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Alorael at Large

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Everything posted by Alorael at Large

  1. You can't switch sides, but you can play as either side in Nethergate. The whole moral ambiguity thing really got rolling with Geneforge. Yes, the second Avernum trilogy comes afterwards, and so does some of the first trilogy technically (although the plot of course dates back to Exile) but the Avernum universe lets you be the clear good guys generally. —Alorael, who sees A5 as the departure. Among other things, you arguably start off as the bad guys. No one likes the Empire.
  2. There are a lot of factions, and we know what they stand for, what they believe, and often their dirty secrets as well. For the characters, we often get similar versions, often tied to their factions. But we don't get very personal people. What do the characters do for fun? Who are their friends, and who are the non-enemies they just can't stand? What are they like over dinner? All that's missing. Nathalie, and her Avadon compatriots, get more of that than pretty much anyone prior to Avadon. She has some personality and quirks and you interact with her for a long time. But that was not just underused, it was virtually entirely absent from, depending on how you count, something like 12 games before Avadon came along. —Alorael, who also likes Erika. She's a good concept and plays an interesting role in the world. But personality? Beyond vengeful, powerful mage, not very much.
  3. You know, the way people feel drawn to a faction, and even drawn enough that they'll argue fervently in its defense on these forums, speaks to Jeff's abilities as a writer. The fact that those fervent defenses are present for just about every faction, even the ones that seem like they're obviously eeeeevil and not even serious contenders in the philosophical arena, says volumes about how well he does his writing. —Alorael, who doesn't know if Jeff can turn out character writing as strong as his general writing. He certainly doesn't, for the most part, and hasn't even tried until Avadon. But very strong characters tend to be what really grab attention and devotion, and if he were doing that from the beginning Spiderweb might have more accolades and success. Probably not tons, because there's only so much you'll get with outdated isometric graphics, but more.
  4. I think a lot of the criticism of A4 would have been avoided if the Darkside Loyalists were the primary plot and Rentar-Ihrno were the secondary plot. In fact, it would have been interesting and character establishing for Dorikas to be the one to get the shades going, maybe by approaching Rentar. After all, despite having eventually differing goals they agree that Avernum must suffer and could have collaborated on that. Ultimately a missed opportunity. Even the Eastern Gallery could have been less miserable if all those miserable chitrachs were explicitly a monster plague problem that could be pinned on someone, The vahnatai did it! —Alorael, who can see a glorious new political idea. What if Trump decided to banish all those immigrants to a giant cave system? Surely there's one under Louisiana... And that's your moment of 15 year old nostalgia.
  5. A lot of the fun of it is missing, though, with the old familiar cave layout. Cartography? I can pretty much draw the cave system on a napkin in five minutes. I've been wandering in those caves for the past twenty years! That's not exciting new frontiers, that's a chore. Which isn't to say that I don't think prequels have potential. I just think it's a shame that the thrill of being the first into a new and unknown land isn't really one of those potentials, at least for those of us who are veterans to the world. —Alorael, who finds it perfectly acceptable that this thread sets a lower bound on time to prequel release. Mostly useless lower bounds are a time-honored tradition in mathematics publishing.
  6. Crazy coincidence. Congratulations to both of you! —Alorael, who would like to know if he may add your names to the Spiderweb match-making testimonials list.
  7. It may be worth asking if Spiderweb is willing to make the original Nethergate freely available, as they did with the Exile series. They may not be able to actually carry that out, but if they're willing Tyranicus could be their distributor. —Alorael, who invites you to ignore the odd change in the singularity/plurality above.
  8. That's not how lines work. —Alorael, who posits that it also isn't how dimensions work. He's not that much of a mathematician, though, and frankly with enough dimensions you can make all kinds of ridiculous claims. Especially if some of them are tiny and stringy.
  9. Pillars of Eternity is more than anything else a very deliberate throwback to Baldur's Gate. It's not D&D, but it plays very similarly and has a very Infinity Engine style in both gameplay and story. That should really tell you whether you want to play it or not. —Alorael, who enjoyed it very much but then ended up not finishing it. He got distracted, and then he got distracted from his distraction, and now he contemplates diving back in and doesn't.
  10. I think we should do Benford sorting instead. 1. Your address starts with a 1. 2. Your address does not start with a 1. —Alorael, whose address has started with a 1 only one time.
  11. The East Coast is present in detail. Everything west of that is a few scattered specific locales, oddly mostly either containing s C or being Ohio. What about the Midwest? Pacific Northwest? Texas? Unclear if there's anywhere from those parts of the US but it's a little odd to have no options at all for anyone outside the known Spiderweb hotspots. —Alorael, who also notes Alaska's tragic absence. Now how is he supposed to perpetuate his lies?
  12. Cute! —Alorael, who knows they're a big responsibility. But still...
  13. I'm also definitely mid-Atlantic, not DC. I used to live in the DC area, but I don't really anymore. And when I met up with Slarty I was living in New England. —Alorael, who can contribute that Dragyn Bob was also mid-Atlantic when they had their near-miss. And SMoE was too, but he hasn't been for a very long time. Neither have been Spiderwebbers for a long time, too, for whatever that's worth.
  14. Actually, only E3 out of the Exiles has days. Avernum 1-3 all have days, and it was A1 that introduced that calendar months rather than just a day counter, but only A3 has nights, and it's the only one that, like E3, particularly cares about how many days have passed. —Alorael, who also believes that A3 is also the only Avernum that starts on a specific calendar day rather than in a random month.
  15. I think the implication is that nephilim were dumped before the Empire turned to exiling human undesirables. —Alorael, who also thinks that makes sense. And he's pretty sure the nephilim wouldn't end up so deep in Avernite territory if they didn't have a head start.
  16. Maybe what we can take from all this is that dragons are habitually secretive and constitutionally incapable of giving accurate information about themselves. Given their history with the Empire (probably), it makes a little bit of sense. —Alorael, who also imagines that remembering your exact relationship as little nestling might get hard somewhere between one and ten centuries later.
  17. In clarification, there was a thread. It went bad places and was locked and then hidden. This warning at the end needs to stand. To reiterate what Slarty says, this is a place to be nice. That means not insulting people. That also means not saying things about people that they likely wouldn't want said in a literally open forum. —Alorael, who is going to lock this again. There's no much more that should be said on the subject.
  18. The point of ethics is to come up with objective systems for evaluating these decisions. It's all about removing subjectivity. All ethical systems are fraught with edge cases that make us uncomfortable. The ethicists can double down and say that it's because our intuitions are imperfect, or try to better fine-tune the systems, but there is the inherent problem that there isn't any real objective right or wrong besides what we declare to be so. And what basis do we have for those declarations besides intuitions? So I do think there's a real issue of all ethics being only so many steps removed from someone's intuitive and subjective ethics. I'm no expert, but virtue ethics isn't really about becoming the kind of person who does the right thing. The goal is to become a person of virtue and live a good life. Such a person probably should be refraining from evil actions and undertaking good ones, but that's not the point of virtue ethics. The point is "eudaimonia" or living a good life (at least in the classical Aristotelian form of virtue ethics), and that's good in terms of prosperous and happy, not just somehow moral. So a life of virtue ethics is about cultivating excellence in yourself, which leads to a better life for yourself; incidentally it should probably also lead to better things for those around you, but only as a happy accident. One common criticism against virtue ethics over the two millennia that they've been floating around is that the whole thing is extremely self-centered. And that you can go on murder sprees as long as you do it with excellence. —Alorael, who apologizes if he's a bit lacking in clarity at the moment. He's slightly drugged and has undergone some recent less than excellent experiences. Naturally the next step was for him to march onto the internet and argue ethics.
  19. Utilitarianism provides the answer to that question. Outcome is all that matters. It is a good for there to be one death, not five deaths, so the good thing to do is pull the lever. —Alorael, who thinks this is one of the most basic textbook examples of utilitarian ethical decision-making. The critique is that it feels wrong to put no value on actually intervening and causing death (or not), but utilitarianism doesn't care.
  20. I actually like Rentar in A3. She's not deeply fleshed out, but I appreciate that she doubles down on the worst of her ambiguous traits from A2. The problem with A4 is that it's the same thing again. It would be just as bad if it were just about any character rehashed. The second trilogy wouldn't gained a lot by having Micah instead of Starrus. Have the wizards preserve his life too, as he gets older and frailer and still holds the reigns of power because there's no one else to step in. His death at the end of A6 would be poignant and fitting. Rawal is a character I love to hate. He's odious and infuriating and actually one of the better bad characters in Spiderweb games. —Alorael, who doesn't think Chevyn on the throne would have worked for more than a cheap joke. Sure, he could've been there, but then actual power would have to go to someone else. And his joke was fairly well played out. Replacing king with council could also have worked and provided an interesting slow-motion fragmentation of the kingdom.
  21. Utilitarianism, like (almost) every theory of ethics, doesn't really present choices. It provides the means to evaluate possible choices for which one is most ethically right. And like all theories of ethics, it really can't, by definition, tell you to do something that isn't right, at least by its own standards of right and wrong. Of course, if you're using different standards then you're just at philosophical loggerheads; utilitarianism and, say, virtue ethics or egoism or Kantianism are going to view one another as equally and mutually wrong. You can not like what utilitarianism says; that just means you don't like the theory and prefer a different ethical framework. —Alorael, who knows that many people find that utilitarianism can lead to uncomfortable conclusions. There's no obvious truth to whether that's because instinctive moral reasoning isn't objective enough to be morally right or whether utilitarian
  22. If you want the consequences to be unexpected and unforeseeable you have to either design the game very well around that particular concept or you end up with the scenario that I think ADoS is parodying. Choices where you have no idea what you're choosing aren't real choices. Choices where what you base your decision on doesn't matter are often just jokes at the expense of the player. It doesn't tend to be fun, although of course it can, conceivably, be handled well. The simplest version is to just have frequent commentary on the fact that you're in the dark and can't know what will come of your decisions, but more than a little bit of that and it gets old quickly. —Alorael, who is fine with actions having unforeseen consequences. But then you'd better not have "this is a Big Decision" moments where the decision is utterly opaque. That's not an interesting decision at all.
  23. This is also an attack on the most remote province of an empire that just lost a war for the first time in as far back as the censors will allow anyone to know. Even if you do nothing, Valorim doesn't actually fall. Some towns are destroyed and the big cities take a beating, but no catastrophes. Things might be different if the Empire actually marched its armies into Valorim to clean up the mess, but I always got the sense that Valorim is seen as something like an acceptable loss. Which itself is probably a symptom the Empire having just actually lost; not charging in is a reaction to having done just that in Avernum and getting trounced. —Alorael, who likes the contrasting versions of hegemony of the various Spiderweb empires. The Empire rules because that's what it does; it exists to perpetuate itself. The Shapers have control at least in theory less because they brook no dissent than because allowing dissent from their orthodoxy means mas casualties, and the events of the series don't exactly prove them wrong. The Pact is a military and political alliance that outgrew its constituents and just has everyone scared, but it has less weight of time and status quo behind it; it's also relatively unique in that even in its setting it can throw its weight around everywhere but doesn't actually rule everywhere.
  24. Utilitarianism defines the value of any action entirely by consequences. One should act such that the outcome is good. Exactly how to act for the best consequences is difficult question that has lots of different answers. Part of the complexity is that it's easy to see outcomes after the fact and assign value to actions; this was the right thing to do because everything turned out well, and that wasn't because it resulted in disaster. But ethics should give direction prospectively, and that's harder. Never doing anything because it could go wrong seems pretty wrong. One divide in utilitarianism is act vs. rule. Act utilitarians would evaluate each action and say it's right if and only if it leads to the best outcome of all possible actions that one could take. Rule utilitarians step back and say an action is right if and only if it conforms to the general rule that leads to the best outcome of all possible rules. So "I just wanted to help!" is wrong by definition for act utilitarianism, but could still be right by rule utilitarianism if following the impulse to help is for the best most of the time. —Alorael, who thinks of it in medical terms because of personal biases. A medication can have terrible side effects, say, 0.1% of the time. If it does, act utilitarianism says prescribing it was wrong. Rule utilitarianism would say it's right to have prescribed it; there's no way to know in advance, and the only other option is to never use it, which would lead to terrible outcomes 99.9% of the time, so the right rule is to prescribe.
  25. Let's lay this one to rest: —Alorael, who appreciates the unambiguity. Looks like Mr. Vogel is not ready to stop eating and/or sending children to college yet.
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