Rupert

When telling Drayk Frost to go and kill Trajkov, Drayk Frost took Trajkov below his first health threshold, triggering his first combat dialogue as if you had attacked him. Following this, whilst Drayk Frost died quickly, a number of clawbugs run into the room and managed to kill Trajkov and his creations without them going hostile to me or me doing anything else. I'm guessing it might be a bug whereby the clawbugs would spawn if you were attacking Trajkov normally as reinforcements for him, but because he isn't hostile they're attacking Trajkov instead (whilst the clawbugs are attacking him, he'll go on to his second dialogue threshold which appears to be from if you were fighting him). On reloading and trying it again, the clawbugs do not appear to spawn if Drayk Frost don't take him below the first health threshold and I was able to reproduce the clawbugs appearing by reloading until he fell below the first health threshold.

Re: Central Labs, it seems that killing Vershinin alone is insufficient to clear the area - it didn't show green until Serabryakov was also dead.

I think you realistically need to be able to do both although heavy investment into your non-primary probably isn't necessary. Certainly at higher difficulty levels where enemies can leap to you, being able to melee for slightly higher damage can be helpful. On the flip side, there are areas where you cannot reasonably melee your way through (e.g. groups of turrets on Southbridge) even if you focus on it. It's probably also worth bearing in mind that some enemies do more damage from a distance than they do when you're at melee range (e.g. roamers), whereas some do more damage in melee (e.g. serviles).

That would be true and likely grounds for a reload (often the case when you're not using creations and most enemies will kill you in ~3 hits at most), but on the rare occasions I've seen a terror vlish attack, terrify hasn't proc'd as it seems that you get a base mental resistance of 75% in this game. Edit: managed to get through the Junkyard without being terrified once - was similarly easy. Did finally get hit by terrify for the first time in Barrens Research shortly afterwards though.

I'm having a relatively (completed the original a half dozen times or so but haven't been read any tips beyond max mechanics/leadership needed for this version) blind first playthrough on a melee Guardian without making any creations on torment difficulty. I've more or less cleared up to Kazg at this point. I'm finding that the difficulty of enemies so far has mostly been about what I'd expect, with the exception of vlish. For some reason they seem to spend about 90% of their turns blessing/cursing, even when they're already blessed/you're already cursed. This would be fine if they were in a mix of enemies, but when they're on their own, it makes them entirely trivial. Although the dip in difficulty when you first encounter them in Pentil Woods compared to the thahds and roamers you encounter before doesn't seem too jarring to begin with, the "stronger" ones underneath the woods don't end up being any more difficult, just taking a couple more hits. Similarly, when you get to the spectral vlish in the Buried Cells, it feels like they should be quite dangerous given that it takes several hits for me to kill them, but they did not attack at all. Not sure if anyone else has found this/if anyone else has any other thoughts with how it relates to other difficulty levels or general balance, but I do feel that if there's a v1.01, they could do with a slight tune up.

I never quite got around to finishing a couple of the Geneforge games, but I tended to feel that E/A2 were by far the longest in terms of the straight line between the start and end of the story. 1 comes a relatively close second (if only for sending you on scavenger hunts essentially when you were most of the way through the game already), but, in comparison, 3 enabled you to skip plagues that you didn't want to bother with and the story arcs of 4, 5 and 6 were appreciably shorter, even if there was still a lot of content there overall. The Geneforge games tended to sacrifice overall length for the sake of adding more replay content (i.e. different factions, distinct classes, etc.), kind of in a less extreme way than Nethergate - long if you consider playing the distinct sides and differences to their fullest extents, but short per play-through. In that respect though, the Geneforges generally did have the most diverse replay value. To take G1 as an example, depending on your choices, half the island might have been friendly or hostile and the game can play out very differently. You don't really get that kind of diversity with the other series, let alone the vast majority of games released full stop. On the other hand, it then gave me no end of confusion when Jeff started putting named NPCs into the game that were mandatory enemies with no dialogue/lead-up quests and I'm left wondering whether or not I should've killed them.

Ah, but are you a supporter of the People's Front of Judea or the Judean People's Front?

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus Originally Posted By: Rupert As much as I know that it probably isn't 100% compatible with certain modern OSs, I'd still love to see the original Exile trilogy on there. Probably? How about definitely. I don't know - had it working on Vista and Windows 7 (admittedly with some tweaking for the latter - although now I think of it, I wonder if it'd just run fine in DOSBox). I'd just bet a great deal that the same can't be said for Mac OSs.

As much as I know that it probably isn't 100% compatible with certain modern OSs, I'd still love to see the original Exile trilogy on there.

I think the obvious answer is that an apocalypse is unlikely, but given the state of world, may not really be a bad thing if it happened anyway.

Most of the older members got into the forum in their teens (as evidenced by the average amount of maturity back then). Even with newer members, because of the tone of the forum these days, it was always a fairly safe bet that most of the people here were going to be in their 20s.

Haven't got a clue about the second, but in answer to your first question, it's the female food seller in the NW of Formello.

Originally Posted By: Avadon Assuming that Spiderweb continues this Avadon and Avernum release tango, is it safe to say that we should see Avernum 6 in 2022, assuming Avadon has five sequels. In which case we could expect to see Avernum remade in 2023 with newer tech and expanded storylines. Please, no. As much as the games are fun and I'm sure it'd sell well, seeing a fourth incarnation of the series with exactly the same main plotlines and events would end up just a lil' dull for anyone who'd played through the first three (at least especially insofar as E/A1-3).

Can't say I've had to deal with anything like that lately, but as counter-intuitive as it might seem, if you genuinely don't think there's a peaceful way to defuse the situation (that does include handing over your wallet if the danger is disproportionate, but unlikely to occur if you do so) and you don't think you can outrun them, I tended to find that the most effective way of dealing with that kind of situation was to act mentally deranged and throw yourself at them (not literally). For the average mugger - most of who just think that looking threatening and maybe hitting you a couple of times will be all it takes - it's really rather unsettling to have someone turn around and try to beat you down, with seemingly no sense of self-preservation. Although if it ever comes to violence, however that's happened, it is generally worth bearing in mind that if you don't hurt them enough that they give up and run off, chances are they'll hurt you a whole lot more. Sometimes going at it with no sense of self-preservation is a better idea for your health than showing some restraint.

Ah, I used to love that game. Was one of the first games of that style I ever played, along with Monkey Island. I still remember from MI3, at the end where you can bring up how no-one ever remembers Bobbin Threadbare. It really is a shame that you don't get the same kind of point 'n' clicks as you did back then. I really miss some of those games, like The Dig, the Gabriel Knight, Simon the Sorceror and Broken Sword series and their ilk. Unfortunately these days, it seems the closest you get from anything approaching the mainstream is the occasional Sam and Max game.

Originally Posted By: So Much Killing This is true. I didn't mention that in my discussion, but the pole damage tends to be better in the early part of the game. You can effect a good whole-game balance with one dual-wielder and one pole-wielder, but for serious a**-kicking in the mid-game on, I'd really like to dump my pole guy in exchange for another dual-wielder. Especially since I've got a pack full of spiffy flaming, freezing, oozing, venomous swords that I can only use two at a time. I get around this with having my two main melee chars DW and making my Priest a Slith - results (assuming in standard traits of DT, etc.) in plenty of open firepower with the two Sword DW'ers, but also means that you've got a fairly serviceable pole-user whenever you're saving MP/a fight calls for melee instead of magic.

Originally Posted By: Txgangsta Quote: ...as opposed to the first trilogy which was obviously just a remake of Exile. Its supposed to be. The whole point of the first 3 avernum games were to be a better version of exile. I know that - I was just clarifying that I meant in terms of it using new conceptual ideas, to be clear about it. I have been around here long enough to remember they were remakes.

The second trilogy, as far as it goes, are still good games, thankfully using original material (as opposed to the first trilogy which was obviously just a remake of Exile). I don't think there was anything wrong with Jeff extending out the series like that, especially when, as has been pointed out, it does pay the bills. That said, I would feel that any more games in the Avernum series would just feel like beating the concept to death a bit too much. There are only so many times you can play out the concept of "vast underground cave system of oppressed people is overrun by monsters/random evil enemy" without it seeming samey. That said, in terms of how Jeff structured the series, I have to wonder if it was intentional that in both second games of the two trilogies, it ended up with a far more linear plot-line than the rest (A2 less so-much, but still involving a fairly linear path down some rapids. >.>).

Indeed they are - Nethergate is just one story, told from two perspectives. Still, given the ending, it's difficult to envisage how a sequel could be made and keep with continuity, unless you went all Highlander 2 on it. It would just be more interesting to see a completely new series rather than the same ones done to death.

Eh? I never disparaged anyone else for needing extra motivation - as generally-speaking, a great deal of people do - nor claimed it to be a universal truth that an NYR is made on a false pretense. I was merely saying that personally, if I've decided to do something, I'll just do it for the sake of doing it.

To be honest, I don't usually find New Year resolutions useful and haven't made a serious one in ages. I tend to run on the principle that if I'm going to do something I'll just do it, without resorting to false pretenses.

Eh, I kinda sucked this game a lot. Think I was over-cautious about it and not really being around yesterday didn't help. Though I would echo the statement that being unable to explore made things very difficult at the start - it was only towards the end of the second day that I managed to get a hold of any herbs. Despite knowing the location of another at the start of that day, but which had gone unexplored due to a death. That said, I'm slightly confused in regards to that, as I believe the rules state that a location has to be explored to be able to harvest and continue harvesting from it, but I still received herbs at the start of day 4, despite the Mushroom Farm falling unexplored when Jasmine died?

Register Rupert Proxy: Yes

It's always saddened me that, albeit unintentionally, my middle names were after him. Only thing I've had time to read recently (surprising since I've been on bed rest) has been Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend.

There's the Thieves Guild secret passage into Blackcrag, to the east of the fortress, in the mountains. You'd need to talk to them in Lorelei first (after delivering the package from Shayder) to gain access there, otherwise I believe you have to fight your way through.