madrigan
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Everything posted by madrigan
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Don't feel dumb. Well, maybe we're both dumb. But I did the same thing. Didn't confront him at the fortress, then assumed he had traveled directly to his tower. I spent half a day wandering around the woods.
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I really like the item that causes stone blocks to appear in your pack -- The Reproducing Bulwark?. It took me a while to figure out what was happening.
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Originally Posted By: FnordCola I think that's an interesting story in itself, but it loses sight of the problem that was the raison d'etre of the "ethnic minority/member of non-dominant culture" thing in the first place. That is, the fact that characters who appear to be from Holklanda/the Wyldrylm are not recognized as such, and receive instruction on those cultures as if they were foreigners. A person who has received several years of training as a shadowwalker, from native Holklandan shadowwalkers, would presumably have substantial knowledge of Holklandan culture, and might well have adopted various mannerisms typical of Holklandans in order to fit in with his instructors. I did think of that, or part of it. I assume that the PC moves straight from the isolation of a remote ethnic enclave straight to the isolation of intense daily training. During these many years of training the PC interacts with members of the dominant culture, but only with members of the dominant culture who have to some degree abandoned the common day-to-day cultural trappings of their previous lives in order to focus on an older, more "pure" way of expressing the culture. For example if I had, as a child, or young adult, moved from New York to Japan to live in a remote Zen monastery, I would know many Japanese people but much of contemporary Japanese culture would be completely unknown to me. Given that the Pact nations do not have electronic media, and that many areas are very hard to travel to, an member of a minor ethnicity living in a remote enclave within Holklanda might know less about Holklandan culture than I actually know about Japanese culture in RL even though I've never been there and speak no Japanese. In my game I am playing a shadowwalker. So the way it would work in-world is something like: "I was born within the borders of Holklanda in a remote area where the roads don't go. I am not Holklandan, but many of the older practices of my people resemble some of the older Holklandan practices, so it is possible that we were one people long ago. When I was child, a Holklandan woman from Avadon visited my village. As I was the son of a village elder, I was noticed by this woman when she came to meet with the local council. She explained that I had great potential as a "shadowwalker" and my parents decided it was best that I attend the Institute for Shadowwalking and Ninja Awesomeness. The next day I began the long journey to the ISNA. The training was hard and often painful. Though I was never treated badly, I did not quite fit in with my fellow students, who sometimes ridiculed my odd pronunciation of "sibboleth." Nonetheless we were all following an ancient path that was largely forgotten outside of the ISNA. Most Holklandans will never know how much of their well-being and security is owed to the efforts of the shadowwalkers. After many years, I became a shadowwalker and was assigned to Avadon. The world still seems strange to me, sometimes, but I am devoted to Avadon's mission of law, order, and peace. I have never been able to return to my village; perhaps I will never see it again. "
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I'm on the Beraza Woods quest now. I have been using the blademaster and the shaman as my companions almost exclusively. A couple of quests ago we ran into the mangled-hand guy who ambushed the blademaster. I really wish I could remember peoples' names. Anyway, we did not kill mangled-hand guy. All I want to know is, are we going to get another shot at him? It is starting make me sad, the poor guy is so troubled by what happened.
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Originally Posted By: FnordCola Just as long as it's not clearly an argumentum ex culo. @Madrigan: I think that idea has some merit, but it works a lot better for some classes than others. A blademaster could presumably be from any ethnicity that has that approximate skin tone and isn't broadly averse to the use of heavy metal armor. The sorceress has the standard Kellem look, but presumably Dharam and a few other places have substantial numbers of people with pale skin and blond hair. The shaman and shadowwalker are a bit more problematic, though. The former practices a style of magic that seems exclusively native to the Wyldrylm and Khemeria. The latter wears garb that is heavily bound up in Holklandan tradition; there are even a few points in the game where the narrator comments that a character's shadowwalker garb looks inauthentic. These are all good points. With the shaman, it's not at all unlikely that there would be a minor ethnicity which had religious and cultural practices similar enough to those of the Wyldrylm to be invisible in game terms, but which was also culturally distinct enough that its members would be interacted with in the manner I described. A member of this minor ethnicity might be genetically related to members of the dominant culture going back to some remote past when a cultural branching took place, which would explain the similar physical appearance. I think the same conception works with the shadowwalker. As well, we don't know for sure that a member of a minor ethnicity would be absolutely excluded from the training of a shaman or a shadowwalker. I think it's adequately plausible to assume that a shadowwalker PC was raised in a remote ethnic enclave of Holklanda, but was able to receive the training as an adult, or that a shaman PC was raised in a similar circumstance in the Wyldrylm and adopted the dominant religious practices later. The backstory might include episodes in which the character chose to leave his or her community and adopt some of the practices of the dominant culture, or in which the character's potential was noticed by a high ranking Eye or Hand from that dominant culture. Thus the character is a completely legitimate shaman or shadowwalker in terms of garb and abilities, and appears the same physically from our perspective, but is nonetheless treated differently from more "normal" members of those professions as their in world physical traits or speaking accent are a bit "off."
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Thanks!
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Can I just install this without losing my saved games?
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I don't know anything about this Bioware-Obsidian-Bethesda issue, but if I think that my character is missing a backstory, I just make one up. There are probably many people living in the Pact nations who do not share any of the five dominant ethnicities. The game doesn't mention them because it's not important to the main story, but there are probably equivalents to, say, the Jews, the Roma, or the Parsi. I assume my character is from an enclave of an ethnic group of this sort. The peoples of the pact seem rather ethnocentric, which helps explain why no one ever refers to my culture or background -- they don't consider it worth acknowledging. It also helps to explain why I don't seem to have a connection to any place I travel -- my people are few, and none of my missions happen to take place where they live. If my people tend to live and work inside their own communities, that would explain why I don't know anything about the major cultures of the Pact. I think think this is much more useful, in terms of determining my character's standpoint and explaining the details of the game, than assuming that he is an orphan or has amnesia. I often make things up like this and simply assume it as I go through the game. I sometimes did the same with some of my Avernum games. I find it enriches my game experience and it doesn't make any more work for Jeff.
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Wretch Warrens problem (mild early game spoilers)
madrigan replied to madrigan's topic in Avadon Series
I was looking in the wrong place entirely. The trapdoor was where I first thought the entrance would be, but I was looking for secret door buttons and missed the obvious trapdoor, and decided to look in another area. I think I was standing right next to it without noticing it. -
Originally Posted By: Randomizer You have 58 skill points to add to skills in a game. It takes 2 skill points to get a new skill and 1 skill point to increase an existing skill. It takes 101 skill points to get every skill to the maximum level. This passage is unclear to me. It takes 101 skill points to get every skill to maximum level, but you have 58 skill points to add to skills in a game? Do you mean that you have 43 skill points to initially add skills, and 58 skill points to improve those skills once acquired, assuming you reach level 30?
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Wretch Warrens problem (mild early game spoilers)
madrigan replied to madrigan's topic in Avadon Series
Thanks! I'll try it out tonight. -
I feel like a dope for getting stuck this early in the game, but I can't figure out how to get into the main part of the Wretch Warrens. I'm pretty sure I have been through the whole map, and I have discovered a number of secret passages towards the NW which I assume are the back entrance that I was told about. However, there is a locked door at the end of the secret passages that seems to lead into the Warrens, and the game says that it is locked and can't be picked. Where the heck is the key to this door? Just to be clear, I have found a lightly guarded area which appears to be at a mine entrance, but I can't seem to get in that way, and then quite close to the scout camp there are several secret passages connected to each other which end up at this door. I even tried a frontal assault on the main entrance, which wasn't very hard since I'm playing on Casual, but I don't think I can actually get in that way.
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Things I like: 1) Graphics are great, much improved over G5 and A6. 2) Legal philosophy banter so early in the game. 3) "NPCs" are competent and advance with my character. 4) Some of the special abilities are cool. 5) Between auto-heal and return-to-town I lean 60% towards auto-heal. RTT feels more realistic; AH is much less annoying. Things I don't like: 1) Less control over character building than in the Avernum games. 2) Geneforge-style zones instead of Avernum-style contiguous map. In RL if I want to go two towns over I have to pass through the intervening municipalities. I find the jumping around a bit jarring. 3) Background sounds seem incongruous in some locations. Also, and this isn't really negative or positive: I like that I'm not really sure if I am a good guy or a bad guy within the context of the game world. I appreciate the moral ambiguity, which is Geneforgey. On the other hand, overall I like the more clearly heroic path provided by the Avernum games. So I am only a few zones in but I hope that there is at least one ending where I have stabbed Evil to death and am totally awesome. And yeah, the text is small.
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Create your own ending for avernum 6!
madrigan replied to Chizzlepain's topic in Second Avernum Trilogy
I wanted the _A Christmas Story_ ending -- "all was right with the world." And then "FOR NOW..." tacked on to leave the door open for Avernum 7. The actual ending wasn't disappointing, because it was the kind of in-world realistic, ambivalent ending that helps make Spiderweb games great. But it was sad, to me anyway, and I had hoped there would be some way to really defeat the horde, cure the Blight, and restore Avernum to its former greatness before retiring wealthy and admired. -
Thanks all. I actually have been putting points into Leadership and Mechanics, but I forgot to say so. I am thinking I will get both of them to about 10 and leave them there. My first attempt at this build was cut short when I got to the Stoneworks with only 6 points in Leadership and didn't want to use 10 living tools to open that one door. With no good way to level up at that point, I started over and overloaded those two skills at the beginning.
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Question 1: I am attempting G5 again after two prior attempts which produced terrible characters who got beat up in any of the tougher battles towards the end of the game. This time I am a Lifecrafter, and I am trying to approach skill point distribution based on the character class description, that is, I am letting my creations do almost all of the fighting while I stay back and use buffs and healing spells. So far I have been putting most of my points into Intelligence, Battle and Magic Shaping, Healing Craft, and Blessing Magic. Is it possible to succeed this way? Do I need to find or train in the higher level Battle and Mental Magic spells, or can I reserve those points to make more and better creations? Am I going to need, at some point, to blow away enemies on my own? Question 2: In the past I have avoided using any canisters at all. Now I am using some of them, maybe 2/3 of them. Is this going to impede me in a significant way? Will it keep me from completing any important quests? Thanks all.
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I admit I haven't read the entire thread, but I don't want the games to be hard. I want them to be fun. I don't play games for the challenge, I play them because they are diverting. If they require too much research or min-maxing to beat, that's not fun or diverting. That's work. These are RPGs. Let me succeed with a character or characters that I like playing.
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The question is, do the characters know that they don't need to buy anything because they will just find stuff lying around? I play with the assumption that if the characters need something, they will purchase it, since they don't know the future, and hoping to find it in a random barrel is too great a risk.
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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity There's also an art to giving drill commands. A bad command can make crack troops look like idiots. I immediately thought of Alec Baldwin on SNL screaming "TAKE THE SHAWWWWWWWWT!!!" at a couple of sniper trainees.
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Buffalo, NY is the second largest city in the state and has 270,000 people in it.
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Originally Posted By: Monroe Originally Posted By: madrigan Originally Posted By: Spidweb In other words, there will be an outdoors distinct from the towns. Nuts. I'm much less excited now. Well, I'l see if I like the demo. Note that this was in reference to a remade Avernum 1-3. Changing the layout would be difficult and would alter the game. Yeah, I realize that. Well, actually I have no idea what the coding and design challenges would be if Jeff decided to covert A1-3 to the seamless world, but if he says it would be a huge bear then I assume that's true. Nonetheless I think this will make the games less enjoyable for me. But the indoors/outdoors was not one of the top 2-3 reasons why I could never get through much of the original A1-3, so maybe it won't turn out to be too annoying.
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A6 - Anti-climactic ending? [spoilers]
madrigan replied to Ironweed's topic in Second Avernum Trilogy
Originally Posted By: Lilith Avernum 6's promotional campaign literally promised "the end of Avernum" i'm sort of baffled that people are disappointed that that's what they got I took that to mean that the entire country would, or might, be destroyed, like total cave in, fire, mass demonic invasion. I thought maybe the characters would have a chance to prevent that. Instead the ending was in the middle. I appreciate that Jeff's games do not always offer crystal clear outcomes, and that makes the games more sophisticated and realistic. On the other hand, this is fantasy, and I wanted a chance to fix the portal, drive out the horde, cure the blight, and leave Avernum intact for eternity. The saga of the PCs in the Avernum games has usually been of a "wrong place, right time" nature -- like, I don't know, Han Solo or Kyle Rayner. In A6, it was more of a Raiders of the Lost Ark thing where it seems that, had the PCs never existed, things would have ended up pretty much the same way. As for the ending text, I didn't like the idea that the PCs never got to return home. But I very much liked the idea of Avernum as an actual existing shadow version of the Empire, serving a mythological, metaphysical, and practical purpose in its continued continued functioning. -
Originally Posted By: Spidweb In other words, there will be an outdoors distinct from the towns. Nuts. I'm much less excited now. Well, I'l see if I like the demo.
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I don't like the indoors/outdoors shift and I don't like zones. In A3 your characters approach what is supposed to be a huge city and it looks like a little postage stamp on the screen. Then you have to wait for the city to load. I like having to actually pass through the city gates as if I was passing through the city gates. I also like having to actually transit, whether on foot or magically, between parts of the map. It makes the game world seem more real. Having to go from pylon to portal to pylon, for example, enforces the idea that actual distance exists. The zones make it feel like the areas are all disconnected from each other.
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If you read the descriptions of most games, they sound cliched and/or dull. It depends on the execution. My primary concern is whether the game will be enjoyable for people who suck at games. I suck at games. I love Avernums 4-6 because, among other reasons, I can create whatever characters I want, ignore min-maxing techniques, and still have fun and complete the game. It's hard to create a completely useless party in those games. I find Geneforges 4-5 much more difficult, and they seem to require stricter adherence to particular point and item allocations. Jeff wrote on his blog recently about making games easier. I hope he succeeds in this regard when he is working on Avadon.
