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Punctuation rains from the heavens

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Everything posted by Punctuation rains from the heavens

  1. Just want to point out that A3RW is a remake of a remake -- it went from E3 to A3 to A3RW, not straight from E3 to A3RW. I too hate the loss of spell variety, and the loss of neat things to do with Capture Soul / Simulacrum. But I agree with TriRodent, things like spells missing and not all items being plausible to steal seem less like "flaws" and more like slight shifts in balance. I totally understand not liking them, but declaring something like that an abject "flaw" rather than a departure from personal preference (or genre habit), idk.
  2. @ka1yhi I would definitely email Spiderweb directly via the email TriRodent provided. They really pride themselves on their customer support, so whoever you've been emailing, it hasn't been getting to them. Keep in mind that if you purchase through a 3rd party retailer, Spiderweb (like all developers) doesn't actually process the order or keep the records. Spiderweb will still try to help you, because they are awesome. But it's a bigger ask than just "hey can you send me a new key, I purchased directly from you at this email address 5 years ago." That said, Steam has a pretty simple interface to simply download any game you purchased in the past, even if it was years ago. You just need to be logged in to your account. You don't have to interact with customer support at all. Steam is (I think?) the biggest gaming distribution platform there is -- it's pretty much the opposite of "fly by night." (If you're having trouble installing Steam or logging in, we can try to help too, but that's not a Spiderweb problem.) Humble Bundle, likewise, normally sends email links that remain active years later (at least 3 years anyway, I just checked one of mine). You don't even have to log in to use those. So if you still have access to your email history, that could be a solution too.
  3. The Dragons and the Vahnatai both have top-tier magic capabilities, including portals. Olgai sets up a very precise portal to the Tower of Magi without having even been there, and we've seen Athron use portals as well. So it might also be possible that they merely got close to the surface, and then magicked their way out somehow.
  4. I don't think that was traditional D&D so much as all the library research Jeff & co. did while creating Nethergate. If it was just traditional D&D, Celtic warriors would have been able to wear armor.
  5. I'm pretty sure Randomizer was talking about N:R, and comparing it to the original, where Celts had more armor restrictions.
  6. It'll likely take close to a decade for the remaster to get through all 5 games (not exaggerating). So you'll have plenty of time to play those, hehe.
  7. Don't listen to the lack of praise. It's the best thing SW's put out in years. It's just also the biggest departure from the past games (and from orthodox CRPGs in general), and a lot of people don't like that.
  8. 2 - Nope. I mean, these games don't really give you real choices about what to do, aside from, I guess, simply not doing certain things. 3 - Erika is, without a doubt, one of the best characters Jeff has written. Her... departure scene, let's say, is incredibly fitting and poetic. You may have emotions if you feel so strongly about her, but I don't think you will be disappointed. Also, she is a significant character throughout A1, A2, and A3, so you don't need to expect seeing that anytime soon. 4 - That's not normal. Usually a node triggers ending your game if you do something like that. Maybe in this case you have to leave the room first or something? 5 - Wow, you really do hate the Empire. Lol. 6 - No, yes, and yes she should. Aimee came down with Erika, Patrick, Rone and Solberg. She has a cameo in A2 and a reference or two in later games, but I'm afraid that's it. She's the only one of those five who never takes on any sort of position of power, so I suppose that says something about what her priorities are.
  9. I think you and I have some kind of fundamental difference in how we determine when a theory has nothing to do with the text and is pure invention, versus when it is -- while still a theory and absolutely bearing the potential to be incorrect -- literally the only thing the text even flinches towards on the subject. In this case, in Exile II, there are only two references to Limoncelli's speed that say anything beyond "fast" -- both in your post above. Both reference haste spells. Both compare the effect to haste spells. One says that the effect is stronger than what a haste spell generates from a haste spell, the other has the game narration using a simile to compare it to multiple stacking haste spells. These comparisons do clearly establish that it cannot be caused by a typical haste spell. They also establish that the effects are like a haste spell in quality, but not in quantity. And I mean, in game mechanics terms, Limoncelli gets a metric crapton of AP... and increasing AP is exactly what haste spells do. This is not a leap. Theorizing about the source of the effect is definitely extrapolation, which is why I described it as a question. Avernum II, as it turns out, does have more to say. Where E2 just said (a touch humorously) that his body even fell to the ground quickly, A2 adds this: "When you strike the mortal blow, Limoncelli does not slow down. Exactly the opposite. His body speeds up an incredible, almost comical amount, as the magic that sustains him falls out of balance.Even though you are seasoned adventurers, you can't help but feel ill seeing what you do. Limoncelli's body violently tears itself apart. As he falls to the ground, the chamber is filled with the snapping, rhythmic echo of all of his bones breaking." While the captain expands his words very slightly: "But he's... he's magical. He's fast! He moves faster than a hasted person, and he's that way all the time!" These are two places where that game flat out says his speed is some kind of magical effect. Everything seems to suggest that it's a permanent effect, particularly the captain's words. And the description of his death seems to strongly suggest that it is tied to his body, as opposed to being the effect of some kind of magic item. So no, it's not a foregone conclusion that his speed comes from a magical effect placed on him, but what little the game says does gesture in that direction, and it doesn't gesture in any others. I think that's enough to shift this from "unsolved mystery" to "yeah it's not specified but it's not very mysterious." -- I'm departing from game-based evidence here (and explictly noting that fact, lest you chastise me again), but I actually think there is a piece of information outside the game that would fit with some kinda of mega-haste spell in particular. The games that influenced Jeff included, as he's mentioned many times, both D&D and a whole bunch of early CRPG's that themselves influenced by D&D. It was a common convention, in these games, that the speed of haste spells came at a cost: the recipient is magically aged. In 2nd edition, this was pretty extreme: "Additionally, this spell ages the recipient by one year, because of sped-up metabolic processes." Anyway, a lot of the spell list in Exile looks like common spells from D&D, often with similar mechanics and at the same spell level. Fireball is classically a level 3 spell; so's Haste, just as they were in Exile. Anyway, this isn't evidence, but a body "violently tearing itself apart" sure seems fitting for the extinguishing of an incredibly powerful version of an effect that speeds up metabolic processes. -- Do I think Limoncelli had a haste spell applied, specifically? Maybe, who knows. Do I think he had a magical effect that is at least similar to a haste spell applied? Yes. That's not a wacky interpretation. It's not conclusive, but it is the only answer the game flinches towards. This is not a great example of a real mystery.
  10. Limoncelli isn't that much of a mystery. There are multiple descriptions, both in narrative text and NPC dialogue, that refer to haste spells, e.g. It's as if time is warped around him ... he moves as if he has received many haste spells, one on top of the other. I guess there's the question of whether this was done with Empire magic or Vahnatai magic obtained from Gaddika. We never really see any Vahnatai altered in this way, though. My money's on Garzahd, since his expertise in permanent warding was extensive, and his own self-enchantments imbue speed as well. Elderan is also plausible -- he is also on the short list of warding specialists, and he was a fellow commander to Limoncelli and stationed quite close by.
  11. Amena Blade was definitely in G1. I don't think anything was said about his age then, but he was a lieutenant in Kazg, so presumably not a child. It looks like he was old enough in G3 for his eyesight to be failing, and also over 100 in G4. According to a fandom site, he's the only character to have appeared in 4 games, so he may be the best evidence here. I guess his age suggests that G1 to G4 could be anywhere from 60 to 90 years, so perhaps the series timespan is slightly longer than I suggested above. G2 to G3 is definitely a plausible place for some extra years to show up.
  12. Zakary and Barzahl were on Sucia shortly after the events of G1. I don't remember if exact timeframes were mentioned in G2, but based on their descriptions, it doesn't seem like more than 2 or maybe 3 decades could have passed. I agree with Greta and Alwan re G3/4/5, so that just leaves the time between 2 and 3. This could probably be derived from some of the minor NPCs who show up in all of G1/2/3. There are minor NPCs overlapping throughout the series, and extensive aging is limited, even for randos who don't have access to shaping. So all told, I'd guess the timespan from 1 to 5 is probably in the range of 60-90 years.
  13. G3 was deliberately an "every option sucks" game, and opinion about it tends to be polarized as a result. Some people enjoyed that, others hated it.
  14. Why the heck would Jeff reveal a "secret" (more of a deliberate mystery, I'd say) about Geneforge 5... in an announcement about Geneforge 1? Unless the G5 protagonistis actually someone who was on Sucia during G1, that makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn't even make sense then -- and it would take some real plot twists for it to be such a person.
  15. Hi, @lucabar, please pick 1 topic to post in about a particular problem. If you post in multiple places, everyone else ends up reading the same thing twice, which is annoying. Thanks! --your friendly neighborhood mod
  16. Scrying (and teleportation, and any form of magic involving long distances) is also shown to be extremely difficult in A1-3, far moreso than in mainstream fantasy of the last two decades. How would he get a message to the Castle (or wherever) magically? If there are magical communication devices set up, or spells available, we sure never see them. And given the number of tell-this-person quests, those mages must enjoy laughing at adventurers. No, the closest thing we see to this is astral travel. Admittedly, Patrick is one of the two people we know can do this (the other, conveniently, being the other "mage-sage") but none of what little is said about it suggests it is expeditious. I'm not really sure about the logic and extrapolation part. This is pure invention, and it relies on a large number of technically possible but very unlikely conditions. Not to rehash our previous argument, but this isn't simply one interpretation of many, this is a construction which is incredibly, incredibly unlikely based on the evidence we have.
  17. Yeah, I think "plot hole" describes a lot of this. Really nothing about Seletine and the wands makes any sense -- cue old griping about how the Tower would rather have the wands be lost or destroyed, rather than have their couriers use a few charges in order to ensure their delivery. Fortunately, however, we can be more specific about how far north of Fort Goodling Fort Cavalier is: about 250 miles. (This is in the text somewhere; I'm reading off the Blazing Blade, which is somehow still up, and which I trust to have quoted accurately.) Although the relationship between "miles" and squares on the overworld map is a little bit elastic (which I think is fine; it's a 2d grid, it can't possibly correspond 1:1 to the topography of a 3d cave system), we can look at relative distances. There's a sign between Silvar and Mertis that says the Castle is 230 miles west and 40 miles south of that point. That's roughly 4 or so outdoor sections. ZKR has far more than 4 sections, but that just tells us the scale is a little different. It's probably reasonable to assume that the full length of the ZKR, accounting for whatever twisty tunnels may connect it with Exile proper, spans roughly 3-5 outdoor sections. This squares with the distance estimates above, too, if we assume NW of Dharmon and S or SW (or even a bit SE) of Fort Remote. While I agree that Dharmon's relevance to all of this is weird, if that's Fort Cavalier's location, it might well be the most obvious target for the Sliths to attack if they breached Cavalier. Dharmon would make a better outpost than Blosk, as its terrain is far more defendable; it has a water source (important for the Sliths); and controlling Dharmon means cutting off Avernum's primary source of iron and steel. That would have meaningful long-term strategic impact. It would also allow the Sliths to press Avernum on three fronts -- Dharmon, Emerald, and Dranlon/Draco -- the latter also becoming more crucial with Dharmon's steel out of the picture. (The other nearby options -- Patrick's tower, Fort Remote, and Fort Saffron -- seem like they'd be far more trouble than they'd be worth to the Sliths.) Not attacking Almaria is a little weird, but maybe there is some of that as well -- Sliths clearly attacked it prior to X1. It just doesn't seem like a valuable position for the Sliths to hold, particularly as it would be very easy for Avernum to strike at from the Castle. As a side note, I'm not really sure what Patrick could do. Although it's true that he led the original assault on Grah-Hoth (along with Erika and Rone), that was approximately 60-70 years before ZKR, and in the interim he very clearly ends up more of a "mage-sage," as Erika puts it, than anything else.
  18. That settles it, I think -- if you're maneuvering your way through neutral territory, it almost has to connect to some area north of the Great Cave, and not to the Great Cave itself. It's worth pointing out that there are really two points to locate here: Fort Goodling as well as Fort Cavalier. Fort Goodling is presumably more easily accessed, at least from the Tower of Magi, since one of the Triad goes there personally to deliver the wands, but doesn't just bring them to Fort Cavalier. (It does also seem much less distressed than Fort Cavalier, so it seems unlikely it's harder to reinforce.) It's also explicitly far to the south of Fort Cavalier. If Fort Cavalier were west of the Great Cave, this would place Fort Goodling very far from Avernum proper. But if the whole run is a bit lower than Avernum proper -- this makes sense given all the denizens and I think might even be specified somewhere -- it's easy to place. Fort Goodling could be reached, potentially, via one of those smaller waterways at the south end of the Great Cave (or through some other excavated passage we never see: who knows). And Fort Cavalier connects to the north of the Great Cave, possibly not that far north, but with a fair bit of that "neutral territory" being below the maps we're used to. It's worth pointing out that Fort Cavalier isn't actually directly on water in the scenario, and neither is the passage you take to get away from it. There's a river kind of nearby, but not close enough that we'd need one where the passageway comes out.
  19. I don't think the other games were designed to be more modifiable -- I suspect that was just Jeff gradually making things more modular as he put more and more games out using similar data structures. Aha, I think what I've forgotten is just that Geneforge doesn't have those tooltips. They became so ubitquitous in later games, I completely missed that!
  20. I agree that the western river makes a heck of a lot more sense. The "last defense" comment could simply mean that it was the last place the Sliths could reasonably be blocked prior to reaching and reinforcing the old Slith waters just north of the Castle -- whose Slith population, and combat capacity, must have dwindled greatly in the aftermath of not just Sss-Thsss's defeat, but also the occupation by the Empire, but whose hostility to humans could hardly have been diminished by those events. The text might say "nearest city" (does it, or does it just say "nearest settlement"? I noticed you only put quotes around "nearest"), but even so. If Patrick's Tower was closer to it, the sentence might technically be true, but it would also be a very strange thing to say. I think that's enough to rule that out. Furthermore, if Patrick's Tower really was on the edge of seriously hostile enemy territory, we would expect some reflection of that fact in A4 or A6. Particularly A6, given what happens with the Sliths there.
  21. Huh, I stand corrected! Avadon, the Avernum Remakes and on definitely do make it possible to edit those in the scripts, but I guess Geneforge doesn't. Doesn't changing the name of the ability also affect the tooltip for the spell (and for any items that use that ability)? That's really what I'm remembering (not the spell selection dialogue box) so if I'm wrong about that then I really gotta question my recollection.
  22. Class names would be a herculean effort to change, even with raw data editing. Spell names (and item descriptions, IIRC -- but this has changed in different SW games) can easily be edited in the defs files. For spells in particular, note that the spell name and the corresponding spell-knowledge name (i.e., you have 2 levels in Firebolt, and you cast Firebolt in battle) are in 2 different places. Definitely agree with you about consumables. Torment players are more likely to be serious optimizers and that definitely correlates with avoiding the use of consumables on anything that's not the hardest battle in the game. It seems to me that consumables are typically used a lot more by casual players, who are less dedicated to optimizing. But consumables are useful to those players precisely because they have a completely different curve of useful vs. useless than more balanced game elements. So I think the question is, who's the target audience for your mod? You can always leave some consumables in the game, and turn others into stuff you like more.
  23. Mods in the form of patches are not illegal, but they also aren't categorically legal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unofficial_patch#Law e.g. Square Enix famously managed to shut down an ambitious fan mod of Chrono Trigger about a decade ago. Spiderweb might be perfectly happy with these projects (and I can't imagine them turning to lawyers over them), but I would definitely recommend seeking their blessing, if nothing else, before posting them here.
  24. Be forewarned -- some versions of the games have checksums implemented, so you may or may not be able to run the executable after making that modification. Also, for a few reasons, distributing a modified version of the Geneforge executable itself would be very different from distributing modified text or image files that people can drop into the scripts folder as they prefer (or a completely independent program like TheKian created). I'm not sure how much that would or wouldn't impede sharing your mod publicly, but it's somewhere between "extra hurdle" and "brick wall", inclusive.
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