Meeshka

Quote: Originally written by Iron Eyes: A human turning into a Crystal Soul makes about as much sense as an earthworm pupating and emerging as a butterfly. Erika isn't the right species. —Alorael, who will not accept that Crystal Souls are all magic and no biology (parabiology?). It makes no sense! Please turn humor detectors to setting C. Why not consider Erika to be a caterpillar among all humans? Quote: Originally written by Kuranes: I don't see it being learned (let alone mastered) by humans anytime soon... Erika wasn't a common personality. I bet she was prepared to face a real enemy in Rentar's face. Such a foolish death of such a powerful mage is out of normal fantasy canon. Like Gendalf the Grey Mage or Dumbledore (though not written yet, but 99 to 1 he is alive). At least, this was an idea. Another way there should be to return Erika, but still concealed it is from us. I shall grant the idea of returning Erika as a shade, making parallel to Shannara and its Druids, coming back as ghosts at the lake of death, giving advices. Edit: stupid UBB

Quote: Originally written by Inthrall: Quote: Originally written by Erika Maroonmark: Couldn't you download the PC version to a Mac and then put it on a disk and transfer it to the PC? Hmmm... I bought the Disc version of Geneforge(s), and it said on that it was compatible on Mac and Windows. That would be really fun for everybody to know at last, that Win and Mac versions of Spidweb software are the same thing, splitted just to pull the wool over everybody's eyes. Edit: Typo

Quote: Originally written by Sharpie: Quote: Originally written by Meeshka: Don't make Erika a lich, PLEASE!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!! Erika's reanimation as a lich is an interesting idea but seems unlikely to me as her body was completely immoliated when Rentar triggered her curse. No corpse, no lich. Ok, I agree. No corps - no lich. Yes soul - yes crystal, ok?

Quote: Originally written by Zeviz: In a world where any apprentice mage can cast a bolt of fire and any powerful wizard can use shockwave spell to damage enemy walls, governments wouldn't bother investing into early gunpowder research, because results would be inferior to available magic. So gunpowder-based weapons would never get a chance to develop to a point where they can compete with magic. I read several times in some fiction novels about a revolution of another type. When anti-energy field is invented or a field, making any object, moving faster then the speed of sound, disappear. No weapon except molecular (thin in 1 molecula)swords will work there. In Avernum we can see a local anti-magic field. Trust me, if somebody wants, he can make an anti-magic aggregate to cover all Ermarian. So here is the reason for a cannon or sort of BAG7.92(Boutell autogun).

Don't make Erika a lich, PLEASE!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!! Why don't you like my idea of Erika as a Crystal Soul. At least Bon-Ihrno had some respect to her, as far as I recall my memories of A2. So having his humble hut in a neighbourhood with Rentar's fortress he could have prepared everything for a crystalization ritual. But not a lich, PLEASE!!! Ooops, I seem to repeat, do I?

A soltpeter cannon? What on earth is that? As for a canon, one should see all existing scenarios, based on history line, before he can include something of his own? Or canon based scenarios are just A1-A4, Bahssikava and four basic scenarios of BoA?

Since Vahnatai have lasers, why shouldn't avernites have cannons? May be magic semi-automatic ones. Dragons leave enough sulphur, I guess. As for saltpeter, it did appear in a Small Rebellion.

I don't know if I ever have time to write a scenario in either BoA or BoE, but a scenario with demons seems to me an interesting challenge, when they are good and you are bad. Still, the Karma of Avernum/Exile is not for such fireblooded creatures like Demons should find the roots of their ancestors there. I think that the good ones should origin from some surface (Ermarian unexplored, other neighbour planets with portals to Avernum, etc.) and those met in Avernum are the same exiles, outlaws of their nation. More to say, it's only in Avernum I heard of Demons as of the undead. I see it that way that if you thrust an aspen picket in a humans heart, unsurprisingly he will die like a vampire does. That's why Repel Spirit of high level cleares them off. IMO. BTW I never saw a female demon. Are there any in BoE scenario Demon? Will there be any in Dastal's game?

That was one of my favorite quests, showing, how a real loving men should behave, saving their beloved...

Quote: Originally written by rantalot: this is getting off topic... Not for the first time on this boards, as I have understood. To make it back on topic, all newcomers should just answer the first questions. And for homophone names I suppose there is a place somewhere on general board for a new thread, isn't it? Sorry for a sudden offtopic

Quote: Originally written by Zeviz: ... but to make it gramatically correct it would be "Dikiyeoba" (using plural form of "wild") I think you wanted to say "Dikieoba" then. That is why I specified only homophonical similarity without changing the original. I like the spelling of Dikiyoba. And yes, my first native language is Russian.

Quote: Originally written by Dikiyoba: Since this is in the Avernum Trilogy Forum, Dikiyoba assumes that all questions are about Avernum. I hope it is quite discussable. Still, while no special comments are made by the thread's author, I guess it is for the one answering to decide, Dikiyoba included BTW in my lang "Dikiyoba" should be translated (homophonically) as "both are wild". A coincidence?

From 1991 I was playing Darklands by Microprose. It was then the most interesting and peerless game I've seen. I even copied all the riddles and puzzles from it. But since I've finished that medieval adventure I started searching for something to look like and there I found Exile I: Escape from the Pit. As for the Avernum, I came to it about two years ago. Edit: Forgot about the last question. My favorite game, I guess, is King's Bounty. I'm inclined to think the same favor from me can be spread over the Warlords I.

Nice thread to remember some Theory of Chances. I used to have a good point in it studing in in the University. For those who are really interested -there is a formula for the case of 3d6 to calculate a probability percent of a certain result. The scientific method to calculate for example the chance to have 8-sum of 3 dices is simply to calculate all the variants, giving you this result this way: 1 1 6 | 1 2 5 | 1 3 4 | 1 4 3 |=>6 variants for 1st fixed 1 1 5 2 | 1 6 1 | 2 1 5 | 2 2 4 | 2 3 3 |=>5 variants for 1st fixed 2 2 4 2 | 2 5 1 | ... 4 - 1st 3; 3 - 1st 4; 2 - 1st 5; 1 - 1st 6. So it is summ of 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21. Chance is 21 to 216. And for a any result X in this case chance is: double Chance(X) { Res = 0; Basement = 6*6*6; for (i=1;i==X-2;i++) Res += i; return Res/Basement*100; } I hope that wasn't TOO far from the thread's theme

Quote: Originally written by Wang is Sympatriot: This thread is about boring monsters. You mentioned Dark Wyrms. They may bother you, and they definitely bother me, but they aren't boring. —Alorael, who considers townspeople very boring monsters. They don't even attack you! Nice we came to a compromise. No bothering here, just grievous ennui and boresome remorse, dealing with some Avernum inhabitants and their magic posessions. Then I guess we should discuss Shaynee from Shaynee Bazaar. Dealing with her I didn't even see her. Just the dialog. No possible attack from her side at all.

Quote: Originally written by Thuryl: Quote: Originally written by Waylander: There's nothing revolutionary involved in making certain programs run on your updated OS, which you were able to run on the older versions. How much experience do you have with programming? Updating software isn't just a matter of adding new things on to the existing code -- if you try to manage updates that way, especially in a large company with hundreds of programmers and a significant employee turnover rate, your code quickly becomes buggy and impossible to maintain. A major update often involves completely rewriting large parts of the code I think what Waylander meant is that one dozen of "hundreds of programmers" could write a good emulator in a couple of days, so that it won't be an "adding new things on to the existing code" but adding a new thing to the completely rewritten code. I'm not sure for Mac OS, but WinXP (along with W2000) has a kind of one. Although it sucks, still some even some DOS oldies can run on WinXP. As for Jeffs answer about "some old games" which "have to drift off into the past", I'd like to add, that it doesn't go with games we call "Classics of a genre". I remember good old Darklands by MicroProse, which caught me even before Exile I, and now they are gone because WinXP DOS-emulator doesn't support high memory enhancement. Good I have an opportunity to use an old Pentium I based PC with Win98 on it and still play that pre-Exile game. PS. Sorry for making alive a dead thread

Quote: Originally written by That hem hath holpen: ... —Alorael, who doesn't think Dark Wyrms are boring. Annoying and pesky, yes, but not boring. At least a frontal assault isn't guaranteed to take them down painlessly. Sorry, mixed up "boring" and "bothering". And I didn't call'em boring, btw.

Quote: Originally written by That hem hath holpen: ... —Alorael, who doesn't think Dark Wyrms are boring. Annoying and pesky, yes, but not boring. At least a frontal assault isn't guaranteed to take them down painlessly. Sorry, mixed up "boring" and "bothering". And I didn't call'em boring, btw.

Quote: Originally written by St. Ashby the Martyr: Quote: Originally written by Ephesos: Go for a Dark Wyrm instead, though that'll take a while to find. Spine Beasts have a very uneven record in melee, in my experience... There's some Dark Wyrms in the Giant Caves, so this should be an opportune moment. Dark Wyrm is a great villain, but only when fighting with you, because there are only 4 persons. Fighting a group of monsters with more than 6-7 magic-posessing creatures decreases the advantage of Wyrm with his single shooting. Compare it with Haakai or Drake Lord I choose the last. Summoning and multidamage spells (like fireblast, etc.) are much more effective in a tough campaign. For me, leastwise.

Drake Lord, no doubts. While reading the post by Zephyr I caught myself trying hard to remember the correct name of the beast. Thanks to Ephesos, it's Drake Lord. I replaced my Drake in soul crystal and never regreted.

I haven't started playing A4 yet. But the more I read about it, the more I come to a conclusion, that I don't want to spoil my attitude to Avernum series. So maybe I should just skip it? In a thread, dedicated to possible Avernum 5 plot I posted an idea, which came to me once as a good one for a small scenario. I had an incredible bewilderment knowing that the same was the main idea of A4... Hmm. I guess it was a good idea for me to start playing from the very beginnng - read from Avernum 1 - instead of continuing my beloved Avernum trilogy to trilogy++.

Now I've understood, that Spray Acid is really a borin one. And the monsters: how is that wyrm called, shooting spheres of darkness, taking almost 150hp at a time? That was annoying with not-so-high party level. I used to send one prey to fight them hand-to-hand, and others somewhere behind the corner casting healing and protecting spells. P.S. I always wondered, how on earth does the healing in Avernum work, when one can be REALLY far from the healer, including several walls between them?

Lenar, the beginning of a chapter - it is something. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of anxiousness and hurry. But to the end in started to look like it is a fairy tale, where all the main heroes gather in one place at midnight. Too much for such a small essay and such a short period of time, I think. I prefer to think that Limoncelli is going to survive that time, cause he was fighting (can't imagine anything else for such a hero), but was too drunk to find himself somewhere under the table and sideway of the main fight... But not because he was escorted arm in arm from the castle like in kindergarten P.S. May be this chapter should be a bit longer? Edit: I had to, cause there was no answer except mine here. Lenar, what about to continue the story? And the main. I'm now collecting my thoughts about the stuffing of Ermarian Fiction site, and I need a sort of statistics. Firstly, I'd like to know if there are people, interestedto take art in contest writing. Please, send me notification by e-mail (u_ma (at) mail (dot) ru), or just leave them here Secondly, in your post please tell me, what kind of literary style you want to see in a contest: novel, essay (short story), verses, poems (aka very long verses), etc.

Quote: When you get the message about being watched go to fight mode. Haste and bless your party, then advance one fighter to trigger the trap. This gives you a real chance. I did it in Demo almost that way. Plus in fight mode before switching the trap I pressed "wait" for a round. That gives you two round moves when the fighting starts before enemy strikes back. Also I remembered the position of several Imps and placed my fighters as close as possible, so that they can involve demons in hand-to-hand fighting before they cast numerous lightnings and fireblasts. It IS possible to beat them in demo, skipping the fact that you'll have to die several times before you manage. Edit: Typo. P.S. See my underwriting to know what I think about coming back when your party gets Repel Spirit lvl 3.

At high levels Arcane Summon was one of my favourite. An opportunity to summon a Drake or any sort of magic-using creature is rather nice. Slow in pair with haste is rather helpful at low level, when you need to do more damage before your opponent can strike back. I think, I'll agree that mage's Bind Foe and priest's Terror (no such in A1) or priests Smite in A1 come to me most boring. As for the monster, I cannot figure out, which one standalone creature in the most annoying, except Doomguard. All I remember, that I hated to meet at low level with a dozen or couple of dozens Gremlins.