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Masked Man of Inscrutability

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Garrulous Glaahk

Garrulous Glaahk (8/17)

  1. I did not mean my comment as a barbed one against you. It was instead a more general statement of the of a trend mostly seen in academic circles. For example, when Stephen Railton complains about Huckleberry Finn's treatment of race using his own standards. It seems asinine for Dr. Railton to ignore the cultural context in which the novel was written.
  2. This is how I read it too. I also roll my eyes at that genre of literary criticism which uses current practices and standards of ethical conduct to complain about an old work being "problematic." Social norms change over time. It seems silly and a bit narcissistic to assume that our current norms are the the objectively correct ones. This attitude, if taken to the extreme, leads to a really ugly culture like the one afflicting YA fiction twitter.
  3. I loved Name of the Rose. I thought it was one of Eco's most enjoyable books. I can understand your criticism that it isn't a great work of art because it's more of a pulpy/fun read. But I still recommend it to anyone who wants to read something by Eco for the first time.
  4. I am doing well, and have installed Basilisk so I can play Exile 1. So not only am I doing well, but I'm building up some hipster credibility.
  5. Hi friends! It is good to see you all here. I was most active on the forums from about 2003 to 2006, but never fully left this place behind. How could I? Spiderweb's games have been a part of my life since the 90s. And they still are. I first discovered Exile 1 on a shareware CD in 1995 or 1996 I think. I was in school at the time and didn't really grok cRPGs yet, so never even reached the shareware barrier. In 1999 I discovered Nethergate somewhere on the internet, and instantly was hooked. I'd been reading ancient Roman history in school and become fascinated with it, so an RPG set (however loosely) within that milieu appealed to me. I bought and registered Nethergate by phone—talking with a live spiderweb person no less (probably either Miriam or Linda)—within 30 minutes of downloading the demo. I also ordered the CD-rom for an extra $5; I still have that CD (and many others). A few months later I purchased the Exile Trilogy and Blade of Exile. Those games gave me countless hours of fun. As did the first Avernum games, which I also purchased. I remember in 2001 being absolutely blown away by Geneforge. I could not believe how well the story accommodated different approaches to each faction, and it was so satisfying seeing an ending authored solely by your choices. No other cRPG did that as well as Geneforge, and few have done it since. I remember Geneforge 2—which remains my favorite Spiderweb game—and that first play through. There, I played the entire game without ever using a single canister and loved that my straight-edge choice was acknowledged in the ending. It was around that time I became most active on these forums, and helped found the Cult of Richard White. Then there was Blades of Avernum. That was game I never really appreciated, and toward which I was somewhat unkind. That was followed by Avernum 4, another game I didn't appreciate and toward which I was even less kind. Looking back I can see that my judgment was clouded by anger and frustration completely unrelated to Spiderweb. Those were dark days for me, and Spiderweb's games and this forum helped me cope. Thank you for that. I stepped away from the forums eventually, but never from Spiderweb's games. Avadon and the Avernum 1 and 2 re-remakes helped relieve the stress of law school. Queen's Wish was a delightful game to play, and I appreciated the theme of family as my own family grew and settled. I haven't tried QW2 yet, but am sure I will enjoy it. And now I can't wait for the remastering of Geneforge 2. My favorite game-maker is busy remaking my favorite game. I'm sure I will love it. I also love that this weird little corner of the internet still exists. Its a bit like a Time Machine where I can see back to my entire life—from childhood to now—measured in turn-based role-playing games.
  6. If you want to experience Blades in a similar manner to playing another Spiderweb game, I would recommend playing it as follows: (1) Valley of the dying things (2) A small rebellion (3) Za-khazi run (4) Diplomacy with the dead then move on to Bahssikava, which has a very similar feel to Jeff's scenarios. Your party should be strong enough to tackle it after completing the four Jeff-built scenarios. Then, you can try Exodus. I never got around to playing Exodus, but your characters from Bahssikava will be at the right level to tackle it.
  7. Kel, your situation is sort of interesting to me given your experience. What, in particular, was so bothersome that made you want to stop designing scenarios? I ask because I want to understand what aspects of the criticism, from a designer's perspective, went into the destructive category. I mean, it seems like TM just always hated your scenarios no matter what, so I cannot imagine that was it. Also, did the criticism drive you away from scenario design, or just the forums? EDIT: Is it true that Exodus includes a reference to the Cult of Richard White? If so, that's *almost* enough to get me to reinstall BoA.
  8. Ha! Returning to Spiderweb's forums is always this weird timewarp where it is always the same people doing saying the same things. I love you! To stay on topic, I, too, drifted away from Spiderweb games because they just felt too similar. I think my last Avernum purchase was 5, my last Geneforge purchase was 4. I finished Geneforge 4, but never finished Avernum 5. Don't get me wrong - I don't dislike them - but I liked them more like I sometimes fondly remember an old movie or song I used to be into. I like them from a distance, but with no real desire to experience them again. But hey, for every person like me who moves on to other things, there is some newbie who takes my place. The comment about Blades of Avernum, for me at least, really hit the nail on the head. BoA was primarily marketed as a "Build your own RPG!" type game. The scenarios were never the attraction. But you cannot release a game like that with such difficult scenario editing tools. The documentation, too, was abysmal. The tutorial only shows you how to place things on a map, but never explains dialogue making etc. And telling the user to just open up random files and it will eventually make sense is a cop out. Part of me thinks Jeff knew it, or he wouldn't have released the editor as open source (thus giving him a convenient excuse for why it was decidedly not ready from prime time). The reviews were, predictably, cool. The game bombed from a financial standpoint. Compare the BoA experience to the BoE experience. BoE was a success, despite looking more out-of-date when released than BoA did. And despite the technical limitations. And despite having no established community of designers. I don't mean to rip on Jeff here. But you're so right that BoA, above all others, could have used serious player input. It had large structural problems that would have surfaced very quickly. And the real tragedy of BoA's business failure is that it seems to have turned Jeff off from ever making another scenario development game again. I guess what I'm saying is that I understand Jeff's stance toward interacting with his customers, but it seems too extreme. He doesn't need to turn into an Alorael-level engaged forum dweller, but more wouldn't be bad.
  9. The real question is where are the RWG shirts? I mean, how could you go wrong with: "Pan Lever: Seventeen apple roving mirror moiety. Of turned quorum jaggedly the. Blue?" "Keep laughing. Galactic Core 2 is coming" "Richard White is my Co-Pilot" "Do not adjust your implants" Also, did you know that Richard White is now working at McDonald's in NZ? I'm not making this up.
  10. Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity To some extent there's a legitimate criticism here. Jeff has been really slack on his in-game documentation, for years. The manuals have been brief and unclear, and in some cases flat wrong. The engine isn't explained anywhere; people have had to figure out how it works experimentally, by conducting long trials. This has always been one of the aspects I've really disliked about Spiderweb games. I'm not the kind of player who reads the manual first. I usually just start right up and play, looking things up as I go. I imagine most players only read the manual casually, but that isn't a good reason for how poor the manuals really are. It is frustrating when you have a gameplay question and the manual doesn't even come remotely close to answering it. The worst offender of all Spiderweb games has to be Blades of Avernum. Yeh gods that is the worst documented editor I've ever seen! And while it is arguably okay to have shoddy documentation for games, there really is no excuse for something like Blades. I especially got frustrated when reading things like "Just look around the files of Valley of the Dying Things and you'll figure it out". As with all things that suck about Spiderweb, I'm going to lay the blame squarely on Linda Strout. [Remaining attack on Linda Strout has been censored. It wasn't obscene or anything, just too harsh to pass Point 2 of the C of C.]
  11. Originally Posted By: Harsh Truths in Advertising ... where it isn't an entirely closed, self-referential... The real question is what this has to do with Richard White. And did you see him die yesterday?
  12. Originally Posted By: Zindahjira The Fyora has saliva that combusts on contact with air, as Nalyd remembers. Wouldn't that make it exceedingly difficult for a Fyora to eat its lunch without its head exploding, let alone breath?
  13. I, however, think the whole unlockable thing is nothing more than a foul plot to waste my time on a game I've already beaten. Want to make someone waste 3X the time on Diablo 2? Make three different levels which are exactly the same except "harder" (I put harder in quotes because you're using a more powerful character, so harder is just relative). If there's one thing that consistently irritates me about video game makers is when they use silly gimmicks like that to extend the life of their product. If you have some kick ass character class available, just let me play it, don't make me waste 10 to 20 hours using a less interesting class in order to use the more fun class.
  14. Quote: Originally written by Goldenking: Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire by Niall Fergusson. It actually makes a decent argument for why the American Empire should stay. I find Niall Fergusson has lost his mind. His last coherent book was the Cash Nexus. After that it's all been neocon bull****, with Colossus probably being the worst offender.
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