Ociporus

I figured out where Xylia was in Silvar, but the only way to get there was to wipe out some bandits, which made all the guards want to fight me. Is there a way to get to Xylia without making all of Silvar irate? And what ramifications are there if the town is hostile because I wiped out some thugs?

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves Could be awkward if they were different species. Considering that this feature is based on the saved game files from before, the program would know everything about the former heroes, including their species. I like the idea of at least meeting descendants of the heroes. Or at least people reminiscing about them.

Just finished the 2nd quest for Gladwell, the Undead Spiral tampering. Managed to survive, which was a major feat on its own. Then found out the dudes at the entrance were pretty ticked. Talking to Gladwell afterwards was very disturbing. What an evil guy. So I restored my game from before the quest and am doing without his reward. In A5, I'd killed Gladwell after doing all his quests. I think lots of you players did too. It was quite satisfying at the time; seemed the most deserved fate for a guy like him. Is it possible to do his quests, then do him in afterwards? Or does all of Patrick's Tower go snaky about it? Seems most of the people there can't stand him being around, don't agree with the situation, and wouldn't mind him being eliminated. But maybe he's one NPC that CAN'T be cashed in in this episode. If he can be beaten afterwards, I might go ahead and do his bidding. But I don't want him ending up being ruler of Avernum.

Lot of funny jokes, guys. You sure have an active sense of humor! Back to the initial point: How many "Aldous" guys would really become heroes? Maybe the 'team' is reincarnated all the time??? It would create a continuum and a bit of a 'reward' for having played all the games. Maybe you wouldn't be interested in having interaction with past heroes, but to me it is a natural draw for budding 'stars' to relish the time spent with those who went before them. Even if it is just that they are trainers or a little bit of story-tellers.

What if the 'past heroes' offered some training? Wouldn't it be neat to 'learn' from them? Surely they'd want to pass on some of their skills / memoirs / items to promising young adventurers!

Originally Posted By: jlsgaladriel But that's not really what we're talking about here -- it's not about importing a character we've leveled previously and leveling that same character further. "Meeting your characters" would be a totally different thing -- it would involve importing old character save files and somehow presenting them as NPCs. I can't think of an rpg that does that. Vague references to former heroes are one thing, but importing old characters just to add flavour to the NPCs of the world seems like a fair amount of work for not very much payback. That is exactly what I'm talking about. But there have been some interesting additional ideas presented in this thread. I don't expect that the 'past heroes' would be required to fight. But it seems weird to have them totally ignored, especially when us gamers put so much work into getting them to survive.

There is a measure of method that could 'personalize' the heroes. First, one's saved games could contain information about them, including their names, attributes, etc. Notes could be kept about what they accomplished. It would take some work, but saving such information would make it entirely possible to personalize the "heroes" aspect.

Maybe what would have been more satisfying is if the heroes that got created from A1-A5 would be mentioned more. That is, the ones WE made that would become part of folklore. Why not MEET some of these old guys, hear a few of their stories, get some tips from them? They have disappeared, even though they presumably retired in Avernum. How could we not meet them? Maybe they would not be named as WE had done (which is another reason that Aldous et al should have been changed each game) but they would be accessible. If Rone and the gang are still around, why not the heroes we made? I think that is an excellent consideration for any future series by Jeff. ADD to your list of heroes / folklore guys through the ones who ACCOMPLISHED the saving of the world each time. I know that some of the games mentioned those dudes who saved the world before, but we need to MEET them. That would be really cool. Maybe they might even have JOINED you at a particular juncture, for a particular reason. Some were saying they wished Rone and the gang had chipped in during the series. It would be WAY neater for the old heroes to shine up their armor and go for a whack. I originally posted this into another thread, but then realized that it might be a neat new thread. My apologies for anyone who had to read it twice, but...at least I added a couple other ideas to this version.

Maybe what would have been more satisfying is if the heroes that got created from A1-A5 would be mentioned more. That is, the ones WE made that would become part of folklore. Why not MEET some of these old guys, hear a few of their stories, get some tips from them? They have disappeared, even though they presumably retired in Avernum. How could we not meet them? Maybe they would not be named as WE had done (which is another reason that Aldous et al should have been changed each game) but they would be accessible. If Rone and the gang are still around, why not the heroes we made? I think that is an excellent consideration for any future series by Jeff. ADD to your list of heroes / folklore guys through the ones who ACCOMPLISHED the saving of the world each time. I know that some of the games mentioned those dudes who saved the world before, but we need to MEET them. That would be really cool.

I don't believe you are MEANT to be able to defeat the ghosts. Leave the room right away, without fighting them. They eventually eye the exit and take off. From what I can surmise, you are not intended to be able to defeat them, and probably never could. Them escaping is what the quest is really all about. They are being unleashed on the world...sinister thought.

Originally Posted By: Spidweb Being able to play in a window, play at any resolution, etc. Great decisions, Jeff. Especially appreciate the resolution / screen size decisions. This is going to be the best game ever!

Congrats on the bow. Yes, earlier posts show that if a character holding the items got killed down there, he got to keep it. Don't know if it was a bug, but you are probably running the latest version and it still happens. I wish my guy had been able to keep it...

Phasze, There are some keyboard shortcuts. "G" will bring up the "get" screen. You can examine and pick up things from there. Check the documentation to find out the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. "F" goes into and out of battle mode. "M" gets ready to cast a Mage spell, "P" a Priest spell. 1, 2, 3, 4 selects the corresponding party character. You can cast spells entirely from the keyboard. For example, to minor heal a guy [assuming the priest is character 4] you can just press 4pa1 to heal the 1st guy. If it's during battle, the sequence is pa1. If you've liked the game so far, you should enjoy it right to the end.

Just checked out building a new party. I always use custom characters. Every type of character starts out with 2 intelligence. That means they have the potential to cast spells, albeit weak. It costs 8 points to give a character the first 2 levels of priest. 13 points to give them 3 levels. Not much. It was this "instant intelligence" that first gave me the idea to give a fighter a priest spell level or two.

It's a personal preference I have. It's cheap to buy "upgrades" to the minor heal spell (priest level 1) and cure spell. A few NPC's "sell" it, plus you can find a book with how to improve it. So it gets to be pretty good. I also believe that intelligence is required to avoid some mind-control. At least it always was in all the pre-A5 games. I stand to be corrected, but I think that having intelligence less than 3 makes the character very susceptible to mind control. Which is very bad whenever he's powerful and takes a swipe at an unsuspecting "friend". I can't remember what it was earlier in my current game, but at present my fighter is level 14 and has 59 SP available. Basically 59 heals. I bought a couple levels of upgrade to the minor heal & cure spells, which were cheap. He heals over 30 HP per cast. I have a thing about liking everyone to be near 100% after a battle, but don't like wasting my priest's SPs on "minor" injuries. After all, casting STEEL SKIN really takes it out of the caster...but it's good for helping out the party. It's over 50 SP to do the entire party. Uggh. On a few battles, you actually will not want to be hitting the boss dude with any weapons because you get at least as much damage in return. Gelmax comes to mind. There's a battle skill some baddies use that gives everyone "spikes" or something and you end up getting hurt by hitting them. In that case, I was actually using a fighter to absorb blows and then healing himself or others as needed. I consider this tradeoff: Instead of using scrolls or wands to heal, I sold them and that more than paid for any training the fighter got in healing, if you think of them being related. You could try just giving ONE fighter some priest ability. It's true that he can't heal as much as a dedicated priest. But he can wear any amount of armor and still cast spells. Last game I played, I even had him casting SMITE, which is level 4 or 5. Right now my fighter can cast the "war..." spell (3) and get everyone more riled up for fighter. It's a blessing spell. In summary: 1) Everyone should have at least a little intelligence. (only fair) 2) When they have intelligence, there is at least some potential SP's waiting, so... 3) Why not give the guy a couple priest levels? Maybe not lots, but if he has 2 then he can at least heal and cure guys as necessary. 4) With those couple levels, he can at least make use of the SP's just waiting there (see 1).

I sell almost all the scrolls and wands. Well, probably all of them. Instead of keeping a healing scroll, I give my fighter(s) about 2 levels of priest so they can help out in the healing / de-poisoning aspect. Especially to heal everyone after fights are over. Of course, they need a couple levels of intelligence anyway to avoid getting easily mind-controlled themselves. By the time my character is about level 14, he's already got 60 SP to spend on healing. Good to offload that responsibility from Mr./Miss Priest. "Fighter, heal thyself."

I remember certain "assassins" in the old A games who would "drip poison into the wound" that they just inflicted on you. That was when using poisoned weapons in return seemed particularly appropriate.

Wouldn't it be realistic if throwing weapons could result in a throwing-related injury, say a dislocated shoulder or something? Just joking. My last post had me laughing so it made me think of it.

There are a few times in the game when it would be nice if your fighter(s) could hurl a few javelins of their own instead of just being pin cushions for them. Certain elevators come to mind. On the other hand, I suppose they could just as easily be delivering arrows to the enemies that are taking advantage of the situation in a sinister, dastardly way. Really ticks you off... My 2 fighters (okay, I already know lots of you don't agree with having 2, but I like a swordsman and pole-wielder) never had any throwing / bow skill and so were human pin cushions to attract the attention of enemy archers / slingers away from mage & priest so they could act. Much like the offensive line does for the quarterback. But I don't think they particularly enjoyed just standing there absorbing the force of impact without any mode of reprisal other than maybe using a wand against them.

If you're doing swell without it, try the game without it. However, you don't get the rewards he gives, and you don't get the same feeling of justification if/when you later cash him in, i.e. slay him. Instead it would purely be an act of aggression, maybe justified as preventing him from similarly entrapping / helping other souls in the future. Everyone (who's taken the geas and) who's posted about it seems to feel great elation after cashing him in and removing the geas. Everyone who posted BEFORE they got to do so seem to breath threat and murder towards him in anticipation of paying him back. So it seems to be that you will also be rewarded likewise if you take the geas... I was playing on torment and getting tormented by how strong the monsters were. The geas gave me the needed power to change the tide. It did affect my feelings the same as everyone else when I could have freed the ***** instead of murdering it for *******.

Being able to poison one's blade used to be a practical thing in the old games. I think it was done by a spell, and also by a skill but I can't remember on that second point. But I seem to remember there being a poisoning skill.

MOVEMENT: I don't know how you guys handle movement in A4/5, but I have the arrow keys scrolling the map so I can click where I want to go. But I always have to use the arrow keys in conjunction with each other. Up/right, Dn/Left. And doing it this way makes it much easier to miss something important on the screen. However, holding down one key to go, say, North, was very easy in the old games. Two went diagonally. I suppose that even though you went "clomping", it wasn't any more effort than what I'm doing now with the arrows / mouse method. And walking into doors to open them made sense. I would like the new movement method of mouseclicking better if you could select somewhere very far from your current position instead of having to lead your party screen by screen. Sometimes you've already wiped out all the baddies and so why not travel greater distances automatically? I also liked the "T" then letter for talking, and "A"(?) and letter for attacking. I think that spellcasting was similar (M/P letter then another key for selecting the spell).

Do you remember the horses? Weren't they in A3, above ground in the Empire? They were kind of fun, too.

Sorry to hurt your feelings and sensibilities. But I wasn't the one to figure out how to do the Redmark/Dorikas ending. Probably there are a number of already-existing choices in the game that you don't like. To kill or not to kill -- that Drake for its skin, the other various "specimens" for Lark, Gladwell, et al. Making a city mad at you is probably distressing. Fact is, anyone could modify the ending text if they wanted. Take this all in good fun...I'm not trying to agitate you. -- OC

It would be neat if you killed both Redmark & Dorikas and became the new emperor yourself! Maybe Jeff can do a little amending and script that outcome too!