Minion

If you wait ten years for a remake of the second trilogy and it never happens (likely because Jeff Vogel is abducted by an underground race of pale, spindly humanoids for spilling their secrets), at least you can still go back and play the originals.

Cultivating political alliances by marrying could be kind of neat, but I assume that as a member of the royal household, you would require the queen's approval. Unless there is the option to rebel, in which case forging a strong alliance with a local dynasty through marriage would be a good way to consolidate your overseas power base.

Don't the baton thorn bushes grow new thorns in time so you can come back and harvest them?

Judging by their username, I would assume that Wendy is a woman, and I assume that the gender bias would be that women (supposedly?) have a higher ratio of casual gamers who only play on smartphones and tablets, as opposed to men and their man-cave gaming rigs. Note that this is just a guess at what Wendy means and not an observation or an attempt to analyze gaming habits by gender.

Depending on your climate, you can put out honey or sugar dissolved in water for the bees to eat before they go into hibernation once and for all, and in early spring when they start waking up but before the first flowers bloom. However, bees are curious, and if you place honey or sugar-water on your windowsill, it might be a good idea to close the window or you might find a small legion of bees exploring your house. Also, a saucer is preferable to a bowl since the bees will crowd it and eventually some of them will fall in and get honey all over themselves, which means they get stuck and will be unable to fly until they and their fellow bees lick them clean.

I dunno, I kind of like the way Spiderweb games sound already. It goes perfectly with the graphics. What if it sounds too slick?

That sounds interesting. May I ask why?

Now I find myself curious over what the demographic split in the Spiderweb fanbase might be. My impression from Jeff's GDC speech was that his sales have been remarkably stable over time with approximately the same number of people buying each game, with the exception of the iPad-fuelled runaway hit Avadon and the odd underperformer like G3 and BoA. I would assume that this indicates an even inflow of new players and dropout of old players (or passing of fickle casual players and return of old players, as in the case of myself), making the age spread similarily evenly distributed. Personally, I suppose I could have gone for one of the creative input rewards, but I don't like the thought of being personally involved in something I'm going to consume. However, I am grateful for those who do not share my qualms and have helped the project coming close to breaking the second reward tier as I write (just a little further).

The question would be, how many of them could actually afford it and how many are even now trying to come up with a way to fill the $1000 dollar hole in their finances? That would also be a form of dedication.

I take it that you hesitated, and before you knew it all five slots were gone.

After writing shareware games for 25 years, it must be pretty awesome to find that you have at least five fans so dedicated to your work that they will each pay enough to feed your family for several months just to be able to design a quest for one of your games.

Perhaps whoever created it wanted to know if it would, by the application of logic, accept its fate as food for its keepers or whether it would rebel and attempt to escape.

Actually, if the queen is the prime monarch, her husband would be her consort (frequently known as a prince-consort) and not her co-ruler. A famous example of this would be Queen Victoria. Or she might just have a harem stuffed away somewhere in a wing of her palace. PS: As a word of warning, long-lasting and highly lethal contact poisons do exist, so I recommend handling any scrolls of absolution with care.

You could create a character called Becca. I don't recall what character model she uses in the remake, but you should be able to find the equivalent to either her new or her old model (in case she now uses a generic NPC model).

The completely remade system and graphics I suppose, all the awesomeness is still there, only now with more streamlined rules and fancier little people moving across your screen.

A short note on combat initiative, each point of Dexterity adds one point of initiative, as does every level, and Quick Action adds two points of initiative.

I believe Realmz was made available for free with all the official scenarios, though you may have to look around a bit for the necessary codes since they were originally posted on a Yahoo group.

Note that it is designed for sole occupancy. Perhaps the room is rented by the minute for private viewing, possibly as a way to raise funds for expensive bioweapons research.

Thank you all for your replies. My idle curiosity has been satisfied.

Could you equip them and press the use button? If I recall correctly, equipped items in the Exile games were simply italicized but still remained in your inventory (no dress-up doll).

Natural Mage is a trait from the original Avernum trilogy, though the new trilogy has the trait Swordmage which increases the maximum To Hit Chance penalty your character may accumulate before being unable to cast mage spells. I believe you can have a maximum of -10% to hit when starting out before being unable to cast mage spells, and every time you take the Swordmage trait the limit should increase another -5%. You can easily get 90% armour by the end of the game without exceeding the -10% limit with the right mix of Hardiness and gear (particularly with the blessings), so I'm not sure that you have to get Swordmage, particularly if you have already played the game and know where to go to find the right items.

I happened to check the hint book for Exile: Escape from the Pit, and it says that the game has weapons and armour that can cast spells. How did that work? The only items capable of casting spells in the later games are specific spell-items like scrolls, wands and crystals that have no other function.

I believe all job board delivery quests work that way, i.e. you don't get love notes and seed corn in your Special Items list, just the quest listing.

Unless I am mistaken, job board quests that require you to locate an object and deliver it always include something like "find/locate/slay xxx and deliver it to xxx", while quests like the ones about seed corn only mention "deliver xxx to xxx".

My total noob thoughts on your points are: 2. In Crystal Souls and Ruined World, humans can reach a high even spread in all four stats thanks to the extra traits. In my recent playthrough of Ruined World, my two fighters final stats were roughly 30/20/20/20 (traits included), and I found the increased initiative, mental resistance and HP very useful compared to previous playthroughs where I had put all points into Strength. My wizard and priest mainly focused on Intelligence, with about five extra points and traits in Endurance, and five points/traits in Dexterity and Strength respectively so they could pitch in with bow and sword, particularly early on in the game (which worked quite well on Hard and later Torment. My fighters had no trouble at all hitting everything, but the priest and wizard had trouble hitting stronger enemies after the middle of the game (but by then they had plenty of Spell Points and strong spells). 3. I did some testing and it turns out that every point of Quick Action adds two points to your initiative, while each experience level and point of Dexterity add one point each to initiative. Striking first is good, since it normally allows you to take out at least one or two opponents, which means fewer opponents to strike back, particularly in battles that take place outdoors or in large spaces where the enemies can surround you. Dual Wielding, however, is less efficient than Blademaster, so I don't put points in it until the end of the game when everything else has been maxed out. Also, I have my swordsman use a shield until his skills and stats are high enough to dual wield effectively, which is somewhere around level 15 to 20, I believe. 4. I find that quite a few non-body armor pieces, like greaves and gauntlets, add more penalties than they are worth compared to non-penalty pieces like gloves and pants, especially once you start finding enchanted items. 5. I find that the best traits are the stat traits, Negotiatior, Nimble Fingers and Sage Lore. Keep in mind that sometimes it might be worth saving up a couple of levels so you can pass the level requirement for certain traits (like saving your level 4 trait until you're level 5 for the second Nimble Fingers). 6. After a certain point, putting a skill point in Blademaster yields more damage than a point in Melee/Pole Weapons. You can calculate this point by adding your total damage dice (easily done by checking the weapon) and checking if one point of Blademaster (+3%) gives you an additional damage dice (or more). I forget the exact numbers, but I think the percentage bonus surpasses the straight additional damage dice around 30-35 damage dice (around 10-15 Strength and 10 Melee/Pole Weapons, including your weapon bonus dice). 7. If you put at least 8 points in Melee/Pole Weapons, your magic user can get 12 Hardiness by buying an additional 2 points in the weapon skill. Then you can buy another 5 points in the other skills for Adrenaline Rush.