Ircher

My experience is that Steam automatically launches when you try to launch a game if it isn't already running. As long as you allow Steam to save your account credentials to the computer, you can launch Steam in offline mode allowing you to play without an Internet connection.

New Years is right around the corner, so I thought that now would be a good time to post this thread. Do you have any New Years resolutions for next year? How have you done on yours from this (soon to be over) year?

It doesn't look like this has been reported before. In the iOS version of the game, suppose you currently have some javelins equipped. Now tap on the javelins and then tap on the same space again. The javelins will disappear without a trace! I have no idea if this is specific to only normal javelins and only to the iOS version of the game. It is rather annoying, and I don't expect a fix with how long the game has been out. I just thought I would point this out to help save others from confusion.

Well, based on what I know (I've never bought GeneForge, but I have played some demos; also, when you refer to the Avernum series, are you talking about the old 1st trilogy, the 2nd trilogy, or the new 1st trilogy?): 1) Avernum is 100% turn-based, but Avadon and Geneforge are both real-action outside of combat. 2) In general, Geneforge is NOT party based; that said, you can create permanent creations if you want. 3) In Avadon, all abilities have cooldowns preventing you from using the same abilities each turn. (There is also a fatigue cost which works like spell points in Avernum, but in general, you use way less of it in Avadon 1 and Avadon 2 while you auto-regenerate fatigue in Avadon 3.) 4) Avadon's stat system is class-based. (Geneforge employs a semi-class-based system by adjusting skill costs.) 5) Unlike Avernum and Geneforge where you can allocate points in abilities at the start, in Avadon, the only decision you make at the start is your main character's class. 6) Avadon has a much more linear plotline compared to the more open-ended nature of Avernum 1 and 2. 7) Unlike Avernum, moral and ethical choices appear in Avadon and Geneforge (a lot more so in Geneforge.) That probably covers some of the major differences. That said, the Avadon series is great, so I would suggest purchasing it. Geneforge is probably good as well.

Why are all the end quests in Avernum 2 so ridiculously hard? I managed to finish all three game-winning quests for Avernum: EftP with an ending level of 29 on normal... Anyway, I'm in the Portal Fortress, and I have found the key located on the east side of the fortress. I then tried to go to the west side of the fortress (because it said the portal was located in the west wing) using the secret entrance, which was no problem, but then I entered the room with a bunch of Vahnahtai Masters and 2 named crystal worker mages, and those two mages deal like 70-120 damage per attack (on Normal--each!) and have a very high amount of health. Do any of you have any tips for this area? I have 1 dual spellcaster, a tank that using polearms, a dual-wielding ninja (has skill with thrown missiles and some dex in addition to strength and melee weapon competency), and a priest archer (high dex; mainly a support role). All 4 party members are level 27, and I have already maxed hardiness on both my warriors (the ninja and the tank). My dual spellcaster and priest have trained in resistance, although they aren't quite maxed yet. (And yes, my dual-spellcaster has adrenaline rush as well as my tank and my ninja...) Obviously, I'm approaching the level cap, but I feel that the game-winning quests are a bit ridiculously tough compared to A:EftP especially considering I'm playing on Normal. (And no, reducing the difficulty is hardly an option because 1) I miss out on the medal and 2) It will suck the fun out of the game because I will easily kill everything). (So far, I've only managed to rescue one of the Crystal Souls.... I don't know where one of them is, and the other in Angierach... That's a ridiculously tough quest as well....)

(I'm assuming this is the correct way of doing this. Literally no one has posted in this forum in the past 2 or so years... Also, does the scenario review page on Spiderweb's website actually get checked? I originally sent a review that way, but then I remembered this subforum plus I wanted to write my review differently than how I submitted it there.) Good Things - Great Concept - A captivating story (at least at the beginning) Bad Things - One place where you literally have to bash your head against every wall looking for a secret door without any reasonable indicator where the secret door is. (Oh, did I mention that it was a 64x64 town too? (Or at least it really felt like it was...) - Balance; in my opinion, the game was generally too easy for the majority of the game up until the last two fights where it then got insanely tough. Part of this has to do with losing stuff at the beginning, but I still think a bit more consistency would've helped. - Lack of a person to identify items. - A very vague clue as to what you lose at the beginning that most people are not going to pick up on. Still, for me, I give this a GOOD (3.52/5.00) rating.

Okay, I actually got the master branch to compile on my end, and I found a (very quick) fix to one of the issues I brought up above (if I get a chance to, I may try to upload it to Github, but for now, I'll simply post it here because it is easier for me): 9) Checking for "Anama Member" trait results in an out-of-bounds error (and a related error): In file boe.specials.cpp around line 3185: case eSpecType::AFFECT_TRAITS: if(pc_num >= 100) break; if(spec.ex1a < 0 || spec.ex1a > 15) { showError("Trait is out of range (0 - 15)."); break; } spec.ex1a > 15 should be changed be changed to 16. (Anama Member is trait number #16.) Likewise, the error message should be updated accordingly. Make a similar adjustment also around line 3503 for the IF_TRAIT case. Edit: Also, why is it that running a release build is more stable than running a debug build? For instance, the following line of code triggers an out-of-bounds exception most of the time in the debug build (using MSVC on Windows) but it seems to get skipped entirely in the release build: (Around line 322 of boe.graphutil.cpp:) cVehicle& in_boat = univ.party.boats[univ.party.in_boat]; cVehicle& in_horse = univ.party.horses[univ.party.in_horse]; This triggers an out-of-bounds exception when trying to enter a scenario because the code use any number greater than or equal to zero to indicate an actual boat, but it uses -1 to indicate not in a boat, and when the scenario loads, it tries to access univ.party.boats[-1]. I would change it to look like this: cVehicle* in_boat = univ.party.in_boat >= 0 ? &univ.party.boats[univ.party.in_boat] : nullptr; cVehicle* in_horse = univ.party.in_horse >= 0 ? &univ.party.horses[univ.party.in_horse] : nullptr; (Then, in the loops, test the pointer and if valid, dereference it for the comparison.) Do something similar around line 354. Edit2: 5) Priest spells menu lists mage spells for some reason: Around line 238 of boe.menus.win.cpp: eSpell spell = cSpell::fromNum(eSkill::MAGE_SPELLS, on_spell_menu[1][i]); The MAGE_SPELLS should be changed to PRIEST_SPELLS. A little bit farther down: AppendMenuA(spell_menu, MF_STRING | MF_ENABLED, 2000 + int(spell), sout.str().c_str()); Should be 2900, not 2000. Edit3: 10) Invalid shop type error occurs when using the shopping node during dialogue: Around line 839 in boe.dlgutil.cpp: if(d < 0 || d > 11) { showError("Invalid shop type!"); return; } Pretty sure the issue here is that d isn't used and is normally -1 when creating new dialogue nodes whereas in Warrior's Grove, the value is 0. I'm pretty sure you meant to check b here, but if that is the case, I do have to ask -- why only 12 shops? Also, bug/suggestion 13) Whenever you exit shopping mode, the bottom part of the screen starts flashing. Edit4: 1) The Save command does not seem to work. In function do_load (located around line 2178) of boe.actions.cpp: void do_load() { fs::path file_to_load = nav_get_party(); if(file_to_load.empty()) return; if(!load_party(file_to_load, univ)) return; finish_load_party(); if(overall_mode != MODE_STARTUP) post_load(); menu_activate(); } Adding univ.file = file_to_load; after post_load() should make save work properly (like it used to.) (At least in the normal game -- not sure about the character editor.) Also, bug/suggestion #14) An out of range exception was triggered when trying to export graphics. The code being executed when the exception occurred is around line 1167 of universe.cpp: for(mon_num_t monst : party.imprisoned_monst) { if(monst != 0) check_monst(scenario.scen_monsters[monst]); } (It could be having something do with negatives, but not certain. The value of monst was 52428 but scenario.scen_monsters had a size of 191.) Edit5: There is one case I missed with fixing the save bug (new parties): In boe.actions.cpp around line 2685: fs::path file = nav_put_party(); if(!file.empty()) save_party(file, univ); Add right below that last line: univ.file = file; 14) Exiting a scenario may cause a crash when it tries to export graphics: In party.cpp around line 45: for(int i = 0; i < 6; i++) adven[i] = new cPlayer(*this, party_preset, i); Add the following right below this: for (auto& monst : this->imprisoned_monst) monst = 0; 15) You cannot equip two one-handed weapons at once: In pc.cpp around line 566: if(equip_item_type != eItemCat::MISC) { for(int i = 0; i < items.size(); i++) if(equip[i] && (*items[i].variety).exclusion == equip_item_type) { if(do_print && print_result) { print_result("Equip: You have something of this type"); print_result(" equipped."); } return false; } } Change the outermost if statement to something like this: if(equip_item_type == eItemCat::MISSILE_AMMO || equip_item_type == eItemCat::MISSILE_WEAPON) { Edit6: 11) Using b in talk mode mentions the fact you cannot bash doors in that mode Looking at a comment in the code somewhere, this appears to be feature-by-design rather than a bug. Considering that the shortcut keys a-h are commonly used when talking, shopping, or getting, I would highly encourage reverting this design change. (Hearing that you cannot bash doors while purchasing items is kinda obnoxious and unnecessary.)

(Personally, I disagree with that. While I can understand why you would find that to be best, it is very inconvenient for most people especially considering that OBoE has external dependencies that make it more difficult to build.) Anyway, it has been a while since I've posted here. Since I feel like this thread deals with OBoE in general, I'll post a few thoughts here: (Fyi: This is going off the latest Windows build that Celtic posted a zip for, so it is probably a bit of an older build.): 1) I noticed above that you state that save doesn't work. Has this been fixed yet (and if not, why not)? 2) Can we please use a different color (darker green would probably work) for the HP on the interface? The light green hurts my eyes a lot. (I'm pretty sure it was darker in the original version, but I may be mistaken.) 2b) Likewise, can we avoid using light green for items in the inventory? 3) It is not a major issue, but the screen does flicker a lot whenever a dialog box is open. Is there any way to reduce this? I'm going to see if I can actually make a scenario that works using the new scenario editor. Edit: 4) The game crashed when I tried to look at the info for a completed quest. (I cannot get this one to reproduce, but there is definitely something strange going on when trying to look at the info of a completed quest.) 5) The priest spells menu lists mage spells instead of priest spells for some reason. Edit2: 6) After finishing a quest, I tried to award the player with 250 XP. The system apparently has a problem with this as it says "Too much xp - Report this". (Granted, I forgot that Exile had a base XP of 100 per level; I'm used to it being a thousand.) 7) I think there may be an issue with viewing monster lore in the menu when using the arrows. Edit3: 8) There is some issue with "Set Scenario Timer". Pressing the OK button causes a crash with an error message of "time11 does not exist in dialog edit-scenario-events.xml". (There is no issue with 'Set Town Timer'.) Edit4: 9) Checking for the "Anama Member" trait results in a non-fatal out-of-bounds error. 10) "Invalid Shop Type" error appears whenever I use the shopping node type during dialogue. (There's no issue with this in Warrior's Grove but I cannot get this to work in a scenario without Warrior's Grove.) Edit5: 11) Pressing 'b' activates the bashing door message even when talking. 12) Something about alchemy is also presented when using 'b' to bash door.

I believe you are supposed to run for the stairs. The Shade continues summoning until it's dead or you go down the stairs.

This does not appear to be the issue as it fails with SCons as well (same errors). It certainly did find ZLIB, so it's definitely not missing.

Considering that the camp changes every so often, wouldn't you have to do this for the other camps as well?

Do you have the quest involving Duke Gryffin? Also, it is located on the world map.

A teleportation scarab would help you tremendously. Have you tried occupying the soldiers with your wizard and shaman and then slipping past them using Yoshira's shadowstep ability? Remember that you can revive your characters if no enemies are in sight.

First of all, I'm aware that similar threads exist but most of those are fairly old, and I'm not sure what the policy on necroing old threads is here. Anyway, I just want to share my thoughts and experiences with the Avadon series. To begin with, I thoroughly enjoyed all three games though my favorite was definitely the last one. Throughout the series, I played with a Shaman as my main character on normal difficulty. In all of the games, I tried not to use the same companions for every mission, but some missions and other events sometimes made that a difficult goal. Avadon: The Black Fortress had a great story and probably took me the longest to complete. This was in part due to the amount of forced combat encounters in the game and the novelty of the series. In terms of difficulty, I feel it was the best balanced of the three games. In particular, it seems that most character combinations are quite feasible, and I used a variety of the companions throughout the game. In addition, I feel that the characters in the first game were developed a lot more than in the future games: the companion quests felt like actual side quests that allowed to fully understand your companions whereas in latter games, the quests got shorter and the choices didn't feel as meaningful. On the flip side, the companion quests took a good while to complete and while they were enjoyable, it was rather annoying to go find and rescue all four of your companions. In the end, I wa only happy with doing two of the companion quests: Jenell's quest because I saw no real harm to do it, and Nathalie's quest because Avadon could care less that that drake was dead. I went through Sevelin's quest, but demanded a bribe from Cahil because Cahil was apparently under the protection of Redbeard (much to my annoyance). Finally, by the time I got to Shima's quest, I w starting to get annoyed and didn't really do his at all. Not to mention that of all my companions, Shima's goal seemed the most selfish and dangerous. For the endgame, I used the Annotated Maps here mainly because it was late at night, and I really wanted to just finish the game. This game definitely had the longest endgame as I had to finish up the following morning. Nonetheless, I loved this game's endgame because it contained a huge plot twist that I did not see coming. In addition, you get the choice to fight the Wayfarer at the very end in Avadon for a very fun final fight. I was very disappointed to see that something similar wasn't done for the loyalist ends in the other two games. Perhaps most surprising (considering how many people say they reach the level cap half-way through the game), I never reached the level cap. Actually, I was not extremely close to it either -- if memory serves, I was around level 26 at the end. Though to be fair, I did skip a lot of sidequests. Avadon 2: The Corruption was a bit more annoying and less addictive than the firs game. It starts out with an excellent hook, but it kinda loses you with the first major quest. When I reached the Corruption with its extremely strong monsters, I lost interest. The difficulty of the Corruption probably played a huge factor, but the story just wasn't that interesting at that point for me. Sure, I want to hunt Miranda, and the Corruption definitely has an interesting background, but I kinda gave up as I was tired of making very little progress. I ended up taking a hiatus from Avadon and played Avernum 6 one-and-a-half times instead. (I got to the Eastern Gallery then started over because I didn't like how my characters were built.) By the time I got back to playing Avadon 2, I was willing to be a bit more patient and eventually got past the forsaken Corruption. If there wa one thing that the Corruption taught me, it was how to run: up until then, I literally engaged groups of monsters versus single monsters. I also learned how to effectively use the revive outside combat feature to my benefit. When I reached the first mission involving the Tawon temples, I completed it in a rather unconventional fashion, and I don't think the developers fully expected it to be completed the way I did it. First of all, in the perimeter of the temple, I kept getting murdered by Icy Bones and wa literally running (a lot) to try to get somewhere I could revive my party. I literally kept going in circles until eventually, I was either killed or until I managed to get around a corner without the enemy in sight. I could've probably saved myself a lot of trouble had I use some vitality (especially considering how little I used inside the temple...) to save myself a lot of trouble, but let's just say I'm ultra-conservative in both my consumable and vitality use. Anyway, once inside the temple (and figuring out how it works) , I went to the northwest area where the four priests are. I tried killing them all at once first, but that didn't work at all. So, I reloaded and tried to lure them one by one. That didn't work either as they always teleported my character away into a lone corner and no matter how hard I tried, my single character could not out damage the lone priest who kept using heal spells. I did realize something though -- One of the priests teleports your character to a remote corner out of view of the other priests. The priest never returns either. With that in mind, I reloaded and let my character get killed then revived in my safe zone. The other three priests unfortunately did not whisk you out of view of the others, but that was okay. I triggered the other priests' teleports as well, let my characters die, and respawned. This time, I made a run for it -- I ran for the basin while the three priests were separated from another and then ran out before they could kill all three of my characters. Needless to say, it worked (and the priests, interestingly enough, did not chase me. For the third basin in the southern part of the map, I did something even more ludicrous than what I did with the priests: I ran to the basin, then ran towards the center leaving behind one of my characters to be killed, allowed the character to die and quickly exited combat mode, did some talks, then fled the dungeon. I could have perhaps saved myself some trouble since there wa (thankfully) no final boss, but he, solving the dungeon tactically was an interesting change. (A note about the southern golems that activate with approaching the basin -- they will chase you until you or them are dead. I didn't kill them.) The companion quests were extremely boring in comparison to Avadon 1's quests: they were short and did not develop my companions' characters nearly as much. Khalida's quest was the most disappointing of them all. I did all of the quests because I saw no reason not to (except maybe the fact that most of them were boring and felt like a waste of time....). Alcander's quest was perhaps the most interesting, but it doesn't justify the other ones. A very interesting aspect of this game wa the scout companionship dynamic. I really did want to help Silke (in part for the medal), but I just could not kill Odil; I literally reloaded because I could not force myself to do it. While on the subject of the rebel fortress, I might add that I loved the Konstina fight. You have to figure how the fight works, but once you do, it is a lot easier and a lot more fun. Also, a bit of advice -- don't let Konstina flee southward; force her into the western corner. It's outside the circle still, but at least she'll remain within attack range. The Corruption Core (compared to my first experience with the Corruption) was one of my favorite parts of the game. The creation stories were very interesting even if they were faked. It also featured what was in my opinion the hardest fight in the game (minus optional bosses). The three linked fighters (1 shaman, 1 priest/mage, and 1 shadowwalker) were obnoxiously tough, and I ended up having to change my party composition about twice. The Miranda fight forced me to change compositions again. (The fact that the Miranda fight gets cut short surprised me and would have been useful to know as it was a pretty difficult fight.) I feel this wa kinda an oversight and probably not intended, but I made the endgame a lot easier by using a teleportation scarab. Unlike the shadowwalker's shadowstep ability, the teleport scarab has near unlimited range provided it is along a clear, straight line that is within your range of sight plus a few tiles. Between this exploit and the revive trick, I skipped a bunch of encounters and fights. For instance, inside the tunnel (after you fight that Defender something guy), I teleported past the spirits or whatever was summoned. Later, when I was back in Fort Foresight, I used the teleport scarab to slip past enemies (who were busy with my other two characters) and avoid a bunch of fighting. Once again, I finished the game below the level cap though quite a bit closer than the first game. I think I wa around level 27 and 28 at the end. Avadon 3: The Warborn was my favorite both from a mechanical and plot perspective although I favored Avadon 1's depth and content a lot more. The change in how vitality worked was very nice as I could start spamming abilities without worrying about running out of vitality for boss fights. I also liked a lot of the new abilities in the game. The passive radiate healing (etc.) ability was useful (though I feel that giv en he Shaman's weaknesses, it could've had a slightly longer range). From a plot standpoint, this game ties up a lot of loose ends. Some people don't like that, but I did as there were so many unanswered question in the first two games. I also like how my two favorite characters from the first and second game were back in this game (Alcander was nice, but I liked Khalida more despite the lame companion quest in the second game). There isn't much more to say for this game except that the Redbeard fight in this one is very doable. I managed to do it on Casual with only two hands (Botan and Nathalie -- I was more focused on the main quest and therefore skipped most of the companion quests) without the things to make the fight easier. Having a sorceror(ess) by the way makes the fight a lot easier as they absorb a lot of damage. Overall, loved the series and am already in a second playthrough of the first one on hard using a Sorceress.

Why can Konstina leave the circle without harm yet I cannot despite the fact that the conversation beforehand transparently states that the restriction applied to both of us?

I'm nearing the end of the game as I have the four tasks to do for melanchion. I was going to do the Darkside Loyalists quest first, but much to my annoyance, I find the entrance area of their fortress completely blocked with magical barriers. (Area west of Spire, go down the trapdoor, and it's the room with 4 loyalist archers.) While generally not a problem, I have like a 0 in mage spells (fyi: I did cheat in quite a few fights, but in others I didn't -- It really isn't as bad as it sounds considering you cannot join the anama this game (which was very annoying to learn like halfway in....)) and 0 piercing crystals remaining, so I'm not totally sure how I'm supposed to enter. (And, forcing people to need level 11 mage spells is not something that I would consider good design, esp. since such a warning isn't given that it would be necessary.) So, does anyone know of an alternative entrance or people who sell piercing crystals (or will I just have to use the editor to up my mage spells skill))?

What about it just being a red herring?

So, messing around with the scenario editor again and I would like to comment that for whatever reason, in the scenario details dialog, it puts a number like 119 in the minor version field for new scenarios. A bit weird imo. Edit: Other issues: - Outdoor Create/Edit Special does absolutely nothing. - "Exception thrown at 0x012DD5A7 in Blades of Exile.exe: 0xC0000005: Access Violation reading location 0x00000000" when loading custom scenario in Blades of Exile. Source file: boe.towns.cpp around line 1276 (give or take a few lines since this is an older version than the most recent.)

"unresolved external symbol _gzclose referenced in function "public class gzstreambuf * __thiscall gzstreambuf::close(void)" 3 other symbols too were unresolved from the same file. VS Community 2015. I have triple-checked my library paths. Edit: Another bug you may or may not be aware of -- Apparently, some of the options in the "scenario" menu of the scenario editor are off by two (ex: Edit Item Placement Shortcuts brought up the dialog box for dumping the data to text file. The one before that option actually calls delete last town.)

Some bugs in the latest build you posted: - Deleting specials in the town editor causes a crash - Using Create/Edit with text messages from the specials page generally causes a crash (Windows 10 64-bit OS) Also, why is this program so hard to compile? I'm currently getting linker errors for several unresolved references from a single file and I don't understand hy. (gzstream fyi).

All of my journal entries were randomly deleted and I don't know why. (I didn't delete them myself). They were there when I reached the Western Excavation but after gained the rank of Lieutinant, they were all gon. Has anyone else had this issue?

So, I bought Avadon 1 on my Ipad and have enough money left to buy EITHER Avadon 2 or Avadon 3. Which one do people recommend and why? (And, is it better to play the games in sequence?)

I downloaded a more recent version of yours. Shaders are still failing (checked log), but it looks much nicer. Graphics are not being cleared properly though (basically, everything that shows up never disappears.... might be a bug with SFML specific to certain computers).

I think I know the prob. I experienced earlier. Looking through some files, apparently shaders (atleast for this game) do not seem to work on my computer and that caused the lack of graphics as it just skipped anything it didn't require.

I like singletons -- huge parties are too much hassle. Btw, Avatar costs 12 sp; protection costs 10 sp, so I don't get why you think avatar is expensive when its only a 2 sp difference despite a multitude of extra effects. Does protection last longer, because the win32 code (probably the CBoE code for Windows) sets invulnerability to 8? This is looking at the CBoE code (specifically, the old win32 branch which I'm pretty sure is CBoE).