Avernum 6 - May Update.

[Vicheron]

What's the deal with the evil Slith being so powerful? They get wiped out in every Avernum game. They were already crippled after the first game and the Empire killed them en mass in Avernum 2. Where did they get the resources to replenish their numbers?

 

Also, I thought the portal was really big. The Empire was able to create a huge portal in Avernum 2.

[Milla]

The Empire probably had the man power and resources to achieve it.

[Earth]

Sliths are quick breeders? also Avernum is quite big place.

 

Empire also had big portal in A4 which Darkside Loyalists sabotaged so it only requires time and resources to get big portals.

[Milla]

^Canonically Sliths develop faster than humans.

 

Furthermore when you say wiped out, narratively there are always some survivors. So despite your psychotic adventurers massacring everything in sight there will be some broken remnants left.

[Jerakeen]

Originally Posted By: Milla

^Canonically Sliths develop faster than humans.

Furthermore when you say wiped out, narratively there are always some survivors. So despite your psychotic adventurers massacring everything in sight there will be some broken remnants left.

My adventurers are never psychotic enough to slaughter the innocent newts.

[Alorael at Large]

The sliths were a major threat in A1, in which they are genocided back severely, and recover by the time of Za-Khazi between A3 and A4. So yes, apparently they're not bad at breeding.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't understand why they keep picking fights with Avernum. You'd think the more peaceable Gnass folks would have started winning converts from the battered survivors of failed campaigns by now.

[Milla]

Ah but Avernum 4 had Gnass sliths converting to or at least thinking about joining those Sliths in the lower caves since life was getting really crappy for them at the time.

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: Cuando grita, "¡Crueldad!"

—Alorael, who doesn't understand why they keep picking fights with Avernum. You'd think the more peaceable Gnass folks would have started winning converts from the battered survivors of failed campaigns by now.

prolly too stubborn or old teachings are too hard to bypass.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

That implies a set of attributes given by the means of an immortal soul or specific strings of DNS. Both are unthinkable to me.

Sliths, just like any other species living in organised communities, seek for new perspectives in the time of crisis. Any kind of party trying to unite (part of) the population against an internal or external concept of enemy (expr?) is in a really good position to have success in such times.

I think it's totally convincing to argue that the Sliths, being in a very difficult position after Avernum 1, will furtherly divide in groups believing in different solutions for their problems; given their history, the environment in the caves and the predominance of humans, the agressive expansionists will naturally be the leading movement.

[Vicheron]

If the Slith breed so fast then how come the Gnass Sliths never expanded at all?

 

Sliths require two very important things, heat and water. The evil Slith got pushed out of the areas that had the most abundant amount of those two resources. How could that have resulted in them reproducing faster?

[Milla]

I did wonder that after comparing Gnass A2 with Gnass A4. Between A1 vs. A2 you can see there has been some development in the town (Tiled floors etc.) but by the time A4 came around it looked like they deprogressed, things had gotten more primitive. There may be whole villages which are hidden away due to being isolated by water.

 

When Slith breed they apparently lay large clutches of eggs where only a few actually hatch. In Gnass they are then put in baby pools where live and grow (I guess as they grow bigger they get moved to larger pools.) for about eight years.

 

Then most of them go through their so-called 'Time of Mind' where suddenly their minds develop rapidly and they emerge as mentally young adults ready for training.

 

Those that don't got through the ToM remain childlike and sent to work on farms and are cared for. (At least in Gnass, who knows what happens to them elsewhere.)

 

One theory for the rapidly building numbers is that the barbaric Sliths have figured out how to get a higher ratio of eggs in egg clutches to hatch.

[Vicheron]

It doesn't matter how many eggs the evil Sliths get to hatch. If they don't have the resources to support all their hatching, they'll all die.

[Earth]

raids on Avernites farms or their own farms or other food supply, I see Sliths as meat-eaters so they would need to get meat somewhere too.

[Enraged Slith]

They survive off of a healthy combination of fish and the crushed hopes and dreams of Avernites.

[Milla]

Actually in A1 the barbaric sliths are said to have taken the best locations for sliths (Warm and wet) and the friendly ones are stuck in places like Gnass which isn't that good for Sliths.

 

And they are omnivorous but focus more on meat (And crushed hopes and dreams as Enraged Slith pointed out.)

[Vicheron]

But the evil Sliths were pushed out of the best areas by the Avernites into the regions which were later occupied by the Empire.

 

Unless the evil Sliths somehow found another resource rich region, they should have never been able to regain their strength to the point where they could threaten Avernum. Unless of course, they found another demon master.

[Milla]

I thought the best areas were those they had in A1. Gnass was originally formed from the Sliths who were pushed out of that region by the Darklings. (Gnass Sliths were the ones why built that big temple with the purification pools.). In fact Gnass is in an area which is pretty crappy for Sliths if you go by A1 dialogue.

 

The Empire did take over the Slith territory though.

And there are probably whole stretches of unknown caverns below or next to Avernum where the Darklings have been living and growing in numbers.

[Zalatar]

This has gone just a little bit off topic. Considering that the last bit of page 5 was on screenshots and the top of the next page is about evil sliths makes me think that someone posted in the wrong place and nobody else cared. Well, it wasn't really the wrong place as now maybe in A6 it is possible to kill all of the sliths (except for the Gnass).

Maybe kill them with giant anvils above their heads.

There is a small chance that what is happening is the slith mages in R&D figured out how to summon baby sliths from air, water, and a bit of mp mixed with asp fangs and crap.

If they could do that, then all they'd have to worry about is eating. And yes they do nom nom nom on hopes and dreams. At least they did until I discovered the secret of the border of the view in E1 oh so long ago. Really. I didn't know that you could shoot a fireball at far away enemies by clicking on the border of the view. I still feel a little dumb about that. That gets me to thinking, There should be a 'light beam' spell that has uber-high range and does a small amount of light damage or something. I'd be happy with that instead of the anvil. Maybe. I'm still excited!

[Earth]

light attack-spell would require enemy whois invulnerable to light.

[Alorael at Large]

I think you mean vulnerable, unless you're arguing that all spells require conditions rendering them useless.

 

—Alorael, who wouldn't say no to a spell that does damage like Wound from Exile. High damage is unnecessary, but always being able to do some to anything is great.

[Earth]

yeah vulnerable. damage is damage but more is better.

 

those demons/haakais should be vulnerable to light but no light off-spell so far, light arrows yes.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Two digit promotion

—Alorael, who wouldn't say no to a spell that does damage like Wound from Exile. High damage is unnecessary, but always being able to do some to anything is great.

I've been waiting for that since Jeff released A1. Sometimes a spell that does decent amount of generic damage to all monsters is better than one that does massive amounts of a specific type of damage (cold, fire, etc.) to which a lot of monsters are resistant/immune.

[Skwish-E]

What about a monster vulnerable to light beer?

 

Shambling Drunkard takes 45 liquid damage (4 resisted)

[Skwish-E]

Should armor be damaged in battle? For instance, you've been wearing the same leather armor for three big battles, and it has been on fire, frozen, and chewed to bits by a chitrach, yet it still works as good as new?

 

Armor repair could be a skill or something you have to purchase. Certain magical armor could be self-healing.

[Callie]

Having armor repair in a game would pretty much force you to find materials used to repair it. It'd be pretty annoying to search all over Avernum just to find an iron bar to fix your chain mail (I've never seen any steel lying around). Plus, it'd force the player to train in a skill that only has one purpose, and costs money as well. Money is needed for stuff like spells and training in combat-related skills. Granted, first aid is kind of useless, but you don't have to train in it to heal yourself.

[Earth]

if armors get damaged then should shields, helmets, boots, leggings, gloves and weapons too and reapairing those or changing to new would cost so much that monsters would need to drop way more gold than they did on a5 and a4. 1 option is that party can have personal smith+tailor+etc at starting town who fixes stuff.

[Skwish-E]

Yeah, I guess that would be a real pain. Maybe you only need to repair armor if you get killed in it. The skill also would take needed points from other areas.

 

 

[Alorael at Large]

Does it add anything to the game besides arguable verisimilitude? I don't think so, and I don't think it belongs in Avernum.

 

—Alorael, who would be more accepting of a massive drain on funds if the game had an endless source of gold. Being able to fight yourself into corners of not being able to afford armor would be too annoying to be good for the game.

[fractalnavel]

"What did he die from ?"

 

"Verisimilitude."

[Vicheron]

The simple solution is to make it so that the repair skill also allows you to improve your equipment. So instead of just letting you fix broken or damaged weapons, you can also increase their damage or even add enchantments based on your skill and the quality of raw material you have. It's also possible to add the option to shape raw material into something more valuable so you can sell it for more money.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I remember a game which (in my opinion) tried to make things too realistic. For example, you start bleeding when damaged, or you are forced to rest after walking a certain distance because you're too tired to continue.

 

I disliked that game very much.

[Sleeping Dragon]

Sounds like Realmz. Everybody disliked that game very much.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Yep, that's the one.

[Dark.Fenix]

i say no to the repair thingy, cause lets face it, it will only suck the gold u get.

 

the idea of having a skill to augment ur gear (like spells, wich u would need to find/buy/learn from npc the recipes) would be great.

still dont think this should be trainable by skill points, but instead choosen like a trait from a various number of specialisations specialisations or, to not have alot of "professions", count it as aanother trait to choose from.

 

 

also i wouldnt mind zones with monster respawn, this would bring farm to the game to get a litle bit more loot to buy skils, not that i think its necessary tho, A5 gave plenty of cash to go around, it just takes some time to save it.

 

 

 

upgradable weapons, u would have a magic weapon/shield/armor wich could be turned into something more powerfull by collecting the necessary upgrade items in sidequests maybe. like each weaponsmith in major cities would gave u a optional quest to get that item (quests harder than normal but that would compensate for the upgraded item) like "anvils r's: find how the hell does X create so many anvils"

[Earth]

we have weapon upgrading already now, sorta.

[Skwish-E]

Sounds like the Geneforge magic anvil

[Lucheiah]

I reckon that'd be an awesome feature! Or, maybe have craftsmen in towns who, instead of making custom items, upgrade existing items - you give them 2 rubies and an iron breastplate, they make you a ruby breastplate (or something).

 

I can hardly wait for A6 to come out!

[Vicheron]

Originally Posted By: Sleeping Dragon

Sounds like Realmz. Everybody disliked that game very much.

Without Realmz, there might not be a Spiderweb Software. Exile was originally published by Fantasoft, the company that created Realmz. Heck, Exile and Realmz shared a lot of the same graphics and sound effects. The graphics for a lot of the items in the newest Geneforge and Avernum games are from those days.

Also, Realmz was based on Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, TSR even threatened to sue Fantasoft.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Vicheron

Also, Realmz was based on Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, TSR even threatened to sue Fantasoft.

So thaaaaat's why all the D&D monsters suddenly got name changes after version 1.

[Randomizer]

Have you ever read Phil Foglio's "What's New with Phil and Dixie" from Dragon magazine? They have some of the reprints over at his website and there was one with the visit to TSR headquarters where the staff couldn't use the word, "ring," after their troubles with the Tolkien estate.

[Lilith]

Oh, I know how litigious TSR was, I'm just surprised they found out about Fantasoft.

[Ouroboros]

Does anyone wondered what happened to Aimee?

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Heavenly Betwixt

—Alorael, who would be more accepting of a massive drain on funds if the game had an endless source of gold.

That would help tremendously. That's one major advantage the Exile games have over the Avernum series: Cash aplenty!

Originally Posted By: Destiny

Does anyone wondered what happened to Aimee?

If memory serves, she goes off wandering other planes of existence when the war with the Empire begins in A2/E2. Perhaps she liked one of them so much that she moved there?

[Sleeping Dragon]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

That's one major advantage the Exile games have over the Avernum series: Cash aplenty!

Yeah, and you had to pick it up one pile of coins at a time back then!

[RCCCL]

Originally Posted By: Sleeping Dragon

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

That's one major advantage the Exile games have over the Avernum series: Cash aplenty!

Yeah, and you had to pick it up one pile of coins at a time back then!

Darn, it was so hard to hit A continuously till everything was picked up

I like the way the spell radius looks for Icy Rain in the 5th screenshot.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

In Exile I and II, all gold and food in the area was automatically picked up all at once when you hit Get. That stopped by BoE for some reason, and maybe by E3.

[Earth]

I used get all-command to get stuffs after battle.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: The Almighty Doer of Stuff

In Exile I and II, all gold and food in the area was automatically picked up all at once when you hit Get. That stopped by BoE for some reason, and maybe by E3.

It was ended in E3. Maybe Jeff didn't know how to code it for that engine?

[Celtic Minstrel]

I thought it still did that in both E3 and BoE.

[Lilith]

E3 and BoE still automatically pick up all gold and food dropped by monsters you kill, but not other gold and food. I think it's because gold and food placed in towns can be listed as "not yours", so taking it would be stealing.