Quiconque

Interesting note in the manual there. I have no idea if that was truly implemented or not, but if it was, probably all it would do is prioritize the literal trash items (trash, rocks, sticks, etc) for deletion first -- it might not even flag "household" items (pen and ink, etc.) for that, and I'd be surprised if it sorted actual equipment on the basis of cost (or whatever). Definitely know what you mean about all the piles of stuff in the ziggurat. However, the ziggurat also has very little in the way of NATIVE items lying around, whereas the ToM has TONS of them. So unless you actually counted multiple hundreds of pieces of equipment dropped in the ziggurat, that may fit just fine with this rule. One other thought -- if you already had loot piles in the ToM, and then dropped knowledge pots there, and then the disappearances happened, starting with the knowledge pots, is it possible the items simply got eaten as you dropped them, because there was no "room" in the zone?

I could be wrong, but wouldn't the item limit also include the mundane items that are native to the zone? It wouldn't shock me if there are, say, 92 of those in the ToM, so that it cut off items you left beyond 255 items...

I think this is well put.

Yeah, ADoS is right. "Grinding" has a much more specific meaning in RPGs than simply something being a grind. The purpose for doing it is a necessary criteria. I guess I'm also a little confused by the premise here: "many, many hours going back and forth between towns and dungeons to sell loot" In both of the games at issue (A2 and A4), enemies either don't respawn or respawn at incredibly slow rates, and it's very rare to have a dungeon located so far from a town that it takes more than, I don't know, 15 to 30 seconds of real life time to walk between the dungeon and the town, if there are no combats. OK, OK, maybe a minute if you don't pound the numpad as much as I do But it really confuses me how this travel time could amount to "many, many hours." There aren't many dungeons in those games that are all that large, even. (I guess if you constantly rest outdoors in A2, that could lead to more wandering monster fights, but it's not necessarily to do that.) Anyway, to tackle the original assertion -- and I'll just treat it as addressing gameplay that is a grind generally -- 1 - G3 and A4 were definitely the height of this in SW games. They both had an encumbrance system that was applied to the PC's backpack; A4 did have a lot of 1gp value trinkets, and in G3 item management was made worse by those awful boats. 2 - A1-3 had fewer random items to sell, and Exile fewer yet. So I have a hard time locating this problem with "older" Spiderweb games. (Or, as I said above, with older games in general.) 3 - If we focus specifically on this "having to walk back and forth repeatedly" issue, Avadon really had more of this than anything else, with its profusion of tiny sidequests that required backtracking -- often watching your PCs walk slowly through multiple zones to get to the right portals, etc., that were required. At that point we're clearly in modern SW game territory.

A4 is definitely not one of "the old Spiderweb games." And while those things are, no doubt about it, a slog -- even a grind -- they aren't grinding. That has a more specific meaning.

This is where you lose me. What games exactly are you thinking of? Most Spiderweb games have such a sharp reduction in experience gain as your level rises that there's not even much point to grinding -- and this actually includes Exile! It certainly wasn't encouraged or incentivized. The only real exception I can think of is original Nethergate (not Nethergate: Resurrection), and even then it's not something that was necessary or encouraged. If you just mean "hacking and slashing through the cannon fodder monsters that populate a given dungeon, the first time you explore it" that's... just not what grinding is. EDIT: I'd also add that I don't think you can tie grinding to old school RPGs so easily. No question that it was expected in some, especially the JRPGs, but nowhere near the degree to which MMOs and sandbox games and related RPGs have built around it.

In Exile and Avernum that is the only conversation node that references it. Exile: There is a portly man with short gray hair sitting behind the counter. When you enter, he is writing haphazard notes on a sheet of vellum. "I'm Bernie. Welcome to my shop. Would you like to hear The Chart?" "I have all manner of potions and the like, which you may purchase. You can also sell me your excess magic. And, if you would like, you can hear The Chart. It's about the meaning of life." He pulls out a sheet of paper, and start talking and writing. He describes and draws his life above, how he was thrown into Exile, and what he has learned since he arrived, throwing in on the side many opinions on life in general. It is very interesting. It also makes practically no sense whatsoever. Avernum has some trivial rewordings and adds/replaces: "Ahh, just doing some inventory. I have all manner of potions and the like, which you may purchase. I can identify unusual items, if needed. And, if you would like, you can hear The Chart. It's about the meaning of life." Bernie takes all natural ingredients and, with love and care, turns them into powerful and useful magical brews, useful during long, violent dungeon expeditions. Bernie looks over your unidentified items. "Ah, yes. I can help. I will explain what each unusual item is for a mere 10 coins." I guess A:EFTP could have added something, but that would be unusual.

This is a really interesting discussion. Trauma and mental health are important and personal topics for a lot of people here. Thinking about some past threads where they have come up, the discussions can be really valuable, and they can also sometimes lead to hurt feelings. So just a pre-emptive little mod hat reminder here -- please respect everyone else and their experiences 😊 Also, remember that google likes these forums -- anything posted here is very, very public 🙃 On the topic itself... I'm not sure the game really says that about Bernie. I can see how one might interpret it that way, but all the game says is: "He pulls out a sheet of paper, and start talking and writing. He describes and draws his life above, how he was thrown into Exile, and what he has learned since he arrived, throwing in on the side many opinions on life in general. It is very interesting. It also makes practically no sense whatsoever." Personally, I don't see any reference to mental health here -- just someone who is clearly full of ideas and communicates them in a bit of a jumble, and perhaps goes in for cabalistic theories of some sort. Given the origin of other character names in E1, I'd put money that Bernie was based on a specific person Jeff knew, either IRL or on talk.bizarre, who was like that, and was also invested in some kind of grand Chart of everything.

Sure, but that thread (that Kel linked) was a poll comparing only the Avernum games, not Exile -- Alorael is clearly talking about A2 being the favourite over A3. It's not really a place you'd expect Exile vs Avernum comparisons -- though it eventually makes it into the thread and Alorael eventually distinguishes between the two games himself! The feelings about A2 vs A3 were clear in the big 2012 poll: You can see forumgoers (as a group) having a more positive reaction to E3 than A3 there as well -- and the difference between the two is more pronounced than that of E2/A2 or E1/A1.

My memory of the earliest days is much vaguer -- I only lurked a little then -- but there was a lot of discussion along those lines in the criticism-heavy G3/A4 era. That distinction was an old chestnut of Drakey's, e.g., and I remember other people bringing it up even later in discussions about the Blades CSR, etc. Back then, before the Second Avernum Trilogy really took off, there seemed to be a much bigger difference in opinion between those who preferred Exile and those who preferred Avernum than we have today. I would definitely believe that this view was mostly a thing amongst Exile fanciers, and therefore was not spread equally around all the forums.

My own memory is overwhelmingly of Exile 3 getting heaps of praise from forum members -- which makes sense given how BoE-centric the forum crowd was in the earlier days -- despite the vocalized dislike of its plot. Avernum 3 got dumped on a lot more.

You're mistaken. Nethergate came the year after BoE.

If you're talking about the original Avernum 2 and Avernum 3 (that's the forum you're posting in) this is the opposite of what is usually said! Avernum 3 felt very muted and constrained to many people, compared to Exile 3. Exile 3 was probably the brightest and most colorful Spiderweb game there's been, so the difference was easy to feel if you played both. If you're talking about the recent remakes (A2:CS and A3:RW), different story.

I thought I remembered that, but couldn't find it anywhere on the web! Good catch.

I think this has come up in other threads in the intervening 13 years (!), but that's a pretty great track, isn't it? Great soundtrack altogether, Picq is really something.

The whole trope that "everything you do must be formulated as a quest, which is explicitly stated by a single person, who you can also report your success to, usually for a reward" wasn't even remotely universal in 1994. Very little of what you can do in the game follows that formula. Luck: one point can be worth adding early. The first point gives you a 40% chance to lower damage sustained by 1, and a 30% chance to not die when you otherwise should. After that the increase is not as steep.

If you've just started Exile II, you won't be able to reach Fort Duvno for quite some time. Townsend in Formello can identify your items.

There is a bug you're forgetting, but only for Bless: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/topic/13484-code-dissection-munchkin-style/?tab=comments#comment-165138

There's a lot of interspecies slavery casually referred to over the course of the First Trilogy: - Sliths enslaving humans (noted above) - Nepharim enslaving Nephilim - Ogres enslaving Nephils - Nephils enslaving Goblins - Ursagi enslaving Goblins - Human bandits "enslaving" slimes (under Jordan Bojar in X3) The Morrow's Isle example is probably the thing that most closely resembles modern slavery -- i.e., a lifestyle of brutal servitude enforced by an economic system. As the bandit/slime example suggests, I don't think Jeff intended to be very narrow in using this term. This may explain someone in X3 saying Sulfras and Khoth were "enslaved" by the Empire in X2, while X2 clearly depicts Sulfras as a prisoner, not a slave, and Khoth as being forced into collaborating with them -- still not quite the same thing. (Athron, of course, they never touched.) It's also a stretch to say that Motrax was enslaved by Avernum. Whether Motrax or Avernum initiated the "have the mages protect him" scheme, Motrax clearly describes it as an exchange -- they protect him, he provides information. There's no forced labor and his wounds restricted his movements, not Avernum. He didn't enjoy it, but that still leaves it a far cry from slavery.

That's mostly not possible, unfortunately. The majority of the strengths and weaknesses of the classes -- including skill point costs, and HP/SP/essence formulas -- are all hardcoded. There are a few things you can change, like inherent resistances -- but changing those will also change the resistances of all NPCs and enemies of that type. That cannot be avoided. The closest you could come would be to create a dialogue script that gives out bonus skills (or takes them away) depending on what class you put in. But that would be a wonky approximation and probably wouldn't "feel" like you're playing an "average" class, with comparable skill point costs and such.

ADoS, please try and cut down on the double posting. It's not a huge deal, but you've been doing it a lot lately. Yes, if the sibling posts have substantially different things to say, we get it. But when it's been a couple hours and one of your posts is three words long, please use the edit button. The boards are not a chat room and it really shouldn't be coming up this frequently. Thanks.

There are no instructions. The game was not actually designed with modding in mind. Luckily, some of the labels in the file are clear from the outset and others can be sussed out with some trial and error. - Removing animations should mostly be simple, but there are some abilities and effects where there could be complications. - Re-balancing spells and abilities numerically without changing anything else about them is one of the easier things you can do. I no longer have easy access to all the notes I made developing that... a decade ago?... but if you have specific questions, feel free to PM me. A ground-up tutorial is beyond the scope of what I can offer right now, timewise.

The talking system is the same in all three games. (I also think the window is identical in the Mac versions of E1 and E2, fwiw.) Appearance is a different question.

Well put, Ess. You and I clash over argument styles and definitely did here. In this case we each brought some different assumptions to the discussion, on a number of levels. "Argument styles" doesn't describe every sort of disagreement, of course. Honestly, ADoS, I can't think of any time we've really done that, or have had that kind of personal clash, really. We've had some arguments, but my involvement in those has usually been with my mod hat on, not as somebody else participating in a debate. Speaking of mod hats, I'm going to lock this thread. As Ess noted, the debate became far more about argument styles than actually about Geneforge, and it's now veered off into interpersonal interactions. The Geneforge forum probably isn't the right place for this. If anyone wants to continue the original topic, feel free to start a new thread. (If anyone wants to continue the topic from the last few posts, I suggest moving to PMs.)

You've been arguing against View B literally in response to me. While quoting me. While responding to specific things I said. Arguing in one breath against View B and (apparently, based on what you've written here) against my rebuttal of View A. This is really emblematic of what's been going on here. We keep repeating new iterations of the same arguments and there does not appear to be any greater understanding developing. I respectfully dissent and depart the debate.