Rogue Walker

Originally Posted By: A lot of really angry elves left A Blades of Avernum (Second Trilogy Style) or Blades of Avernum (Original Trilogy Remake Style) wouldn't be able to support the original scenarios anyway. The engines are too different. How so? The only major issues that I can think of are the laser mirror puzzles and time passage. By that logic, Avernum 3 would be incompatible with the new engine as well.

It has been explained. Originally Posted By: Spidweb Spells and Battle Discs. work like before. The former is bought from trainers. The latter is gained by training base weapon skills. - Jeff Vogel

I'm thinking if it's made it will come after Avernum 3: Ruined World, in place of a new Blades of Avernum game (which I would like to see, but probably won't). So somewhere between 3 to 5 years from now, I'm guessing.

I think that the way the newer engine blends with the structure and writing style of the older games will make for a unique and engaging experience that we wouldn't have gotten from a completely new game. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Avadon trilogy and Avernum Origins (if it ends up being made), but I feel this remake will be more than just retreading old grounds.

Originally Posted By: Kyronea 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. No, you're thinking about Realmz.

The skills under the Combat tab appear to be mostly the same as the old ones, so it stands to reason that the Magic/Misc tab will be pretty similar as well. I also just don't see any reason to change them much. The skill system in Avernum 6 was pretty solid, I don't think they'll be tweaking it too much past the different progression system. I think the place where Jeff is going to get really creative is the traits, which I feel weren't nearly as well though out (the races too, though that won't come into play just yet). I love the crazy spells that the Exile series had as much as the next guy, but most of the cool unique ones were either pointless (though I can appreciate the charm of useless, superfluous things in games), redundant, or completely at odds with any sane game design. Some of them especially clash with the set piece style of battles in the newer games, which I personally prefer to the battles against collections of stats that were in the earlier games. But they were pretty awesome and fun. I think they would be cool in a Roguelike or something.

I sort of doubt it. For the past 11 Avernum/Exile games the only skills you trained for spells were Mage and Priest Spells. I see no reason that it will be any different now.

From the bottom up: Column 1) Melee Weapons - Hardiness - Parry - Riposte Column 2) Pole Weapons - Blademaster - Quick Action - Dual Wielding Column 3)Bows - Sharpshooter - Lethal Blow Column 4)Thrown Missiles - Quick Strike - Sniper This makes the most sense to me from a progression standpoint. I think there will be an interesting dynamic between training higher tier skills for their stronger innate effects, and the lower skills for more battle disciplines and spells. Originally Posted By: Randomizer From what Jeff has said, you need a minimum of 1 level in all the prerequiste skills to unlock the higher skills above. Unlike Avadon you don't need all the prerequiste skills to be the same level as the higher skill that you want, but only one of those skills. So only one of the ones below in a column needs to be maximized as you go to the top to maximize it. I don't think he said that having all requisite skills trained at least once was required (though it is possible), just that the higher requisite skill is how high you can train the higher skill. Its possible that you will only need Melee or Pole weapons to train a higher skill. I'm guessing that Mage and Priest spells are going to be tied up similarly with Spellcraft and Magical Efficiency. It would seem a bit strange to be forced to get both Mage and Priest spells to get the higher tier magical abilities. Though it does seem that Lethal Blow is unusually easy to get through the ranged weapon route. (Might be a good thing...). I'm curious how the lores and tool use will fit in. I'm more curious about traits, which I feel needed to be revamped the most from the earlier games.

There is a crazy exploit with that 'a' key glitch that allows you to use the target of one skill with another skill. If you use a cone attack ability then try to use a teleporting move before the animation starts you can teleport anywhere, as the target point of a cone attack can be any point on the map. You can also attack friendly npcs using a shaman's heal ability and a single target offensive ability. There are tons of other glitches that I've seen pop up from being trigger happy with the 'a' key, such as enemies attacking enemies, and other weird things. Yeah... this should be fixed. As for the window switching, couldn't you just make the game play in a window that takes up the whole screen and hide the menu bar? Or is that for some reason impossible?

I know, I've gotten minor summon and it can be pretty useful sometimes, I'm using it more. Even call beast is useful sometimes for cheap summoning wall tactics, all the spells in this game seem useful. I beat it my first try on torment mode after the Mac v1.0.3 update released yesterday. I think that the new bug that makes the servants always join my side on torment mode after the first time might be in all the versions except for the Mac v1.0.2 one. It's not really something people would complain about. I don't think any party that gets to the Prime Sentinel on torment would have too many problems beating it anyways even if it was working right, and it won't piss anyone off like the last one. So it's not nearly as dire a bug as the previous one. Still, it's just a little weird getting the message that the Prime Sentinel restored a servant to its control, only for it to be under my control later that same turn.

I got the update. This battle is much more fun when the servants stay on your side. And them not blowing up instantly at the end is definitely a plus. But, it seems that a different bug was created. On normal and easy, it works fine, but on torment, and possibly hard mode, there's a new problem. When the sentinel restores the servants, it heals them for 500 health. On torment mode, they have much more health, meaning that when they're healed, they still are damaged enough to join my side. So now, I have the exact opposite problem. It's certainly a much less frustrating bug, but...

That sounds like a good strategy, but my mage doesn't know minor summon yet on the saved game where I got to him. I usually don't use much summoning so I wasn't too thrilled about paying 600 coins to learn it. In retrospect it'd probably be worth it. I've since reverted to an earlier save game and learned it for free from the second portal shade quest. At this point though I will not be content in merely defeating it, I must subjugate the servants to my will as well. So I think I'll wait until the update later today. I'll probably try to summon a fire lizard as well, now that you've mentioned it.

Basically, the unstable servants never, ever, under any circumstance stay on my side for more than a single turn. Often times during this one turn they just attack another servant, or miss the sentinel, meaning it takes a long time to actually do any significant damage. Sometimes, they even join me, rush up to the sentinel, and then turn on me in the same turn, before even attacking. I got pretty frustrated after a while so I looked into the "z113flunky.txt" file, which seems to be the script for the unstable servants. I found this little section of the code to be what determines when a servant turns on you. Code: if ((get_attitude(ME) < 10) && (get_max_health(ME) / 3)) {set_attitude(ME,10);heal_char(ME,500);print_str_color("The Prime Sentinel regains control of a servant.",3);if (gf(53,13) == 0) { sf(53,13,1); begin_talk_mode(43); } else set_state(START_STATE); } From what I know about programming and averscript, the whole "(get_max_health(ME) / 3)" part of the "if ((get_attitude(ME) < 10) && (get_max_health(ME) / 3))" line doesn't make any sense. It's evaluated as true as long as the creatures max health divided by 3 isn't 0, which it never is. I'm assuming that it was meant to check if the creatures current health is less the a third of it's max health, which would make more sense. But as far as I can tell while playing the game, if the servant is on my side, then it's going to turn on me next chance it gets regardless of how much health it has. I don't know why nobody else seems to have this problem, at least I'm pretty sure it's a problem. I'm running the latest version Mac version on Mac OS 10.5.2. Is it possible that one of the updates to Avernum 5 changed the way that it interprets certain syntax, and that not too many people have played the Mac version since then? Or maybe a change to the text file itself? It does appear to be one of the more recently modified files, modified months after the original release. I did find a decent strategy for winning the battle anyways. I had my party move right next to the sentinel in a plus shaped formation. Then I had the southern person shoot the northwestern servant, my western person shoot the northeastern servant and so forth so that they would move to form an X around the sentinel. This made it so that they wouldn't accidentally attack each other. It only runs the code for them joining you when they're on its side, and it only runs the code for them joining the sentinel when they're on your side. So I hit them while they were on my side, making them joint its side, so they would join my side and attack in the same turn. Weird. And you have to be in the center at all times so at the end all the servant's blow up in your face, which hurts, and it seems just about impossible on harder difficulties, which I'm playing on. I don't think the strategy was supposed to be that tricky. I'm pretty sure that the servants behavior was unintentional. I would like it fixed, or someone to tell me if I'm just missing something. I have plenty of nature lore, so I don't think its that. Help please.