Slariton

On the last question, almost certainly not. It's never made explicit, but of the ToM/Olgai portal, we do get: "This portal was Exile's connection to the lands of the Vahnatai. It still exists, but just barely. It flickers in and out of existance, and is clearly far too weak to use. The room is filled with dust. Nobody has been here in a while." It also seems unlikely that they would have been willing to send all those Crystal Souls through the portal to Upper Exile. And we know they had other ways up, since obviously none of the magic behind the Plagues went through the ToM.

I think this is very true -- with the caveat that not every society is brutal and shallow in the same ways, or even equally brutal or shallow or whatever overall. But there are lots of ways to be harmful. So I think the romanticizing is really about seeing something that is compensatory to contemporary society. It's sort of the opposite project of dystopian literature, which is almost always applicable to something harmful in contemporary society. I'm not sure how interested Asimov was in either one, but Bradbury definitely tried to do both, sometimes at the same time. (The other thing that strikes me, sitting here reading this, is how much the two lines I quoted sound like Bradbury.)

I think, in the original game code, sanctuary only affects melee and missile attacks. I don't think that missile routine is used by spellcasters (except possibly for missile-based spells like Flame Arrows?) but boy it's been a long time.

Bradbury does have some pretty great psychological/human stuff, but it's in his novels. I found the Martian Chronicles to be empty and listless. I don't know why they are held in the regard they are.

I use the flaming weapon augment in Tevrono extensively. (The extra-flame-damage-on-hit, not the use-charges-to-cast-Flame, which is terrible.) Abusing Bless means accuracy isn't an issue, so the higher damage increase is as good as it gets. Gale has a higher +, I want to say +3? The blessing is worthless too, it just uses charges to cast Bless.

@Ess-Eschas please check your messages.

I believe just those two tasks removes the requirement entirely. I'm not sure, but I think the requirement actually starts at just 2 tests, if you didn't do either of those things on the trip down the river.

Ooh, that makes a lot of sense. That's gotta be it.

Yup.

So, um... 16 years ago?

That's _insanely_ horrible luck. Wow. Wow.

Weird! I dunno. It might be worth using the editor to cheat yourself Mage Spells again (or Lockpicks skill and a bunch of Magic Lockpicks), just to try magically unlocking the door. At least then you can rule out any weirdness with the piercing crystals.

Piercing Crystals should work, and it doesn't look like anyone's ever had trouble with this door before. OP, can you confirm that you have already received the "offer" from Vothkaro to kill Elhioc? The one in scroll form. I'm wondering if this door is a plot-skipping protection, essentially.

If Move Mountains isn't the answer, can you post a screenshot?

Looks like we're each half right: you do have to be "altered" to use any of the high level spells, full stop. Tuldaric is the one who invents altering and so when the game opens, only the Awakened can alter you. If you join the Takers or the Barzites, the first thing they will demand, once you've been let in, is to steal Tuldaric's research; after doing so, they will alter you.

The lack of rewards also makes some sense thematically. The Loyalists you can actually join in G2 are Zakary's Loyalists, and they are presented as, well, a little bit dippy and pathetic. The non-aligned ending where you kill all the leaders, including Zakary, was arguably a much better Loyalist outcome. As for the Awakened... wait. Maybe I'm misremembering, but don't you have to join the Awakened for Tuldaric to Augment you? That's a pretty huge reward, considering there's no way to duplicate it.

No, they really weren't. In G1-3, most of the alternates were scaled up in cost far more than they were in power and effectiveness. There could be situational arguments for a few, like Terror Vlish. Some could have been redeemed with better balancing, like Plated Bugs. But the vast majority of them were simply bad values.

Shanti is also, next to Erika, arguably the most broadly beloved character Jeff has created. I sincerely hope the remake does her justice.

The problem before was that most of the alternate creations just weren't very good. Cryoas were the only real standout, and even then regular Vlish were mostly better.

This is incorrect. The original version did have a generic "magic" element (which was also used for electric attacks). But ice and fire elemental attacks were 100% processed as magical attacks. This was hardcoded.

I mean, +5 is a big enough difference that you can probably make a guess about its presence after 10 trials. Just use a lower variance attack.

Looks like this is the result of some overzealous security features Apple added and, I guess, did not communicate well about. There are a few manual fixes offered here: https://iboysoft.com/news/app-is-damaged-and-cannot-be-opened.html

If there are any mistakes in the corrections, I'm sure somebody else will notice and post about them. But I have to assume they're better than no corrections at all, hahaha.

Agents were by far the most challenging class to play in OG1. Seriously, go back and remind yourself of all the limitations we've forgotten about: a sharply limited spell list (12 spells) that included no crowd control whatsoever, and no daze spell whatsoever; and an inventory sharply limited by Strength, an otherwise useless stat for a firebolt-slinging agent. Exploiting enemy AI limitations was something they were forced into -- not a bonus.