prairiemain

My first encounter with Garzahd was the toughest. I think the party was simply too weak to tackle him at that point. I got stomped at the second encounter because of the quickfire -- was there quickfire in EftP? I don't recall it -- but it didn't take long to understand what I had done wrong. The only thing you can do with quickfire is run or die. Those were difficult fights, though. I believe I fought the hardest and longest RPG game battle I've ever fought in a game like this. It was near the start, not the end. Unbelievable carnage. I guess my party was too weak but that early in the game I'm not sure how I could overcome that. The good armor was still in the future (and there is no really good armor in this game for tanks -- I think you get more from pouring points into dexterity and endurance so they dodge a lot of hits). Should I worry that I was exhilarted at finally winning that incredibly long battle? Anyone have a "long battle" tale they'd like to share? A few of the quests were easy to miss. I had seen no indication of the "Thompson" quest but saw it mentioned here -- apparently, I did not go through all of the dialog options with Erika. So, you think Garzahd is gone for good, eh? I can hear faint evil laughter wafting from the infernal reasons where he and his demon half-brothers are plotting their revenge. Beware. You're on the menu.

"Escape from the Pit" does have a feature to record important information (journal) as you're playing the game by clicking a button in the dialog box. That's a nice feature and one reason I don't have to take notes. Being able to annotate the maps would be a fantastic addition. But this game pretty much marks all spots that are relevent to the game and gives little popups identifying who and what for that location. But annotation would still be a good thing to have. I would like to see either a major upgrade to the underlying game engine to Avernum to something that supports better graphics, of course, and better game play overall. It might take a complete redesign and rebuild, I do not know. If you love this type of game you want to see something like that. I think Spiderweb could carve out a lasting niche for itself if it would do so and keep the spirit of the RPG turn-based game alive. There are RPGs out there, not all necessarily turn-based, that are pretty decent with up-to-date graphics and presentation. But many of them somehow lose the essence of games like Avernum in their quest to adopt the new graphics and simulations capabilities. Surely there must be a way to advance the turn-based RPG experience without sacrificing the elements that make them so enjoyable to many of us. Games have come a long way since Pong -- or even that original text-based "Adventure". I believe RPGs could reclaim territory but I suppose the money is in the first person shooters?

The fun part is when we come to forums like this and we get to meet the kings and queens of nerdhood who play the game blindfolded and still beat it and make sure everyone at the forum knows it. Let me add "wussy" and "amateur gamer" to your quiver of verbailities. Ever modified the Fortran code of the original text-based "Adventure"? I have. I manufactured my own cheats. There are perhaps two references in "Escape from the Pit" to that very famous RPG ... can you identify them? The magic barriers are a minor annoyance and they are not the only ones in Avernum. I've always sort of liked this emoticon -- it fits so well in many places:

People actually take notes while playing these games?

I love this game. I believe this is the largest RPG "world" I've ever played and the story line is as rich as any I've ever played. However, there are some irritants in the game that I wonder about. At the top of that list are "Magic Barriers". Now I know that breaking crystals can remove these but I have had much difficulty finding those crystals. They are rare, to say the least. The result is you fight your way to the heart of something, often against a myriad of powerful figures and in battles that can easily last an hour or more, and finally you are standing in front of the prize. Only it's behind a magic barrier! Occasionally, there is another route to it but that's also rare. Since none of the characters, even the "mage", is anywhere close to having "dispel barrier", you're forced to abandon a quest and go onto something else. It can get a little discouraging after that happens several times. It creates a disparity with the rest of the game's questing elements. How so? Most of the other access puzzles are easily solved. The NPCs and the game "narrator", unsolicited and often happily so, point to the exact solution leaving you only to act on it. But not when it comes to the "magic barriers". Perhaps this is being done to force you, the player, to explore other parts of Avernum to "connect" various elements of a given storyline. The trouble is, I have not found any earth-moving connections between most of these. So it leaves me puzzled as to the purpose of this kind of frustration. It borders on sadistic as though the designers think most players are masochistic rather than just obsessive. I can't recall many really great RPGs that had this kind of frustrating "barrier". In fact, to me, it goes against one of the "unspoken rules" for RPGs: thou shalt not make player fight to the pit of Hell only to get a bauble as a reward. At least provide a cutaway that shows some awesome graphics. Of course, since this was my first play-through (and I'm looking forward to doing so again with a better party makeup) I may have missed something about these magic barriers. I allow that possibility but I don't like going through "spoiler" hints during my first play-through with a game (some exceptions certainly apply). I'm sure there are other players who look at this differently. We all have our likes and dislikes about RPGs. I enjoy this type of game and regret seeing the end of this type of turn-based, role-playing game. I have a few friends who are also frustrated at not being able to find good games like this. I think someone is underestimating the market for games like Avernum. Perhaps Spiderworks should upgrade the game engine (but keep the essential game play elements) and do another round of Avernum and other games based on that engine. If you did so, you'd put a lot of RPG gamers like myself in hog (or cave cow?) heaven.