longer, but cases where ip holders wanted to sell their new games and sort of force those who only wanted the old ones to have to buy their new ones to get them....rare, thankfully, and not that bad.....but still imo a slightly sneaky move.

(I agree that those who REALLY want the game(old version) for any reason should buy it asap, though)

Well, if you fear it, buy it now. I don't. And I don't care when a better version is released and they get rid of the older version to channel sales to the new one. Many people won't even care about the original until the new one releases or the old one is no longer available. That's their fault and their loss. They can buy the new one or do without.

Your little speech here reminds me of that whole scrooge speech about prisons and workhouses for some reason....have you no sympathy for your fellow gamer? o.0

Silly jab aside: I don't have to fear such as I have it already.....I mainly worry for those who don't.

Also you're assuming the new version will be objectively better to most or all......for all we know it could be as "meh" as the Gabriel Knight remake, or it could be changed in a way that some dislike.

(I will agree that anyone who doesn't get it will be partially to blame for not getting it before it's possibly locked behind a new version as an extra/etc, though, but that aside I still dislike when ip holders make people buy new versions to get old ones/instead of old ones)

The remaster looks a bit souless to me, there is a charm of sorts to the og wasteland, still will get it though.

At part, it was an antipiracy system, but it also was used to save disc space as the more text you had, the bigger the game is. Back in the 80s every byte counted and it did allow the designers to present more elaborate games, as they could write as much as they wanted in manuals. Those old Gold Bos D&D titles used it a lot to beef up their narratives.

Time for the PISTOL PACKIN' BABY TOPEKAN!

Beef up is right....I have the ultra thick silver collection(or whatever it was called) manuals...the white covered ones that are over an inch thick each.

Thanks for the remark. Yes, computers without hard disks and squeezing each byte of memory and disk space... Never got to the old D&D titles, excepting Dark Sun, which was amazing (those gladiators seeking their freedom). Thinking of trying Azure Bonds, but dunno if these titles would hold up.

I played through Azure bonds some time back. It mostly worked out okay; my biggest issue was the in-game text that wasn't waiting for a button press would flash past too fast to read. It is definitely oriented toward the "dungeon crawl" style of Pencil and Paper play, not role playing.

Actually, this reminds me of a problem that Pool of Radiance and some other early CRPGs, like Wizardry 1-3 and 5-7, had: Healing, even out of battle and in safe spots, is a pain and tedious.

In Pool of Radiance, the only healing spell is extremely weak, there's no auto-cast on rest option, and the rest itself only heals like 1 HP per character at a time, plus you need to re-select the healing spell each time. It turns out that the fastest way (in real-time) to heal your characters is to rest for weeks at a time. Fortunately, later Gold Box added the Fix option (does Curse of the Azure Bonds have that?), not to mention the Heal spell in higher-level games, and the Dark Sun has campfires that fully heal you.

Wizardry also has problems like that, and it costs money and (in some versions) ages your character if you want to heal at the inn, but at least you don't have to manually prepare spells each time (spellcasting is like in Dark Sun or the way Sorcerers work in some D&D games), and there is a Heal equivalent (MADI) that you eventually learn.

Back to the topic, Wasteland actually has an issue with healing, as the only reasonable way to heal characters (at least those who aren't SER or worse) is to wait (which basically means pressing ESC repeatedly), and the only way to speed that up is to use the macro functionality found in some versions (including the DOS version); this game really could have used an option to C)amp and heal up without wasting large amounts of real time.

(Incidentally, I compared the healing issue in Wizardry 6-7 (which has resting heal very little at high levels and doesn't have a Heal/MADI equivalent, which creates issues at high levels) to the purchasing of 99 healing poitions in Final Fantasy 1 (Famicom/NES), which requires pressing A 297 times.)

Incidentally, with Pool of Radiance being stuck at low levels, which I don't like (especially with the healing issue), and me not liking the plot and some design aspects of Curse of the Azure Bonds (particularly how the game introduces dual-classing at the start but punishes you if you do so right away), I think that, if I get around to playing games in this series, I might actually start with Secret of the Silver Blades.

In any case, I prefer games that focus on dungeon crawling or overworld exploration over those that focus on story.

I do find it more interesting than the original to be honest. I couldnt get over the originals graphics as much as i love older games