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Let's Play Blades of Avernum!


Chessrook44

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Another nice vid, thanks!

 

I'm surprised by the amount of grammatical errors and typos in there... True, it was my first scenario, it was too big for me to handle it, and you're playing the Windows version, which I never tested myself. It's possible that during some updates I forgot to update the Windows version since I don't remember seeing that many errors when I tested the Mac versions.

 

Anyway, fun to see all of this again. It's been a while! I gather I was 16 when I made that scenario. Interesting to see the sense of humor I had at that time... And glad, I guess, that it changed since then!

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Nice vids, as usual.

 

I'll just throw a quick comment (or two, or three) out there:

1) In the little hideout to the south of the Senarti fort, the commander tells you when you go to the fort, you should turn right rather then head straight in. He actually does mean inside the fort, so you do have to cross the bridge, fight the guards, and enter the fort form the visible entrance. Just sayin', since it seemed like you understood otherwise. Once inside, you go right instead of towards the gate.

 

2) I chuckled a little when you said you'd explore east first, since "the fort is probably part of the end game". Rest assured Chessrook, this is not HIM. This is a fairly long and big scenario, and the fort is just the start of it ;)

 

3) I was kind of disappointed that you were smart enough to use far sight at that mountain :p

 

For me, it is interesting to see how as an inexperienced designer in this scenario, I assumed the player would just do what I told them to do. You, however (meaning Chessrook) are the living example of how utterly naive that thought was, and it's a good learning experience. That said, that is also the reason I made things less open in HIM and HIM2.

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16 hours ago, Thralni said:

For me, it is interesting to see how as an inexperienced designer in this scenario, I assumed the player would just do what I told them to do. You, however (meaning Chessrook) are the living example of how utterly naive that thought was, and it's a good learning experience. That said, that is also the reason I made things less open in HIM and HIM2.

Always assume that unless you have big highly clear landmines or massive 20 foot walls on either sides of the tracks, your players will always try to get off the rails at every opportunity. :3

 

Onwards we go to check out the Empire HQ, impressive as it is.  But then something happens...

 

https://youtu.be/cR728c1Ck20

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6 hours ago, Chessrook44 said:

Always assume that unless you have big highly clear landmines or massive 20 foot walls on either sides of the tracks, your players will always try to get off the rails at every opportunity. :3

The problem is not so much in finding your way, it's more about checking whether the party has done certain things and how this reflects in the dialog options. Fort Filbert is a stark example, as I had wanted you to go straight to the commander of the fort, but obviously few players actually go do that. They talk to other people first and so the dialog doesn't make much sense anymore.

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This continues being fun to watch. Just one comment: There definitely is an identifier: it's the priest in pleasantville's temple. However, she fled due to the attacks.

 

Now, I have to say it's sloppy of me at best to not give more identification opportunities in other cities. That said, I also didn't expect you to be quite so... slow... at going through the story. Typically in my own play-throughs and those of my beta testers, the Thralni attack on the fort happened further into the story.

 

Having watched several of these videos, I'm considering polishing this scenario. There are quite a few things that do not make that much sense, and some rather blatant errors that ought to be fixed. Let's see.

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13 hours ago, Thralni said:

Having watched several of these videos, I'm considering polishing this scenario. There are quite a few things that do not make that much sense, and some rather blatant errors that ought to be fixed. Let's see.

Oh yes, definitely.  You'll see what I mean soon enough.

 

Finally we've found the halls where all the Senarti have come from.  Time to break some [censored]!

 

https://youtu.be/6div2HTYWIk

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6 hours ago, Chessrook44 said:

Oh yes, definitely.  You'll see what I mean soon enough.

 

So I watched the video but I'm not sure what you refer to? It seems you figured out what to do more quickly than the beta testers I had years ago :p

 

One thing I would do when I do polish this up, is add more messages at certain times to clarify what you're supposed to do. There are some instances where I should have given more direction, rather than allowing you to aimlessly walk around.

 

Though I quite liked the interim opinion of the scenario. For a first try, I'll happily take "not bad" :p

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9 minutes ago, Thralni said:

So I watched the video but I'm not sure what you refer to? It seems you figured out what to do more quickly than the beta testers I had years ago :p

Chessrook44 posts videos with a nearly 2-week delay (i.e., what you're seeing is something that he did almost 2 weeks ago), so presumably he's referring to something that he won't post for another week or two.

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Ah, I see... And here I thought this was like a 'conversation': Chessrook shows what he did and I can comment and help as he goes. I guess that kind of defeats the purpose of my comments... It does, however, explain how come these videos appear so regularly.

 

Oh well. The videos still offer an interesting perspective to me, as a designer.

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5 hours ago, Thralni said:

Ah, I see... And here I thought this was like a 'conversation': Chessrook shows what he did and I can comment and help as he goes. I guess that kind of defeats the purpose of my comments... It does, however, explain how come these videos appear so regularly.

 

Oh well. The videos still offer an interesting perspective to me, as a designer.

Unfortunately true.  Because I can't record every day, I basically record eight episodes over the weekend.  This gives me seven episodes for the week, plus one extra for backlog, per week.  Over time I can build up enough of a backlog that I'm free to skip a day or a week if need be without worrying about my schedule suffering.  The lack of quick reply is, unfortunately, part of the issue sometimes.  I can't respond in video as quickly as I'd like... I end up with a backlog of a week to two weeks, give or take, depending on how long my backlog is.

 

You'll see what I mean in about 6 episodes.

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I promise my quick reply doesn't mean I have nothing to do all day... but sometimes when you do your research in lab, you have a little downtime ;)

 

Well that makes sense. Thanks for sharing, I'll keep that in mind as I watch the following vids.

 

The thing you are alluding to... I'm a little nervous, but I think I know what it is. I remember there being a problem at some point (a point that would indeed be after about 6 episodes from what was posted by you today) where there was an error in the scenario script. It basically killed the whole thing and inhibited any further progress. That said, I also remember fixing it, and this was confirmed by several beta testers... So is this it, or is it something less... problematic?

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1 hour ago, Thralni said:

I promise my quick reply doesn't mean I have nothing to do all day... but sometimes when you do your research in lab, you have a little downtime ;)

 

Well that makes sense. Thanks for sharing, I'll keep that in mind as I watch the following vids.

 

The thing you are alluding to... I'm a little nervous, but I think I know what it is. I remember there being a problem at some point (a point that would indeed be after about 6 episodes from what was posted by you today) where there was an error in the scenario script. It basically killed the whole thing and inhibited any further progress. That said, I also remember fixing it, and this was confirmed by several beta testers... So is this it, or is it something less... problematic?

No, that is.  I end up unable to progress, either on the way I'm supposed to go or on the optional side path.  The only way I CAN progress is through a method that is effectively sequence breaking and I don't know if it even would work.

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Dang it. Given the bizar errors you have sometimes encountered, I have feared for a while that perhaps you got your hands on an outdated version, for some of the errors seem so clumsy that they must have been encountered by a tester at some point. Could you tell me at what point the error message shows, and what the error message says? Then I can investigate further. I need to know whether these errors occur in the version I have on my computer, whether these are mac or windows specific, or global. Even though I don't believe many people still play these scenarios, it'd be good to have them working...

 

id be curious to know also how you managed to progress? For all I know that error breaks the whole thing...

 

EDIT: From memory I remembered the error appears after you escape the castle, take the boat in the Senate town, and follow the river. The error itself is in the scenario script itself, and so a quick check showed a semicolon was missing in state 13 in the version I downloaded from the scenario library on this forum. It appears the version in my archive has the same error... I have no idea how this error got in there, as I'm sure it was fixed.

 

I do apologize very much for this. I'm not sure how this error came back, for it was fixed a long time ago. I would send you the corrected script and ask you to reload from an older saved game, but since this error is in the scenario script, I think the whole scenario would have to be reloaded from the start... but maybe somebody can correct me on that? The error was not in any of the START or START_SCEN status, rather a custom state 13.

 

I can't blame you if you just give up on this and move on to something else, do I can probably assure you that, siren you have done all the exploration already, you could just cut to the chase, do the main plot (Senarti fort, Tel Dakrach, Thralni's castle, underground tunnels, Creation halls, fleeing away, get to the boat...) and you should be back where you were in perhaps 1-2 hours of play...

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For what it's worth, most content creators use the same tactic as Chessrook: get a whole bunch of gameplay footage in one go, then edit and release portions of it over the course of a week. It's not even just an LP thing, or even an online video thing -- a lot of sitcoms used to work this way, and a lot of game shows still do.

 

(The advent of streaming has changed this a bit though: a lot of LPers are moving towards that, and the interactivity it brings.)

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44 minutes ago, Thralni said:

Dang it. Given the bizar errors you have sometimes encountered, I have feared for a while that perhaps you got your hands on an outdated version, for some of the errors seem so clumsy that they must have been encountered by a tester at some point. Could you tell me at what point the error message shows, and what the error message says? Then I can investigate further. I need to know whether these errors occur in the version I have on my computer, whether these are mac or windows specific, or global. Even though I don't believe many people still play these scenarios, it'd be good to have them working...

 

id be curious to know also how you managed to progress? For all I know that error breaks the whole thing...

 

EDIT: From memory I remembered the error appears after you escape the castle, take the boat in the Senate town, and follow the river. The error itself is in the scenario script itself, and so a quick check showed a semicolon was missing in state 13 in the version I downloaded from the scenario library on this forum. It appears the version in my archive has the same error... I have no idea how this error got in there, as I'm sure it was fixed.

 

I do apologize very much for this. I'm not sure how this error came back, for it was fixed a long time ago. I would have sent you the corrected script and ask you to reload from an older saved game, but siren this is the scenario script, the whole thing would have to be reloaded from the start. I can't blame you if you just give up on this and move on to something else, do I can probably assure you that, siren you have done all the exploration already, you could just cut to the chase, do the main plot (Senarti fort, Tel Dakrach, Thralni's castle, underground tunnels, Creation halls, fleeing away, get to the boat...) and you should be back where you were in perhaps 1-2 hours of play...

THAT is not it.  THe "Optional" error, is that I cannot go into the east half of the capital city.  Walking through the east exit takes me to the world map, making any other step in any direction spawns a game-crashing error.

 

The issue that is in the way of the main game is that... I cannot report in to Mayor Ruth.  I can speak with her, but there is no way to tell her what I did beneath the castle.

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Well that is something I've never heard of before... You can't go into the east half of Voughton? Or is this the Senarti capital you are talking about? What exactly are you trying to do, and what error do you see? You mean a scripting error or does the game actually crash? And when you get the error, are you coming from the outdoor map into the town, or are you in town when the error comes up?

 

Perhaps I can take a look at the vid, actually...?

 

ill look at both Voughton and th senarti capital to see if I can find anything striking... it sounds like this issue could be easily rectified if I can find which is the offending script. Leaving town and re-entering should be enough to reset it and continue without issue.

 

UPDATE: So I didn't find anything particularly strange in either town scripts. So I tried to enter the towns in the game, and found that when I enter the eastern half of the senate capital, there is an error about a special item number being out of range. Is that what you see as well, Chessrook? That said, this doesn't break the game, nor do I end up in the outdoors, nor does the game crash...

 

EDIT: So I've ben tinkering with wtrm, and so far it's all good. I changed a couple of things that didn't make much sense, and clarified some other things to make it easier to understand where the player should go. Additionally, I added some other little things to make things more challenging (the ceremony in Tel Dakrach now requires you to fight demons to prove your worth, for instance). That said, a number of errors you encountered, Chessrook, I'm not seeing (such as the cat that you can ask for food in Voughton), so I'm not sure why you have those issues.

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The east half of the Senarti capital is what I meant, yes.  My bad.  You'll see the video in a couple days when I upload it, as unfortunately I'd be trying to send you a two-hour chunk of video and that's almost a gig in size.  And it still doesn't reference the part that ACTUALLY prevents me from continuing the game: Being unable to talk to Mayor Ruth about what I need to do.

 

We may have turned off the creation halls, but let's see about shutting it down a bit more permanently, why don't we?

 

https://youtu.be/gbelKGe3NkI

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Nice vid as usual. The mayor not telling you where to go is... Well it appears that Ruth is supposed to tell you where to go, but due to something unforeseen, you don't see the correct text. It should be fixed now, though I'm unsure why this happens. Pretty sure it used to work...

 

Back to the issue you had. So how did you get around the problem, and when you say you can't talk to her, does that mean she doesn't talk at all, or you don't get presented with the right dialog options?

 

So far I can enter the eastern half of the senarti capital just fine, I'm not sure why you can't. So how about I send you that town's script, and you can try getting into that part of town again? That's assuming you have a save game that gets you to some point prior getting into the western half of the senarti capital... Or you can try to move your party there manually, which is what I assume you did in the first place to get around the eastern half of town issue?

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7 hours ago, Thralni said:

Nice vid as usual. The mayor not telling you where to go is... Well it appears that Ruth is supposed to tell you where to go, but due to something unforeseen, you don't see the correct text. It should be fixed now, though I'm unsure why this happens. Pretty sure it used to work...

 

Back to the issue you had. So how did you get around the problem, and when you say you can't talk to her, does that mean she doesn't talk at all, or you don't get presented with the right dialog options?

 

So far I can enter the eastern half of the senarti capital just fine, I'm not sure why you can't. So how about I send you that town's script, and you can try getting into that part of town again? That's assuming you have a save game that gets you to some point prior getting into the western half of the senarti capital... Or you can try to move your party there manually, which is what I assume you did in the first place to get around the eastern half of town issue?

I didn't get around the eastern half of town issue.  The capital is two screens, the left side (That you come out of the tunnels into) and the right side (Which you can only enter from the left side, and which contains the king, allegedly).  THAT is what I mean by "eastern half of town".  I just never entered it.

 

And I never really got around the problem.  She's basically stuck saying "The Empire Liasion has been kidnapped!  This is terrible!"

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So I ran through WtRM, and came upon the same issue you describe, where you can't tell Ruth what happened. It appears this is not a bug, just a terrible design decision :)

 

At the back-end, I found that the empire liaison being kidnapped is apparently more important than telling her you were kidnapped by a mage. And so, when you ask her about the kidnapping, a new cave is explorable. Just west of the crystal mine you came out of after crashing the boat. Go there, find the liaison, go back to Ruth, tell her you found him, and then you can 'report back' about Thralni.

 

*cough*

 

I can see WHY I did this. The idea was that Ruth is so upset that she runs to you with the bad news, and you,a s the player, can only do but calm her down etc etc. Mechanically, however, this makes no sense and is very confusing to the player. I will definitely overhaul this part...

 

As for the problem with the eastern half of the Senarti capital, I'll wait to see the video. I have never seen that one before...

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3 hours ago, Thralni said:

So I ran through WtRM, and came upon the same issue you describe, where you can't tell Ruth what happened. It appears this is not a bug, just a terrible design decision :)

 

At the back-end, I found that the empire liaison being kidnapped is apparently more important than telling her you were kidnapped by a mage. And so, when you ask her about the kidnapping, a new cave is explorable. Just west of the crystal mine you came out of after crashing the boat. Go there, find the liaison, go back to Ruth, tell her you found him, and then you can 'report back' about Thralni.

 

*cough*

 

I can see WHY I did this. The idea was that Ruth is so upset that she runs to you with the bad news, and you,a s the player, can only do but calm her down etc etc. Mechanically, however, this makes no sense and is very confusing to the player. I will definitely overhaul this part...

 

As for the problem with the eastern half of the Senarti capital, I'll wait to see the video. I have never seen that one before...

Oddly enough, I had looked in the walkthrough you had included with the game, thinking that perhaps something like that WAS the issue.

 

It seemed that you never put the Liasion quest in the walkthrough, so I was left stumped there.  Oops.

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The irony here is that I did the same thing. I first checked the walk through and didn't see that quest either. I think what happened is that I included this quest in the v2 overhaul of this scenario and forgot to include it in the walk through, which was already written at the time. I'll change all of this in the v3 overhaul I'm no planning, because the added annoyance is that the liaison quest can't be completed until the end of the scenario. Which is, of course, a little daft.

 

anyway, you can complete the scenario now.

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I have to put one comment out there, because you seem to be repeatedly stung by this in multiple scenarios: if there is a carpet, or stone path or something like that, that stands out from the rest of the floor (purple carpet vs. white marble floor, or stone path vs. drab red/brown floor etc) 99% change that the tiles that stand out will lead you to a door. It's a pretty common design, not just in BoA scenarios, but games in general, that provide a visual cue for the player on where they can or cannot go. Of course it doesn't always work like that, but most of the time it does. I realize this comment is to late for your trek through those power plants, but maybe it'll be useful at some other point in the future.

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16 hours ago, Thralni said:

I have to put one comment out there, because you seem to be repeatedly stung by this in multiple scenarios: if there is a carpet, or stone path or something like that, that stands out from the rest of the floor (purple carpet vs. white marble floor, or stone path vs. drab red/brown floor etc) 99% change that the tiles that stand out will lead you to a door. It's a pretty common design, not just in BoA scenarios, but games in general, that provide a visual cue for the player on where they can or cannot go. Of course it doesn't always work like that, but most of the time it does. I realize this comment is to late for your trek through those power plants, but maybe it'll be useful at some other point in the future.

Not as easy in some situations, such as when the two tiles look almost exactly the same (referencing Lord Putidus specifically here).

 

And here... well.  Something tells me you NEVER expected someone to screw up the way I did here.

 

https://youtu.be/5PJ60ts0Mvw

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Yeah... I indeed didn't imagine somebody would throw out something that would be needed for a special ability. I guess it's a lesson for me: place mortar and pestle in multiple locations. Also, it was interesting to see that normally you look immediately at everything that is given to you, except for the moment that you needed it the most, i.e. the note in the third power source.

 

I assume you used the character editor or something like that to give yourself the mortar and pestle...?

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Well... anyone got an exterminator and a repairman handy?

 

https://youtu.be/pAkM9DgnYQA

 

And here, Thralni, you'll see what the bug I've been getting is, along with other major or minor issues.  I'll get back to this sometime in the future, now I know how to continue with it.  But in the immediate future, I'll be moving on to other scenarios.

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Wow, none of those bugs were ever reported to me. I have not tested the Windows version personally, since when I made this scenario I didn't have access to a Windows computer, so all I can say is that they do not appear in the Mac version, to my knowledge. All in all, for a while I've had a feeling that you are somehow playing an outdated version... Would you be willing to zip up the version you have and send it over? I'd like to compare it with the Mac version I have.

 

Anyhway, the vids form a nice log for me to go in and fix things, so thanks for that. I have embarked on an overhaul of the scenario that will see things fixed, plot points expanded, and hopefully it will be less 'railroady' afterwards. So far I have completely redesigned Voughton (It didn't really look like a capital city, now it does. Much more so) and have tinkered with dialog in several places. I will further change the ending, enhance the visual design, add more direction in key places and at key times, and enhance the exposition of the history of the province. Some new characters and missions will also be included to deepen the narrative and give more perspective.

 

I'm not sure when you will be returning to finish it up, but I might be able to bring out the updated version before then. In that event, it might be worthwhile playing it from the start, given the modifications I'm putting in (sadly you won't be able to use your old save games with the new version).

 

Two things:

1) Would you be interested in participating in the overhaul in an advisory role, or no? If yes, I might call upon you here and there to check something out, or for brief consultation regarding dialog or text.

 

2) More generally, in the future, as you come across bugs, it may be worth noting them ASAP to the designer. Meaning, not when you post the video, but in real time, so to speak. As Kelandon mentioned sometime earlier, we can't help if you don't tell us in time, especially if you work of a backlog of vids. It's not just in your interest, but also in that of the designer, I believe, whose work you are broadcasting. I'm not sure how many designers are still active for comment and help, but it may be worth a shot ;)

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1 hour ago, Thralni said:

More generally, in the future, as you come across bugs, it may be worth noting them ASAP to the designer. Meaning, not when you post the video, but in real time, so to speak. As Kelandon mentioned sometime earlier, we can't help if you don't tell us in time, especially if you work of a backlog of vids. It's not just in your interest, but also in that of the designer, I believe, whose work you are broadcasting. I'm not sure how many designers are still active for comment and help, but it may be worth a shot ;)

This is a good idea, at least when it's something that's preventing you from making progress. Many game-killing bugs in BoA are actually fairly trivial for designers to fix if we know about them — it's just that we often don't. This is especially so when we designed on Mac and you're playing on Windows. In response to certain situations with certain scripts, Mac BoA will function perfectly fine and Windows BoA will crash, which means that there are all kinds of crashes that Windows players experience that Mac designers have no idea about unless they're reported to us.

 

For example, telling Mac BoA to erase a character that doesn't exist does nothing. In Windows BoA, it causes a game-killing crash (at least some of the time, possibly all of the time). It takes literally one very simple line of code to fix this; just check if the character exists before erasing it. But if you're a Mac designer, you might have no idea you have to do this unless Windows players report their crashes (and report them fairly precisely) to you. There are a lot of situations like this.

 

Also, Thralni, if you need any sort of advisory assistance with a scenario, I'd be happy to help. I haven't actually played WtRM, but I could.

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2 hours ago, Thralni said:

 Would you be willing to zip up the version you have and send it over? I'd like to compare it with the Mac version I have.

No need, simply download the version located on the BoA Scenario Database ( http://blades.nethergate.net/ ) and you'll have the version I have, in exact.

 

2 hours ago, Thralni said:

Two things:

 

1) Would you be interested in participating in the overhaul in an advisory role, or no? If yes, I might call upon you here and there to check something out, or for brief consultation regarding dialog or text.

 

2) More generally, in the future, as you come across bugs, it may be worth noting them ASAP to the designer. Meaning, not when you post the video, but in real time, so to speak. As Kelandon mentioned sometime earlier, we can't help if you don't tell us in time, especially if you work of a backlog of vids. It's not just in your interest, but also in that of the designer, I believe, whose work you are broadcasting. I'm not sure how many designers are still active for comment and help, but it may be worth a shot ;)

With regards to the first, while I appreciate the offer, I do not feel I have quite enough skill to be able to act as an advisor.  I don't know coding, I'm no expert on builds or difficulty balance, I'm not a writer, and so forth, and have issues telling people what they should do as I feel it should be their choice how to take things and the like.  Correcting grammar and spelling errors are the furthest I'd really be able to do.

 

With regards to the second, this is something I probably should start doing more, when I can.  Obviously if the creator doesn't appear to be watching my vids I can't ask them for help, and admittedly sometimes I feel it's best to SHOW what the issue is as opposed to TELL (like I was aiming to do here with the error in the capital in the last episode), but I'll try to keep on that more.

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All you would really need is time, to be fair. Don't worry, I do not plan to ask you coding questions or the like. Rather, I'd approach you with questions about how you felt about the design of such and such, what was the highlight here, what was your main frustration there... So it'd be really geared towards your experience as a player, rather than the role of a beta tester.

 

And I'll download the version in the database and give it a spin. It appears it has errors in it that the Mac version doesn't have so I need to figure out why that's happening.

 

Kelandon: your comment on the unhandled exceptions is extremely useful, thanks! At least I can have a starting point to figure out why Chessrook bumped into that in WtRM. ALso, sent you a PM.

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I've basically said this before, but I don't know where you got your "play in order" lists from, and your source doesn't seem very reliable. I don't remember Echoes: Renegade well enough to remember whether it is a direct sequel to Mad Ambition, but it is part of the Echoes series, and just about every other TM BoA scenario is also part of the Echoes series. So I don't know in what way it makes sense to think of Mad Ambition and Echoes: Renegade as parts of a series but not, say, Canopy or Roses of Reckoning as parts of the same series (and as earlier installments in that series).

 

As I said before, TM's plots are such that I'm not sure it really matters, but this approach to scenarios is weird.

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I'm pretty sure Chessrook got the "play in order" list from earlier this thread. There was a discussion about which scenarios are linked to each other and Tarsus said pretty definitively that Chessrook should

 

On 12/11/2016 at 11:33 PM, Tarsus said:

 

Play Mad Ambition before Echoes: Renegade.

 

I seem to remember that Renegade does directly reference the events of Mad Ambition (not that it matters much). Since we are discussing which scenarios to play first, my stuff can be played in any order, but I would recommend playing Backwater Calls first, as it is terrible. I recently replayed it inspired by these Let's Plays and I must say it seems to get worse after each time I play it.

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Playing Mad Ambition first was recommended because Renegade introduces an npc that is supposed to be the character you play in Ambition, along with other minor references. Thus, someone who has not played either should play Ambition first to get the most out of Renegade.

Edited by Tarsus
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Okay, but that's sort of the wrong way around. I'm not saying that E:R and MA aren't related; I'm saying that almost all the other ones are related also.

 

EDIT: At a minimum, starting at MA is sort of like deliberately playing Icewind Dale before playing Baldur's Gate. It's not wrong, exactly—they're not sequels, although they are in the same setting and the later makes a little reference to the earlier—but it's odd, at least when you're otherwise fairly insistent about doing things in order.

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4 hours ago, Kelandon said:

At a minimum, starting at MA is sort of like deliberately playing Icewind Dale before playing Baldur's Gate. It's not wrong, exactly—they're not sequels, although they are in the same setting and the later makes a little reference to the earlier—but it's odd, at least when you're otherwise fairly insistent about doing things in order.

 

No it's really not like that. The connections are not nearly as loose as your example. Your attitude about this is completely bizarre to me. There are also some BoE scenarios set in TM's silly alternate Exile universe so who cares what order you play any scenario in? Chessrook is not playing BoE and TM's other BoA scenarios are all one-shots with no connection to each other.

 

But lets just ask Chessrook himself since he has probably gotten through both scenarios by now. Did it make any difference playing Ambition first, or was it pointless?

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Tarsus, you're still misunderstanding me, but I don't know how to say it more clearly. I'm not saying that playing MA before E:R is pointless. Obviously it's not. I'm saying that starting TM's BoA scenarios at MA, rather than RoR, is weird if you intend to play everything in order.

 

I don't remember the specific connections, but I don't think it's entirely true that TM's other BoA scenarios have no connection to each other whatsoever; at a minimum, they're basically all set in the Echoes universe.

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