Quiconque

No, but it would require a much larger investment of programming and testing time than any other minor change has. You'd need to change the storage structures for terrain types to accomodate more terrain types; change the way terrain types are written to and read from scenario files as well as save game files; and either (1) change the way NPCs are handled, including data structures, read/write, and numerous manipulative calls, to allow for a much larger number of total NPCs, or (2) add significantly to the spaghettilike combat and movement code to allow for all aspects of interaction with these pseudo-NPC terrain types. And probably something else that doesn't occur to me, because I'm not intimately familiar with the code. In other words, NO.

Whoops, apparently I'm self-centered when up in the middle of the night for no reason. Nonetheless I feel compelled to mention that ES did not say that either.

Strong agree re the controls. I never even used the word unmarketable, nor implied it. My point -- which I don't think you'll disagree with -- is that the lack of engaging graphics and atmosphere that draws people in, does NOT help to sell the games. VVVVV does better on that count, frankly -- the graphics are simple, but very well done for what they are; smooth animation, deliberate colors, etc. The music helps too. 10 minutes of extremely fun gameplay is what makes a sale.

That thing is well done and engaging. Frustrating and irritating too, but hey.

Do you play with permadeath? In other words, if you die, do you trash any save you had and start over? Once upon a time, the player was innocent and Save-and-Reload was not expected; this is not the case any more. I think the main thing that pushes Save-and-Reload is the desire for exploration. Sometimes, Save-and-Reload is necessary just to see what happens with different options in a conversation. At other times, the game imposes draconian consequences knowing that the player does not have to accept them. For example, in Exile/Avernum 2, there is a fort where you can have one PC lie on a stone slab; if you do, that PC is turned to dust with no warning. It is early in the game and reviving the PC may be difficult or impossible for the time being. The other thing is convenience. Even in Avernum 4-6, where death can be reversed simply by walking through a town gate, this comes into play: "Gosh, I can walk out of the dungeon, across two zones and all the way back to town, then leave town, cross two zones and come back here -- or I can just reload and do this fight without letting my PC die. Either way, the outcome is exactly the same -- why not save some time?" Anyway, I would argue that Save-and-Reload is very much expected by game designers these days.

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel ...why would you just copy-paste a paragraph from a linked page? Because he thought it was funny and wanted to highlight it. Originally Posted By: How to die in 12 easy steps Eschalon Book I sells for $20 and Eschalon Book II for $25. I think Jeff's games are better than that. They are better, but they are less attractive. We've had this conversation before. Eschalon has the same quality that made Realmz and Exile III so successful: an engaging, colorful interface and atmosphere. It feels lively to play those games in a way that doesn't apply to, say, Geneforge 1 -- even though I greatly prefer the story and mechanics of Geneforge 1 to all three of the other games. Eschalon 2 fixed some speed and play control issues; its biggest problem is its lack of balance. However, this problem is not apparent until you've been playing for a few hours (and even then, it only seems to be apparent to Red Mage types like myself). In other words, Eschalon's strengths (color, liveliness, engagingness, simplicity) directly lead to sales, whereas Spiderweb's strengths (game balance, story, length and depth) are much less apparent at first.

Good point about party of 4; I always think in singleton terms. Grinding goes quickly with one PC, and I suspect it really could achieve those rates.

Because I attempted to do something that didn't work. Whoops. Time to clean up after myself: The End is here, again.

Yeah, I suppose that's fair enough. The problem is that the line between gross exploit and not-exploit is not as clear as it seems. My favourite example is the Silver Sword for sale in the town of ElfLand in the original NES Final Fantasy cart. It's grossly overpowered for the area, and it seems pretty clear it was intended to be sold in Crescent Lake only -- that's where all the other silver equipment shows up. And it makes the Fighter class, already the most powerful, grossly overpowered in the first third of the game. Its presence is pretty clearly a mistake... and buying it means exploiting that mistake. In some ways, this is more of an exploit than the Knowledge Brews -- which is just the equivalent of spending an hour resting and killing goblins; whereas the Sword bonuses in FF can't be acquired in any other way. Yet, use of the Sword is pretty universal and nobody calls it cheating.

Hmm. Yeah, the Blessing Pool exploit may provide more skill points than the modifier from Rational Mind would -- I'm not sure, though.

It's been a while, but IIRC, the Unlock Doors spell does not work on traps, and also does not stack with Tool Use in A5.

No. However, the rest of us don't like working with someone else's scenario editor, either.

Collateral damage from when the Nine-Headed Cave Cow bovine thudded the Vahnatai Creationists into oblivion.

Go back and unturn all those chamber pots again.

;dr + evidence-based debate = :-(

Dintiradan: THAT WAS A DIRTY BAIT-AND-SWITCH!

Welcome to the forums, dopeydave! One thing that is different here from many other forums is that we really ask people to be respectful of others. It isn't okay to call people stupid just because they find a game harder than you do, for example. It's fine to say that you think the games are easy and don't understand how people have a hard time with them; what isn't okay is throwing insults around. See the Code of Conduct for more details. On another note, I agree completely that the quest log should be better organized. At the moment quests appear in the order they are programmed in, which often is quite haphazard, and long-term quests really DO start to pile up.

So, did you find the phylactery and destroy it? If not, you must need to find another clue first -- look around the rest of the zone. If you did and you still can't beat him, it's just a power level issue. Sorry. Change the difficulty to something lower, or start over and make seven Vlish

Several people discussed using BoE in this thread, and nobody ever said "can't do that." I'm not defending BoE. I prefer it to BoA, but BoE is dead and that's that. But I can tell you that if I worked for days on end on a project, submitted it to a contest, and then other people got prizes without ANYONE looking at mine, I would be pretty steamed. Wouldn't matter what the reason was. I get the dilemma of the judging. Judging takes a long time, and I agree that the judges deserve a lot of thanks and not flack. I also get the dilemma of the organizing, which takes a huge effort too, and Dintiradan deserves a lot of thanks and not flack. However, if you're going to solicit work from someone and you don't explicitly tell them that their work will be totally ignored by all the judges, I think it's incredibly irresponsible to allow their work to be totally ignored and to give out prizes to others.

*facepalm*

Empircal tests have been done on other (later) games, and Jeff has also stated outright that luck has no effect on item drops.

Hmm, I didn't even notice the hand. If that was actually part of the original drawing, that would suggest Orthanc, but it looks unclear. Randomizer, it is CLEARLY not Minas Tirith / Minas Anor. _That_ tower is unambiguously white, not black; is surrounded by a city, which is not depicted; is associated with the sun, which is not depicted; is not associated with magic or pentagrams, which are depicted; and is not associated with the hand symbol, which is depicted. Really, making a haphazard assertion without providing any kind of evidence or reasoning is not helpful.

You need to find, and deal with, a certain item before you can actually kill him. There are clues about this somewhere in the zone. Hint: search things.

There's no need for extra nodes, just a simple check in the ability display code that toggles between "cure" and "cause" depending on the value given.

I think it's extremely lame that somebody's scenario was excluded from judgement (and potential prizes!) because it was a BoE scenario. Unless S.C. asked and expected this, but nowhere did _I_ see anything saying BoA only.