Kelandon

w00t 9Var. In other news, also check out the (somewhat dated) Designer FAQ and the Links on my page.

We know there'd be Motrax, and there might be some weirdness left over from whatever was in the strange cave in A1 that had pre-First Expedition stuff. According to Bahs/Ex continuity, there'd be some interesting things going on with the sliths (although most of the best stuff would've already happened). I often thought of making a First Expedition scenario, too, but it seems as though it'd be pretty dark. The expedition goes wronger and wronger as time goes on. Demonslayer broken, the expedition divided and dying... bad news all around.

I don't think that the later Avernum engine is more user-friendly, at least not for designing purposes. The scripts are still about the same, and the seamless world probably would be harder to design in, not easier. Part of me does wish that the balance in the default spells and skills in BoA could be fixed. As has been said before, BoE benefited from being the best spell-and-skill system that Jeff had ever designed, and BoA has suffered from being the worst. BoE scenarios were fun just because it was fun to play BoE, and BoA scenarios have to rewrite the engine to accomplish the same thing. But more of me would rather just see Jeff make more of the games that he's really good at, and he's really good at making the GF4/A5-style games, not the Blades games.

See, the "too busy" line makes some sense, except that it's a SWITCH. How much freakin' time does it take to throw a switch?

Originally Posted By: rantalot This is part of the reason I want some one to work on making a scenario about it. I really feel some loose ends of the story line need to be tied up. Why didn’t anyone just flip the damn switch and dispose of the poisons? Why would some leave a huge live dragon in the cell instead of just killing it? Why was the school closed to begin with? I mean it is the biggest magic school in any of the avernums I played seems strange to just close it up. Uh, yes, the aforementioned plot holes.

As has been pointed out, it would be very easy to set up a "custom alchemy" ability just like a custom spells ability. It would be most effective in a largish scenario, where it could become a significant part of long-term game mechanics.

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel Could you perhaps not abbreviate quite so much? If you're going to talk about BoA, you're going to have to get used to the abbreviations. Originally Posted By: Slarty DWTD was released with BoA, though, wasn't it? That was new, though admittedly I didn't like it very much, either. Yeah, I'm starting to think that this might've been a previously unappreciated reason why BoA didn't work out very well. DWtD was short and not stellar, and the other scenarios were not significantly different from their BoE versions. Of course, the biggest problem was that the scripting system was considerably harder to learn than BoE's noding.

I don't think that VoDT is really panned all that much by the community. It's a solid scenario. The secrets, once revealed, are a little weak, and there are some plot holes — if there was a cleaning mechanism all set up, why didn't anyone use it? — but it's fun. VoDT gets some grief every now and then for being the only scenario that unregistered users can play, which may or may not have been a particularly good marketing decision (I find myself skeptical of it), but only tangentially because of its quality. I think that VoDT made the transition to BoA well. ASR didn't.

My (somewhat dated) advice is at the Designer FAQ . Various resources are available through my (also somewhat dated) links list . TM wrote a scenario that's designed to show how scenarios can be made, which is worth a look.

There are script errors, and then there are bugs in your code. Script errors involve formatting problems and the like (and that's what BoA and Alint check for). Bugs in your code involve you telling the computer to do something that's not what you want it to do. Post the problematic script and I can tell you the problem.

I would've imagined it would be possible in much the same way as the Ability Rune in the HLPM in BoA accomplishes this (have some script calls that add traits). I gather that's not what you did.

This one I know less about, but you may find this thread , particularly under "Party Creation," useful.

In A1, nephils and sliths are still mostly enemies, so they're not available as PCs. Fast on Feet does allow you to attack more than once in a round sometimes, but it does not allow you to cast more than once in a round. Attacking is 4 movement points, and casting is 5; you default with 4 and Fast on Feet gives you 1 extra. I've usually done two multi-classed mage/priests, but that's just because the top mage and priest spells are really, really powerful and having two casters of each seems better than one. I originally just used one of each and it was fine. You'll have no trouble gaining lots of levels no matter what your XP penalty is, as long as you do lots of sidequests and check out every area very thoroughly.

At least one person claimed to have resisted dumbfounding once or twice (and then to have been promptly dumbfounded right afterwards). Someone other than Rent-An-Ihrno, that is. But yeah, the simplest solution for Mung Demons is to blow all of your spell points right before the battle with buffs and then go nuts with melee fighters. If you've equipped your spellcasters with arrows, now's the time to use them.

It blows my mind that you would save after doing this. Take good care of your save files!

Huh. I've always looked at it the other way around: GF-style graphics look as though they're trying to be legitimately 3D and modern, but they can't really pull it off, so they make less sense than the NG/AT or Exile graphics.

Quote: Originally written by Clavicle: Yeah, at least in A5 (don't remember if I tried it in A4): the keyboard system is pretty messed up and confusing. I mean, why do you have to press 7, for example, to move to the left, rather than 4? Pressing 7 moves you to the left. It's just that "left" is not "west, because north is in the upper-right corner, not the top of the screen. This is not a big deal. The big deal is not remaining centered on the moving characters. This isn't the main issue at hand, here, but I dispute the notion of "uncontrovertible success" when applied to the movement system.

Quote: Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar: Who is the true Queen of Badass? You're right: clearly you are.

Quote: Originally written by Disappearer: The movement in A4/5, for example, pleases the mouse people, while the keyboard people have (mostly) all the options they did in older games. No. Moving with the keyboard in A4/5 is considerably more awkward than it was in A1-3.

Wow. Some opinions that have been expressed in this thread are not ones that I thought that anyone could ever have. Liking A4 and G3 more than most of the other Avernums and Geneforges? I mean, A4 was a good game, sure, but I didn't think that there was anyone out there who would like it more than the others. Also, someone who cares about walking animations? Whew. Just goes to show that tastes are completely subjective, I guess. For the record, the reason that I prefer the look-and-feel of the Nethergate/Avernum Trilogy engine is that Geneforge and the later Avernums look like they're trying to have more detailed graphics but are still cartoonish (i.e. they're trying to be better and are failing). The NG/AT graphics (and for that matter, the original Exile graphics) don't look like they're trying and failing; they look like they're supposed to be that way.

I much, much prefer being able to keep the screen centered on the characters as you move with the keyboard. As far as I could tell, this dropped out after A3, and I've been forced to use the mouse for movement ever since (which I hate). The Nethergate/Avernum Trilogy look-and-feel is by far my favorite of the three Spidweb look-and-feels (Exile, Nethergate/Avernum Trilogy, and Geneforge/Avernums 4 and 5), but I think that the engine overall took a nosedive at A3. Game mechanics in A3 (and default mechanics in BoA) are much worse than in NG or A1 and A2. (But then, the best game mechanics in all of Spidweb might have been E3 or BoE. Haven't gotten to A5 yet, so I don't know how it compares.)

Use the Flight spell to cross the river. Are you not sure how to do that?

I think part of the reason for the lackluster response is that most of those people who would actually be interested in having this information already know how to script from BoA, so you haven't really told us anything that we don't already know. That said, posting mods and cheats has a long and good history on these boards, so lighten up, guys. The fact that this particular cheat is not terribly exciting is not a good reason to post about your general distaste for cheating. If you don't like it, don't do it, and shut up. EDIT: Yeah, what Stareye said.

We know that the vahnatai do some magic that involves making new species. A3 mentions it, for sure, in the context of Rentar and the monster plagues (these were monsters that Rentar created). So the vahnatai do shape, in that sense, and they shaped even before GF ever existed. But I think it's much more reasonable to say, based on appearances, that the Shapers are habnabits than that they are vahnatai.

Jeff has said, whenever this comes up, that the vahnatai are supposed to be alien and different and weird, and making them playable would ruin this. It's a frequent request, but he has said that he's not going to do it.