Quiconque

Moving to the Avadon forum.

The whole _point_ of BoE, the whole thing that distinguished it from other 90's scenario creation engines, and the reason it drew such a large userbase compared to BoA, is the special nodes system. Special nodes are what really stood out, because they offered a moderate level of power and flexibility at an extreme minimum of a learning curve. I don't mean to be negative about your project. It's certainly interesting! But I do think it's a mistake to prioritize the new format over the old one. All it takes is one edge case error in how you translate between special nodes and your scripting, and _every_ currently existing scenario breaks for you. There's much, much less chance for edge case error if you translate from scripts to nodes, instead. (Also, if somebody creates a scenario with your editor's new format, it won't be playable with any other version of BoE, which is a pretty big restriction.)

For 99% of the graphics you should be able to take the original graphics file and just use that with a more recent version of Exile II, like the one on the SW website. This will change all the terrain and character graphics, and I think item graphics as well. It won't affect certain interface graphics, like the buttons at the bottom of the main view.

These are good questions. We mostly don't have exact answers, because the game just isn't very specific about the timeline prior to your arrival. Presumably Exile did know Valorim was the least-settled continent, already, since most exiles had previously lived on the surface. New exiles had stopped arriving 16 years prior to E3, so they probably at least knew that Kriszan province existed, but possibly not many specifics about it. In E3, it's very clear that you are the first to be officially allowed to emerge: among other things, Anaximander says "Don't forget ... The sooner you go out onto the surface and see what's going on, the better. All Exile waits to see whether it is safe to emerge or not." In A3 this is retconned, and there is a previous party of failed surface explorers. However, even in E3, as Gypsy says: "Volunteered to help build Fort Emergence. Slipped out onto the surface soon as I got the chance and never looked back. And I'm not the only one!" As far as scrying: long-distance scrying was really, really hard in Exile. The only folks who seem to be capable of it are (1) Erika, (2) the dragons, specifically Athron, and (3) a handful of specialist mage-sages like Aimee, Patrick, Thompson, etc. -- and even for them it seems challenging. In E3 you get handed a crude map that's the result of Exile's best scrying operation: it basically amounts to "we think there's some mountains, a river, and a city in the southeast." Teleporation was also really, really hard in Exile. Long-distance teleportation (especially through solid rock) is consistently shown to require (1) a portal or beacon at one or both ends, (2) seriously involved augmenters, like crystals, and (3) laborious research to set up. There was also a serious danger that ambitious teleportation projects could injure the fabric of space (as in E2) or allow demons in (as in all the games, especially E3). It's very plausible that the Vahnatai had more skill here, particularly given the relevance of crystals. But teleporting huge quantities of equipment from their own extra-deep caves, to all corners of Valorim, seems like a stretch. E3 states that the earliest of the plagues appeared a little over a year before the game, while the Tower of Magi was first able to boost their teleporter's power enough to come near the surface about 2 years prior. We don't really know the timeline for Fort Emergence, though. If I had to guess, I'd say they developed the plagues in Egli or other magical laboraties; used Ghikra as a base for scouting other near-surface caves; and then recreated the plagues there.

I agree with CM. Having two separate interpretation engines is asking for trouble. Compiling scripts down into nodes is going to be much more sustainable.

Exile didn't tunnel to the surface, though, nor did they "choose" Valorim. They teleported to another set of caves that already existed. They didn't get to pick a continent -- they didn't even realize just how fortuitously unsettled Fort Emergence's surroundings were until they finally sent explorers to the surface. It does seem plausible that all or most of Exile was (very deeply) below Valorim, specifically, given that that's also where the dragons ended up -- though the dragons do settle on the opposite end of the continent from Upper Exile. I'm not sure if this is ever explicitly confirmed. The fact that the Vahnatai also ended up there (and started the plagues there) might say less, given that they quite openly followed the exiles to Upper Exile and for some time Rentar-Ihrno resided there. Hehehe. Yes, if you haven't played them I suppose they can't really be helpful, can they!

Ok, this is 25 years old, I'm giving up on spoilers. The Vahnatai's desire for revenge is clearly documented in the previous game. Of Rentar-Ihrno: "She is pleased at the revenge on Garzahd, but has not stopped devising ways to avenge us further on the Empire. We expect great things from her." Of the Council: "The Council greets you happily. Already, minor spells and mischief are being worked against the Empire. Soon, they will start wreaking serious revenge." And in the ending text when you win E2: "The Vahnatai are strange and alien, and they still have not taken their revenge on the Empire for the theft of the Crystal Souls. No, all is not settled with them. Yet." In contrast, Erika's had 50 years to stew in Exile and the only revenge she's "devised" during that time has been a targeted assassination of Hawthorne. In E1, as justification for this, she says that he "accelerated the pace at which people were exiled. He poured people down here like water! He is a tyrant, and tyrants must die." She's clearly opposed to people being exiled, and she furnishes vital assistance to adventurers trying to find the surface and leave Exile for good. She talks a lot about freedom. So I do think it would be out of character for her to make the surface uninhabitable for her fellow exiles. The dragons are a little more complicated, because there are three of them. You could definitely see Sulfras wanting to take revenge, but perhaps not being patient enough to follow through. I can't see Khoth (who was perfectly willing to deal with Empire humans prior to E1) keeping up the sustained focus on creating rampaging monsters either; it's just not their interest, and I don't know why they would go after podunk provincial territorities at all. Athron, of course, is right out; they are the most reclusive and self-protective being in the series, and would never risk making themself a target of attention. (Additionally, Athron and Sulfras also both assisted adventurers looking to leave Exile and return to the surface, so it would be an about-face for them, too, to want it uninhabitable.)

Even if you haven't done all the plague quests, the answer is... on the obvious side, IMO. Of the three suspects, it would be incredibly out of character for two of them. And it's revealed in the game... which has been out for 25 years now. So probably most people here who've played the game know and can't really make a guess 🙂

Yeah, it's a bit confusing... there are at least 3 different Nephil forts in the eastern area, which doesn't help... there's the simpler one north of Duvno, the Nepharim fort near Cotra that has all the prisoners, and then the Nephil castle further northwest. It's that last one that's "important" in the sense that you can get a token to get into the Castle by doing it.

Very few "quests" have a specific reward from a "quest-giver" in E1. And for the most part there is no way to "get" a "quest." This was normal in 1994. See also, being expected to piece together what is going on in the world and how you can make things better by talking to many different people, as opposed to having a single Bob who explains everything and tells you exactly what to do.

I know you're playing Exile I. I was responding to your comment, immediately above mine, that it must have been added in Avernum 🙂 The editor should be included in the Exile folder.

No, this was definitely a thing in Exile II. (I even found another reference to it using the forum search command.) It's possible Exile II added this -- or maybe it's a button and not a menu item in E1 -- or maybe it has location requirements. (I have a memory of only being able to do it in Fort Exile, but maybe that's A1.) Or maybe it's called "___ Party" instead? Have you tried looking for it - in Fort Exile - on the world map - in Silvar Another option would be to just use the Editor and change the stats of the old PC to your "new" one.

You can create a brand new one, I'm pretty sure. Use that "X" button in the upper right to delete a party member, and then... there should be a menu item somewhere that reads something like "Create New PC..." -- I don't remember if it had location requirements.

It sounds like you're talking less about combat challenge, and more about complexity of general tasks involved in a quest? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding.

@RedBeard and anyone else listening, Just a quick friendly mod reminder that criticism is 100% OK here, but telling people you hate them is not. Also, the board tries to be "family friendly" and cursing (including "masked cursing" as the board guidelines put it) is on the list of "don'ts" as well. This isn't something we try to be super strict about but if there is a ton of cursing in a single post, even mild cursing... it might be worth taking a deep breath and saying things a little less vehemently. Totally understand how frustrating things can be... just please consider a more peaceful approach. Thanks. Now back to your regularly scheduled exploitative colonialism.

I'm also curious about this question. Of course the game can handle hitting zero in a resource; however, is there a limit to how much you can lose through theft -- or can you in theory get locked out of buildings due to enough accumulated theft? That would be unfortunate.

His argument is explicit in the game; there are quite a few surface NPCs who make it clear that they can tell you are Exiles even with an all-human party. The people in Fort Emergence have some concept of this too -- they tell you that they don't expect the people in Krizsan Province, at the very least, will care. But were you really trying to convince Jeff to remove a player option that many people had enjoyed in the previous two iterations of the game and in the immediately preceding sequel (A2:CS)? I'm a big fan of internal consistency, but taking away parts of the game that already exist and that people enjoy is shooting the game in the foot.

Crafty little tricks?

While there are some of us here who prefer the charm of the original Exile games, your specific complaint is something whose differences in the remakes are mostly cosmetic. You get skill points to distribute in all 3 versions. Obviously they scale very differently, but that's just a numbers question -- and in terms of impact they aren't as far off as you imagine. For example, in Exile, points in Intelligence cost 3 each and you can put up to 19 points in (since you start at 1). But under the hood, the game actually translates this Intelligence score into a bonus modifier that ranges only from -3 to +5. You go to +3 at 12 Intelligence, and you don't go to +4 until you hit 16 Intelligence. This isn't all that different from the remakes, where every point in Intelligence does the same thing, but either the cost increases as you invest in it (1st remakes) or you are limited in how many points you can invest per level (2nd remakes). The scaling/pacing exists in Exile, too, it's just hidden rather than being shown to the player. Also, you absolutely can make a character who starts out with both fighting skills and magic skills in all of these games. You don't get to buy quite as many skill levels, at level 1... but you get to buy more each time you level up. And in terms of making "your own special characters," while at level 1 you have fewer skill points to play with, you get other options that Exile didn't have: in particular, significantly more unique traits.

I think he toyed with the idea at one point, but it didn't end up being suitable. RPG Maker actually provides extremely permissive use of its assets if you purchase it, but I don't think that use extends to games not made with RPG Maker. There are however lots of people who license third-party graphics for use with RPG Maker, and in some cases those get used enough that they feel like "RPG Maker graphics" even though they aren't. It's definitely possible that some of the graphics Spiderweb licenses for QW are also used in some RPG Maker games, since they likely have similar graphics needs.

They do not increase the effect of curses or blessings, or the chance of success, only the duration. From testing, it seems that there is a random factor, so the game may give you more or less than +10%. Of course, the end result is also going to get converted into an integer number of rounds... so the larger the base duration, the greater the chance you actually see an impact from the +10%.

No - however, it is prominently linked in Strategy Central, which is stickied. There are simply too many really useful info threads to sticky all of them.

This is maybe the best necro ever. And it's very appropriate, since the key is being necro'ed in a way...

That's going to be very hardcoded -- meaning it's probably a factor in the game's code in multiple places, and there's no guarantee it's handled by a single constant, particularly because it has all kinds of HUD handling implications. It's definitely something you can't edit via the scripts or defs files, or just image replacement.

@NONO - this thread has not been posted in for ten (10) years. Additionally, the information you posted is actually already in the thread. Please, read the other posts in the thread before you hit "reply." Thanks. Now, to return this thread to its peaceful rest...