Ess-Eschas

Yeah, I was working on the assumption that ‘city’ was being used in the Avernite sense, rather than in a more general way. As far as I understand it, locations in Avernum class as cities if they have a representative on the Council. I believe this gives six cities in all: Dharmon, Blosk, Almaria, Silvar, Formello and Cotra. Personally, I’m not sure I would classify the Castle as a city. It’s the heart of the Avernite government, certainly, and the seat of the Council itself – but at least to me, it has a slightly different feel from the other cities. Places like Formello and Silvar are full of normal citizens going about their lives. We see plenty of homes, merchants, businesses, bits of civic infrastructure, and so on. But the Castle is a fortress, and one that stands apart. There are people living there, but these mainly seem to be people directly involved with the government and the military. I get the feeling that there are far fewer permanent residents in the Castle than most of the other towns/cities of Avernum. After all, there doesn’t seem to be the infrastructure to support very large numbers of residents. And, at least in Avernum 1, the Castle doesn’t even let in normal citizens without a good reason! To my mind, the Castle fulfills a similar role to something like Windsor Castle. It’s big, and it’s important, but there might be fewer permanent residents than a small village. So I’m not sure I would classify it as a city, per se. If we assume the definition of city I’ve used here, there are two cities close to the river I was suggesting: Dharmon and Almaria. The river is actually about halfway between them, although I think Dharmon might be fractionally closer. So I think Dharmon might be the closest ‘city’ to this river using my definition, even if only just. It’s worth pointing out that Patrick’s tower is actually noticeably closer to the Castle than it is to Dharmon. While I suppose the Za-Khazi adventurers could report to the Castle, I’m not sure that would be in keeping with what’s shown in the main series of the games. After all, in the main series, we’re shown that only missions of the most crucial important to the nation of Avernum are given at the Castle. I don’t think ferrying important military supplies is quite up to the level of ‘Kill Garzahd’, but it’s hard to make effective comparisons for something like this! If the adventurers were going to report to a military commander, and arrived up that river, I think Dharmon would be a reasonable place to go. It has a heavy military presence, after all, which Almaria does not. That’s my reasoning, in any case. Actually, there’s a potential flaw I’ve come up with – but more on that in a moment. Hmm, that’s a very nice idea. It has a real advantage over my suggestion, in that the river flowing past Erika’s Tower is a big, broad river. That’s in keeping with the river we see in the Run. The river I was pointing to is quite small by comparison, which makes it a poorer potential candidate. And it works with the location of the cities, too. To explain a slightly odd comment I made in the previous post, I tend to think of Blosk as being slightly further west than it actually is – the result of the compressed distances in the second trilogy. In the first trilogy, it’s actually a fair way towards the centre of the Great Cave. Dharmon and Blosk are about equidistant from Fort Saffron – so Dharmon could quite reasonably be called the ‘closest’ city the Abyss. I have two potential issues with your suggestion, though. Firstly, Fort Cavalier is described by Commander Yale of Fort Goodling as being: “the last defense between the slith forces and the rich central caves of Avernum.” To me, this implies that there are no defensive sites between the entrance to the Run and the Great Cave. But, if the darklings emerged from the Run into the Abyss, the routes to the Great Cave are all blocked by defensive positions: Fort Spire and Fort Saffron on the one hand, and Fort Emerald on the other. There seems to be no route from the Abyss to Dharmon without getting stuck in well-entrenched positions. After all, the Empire couldn’t punch through the Fort Saffron route into the Great Cave, at least not on a small timescale. While I’m sure the darklings could, I imagine the potential battle there would at least have been mentioned. Of course, the easy solution to this is just to have a land entrance to the Run, one that comes out somewhere else – say in the tunnels west of Fort Remote. You could easily have this entrance down one of the many pits in the area, for example. Still, if we’re trying to connect rivers to the river of the Run, there’s another rather serious problem. This affects my suggestion, too. The river in the Run flows from south to north. We know this because of the position of waterfalls on the river, and because Commander Yale in Fort Goodling explicitly mentions that the Run extends northwards from her fort. But all the major rivers in the west/southwest of Avernum flow in the other direction. They flow from north to south. This is indicated by waterfalls. So the river I suggested flows in this direction. As does yours (although this is indicated only by waterfalls that appear in Avernum 2). Actually, pretty well all the rivers in that portion of the map flow this way. So, for the Patrick’s Tower river or the Erika’s Tower river to connect to the Run river, they’d have to do a sharp turn at some point. That’s by no means infeasible for a natural river, but it does make the geography a little less elegant. Taking all this together, I find myself less sure of my original suggestion. I think I'm coming around to one of yours, in fact. Maybe one of the other little patches of water in western Avernum could connect to the Run river, one that doesn't have waterfalls to constrain its direction of flow? That little stretch of water near the ruins of the unnamed city above Fort Remote looks like a good candidate, although there are a few others!

Yes, locating the Za-Khazi Run is rather tricky, since we really aren’t given that much information about it! Strictly speaking, the scenario doesn’t actually say that Fort Cavalier is ‘close’ to Dharmon, only that Dharmon is the "closest" city. So, the Run doesn’t necessarily have to border that particular corner of the Great Cave, at least in principle. Given Dharmon’s location, I think the Run could feasibly be anywhere off the southwestern borders of Avernum (too far north and you get too close to Blosk, too far east and you get too close to Almaria). The scenario isn’t entirely clear on how far away the Run is either. The ending text describes the journey from Fort Cavalier to Dharmon as a “hike”, which at least to me implies it’s a fair distance. However, the introduction to the scenario describes the Run as being “just outside the heart of Avernum”, so presumably it can’t be too far from the Great Cave. I’ve always tended to assume that the Run is deeper than the main caves of Avernum, but I have no real evidence for this. So far as I recall, the scenario only mentions relative height when talking about the darkling sliths. According to a book in Fort Goodling, after Avenum 1, the darklings “fled to lower caverns as yet unreached by Avernites”, where they regrouped. The war began with the sliths attacking outlying settlements, which they reached “through the waterways”. That doesn’t give much of a clue but, at least to me, it implies that the first settlements the sliths attacked might not have been that much higher than the slith’s own caves. After all, wouldn’t swimming up waterfalls or cascading water be difficult, even for sliths? So, if the Run connects to some of these outlying settlements, perhaps it’s also deeper than Avernum, or climbs over its length, connecting the lower caves to the caves of Avernum? In any case, I have a theory about where the Run is, although it’s only really a guess. There’s one feature that we can use to locate the Run, assuming it really is close to the Great Cave: the river! The Run is traversed by a large river, which flows out of both ends of the gallery. So, if the gallery connects directly to the Great Cave, this river should too. Conveniently, there’s only one large river on the southwestern corner of the Great Cave. It’s the river that flows past Patrick’s Tower (running through the Great Cave from the Sulphur Lake and Silverlock’s Tower). My guess is that, a little way past Patrick’s Tower, this river flows into the Za-Khazi Run. So where’s the entrance? Well, why not the river itself? There’s no particular reason why the primary entrance to the Run from the Great Cave has to be by land, after all. Settlers could have reached the Run by boat – and the sliths could be intending to attack the Great Cave through the river. After all, Avernum 5 shows us some settlements beyond Avernum’s traditional borders that can only be reached by boat, so there could in principle be others, too. And it could explain why the party in the games can’t reach the Run – there’s never anyone selling a boat on that stretch of river! It’s not talked about much, but there's more than just one reference to the Za-Khazi Run in the second trilogy. I can recall references in Avernum 4 and, surprisingly, Avernum 6 – although I'm not sure if I'm remembering all of them. The one I remember in Avernum 4 is actually quite explicit. I suspect it’s the one you’re thinking of, Kel, since it references the war. Here’s that reference, which is a portion of a conversation with Pea Eye in Silver: Party: “Are you an adventurer?” Pea Eye: “I was. Once. Long ago. I helped out in the second slith war, not too many years ago.” Party: “The second slith war?” Pea Eye: “It was a small one, but nasty, not too long after Empress Prazac let the Avernites back onto the surface. I helped ferry supplies down the Za-Khazi Run, after some other adventurers cleared it out.” That last sentence seems a pretty clear reference to the events of the scenario itself. So, I think the scenario probably is canonical, but not in a way that really impacts on the series very much. I mean, we never actually see the Run in the main series, so at the end of the day I suppose the Run is only really a niche part of its lore.

Great! I’m pleased that we’ve helped you come to a greater understanding of how these systems work in Avadon, despite some of the confusion that has arisen in this discussion! I think the takeaway message from this is that systems involving combining percentages in RPGs, be it through resistance calculations or other effects, are not always implemented in a completely straightforward way. If a game says that raising a statistic will increase some property by x%, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the net result will be a flat x% increase! The actual difference in percentage might vary due to all sorts of factors. This can get quite complicated, and can sometimes lead to some confusion about what is going on – as you’ve seen in this thread! So, for the example you’ve given, the issue is not how the percentages from Earth Discipline are applied. These percentages are indeed being added together, rather than being multiplied. I was certainly wrong about that and, amusingly, the maths conspired to make my assumption look correct for your case! The issue you’re experiencing here is that some items, or perhaps some other stat effects, are also causing your resistance percentages to change. These additional changes are interfering with the increases caused by Earth Discipline, making the effective increases seem a little less than advertised. If you were to remove all of your equipment and skills providing you with resistance boosts, and then do your experiment again, you’d see that the percentages being added are indeed as described. I did that experiment myself, too, just as a sanity check. So, as you progress through the rest of the game, just remember that some of the resistance increases you gain from now on might not always be as much as you might initially expect – and be prepared to start hitting the resistance caps at high percentages! In any case, do enjoy the rest of your time with Avadon, and do by all means ask if you have any more questions! By no means, although I appreciate the wit. This is a simple mathematical issue with a clear correct answer. All I was doing was asking for some clarification when Slarty said that I was mistaken, and Slarty’s response cleared everything up. In a situation like this, it’s pretty clear who’s right, and I just wanted to get to the truth of the matter – I certainly don’t mind being wrong! So, I wasn’t combating Slarty here – just asking for their opinion! Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s probably getting just cold enough to start that land war in Asia I’ve always been planning ... *The slith fires up Civilisation 1*

Hello prospero14, When you experience behaviour that’s different from other players, don’t always assume that it’s a bug! What you’re seeing here isn’t a bug, but just part of how the game is designed. Different players will experience the game slightly differently! In Queen’s Wish, there are two different ways to trigger the calamity. One way of doing so is to make contracts with all three vassal states. This seems to be the approach found by the vast majority of players, which probably explains why you’ve seen it written so frequently. However, there is another way. A little dialogue box should have appeared shortly after you made a treaty with your second vassal. It describes ‘Something Odd’ happening: a strange, brief ‘surge of magic’ that you experience. This little event is the Nisse taking notice of you, and beginning to take action. So far as I understand it, this dialogue box starts an in-game timer. After a certain number of days have passed, the calamity will trigger. So, if you take your time in the third vassal state, and stop to smell the flowers, the calamity might take hold before you’ve completed the third vassal quest. That’s what has happened to you, I think! Otherwise, welcome to the boards. It’s always good to see new Queen’s Wish players on here!

Of course. I am a little worried that we’re talking slightly at cross-purposes here, though, and that this might be slightly muddying the waters when it comes to Rabenrecht’s query. I’d like to return to the main drive of that query, if I may. Rabenrecht has, very helpfully, given us an example with figures taken from the game. I’m hoping we can use those figures to determine which of our two explanations is more plausible! Here’s the example as I understand it. Do correct me if I get anything wrong, Rabenrecht! Rabenrecht is looking at a situation where they are increasing Earth Discipline from level 6 to level 7. The resistance percentages are displayed on the character statistics page, and Rabenrecht is taking the difference of the level 7 value and the level 6 value. The differences Rabenrecht records are: Fire and cold: 3% Poison and acid: 7% Mental: 10% Now, you say: If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that all resistances are applied in an additive way. So, referring to my quotation of the in-game description above, this should mean that the differences are the very percentages referred to in the description. In other words, you seem to be proposing that the increases should be these: Fire and cold: 4% Poison and acid: 10% Mental: 10% I am proposing that the resistances are being combined in a multiplicative fashion. Going through the maths of this gives my predications as: Fire and cold: -(1-0.04)^7+(1-0.04)^(7-1) = 3.1% Poison and acid: -(1-0.04)^6*(1-0.10)+(1-0.04)^6 = 7.8% Mental: 1-(1-0.1)^1 = 10% Without any further information, my figures seem to match Rabenrecht’s much more closely than yours. If one assumes that Avadon always rounds resistance percentages down, then my figures match exactly. Doesn’t that imply that my model matches the game's behaviour in this case? Or I am I doing something stupid in my maths, or going wonky in my interpretation? And if I am wrong, how do you explain the figures that Rabenrecht is recording here? Let me just make a brief aside about those probabilities. I think the issue here has arisen because I wasn’t very clear on my terminology. When I was referring to probabilities 'stacking', I wasn’t referring to a combination of two individual events, each with distinct probabilities. I was referring to a probability of a single event, where the probability of a given outcome was being modified by an additional factor. In other words, I’m not talking about rolling two dice. I’m talking about, for want of a better metaphor, fusing two dice together to make a super die. If the probability of an outcome is modified in this way, then it makes sense for it to be done in a multiplicative way. That’s what I was thinking of. Now, I’ll certainly grant that’s not often done in games, and I suspect it's not how probabilities are combined in Avadon – so I’ll scratch that part about games tending to combine probabilities in a multiplicative way!

Ah, of course. Sorry for using slightly misleading terminology of my own, too! Just to clarify, the example we’re looking at here looks at how much damage is reduced from different sources, rather than a particular probability. I tend to think of these in similar terms to probabilities, since all the mathematics is the same, but of course they’re not actually the same thing. However, because the mathematics is the same, my analysis still holds – and it applies equally well to other examples where probabilities are being stacked, rather than resistances. After all, it makes just as little sense to have greater than 100% damage reduction as it does to have greater than 100% probability! Because of this, games like these tend to combine both resistances and probabilities in a multiplicative way. The importance of the distinction between additive and multiplicative combinations still applies. So, sorry for slightly confusing the issue with my poor choice of words!

Hello Rabenrecht, First off, welcome to the forums! It’s always good to see people who are interested in looking into the numerical detail of the game mechanics! The descriptions of the skill effects in Avadon 1 can be a little ambiguous at times. From what you’re written here, I think you’re slightly misinterpreting these descriptions, particularly when looking at how probabilities are being applied. I like to point out what I think the problem is, and let you know what I think is going on under the game’s hood. First off, let’s look at the in-game description of the example you’ve given, Earth Discipline: “Gives 4%/level resistance to magical and elemental attacks. At level 3: Adds 5%/level resistance to physical damage. At level 7: Adds 10%/level resistance to mental, poison and acid attacks.” I think the critical issue here is in how the probabilities stack. I appreciate that the wording here is ‘Adds x%/level’, so that might imply that the probabilities are being combined by adding them together. However, I think this is just an unfortunate choice of wording. I think ‘Add’ in this case simply means ‘increases’. While of course there are exceptions, generally speaking in RPGs and other games, probabilities combine in a multiplicative way, rather than in an additive way. So, probabilities are combined by multiplying them together, rather than just taking the sum. The effect of this is to produce diminishing returns for each additional probability stuck on to the combination – as you yourself noted! This might seem unfair, but there’s a very good, practical reason for making this choice. If you simply add probabilities together, eventually you get to the point where you have more than 100% probability of some skill or resistance. And that doesn’t make any sense! By contrast, multiplicative probabilities only ever tend towards 100%. They never exceed it, so the maths all remains within plausible bounds. To go into this in a little more detail, let’s look at the 4% increases. In an additive model, which you’ve been assuming, the probabilities combine like this: Total Additive Resistance = 4% + 4% + 4% + 4% + ... In a multiplicative model, it’s a little more complicated. Instead, we need to think about the chance of an attack hitting, which is (100-4)% = 0.96. In this case, the total resistance is calculated like this: Total Multiplicative Resistance = 100%*(1 – (1 * 0.96 * 0.96 * 0.96 * 0.96 * ...)) If you’re monitoring this by looking at the resistances displayed in the game, you’re going to be looking at how much the probabilities are added to after each level, even if the effect is actually due to multiplication. The effect of the multiplication is to slightly lower the effective amount by which probability is added for each successive level. So, for example, the effective amounts you’ll see for the first few levels are: Level 1: 4.00% Level 2: 3.84% Level 3: 3.69% Level 4: 3.54% Level 5: 3.40% By level 5, the effective additive probability increase, rounded to the nearest percent, is 3%. And that’s what you’re seeing! On your second point, I think this is just an issue of a slight disagreement with the wording. You’ll see that the phrasing says that the 10% increases are added "At level 7". While it’s not explicitly stated, I think the implication here is that the increases happen only for points at level 7 or higher. After all, points accrued up to level 6 don’t meet this criterion, so the implication is that points from the first 6 levels don’t count. If you don’t like that reasoning, consider the situation from a balance perspective. If reaching level 7 suddenly gave you 10% increases for all the points you currently had, that would be a vast increase compared to all other level changes. Level 7 would give you a flat increase of about 52% (remember, the probabilities multiply), compared to level 8, which would only give you an effective increase of about 5%. Subsequent levels would give you even less than this. This sort of spike is a huge imbalance in the effectiveness of the skill allocation. It invalidates most of the skill allocation in favour of a single level which, given that this single level is so much more important than all the others, effectively limits the choices a player can sensibly make. So it’s bad game design! I hope you’ll find that Spiderweb games are better written than that! To summarise, the behaviour you’re seeing is what’s being indicated by the skill description, I think – it’s just been presented in a slightly ambiguous way. Firstly, the probabilities are being multiplied together, rather than being added together. As a general rule, it’s always best to assume multiplicative probabilities in a situation like this. It tends to be a more common approach. Secondly, those additional increases are only being added for the level at which the increase is unlocked, and for all subsequent levels – but not any earlier levels that have already been accrued. I appreciate I’ve gone into some detail here, so do by all means ask for clarification if anything I’ve written is confusing! Also, to echo TriRodent, a good place to seek information about the numerical aspects of these games are the posts linked in the Strategy Central threads. Pay particular attention to posts by Slarty (currently posting under @"Nothing Left"), whose analyses of the numerical details of these games are second to none! Otherwise, all the best for the rest of your time working for the Black Fortress! :)

Hello lucabar, Sorry to hear that you’ve had the same problem! Unfortunately, this seems to be a bug that happens very rarely, and that makes it rather difficult to track down. Still, I might be able to help you. First off, make a copy of your current save file in a new save slot. This is just to make sure you can get back to the original state of your game should anything go wrong! Once you’ve done that, go to Fort Haven and stand near Miranda. Hold down ‘shift’ and press ‘d’. A little dialogue box should appear. In this box, type the following, exactly as shown here: sdf 0 15 3 and click the tick. Open the dialogue again by holding shift and pressing d, type in this: sdf 12 11 2 and once again click the tick. Now, go and speak to Miranda. With luck, you should be able to report to her that you’re cleared out the Bastion, and remove the quest from your list! You’re looking for the dialogue item ‘The Rusty Barb has been wiped out.’ If this doesn’t work, do let me know. I might be able to come up with something else that fixes this for you!

Hello AdventureDarg, In addition to Randomizer’s comments, I just wanted to clarify something else. Avernum 3 is quite lenient when it comes to high levels of spells like Move Mountains and Dispel Barrier. There is no place in Avernum 3 where Level 3 Move Mountains is mandatory, and you will never be blocked from continuing the game if you do not have this spell. All you will miss out on are item caches, and shortcuts around difficult locations and challenging fights. If it looks like your progress is being stopped by rocks or other objects that you can’t destroy, have a closer look around the immediate area! There may be hidden switches or levers that open up secret passages, or provide other ways around the obstacle. Alternatively, you may be able to use other objects already present in the location to help you proceed. There are a few examples of this in the Troglodyte/Giant quest, for instance, but I don’t think they’re required to proceed. For what it’s worth, I completed the Troglodyte/Giant quest without Level 3 Move Mountains, so I can assure you that it’s possible! If you have further problems, or if there’s a particular set of stones you can’t find a way past, do let us know. We’re happy to help, and if an obstacle is stopping you from enjoying the game, we want to help you get past it! On another note, it seems you accidentally posted this topic twice. Just to make sure all your replies are in once place, I’ve removed the duplicate post.

That’s good to hear! Thankfully, given that your chests still seem to be working, it looks like you aren’t experiencing anything too serious. With luck, that empty chest in Olgai was just a one-off, possibly a holdover from the game getting a little confused after what happened in the Tower. Hopefully, everything should be fine from now on! However, if you do experience any further problems with your party further down the line, do let us know. If it turns out the problem isn’t fixed after all, that would be useful to know – and there’s a chance we might be able to help you fix things! All the best for the rest of your fight against the Empire!

Thanks for the clarification, Slarty! I was basing my comments here on a point which it appears I was misremembering. I was thinking not such much about the bug as it appeared in the second Avernum trilogy engine, but in the Geneforge engine. I thought this bug extended into the early Geneforge games, and therefore by extension might possibly manifest in the original Avernum trilogy too. However, I went and checked this, and I could only find evidence for this bug appearing in the later Geneforge titles – presumably through code copied through from Avernum 4. So, sorry for misremembering, and casting some confusion into this topic! Still, something odd does seem to be happening with Lucidus’s chests. The chest in Olgai really shouldn’t be empty, I think, and the disappearing items in the Tower shouldn’t be causing an issue like that. So something strange is happening. Even if this isn’t the empty container bug, it might still be something nasty that perhaps hasn’t previously been reported. So, to be on the safe side, I would still suggest that you check out some ‘full’ chests, Lucidus, to make sure they’re working correctly. Just to be safe!

Sorry to hear about your vanishing items, Lucidus! That’s a really frustrating problem to encounter, particularly when it’s valuable items that you’ve spent time and money collecting. I hope you manage to get everything back simply through the editor! As you can see, there isn’t much detailed information about how the early Avernum games deal with item limits. We know that there’s a limit, and we know that items disappear after that limit is exceeded, but we don’t really know much about how that process works in detail. It strikes me, though, that you’re in an excellent position to provide a little more information about this! I was wondering. Do you still happen to have a saved game shortly after this happened to you? If so, would you mind sending me a copy of it? I’d be interested to have a play around with your version of the Tower containing your large piles of dropped items – with the hope that it might be possible to check whether the item limit is indeed 200 items, or another value altogether, and what sorts of items disappear when the limit is exceeded. I rather like Slarty’s suggestion, and it would certainly make sense in the context of the engine. I’d like to see if we can verify that! Hopefully, knowing a little more about this problem might help prevent other players from getting into a similar fix, too. Also, I find it a little concerning that your reward in Olgai was missing. That could potentially be the sign of a more serious problem, and I might suggest that you quickly check that out before playing further – just to make sure there isn’t anything more badly wrong with your saved game. There’s a very rare, very unpredictable bug in Spiderweb games from this era that affects game items. Unfortunately, no-one’s managed to track down the cause yet, although many people have tried to! What happens when the bug is triggered varies, but a common symptom is that all items in containers throughout the game vanish. That, as you can imagine, is a serious problem. Just to make sure everything’s okay, I’d suggest trying to hunt down an easy container that you know should have items in it. If you can’t think of any offhand, containers in homes in towns often contain junk items, and shops sometimes have chests in them containing ‘not yours’ items. If you find a container that has some items in it, you should be fine! But if you can’t, it’s possible you might be having a more serious problem. Unfortunately, there’s not a solution to that more nasty bug at present. If that’s what you’re seeing, you might need to go back to an earlier save – so it’s better to know sooner rather than later!

There’s something important in there, but don’t worry about missing it. When you need to enter the Tower, it will be made fairly clear that you need to do so, and you’ll be told how you can get in. So, for the moment, don't be concerned that you can't get in! You’ll learn how to eventually!

That’s an odd quirk of the game engine. If a character has never increased a skill, either by spending skill points or using a trainer, buying the first level of that skill is extremely cheap. Indeed, the first few levels of that skill will be on the cheap side. Depending on the price level of the shop, skills will only start getting reasonably expensive after the player has acquired 2 or 3 levels of them. It’s not a problem that comes up much with most scenarios, since many established parties will already have trained in a lot of the important skills. But it’s something that crops up much more frequently in level-1 and low-level scenarios – after all, most low-level parties won’t have had too much opportunity to train. It can be a problem, too, since a careful player can buy a lot of skills, making them a touch more powerful than they’re really supposed to be. It’s possible to get around this by making skill shops, at least early on, one or two notches more expensive than their equivalent shops. This makes early-level skills more reasonably priced, but has the downside that players probably won’t be able to afford more than a few levels (which can be a problem if they’ve already trained those skills themselves). It's possible to alleviate that issue by placing cheaper trainers of those same skills deeper in to the scenario, but that's not always practical. So it’s something of a balancing act, I find.

I’ve done some digging, and I think I have some idea of what might be causing the problem. The bug only affects certain groups of shop numbers. In order for your shops to function correctly, you should make sure that shops selling skills are not given any of the following shop numbers: 18 31 to 63 inclusive 95 to 127 inclusive I have not tested this exhaustively, so it’s possible that there are more one-off problem numbers that I have not identified. Given what I think is causing the problem, I think that’s unlikely, but it’s certainly not impossible! This is a little bit of guesswork, but I think this may be another memory problem. I think something dodgy is happening with the memory assigned to skills in shops. The fact that the problematic shop ranges involve critical powers of two (32, 64, 96, 128) might suggest something like this. This issue could be explained by one digit in the memory representation being misread. All of these problematic numbers (with the exception of the 18, which I still don’t quite understand), have their 6th binary digit as a 1. It’s possible that digit is getting garbled in the storage medium somehow. Alternatively, depending on how the number is being stored, that 6th digit could be causing some form of overflow – a little like assigning a ‘short’ a number that’s out of range. Either of these two things could confuse the program, not enough to cause it break completely, but enough that it doesn’t understand how to completely parse the skills – hence the lack of a price! That’s one possible interpretation (although it doesn’t explain the 18, so I’m not entirely satisfied with it). In any case, in order for shops selling skills to function correctly, be sure to avoid the list of numbers above!

I came across an old report of this issue when researching the set_terrain() bug. Bain-Ihrno describes behaviour that sounds identical to yours, and posits that it might be due to the value of the shop number: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/4040-boa-bugs-v60/?do=findComment&comment=258804 One possible solution might be to change the number of the shop. If Bain-Ihrno is right, and skill shops with a shop number higher than a certain value trigger the bug, lowering the shop number to a very small integer should fix things (although I appreciate that would probably tangle up your shop order). If I have a moment later, I might just check this out quickly. It should be simple enough to set up a dummy scenario with a whole bunch of skill shops, and verify if the shop number is the problem. If it is, there might also be other solutions. For instance, there may be a similar workaround to the old BoE 100-town bug – it might be that high shop numbers also work. I’ll post an update if I come up with anything more!

Hooray! It’s always good to see new scenarios! I’ll do my best to give it a proper playthrough. That might take a little while, since I like to be thorough, and I have a few other things on my plate at the moment. But I’ll see what I can do! I just played through the first few minutes to make sure that everything works. The graphics file on the mac side of things seems to work just fine. For what it’s worth, this scenario make a great first impression! I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but the scenario as it is currently still has the debug commands available. You may have done that deliberately, but I thought I’d mention it just in case it wasn’t.

Attentive listening is a much underrated skill, but an important one! Enough so that Star Trek has a race defined by that very characteristic: the El-Aurians! I think part of the confusion in this thread has come from Slarty and myself arguing from two really very different perspectives. My default position is to argue in a certain type of way, and Slarty’s is to argue in another. Unfortunately, it seems these two different ways of arguing weren’t all that compatible in this case! Statements, analogies and strategies that would seem standard and obvious to one of us didn’t necessarily parse well with the other, I think, from either side. Unfortunately, that led to all sorts of confusion! From what you’ve written in this thread, Almighty Doer of Stuff, I think you might be more familiar with my perspective than Slarty’s. That might be because of a similar language, or because of similar sorts of academic/scientific interests, or for various reasons. It does seem that you’ve understood the points I’ve been raising fairly instinctively! However, it’s worth pointing out that there are others in this thread who've had the experience the other way around. These posters understood Slarty’s points instinctively, points that I myself have found difficult to get my head around at times. So I don’t think Slarty is to blame for misunderstanding my points. While the points might have been obvious to you and I, they were clearly not obvious to the other side of the discussion. I must take responsibility for that, not least because I started the argument going in this direction. If there is any fault to be handed out for the confusion that’s come out of this discussion, it’s in my court. It’s clear that I simply wasn’t good enough at explaining my thoughts and reasoning. Even when I did understand that some of the principles of my arguments might not parse from Slarty’s perspective, I was too slow to realise this, and too slow to respond. I appreciate that you understood my points, Almighty Doer of Stuff, because that shows I’m not a complete loss! But I think it’s worth stating that it’s not Slarty’s fault for misunderstanding me – it’s mine for not adequately explaining my points. For what it’s worth, though, if I ever make a Geneforge mod one of these days, I’m definitely going to have a Shaper carrying a brain around with them at some point. That would make for a quirky NPC, or perhaps even a special item! I’m sorry for all the confusion that’s happened in this thread, Slarty. This is my own fault for not expressing myself adequately, and not responding well to your comments. But I did learn a lot of interesting things from this discussion, for which I am thankful! I do think there are more things that could be said on this topic of this conversation, though. If you ever change your mind, and want to come back to this, I would be interested to continue the discussion, or reset it if you’d like – and I’d try even harder to be clear, concise and responsive to your comments! Otherwise, there’s nothing at all wrong in agreeing to disagree!

Of course not! Perhaps it is this that is causing some of the confusion and miscommunication that seems to happening in this part of the argument? It was never my intention to state that View B was your own View, or one that you were supporting. Indeed, the fact that you’re not arguing for this point is a facet of my argument, I think. In what I’ve written above, I haven’t explicitly mentioned that View B is one that you’re supporting. If I have implied that by accident, then I’m sorry for doing so. I would be much obliged if you would point out to me those portions of my past few posts which seem to imply that you supported View B. This would help improve my clarity when writing about points like this, I think! Let me try to clear up this confusion, if I can. View A and View B refer to original comments made by two posters in this thread, comments that led me to enter in to this argument. View A was proposed by Vinlie, and View B was proposed by alhoon. Incidentally, rest assured Vinlie and alhoon that I mean you no disrespect in throwing your names about like this, or quoting you in this way. I’m merely trying to represent your ideas as best I can. Since View B was proposed as being in some senses true, but was stated without evidence, I wasted to show that it was, in my eyes, as equally valid as View A. This is what I am trying to argue for. Let’s look at these two Views again, as I defined them in my previous post. Again, let me stress that View B is not your own, Slarty, but one that was written before you – or indeed I – joined this argument: View A: Information about a creation’s mind may survive absorption by a Shaper, and be passed on to a new creation made by that Shaper. View B: A creation dies on absorption. New creations have no mental links to older creations. These are two possible interpretations that consider what happens to the mind of a creature when absorption and creation occur. Note that View B is not strictly the converse of View A; it is simply a different interpretation. It would be perfectly possible to come up with other Views. Indeed, comments made by TheKian earlier in this thread could be extended to provide another View – this isn’t what TheKian proposed, to clarify, but an extension of it: View C : Creations have no independent mind, but are controlled entirely by the Shaper that created them. You might need to supply this with a corollary that says that, for example, a creature without a sufficiently well-developed brain would be hard to direct, and may confuse the controlling Shaper – explaining why low intelligence creatures aren’t player controlled. But, if you allow for this, it seems to me that this is another View that is self-consistent, and that does not violate the rules and structures we see in the Geneforge universe. Therefore, according to my way of thinking, it is just as valid as View A and View B. Something I find a little difficult to grasp in this part of the argument is that you’re spending a lot of time focusing on View A specifically. That’s fine, of course! But an important property of my argument, I think, is that it is relative. I’m not arguing for View A, but rather I’m arguing that View A should be considered equally relative to View B. Your addressing View A is fine, and you make some very interesting points, but I’m concerned that those points don’t really serve to address the relative nature of the argument. At the end of the day, it’s not important how valid View A is in an absolute sense – what’s important is how valid it is relative to View B, and indeed to other Views. If you’re attacking View A, and your attacks also equally well apply to View B, then it seems to me that you’re not really attacking the main core of what I’m arguing for. It matters not if View A and View B are equally valid, or equally invalid, as I’ve said several times before, I know! What’s important is the equally part. At least to me, your argument at the moment seems akin to, for example, a baron trying to unseat the local duke. The duke, knowing this, hides away in his castle along with his retainers and soldiers, fortifying it against attack. The baron, seeing that the duke only has finite resources, decides the lay siege to him, knowing that, with patience, he will win the day. So he carefully, and confidently, lays siege to a tool shed 10 miles away. It doesn’t matter how good the siege is, or how well planned it is, or how successful it is – it’s not going to help the baron much in their aims! That’s what’s concerning me here. If you’re only attacking one View, but not attacking the relative portion of my argument, I’m not sure how much your comments, while interesting and useful, really affect my position. Let me look at this for a moment, and try to demonstrate why I think the Views are different from the flying example. In the flying example, flying is a form of locomotion. It’s in very much the same family as walking and running, things that we see Shapers doing, and we have examples of at least some varieties of flight within the context of the game world. Gazers float, for instance, which I would argue is a particular form of flight. I would argue that the difference between this example, and the example posed by View A and B, is that the Views explicitly talk about something that is not observed in the game world. The games do not, at least as far as I have checked, say anything of any real substance about what happens to the minds of creations. Whereas flying is an extension of walking and running, actions seen in the games, I’m not sure there’s any extension to be made here. The games simply do not refer to the minds of the player’s creations, I think. You produce a long list here of interesting activities that Shapers are shown to take part in. The issue that I have is that many of these examples, so far as I see it, don’t seem to refer to altering the minds of creations. You’ve shown examples of how Shapers use their essence, or research new creatures, or alter their own abilities. None of these examples describes what happens to a creation's mind, so far as I understand it. Or, if the word mind is ambiguous, I suppose sense of self might also be applicable here. Since the Views explicitly address what happens to a creature’s mind/sense of self, but your examples do not seem to, your examples don't seem to lend any support to the Views. That’s why the Views are different from the flying example, I think. Flying, walking and running are part of a set of related actions: locomotion. The Views, and research into new creations as depicted in Geneforge, and how Shapers make use of essence as depicted in Geneforge, etc. are not part of a related set, as least in as much as I understand it. The Views address the mind/sense of self of a creation, but the other examples do not. I think perhaps the equivalent example for the flying case would be, for example, trying to show that flying is implausible by pointing out that Shapers can eat, and cast fireball spells, and talk. Those are perfectly adequate examples, ones that are well demonstrated in the game world, but I’m not convinced that they are sufficiently related to the concept of flying to cast much doubt on it. In other words, because the Views deal with what happens to the mind/sense of self of a creation, I’m not sure there’s much in the world of Geneforge that can be used to support or refute them in this way. In that sense, under your condition for validity, they are both invalid – and both equally invalid. And that’s what I want to argue for! I hope this makes things a little clearer, and that I’ve not misunderstood anything here? If I have, please do let me know, and I’ll try to clarify my own points of view, or revise any places where I am mistaken! For the record, Almighty Doer of Stuff, you’ve said some interesting things in this discussion. For the most part, you’ve done a fine job at summarising my views, and coming up with interesting extensions to them. You’ve not always expressed things in the way that I would have, but you’ve always seemed to get the gist of what I’ve been going for! That’s the case here, too, where – meaning no disrespect to other posters – you’ve come closer to understanding my meaning than others. Sorry that I’ve not been able to engage with much of what you’ve said so far with the large influx of other comments, but I have been reading what you’ve been writing with interest! I rather liked your idea of a Shaper carrying a brain around to keep a creation’s mind intact, for instance – that seems oddly fitting within the context of the Geneforge world. Let me assure you that your views are valued, and that your thoughts are welcome here. You have made interesting comments in this argument so far, and I’m sure you will have more to contribute, should you want to. So do continue to contribute to this discussion if you would like!

Hello Vox, Sure! The 3D editor is an important resource and, given that the original website is down, and not fully preserved on the Internet Archive, getting hold of it at the moment is a little tricky. Because of this, I’m going to upload it to the forums – possibly temporarily, given the size. You can download it here: 3D BoA Editor.zip I’m afraid I don’t seem to have any documentation, but the editor is rather intuitive, as I’m sure you’ll know! Be aware that this editor has problems with some more recent versions of Mac OS. If you find yourself having problems, Kelandon came up with a solution, which you can check out in this post: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/23991-3d-editor-is-broken-in-mac-os-high-sierra/?do=findComment&comment=306336 All the best for finishing up your scenarios! A Defiant Land has been on my list for a while, so this is a good reminder for me to start playing it – and the screenshots of your in-progress work look really great!

As I said in my previous post, there is much to like about three versions of Exile and Avernum! The wonderful thing about having three different versions of these games is that they all appeal to slightly different audiences, and slightly different sorts of players. Different people can choose the sort of experience they want to play! This means we have a really diverse group of players and opinions on these boards, and that’s a really good thing! Spiderweb themselves has good things to say along these lines. I paraphrase here, but when talking about the remakes, Spiderweb said that they wouldn’t necessarily appeal to everyone. They mentioned that, if the original Avernum 1 was a player’s perfect game then, if they changed anything, the game would no longer be perfect in that player's eyes. Making remakes is a balancing act between crafting an experience using modern technology, and the insights gained through progress and experience, and making alterations that might not be liked by players of the older versions. The result are three sets of games that all feel rather different, that have different fan-bases, and that’s great! All that’s worrying me about your comments, ladyonthemoon, is that you seem to be saying some quite negative things about one version of the games based on very little information. It’s no problem at all if you prefer the older versions – you’d be far from alone in that regard! – but it seems a touch unfair to judge a series of games without having experienced much of them yourself. You seem to be basing your opinions on a few seconds or a few minutes of gameplay only. While I’m sure that’s enough to know whether you like the general look and feel of the games, just be aware that you’ve only really scratched the surface of what the new engine has to offer. I’m a little concerned that your comments are based more on some assumptions you might have about ‘modern’ video game design, rather than the actual content of the games themselves. I hope that’s not the case, because if you choose what to play based on assumptions – rather than on experience, and trying out games with an open mind – then there’s a danger you’ll miss out on some really good experiences. At least from my perspective, I think that would be doing yourself a disservice.

I’m happy to help! It sounds like you’ve done everything you can in the Lair, so it’s not quite clear why the exit isn’t opening for you. Unfortunately, a lot of the important details about this dungeon are hardcoded into the map code, rather than being more accessible in other places, so it’s not easy to tell at a glance what might be causing your problem. I have a suggestion, although it’s something of a long shot. Load your game saved inside the Lair, then hold down shift and press d. A little text input box should appear. In this box, type this: sdf 51 11 1 and press enter (or click on the tick). Now, leave the dungeon through the secret exit in the northwest. Walk right up to the wall in the outdoors which you know should be open, and see if anything happens. You may not see a change, but it’s worth a try! If this doesn’t work, then I’m afraid you’ll need to try a more general approach. Load up your game again, and hold down shift and press d, as before. This time, enter this: backtostart This is a debug command designed for situations like this. You’ll find yourself back at Fort Emergence, I’m afraid, but you’ll be able to continue on as before! I’d suggest not returning to the Lair of the Ursagi if you use this approach – its flags might be malfunctioning, so the dungeon might not behave properly if you enter it a second time. I’m sure I don’t need to say this but, now that you know about this debug code, be sure to only use it in dire circumstances, such as this one. Leaving dungeons without using the proper exits has the potential to cause real continuity problems!

I think the best answer to your statement here, ladyonthemoon, is to suggest that you play the demo of Avernum: Escape from the Pit! It's free, after all! It should be clear even in the first few minutes of gameplay what many of the changes are, or might be, and that they are far more than simply cosmetic. Spiderweb isn't just making the games look better, they are adapting the whole experience of the game based on the evolving knowledge of the video game industry. There is much to like about Exile, the original versions of Avernum, and the Avernum remakes. If you're shutting yourself off from the remakes merely on the assumption that you won't like them then, ladyonthemoon, I think that's a real shame. You won't really know if you like the remakes until you've given them an honest try!

Well, this is very interesting to see. It’s always nice scrolling through detailed maps like these, and it’s impressive to see the whole map of one of the Avernum games laid out in this way. Good work, ymfirst, and thanks for posting this here! Seeing the entire map in this way shows Avernum in a quite different perspective. At least to me, the caves feel a little smaller when shown like this, although that illusion is quickly dispelled when I zoom in. Also, it seems to make the design of the caves a little more clear somehow. This isn’t all that visible on the scale of the game's view but, viewed out like this, you can see that the map was created using a grid layout. The map is split into a 6x7 series of individual squares – and some of these squares are quite obvious at this height. At least to me, this is demonstrated nicely in the region around the Waterfall Warren, and the lakes around Sss-Thss’s Castle, where the designs of the individual squares can be seen fairly easily. Isn’t it interesting how a change in view can make a familiar place look a little different? Otherwise, welcome to the forums, ymfirst! It’s always good to see people making artistic posts like this – and maps like these could be a real aid to quite a few people, I suspect!

That’s some unusual behaviour you’re seeing, n_clock. You’re quite right that the exit to the rest of the outdoors should open after you’ve passed through the Lair of the Ursagi and gone out the back entrance. Have you accepted a quest from Delenn in Golddale to deal with the Ursagi? The title of the quest is ‘Clean Out Ursagi Cave’. Alternatively, have you fought a boss battle around the altar in the north-eastern part of the cave? The boss is the leader of the Ursagi, who goes by the name of Hrrackar. The party has a short dialogue with them before the battle starts, so it should be fairly clear if you’ve fought them or not. I know you said that you've fought everyone in the cave, but there's a possibility that the boss fight hasn't yet spawned for you. I have a slight hunch as to what might be causing your problem. If I’m right, I might be able to open up the exit for you from where you are now – although I’d be more confident if you had a save file which is still in the Lair. Alternatively, there’s another solution which will definitely help you. I’d like to see if my hunch about the cause is correct first – knowing the cause might help other players in the future! However, if it turns out your problem is due to something else, I’ll give you the more general solution, and let you know what you need to do to move on!