Aran

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: "Nephilian" makes it sound as though they come from Nephilia, which is highly inadvisable as a country designation, as it sounds like a fondness for saying "No." Well, as long as it doesn't sound like a fondness for Nephilim...

Quote: Originally written by Drakefyre: Well, *i, I'd say it's about halfway done, and I only got to work on it in August and September. I should be able to have more free time in March and begin working on finishing it. Wait, is this RiB we are talking about here? And when you say March, do you mean March '06? And if so, do you mean 2006?

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: By the way, does that display on most people's computers? I had to download a particular font to get Unicode Linear B to show up on my computer. ? ? ? and also ? is all that shows for me. But I haven't got an extensive font collection on this computer...

Quote: Originally written by Icshi: Geneforge 4 will be told from the point of view of a front-line fyora. It'll be a very short game, lasting about ten minutes, and you won't be able to move yourself around since you'll be controlled by the Shaper who created you. Geneforge 5 will pick up the story where 4 left off. You get to be a Thahd this time. That'd be almost an improvement over GF3, no?

Apparently, they've stopped doing it. Or so they claim. After this, I wouldn't trust them that soon again...

The name Nephilian sounds wrong. "-ian" is commonly reserved for nationality, and even humans would not call it that way. You wouldn't refer to the Slithzerikaii language as Slithian either. The Nephilim word for the language would be an entirely different one, of course.

Saved games might be loadable across registered/nonregistered games, but only act weirdly if you had gone beyond the barrier... wait, I'll try that with a fresh install. Edit: Yep, you get stuck in a black void. You can safe and reload without breaking the game though - when you load it with the registered program, it's back to normal. Also, if you have registered the game on one system, you should be able to get another key from Jeff to run it on the other. Buy it once, you get a lifetime license for any computer you want to install it on. Spiderweb isn't Sony BMG, see.

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: You vote with your cash. A purchase of A4 is a vote for A5. From what I've heard of A4 and expect from A5, an argument against. I guessed that abandoning the system of previous Avernum games would be bad, and what people have said seems to confirm that. But hey, I'll wait for the Windows demo and see...

And in this case, there is actually valuable information that is only partly entered on the encyclopedia site. Can we keep this on for reference material?

There are some topics that should die, preferrably unnoticed. There are others whose deaths we regret, when they are deleted without the chance for archiving them. There are yet others that will live on in the archives once they are deleted. And then there are some choice few that I want to keep. I figure that's not too much to ask, is it?

You'd totally pwn me, that's for sure. I don't like spiders.

Quote: Originally written by The tangent: Thanx. I can't afford photoshop It would be against the CoC to be more specific, but I believe that Photoshop can be, uh, "acquired" for free, by sufficiently immoral people. Ahem.

I have my very own Rhapsody-style scenario titled "Eye of the Storm". It has been under construction for... four and a half years, including a port to Blades of Avernum prior to the release of the BoE version that is now never going to be finished. Neither is the BoA version, but hey.

Quote: Originally written by Thuryl: Quote: Originally written by Thralni, Nephil translators & co.: And now some final questions: How can I make accents on non-vowels? I have tried all kinds of things, but it can't be done in microsoft word, i think. Do you know of any way of doing that? Well, since most accented non-vowels are non-ASCII characters, the first thing you need is a font that supports them. After that you should be able to use your word processor's Insert Characters option to put them in. They probably won't display properly in a post on these forums anyway, though. Sorry. Characters like Alo's — and stuff like ø can be entered through the html code. Some characters don't have html codes, however, and only have numbers. Does this work - @? Edit: Does!

Ballistic properties of spiders? ... As in, spiders loaded into catapults and shot through the air? o_O

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: Quote: Originally written by Thralni, chicken god prophet: Most names of nephilim in Avernum are also nothing more then mrrrfrrr or something like that, so that also won't be very usefull. No, that tells you something! It tells you that they prefer nasals and liquids to vowels. It is possible to have a language that has few or no vowels if it allows nasals and liquids to take a full stress (whereas English only allows them to sit in unstressed positions, as in "apple" — properly /œp-l/ with no vowel in the second syllable, although some insert a schwa for ease of pronunciation). It also tells you that their language draws out its R's in sort of the way the sliths draw out their S's, which is worth considering for paradigms. Nephils might make a distinction between many kinds of R's, from the approximant to the trill to the tap (and Wikipedia's IPA page might be worth checking if you're not already an expert on phonology). You can get all sorts of ideas from the names. Don't ignore them! Now that's something I neglected. But, again, it can be explained by the older language having vowels, and the modernized one dropping them.

It makes more sense than the flat earth theory, and that finds plenty of followers... o_O

Are you talking about Exile? Because in Avernum, I seem to remember it really was just a single level that kept spiralling down. But that was back when they had height. (Or does A4 have height? It seemed like it wouldn't...)

For some reason I remember it as "ghash", but I might have that mixed up with the weird Orcish word for "fire" from LotR. Also, the novel is here , and from chapter six on there are some references to the Nephilim language every now and then. As I said, I can't be bothered to compile it now.

I made up some vague stuff back in November for my Nanowrimo thing, because there didn't exist any basis for the language. As opposed to Vahnatai (and possibly even Slithzerikai), there don't appear to be any occurences of Nephilim language, inscriptions or anything. When they speak, the game just describes it as growling. I'd summarize it into a short vocabulary (a dozen or so words and some pronounciation guidelines), but I don't have the time now and it doesn't have any basis anyway. It is supposed to be an "ancient" language much like Kel's is an ancient Slith language, so the current one might be completely different (and therefore free for you to develop). The longest sentence of any kind is: Quote: "Rephna sathosha nish, yapheshis ramh' Barh amh'rosh serina avalash-amh'

Quote: Originally written by Mikami Aufeya: apart from the fact that you can still get those complicated spell chants and gestures correct while zonked Practice, probably. With enough experience, a spell comes as naturally as tying your shoe-laces (not that tying one's shoe-laces is a particularly easy task while drunk). That said, doesn't being drunk have an effect similar to dumbfounding? I could've sworn there was a magic penalty as well...

It's a phonetic term; two vowels that don't form a single sound but rather glide from one sound to another. ow is one of these, as is ay. But I'm curious; what did you think it meant? ^___^

You know, he didn't attack you, you attacked him.

Quote: Originally written by Synergy: It bothers me that English really seems to be dumbing down due to "popular" useage. We are losing the meanings of more and more once perfectly useful words. Take for example the similar sorts of words, "fantastic", "wonderful", "awesome", "terrific". Fantastic once implied a fantastical/fantasy element to a thing. Wonderful once implied a sense of wonder. Awesome was spoken only of things which truly inspired awe. Terrific once spoke of things that induced terror. Now, through popular, sloppy, dumbed down useage, they all mean the exact same insipid, vague thing "great/cool". What word do I use now when I want to describe something that is truly awesome? What adjective do I use to discuss something that is laden with fantasy elements so as to make it unbelievable? Why not continue to use awesome and fantastic for those purposes? I do on occasion. Prepending a superfluous "truly" (as in "truly awesome") might be bad style, but it does seem to get the point across. Few who use awesome, fantastic and terrific to mean the same thing would utter the word "truly".

I haven't played A4, but it has to be damn good (better than A3) to reach the quality of stuff like Canopy and Bahssikava. And those are just two of the best scenarios.