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Avernum 6 - May Update.


Spidweb

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I remember finding Scroith in Motrax's little treasure trove back in the mid nineties. I loved how it had the charges of the fire spell. I would like to see some weapons with usable spell effects. An active, rather than passive ability to use when weapons are placed in the quick-use item slots in A4. Also, I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised by all the item callbacks. Hoping to see old stuff like the amber short sword, or the Heartfinder. Maybe the Pants of Power.

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Yay! Dual-wielding, new graphics - who cares? The Exile/Avernum saga is finally coming to an end! Here's to hoping we get to see many, many familiar faces.

 

Avernum: Origins, though... What made the first Avernum so great was the mystery surrounding the First Expedition and the early days of Avernum. You found all these pieces of information here and there and had to puzzle it together yourself - and you STILL didn't understand everything. Which was great. I'm not sure I really want to know exactly what happened back then.

 

That being said, I would buy the game without a second thought. A nice twist to Avernum: Origins would be to play as soldiers of the Empire a'la A5. How about playing as the hitherto-unheard-of Second Expedition, sent down to rescue Karzoth & Co. (and, more importantly, recover the priceless artifacts those losers lost in the underworld). That would be great... except, you know, no towns and civilization and such.

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Originally Posted By: Seaweed
How about playing as the hitherto-unheard-of Second Expedition, sent down to rescue Karzoth & Co. (and, more importantly, recover the priceless artifacts those losers lost in the underworld). That would be great... except, you know, no towns and civilization and such.


We would know results of that too: Whole party dead.

Good thing on early days of Avernum: Lotsa monsters to kill.

Bad things on early days of Avernum: Lack of good equipments, lotsa hard monsters (especially demons most likely), lack of trainers, long distances between places and no easy way to travel fast.
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Originally Posted By: Earth2025
Originally Posted By: Seaweed
How about playing as the hitherto-unheard-of Second Expedition, sent down to rescue Karzoth & Co. (and, more importantly, recover the priceless artifacts those losers lost in the underworld). That would be great... except, you know, no towns and civilization and such.


We would know results of that too: Whole party dead.


How so? The party wouldn't have to die, they would just have to fail in recovering the artifacts. The plots in the Avernum games have never been that straightforward anyway. The party in A2 was supposed to go fight the Empire but they ended up discovering a new civilization. And the party in A3 was just supposed to go do some exploring on the surface but they ended up pretty much saving the whole continent of Valorim.
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i don't think a second expedition would be a very wise choice. i mean, if they had accomplished anything really significant, you would've heard something about them and avernum probably wouldn't become a penal colony. they could maybe discover the exit to the surface, but even that's kind of iffy.

maybe the first expedition could enter through the exit rather than teleport. that would answer the question of how they got there in the first place and why the exit is guarded when your avernum 1 party tries to get through it.

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You have to wonder, though, why the Empire didn't try to recover Demonslayer, Smite, the onyx sceptre and the other magic items. Sure, the First Expedition got slaughtered but that was a small force and the Empire is... the Empire. You know. All-powerful. Bane of magical creatures everywhere. It's not like a couple of cave-dwelling dragons/demons/sliths could have stopped Hawthorne if he had wanted those artifacts back. Maybe they just weren't worth the trouble. smile

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The First Expedition's death is common knowledge among Avernites, who generally rely on the rumor mill, and stated by Motrax, who didn't know all of them. It's possible that some groups survived. Why didn't the Empire make that public? That's for the game to reveal. The Second Expedition could have been wildly successful at whatever it was sent to do and not a word was whispered to anyone afterwards.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think these are necessarily compelling ideas for games. They're workable, though. BoA, anyone?

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Originally Posted By: Seaweed
You have to wonder, though, why the Empire didn't try to recover Demonslayer, Smite, the onyx sceptre and the other magic items. Sure, the First Expedition got slaughtered but that was a small force and the Empire is... the Empire. You know. All-powerful. Bane of magical creatures everywhere. It's not like a couple of cave-dwelling dragons/demons/sliths could have stopped Hawthorne if he had wanted those artifacts back. Maybe they just weren't worth the trouble. smile


Empire didn't need those artifacts and maybe at that time there weren't any extra-terrestial/dimensonal monsters at surface.
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I don't know. Having to worry about starvation was generally just annoying and added nothing to the game. With one notable exception in E2. Come to think of it, food could have been a bigger factor in A5 (which was kind of like an extended version of Dark Waters) but if A6 is taking place in the "old" Avernum, I don't see how food could become a problem.

 

On the other hand, if the whole game is going to be about competing for resources, then...

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Having a long Dark River section where you have to stock up for a one way trip with no ideas about resupplies can be interesting. The first time is scary that you will run out before the end. After that you try to minimize items so you have room to gather loot.

 

My first time with starvation was in Exile 3 where I sold all my food to the group outside of Sharamik and forgot to resupply.

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You start with Minor Manna, and that takes a lot of the real terror out of starvation. I can't recall where you get Manna, but it's also quite obtainable. Once you can have a net positive change in food by casting Manna and then resting you're really in the clear.

 

—Alorael, who still thinks Dark Waters is excellent. Actually starving isn't fun, but having to worry about it even slightly is.

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Minor Manna - This spell makes a little bit of food for your party. You can get it from Paulo, in Pergies, in SW Krizsan Province.

 

Manna - Once you buy this spell, you will never have to buy food again. When you cast it, some food appears. How much? Depends on the caster's level and intelligence. It ranges from one unit of food to 30 or more! This is really a great spell, and will pay for itself quickly. Buy it from the Vahnatai in Ghikra.

 

I remember at Exile that all food was lost when went to rapids.

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Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Yes, it would be interesting to see. I'd like to see the Empire's original expedition in Avernum, or maybe Hawthorme's rise to power, or the political struggle that got Solberg, Erika, X, etc. sent down to the caves.
Or even all of the above! But I'd be most interested in the First Expedition, personally.

Originally Posted By: Seaweed
except, you know, no towns and civilization and such.
Why not? The sliths would be there, wouldn't they?

...Well, I suppose that's not quite civilization, but still...

Originally Posted By: Lord of the Interstices
The First Expedition's death is common knowledge among Avernites, who generally rely on the rumor mill, and stated by Motrax, who didn't know all of them. It's possible that some groups survived.
I always though there were two survivors of the First Expedition?
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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
I always though there were two survivors of the First Expedition?


Oh, for cryin' out loud, not this again. "Slaughtered to a man and a woman" does not mean that a man and a woman survived; it means that every man and woman was slaughtered. It's a common English idiom.
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Quote:
* Every graphic has been redone. All of the icons will be anti-aliased and have shadows, which makes the game look much nicer. It's the prettiest game we've ever done.

Ooh, this sounds awesome! I haven't really played any of the Avernum games, but this really motivates me to try it. All in all, this sounds like it's going to be amazing.
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Originally Posted By: Thuryl
Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
I always though there were two survivors of the First Expedition?


Oh, for cryin' out loud, not this again. "Slaughtered to a man and a woman" does not mean that a man and a woman survived; it means that every man and woman was slaughtered. It's a common English idiom.
Ah, okay. I actually didn't know that.
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Originally Posted By: Goose
Quote:
* Every graphic has been redone. All of the icons will be anti-aliased and have shadows, which makes the game look much nicer. It's the prettiest game we've ever done.

Ooh, this sounds awesome! I haven't really played any of the Avernum games, but this really motivates me to try it. All in all, this sounds like it's going to be amazing.

I may cry. Jeff bringing in new customers with shiny graphics?

—Alorael, who suspects they may have been slaughtered to a man and woman. Then that man and that woman were slaughtered too. Avernum wasn't a nice place back then.
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Actually 'slaughtered to a man' is probably a bad use of the idiom. Somehow it just doesn't sound quite right to me, to use this idiom for something passive and destructive like being slaughtered. I might write it, but I'd probably change it on the next draft.

 

It is traditionally just 'to a man'; the woman here is affirmative action. Standard uses are things like, 'they denied it to a man', meaning they all denied it. It's a funny idiom. Maybe it's a sort of abbreviation of the similar idiom, 'to the last man', which is used the same way and means the same thing, but makes a bit more sense literally.

 

 

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"Killed to a man" gets a few hundred hits on Google. "Slaughtered to a man" gets 143,000. "Denied it to a man" gets only 7, but "refused to a man" has over 55 million, although a few aren't actually the idiom.

 

I'm not sure what this proves, except that this is in fact an idiom that has seen use in many ways.

 

—Alorael, who supposes the idiom has now been used to a man, and everyone should be used to it by now.

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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Yes, it would be interesting to see. I'd like to see the Empire's original expedition in Avernum, or maybe Hawthorme's rise to power, or the political struggle that got Solberg, Erika, X, etc. sent down to the caves.
Or even all of the above! But I'd be most interested in the First Expedition, personally.
There's always the possibility of someone creating one or more BoA scenarios. (All you scenario designers out there: Hint, hint...)
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Originally Posted By: Seaweed
And one was frozen in stasis, which, I guess, means that he didn't really die at all?

When I die, if there is an afterlife one of the first things I'm going to do is not what follows, because I imagine dying will be fascinating and traumatic. But eventually I'll get around to looking for all the cryogenically frozen folks and see for certain whether omniscience means the souls of the not-quite-dead can be collected if they're just gonna die anyway.

—Alorael, who could also see there being a special post-mortem cryogenic lounge for souls that can't quite enter and can't quite go on corporeally.
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WOW, i have to say that the ambidexterious style of A6 is soooooooo nice!!!! I remeber on exile 1 and 2 - I mauled most enemys with duel weapons!!!!! Mr. Vogel! I'm so glad you added that option! NOW I beg that you may please add assassination (I know repel and repositle esp. is sorta like it! but i miss that skill badly!), limited or save spots (or limited or non-dungeon/bad area save spots), disease and hard final battle or a way to continue to kill hard monsters and level (such as an extra large map like %50 more area when the game is complete. This is prefered to me because its needed to keep the game play going after the end of the game/storyline) !!!! It's only fair!!!! AND PLEASE PLEASE MAKE the levelsand enemies waaay harder than avernum 5! Now I'm not a huge critic, but I love you games alot esp your avnm series. It takes me like months to complete it.

 

Soz for the beg and noobish attitude but to me... avernum 2 skills maul avernum 4's and 5's, although a1 and a2 were not that balanced because magers owned all... smile

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What is it with dual-wielding that makes people go crazy? Is it really just the cool factor or what? smile

 

And this is true for every RPG ever made, from Planescape Torment to Oblivion. The first thing fans want to know about a new game is if it features dual-wielding, and if it doesn't, everyone instantly starts bitching about it. Even the producers market games by saying they feature *omg* dual-wielding. It's like "This game offers hundreds of hours of epic adventure AND MORE IMPORTANTLY YOU WILL BE ABLE TO HOLD ONE SWORD IN YOUR RIGHT HAND AND ANOTHER SWORD IN YOUR LEFT HAND FTW RIGHT!?"

 

For the record, I don't have anything against dual-wielding. It's a nice thing to have around.

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Drizzt does it, so it must be awesome.

 

—Alorael, who thinks it's one of those odd coolness things. Heavy armor has gone out of fashion and acrobatic fighting is in (Hollywood, no doubt). Helmets are also no good, as heroes lose cool value with hidden faces. Shields somehow just aren't that good either. Fencing is more popular without them.

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Originally Posted By: Closer to Spice
Part of the mystique of dual-wielding is that it is almost always extremely powerful, in any game that allows it. I'm not sure I can think of any exceptions, actually.


Hackmaster Basic, a pen and paper game, when it gets released this month has made the damage that you take increase significantly for dual weapon wielders as opposed to weapon and shield users. It makes you choose with extra damage per round to take out your opponents and taking less damage per round to survive to the next one.
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Originally Posted By: Seaweed
What is it with dual-wielding that makes people go crazy? Is it really just the cool factor or what? smile
Yes, there's a "cool factor" to dual wielding, but it's mainly the fact that you can use it mow down virtually anything in your path. This is especially true in E3 & BoE (and I think E2), due to the "ambidextrous" character trait, which pretty much negated any penalty for dual wielding.
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Originally Posted By: Endonopticon
I'm afraid you're way off, Drakey. The base damage of the weapon itself is higher, but with the astronomical bonus damage available from high Strength and from bless, dual-wielding will definitely do more.


In Exile, the bonus is a flat amount of additional damage for hand-to-hand weapons, so a sword with a bonus of 5 will do five extra damage. It's the base damage that increases with Strength.
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No, bonus damage from strength, from bless, and from the weapon itself is all a flat addition. This is completely different from the base damage range, which depends only on the weapon. Unless I'm remembering this completely wrong, I'm pretty sure this is how it is displayed in the PC status box and also how the BoE code indicates it works.

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Originally Posted By: Endonopticon
I'm afraid you're way off, Drakey. The base damage of the weapon itself is higher, but with the astronomical bonus damage available from high Strength and from bless, dual-wielding will definitely do more.


This also depends on enemy armour, of course. It's not a bad idea to have at least one polearm user for fighting Doomguards.
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