Alorael at Large

As far as I know, all the intro music for Spiderweb's games is made for those games by hired artists, probably freelance. —Alorael, who hasn't seen any reference by Jeff to any potential sequel to Nethergate. It's a shame. Despite its small size, Nethergate is an interesting concept and well-made game.

If you were registered on the Ikonboard, your account didn't transfer to the UBB. If you were registered here and you can't use the automatic password mailing, you're pretty much stuck with this new account. —Alorael, who doesn't know if it's possible for an admin to change passwords or not. It's probably against Spiderweb's policies to do so, though, because it's too easy to steal identities online.

Selkiehome can be reached by taking the bridge south of the Ruined Hall west across the river, following the road south and then west around the forest with the Spire of Ages, then turning south and going down the river before crossing on the bridge. You'll find a cave in the side of a hill by a lake. Go in, wander around until you reach the chief, and kill him. He'll drop the pelt when he dies. —Alorael, who almost decided not to answer immediately just because he was told to. Adding unnecessary and emphatic demands like that really isn't necessary.

I have no problems downloading. I think your computer hates you. —Alorael, whose computer hates him as well. It's okay. Every computer goes through the phase sooner or later, and almost half of them get back out of it!

The chances of the hacker being caught are extremely slim, but if the hacker were caught there would be harsher consequences than just board-related. Illegality is more than just a guideline. —Alorael, who did find the conversations in his inbox fascinating. It's amazing how many times one person will send the same unsubscription email without bothering to read the notices explaining the problem.

Nethergate and the Avernums do have some problems with things behind walls. That's the only one that I've ever seen that had any significance at all, though. Mostly it just results in odd messages and opportunities to pick locks or disarm traps that you haven't actually reached. —Alorael, who thinks the games are somehow programmed under certain circumstances to check for nodes first, then see if a wall blocks passage. It doesn't work in all cases, but it does in a few.

After programming the games, Jeff's costs are rather low. When you register, unless you order the CD and pay extra for it, he spends only the short time it takes to process your order, not any money. So mass production doesn't really help him. —Alorael, who also believes the Exile games started out more expensive than they are now, so they have depreciated. The Avernum games were just made at the same lowered price. And all the games are currently on sale, so if you're going to buy, do it soon.

If the graphics bother you, try the Avernum games. They do have the same plots, with a few added quests and towns, but the viewpoint has become isometric. Still, if you're looking for brilliant graphics, Spiderweb is probably not for you. —Alorael, who would like to point out that one can buy a more mainstream computer game for about $50. For half the price you get a game that really is just as large in area and playing time, but less graphics- and sound-intensive (so yes, the download is smaller).

It's somewhere in the north, among the many hills with caves in them. I think it's the northwesternmost cave, but I could be mistaken. It has a sign in front. —Alorael, who doesn't think the Nether circle spells are as wonderful as they should be. He rarely uses any of them.

Nobody else knows what that thing is good for, either. Someone emailed Jeff and he said he forgot. Unless you feel like walking over every space in Nethergate on the off chance that you can do something, don't worry about it. —Alorael, who has a suspicious feeling that the "puzzle" in the Puzzle Box is that it has no use. Once again, Jeff is getting many laughs at the expense of his poor gamers.

The trait is fairly neutral in effect, but it increases the experience you gain. I stick it on all my characters and use some of the extra skill points for a bit more defense and hardiness. The skill is also more or less neutral, but instead of increasing the skill points you get it takes skill points. I steer clear of it for the most part, although a few points at the lowest skill point cost are an effective way to raise your damage at the very beginning of the game. —Alorael, who would boost the skill more if there were a time in Nethergate when his characters were virtually impossible to hit. Unlike his Avernum parties, his Nethergate parties are always threatened by certain tough monsters even at the end of the game.

I don't know, but I have exactly the same problem when trying to run SubTerra with Windows 95 on a Virtual PC-running Mac. I don't think this is really helpful, unless you are using VPC as well, in which case I can say with some certainty that you might as well give up. —Alorael, who would like to know if there is a solution to this problem. Maybe he gave up too soon himself.

The Grinch is indisputably the work of Vince Fizz. The discussion is whether or not this Vince is the author. He is something of a celebrity to the Blades community, after all. —Alorael, who is willing to give Vince the benefit of the doubt. After all, he's not particularly obviously someone else, and he's certainly brightening the boards by gracing them with his presence.

My only real complaints with Nethergate are that there are too few types of equipment and that the game is too short. Yes, you can play both Celts and Romans, but a longer game is always nice. And it would be nice if there was some more variation among weapons, especially since only swords and spears are worth using unless you get very strange loot. —Alorael, who also thinks the circles could use a bit of work. War and healing circles are fine, and craft has all you could want, but beast circle is sadly lacking and spirit circle seems like an odd mixture of good, bad, and odd spells. Most of the all-powerful nether spells aren't worth using either.

And if you're really in a bug-exploitation frame of mind, you can boost specific circles past your general druidism level. This is more helpful with Celts, of course, but it should work for Romans as well. First, raise your intelligence so that you have at least one bonus point of Druidism because of high intelligence. Then raise any or all circles to be equal to your Druidism level. Then lower intelligence until Druidism is lower than the specific circles. Once you've done that, you can raise the circles without paying any attention to druidism. As long as druidism never becomes equal to the circle. With this trick, you can start your druids off with no druidism or intelligence but extremely impressive spell repetoires. In particular, it's easy to have Hero of Old from the beginning. —Alorael, who just discovered this while replaying in v1.0. If this has already been known, he's sorry for being redundant. And if it is known, it probably doesn't work in later versions, either.

The Dragon Ball Z references were a bit too subtle, though. If you make a sequel, you should put in more and make them far more obvious. —Alorael, who doesn't know if he can in good conscience actually post this. Wait, he never had a good conscience in the first place...

When you switch names, the UBB sometimes keeps your old name reserved for a month. Nobody else is using it and nobody else can use it, but you'll have to wait for a while before you can switch back. —Alorael, who isn't exactly sure why this happens or why sometimes it's easy to switch back and sometimes it isn't. Just be patient and try again every few days.

No, the nudity could be worked in more subtlely, if no more tastefully, by having random clothes destruction during the fight between Erika and Rentar-Ihrno. You know, sooner or later those fireballs and magical blasts have to take a toll on one's apparel. —Alorael, who also supposes the movie could add a steamy romance between, say, Erika and Solberg. No, it doesn't make sense. It's gratuitous!

I know this problem has appeared before, but I can't remember exactly what causes it. I think it has to do with Avernum giving your save files the wrong file extension or putting them in the wrong place. Look around for misnamed or misplaced files, and hopefully you can get back to your current save. —Alorael, who thinks someone should notify Jeff of the bug and its solution so they can be added to Spiderweb tech support. Enough people run into this that it deserves mention.

To keep the Exile style, it would be fitting to have one character per monster graphic except in cases when that doesn't work, like in a scene with dozens of goblins or townsfolk milling about in droves. Still, one guy playing all the triad mages (male and female) and identical blacksmiths would definitely be fitting. —Alorael, who supposes this means the actors for these "generic" roles would have to be as average and nondescript as possible. Maybe an entire cast of people who are virtually unknown would do the job well.

Whatever it is, I can't imagine reporting it will do anything. Jeff has made it abundantly clear that no more work will be done on BoE. —Alorael, who would suggest emailing the Creator if the experience causes problems. If it just gives a message, ignore it.

Leonardo DiCaprio would make an excellent Chevyn. It's a role so bad that no amount of botching can ruin it. Jenneke could be played by Michael Jackson. It's a different kind of scary ambiguity, but nobody else could take the role without equal plastic surgery and makeup. —Alorael, who isn't familiar with enough actors to cast many roles. However, it's obvious that at least one vahnatai has to be Drakefyre, and Alec would probably make a good vahnatai as well.

As I've said in all the previous discussions of Exile movies, the Exile plot just doens't lend itself to a non-game format. The characters in your party have no personality, and any created characters would disappoint people whose characters are different. Then there's the way the plot is general and most of your time is spend hacking and puzzling through dungeons or searching for newer, better equipment. This doesn't make for a good movie. The real beauty of the Exile games is the background details Jeff put in about his world, but most of those would be lost in a movie. —Alorael, who thinks any Exile-based movie would be so different from the games that the die-hard Exile fans (denizens of these boards) would be up in arms over the changes.

You can read the posts in the Galactic Core forum for a general idea of how many people like the game and how many people detest it. I can think of only three or four people who registered it and only one or two who like it. —Alorael, who would say it is important if you have a Mac or not. Since the game only runs on Mac, having one is pretty much essential to playing.

Try downloading the newest version of Stuffit Expander . —Alorael, who agrees with Rosycat. Galactic Core really isn't worth playing, let alone spending time trying to deal with compression problems.