Ess-Eschas

Hello Sunking, Removing buildings sounds like it should solve your problem! Generally speaking, having negative resource income in Queen’s Wish is not a good situation to find yourself in – any additional resources you acquire will simply disappear into your deficit. In order the remove fort improvements, first stand next to the improvement you want to remove. Note that I don’t mean the building in which it is housed, but the little square of terrain that contains the person you interact with. Click on the ‘Place Buildings and Shops’ icon. Now, click on the improvement you want to remove. A little cancel icon should appear. Click this button and the improvement should be gone! Note that you’ll only see a change in your income after the next round of income/expenditure comes in. You still need to pay for the work the improvement did during the current cycle, after all! If you found this difficult to figure out, then please do let Spiderweb software know about it! The company is very good at listening to criticism like this, and they might just change things around for the next installment. If they don’t know, they can’t do anything about it! If you’d like to, you can send Spiderweb an email at this address (for reference, I’m including the more general address for comments, rather than the technical support address): spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com P. S. Since you accidentally posted twice, I’ve removed one of the duplicates.

ADoS gives a nice summary of my argument here. My aim is not to suggest that the two mechanisms are always indistinguishable, but merely that they are indistinguishable for this very specific case. That’s enough to be important, I think. Using your language, the situation is perhaps better described by my giving you the result X, and then asking you which process I used to create it. There’s no way for you to know that so, for this specific case, A and B are indistinguishable. Your objection to my previous analogy, as I understand it, was that the mechanisms I was comparing were so dissimilar as to be incomparable. As a counter to this, I have demonstrated that there is a situation in which – to the important party, the creation – they are not just similar, but so similar that the creation cannot actually distinguish between them. It just so happens that the case I provided is an example of exactly the sort of situation I’ve been arguing the case for in this thread! In a more general sense, this indistinguishability implies some deeper level of connection between the two mechanisms – not necessarily much of an connection, but something nonetheless. For two mechanisms to be indistinguishable for a given situation, they can’t be entirely unrelated. For an example of this, consider two functions A(x,y) and B(x,y) of two variables x and y. I define these as: A(x,y) ≣ x+y B(x,y) ≣ x*y These are very different functions. However, it just so happens that they both give the same result if x = y = 2. For these values, the functions are indistinguishable: A(2,2) = 2+2 = 4 B(2,2) = 2*2 = 4 But there’s a deeper connection for these particular values. The mathematical expressions 2+2 and 2*2 don’t just happen to give the same answer. They give the same answer because they are completely equivalent mathematically. 2*2 is a way of saying that you should add 2 to itself twice, which is exactly what is meant by 2+2. Even though these are different functions, there is a situation in which they are completely, and fundamentally, equivalent. Moreover, this indicates a more general level of similarity. After all, multiplication (at least of integers) can be expressed simply as another form of addition. So, the two mechanisms I’ve been talking about can’t be entirely unrelated. Indeed, for exactly the sort of situation I’ve been arguing for, they at times can’t even be told apart. I would argue that provides some validity for comparing the two!

Don’t worry too much about getting off topic! One of the nice features of these boards is that topics can drift into different areas sometimes, encouraging conversation on thoughts and concepts that might not have been talked about otherwise. That’s a good thing! If anyone wants to continue the original discussion, they are of course perfectly entitled to – and multiple discussions can then take place within the same thread. (That’s one reason, incidentally, why we try to encourage users not to upload multiple consecutive posts in the same topic. It can snarl up complex conversations!) When coming up with this concept, I was thinking along much the same lines, although I couched it in slightly different terms. When a Shaper absorbs a creation, every detail about that creation is absorbed back into the Shaper’s structure in some way. That includes every detail, including the distribution of neurons in the brain and their firing patterns, encoding the personality and memory of the creature, but also other things, such as the tiniest scars on their hide, and the food in their stomach. If this were not so, all that energy would need to go somewhere else, producing, say, a dead body, or a sudden large rise in air temperature – or at worst, a really big explosion. All this information returns to the Shaper, and the physical system that is the Shaper is altered slightly by this. Because of this, in principle, the Shaper can examine their new state, isolate the alteration, and then reproduce the original pattern of absorbed energy in every detail. So, again in principle, by absorbing every aspect of a creation, the Shaper should be able to recreate the original creation exactly in every detail. Now, it’s not quite that simple; it depends on a lot of properties of absorption which we don’t know about. For instance, if absorption is similar to throwing a bucket of water into a full bath, then there’s clearly a problem; recovering the original bucket of water from the mixed water would be more or less impossible. But if you add dye to the bucket, or if the water in the bucket is at a very different temperature from the bath water, things suddenly become much easier. On the other extreme, if absorption is like throwing a bag of marshmallows into some muesli, then there’s no problem at all. Getting the original bag of marshmallows back might be annoying, but it would be easy enough! But the point remains. If none of the information about the original creation is lost, but returns to the Shaper, then in principle a Shaper can exactly reproduce that creation at a later date. It just might or might not be all that practical! I won’t deny that’s true in the general case! However, there are circumstances in which the two processes produce results that are indistinguishable – and therefore, by the definition of indistinguishability, there can be no meaningful distinction between them for those cases. (As a caveat, I’m having a little trouble parsing your first five words. I’m going to assume what I think you mean, but let me apologise now if I’m misunderstanding you.) Let me try to give you two examples. We take the Drayk Rhakkus, and ask for his permission to turn him into a Drakon. He agrees. We then, to ease the process, give him some anaesthetic to put him to sleep. In the first example, in another room, we have the body of Drakon which has no brain. We remove Rhakkus’s brain and surgically implant it into this new body. Rhakkus was not informed of this body, and has no idea that it is there. In the second example, Rhakkus’s creator is summoned. He absorbs Rhakkus completely. He then creates a new Drakon, but one which contains a copy of the brain of Drayk Rhakkus that he absorbed. If that’s conceptually a problem, then imagine taking a hyper-detailed scan of Rhakkus’s brain while he’s asleep, and giving it to the Shaper as an aide. At the moment Rhakkus wakes up in his new body, is there any way for him to tell which series of events took place? If not then, from Rhakkus’s point of view, the two processes are indistinguishable. There is, therefore, no meaningful distinction between them from his point of view. This further implies that, in a more general sense, the two processes must have some things in common; they could not be made indistinguishable otherwise! It’s definitely a good counter-example, but they might be less ambiguous ones out there!

But that’s why we have spoiler tabs! I’m not sure what it is you’re referring to, though. Thinking about it offhand, I can’t think of anything in particular in the ending of Geneforge 4 that relates to this. However, I could be missing something obvious, or it’s possible that what you’re talking about might only occur in the endings you’ve experienced, and not in others. From what you’ve said, I suspect you might generally play different endings to me. So do let me know what you’re hinting at! I believe it varies, but there are indications that they can live for a very, very long time:

I think I perhaps overstated my argument in my last post! All I’m trying to do here is to argue for plausibility. I’m not trying to say anything concrete, or state that this is definitely what takes place in the game world to the exclusion of other ideas. The aim of my argument is simply to try and demonstrate that a Vinlie-style approach to the game – thinking of creations as evolving when they are absorbed and recreated as a new creature type – is possible within the confines of the game lore. That’s why I included the example of the Drayk cum Drakon Rhakkus. This is one example taken from the games in which a creation changes from one creation type to another, all while maintaining their sense of self. Since that final state of a changed creation exists then, theoretically, it should be possible to shape that final state directly from essence – skipping out the improvement steps in-between. Now, there are many reasons why this might not be done in the game world. Perhaps it is so difficult as to be intractable, perhaps it would take too much time, or perhaps the magic-users in the world simply aren’t interested in the idea, or haven’t even thought about it. But it’s possible. That’s all I’m trying to argue! You mention the game mechanics and in-game descriptions, Slarty. I’d be interested to see a counter-example against my idea, one that perhaps indicates that information about a creation is completely lost when it is absorbed, or that each new creation produced is always a blank slate. I had a quick look in a few places, and the information I could find was vague on these points – perhaps deliberately. But I think it’s likely I’ve missed something obvious, all the more so given how common such an interpretation is, which is why I’m asking! You and others in this thread probably have a better grip on the world of Geneforge than I do; I know less about this series than some of the others Spiderweb has produced. Just to clarify my nomenclature, alhoon, I use the term ‘shaping’ as a broad one covering every use of shaping magic. This includes someone improving a creation in any way. So, when Barzahl used his magic to alter Rhakkus continuously from Drayk to Drakon, I cover that by the term ‘shaping’. Note that this wasn’t done by Geneforge, but by Barzahl directly. Rhakkus built the Geneforge himself later on. Let me briefly answer your comment on the Servant Minds. Copying a mind in that situation wouldn’t be helpful, so I don’t think your statement refutes the idea. If you copy a mind exactly, then you copy everything, including age and mental state. So, if a Servant Mind is not functioning well, then copying it won’t help you. You’ll just have produced another Servant Mind with the same problems; it won’t fix anything. Likewise, creating a younger, better functioning Servant Mind from a previous copy also won’t help all that much. Since you relate Servant Minds to databases, that would be equivalent to overwriting the entire contents of your malfunctioning database with a blank sheet, or at best a sheet with a few simple cells in it. You lose all the information the Servant Mind has acquired during its lifetime, which is hardly ideal. Why spend all that effort starting over from scratch, when you can just fix the bugs and get the database working again? I’m tempted to turn your argument back on you. By your argument, since the Shapers also don’t shape a completely new Servant Mind in those situations, shaping itself is therefore impossible. That follows the same logic!

That’s the idea! If you move a Fyora’s brain from its old body, and place it into the body of a Drakon, the result would be a Drakon that has the personality and memories of the original Fyora. In other words, that original Fyora and the new Drakon are the same person. Exactly how you do that doesn’t matter. If you move the brain directly, or absorb it and recreate an identical copy, the result is the same. You have a new creation that is the same person as the old one. Note that I’m not talking about creating memories and emotions from scratch here – just copying a brain that exists already. Creating a brain is hard. Copying one is easy! As for whether it is possible for a being to change from one creation type to another while maintaining its sense of self, it definitely is. The games themselves make this clear, and even provide direct examples! In Geneforge 2, we learn how the very first Drakons were created. They weren’t shaped out of thin air, but were instead produced by working shaping skills on Drayks who were already alive. The very first Drakons were previously Drayks. We even get to meet one of these, although this might not be clear if you’ve not played Geneforge 1. In the first game, you meet the Cryodrayk Rhakkus, who lives on Sucia island. You meet him again in Geneforge 2 – where he is now a Drakon. He clearly remembers his experiences on Sucia island, since he talks about them to the player. Here is an example of a being that changed creation type, but maintained their sense of self! It’s also a demonstration that Drayks and Drakons don’t have brains that are all that different. One of these creations is simply a modified version of the other. If that’s the case, perhaps this is a more general example of shaping practice? Perhaps all creations, or at least creations of the same type, share a broadly common internal structure, having brains that are largely similar to one another. If so, having a creation ‘evolve’ along the tiers of creations would potentially be quite feasible. Yes! Someone got the reference! Hats off to you, Slarty

I’m not sure you’ve entirely followed my logic here, alhoon. That’s no doubt my fault for not explaining myself well! I’m trying to argue that the constituent components of a creature are irrelevant – that what really matters is whether the brain remains the same. I’d argue that, in the situation I’m describing, this is highly likely. Let’s see if I can couch it in your example. Consider a Rolls Royce engine, in a Rolls Royce car. Now, take that engine out and put it into a BMW, adapting the connections between the engine and the car when needed to make it run. Hey presto, you have a BMW that drives! But the engine is still a Rolls Royce engine. Whatever car you put the engine into, it’s still a Rolls Royce engine – even if the car looks like something else entirely. The identity of the engine, and its history of being in the previous car, has not changed. Using that analogy, consider a Fyora. Someone absorbs the Fyora, and creates an identical version of the creature’s brain. By definition, that is the same brain, so the same experiences, memories and so on are carried along with it. What body the brain is in, or if it even has one at all, is irrelevant. The brain is the same. In its current experience, that brain will remember a former life as a Fyora, and would act exactly as that Fyora would have done in its current situation. In that sense, it is the same person as the Fyora was. The brain is the same, so the person is the same, regardless of what body it finds itself in. Why would a shaper recreate an old brain? Well, why would they not? When a creature is absorbed, all the complex information is woven back into the creator’s own structure. So why go to all the bother of creating a new, complicated, tricky organ when you have information about it immediately to hand? Wouldn’t a shaper just make a copy of what they already had available? In that sense, every brain a shaper creates would be a copy of the last creation they absorbed (or, I suppose, the first brain they learned how to create, before they had absorbed anything – which would presumably be harder than copying a pre-existing brain). Using that approach, Cryoa Yharim and Fyora Yharim would start of having identical copies of the same mind, and thus being the same person. Of course, since they have different bodies, their experiences would quickly change the two of them, driving them apart. When you absorbed Cryoa Yharim, and made a Clawbug, that Clawbug would be the same person as Cryoa Yharim – but not the same person as Fyora Yharim, for that person has now taken a different path through different experiences. If you were then to create, say, a Servile, that Servile would also be the same person as Cryoa Yharim, at least at the time you absorbed them. I hope that expresses my ideas a little more clearly! It’s hard to really talk about this without being a little confusing, since we’re not used to cloning ourselves in the real world just yet!

For the record, ladyonthemoon, you should be able to recover your code simply by playing through from your last autosave. That will likely place you a few minutes from the end, given all the travel that goes on in the endgame, so you'll only have to play the game for a few minutes, skipping through some dialogue, to recover its end state. Why not do it now, and record the code for your later use as TriRodent suggests?

Ah, but that’s a question of consciousness, alhoon. If you’re saying that the new creations are different from the old ones, that’s only one possible interpretation. There are others, as Vinlie demonstrates! As with many questions like these, the only way to know with any degree of confidence would be to be the creation itself – and that’s not very helpful from a scientific standpoint! Consider a teleporter in Star Trek. Person A walks into Teleporter A. As described in the series, this teleporter completely destroys Person A. Their component parts are annihilated, converted into energy that is absorbed by the teleporter. Person A is very thoroughly dead. Meanwhile, somewhere else, Person B is created by Teleporter B. Person B is identical in every way to Person A, except that they are made out of completely different molecules, ones synthesised by Teleporter B. No physical component of Person B is the same as in Person A. And yet Person B walks out of the teleporter believing they are Person A, acting as Person A would, and having all the legal rights and statuses as Person A. When Riker gets teleported somewhere, the Riker that emerges is a completely different Riker, in terms of the physical components. But, from the point of view of Riker and his society, he is the same person. Likewise, consider yourself. No living part of your body from 10 years ago survives in you as you are now – all your cells have died and been replaced by new generations. In terms of living physical components, you share nothing with the alhoon of 10 years ago. But I imagine, from your perspective, that it seems as if you lived through all the intervening time, right? That you and the older you are the same in some way? So, to get to the crux of this, consider someone in Geneforge absorbing a Fyora, and then creating an identical one sometime later. This is exactly the same scenario as the teleporter example, just phrased differently. It might look as if the Fyora died from the creator's perspective, but from the perspective of the Fyora, the creature has a continuous consciousness from the older to the newer version – regardless of time elapsing in-between. Likewise, think of someone absorbing a Fyora, and then using an identical copy of its brain to create a Drakon (making only those little changes necessary for the new body to function – note, those changes are unlikely to impact personality or memory). Much like the last example, wouldn’t the creature still have a continuous consciousness throughout this – merely suddenly substituting one body for another one? If so, Vinlie’s ‘evolution’ comment is an entirely valid interpretation. As for why this would happen, why would someone absorb a perfectly decent brain, only to create an entirely new one when they made a new creature? That sounds needlessly wasteful – and would probably be more tiring, requiring more effort. Wouldn’t it make more sense for them just to duplicate the pattern they already have in their memory? If so, the scenario I describe above should be common-place. I’m saying this just to show that there are different interpretations of what’s happening here. Poetic or not, unless anyone here happens to be a Fyora communicating to us through a dimensional or interfictional rift, we’re unlikely to know for sure what it’s really like!

Hello Hotbutter, Just to avoid any confusion, that little exploit you describe relates to the original Avernum games. This forum is for the updated version of these games, the ones released in the last few years. These new versions are quite different internally from their predecessors, and little loopholes like the one you described have been closed! For what it’s worth, your exploit is well known around here. Summons aren’t actually necessary to make it work, by the way. It’s more about the party’s placement than how many squares around the party are occupied at the time. Take a look around on these forums for the ‘end combat glitch’. You’ll see that people have done some interesting things with it!

I’m not sure it’s all that controversial a view. These forums are perhaps slightly more biased towards the game than some other places, but I’ve seen some very good opinions and analysis on here from players who didn’t enjoy the experience. Queen’s Wish is an experimental game, one in which Spiderweb tries out some new concepts. Some people like the changes, and some don’t. As a result, the reviews tend to be a little more mixed than some of the other titles. But this is the first step in a process. I think it’s worth noting that Spiderweb has said on a number of occasions that it’s been listening to the criticisms they’ve been receiving, and will act on them. The implication is that some of the more unpopular changes are going to be reviewed for Queen’s Wish II. So keep your fingers crossed. If you disliked the experience of Queen’s Wish I, the sequel might be a little more to your taste! Also, al_dude, I’d suggest that you try out Nethergate: Resurrection at some point. Since you mentioned Ultima, to me Nethergate feels like the Spiderweb game that’s closest to that series, even if it’s only a standalone game. I can’t quite put my finger on why that is, but it’s probably a combination of factors. Some of the ideas and motifs explored are similar, the way that magic is tied into the world feels not dissimilar, at least to me, and there’s even a simple virtue system! If you ever feel like taking some time out of Avernum, do give it a try!

This is posted a little after the fact, but I recently remembered that there are a few fans of the Dragonlance series on these boards. I thought I’d post this here just in case it was of interest! A few months ago, I spent some time working on an illustrated piece of fan fiction, a short story set within the world of Dragonlance. This story, ‘Your Turn!’, takes place within the events of one of the canonical books in the series – ‘The Doom Brigade’, the first novel in the Kang’s Regiment series penned by Don Perrin and Margaret Weis. The story fits in to the gaps of that book, looking at some of the characters in the background, and ends up leading in to one of the events described in it. For those who are unfamiliar with the series, Kang’s Regiment follows a group of draconian military engineers after a war in which their side has cataclysmically lost. Draconians were created to serve the forces of darkness and to act as their soldiers, but what happens when the war is lost? What happens to the surviving draconians in peacetime? Unlike the books, my story focuses on baaz draconians, the weakest and most common of the species – frequently used as foot soldiers and grunt labour, and often looked down upon by their more powerful cousins. This story was written relatively early on in the lockdown in my country, and I was surprised to find that the mood and themes of The Doom Brigade meshed rather well with the concerns and worries of a life under quarantine. The illustration is a relatively simply study of the baaz form, using a number of different sources of inspiration – yes, even the Dragons of Autumn Twilight movie! It was an attempt to build on and improve how I draw anatomy of relatively realistic humanoids. I’m not quite there yet, and there are still a few features that I don’t have a good grasp of, but I’d like to think that I’m slowly learning and improving! If you interested in this little bit of fan fiction, do take a look: https://www.deviantart.com/dermuda/art/Your-Turn-837686271

Further to Kelandon’s answer, I'd suggest that you also look up ‘Debugging Mode’ in the documentation. It’s near the top of the section about testing, which makes me suspect that you might not have thought to look there. Remember that the documentation is your friend! :)

If Blades of Avernum suffered from serious graphical glitches every time it produced an outdoor section, I suspect there would be far fewer scenarios, and far more aggravated players I would politely point out that this problem is by no means a unique one in Blades of Avernum. There are scenarios that face exactly this sort of issue – that is, using portions of the Avernum maps from the various games of the two trilogies, but only allowing the player to explore so far. One example is 'A Visit to the Madhouse'. Another is 'Bahssikava'. Don't forget what I said at the beginning of this thread. There are very many examples of how designers deal with simple issues like these in the pre-existing scenarios. Don't be afraid to dive into them in the editor, or to play through them, and see how designers work around problems like these! In other words, don't feel like you have to reinvent the wheel every time you encounter an issue that others will have grappled with before you! If car manufacturers did that, I don't image we'd have many cars on the roads these days ... That ‘blue’ you talk about is water. Blades of Avernum, as with many games of this type, faces the typical problem of what to do when the end of the world is reached. The map inside the game is only so big, so what happens when the player gets to the edge? If the designer didn’t code in something, you’d get weird graphical anomalies at best, or more likely the engine would just crash entirely. So games like this need to put in some sort of information, something that tells the game what to do if the player sees off the edge of the world. Some games put in blackness, some put in mountains, some put in generic empty space tiles. Blades of Avernum puts in ocean. It makes sense, if you think about it. The game needs to put in some sort of physical barrier to prevent the player from moving off the edge of the world – and one of the nice simple, big barriers provided by nature is a huge expanse of water, one so large that you can’t see its edges. You are seeing this ‘blue’ because you’re letting the party see off the edge of the world. You need to make sure they can’t do that – and that’s easy! Just add additional outdoor sections onto the sides of the ones that border the edge of the world. You’ll need to partly decorate these sections to allow for the fact that the party can see into them – remember that Far Sight can extend much further than the party’s vision – and you’ll need to put in some form of script barrier to explain why the party can’t actually explore these dummy areas. Of course, you can’t do that at the fixed borders of the world on the north and west – you might need to shift your outdoor sections around to get the desired effect!

Let's start with a simple check! Have you reported your success in dealing with the Portal to Mahdavi? Along with the checks of your statistics, you also need to obtain permission from her to read the books. Shutting down the Portal isn't quite enough to learn the spells – Mahdavi needs to work a little magic to let you pass the defences on those powerful books!

To avoid the spread of misinformation on these boards, I’m going to need to correct you on that point. Avernum 6 is definitely compatible with Windows 2000. If you’re having problems with compatibility mode on another OS, that is a separate issue. If you were running Windows 2000 directly, then Avernum 6 would in principle run straight out of the box. I know that's not so helpful in your situation, but it's important to stick to the facts! Otherwise, I'm afraid I can't offer you much advice. This is a detailed Windows issue, and I don't have the right specifications to look into it. It may well be a graphics issue – in which case, there would be no harm in focusing your attention there for a while. Try experimenting with adjustments to your system's graphical interface and see if you notice any changes. A change is still important to note, even if the game doesn't start to work right away – that will at least help you to diagnose the problem!

For anyone who’s stumbled onto this problem, and doesn’t want to fight Melanchion twice, I’ve come up with a little script fix. This fix makes it so that, when you've defeated Melanchion somewhere, he doesn't show up anywhere else. You can download it from the link below: Double Melanchion Fix.zip Many thanks to Carranzero, who helped test this out! Instructions are contained within the file itself. However, I will highlight one particular point. As with all script edits, make sure to back up your game before making any changes! This is just to make sure you can return to a normal version of Avernum 6 should anything go wrong!

Hello Sunking, You can escape from outdoor combat in Queen's Wish! It just sounds like you're not interacting with the right map border. To escape from combat, you generally need to run around the battle. If you look at the map of the combat area, you should see that one border has an edge that is tinted a darker colour than its surroundings. It should look the same as the tinting around a town exit. In order to flee combat, you need to move your entire party into this region. Once you've done that, you'll be able to escape! Unfortunately, that can sometimes be a little tricky. If necessary, you can distract your opponents with summons while you try to make your way around them. I say this with the caveat that there are a few special battles that can't be fled in this way. If you don't see a border, unfortunately the battle you're in is a mandatory one! Otherwise, welcome to Spiderweb Software's forums! If you come across any more things you'd like to ask about, by all means do so – we're happy to help!

Tag! Sorry for missing this message when you first posted it, Traute. Just to confirm what Fireball Fodder said above, the statue you find in the Aranea Cave is only important to the party because of its value. You can’t make any use of it, and it doesn’t apply to any future encounters. There's no in-game reason to keep carrying it around, so by all means sell it!

For the curious, here’s what I think causes this rather odd behaviour. I’ve placed the explanation in spoiler tags (just so the length doesn’t snarl up the flow of this thread): To be safe, and to avoid nasty problems happening with your party, follow the conditions in Kelandon’s post. These conditions apply for Mac BoA, but might be different for Windows BoA. If so, I’ll post an update to that effect. To summarise, be very careful when using set_terrain() at the right edge of an outdoor section!

Hello Max_, Given that this problem is the result of a recent update, I think it’s important that you send a report about this straight to the game developer. While it’s possible you’re experiencing an isolated problem, it’s best to be prepared just in case this turns out to be affecting others too! Just send a quick email about this issue to the address below, including all the helpful information you gave in this post: support@spiderwebsoftware.com With luck, they’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong, and advise you on how to fix the issue!

Hello 42wolfe42, That’s an interesting little discovery you’ve made! I’d always assumed that nest was placed there just for the atmosphere, so it’s nice to learn that it was once intended for another function. And putting in a little script edit to activate it is a nice idea! Generally speaking, it’s usually a good idea to remind people to back up their game before installing script edits, particularly if you’re not completely sure about the content you’ve uploaded. If you check other posts on these forums offering scripts, you’ll usually see people put in a little warning in the first post. I’ll add one below, slightly emphasised so it will catch the eye, so you don’t need to worry too much this time – just remember to put a warning like this on any future posts where you share scripts! Be sure to create a backup copy of your game before installing this script. This is to make sure you can restore the original version of your game should something go wrong! Otherwise, welcome to the forums! It always nice to see people finding new things in these games, and who are happy to poke around and see what they can find!

Ah, sniped by Slarty! Still, for my take on the gremlins at least, and for more information about the food caps: For the sake of reference, the caps for gold and food in Exile I are both 25,000 units. While it’s possible to reach the gold cap using certain styles of play, reaching the food cap is quite a bit harder. As it happens, for a little fun, I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. How long would it take for the average player to buy 25,000 units of food? In Exile I, most food merchants sell food in small batches of a few units each. For this example, let’s consider the merchant in Almaria, who sells food in batches of 4 units. Let’s assume that the average player can click the buy button twice a second. If the player were to start with 0 food, and did nothing but repeatedly click the buy button, it would take them over 52 minutes to buy enough food to reach the cap. That takes some patience! Granted, those are fairly extreme circumstances, since a player will probably already have some food, and food can be picked up from battles. But I hope it shows the point. Reaching the food cap in Exile I is hard. Also, and I don’t mean to be deliberately contrary here, but there are definitely gremlins in the vicinity of Silvar – you encounter them very early on, since they’re fairly weak adversaries! After all, think of the friendly tribe of gremlins north of Fort Exile (who guard a patch of alchemical ingredients in Exile I, and send you on a quest to the giants in Exile II). By the by, I noticed that this particular encounter in Exile I can rob the party of all of its food, and the game doesn't record this per se in the log. Perhaps it was that that caused your problems, Traute Springer-Yakar, and not a roving band of gremlins?

Hello Traute Springer-Yakar, I think it’s important to correct what’s been said on this thread so far. While there are limits on the gold and food you can carry, the limits are so high that you’re unlikely to come across them. It’s not something you should ever really need to worry about! After all, if Exile was so poorly programmed that players stumbled onto the limits even in the early game, I imagine it would be reported widely – and there would be a lot more complaints on these forums! That’s not what you’ve been experiencing. Given what you’ve said about where you’ve been exploring, I think it’s far more likely that you’ve come across some gremlins. This isn’t something that appears much in games written these days, but back in the days of the Exile series, gremlins were commonly represented as creatures that stole food. In the Exile series, and in many of its contemporaries, gremlins will not only attack the party and cause damage, but they will also steal the party’s food when doing so. This isn’t always made obvious, since it was in some ways a piece of pop culture. Players encountering gremlins in any game would be wary, since there would be an expectation that the characters would steal supplies, so games wouldn’t feel a need to particularly flag it up. It’s possible this has happened to you, and that you happened not to notice the little prompts in the game. They’re easy to miss! It’s entirely possible to lose hundreds of items of food in a battle with gremlins if they catch you unawares, or if you’re not used to the mechanic. It always pays to be careful around gremlins, and to attack them from a distance if possible. There are other explanations, but this seems the most likely to me!

Trying to determine the cause of sound issues in a game is tricky business. This is not least because there are all sorts of possible causes, both on the player’s end and on the game’s end. Working out what exactly is causing the problem is by no means easy, I’m afraid! Unfortunately, the videos you’ve posted here don’t do much to demonstrate your issue. At least to my ears, there’s no static in any of them. Given that this post hasn’t gathered more replies, my guess is that that’s the general situation. So, at least based on my experience, it looks like the problem is still based on your audio setup, not on the game. After all, if your audio equipment produces static when the game is played, surely it will also produce static when you watch someone else play the game! It’s just unfortunate that you happen to be experiencing the issue on multiple different devices. Given the way equipment works these days, it’s not all that implausible that you’re experiencing the same issues on different sets of equipment that you own. I’d like to propose an experiment, just to try and at least record what the problem is. If it’s possible, please could you record a small portion of one of these videos as they play on your device, and upload the footage to Youtube? This need only be a minute or two, and the aim of this is so that we can hear how things sound when played through your setup, not through ours. If you do this, make sure that you’re recording the audio as played on your speakers (rather than writing it directly to video, as some players can do), and try to choose a part of the video where the static sounds particularly bad. Alternatively, if the static sounds worse when you play the games yourself, then record that instead! I can’t promise that doing so will lead to a solution, but it will at least help us to define the problem – sometimes that’s half the battle!