Ess-Eschas

Hello Minion, While as a general rule we try to discourage posting in old threads here, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. It’s merely in place for the sake of practicality, in order to keep these boards clean and easily readable. Primarily, we want to encourage discussion on these boards! If you consult the code of conduct, you’ll see that what’s actually stated is this (with the italics added here for emphasis): ‘Let old topics lie unless you wish to continue the discussion.’ In this case, the newer poster has directly followed on from the older ideas posted in the thread, with a view to prompting some discussion. And interesting discussion has indeed arisen! This sort of posting is absolutely fine! There is also nothing wrong with pointing out posting practices that you are concerned by. However, please do recall that the code of conduct still applies to you in these cases. While I appreciate this may not have been your intention, in pointing out an infraction you have casually dismissed another person’s posts as irrelevant, and then posted information yourself that does not directly contribute to the conversation. This isn’t a warning, Minion, but merely an observation. However, perhaps it might just be worth just having a little refresher yourself about the forum guidelines. You can find the guidelines in the tabs at the top of the forums. Also, if you wish to talk about what you’re reading at the moment, there’s an active thread in general that’s set up exactly for this purpose: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/1-what-have-you-been-reading-recently/

Just to clarify this point for you, Towerbooks3192, random item shops do indeed change their selections over time in Exile 3. If you wait for a few days and return, you'll find a completely different set of items! Random item shops like these are actually extremely valuable resources – that's perhaps one reason why they were removed from the remakes. As you've seen, they can carry very rare and valuable items. Indeed, I believe there's almost no limit to the items that they can stock. I've certainly seen items such as Magic Wave Blades, Mithral Chain Mail, Boots of Speed, Rings of Resistance etc. for sale in these shops. These are items that are generally for sale nowhere else. If you're lucky, and you have a lot of money to hand, you can really strengthen up your party in such shops! To make the most out of them, make a note of when you find one, and stop by whenever you're in the area. The one in the Tower of Magi is a good place to visit whenever you stop by to see the Triad!

Hello Atreus, Sorry for being slow to reply, and welcome to the forums! It sounds like you may have already received the editors you’re looking for from Aleister, which is great! However, for those people who might come across this thread in the future, I thought it might be useful to put together a little list of editors for all 5 Geneforge games. After all, requests for Geneforge editors do seem to come around once every so often. In general, if you’re looking for something like an editor, the best places to go are the ‘Strategy Central’ threads for each game. These are pinned at the top of each forum. These threads are the central hub for interesting topics for each game, and will usually include something like an editor. If you look at the threads for Geneforge 3, 4, and 5, you’ll find links to the editors there. Of course, there are exceptions! The threads for Geneforge 1 and 2 are quite old now, and don’t contain editor links. In fact, due to the age of the games, many of the links to editors for these games no longer function. However, thanks to the Internet Archive, it’s still possible to salvage links for at least one editor for each game. Some games have more than one editor, each made by different users. Remember that permissions for downloads are only open to members of the forums, so make sure you’re logged in before trying to download anything! Also, be aware that these are all user-made changes to the scripts for each game. They are not endorsed by Spiderweb, and they may have unusual effects in your game. I’ve not tested these out myself, so I’m afraid that I can’t vouch for them. As with any user modifications like this, always make a copy of your game before making any changes! That way, you can always return to a clean, working copy of the game if anything should go wrong. Here are links for each game in turn. Each thread contains instructions for how to activate its editor. Where there are threads with some broken links, I've included a link to a post with a working download. Geneforge 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20141116044000/https://cs.earlham.edu/~croikle/ Geneforge 2: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/5293-gf2-editor-complete/ http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/13129-geneforge-2-editor-updated/?do=findComment&comment=174222 Geneforge 3: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/12291-geneforge-3-editor-information/ Geneforge 4: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/14952-g4-editor/ Geneforge 5: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/18989-geneforge-5-editor/ http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/23750-new-geneforge-5-character-editor/ http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/24570-ganduvs-geneforge-5-editor-re-uploaded/

That’s great to hear, Bain! It sounds like you’re making some pretty good headway into testing, even with a few delays. Given the size of Redemption, being able to say that beta testing might open in a month or so is a good place to be at! All the best for the last rounds of alpha testing! I’m really looking forward to seeing how this scenario translates to the Avernum engine! Also, good to hear that you got BoE working on your system successfully. Just for my curiosity, what approach worked for you in the end?

Hello tjmaxal, That's because you're not talking to the fort's sage! I fell into the same trap myself, so I appreciate the confusion. There's a character in the upper levels of Deepwood Keep that is called a 'sage'. This isn't the fort's main sage, however, but just a flavour character. They're essentially one of the main sage's assistants, in the same way that all the guards work for the commander of the fort. Because they aren't an important character, you can't talk to them. So where's the main sage for the fort? His name is Quentin, and he likes exploring. When you first go to Deepwood Keep, he won't be there. He's involved in a certain quest you'll receive in the Ahriel Thicket, and you'll need to do a little exploring of the Ahriel Woods before you find him. Don't worry! When you finally meet Quentin, everything will become clear! Otherwise, welcome to the boards, tjmaxal. We're nice and friendly here, and we like answering questions, so do please ask if you come across anything else!

Hello Salmon, There's actually a pretty decent thread talking about this from shortly after the game's release. It contains quite a few contributions from a variety of posters, so you can probably learn more there than from my own comments. Take a look here: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/25010-reviews-do-you-like-this-game-spoilers/ Personally, I think Queen's Wish I is an excellent Spiderweb game. It changes the formulae in interesting ways, ways that I found quite engaging. I found the fort system enjoyable to play around with, and the world is nicely portrayed. I think there's some real potential for this series and, at least on my end, it's gotten off to a solid start. However, because of the changes, different people do react to it differently. I think, in this situation, the best way to get a feeling for Queen's Wish is just to try out the demo. You'll see the differences there, and get a feeling for how well they sit with you!

Almighty Doer of Stuff, I appreciate that this is an issue you feel strongly about. However, I do have to remind you that aggressive responses to other forums members are in violation of our forum guidelines. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for now, but you’re dangerously close to overstepping the mark here. Take a moment to read these guidelines and remind yourself of them. You can find these in the tabs at the top of this page. In particular, pay close attention to point two: ‘Be family friendly, and be just plain friendly!’. Unfortunately, I think you may have misinterpreted the comment you quoted. Perhaps just take a moment, and come back to this thread at a later time with fresh eyes. That aside, I am happy, for now, to engage in further discussion on the main topic of this thread.

Let me try to explain the issues here. Backwards compatibility requires that old files are usable in a newer engine in their original state, with no modifications. As soon as you require changing files in order for them to work under a new system, you no longer really have backwards compatibility. Even if the changes are minor, strictly speaking, you require old files to be ported to your new engine. And that brings all sorts of problems. Consider this. A new fast food company puts a menu through your letterbox. It looks decent, so you decide to ring them up and order something. However, when you speak to them, rather than taking your order, they ask you what version of the menu you’re using. When you reply, they answer that the menu is out of date. They ask you to email the company and request the newest version of the menu. Only then can you order. They hang up. Now, what might most people do in this situation? I imagine many would just order somewhere else instead. The company has put an avoidable barrier between users and the product. And that’s a problem. I get the feeling that you’re interested in bringing new players to Blades of Exile. That’s a commendable goal. But your suggestion puts an immediate stumbling block in front of new players. Even a small barrier to playing old scenarios has the danger of putting people off. You’ve argued that you could manually port every affected scenario yourself. Given the comments above, though, the vast majority of released scenarios will be affected, requiring you to examine and ‘fix’ 300+ scenarios manually. That’s no small undertaking. There’s also the more serious problem Celtic raised. You cannot assume that the scenarios you have access to are the only ones that exist. There are scenarios out there that you are not aware of. People will have written scenarios and not released them – I can say that in confidence, for I have done so myself. Your approach would break my scenarios, and require me to manually learn how to port them to the new engine. That, I worry, would not lead to happy users. There are other problems, too. For instance, you are running the risk of some real copyright issues. As I understand it, modifying other people’s work without their consent, which is essentially what you’re doing, is forbidden under copyright law unless the author explicitly waives that right. Let’s not forget that copyright law extends well into the future – generally speaking, a good portion of a century after the original content creation. And you’re proposing modifying works by hundreds of creators. That’s potentially very sticky waters to be finding yourself in. I’m a little concerned by this comment. Surely it’s not the project's position to judge whether user-created content is ‘worth playing’ or not? Who gets to decide that? Shouldn’t the players have that choice, not some arbitrary external authority? Still, these are simply opinions! Several people have disagreed with you on this thread, and your previous threads on this subject over the years. But you are perfectly entitled to disagree with us! Here’s a suggestion. You clearly believe strongly in this idea. So why not spin off your own branch from Celtic’s code? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time there have been multiple branches of an open source project! Plug in your extended view, and see how it works! Play around with it and see if the graphical problems really are as serious as many of us claim. After all, it’s entirely possible that you’re right. You won’t know that unless you try it out yourself! That way, you can let the users decide which approach they prefer!

That’s an interesting point, and you’re entirely right that the use of such a tool could cause problems in exactly the sorts of situations I was discussing above! However, I think there’s an important difference between a scrolling tool such as this and the idea of an expanded field of view. Let me try to explain what I mean. This scrolling tool is activated by the player. It’s hard to do so by accident, since you have to both use a command (say, look) and then click at a certain point on the screen. In other words, looking around outside the original field of view is the player’s choice. If a player looks around and discovers a visual bug – and none of the situations I describe above require or suggest moving the field of view – then the immersion is broken by their own choice, be that accidental or deliberate on their part. Not every player will do this (indeed, I suspect that very few will in general), meaning that only a few players will experience the problem. After all, if screen scrolling was an issue that caused problems with players, wouldn’t scenario reviewers have reported it? Compare this to an expanded field of view. In this case, the player is forced to see regions outside of the original field of view. If this causes a problem, then every player will experience the same problem, whether they want to or not. A bug experienced by a few players instead becomes a bug experienced by everyone. As such, while screen scrolling can show up visual bugs, I feel that expanding the field of view would multiply the problems with the player experience many times over. Let me briefly mention a second point. As Celtic said above, the scrolling tool is disabled outdoors. I think that’s quite important to note. A game designer wouldn’t make such decisions arbitrarily, after all, since functionality is important. So why is the tool disabled? I would argue that it’s precisely because of outdoors issues such as the one I raised above. Connections to regions outside of the game world feature frequently in scenarios, and allowing a user to scroll the view past the edge of the designer’s world causes display problems. There’s also a similar, related problem. Consider placing two outdoor regions next to each other where one is above ground and the other below. This happens, for example, in The Valley of Dying Things. If you allow scrolling outdoors, players will be able to see this construction for themselves, damaging the immersion. In other words, I think that the disabling of the scrolling feature is a direct indication of the serious issues that could result from adjusting the field of view outdoors. These would only be more noticeable with an expanded field of view. These are just some thoughts! As it stands, I agree with Slarty – I think this is an interesting idea, but I’m concerned it could cause some real issues with pre-existing scenarios. However, do by all means do some experimenting and see for yourself! The proof is in the pudding, after all!

First of all, I think it’s worth putting this into a little context for people who may not have come across this idea before. The idea of extending the field of view in Blades of Exile has been raised several times since the source code was released. As I understand it, these discussions have generally led to the consensus that doing so could cause some significant problems for scenarios that have already been released. I recall several suggestions that such an idea should be optional at most, to avoid causing any problems with material that has already been released. Of course, there’s no harm in returning to old discussions! People’s opinions can and do change over time. However, I think it’s just worth being aware that this is an old point of discussion rather than a new idea. I’ve tried to think of a good way of illustrating the problem. Think of a television studio, filming a TV show. The cameras are set up in such a way that the recorded images replicate whatever the studio wants to show. On the screen is shown, say, a house/garden/city street/spaceship etc., and the studio goes to great lengths to make the viewer think it is in some senses real. Now, imagine expanding the field of view of the cameras. On the screen, you’ll start to see the edges of the film set, some of the cameras and microphones, the studio warehouse, the coffee machine etc.. It will become apparent at a glance that what is shown on the screen is fake, undermining the studio’s efforts to make the scene seem real and reducing the enjoyment of the audience. In other words, simply by expanding the field of view of the cameras, the suspension of disbelief of the audience is significantly damaged. One could come across very similar problems by expanding the field of view in Blades of Exile. The most immediate issue that springs to my mind is this one. Think of scenarios that have some form of outdoors, which I suspect is many of them. These sections of outdoors in most cases will not form the entire world in which the scenario is set. So the scenario designer has to include routes out of the setting of the scenario to the rest of their world. This could be as simple as a passageway through some mountains with a special blocking passage – the classic ‘way out of the valley’ – or other means. For instance, there could be an ocean, or a forest blocking passage, or a river that can’t be crossed. Rivers pose their own issues, since they will flow into and out of the setting of the scenario. So what happens in these cases? The scenario designer puts down some form of blockage, either a special or a terrain blockage (e.g. a line of trees). To preserve the illusion of the world continuing, they then build the world behind the blockage – but only so far as the party can see. There is no need to world-build beyond this, and making scenarios already takes a lot of time, so designers in my experience won’t do any more than this. Expanding the field of view causes problems in these cases. You’ll see the world simply end with a sharp cutoff. For instance, a well-travelled path into the forest might simply terminate with a wall of ocean, which is clearly illogical. Much like the TV example above, this breaks immersion, making it clear that the world is only an illusion. This is a problem that I feel would be quite commonplace. Many scenarios have outdoors, any many of these will have such connections outside. While there are ways to avoid this issue, there’s no incentive for scenario designers to use them – sending a path outside the field of view works just as well! If I’m thinking about this correctly, I imagine this will be a problem in very many scenarios, far too many to really list. As one example, look at the valley entrance in Jeff Vogel’s own Bandit Busywork. This could cause problems if the field of view is extended, since the road leads off the edge of the world (in other words, into a wall of ocean beyond the original field of view). However, you did ask for specific problems, and I’ve come up with a few off the top of my head. This is not an exhaustive list, merely the issues that came to mind. I should stress that I am not an accomplished Blades of Exile designer, so some of these issues are based on suspicions of how the effects are put together – they’re issues that I would check out if I were looking into this in more detail! ~ Doom Moon II: The spaceship game in the Peace City seems to rely on a restricted field of view. Demon Island I and II: Some of the casino games seem to rely on a restricted field of view. The one that comes to mind is the archery game in the Demon Island II. Demon Island II: Certain fights seem to rely on a restricted field of view. What comes to mind is the rather clever fight with the Ice Guardian, which makes it seem as if the Guardian is moving by shunting the party around on hidden conveyers. Extending the field of view could show the edges of the area, which would highlight the existence of the conveyers, breaking the immersion. Also, the neat 3D effect of climbing the outside of Castle Velius could be broken if you can see to the edge of the town. The ARC: In a number of places in Alcritas’s scenarios, he hides a character at the very edge of the screen (usually Sage). This character can therefore usually only be seen if the player stands in a very specific place. Extending the field of view would, I believe, make these hidden characters visible in many more party positions, breaking the effect. For instance, look at the appearance of Sage at the end of An Apology. There are also similar effects used in the misty dream sequence in Redemption. Redemption: As with the 3D problem above, there could be issues with the 3D ladder climbing segment in Redemption if the player can see to the edge of the town. Revenge (Creator): There are a number of scenes that require a restricted field of view. The one that comes to mind is the little dream scene in which the player is surrounded by windows, outside of which in the blackness are creatures of nightmares. It looks like there a crowds of creatures outside – but expand the field of view, and you’ll see there’s only one layer of them, breaking the effect somewhat. Farmhands Save the Day!!: Expand the field of view, and the striking terrain change in the region of the heart of the scenario could be revealed too early – breaking the surprise reveal at the scenario’s end. ~ Anyway, those are just a few ideas. It’s possible that there are more, but these are the ones that sprang to my mind. As it is, I think there might well be a lot of scenarios that could have issues with a larger field of view – I get the feeling the ‘exceptions’ are likely to be the ones that don’t break, rather than the other way around. Of course, that’s only based on my own experiences! I haven’t tested this out, so perhaps it won’t be as much of a problem as I think, or perhaps there are ways around these issues. So, why not do some experimenting, and have a look at some of these issues directly? You won’t know if you don’t try, after all!

Hello Cino, Yes, this is an interesting one. It’s not too difficult to discover the existence of the secret passage in Fort Remote, but there’s no hint about how to access it from there – it’s the end of a quest chain, rather than the beginning of one. The chain starts with you discovering that a mage is missing, and then trying to track them down. There are several ways to do this, not least just stumbling on the problem accidentally! However, there are two slightly more satisfying ways to start things off. If you have access to Erika’s Tower, try asking Erika about her mission involving Garzahd. She’ll mention a missing mage, and give you an idea of where to look for them. Alternatively, for a slightly clearer hint, go looking for Tori in the Isolated Home. You can find this mysterious place slightly north of Motrax’s Lair, although you’ll need to be able to fly. Ask Tori about her safehouse, and she’ll also mention the missing mage – and she’ll tell you exactly who you need to speak to! Finding who to ask about the mage is the first step. There are a few more puzzles to figure out on the way, but you’ll unlock the secret passage eventually! I appreciate I’m being a little oblique here. If you’d like more direct advice, or if you have problems with some of the other steps in the chain, do let us know! Otherwise, welcome to the forums! We’re nice and friendly here, and we like Exile, so do feel free to ask questions if you have any problems!

Larrygrover, your post above is in violation of this forum's guidelines. Please can I encourage you to read these carefully – you can find a link to the guidelines in the tab at the top of the forums. Please pay particular attention to point 2: 'Be family friendly, and be just plain friendly!'. Given that the previous post in this thread is over three years old, I think it has served its purpose. As such, this thread is now locked.

Thanks for pointing out the placement of the slith graphic! It looks like it might indeed be unique to the Windows version. The connection to Slith Avatars is a nice idea, but unfortunately it demonstrates the potential pitfalls of consulting the Avernum games to make comments about the Exile series. Usually, this is fine, since generally speaking the two series are very similar – they’re the same underlying games, after all! However, there are enough little differences under the surface that, sometimes, it’s possible to get caught out. I think this is one of those times. So far as I am aware, Slith Avatars are creatures unique to Avernum. They don’t appear in any installment of the Exile series. This includes Blades of Exile, released after the updated version of Exile I, so at least to me it seems unlikely that they were planned to be included in the first game. Indeed, I’m tempted to say that there aren’t any spectral sliths of any sort in Exile I, but I’m less sure about my memory on that point! So far as I can tell, Slith Avatars were created by Jeff as boss encounters for Bahssikava, a place unique to the Avernum games, and then ended up appearing in a few other places over the course of the series. Just to clarify, this creature is referred to as ‘Spider Lord’ in both versions of Exile I. I believe there’s no mention of a queen, or indeed any reference to that particular character being female. The Spider Lord might just be a particularly powerful aranea, with no more importance to the colony than that. Think, by way of comparison, of a Vahnatai Lord. It’s a fair assumption that Jeff might have intended the Spider Lord to be female, since he’s pretty knowledgable about spiders (the relevant idea in this case being the tendency of female spiders to be larger and stronger than males), but there’s no actual evidence of this in the game. Since I didn’t mention this before, I think linking these graphics to two boss encounters – the Spider Lord and Sss-Thsss – is reasonable. Both of these encounters feature multiple characters with the same sprite, and the only way the player can tell which is the stronger one as is is to ‘look’ at them. It can make the battles a little confusing. Having special sprites for the boss characters would solve that problem. Note that this has already been done for one of the other boss fights in Exile I – the fight with Grah-Hoth. Grah-Hoth has a unique sprite to distinguish him from the other demons in the same fight, even in the original version of the game, which makes the battle a little more intuitive. The original version of that graphic is rather neat, actually – he wears a chain, presumably denoting high office, and has golden horns, which makes it look a little like he is wearing a crown!

Thanks Celtic! I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something obvious. Now that I’m writing, though, could you just confirm something for me? I currently only have access to the Mac version of Exile I – I don’t have a suitable system in place at the moment for running Windows programs from this era. Because of this, I can’t check the Windows MONST2 sheet myself. This is something else that’s probably obvious, but I just wanted to confirm that the sprite in this post is distinct from the slith sprite shown in the screenshot below (to the south of the player). This is resource number 926 in the Mac version. I imagine it is, since it’s different by sight, and is early enough in the listing to presumably be on MONST1, rather than MONST2. But I thought it worth checking. Basically, I want to rule out the possibility that this is a curious graphical anomaly!

Hello digmo, I've just had a check, and you are indeed right. The fights with Sss-Thsss and the Spider Lord do not use special graphics for the important characters, even though it might seem like they should! The graphic used for the Spider Lord is that of a regular spider, and the graphic for Sss-Thsss is that of a Slith Chief, which makes sense. This is true for the Mac versions of the game, to clarify! The older versions of Exile I with the original graphics also had no special graphics for these characters. Your special spider graphic is placed at the end of the list of character graphics in the newer versions, which makes me think that it was intended for a special situation – the Spider Lord is an obvious choice – but that it was either never implemented, or it was tested, and Jeff didn't like the look of it. I'm less sure about your slith graphic, though. Do you have a number for the PICT resource showing that character, or could you let me know the characters that appear around it? I'm having trouble finding it in the graphics file. It's probably obvious, and I'm just missing it! Welcome to the forums, digmo! Please do stick around and have fun here! We're nice and friendly, and we enjoy answering questions. Incidentally, and this might be a little obscure, but I do hope your name is reference to Lode Runner 2 ...

Yeah, this does keep getting more exciting. Congratulations, Kel! This is a major milestone indeed, and one worthy of celebration! Even if it’s in a slightly skeletal form, the Homeland trilogy (in four parts) is now in some senses complete from beginning to end. That’s a great thing – something I don’t imagine many on here would have anticipated even a few years ago – and it's a testament to your hard work. Hooray! While it would be unfair to say that the end is in sight, at least the top of the mountain range is coming into view ... Obligatory clipart below:

While I can’t speak from a design perspective, this sounds awesome! Man, Kel, how do you keep making this scenario more exciting?

Hello MaxRavenclaw, Sadly, I don't believe such functionality exists in the Avadon engine – although it would certainly be convenient if it did! If you want to check the values of flags, the only really practical way is to directly alter the scripts themselves. For instance, you can write in a series of little tests that display different messages depending on the value of a given flag. This is not very efficient, but it does allow you to manually check the values of flags, something that can be very useful when trying to trying to track down a problem! Is there a particular reason you want to read the flags? Depending on what you want to do, it's possible there might be an easier way to achieve the results you want by using some other approach!

Hello Fireball Fodder, You’re correct, but with a slight caveat! In the Exile series, the location to which the nephilim teleport is never explicitly stated. The player can make several assumptions about where this might be, but there is no concrete evidence in the game itself. Personally, I’m of the opinion that the player never comes across the location. We know that, with the exception of one point in the caves, the Empire can only teleport into Exile using a pair of portals – one portal on the surface, and one in Exile. The portal in Fort Exile is interesting both because it is extremely powerful, but also because it prevents people in Exile from entering it. The player never comes across another portal even remotely like this, and given the power requirements it would probably be hard to hide away – powerful portals in Exile are described as casting unpleasant auras, after all. To my mind, it’s probably in a set of caves that the party never discovers. Since I mentioned it, the special teleportation point used by the Empire seems an unlikely option. This route is the one used by Empire spies and raiding parties, and it doesn't seem logical for them to teleport the nephilim there – after all, the nephilim would be decidedly hostile to the Empire, and I don't imagine they'd want such a hostile force clustered around their secret entryway! You made mention of the lower caves. Note that the idea of the lower caves appears every now and again in the Exile series. The ancient empire of the sliths heralds from these caves, as indeed do the vahnatai. Furthermore, the darkling sliths mentioned in the Za-Khazi Run also emerged from these lower caves. And, of course, the Za-Khazi Run also has the party travel far, far deeper into the caves than any other work Spiderweb wrote! It’s possible that the nephilim are teleported into a series of lower caves. After all, there are passages from these caves into the nation of Exile that have not yet been discovered (again, see the Za-Khazi run, amongst others). I could stop there, but this highlights an interesting recent change. As of the most recent remake of Exile, the 2011 Avernum: Escape from the Pit, this point of lore was slightly changed. Now, if you ask Janice the same question, she says: “They don't usually arrive at Fort Avernum, by the way. They tend to appear to the north.” So, not only do nephilim now occasionally appear through the portal we’re familiar with, but this ties down the location a little more. As shown in the games themselves, large groups of nephilim are clustered in the lands to the southwest of Formello, and in the northeastern parts of the Eastern Gallery. Maybe this gives an indication as to where this mysterious second portal might be?

Ah, looks like I couldn’t get in before Kel! Still, here’s a slightly more wordy answer – which I put up just in case you’re not familiar with how dice rolls are handled in games like these. This question is probably best answered by a little reminder of how weapons work in Blades of Avernum. If you load up the game and hover your mouse over a weapon, underneath its name you’ll see a description that looks something like this (where I’m using arbitrary numbers for the purposes of demonstration): 5-25 dmg. + 1-5/level What this means is that there are two contributions to how much damage you do. The first number is a flat amount of damage. Whenever you successfully hit an foe, a number is selected at random from within this range. So, in this example, the first contribution will be somewhere between 5 and 25. The next number in the list is what’s important here. This contribution adds some extra damage that is multiplied by the ‘level’ of your character. This second contribution will add to your damage output a number randomly chosen within the range as multiplied by your ‘level’. So, let’s say, for this example, that you have a character who is ‘level’ 10. This second contribution will therefore add to your damage output a number between 1x10 = 10 and 5x10 = 50. We already know that the first contribution will add a number from between 5-25. This means that the range of damage you can do with your character is: Low: 5 + 10 = 15 High: 25 + 50 = 75 Now, the situation is actually a little more subtle than this – this is why I put ‘level’ in quotation marks. This parameter is actually made up of a combination of factors: Level = Strength + Weapon Skill + Item Increases where ‘Weapon Skill’ is a shorthand for Melee Weapons / Pole Weapons / Bows / Thrown Weapons, basically the skill associated with whatever weapon you are using. ‘Item Increases’ refers to what you’re asking about. If an item adds X levels of melee damage, then it adds X to your ‘level’ value. So, using the example above, it will add between X and 5X to your total damage output. If you’d like a little more information about the various skills, here’s a post that you might find helpful: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/2523-the-abominable-party-building-topic/?do=findComment&comment=22575

Yes! There's no special need to upgrade the display; everything it shows updates correctly. It's not entirely obvious at first blush that the number changes during gameplay, hence the need for this post, but the number shown on the training screen is always the one relevant to the decision you're making at the time!

I'm just flagging up a small error in this, in the interests of transparency. The damage bonuses that arise from training to the top tier of the skill trees aren't actually flat increases, but instead vary depending on your level. Every sixth level, they increase by 1, starting at +1 at level 1. So, for instance, the bonuses are: Level 1: +1 Level 6: +2 Level 12: +3 Level 18: +4 It's not a huge change, but it ensures that the bonuses remain a little more relevant as your party levels up, and does more damage on average!

Hello all, It’s been brought to my attention that several different posts have been giving some contradictory – and slightly inaccurate – information about the damage bonuses that arise from training to the top tiers of the skill tree. I’ll put a comment up on the strategy central advice thread about this, but I thought this was an important enough issue to flag up that it merited its own thread. When you train to the top tier of the ‘combat’ and ‘magic’ skill trees, one of the perks is an increase in your damage output – physical for the combat tree and magical for the magic tree. This is often reported as a flat increase to your damage by a single, fixed amount (for instance, +2), but that’s not actually the case. To make sure that this damage bonus stays relevant as your party levels up, and adds more damage as your party does more damage on average, this bonus scales discretely with your level! Every sixth level, these bonuses increase by 1. At the start of the game, both bonuses are only +1 (see this yourself with a new game!). When you reach level 6, they increase to +2. For completeness, the bonuses change like this: Level 1: +1 Level 6: +2 Level 12: +3 Level 18: +4 This increase keeps on going with increasing level, incidentally, but getting to the next increase at level 24 isn’t hugely practical in Queen’s Wish! In other words, just keep in mind that this bonus changes as you play!

That's because the cause of the issue wasn't discovered in time to make it into this particular version, I'm afraid! It looks like there might be another update coming before too long that should fix this issue, along with anything else that needs addressing. In the meantime, I wouldn't worry too much about Mavlov's Laboratory. You've seen all there is to see (except for some rather worrying bloodstains that aren't spawning correctly – be sure to go back and visit after the next update!). This emphasises the importance of always being clear when reporting a problem, osnola! From what you've said here, it's now possible to piece together what you've been experiencing. The flag isn't being set correctly for that specific instance – when the stone is sent to your home fort, the part of the code that sets the flag is being skipped over, and that's not hugely obvious from just looking at the code. In other words, this is indeed a bug. Like the issue with Mavlov's Laboratory, it probably wasn't reported in time to make it into the current version. I'm assuming you mentioned that the stones were being sent to your home fort in your report – otherwise, it might be worth sending on a little update to your report that includes that point. Without that little bit of information, this is a problem that could easily be missed! For now, though, I'm simply imagining that Obro has a whole bunch of rocks that he wants to sell to whomever will buy them. You can't use any more than one during the game, so all that really happens here is the player spending money to build up a nice little rock collection!

Ah, now I see what you mean! Your thoughts on the reasons for this are interesting but, just to prevent the spread of urban myths, Spiderweb’s games generally don’t check pack items for normal encounters. Rather, it only happens in very specific circumstances. The primary use is in item crafting, where the game will check whether you have the parts to make whatever you want to craft. Otherwise, for more normal encounters, different sorts of checks are used instead. Most of the time, you don’t need to worry about what your party is carrying in its pack! The way this encounter works is that you buy a stone, and a little checkmark (or ‘flag’) is set in the game. When you go into the conversation again, the game consults this checkmark, sees that it’s been marked, and doesn’t allow you to buy the stone again. It’s simple, and pretty hard to break. I’ve checked this myself in a variety of circumstances, and I’m afraid that I can’t replicate what you’re describing myself, at least not yet. What’s happening here is that you’ve either found a way to directly break some of the game’s flags – which shouldn’t happen under normal conditions – or you’re seeing a legacy bug from an old version that’s already been fixed – which I imagine is also somewhat unlikely. Either way, it’s good that this has been brought to Jeff’s attention! While it’s very unlikely that it's the cause, I’d hold off on visiting Mavlov’s Laboratory again until you’ve downloaded version 1.0.3, just to be on the safe side!