Archaeolagent

I do find it interesting that Angband is so popular here. You, me, and Alorael, at any rate, compared to Aran's lonely cries of ADOM.

I would vote to keep it here as well. Although it is perhaps of general interest, the length and style of some of the posts makes me worried it may go the way of Synergy's last debate topic. I would actually argue that hack-and-slash is not all filler. Recently I've had occasion (at work, no less) to play a number of RPGs and pseudo-RPGs made over the last 15 years for Nintendo's handheld systems -- the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance. All of these games possess some kind of system that scales the potential field of gameplay to a vastly larger size. The Pokemon and Dragon Warrior Monsters games allow you to build up not three or six PCs, but hundreds of them, if you want to. (Pokemon, I was very surprised to discover, also has a battle system with a superb ratio of depth to complexity.) Mega Man Battle Network has a CCG-like system whereby you can constantly improve your character one element at a time, for an exceedingly large number of elements. There are the actual CCG games like YuGiOh, which work the same way. And then there are the roguelike Mystery Dungeon titles that have been appearing the past few years, which feature infinite dungeon exploration. Other games, like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, incorporate a "mission" setup that allows new content to be speedily generated; either slipped into a template by the developers (FFTA has 300+ pregenerated missions), or on-the-fly much as a roguelike generates a dungeon level. This scalability has made these games much more successful than traditional RPGs for the same systems. A lot of this has to do with the environmental demands of a handheld system -- which people often want to play for small stretches of time, but with which still like experiencing a sense of accomplishment -- and the demographics; Nintendo has the younger end of the market and these games are at least partially targetted at 10-year-olds. But this kind of scalability entails infinite hack-and-slash, and this is infinite hack-and-slash that is being enjoyed. It's not like MMORPGs where it's really the only option for implementation. People choose the hack-and-slash option.

Iffy, there is a very real difference between what you said and what I said. "Less likely" is inaccurate, plain and simple. That may be the end result if you are totally careless about how close you are to an enemy; however, since that IS under your control, likelihood never enters into things at all.

Quote: Originally written by Thuryl: I agree that it's a very different type of game from traditional RPGs. I don't think a game where you're expected to finish with the same four to six characters that you started with can plausibly coexist with a world where one well-placed hit can be fatal. One easy way to make that work is to only fight monsters, i.e., creatures that don't wield weapons. This has been done at least twice in a quality RPG (Dungeon Master) and it's fairly reasonable for claws et al. to never kill you in one hit if you're wearing at least a little bit of armor.

It doesn't make them less LIKELY to see you. It raises the threshhold of what is required to make them notice you.

Also note that Hero of Old has an absurdly high casting cost compared to casting each effect individually, and it doesn't last any longer either, nor is it stronger in any respect. It might be convenient at times when you have spell points to spare, but it's honestly one of the least useful spells in the game.

When I went back and looked at my earliest posts here for the relevant topic, I was surprised to see how positive I was about G3. There were things I hated, like the boats; but I was very positive about the direction of the story and even the type of forced choice questions involved. The problem, I think, is that the lack of variety in plot, questions, and game paths, makes the interestingness of G3 quickly fall to the ground when you replay it. And because I didn't quite finish the game but instead replayed it several times for strategy, I became annoyed at all of those things. So I must reluctantly agree: G3 is a good game, just don't play it twice.

I was asking a clarifying question. Given that your sentence was malformed to begin with, it wasn't hard to conceive of your only referring to body armor despite saying "anything," which would explain it. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

On ne joue pas avec la liberté Elle ne se divise pas tout comme l'égalité Elle ne peut être achètée, négotiée Ni est changée contre de la pixilité!

Harle... not a reference to Schala and Kid, is it?

Try a new game and see if it works. If it doesn't, reinstall. If it worked before and now it doesn't, and nobody else has ever heard of the problem, then something probably became corrupted.

It was clear, Alo; I was just commenting in response to your sig.

She's not wearing -any- equipment, or just not body armor? And how high is her Armor Use?

I did use the map, and I used it precisely because I had wandered so much in earlier games: because the geography had changed so much.

The map is actually pretty accurate -- once you figure out which part of the icon that shows your location actually points to your location. It's not obvious (and I don't even remember without looking at it).

Standard text-messaging speak? Good god, what has the world come to, that the heritage of teletypes and relay chats is mistaken for text-messaging.

So basically, non-humanity would be a trait. Sounds balanced. In A4, 2 trait humans would be chosen over 1 trait nephils, but 2 trait nephils and 3 trait humans would each offer advantages.

TSR certainly didn't help anything -- and neither did WotC for that matter -- but I think it's the gaming community as a whole that is sexist. It's a very different kind of sexism from what we have in business or politics, one that comes more from confusion and awkwardness than domination or hatred; but it's no less ugly in expression.

Personally I'd just be happy if the Nephils weren't overwhelming better than the Sliths. Although having playable humans would be nice.

You can play with humans -- they're just close to 100% inferior to Nephils. In the end this doesn't make a massive difference outside of Torment, though.

No, you can't do that. The only games that list stuff like that in accessible text format are the Avernumscript (BoA, N:R) and Geneforge engine (G1-4, A4) games.

A lifecrafter who invests heavily in spells, and an infiltrator who invests more in Int and creations, are very similar. IIRC, the lifecrafter only starts with 1 more Int than the infiltrator does. The essence multiplier is more significant, but not hugely so, and the infiltrator does have better return on skill points for magic skills. The infiltrator will be a little hardier, which can make her a bit more flexible. The extra bit of essence for the lifecrafter can on the other hand give him a bit more brute offensive power.

Ragnarotghroth? Jormunglaahk? Qiyamahshakk? Apocavlysh?

If the Drakon is Global Wyrming, presumably the Artila can be Global Worming.

Interesting. I always compared Exile with Ultima 3, but it never occured to me to compare Avernum with the later isometric Ultimas. Huh.