Rent-an-Ihrno

I did exactly what House of S described in the last paragraph (and only that one), and the guards did not turn hostile. Edit for clarity: I attacked Lagan before the script turned him unfriendly. I was in combat mode before the dialogue appeared.

The struggles between oppressors are insignificant next to the struggle of the people against oppression.

@Superba: You seem to be doing really well then! 2-char parties are not that easy to pull off. Beware that the final stages of the game get increasingly difficult the fewer characters you have. Clever positioning should be able to replace your ability of crowd control. There are 3 main ways into the northwestern quarter of Avernum, any of them is safe for you if you were able to slay Sss-Thss. See map. And choose what kind of mobs you want to be fighting - undead, sliths, or giants And I really, really wouldn't use "inbred" in that context. Though English is not my primary either but my third, I would suggest "innately", or "naturally". Mind that Americans generally tend to avoid compact sentences with adverbs. @FnordCola: Ramen!

Some tips - 1. Don't give a character both melee and pole skill. He will only use one of the two, your points are better invested elsewhere. 2. Explore other areas of Avernum. There are plenty of pointers where to go to be found, especially here on the forum. If you're still a little stuck or confused, tell us exactly how far you've gotten and what you're trying to achieve. 3. Prepare before fights. Use buffs and debuffs, such as war blessing, and try to set 1-2 priorities for each stage of each fight. 3. Turn down the difficulty setting.

I'm not entirely through the game yet, but I guess you'd like feedback as quickly as possible, so - - I'm playing on hard setting, standard party, and no problems so far. I'm an experienced player but certainly not a min/maxing torment guy, and I'm feeling very comfortable with the difficulty. If anything, it could be higher. (I'm aware that there are lots of people saying it's too hard right now, and I think I have just the idea to ease things up - field spells!! Whooo!!)

I like the song. I shall steal it.

Randomizer, you're talking about Torment right? Did you imply skills like Parry? If evasion is that ineffective on Normal or Hard, I'll have to rethink my build alot.

It's out! Yay! And I've already done my first two hours of exploring this third edition of one of my most beloved games ever. This little thread is the place where I will share a few thoughts and sensations that accompany me with the playthrough, as I hope it will serve as a casual feedback to the most respected Spidweb team and because Avernum turns me into a little child who has to squeal his pleasure in everyone's face. First off: I like it! I would still be playing if I hadn't had such an exhausting day (I was actually on my way to bed when I discovered the release). I'm still giving myself some time to adjust to and evaluate the new game sense though. But let's start at the beginning. I was cautiously excited during the download, since things I love tend to disappoint me in the end. Everything went super smooth, the startup screen appeared soon after, and the mood was immediately set - and well-set at that. Dig the graphics, dig the music. But the cursor... it sparked a subroutine in the back of my head about the gaming industry, some of Jeff's blogs etc, essentially pondering the selling-out of identity for success. I hoped, hoped hoped so much, that this Avernum would still be Avernum-y. I was by no means pessimistic, only this cursor bugged me. It shouldn't sparkle and shower weird stuff (ignoring possible Twilight sidejabs here). I wonder why it does that. Anyway, starting the game. Four characters, portraits, classes, alrighty... and of course, Aldous, Mycroft and Cordelia. And that second slot chick. Guess it can't be Sschah. For the first time ever, I'm actually sticking with those names. Nostalgia makes me more classical (less creative?) than I was back when I played the first trilogies, it appears. I look at all the portraits, and am pleased. They are very nice, although most of the small ingame-avatars look expectedly familiar. Twice, I misclick and have to go through all the options again to get back to the portrait I want for my first character, and I wish there was a 'back' arrow like there used to be somewhere. When was that? Never mind, setting everyone on 'custom'. Aha... no point allocation here. Who knows. Excitement building up - ... Wait, what..? A cave? It's dark. And green. Why is it dark? Where am I? What the... No portal? No greeting party, no nothing? No thinking. Go on, there must be an explanation. Going on, going on... nephils. Huh?! Going on. I must have been misteleported, so I have some monsters to kill before I get back to the grand and legendary portal of my childhood! ... but no. Just some generic dude on a skribbane trip, a few generic mobs and a couple generic helpless people to make up the first obligatory dungeon of this game. I don't like it. Not one bit. It feels murky and in no way credible, it's awkward. It did give me the opportunity to peruse the character and combat systems at the very least, and... hm. I'm not sure what to say. I am positive towards it, for sure, but not entirely convinced it will work for me personally as the game goes on. I'm extremely happy that archery was heavily buffed, but melee now seems like less of an option as a specialty. The battle disciplines I can't figure out which ones apply to which. The perks look nice, though the index is crude. I have a hard time connecting to whole levelup window, I'm not exactly sure why everythings is distributed the way it is. Were I not as experienced as I am in RPGs and the like, I feel I would be pretty confused if not overwhelmed by now. Priests seem way more powerful than mages. I'm already thinking of making a party of pure priest/archers. But hey - dispel barrier!! Whoooo!! Focus of my thrive to adventure on for so many hours of gameplay, it's back. Now, as I write this, I think back to the times when you could create barriers yourself and let a slightly melancholic smile creep upon me. Good thing being a nerd is cool now, thanks to hipsters and Starcraft 2. I emerge to Fort Avernum. No, no portal. The anticlimax almost feels like an actual anticlimax. Sigh. I still recognize the layout of the Fort, that must be Tor and Thraine? Thlaine? Thwayynne? down there to the left. I talk to a few guys, walk around a little, loot some stuff, and go talk to Tor. He tells me about the caves, and... there it is. The Avernum-feeling. Ahh. No time to spare now, turn off the cellphone, turn off everything, turn off the parts of my brain that deal with irrelevant outside world nonsense, I'm back in the caves and all shall know my glory! You heard me right Erika! There best be a deli sandwich waiting for me when I come to destroy Hawthorne! (No sexism intended, I just love Erika and I love sandwiches) Surprisingly good loot in this Fort. Over in Silvar, which apparently is 7 miles away now (How would cavequakes change this? Possible scenarios in my head seem very implausible), there is even more. I have 900 coins already and am in the position to buy out both the armorer and weaponrer, and feel very well-equipped. Down I go into the sewers of Silvar, another made-up quest just for this remake. Hey, worms! Much better than rats. Not. But whatever, let's mess some dudes up! A nephil is spawning them, another generic, less-than-perfectly implemented villain I can't take seriously. Thus, my fighter dies. After my WTF-face faded, I kill all in the sewers in one very slightly annoyed sweep and return upstairs, noticing the teleportation pillar thingy room on the way. Makes sense, liking it. To revive Aldous, I have to leave Silvar entirely and then return, which I think shouldn't be the case. He should be revived when I return to the town level. I now want to return to the mayor to claim my reward, but on the way someone hums by the pool. Another smile creeps over my tired but incredibly handsome face, it's the talking statue! I press 'tab', but remember that not as many things are shown this way anymore. I want to press 'talk', but yeah. I start to actually use my eyes and mouse, and see: a sentinel. A giant, reddish, stone sentinel from Avernum 5. That's the talking statue. It looks absolutely nothing like the other statues around it! Nothing at all! It's not even funny! At this point, I go into WTF-mode for real and decide to save and quit. I lean back, take a sip of my diet water and let the impressions sink in. Were my first minutes of Avernum: Escape from the Pit as gloriously perfect as I would have liked them to be? No. Was I disappointed? Certainly not! It feels like Avernum, it feels like Spidweb, it's fun, enticing, pretty and the atmosphere still tingles in my tissue. I will buy it, and tell everyone else to buy it, maybe even do a LP on Youtube or something of the sort, but for now I will get some rest, play more of the demo tomorrow and continually (continuously?) ... and continue to update this thread with the experiences I make with this game. Last words: thank you, Jeff and conspirators, for another addition to humanity's arsenal of amazing games. I wish you nothing but success and adoration for this and all your future products! So long, and thanks for all the mushrooms.

If Erika really did create the Glowing Fungus, she could have programmed it differently for every cave, so that if you were a day-person, you could just hang out in one of those with longer and brighter day-cycles, or if you were planning an extensive weekend of celebration of some sort, you could do it in one of the party caves where the night never stops

Elephants could very well exist on the surface, as we probably haven't seen 100% of the world's fauna in A3/E3. A Mississippi river however, is much less likely since Jeff doesn't use words from our world when describing geography in particular. I realize now that Sanctuary is the name of the mortal realm in the Diablo series. What the heck is the name for the world of Exile? I thought of chitrachs too, but decided that their slime would not make acceptable candle-sticks. ...measurable oil/slime-lamps?... Still, you could only keep track of temporal stuff in your local vicinity, not compare it to that of far away in another cave, let alone on the surface. Unless Erika far-sighted up there once an hour to check on things. Like the sun. She wouldn't burn if she looked at the sun in a vision, would she?

Originally Posted By: Structualise THIS! Maybe they just counted, adding 'elephant' between numbers? I thought it was Mississippi. ...but then, there probably isn't a Mississippi in Sanctuary. Maybe the early Avernites counted 1, Fort Avernum, 2, Fort Avernum... And yes, I guess candles would work. But where does all the wax come from? And how to standardize the measurement all across the caves?

Maybe the animals have some kind of observable bio-rhythm based on something we cannot sense ourselves?

I shmisagree!

There are a few recent games with talent tree systems like that. TotalBiscuit did a review of Path of Exile fex, which does have classes, but the skill leveling within the classes themselves sound very much like what Alorael described. Here's the link to the WTF:

Okay, there's no way for me to try and elegantly lead the conversation back in its original direction, so I'll just completely ignore everything previously said and use the sledgehammer. Putting aside everything financial, economical, organizational, what have you - what CORE GAMEPLAY would you like to see? In any imaginable scenario? Would you like to click on things? Level stuff up? Customize yourself? Is there a self? Complete and utter abstraction? Story or no or what? Or huh? Or whatever? Will there even be conflicting sides, like nations, or... red and blue dots? Must the characters be persons? How bout playing a stone? Or a god? Build or destruct? Could you make something in which music is the central element? Or... vomiting? Hitting yourself in the face for no reason? Will there be bananas? What would the elephant king say to all this? Medieval GTA? How bout fantasy that isn't medieval but classical age? Or a Terminator scenario in which you are SkyNet? How bout your standard RPG type guy(s) wakes up as someone else every day? Could you play a dream demon who has to scare children to wet their pants? What in the fricken. world. could you. imagine.?

Anyone fancy Black and White gesture mechanics?

Exile: Total War?

What you describe, Alorael, sounds very appealing to me. It reminds heavily of Magicka, but I don't think that's the only way to do it. Avernum, after all, is such an adventurous place partly because magic is still wild and free (or again). It would be very fitting to have to actually experiment, carefully specialize or blow yourself up. I also very much like the idea that elements are actually important, not only to singular resistances and graphics, but to the logic of the whole thing you're doing. Cooldowns and mana are rather crude.

Maybe I should myself a little clearer: I know how risky these things are, and I'm not trying to TROLOLOLOL anyone into abandoning ship. I simply asked to tap everyone's head for some interesting ideas, to think outside the box. Just for the lulz, if you will. How is "[...]has never been (the) strategy" a reason against that? I implied this in my introductory statement.

As the topic I want to open for discussion here is very broad and mushy, I will keep my intro short and crispy. At the core of things - what would you like to see as the central gameplay in possible, imaginary, whatever Spidweb games? I have supported Spidweb since I was a kid, and have given both gaming in general and Jeff's and his associates' situation specifically considerable thought. One thing that we can read about continually in their struggle for success is the balancing act of finding a market niche to satisfying mainstream needs; which, I think, is reflected in the transition of paradigms in the published games of recent and somewhat less recent. Of course, this is all incredibly hard to maneuver - after all, one bad concept could ruin Spidweb's existence. But from the warm (maybe slightly less warm now that my heating is broken) coziness of my chair, I see all this as an opportunity. I believe that gaming, esports, virtual roleplaying, call it what you wish, is still in its infancy. And talented, independent people have always brought innovation. Just look a Magicka. Ever listened to its creators' interviews? Just a bunch of guys having fun, thinking - why mana? Why skill points? Screw everything. We have this core idea, and we will build from there whatever comes out. It's gonna be awesome if we trust our own creativity. And boom. For a few moments, forget everything you know and expect of regular games. Give way to your imagination, what could be the new children in the Spidweb family? What completely new, core mechanics, what idea could be the center of a unique, sparkly invention to be, how would it be constructed, how would it unfold? Bear in mind the things that distinguish Spidweb's games - ingenious story and atmosphere, addictiveness, and humor.

En todos los juegos de Spidweb, debe discutir con cada uno todo el tiempo. Bienvenido. Por favor, deje su sanidad en la puerta.

I'm sorry I can't give you any exact details on any of your questions. What I can say with certainty though, is that the traits change from game to game, sometimes a little, sometimes alot. Divinely Touched is really good in A3 if I recall correctly, giving you all sorts of bonusses every couple of levels, comparable to how Slithness works.

Can you name a language that uses keyboards that don't have I and O next to each other? And please, if there is any tongue in the world that makes mixing up the phonetics of I and O possible, it's English. Ask Bernard Shaw, he knows it. Welcome, Belgen! Please leave your sanity at the door. Or your raison, or your förnuft, Vernunft, powód, razón, ratio, lógos...

You could always give a fistfighter fistweapons. A few games have them, like WoW, or even D2 if you count Katars. If I were an amateur modder (which I'm not because I'm even less than that), I would simply add items for the monk to use as weapons in his weapon slots but were called after things that would give a martial artists more power in a more... abstract, steel-less way. Could be quite fun in an actual game. "Oh look, I found some Qi Gong Fire Meditation lvl 3 in this chest! Let's equip it!"

There won't be any monk builds, and there's a reason. It doesn't belong in Avernum. What would be the lore behind that? If Jeff decided to put some ridiculous explanation for why there's a monastery fighting academy with generations old martial arts masters in the caves of Exile at the time, fine. After all, the monks we're all talking about - the Shaolin - do not only use their own body parts. They use all the variety of far eastern metal weapons of war. Including swords, spears and flails. So yes, it could be implemented and balanced (the absence of need for loot being more of an issue than the power of the traits themselves imo), but it wouldn't be right. Also, yes, those feats are possible. Let's not get into it any further in this thread. I would like to see a little more differentiation in melee itself (fast lightweight vs heavy hitter kinda thing) and similar fields where it's become more about cooldowns and graphics than lore or effect. How about making poison more effective vs humanoids but acid more against uh... slimes? Or sumthin. Too tired to formulate a prettier response. Oh rent, why do you curse me so, why the 17 hour shifts at Oktoberfest... why