Zaego

Was just being cautious since some people are *really* sensitive about mentioning other products anywhere near to those of their own. Some Twitch-streamers' moderators instantly ban a viewer if they so much as mention another streamer by name.

Or a walkway made entirely from lit mushrooms. Now that would be a *trip*...

A few examples sprung to mind after a bit of thinking and pushing the brain. Title#1 is metroidvania-like, and Title#2 roguelike, both top-down. Then again, they haven't sold by the millions (sales 600,000+~ copies, and 500,000+~ copies, respectively) but haven't had triple-A tier publishing either. From the other end of the spectrum, there's Title#3, which has actually sold more than 2 million copies as of early this year. I wonder when the next season of indie games comes around, could we see a renaissance of top-down indiegames? EDIT: I forget, is it considered inappropriate to mention other game titles on the forums? If so, I'll edit 'em away myself. I'm mentioning them for the purposes of examples in conversation and education, not advertising. EDIT2: Checked sales figures so I'm talking out of the side of my mouth. (Also edited the names pre-emptively because the titles aren't important, the figures are what matters, and that there's a market for 2D.)

I guess you could have multiple layers even in top-down view. 2D works in Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest and the games of similar style perfectly well, and they're both modern games. That is, the games still look good because of layered graphics.

I'm about to pass out from joy. You can actually drink ale (and wine, presumably). And there are bedrolls that you can pick up and carry about! *unintelligible screams*

I never really cared about what the Empire or the imperials think, so I've always rolled with a mixture party in A2 & A3 (in all of them, actually). I've never tried a full-nephil or full-slith party, though. The Party of Ultimate Irony. Hmm, that'd be nice to try once. EDIT: Never answered the question, did I? Yah, even on Torment I don't count the trait bonuses. I just go with a band that feels good to the hand. I'm a roleplayer to the core. EDIT2: Well, in original A3 you could delete and add members to your party post-creation. The pick-up people were laughably overpowered (at least in my opinion) around the time you'd get them, with skills that were un-obtainable otherwise (in quite some time, or even altogether if memory serves me right), like Find Herbs, which was a big thing if you relied heavily on potions.

Last time I ordered directly from Spiderwebsoftware, (both Avernum trilogies and the Blades of Avernum), I got three CDs by mail. Then again, that was years ago, so I don't know if it still goes like that.

Wow, the amount which Quick Action affects the initiative score is staggering. I honestly had no idea. Okay, I'm seriously starting to find ways in having it on all characters, at least a little bit. The back-row going first in combat before the NPCs might mean all the difference! Good deed of the day is done. A round of patting oneself on the back is in order to celebrate the victory of science and logic over the hidden soft stats.

Okay, this post is getting a kilometer long. Now only the important stuff remains. FINAL EDIT: Results, Goblins -VS- Party.

Very thorough testing, I'm impressed! I, too, am of the opinion that at least for warriors Quick Action would give the better results. Again, concerning the relation of attribute points and skill points, you can always use traits to improve the attributes by investing in Improved [Attribute]. I guess it really comes down to personal taste; I already have a rough idea of how my party is going to look like in Ruined World, with melee warriors putting a vast majority of their attribute points to Endurance since I'm probably going to go with Torment, and upgrading to Quick Action / Lethal Blow path as quickly as Blade Master / Hardiness are in 8 or 10. It's good to remember that there will be equipment that gives bonuses to Quick Action, doubtlessly, so that's going to be a game-changer, too. Either having it spread to back row support characters or having one melee with a stupid amount of QA, like 20+ by the grace of training and gear... There's a cheat code which you can use to give the party a flat amount of xp, somewhere around the lines of 500xp / cheat. I'll jump into the game shortly and see if I can't get any results. In the meantime, the cheat is below if anyone wants to try out for themselves.

Concerning Quick Action and Dexterity, I went back to EftP to check. Results below:

If the effects continue to work how they have in the previous two (EftP and CS), you should be able to use Curing Potions to null Ensnared effect in the very least (can't remember if Curing Elixir affected Immobility and Weakness Curse, etc). I never bothered to actually have any alchemist make me any, I just bought the cheap ones and stole the rest, I mean, looted from enemies. Very useful in critical battles when a lot of enemy warriors would keep knocking you back and ensnaring your melee characters.

I'd personally almost swap out the First Aid points to either spells or weapon-skills. On torment level, I tend to chip away at a dungeon until my casters run out of mana. Then I back away from a fight to a nearby town, restore health and mana, and return. Other than that, really nice. I'm not sure if I even found out those bug husk altars myself, and I count myself quite an explorer. Even if the idiom is as ancient as the vahnatai race, it still holds true: you can learn something new every day.

Anytime, friend. If there are any hickups, you know where to come. Happy adventuring!

Hey there! Welcome to Spiderwebsoftware. Tradition goes that you gotta leave Your sanity on the doorstep. Okay, so, I'm not a master of modifying Geneforge (never played them much), but are you sure You have the same color-settings as the game files have? I seem to remember having to dabble with the save-options when I did the same kind of replacing for Avernum I, II and III back in the day. It was something like changing the format from (or to) 16-bit color or 24-bit color. I'll go check the game files after posting this, but hopefully someone will have replied with a more accurate, knowledgeable and helpful comment by the time I come back. EDIT 1: Okay, I tried some field tests with Avernum III as I had it handy. Geneforge I is now installing as we speak in the background. In A3, as long as the file format was 24-bit .bmp -file, the game launched and showed the character art just fine, even a red text "ADVENTURER" I wrote with a brush in Microsoft Paint. EDIT 2 and 3: Got it to work! Geneforge 1 (at least) seems to require 256-color bitmap, instead of 24-bitmap. Do you want to try saving the file in a different format yourself, or want me to send the file over?

It is a single Shade (Black Shade of Ice) but it keeps teleporting between the cities.

The story has been deleted and discontinued. Thankyou for reading.

Yiss! Can't wait to buy that creepy house from Lorelei again with a grumpy housekeeper and a pet ghost in the garden! Every adventurer's dream come true!

Ohhh, you know what. What I was memorizing earlier was probably in the remakes' code. Nevermind. (Or then I'm just seriously descending into madness. Which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Or, maybe I'm just seriously absent minded. Both of those could be true. At the same time. PS. Yep. Nevermind none of that. Except the part where I'm going crazy. I searched through some of the remakes' codes and saw only things like set_level ( ) and other such. Looks like I've taken the advice, Welcome to Spiderwebsoftware, please leave your sanity to the door quite well to the heart. ) And yeah, in hindsight it might be a nightmare to try and balance the game for four times over. Especially since You have a hundred towns in place. Still, I'm very much looking forward to seeing the scenario in daylight. Here, have this fungal cookie to go with your efforts.

That's nice, thanks for all the replies. Goes to show that you just keep on learning something new everyday. Good thing I still haven't got very far in A2:CS Torment run so now I can apply those things in this playthrough instead. ... Figures that I'll probably do yet another Torment run of A:EftP too, just to test out how things work out once again. (But that'll have to wait until after Avernum 3: Ruined World.)

Assuming we're going in A:EftP, ... Err, Hardiness on mage? Does that work on Torment? Aside from those 2 points by training, since all of my points went into the Magic stuff on my Torment run (which I actually finished about a day ago, yay). I'd assume that you'd skip out on Magical Efficiency entirely and then put 5 & 5 to Melee or Pole and Hardiness, which would give 7 Hardiness with training. 10 & 10 on Spellcraft and Resistance were pretty much a must. Then again, keeping the damage flowing without Magical Efficiency, you'd need insane amounts of energy elixirs in boss-battles, considering that I was struggling even with Magical Efficiency. Grah-Hoth still haunts my nightmares...

I tried to glance through the earlier posts, and I didn't see any specific answers (or then I'm just plain blind as usual), so here goes. Are you (Kelandon) thinking of doing anything for different difficulty levels? Like monsters using little to not at all special abilities on Easy difficulty and using Soulcrushing Instantly Killing Doomcurses on Torment difficulty. Or would that be a bit of an, if you'll allow, overkill for a scenario that has this much content, effort and thought put into it already? I do seem to remember meddling with the BoA code some several centuries ago and I think I remember running across some codes along the lines of Oh, and I did a quick search of the BoA script reference. The only calls that handled difficulty in some way appeared to be either traps or locks. It might be that I'm just remembering things.

As someone who never really played the Exiles, for me it's a choice between the original Avernums and the remakes. I'm going to have to say that I prefer the remakes over the original ones, but there are aspects that I miss from the original Avernums, like how some spells worked (Haste, Slow, Bind Foe). Also, the archery was just way better. Call me a masochist but I loved gathering, micro-managing and buying the arrows for bows that were capable of actually harming enemies.

Thank You, much appreciated.

I was exploring the Slith Cavern (north of the small island with the wandering pack of slithzerikai shamans) and Portage. I made my way to the laboratory in the northeastern corner of the cavern. There was an experiment that had gotten loose -- a Runewarded Infernal -- subdued by the slithzerikai chieftain, Darkcaller Nuassa and a handful of cronies. I managed to kill the Darkcaller, the chieftain, the warriors, and I managed to pick up the loot (including the Radiant Gauntlets), but with one character remaining alive I had to undertake a strategic retreat to the nearby Fort Dranlon. I came back with my party buffed and ready, only to find that the Runewarded Infernal was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he had escaped back into the Nether. My question is thus: does anyone know if the Runewarded Infernal drops any loot at all? I really wouldn't want to backpedal an hour's worth of gameplay to a previous save. I usually save like a madman but this time it somehow slipped from my mind. PS. I did try to search the forums in case this question had been answered or not. Moderators retain the rights to move this post to a relevant topic, or lock this thread, in case it's already answered elsewhere.