DewdropsOTG

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Yeah, but X wasn't a great character either. His saving grace is that you aren't expected to interact with him much. With Nicodemus, you are expected to interact with him all the time. (Also, none of X's items attempt to outright murder the moment you step into the game, which is another plus for him.) Dikiyoba. True but it wasn't really my point that X was all that great of a character. Rather, it was the exact opposite: X was a rather silly character, and so is Nicodemus, only even more so, because an Expy, by nature, is generally not as good as the character they're based on. Although that is not always true...

True enough. I mean, poor Mac users don't get that many games to begin with. Robbing them of Jeff's would just be downright cruel.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Bleh, Dikiyoba thought Nicodemus was awful. He's a clueless, one-dimensional dunce. I always thought he was an obvious eXpy.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba ...between Cordelia's character portrait in the default Avernum party and Miranda's fate as revealed in G5, that is going to lead to some awkward conversations. Dikiyoba. I did not even think of that. That is a rather hilarious--if darkly so--thought.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Originally Posted By: Dantius 20 years from now, Jeff will probably be retired. He's in his mid-40's, right? In 20 years Jeff will be paying for his two daughters weddings. After they have finished college. At that point Jeff will be wondering what happened to his retirement savings. Obviously it will be up to his daughters to continue remaking Exile. Make it a family tradition.

I have to admit I'm not entirely sure how he could do a prequel either. I mean obviously we can't play as the First Expedition, or else we'd be locked in by canon to do a number of things and then die. And as adventurers we can't find things like Demonslayer or the Orb of Thralni either, because those have to stay lost for the adventurers of Avernum 1 to find. It'd be difficult to do. Still, if anyone could pull it off, Jeff Vogel could.

Considering how often his games get extremely poor reviews on the basis of the fact that the graphics aren't exactly as powerful as the latest Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls game(which is a bunch of horse droppings about as large as the Empire State Building--the reviews, I mean) a lot of gamers pass over his games anyway. I mean if he solely developed for Windows he would not make anywhere near the amount of money he does. And now I finally understand why his primary platform is Macintosh. I never did understand that before, but it's all so simple now.

Didn't most--if not all of them--come straight out of D&D? Adapted to the setting and to the specific manner of combat, yes, but I would swear I've seen most of those--if by different names--in a D&D sourcebook. Not that that's a bad thing.

Indeed it did.

It isn't? I'm not sure how it wouldn't be true. I mean, let's take a look at Haste for example. Haste level one is like Minor Haste. It doesn't last long. Haste level two is the regular Haste spell. Still one target, but much longer lasting. Haste level three is the Major Haste spell, which hastes the whole party. You can go on and do this for most of the spells, but I won't. My point is that once you got certain spells in Exile, you stuck to casting only those. Major Blessing. Kill. Firestorm. Sometimes Fireball. Revive All. And so on. The effects of these crucial spells are all duplicated in Avernum, from things like Divine Warrior(like Avatar, only castable on other people) to Death Arrows(aka Arcane Blow level three) and so on and so forth. Yes, there are many effects missing, which I went on to talk about in my previous post. The important stuff wasn't however. Again, not saying it's better necessarily, but it's not as if it's as bereft as it might seem at first. It's more like...it's like the cliff notes, so to speak. It lacks the depth but has all the important details.

I know what you mean. I first played E3 in 1998 myself. It's been a long time since then. T'is why I look forward to this remake, because so far nothing seems to be ready to disappoint me. Though I must admit I'm hoping for a bit of resizing capability with the party window. It seems a bit too big for what it's used for at the moment. I know I can technically minimize it but I like being able to keep an eye on those stats at all times.

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith He did it in Avernum. Completely flubbed it up too, as far as I'm concerned. Exile's spell list is unbeatable. I'm...not so sure about that. I mean, sure it IS massive...but often those same effects were duplicated in the Avernum spell system as well. Even if it had far fewer actual spells, it still had almost all the same range of effects. At the same time it had its own flaws, in that certain effects couldn't be duplicated after you raised spells to level three(such as webbing a foe) and that certain effects/spells just weren't in existence anymore, like magical fields, Mindduels, and so on. So there are pros and cons to both spell systems. I did however still like Exile's system better though--one of the many reasons I chose to play Exile 3 rather than Avernum 3 in my latest playthrough.

But that's just it. This is the perfect time to redo the system, if he's going to. After all, it IS the first game in the series. A remake of a remake is the best time to introduce a new system.

Yeah I don't think the Avernum engine can handle that sort of thing, unless you use a tongs image while making the item technically a ring or an amulet and then equip it that way. I have not actually made any BoA scenarios though, so I will happily be proven wrong if I am in fact wrong on my guess.

There was the Cult of the Anama in E3/A3. And priest spells were always described as being about shouting prayers and such while mage spells required hand movement and other delicate movement that kept them from being cast while wearing armor unless you have a trait that lets you do that. But other than that there wasn't anything, no.

Originally Posted By: Necris Omega I was half expecting to see a Fork of Horripilation reference rise out of that last page, but hey, everyone loves the Tick. I don't. I wouldn't mind a Fork of Horripilation somewhere in Avernum though. Or being able to bake bread with the blood of someone's dead father and then feed it to them.

Originally Posted By: Shelagh Yeah, no. It floored me because it was so dumb and stupid, not because I never knew which enemies used which weapons in this game, but thanks for the thought. Also, I'm pretty sure the Serendipity Knife was in E3 - on an island in the north of Krizsan province. Maybe it was just a diamond dagger though, I dunno... Nope it was a Diamond Dagger. Having been playing through E3 and having just beat it a couple days ago, I can say that with some fair certainty. And if you want me to double check, I can go run through the E3 Editor real quick to see if it has a Serendipity Knife, although I'm 90% certain it doesn't. It does, however, have DemonSlayer, which wasn't anywhere in E3 at all(but was placed in Rentar's Keep in A3, for whatever reason. Me I'd have stuck it somewhere a bit more potentially useful, like, say, in a secret area in the Tower of Magi only accessible during the attack.) It also has an Adamantine Axe, also seen nowhere in E3.

Although affording those spells was fairly difficult for a new party. Gathering together the necessary gold was not easy. Particularly with the max limit of 9000 gold, affording all you wanted to buy required multiple trips back and forth from dungeons to get loot then back to shops. I hope that's something this remake dispenses with, or at least sets the maxmimum at something much higher, like 60,000 or something.

If that is the case, Kennedy, then it would actually be a return to the old Exile manner of handling spells, where you only needed a maximum of seven to be able to cast all mage spells, and a maximum of seven for the same in priest spells. Though the skills were expensive. Six skill points for mage, five for priest, meaning a grand total of forty-two and thirty-five skill points invested in each for maximum casting. And unlike in Avernum you don't get any spell points for this beyond an initial three points per skill level in mage and priest at character creation. (Emphasis on at character creation, because if you add the skill later on you don't get any free spell points.)

The variety of weapon types may have shrunk, but the number of weapons for each type has only grown with each entry in the series. Things like the Serendipity Knife, for instance, never existed in the original Exiles. Though I do admit I miss being able to do something silly like dual-wield a mace and a broadsword on one of my characters. But there's always tabletop for that.

Okay okay, so dual-wielding poles is silly.

Well I'm only talking about dual-wielding the one-handed spears, which pretty much rules out almost all the other polearms...which then arguably makes the point to dual-wielding them moot. Anyway it was just an idea.

Fair enough then. I'll be giving it a go.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S I know dual-wielding swords isn't realistic, either. But dual-wielding spears doesn't even make any sense in fantasy pretend land. But...dual wielding! Can't we just invoke rule of cool here? The problem with poles in the Avernum series is that they're rarely useful next to swords, and this would give them a bigger use than what they have right now.

Now, I've heard on this forum elsewhere that Geneforge 3 is looked at like Avernum 4 was by a lot of the fandom. I'm in the process of playing through the Geneforge games now, and while I'm not quite to 3 yet...the way people keep talking about it makes me want to ask if I should skip it, or play it anyway.