Alorael at Large

Keep in mind that powerful and cool are not synonymous. Items with amusing drawbacks are often even better than a bigger cleaver, because they aren't unbalanced and they are noticeable. —Alorael, who also likes items that are good for specific purposes. For example, a knife that regularly drains your spell points and that is based on intelligence for damage would be annoying, but put it in a town where your spell points regenerate and having too many kills you and it becomes an advantage.

Search the prison area for a few weapons to use until you recover your equipment. You'll eventually find a passage that leads out. It's a fairly straightforward search for the chests that have all your stuff and an exit. —Alorael, who does advise spending some time exploring those caverns. They're fun once you aren't trying to kill spiders and rats with your bear hands.

Spiderweb games are already sold for much less than most computer games. There's no way to get a further discount on the prices no matter how much you beg. The one exception would be the intermittent sadness sales. There's no telling when one may begin, but then you'll have a month to buy Nethergate or any other games at even better prices. —Alorael, who is paid $0.001 per post for these sale advertisements.

BoA does make town design a real investment of time, but I still prefer towns that feel like towns to towns that feel like they were put in by a scenario designer for a purpose. Whether it's the hub of all the plot or just a waystation with a few shops, people should have things to say or reasons not to say them. A town doesn't need to be central to the scenario, but it should feel alive. —Alorael, who does agree that in certain cases towns can be distracting. That's almost always in very short scenarios, when any distraction at all will leave a major impression in the mind of the player and create a feeling of aimlessness.

Gender is entirely a cosmetic decision, and it can be changed on a whim. There's no way to check for it at all. You can check for race, and if you want to you can put scripts that block the player from progressing if they have (or don't have) characters of a certain race in their party. —Alorael, who would say the scripts are much easier to use if you are familiar with C/C++. That said, they're not terribly difficult, although the complicated scripting tricks may take longer.

But players are people, and they do have feelings. Their feelings towards your scenario will likely be improved if you upgrade your Ugly Bob to a Decent Bob, or if you're willing to work at it, an Extraordinary Bob. —Alorael, who agrees that hiding the Bob under a better facade is a great step. One Anaximander is quite enough, thank you very much.

The difference is that plot can carry a scenario. There isn't really any cap, either. Design the plot well enough and you can make it as intricate as you'd like. It's a question of implementation, not feasibility. Loot, on the other hand, has a hard cap. Enough is enough. Too much and you suck the fun out of it. The same with straight combat. The same with almost anything. The key is that plot is, or should be, unique. It doesn't get old or it's a bad plot, which is no better than no plot at all. You can only give a party so many swords and have them face down so many horrible monsters, but you can always through another fork in the plot road or hit them with yet another curveball surprise. —Alorael, who also has no credentials to back up this statement. He would like to add that open-ended and multiple path scenarios really shouldn't be lumped together as non-linear. Branching scenarios still have lines, they just have a few places where lines diverge. Open-ended scenarios have no neat diagram. The former can be made into essentially several similar linear scenarios in one, while the latter is an open-ended romp through one scenario.

Limits should be the number one priority for first time scenario designers. I embark on the creation of huge epics, and I never get anything done. Start small and finish scenarios. It can become a habit. —Alorael, who has certainly noticed that finishing scenarios has become a habit for TM.

I think the arguments here are missing something. Nobody sets out to create a boring scenario. Everyone wants it to be fun so that others will enjoy the story they have to tell, whether it's combat-intensive or combat-free. The differences come from what constitutes fun. There is something exciting about finding new phat lewt. If there weren't, games like Diablo would not rake in money. At the same time, BoE/A doesn't lend itself to long, mindless combat sequences. The medium is great for telling a story, though, and consequently the best BoE scenarios are story-driven. Some use combat well, especially complicated combat with special spells, added handicaps and oddities, and the like. Some use combat where it is appropriate to the story. But the story is the point. It doesn't necessarily need to be an elaborate plot. Look at books and movies. The best book plots are often not action-packed thrillers. Movies thrive much better with that genre. The media are different, and they work best with different material. BoA is no exception; it's not so much the story you tell, but how your plot meshes with the engine. A great scenario should have combat, but it should have well-planned combat that adds instead of just existing. Phat lewt is good, but only when phat lewt is called for. So maybe that's what you should add to Drakey's "Why?" Why would a player want to do this? How is this fun? Does the plot hinder or help the scenario at this point? How about the combat? The treasure? Designers want to design scenarios that they envision, but they should keep in mind the medium through which they are expressing their ideas and the audience they're aiming for. There's nothing sadder than a scenario with no audience. —Alorael, who has just rambled somewhat incoherently. Apologies for that. To all who are too lazy to read the above, the gist of it is "Combat is good. Plot is good. Understanding BoA so you can blend both seamlessly and entertainingly is best."

I like Nethergate's ending a lot. For one thing, it fits the story well. For another, it fits the other side of the story well. —Alorael, who has given enough spoiler for today. He was very happy when he saw the Roman side of the ending, though. Well, not happy, precisely, but satisfied and semi-pleasantly surprised.

It's the principle of the thing. If I want to have everyone know quite clearly that the Great Sling of Boulder Hurling is purple, slimy to the touch, and constantly making embarrassing gurgling sounds, I should have the ability to inflict that upon players! —Alorael, who also misses descriptions. Not terribly, but it's good to have a little sarcasm in items. And if the food is Avernite, players need to be warned that it's only borderline edible.

I believe you need to save the party outside the town, then load and enter the town. —Alorael, who bases this on experience with BoE. If he's wrong, well, it's not the first time.

10x10 is larger than any of the Avernum games. Immensely larger. Trust us, you cannot possibly use all that space, and trying to will only create vast, empty wildernesses that will drive players crazy for no reason. —Alorael, who doesn't really see anything wrong with working with 100 outdoors sections. You'll just find that you can't possibly fill them, and eventually you won't even want to try, so the result will be an unnecessarily bloated scenario file.

There are a few places where you can get some items from having a guardian spirit, but there's no enormous secret and powerful item to be gotten. You can live just fine without the spirits. —Alorael, who had more fun hacking and riddling his way through the Vale than making deals with Samael.

Luck has no effect on wandering encounters. Nature lore (or whatever it's called) does, but only in giving you the option of avoiding some battles. You can always fight if you want to. —Alorael, who can't think of any skills that have penalties for becoming more proficient. Well, except the berserker skill, but that is clearly states in the skill's description.

It's possible that they're similar humanoids. Nothing says that the frescoes are completely realistic, so it would be easy enough to overlook minor differences as part of the style. —Alorael, who also sees no reason that a few people could not have discovered Avernum earlier than the Empire at large and used it as a place of refuge. Unlikely, but before Avernum the Empire was big on capital punishment. If a group voluntarily banished themselves to the caves, set up a life there, and ultimately died out, they could have left intriguing ruins.

Draining attacks cause you to lose some experience. It's not much, but too many draining hits can add up and make it more difficult to hear the precious clink of a new skill point. —Alorael, who doesn't recall any skill letting you get herbs at random while wandering. There are spots where herbs grow scattered throughout the outdoors, and herbs regrow every so often. To pick them, you need to have a certain amount of some secondary skill that is based on both Herbcraft and Woodscraft.

The sliths you meet in Avernum are the barbaric, demon-worshipping undesirables who were banished from their homeland much like the Avernites were banished from the surface, only for better cause. The majority of the sliths are probably less warlike. —Alorael, who is fairly sure that the two races have had no contact for a very long time. The vahnatai know of the sliths, but their territories are distant.

The maze changes, I believe. You'll have to explore all areas still open to you to find a new way out. If you really can't, use the character editor to remove your party from the town. —Alorael, who can't remember how he got through the maze himself. Maybe it's time for him to play through Nethergate again.

I don't think there are any big ones, unless you count Sylak's Talking Skull. —Alorael, who did enjoy a few of the amusing encounters with gratuitous mythology and other random insertions.

I had a much, much easier time with the Celts. I think I overuse magic. The Celts don't need to carry around all the items like lockpicks and torches because they can use magic. A few energy potions can easily get you through most areas, and if you run out you can leave and rest. A few points of sling skill can make druids useful even without spells, too. —Alorael, who also had supply problems as Romans. He ran out of lamps and candles, javelins, and healing potions. He wasted skill points on magic and ended up with puny semi-druids. Ugh.

You could have Aztecs against any number of smaller groups that they took great joy in wiping off the face of the Earth. They were actually a lot like the Romans in some ways, although the Romans called their human sacrifices entertainment instead of worship. —Alorael, who thinks the point is moot anyway. There will be no Nethergate 2, or NetherTenochtitlan, or anything else of the sort.

Not that I've ever heard of. —Alorael, who doesn't think it would fit in too well with the Roman side of the plot.

Look in a mirror at an angle so you see someone else. —Alorael, who apologizes for the total death of any thread pertinence.

Earlier today I had problems with speed whenever I tried to post. When I wasn't posting, everything was fine. —Alorael, who thinks Spiderweb is having more problems. What's the chance General will be the victim this time?