Necris Omega

The accuracy cap is definitely something that needs to be dropped, or at least backed off on. When you're only given four characters in a turn based setting, having an attack miss is a massive detriment. You've just wasted 25% of your effectiveness this round, isn't that great!? 95% might seem cliche by this point (see "D&D") but it's persisted this long because it works. The other part, the notion of resistance... Even if you don't change the underlying formula, it's nothing but a really depressing reminder of how the math is slanted against you. Yes, the enemy resisted 330 damage... okay, what do you want me to do about it? Unless it's a specific instance where switching to a different element would help, reporting such occurrences only serves to discourage. It's just screen clutter that thumbs its proverbial nose at you. The only real difference it makes is when your Dual Wielding Samurai Pizza Cat gets charmed and goes after your squishy squishy spellcasters. That 85% resistance to everything suddenly doesn't apply before a level of destruction and overkill Sulfras can only get really defensive and insecure about. Really, aside from monsters armed with "enrage" mechanics, Charm Foe is the deadliest thing in the game in my experience.

This is kinda the obvious explanation. That said, while digitigrade humanoids can sometimes (often) come off as awkward, I immensely prefer them to the far lazier "guy wearing an animal suit" plantigrade versions.

To my recollection, the full history of the series goes - Exile: Escape From the Pit (Original Graphics) Exile 2: Crystal Souls (Original Graphics) Exile: Escape From the Pit (Improved Graphics) Exile 2: Crystal Souls (Improved Graphics) Exile 3: Ruined World Blades of Exile Avernum Avernum II Avernum III Blades of Avernum Avernum IV Avernum V Avernum Vi Avernum: Escape from the Pit Avernum II: Crystal Souls Avernum III: Ruined World (Next Avernum to Come) Whole lot of mileage out of these caves, no?

To be fair, he did specify melee wise.

I remember this in an old game called Castle of the Winds - Exile styled grid scrolling gameplay (with graphics that made the original Exile's graphics look like the revision's graphics in terms of quality) in a Diablo-esque mono-dungeon form for the most part. The interface was pure Windows 3.1. It had its charms to be sure - belts with specific storage capacities made me feel like a viking version of Batman, for instance. Unfortunately, that exact "I'm wearing a treasure chest!" nonsense you describe is pretty much what its volume/weight/bulk inventory boiled down to.

While there are a number of details and a measure of depth that was lost in the translation (particularly in the detail and diversity of items and spells) there are definitely improvements enough in the remakes to make up for it. I'll always maintain that the bottomless junk bag is one of my favorite things to come out of Spiderweb as a whole. Infinite carrying capacity? That sounds like a damned, dirty cheat. Then again, years ago, so would automatic healing and "resurrection" at the end of every combat. Now there's no need to haul around massive piles of healing potions and other restoratives around, pay out the nose when combat goes wrong to undo that unhappy string of critical hits… Is it realistic? Oh hell no. Is it convenient? Does it add to the game? Could more developers learn from this idea? Definitely. Someone, sometime, somewhere, said that the downtime between combat where you're forced to sit around sucking on health lozenges or whatever, doesn't really add to a player's enjoyment. Years later, it seems Jeff likewise came to the shining realization that having to make multiple trips back and forth between Dungeon Whatever and the Pawn Shop doesn't help matters either. This is one of those things I think we all knew in the depths of our subconscious, but were too afraid to deviate from the established rules that implement, nay, demand a minimum amount of tedium in such things.

1 - More power to you. I generally stick to "normal" when offered the choice myself. I like a balance between accomplishment and tedium I suppose. 2 - The one thing I have to hold against Auto-heal in these situations was it really trivialized any traps that didn't result in instant death. 3 - Yeah... there were a few lumps that could have been ironed out here, and the Shaman was definitely one of them. While I tended to rotate my roster liberally, I do recall the Shaman being fairly... lackluster. 4 - Agreed. I found this to be particularly problematic when fighting either bosses or just very inflated mooks armed with an undo plethora of abilities. 5 - I liked to think of the word as focused this time around. 6 - Yeah, I'll give you that. Particularly problematic was if you missed a quest giver the first time around. 7 - Absolutely. When I'm already outnumbered three to one, taking my characters away from me doesn't add to the experience, and Avadon felt particularly terrible about this. Mental resistance was entirely useless in my experience, and I was really bothered by how many times the game opted to take my characters away and play with itself for a few turns because of it. 8 - One thing I didn't care for was how quest series never seemed to conclude properly. Despite there being no further steps, they'd always rehash the canned "come back later and I'll have more for you to do" line.

Three disparate mentions a proper response to a doomsday device does not make. The most important characters who should care about the Teleporter above all else. Garzhad's not going to kill all of Avernum lickety split if he's left to plot, but that's all Erika, Solberg, and Micah really seem to care about. Yes, your personal vendettas are all fine and good, but maybe we should ensure we're not completely overrun and obliterated first? Guys? ... Everyone else seems to ignore the issue, or be powerless to stop it, but even those who wouldn't be seem too preoccupied in just fighting the war to keep from losing it. The fact that the Dragons are involved in the portal, meanwhile, doesn't play into the notion that the portal heralds the doom of Avernum. The dragons don't lend to the impending peril, they simply play their roles. Their motivations explicitly have nothing to do with preserving Avernum from total destruction - it's all self preservation and hate for the Empire. Mahdavi's only significant as she's Linda's replacement. Heck, her only real contribution to the series IS her role in the Portal Plot - in Avernum 3 she's basically the Wal*Mart greeter of the Tower of Magi, and then she dies. As for Linda, her part in Avernum 2 is now less significant than Garzahd's role in A:EFTP given the changes there. All and all, it's just the weakest the original objectives, both in Avernum and the Sequel. Yes, the portal does imperil Avernum like nothing ever has before. Avernum should be reacting accordingly. Yes, the quests involved two of the most significant mages in Avernum's history. Who should both be given every opportunity to remind us of that. Yes, it has ties to the original teleportation augmenter, and that's great. They should be underlined more. But fine then. You still disagree and you're entitled to that. It still leads me to beg the question then, however, if the Portal Quest isn't the major objective most open for improvement, which is?

The tone for the rest of the game sets what it has to live up to. Why do you need to be Godline, Demon, or Death whatever? Because in comparison to quests that manage that impact, anything that fails to match it is going to feel lacking. This is supposed to stand alongside the Crystal Souls and Assassinating Garzhad, yet, by comparison isn't treated with the same level of importance or awe. I'm not saying it's unimportant in terms of conceptual effect, I'm saying that it isn't presented with the importance it's due for something supposedly so very dangerous. Realistically, it's the most dire and direct threat to Avernum the nation ever faces. Yeah, having the Vahnatai on board makes all the difference, and yes, Garzahd is very very nasty and bad, but... he's been there forever, and Avernum's been able to hold out for so far, even if they won't be able to do so in the long run. The Portal opens, and everyone dies in very short order. Yes, the Vahnatai and their (extremely powerful) hippie crystal magic are nice to have on board, and yes, Garzhad did needed to die, but even if you remove them, the Portal would still doom Avernum in the most immediate and direct sense. And it isn't given that kind of weight or respect. Again, it begins with a note, and, like you said, is orchestrated by the least important and interesting member of the Triad. The Crystal Souls get the game's subtitle, and Garzhad spans multiple installments of the series. That's what the Portal quest has to compete with. All the really interesting and important characters are preoccupied with the other major quests, and it turns the portal into the neglected middle child of great Avernum objectives. "Everything the game says about it" doesn't equal what it says about Garzhad and the Crystal Souls, and that is ultimately the problem. I downplay the Portal objective because it feels downplayed. I understate it because that's how it has always come off by comparison. There's no real significant face or voice to it, no characterization, and all the really big guns are pointed at other targets. It doesn't come with the same level of backup as the other quests, so it falls short. If Jeff wants to flesh out any aspect of his second game, this is the best place to do it.

See, I'm not saying it conceptually lacks significance. I'm saying it lacks the thematic impact and presentation of the other two quests. Garzhad is a major reality and in the minds of everyone everywhere. The Crystal Souls are the fulcrum on which much if not most of the game rests. The Portal? It's just another of the Empire's shenanigans compared to the other two. It's a big shenanigan, sure, and if you screw it up you could potentially end up making things worse than anything the series offers at any point, but while the Crystal Souls and Garzhad are specific threats and themes in and of themselves, the portal is just a manifestation of the greater war itself. ... You... have played the remakes since the original... right? That's not something you missed out on? I just want to be sure because either you haven't and I am very sorry for that, or you're willfully ignoring how since the first incarnation Garzhad's gone from fleeting reference to essentially the man who really killed the Emperor in the first game. Beyond that, he's constantly referenced throughout the second game by every significant character in the war basically - there is no questioning or doubting his existence or significance. The Portal Quest? That's just how the greater narrative of the War unfolds. It's not some great evil to defeat or some exotic ally to win. It's not an artifact to collect or prophecy to fulfill. All it is is a question of stopping the Empire from solving their logistics problems. It may have grave consequences, but it's doesn't have anywhere near the build up or highlighted importance as Garzhad or the Crystal Souls. You want to make "Empire expedites its shipping synergy" stand alongside "Godlike Demon Sorcerer" you really, really need to give the portal a lot more fanfare than it's had. The Portal needs to come off as Garzahd's Death Star, an harbinger of doom and terror that strikes fear into the hearts of all Avernum as it draws closer to completion. And maybe for you it did, I don't know. But for me, personally, it was the weakest point of the original trilogy. It isn't headed up by anyone particularly important or interesting, anyone who IS important or interesting like Erika and Solberg are more concerned with Garzhad, there's infinitely more meat and development behind the Crystal Souls... If anything in Avernum 2 could stand to be improved upon, this is it.

Eh, it never felt even remotely important to me. Compared to Garzhad, who's built up over the course of multiple games, and the "yay, we're in the title!" Crystal Souls, the portal is barely worth mentioning. I mean, how does that quest start? Essentially a post-it note stuck to the door you happen to catch on your way to go do more important things. That's how side-quests start, not "fate of the kingdom" quests. While the original game's three main quests all felt important and underlined by everything in the game, the sequel feels like two really main quests and a side-quest stretched out because just having two would be really awkward. It lacks the fanfare and weight of its counterparts.

Hmmm... does Crystal Souls need more time? Deserves, well... that's not something I can contend. I'm not sure there's a game whose memory fills me with more warm fuzzies - Exile 2: Crystal Souls was my introduction, not to this series, not to this company, but to this entire genre. But does it need more time? ... Well, I doubt more time will hurt it. I'm looking forward to seeing what my favorite Spiderweb Title can gain of all the extra experience Jeff now has. That aside, If he can ratchet up the importance of the Empire Portal to match that of the other two main concerns, he'll have squashed what I always felt was the weakest part of the game.

New IPs are rare in any entertainment medium these days - the fact that Jeff is sticking to a proven formula is both understandable and ultimately more justified than larger companies with far greater budgets that can afford to take risks. For my money, Jeff's stuff is unique enough on its face as it is, even if most of his work is a question of polish and refinement. While Geneforge is particularly unique, even "vanilla" Avernum is far more creative in concept than most games I've found n this genre.

While it's doubtful the likes of, say... Boko Haram have access to modern biolabs, scientists like Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka have proven that... well, making a disease a whole lot worse is very possible and doesn't even require the kind of cash other "doomsday" weapons typically cost. If the University of Madison can take something like H1N1 and make it effectively immune to the human immune system, well... In terms of "worst thing a terrorist could bring to bear", something like Ebola seems a lot more likely than something nuclear. Then again, there are supposedly a number of general chemical weapons floating around the middle east in the aftermath of the recent chaos, and that has yet to make any major headlines (other than a protracted debacle similar to the Spaceballs "Combing the Desert" scene), so perhaps there's far less potential there than the worst case scenario would suggest.

I'm kind of surprised that Ebola isn't seen as more of an "active" security risk. I can't really say the viability of Ebola as a bioweapon (maybe this is why I haven't heard this angle yet), but it seems to me like you've a potentially devastating weapon just laying around in some of the poorest and least secured places on earth. Compared to, say, getting one's hands on a nuclear device, getting an active sample of Ebola would have to be a walk in the park. Take it to a suitably evil microbiologist and you've a potential superweapon worthy of a Bond Villain. Ebola on it's own is scary enough, but weaponized Ebola? Yikes.

"Luxury" is a bit shallow on the subject of the internet. Yes, you can live without the internet, but you can live without a lot of things. You can live without literacy, for instance, or indoor plumbing. Neither of which are universal nor guaranteed, but the difference goes far, far beyond imitation vs. authentic leather padded buttscratchers.

Hm. Healthcare? Forging an entire nation on the concept of "life" being a right, and then turning around an empowering others to extort the masses over that right is a perverse notion. This is a key part of the most fundamental right of all. Education? While it might not seem as fundamental as many other rights, the expression and maintenance of basically all rights is dependent on this one. Again, yes. Internet? ... While I don't consider it a "right" in the same category as "expression" or the like, I do look at it in a "it belongs to all of us" sense. In short, support net neutrality. Reproduction? Yeah, controlled human breeding is a very dark and evil thing. Argue all the practicalities on this one you want, reproduction will always be a right on my end. Torture? ... Honestly, if it was a choice between "break the kidnapper" or "let little Susy die in some hole" I can't honestly say "never". Euthanasia? If Life is a right, by definition one must have the ability to waive it. Otherwise its an obligation, not a right. Executions? The human capacity for evil is sadly without bounds - there comes a point when it can eclipse the fundamental value of the life it's expressed through. Abortion? While I am repulsed by the notion of an abortion being an offhand matter of convenience, there are legitimate instances where I find justification. Rape, incest, and endangerment all qualify. Instantiation? A human has rights as soon as it's alive. When it a human alive? I try to mirror the qualifications for death in my own personal view, though there is no medical consensus. Nuclear Weapons? Like the question of torture, I sadly simply cannot discount that there's a point in which it becomes the lesser of two evils. I'd like to think no nation would be willing to go so far, but... well, look at how absolute the whole chemical weapons ban has turned out

Seeds of the Darkside Loyalists perhaps? Son of Garzhad? The Dragons did it after all? Erika? Eh... Erika Redmark seems to be growing increasingly mellow as this series has come out over the years - originally she felt like this godlike dominatrix liable to vaporize you if you used imply vs. infer wrong, but lately she's really toned down.

I've actually found the pathing in Spiderweb games to be a lot less... well lobotomized than in a lot of titles. For me the ultimate in change (both in impact and utter unlikeliness) would be to completely curveball the ending. Yeah, it would disrupt A3-6 somewhat (completely), but I can't imagine anything that would floor me harder is if in Avernum 3: Ruined World it turned out that, NOPE! This time the Vahnatai didn't do it!

I'm inclined to agree, to be honest. Originally the Vahnatai weren't just alien "weird", they were legitimately otherworldly. They looked luminous and fantastical, like something out of a tropical sea almost. Since Avernum came to be, they've been dulled and toned down too much. They feel more mundane and within reach, which... does the concept a disservice I think.

Everything we've encountered thus far has at least been within the grasp of mankind's capacity to at least wrap our minds around in at least an elemental, conceptual sense. At this point, for all we know, the limits of human knowledge are likely more defined by the limits of human perception than by the limits of human cognitive abilities. Even when you talk about the limits of a singular human mind, those human minds will still have the capacity to develop things needed to overcome those limitations. Everything we've seen, we've some capacity to analyze - there are no Lovecraftian existential aberrations that escape mankind's immense capacity for creative and abstract thought. The flip side of this, however, is... all we've seen points to the notion that we barely see and thus barely have even opportunity to comprehend anything. For all we know about all we can see, if current theories hold, we're still functionally blind. Dark Matter and Dark Energy either make up the vast, vast majority of the universe, or there are still such gaping, oozing holes in our understanding of the greater universe that it's baffling. We cannot see it, we cannot touch it, we cannot analyze it, and it makes up most of our existence. Is it simply outside our capacity to perceive, or does it truly lie outside mankind's sheer capacity for thought? While we've never seen such a thing, if such a thing were to be, would we even know if we saw it? Yet, as it stands, all we've come to know says that the vast majority of what must be lies beyond us. Ultimately, In this universe matter and energy are rare and alien things, not just compared to empty space, but compared to everything that's a "thing" with the capacity to impact the universe in ways we can observe. Who knows? Maybe for the majority of that which exists in the universe, we are the Lovecraftian aberrations, incomprehensible motes of erroneous existence, outside the bounds of rationality and thought.

I think it's a reference to certain quantum theories and standards which at this stage make certain predictions completely impossible - Heisenberg, quantum field gibberish, and all that whole "God playing dice with the universe" notion Einstein was appalled at. Could we later, possibly, maybe some day discover a means by which to accurately predict the position of a subatomic particle as well as its momentum and speed? Sure! We could also someday uncover that the big bang occurred when God rolled all sixes and shouted "Yahtzee!" You cannot, however, make judgements on what science might possibly know in a distance theoretical "someday" - you have to make judgements on what is known now. As it stands right now there's an undercurrent of raw and absolute chaos to the universe which lies outside mankind's capacity to ascribe any rudimentary order to in any sense.

1. Free Will? I generally use Free Will as the starting point for many of my philosophies, standards, and principles. I find the absence of free will utterly anathematic. No free will? That kills the concept of choice, responsibility, guilt, innocence, good, evil, purpose, meaning, right, wrong, competence, deserving, and a whole host of other ideas that would make for a very bleak and pointless existence indeed. 2. Epistemology? Empiricism without rationalism is shallow and short sighted. Rationalism divorced from empiricism is too prone to error and outright delusion. Rationalism may give us insight in ways Empiricism can't possibly offer, but often times the strongest believing can only come from seeing. 3. Nominalism or Platonism? Platonism. The notion that existence ceases at the limits of mankind's well proven skewed, limited, and downright pitiful perceptions rings arrogant and false in my mind. 4. Universalism or Relativism? Universalism. Relativism is too much of an excuse, and nihilism is even worse. In either case, you're no longer talking morality but simple social and cultural norms and standards which fall further from a question of good and evil and instead move into blithe practicality. 5. Normative Ethics? While the Road to Hell may be paved with good intentions, failed good intentions are not necessarily a sign of failed ethics. That said, extremely few people view themselves as unethical, literally "evil" and have yet committed atrocities. To this end, ethics as a global declaration are often a question of retrospection rather than outcome vs. intent. 6. Physicalism vs. Non-physicalism Non-physicalism - Physicalism is wholly incompatible with the notion of Free Will. The physical mind is, no matter how complicated, slave to the same wholly predictable physics as every other physical entity, rendering free will illusionary in this scenario. If there is no deeper conduit of existence, if thought is merely the result of physical expression, then once more all choice evaporates and you're back to free will being dead. 7. Meaning of Life? The physical world, based off raw observation and logic is wholly divorced from the concept of meaning. Meaning indicates purpose, and no greater purpose has been hinted at through clinical observation. This leads to either two notions - that there is no true meaning to anything or that the purpose in question lies beyond the mundane observable. I hold to my religion, and will leave it at that.

Maybe so, but it has a more general application if you're doing fan development for a game. Yes, "Epic Battle Theme 3" is going to take exponentially more work and devotion than pretty much any number of lines you're likely to find in fan created content, however, that music score can be widely applied and used and reused by anyone and everyone. Dialog, unless you're doing something like reworking existing dialog (and, as mentioned, there ARE some games and examples that would benefit from this) chances are it'll only ever be used in the exact context it was made for.

I still maintain that the biggest block to "Scenario" scale development for platforms like Skyrim is the voice acting factor. This, unfortunately translates to map making being dissuaded as well. Almost every single aspect of game design can be done by a devoted community to a downright developer shaming level of quality. Textures, monsters, environments, music, items, spells, story, plot... all of it. I've seen examples for each which basically make the original makers of numerous games look downright incompetent. But voice acting? ... Maybe I'm just missing out, but I find just about only the absolute worst game voice work can be eclipsed by the public. This is often on top of a big fat handicap based around equipment. Even halfway decent community voice actors are often stuck sounding like they're talking over a poorly hewn ventrillo server with a string and tin can. Even in the cases where you can get past this, how can your average Joe fan developer even compare? Yes, most of the voice work in Neverwinter Nights 2 reads with the same gusto as a high school intro to theater class, but the best? ... Oblivion's intro was lead by Sir Patrick Stewart for godsakes. That's just not even fair. Add into the mix the fact that properly voicing an entire scenario would take numerous voices, and thus numerous people and you're no longer talking about a solo endeavor. Sure, a good developer may use resources created by the public at large, but those don't even have to be custom made for what they're doing. How many BoE/A graphics fall into that category for instance? Music? Same. Heck Neverwinter Nights had many straight up scripts created independently of a parent mod for widescale public use. But voice acting? ... You need not just a voice, but a specific voice for a specific line. You can't just go out and grab it, you 100% need to create it for your content. And then chances are it'll never be of any other use to anyone else ever again. These levels of demands, the coordination, and the fact that the quality will always be glaringly off compared to the original game you're developing for... That in and of itself is going to kill a lot of notions that even building a Falskaar is even possible.