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Just to clarify for anyone else reading, alhoon is talking about editing the game files (i.e., for a mod), not anything you can do in the course of normal gameplay.

Implementing a new quest with two NPCs accompanying you is a pretty big change (and "create a quest" was actually a higher tier kickstarter reward). Maybe that feedback email was from during the beta (rather than after release) and Jeff said "sure, why not..." but in general, I wouldn't get your hopes up for story insertions post-release.

Right, and I took you as only meaning the item graphic, and I did take you as probably meaning the series. But you said "the Exile Slith spear graphic" not "one of the Exile Slith spear graphics." And as we know, there were at least three different item graphics in the series, and only one of them is as you described. You overgeneralized from the datum you looked at, that's all.

No, you originally wrote "the Exile Slith spear graphic is clearly a trident" which is flat-out wrong. It matches one version of that graphic used in some later games, but never Exile. Even assuming you meant the series, it would be an overly broad conclusion based on a narrow data set plus assumptions, and the assumptions turned out to be incorrect.

I don't know what relevance icon sets from E3/BoE (let alone a modified version... do we really need to have that conversation again) have to this question -- Slith spears were described and delineated in earlier games. Luckily, we have the icon sets for the original game. I thought I was going to find generic weapon icons where e.g. bardiches and halberds shared an icon (as is the case), so of course there would be no slith spear icon. But it turns out there was, and it has two tines: Even the tiny inventory version has two tines: The slith on the title screen demo has a spear with two tines: Really, this is a small detail that Shirley (I think these were Shirley graphics) went out of her way to highlight and make visible, in very, very low-res graphics. Between this and the dialogue (and other images) Ess provided, I think there can be zero doubt about Slith spears having two tines in Exile. Any partial variance in E3/BoE is a lazy icon set issue, not a change to the game world.

I still think if anything was a source for Sliths, it had to be this: https://gammaworld.fandom.com/wiki/Sleeth - humanoid lizard - very intelligent - negates force fields (admittedly not with fireballs, but still) - resist poison - live in small communities - delight in discussions of philosophy and religion (hi Pathass) OTOH, looking into Edgwyn's module... - Sakatha -> Skatha - Swamp temple - Groups of lizardmen around campfires - Lizardmen mages, though as a whole the race doesn't seem especially smart - King uses a trident (close enough)

Slithzerikai are very different from the Lizardmen of AD&D, Wizardry, and other precursors to Exile. Sliths are smart and have an aptitude for magic, pretty much the opposite of traditional Lizardmen. I also don't know how you can get "elves with fur" from the Nephils. I guess if you want to define the race by being agile and good with bows? But that really just speaks to the similarity in combat system and game space. Appearance and culture are completely difference, behavior is completely different, and we have the opposite of the magical aptitude reversal with Sliths. We do know that Jeff ranted about dwarves and elves being everywhere when Exile came out, and that he deliberately wanted to avoid going down that road.

That clause actually came about due to people creating accounts here just to market other video games, without otherwise participating in the forums. I don't think we've ever had to ban directly over it. Anyway, Spiderweb CDs definitely aren't "other products." Normally, re-selling Spiderweb games here would be a no, for obvious reasons. Given that the CD's contents are no longer being sold and are freely available, I can't imagine anyone would object.

What, exactly, is "Asian-style ancestor worship"? Serious question. Asia's a big place, and ancestor worship isn't specific to it. That said, I'm not sure ancestor worship is a good analogue in the first place. Very few Vahnatai become Crystal Souls, so it seems less like venerating familial spirits (something the Romans did, and were depicted doing, btw, in a Spiderweb game! ) and more like the cults of the saints in Christian Europe, complete with miraculous relics, shrines, pilgrimages, and wars fought over them. As with the other assertions, I see the "exotic" idea, but Japan just feels like a forced connection based on stereotypes that we are bringing, rather than anything in the actual game. Well, the elves aren't new in Lord of the Rings. They had been known to Men for literal Ages; their cultures had had thousands of years to intermingle, not to mention to intermarry. In contrast, the "Vahnatai fascination" examples mostly come from E/A2, the same game where first contact occurs. I'm still confused by all of these comments, which (1) rely on sentiments ascribed broadly (overly broadly, IMO) to "Americans" despite Jeff being a pretty serious cultural outlier, and (2) are apparently based on the 80's, while the game was written in 1995. I'm not sure Jeff's ever talked about Japan, whereas he did talk about watching the X-Files during that time. I just think this is pretty far down the list of likely cultural forebears.

Intentional, definitely not. Unintentional... I don't know, I think that's a hard sell. As you note, "exotic place with superior magic" describes something in almost every fantasy setting, certainly including elves. And it's a bit of a stretchy path from "what some Americans stereotypically imagined Japan to be in the 80's" to "what a statistician-programmer Harvey Muddite (who was a teenager in the 80's) and who was all over Usenet may have thought about Japan in 1995."

Yes, and yes.

Per the other topic, we can now answer this question:

this is true in many languages, but i don't think c++ is one of those. (it's been a while, but google seems to agree with me.)

You didn't make that up either -- it was a commonly repeated trope in RPGs, going back to at least AD&D.

Just to be clear, we don't automatically pin everything, for a lot of reasons, including just space and not overwhelming new visitors. Once you've made the necessary changes the mods can definitely take a look it (and probably would whether or not you asked). Sometimes this kind of stuff gets pinned, sometimes it gets linked directly in the forum header, sometimes neither.

So, just to be clear, this is literally a list of bugs from 20 years ago

Can you link it? What year is this from? Again, CM posted here that he fixed this stuff over a decade ago, but Alcritas posts are likely even older...

I don't think this bug exists as you're remembering it. I think what you're talking about is the fact that a lot of rolls that were intended to be percentile are instead made out of 101 -- as a number between 0 and 100 is rolled. Per Lilith, 9 years ago: Per more googling, it indeed looks like this was treated as an outright bug and CM fixed it over a decade ago. Where are you getting 95% from?

I'm not sure I understand what the actual benefit would be of separating out that content. What's the harm in having it either in General (which isn't exactly overrun with posts these days) or the Avernum forum of your choice? I think putting it in a new subforum would actually give it less exposure than it currently has, either in General or in the Avernum Remakes forum. I'm also not sure there's even remotely enough of that content to justify separating it out.

What is the "100%" you are even talking about?

"any designer who actually wanted a 95% chance would have entered 95%" You can't know this. If the designer knew 100% would process as 95%, they might want 95% but enter 100% out of habit anyway, knowing it would be the same. I can understand wanting to make this change for a new version of the game, but this is exactly the kind of thing that affects legacy balance (if only slightly) and there's no reason to change it.

See Lilith's comments in that thread -- they did affect hit chance in the original game. I doubt CM has changed that, but that's a question for somebody else.

@Nephil Thief I believe you're referring to this thread, which says it works exactly the way I stated. Not to quote myself from 11 years ago or anything... If something else says otherwise, I'm happy to be corrected. I don't think that's the case, though. EDIT: It does look like the encumbrance-reduction check fails to happen for items 17-24, if you somehow manage to have an encumbering item equipped in one of those last 8 slots, which is not usually going to happen.

Bashing the door doesn't work -- you can't open magically locked doors that way. 10 Defense skill guarantees an effective reduction of 1 to the value of each piece of equipment's Encumbrance value (individually). This allows a mage to wear 1 piece of 2-encumbrance armor, and any number of 1-encumbrance pieces, and still cast. IIRC, there are some excellent 0/1-encumbrance shields, and the more encumbering ones never really seemed worth it.

I believe Bless stacks infinitely only for certain sources (i.e., not all spells that apply it have no cap). Also, different effects of the bless status have different limits, due to weird coding.