anyone have a stock Apple ][ E *Ateam Character Disk?

[toper]

Does anyone have a character disk to the apple2e version that has the stock ateam on it?

I've downloaded zips from a few places and all the char disks are blank, or have a ton of characters (mostly dead ones), but no default clean character disk.

[toper]

Well... I'm pretty much accepting the fact that there is no original character disk available online for the Apple II e version of the game... so I'm going to try to make one.

I found a character disk that had some fairly developed characters, pooled all their Gold, and bought out Everything in Garths... remembering to keep one fire horn that is safely in the hands of a character that will eventually be deleted once the horn gets placed in the ATEAM bard when he reaches lvl 2.

The problem I am having... what was SIR GRADY's class in the Apple ii e version??

Seems that all the different versions had different ATEAMs.

DOS Version ATEAM



Apple 2GS ATEAM



Apple IIe Game box (Verified via barcode to be an ACTUAL image of the back of the apple IIe box... The Classes are different from the DOS version, and the names/classes are different from the GS version:


Pretty sure that the image above is the ATEAM, but with a few levels gained by the Dev team... as every version of the game I find, the ATEAM is level 2.

In the DOS version Sir Grady is a Rogue, in the GS version, he doesn't even exist... and in the Box image, he's in the game, but as a high level mage... well above level 2.

I'm guessing Sir Grady was a Conjurer in the Apple 2e version originally, simply because when starting a game with 3 magic users, in the beginning, 2 conjurers and one Magician, makes the most sense. Having Merlin and Sir Grady be CO's just makes sense to me.

I wish he was one of those characters that didn't change much like Brian the Fist that doesn't change classes while porting to new machines. Markus is always a Rogue, but likes to bounce around in the Party Order. Just seems silly that they kept tweaking ATEAM, but it is what it is, I guess.

so... Does anyone know for *SURE* if Sir Grady was a magician or a conjurer? or to better help... does anyone know what the starting stats are for any/all of these characters? Because next comes the fun of rolling the ateam characters, so that they have perfect matching stats for every stat.... minus one point in one skill, that will hopefully get the level bonus when they visit the review board (did I mention I am trying to make this with out a character editor or disk editor... all in game... fun. SO its going to be a matter of:

Get the experience for the characters to level 2 (easy enough)
Save the game
back up the disk
Load the game
Head to Review Board
Advance
Check to see if the right stat got a bump... if no, reload disk from backup repeat promotion

If so... save/backup move onto next character.

For the stats I don't have, or can't find, I'll just borrow what I can from the DOS or GS game and hope its 'close enough'... but I would *REALLY* like to have it be an exact re-creation of the original character disk.

Hope the veteran Bard Games here can answer a few of my questions

[caars]

I'm actually a veteran of the original Apple IIE Bard's Tale I. To be honest, I don't know if I've still got a pristine version of the character disk, but I *might* - I do, however, have a very clear memory of the ATEAM's makeup in Apple IIE BT1, since they were the party I originally completed the game with.

In a nutshell, there was no Sir Grady in the ATEAM. In fact, the ATEAM matched what you saw listed for the IIGS version:

A Paladin named Brian the Fist
A Warrior named Samson
A Bard named El Cid
A Rogue named Markus
A Conjurer named Merlin
A Magician named Omar

They were all level 2, came fully equipped (well, started with Chain Mail, you had to upgrade to Scale and Plate yourself), and El Cid had a Fire Horn (which I blew on a group of 8 Mad Dogs, rather wasting it because I didn't realize at the time it was a one-shot thing). I don't ever remember there being a Fire Horn in Garth's, and, for that matter, I don't think I ever had another one drop for me.

I'm actually sure of this because I even remember noticing all those years ago that there was a Sir Grady in the box art, but he wasn't actually in the ATEAM (In fact, I actually always suspected the Apple IIE box art was actually from the C64 version, but I never really knew for sure).

[Darendor]

and El Cid had a Fire Horn (which I blew on a group of 8 Mad Dogs, rather wasting it because I didn't realize at the time it was a one-shot thing)

Nit-picking here, I know, but it isn't a one-shot item. Rather, items in BTI have a 1 in 64 chance of "breaking" on use (credit: ZeroZero). You just got unlucky that one time and rolled the 1 on a 64 sided die. Or something.

[toper]

I'm actually a veteran of the original Apple IIE Bard's Tale I. To be honest, I don't know if I've still got a pristine version of the character disk, but I *might* - I do, however, have a very clear memory of the ATEAM's makeup in Apple IIE BT1, since they were the party I originally completed the game with.

Perfect! sounds like you'll have the answers I'm looking for!

In a nutshell, there was no Sir Grady in the ATEAM. In fact, the ATEAM matched what you saw listed for the IIGS version:

A Paladin named Brian the Fist
A Warrior named Samson
A Bard named El Cid
A Rogue named Markus
A Conjurer named Merlin
A Magician named Omar

If that's the case, then I'm going to guess that the character stats in the GS version are a perfect match of the iie version, So I'll have everything I need to make the character disk then: Character Stats, Items in their proper slots, and the characters in the correct order in the party... everything.

They were all level 2, came fully equipped (well, started with Chain Mail, you had to upgrade to Scale and Plate yourself), and El Cid had a Fire Horn (which I blew on a group of 8 Mad Dogs, rather wasting it because I didn't realize at the time it was a one-shot thing). I don't ever remember there being a Fire Horn in Garth's, and, for that matter, I don't think I ever had another one drop for me.

Well, When I was much much younger, I played the GS version a couple times, but the dos version A LOT... never played with the ATEAM in either version. The Garth stores I had were pretty well stocked.

It wasn't until I started playing the game again a few years ago thanks to downloads that I knew how bare Garths was originally, and how hard the game actually is when starting with fresh characters and not some ultra high level characters my brother made. (Actually my favorite challenge now-a-days is to play with a complete blank character disk, no characters and the only thing garth has is an unlimited supply of torches.)

Now I'm trying to beat the game from every release... except maybe the NES version... I just can't get into that game... way too different for my taste, and with the iie version, i was just amazed that a clean character disk doesn't exist online.

I'm actually sure of this because I even remember noticing all those years ago that there was a Sir Grady in the box art, but he wasn't actually in the ATEAM (In fact, I actually always suspected the Apple IIE box art was actually from the C64 version, but I never really knew for sure).

Actually that wouldn't really surprise me too much... seems that A LOT of box art that I scanned through seems to have used the same screenshots. At first I thought it was sellers or Google Image being lazy with the boxes, and what game the boxes actually belonged to.

It wasn't until I started finding box scans that included the bar codes included that I started trusting that the image was exactly as described. But when looking at all those different box arts... a LOT of them used game images the DID NOT fit the game included... the Amiga version for example looks like the GS edition, but here's the box for it:

Amiga Box... DEFINITELY not the right screenshots of the game:


Amiga Screenshot


Anyway... Thanks a bunch for your info! I'll get working on a clean character disk!

[caars]

Nit-picking here, I know, but it isn't a one-shot item. Rather, items in BTI have a 1 in 64 chance of "breaking" on use (credit: ZeroZero). You just got unlucky that one time and rolled the 1 on a 64 sided die. Or something.

Now that you mention it, I do remember seeing ZeroZero's post on that. I suppose the childhood memory of the one and only Fire Horn I ever owned vanishing after its first use has always made it stick in my mind as a special case.

That said, I don't doubt you'd be completely right - I'm sure I just got unlucky. The 1 in 64 breakage is totally consistent with the dozens of times I used a lightwand or an exorwand (the latter as a followup to animate dead to revive slain characters cheaper than with BEDE) without it disappearing.

[ZeroZero]

I suggest:

1. use a character editor for the Apple to re-create the party. I think in some Apple magazine, that you can find in the web, they published such an editor.

2. use the C64 disks of Arnold for a reference of the original ATEAM. The apple and the C64 versions were the first 2 and were identical in game play.

3. use the items lists published here in the files section to re-equip the apple party the same way it should be like you evaluated from 2.

[Flanimal]

I'm actually a veteran of the original Apple IIE Bard's Tale I. To be honest, I don't know if I've still got a pristine version of the character disk, but I *might* - I do, however, have a very clear memory of the ATEAM's makeup in Apple IIE BT1, since they were the party I originally completed the game with.

In a nutshell, there was no Sir Grady in the ATEAM. In fact, the ATEAM matched what you saw listed for the IIGS version:

A Paladin named Brian the Fist
A Warrior named Samson
A Bard named El Cid
A Rogue named Markus
A Conjurer named Merlin
A Magician named Omar

They were all level 2, came fully equipped (well, started with Chain Mail, you had to upgrade to Scale and Plate yourself), and El Cid had a Fire Horn (which I blew on a group of 8 Mad Dogs, rather wasting it because I didn't realize at the time it was a one-shot thing). I don't ever remember there being a Fire Horn in Garth's, and, for that matter, I don't think I ever had another one drop for me.

I'm actually sure of this because I even remember noticing all those years ago that there was a Sir Grady in the box art, but he wasn't actually in the ATEAM (In fact, I actually always suspected the Apple IIE box art was actually from the C64 version, but I never really knew for sure).

The C64 tape version ATEAM came exactly as you described above, with Markus and not Sir Grady. I suspect Sir Grady was a creation of the developers when they were making the screenshot.

[ZeroZero]

Here's the original ATEAM:

1. Brian the Fist, Human, Paladin, ST 12, IQ 9, DX 14, CN 10, LK 6, LVL 2, XP 2030, Gold 0, Chain Mail, Helm, Gauntlets, Tower Shield, Halbard

2. Samson, Dwarf, Warrior, ST 18, IQ 10, DX 9, CN 11, LK 10, LVL 2, XP 2030, Gold 0, Broadsword, Chain Mail, Helm, Gauntlets, Tower Shield

3. El Cid, Elf, Bard, ST 12, IQ 9, DX 16, CN 6, LK 6, LVL 2, XP 2030, Gold 0, War Axe, Chain Mail, Helm, Leather Gloves, Tower Shield, Fire Horn

4. Markus, Hobbit, Rogue, ST 9, IQ 10, DX 17, CN 6, LK 10, LVL 2, XP 2030, Gold 0, Mace, Buckler, Leather Armor, Leather Gloves, Lamp, Lamp

5. Merlin, Gnome, Conjurer, ST 10, IQ 17, DX 7, CN 9, LK 12, LVL 2, XP 2030, Gold 0, Dagger, Robes

6. Omar, Elf, Magician, ST 11, IQ 16, DX 11, CN 8, LK 11, LVL 2, XP 2030, Gold 0, Staff, Robes

[Quantum Reality]

Hey,

Isn't the original character disk on apple ASIMOV or anything like that? I'm pretty sure the original *ATEAM was on that. Unless you mean the back of the box had SIR GRADY and the disk didn't, which I am not sure what to tell you about.

But yeah, it's easy to make a blank disk, stat-roll some characters and then sector edit them by hand, reload the *ATEAM, then resave to make BT1 re-calculate the checksums.

[toper]

Oh, Hey... how y'all doin'?

I kind of forgot about this thread, sorry about that. I finally got around to making a fully restored BardsTale 1 Character disk for the Apple ][e.

I never did find one that didn't have some sort of problem with it. Usually finding that they had a roster full of dead players, or a missing A-Team, or a Stock A-Team, but Garths Equipment shop full of so much inventory that it went infinite (which all you had to do was sell him 256 of any one item and it went infinite.

Also, A little bug that exists in the Apple ][ version (I'm sure I'm not the first to notice), but, if you want to dupe items, sell something unique to Garth that he doesn't usually carry, then goto the purchase screen, scroll until that item is in slot 1, then quickly purchase item 1 a few times, do it faster than the emulator can keep up, you want the item to scroll as its removed from the inventory list because you bought the last one. You want to try purchasing it again as the shop list is auto-scrolling to fill spot 1 with an item Garth actually has on hand. You won't know if the dupe was successful until you exit the store, and come back in. If it worked, you'll see that Garth will still have that item for sale... and its stock is 'FF' locked. (Verifiable by buying more than 32 full inventory slots of that item).

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the scrolling effect when it pulling the inventory from the top of the screen, because it only happens (by my observation) if you purchase the item in slot 1, trying it while the item is in 2-9 doesn't work.

Anywho, back to my lil adventure. I did eventually find a Char disk that had pristine A-Team, all the stats, equipment, XP were perfect... the store was a bit of a mess, but that's an easy fix as long as... nope... store has an unlimited supply of Mthr Daggers... Dang.

Then I finally found a Garths store that didn't have too many supplies, but it was some high end stuff, I was going to have to create some players that had some money to spend.

Or just create one guy and lock memory location 029ADAAC with a value of 999999 (I was using AppleWin emulator if that matters), which gives character 1 a purse containing "/?T" Gold Pieces which is just a couple more coins than necessary to buy the whole store. Locking Money in an emulator is kinda weird... if you want the character to have 49 gp, the value is 151257088 Buy a single torch, and the value drops to a 4 digit number, sell the torch back, and its a 9 char number again, its all over the place, makes no sense to my limited memory editing experience.

So anyway... clean store, clean AG, delete the character that cleaned up garths, and using the transfer character menu, I transferred the A-Team in its full glory to a freshly restored game state.

If anyone is interested in a copy of the Char disk... Let me know.

OH... another thing, I had nothing to do with this, but the Boot disk that I use doesn't have *any* cracked by team 7, or hello from Finland, or Eat at Joes, or any other Crack Splash Screens on it...

It just starts with the Electronic Arts Logo, and goes straight into the game. Nice and clean.

No idea where i got it, but it WAS NOT from here, archive.org, BTO, and I don't think it was Asimov either, just some guys website full of apple 2 stuff IIRC.

if interested in that as well, let me know.

Video: https://youtu.be/8EIf5LGcXbE