Alex

Avernum 1: Cap at level 40, reachable without too much trouble with a party of four. Double positive traits might be too much, though. Avernum 2: Cap at level 50, with a drastic slowdown in xp gain after level 45. I think a typical party would reach level 48 or 49 - this is probably the game where traits have the smallest influence on character level at the very end. Avernum 3: I'm not sure what the level cap is. I had a maximum xp bonus character in a party of four that got to around level 100. Probably above 100, but it's been a while. A party of four with xp penalties close to maximum still got above level 50. By the way, when you reach level 35, skill point gain drops from 8 per level to 6 per level. In Avernum 3, at least, level difference has a large impact. A level 1 character can level up from killing a few slimes, but around level 10, it's down to 1 xp per slime. This is readily seen if you recruit Hsska as soon as possible - at first, he'll gain xp at a much slower rate than the rest of the party.

I haven't had time to play most games I have on GOG and Steam. I haven't finished all Spiderweb games, either: Avadon, Avernum 4-6, Nethergate. It has been ported to OS X now: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/05/30/the-witcher-2-is-coming-to-mac-sold-1-7-million-copies-on-pc-and-xbox-360/ http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher_2

Originally Posted By: BMA Originally Posted By: Alex Well, even if those noble savages hadn't been the object of colonialism, they would probably have found out at a later date that other people have cars and refrigerators, and wanted to have them, too. While it's a fact that the colonists did bring with them some technological advancements, it would be unfair to assume that the colonies would otherwise, even now, be backward and leaf-clad. (I hope I understood what you meant, correctly) We may well be in agreement. Development with colonialism tends to cause environmental issues. Development without colonialism tends to cause environmental issues. Note the redundancy. Also, it would be unfair to disregard the positive aspects of development. Stone Age barbarism (a stage which not all victims of military conquest were in when subjected, of course) is like constant genocide and constant world war - albeit in smaller, more isolated worlds. Development has been nothing like genocide, if you look at the big picture, more like a mass breeding program - particularly for non-white people, actually! The population of the Americas is almost 1 billion today.

Originally Posted By: Dantius One of the points that Diamond makes is that the people of Eurasia didn't get civilization because they were so much smarter than everybody else, but because they got lucky and got beasts of burden, crops, climates not hospitable to disease, and natural barriers. Any people that got those resources would have hit the world-historical jackpot and wound up ruling the place. Better beasts of burden might be beneficial to economic development, but they neither prove nor disprove anything about the intelligence of Eurasians, nor do they explain the vast intra-Eurasian and intra-American differences in development. Jared Diamond does have other opinions about race and intelligence, though: Originally Posted By: Straight from the horse's mouth From the very beginning of my work with New Guineans, they impressed me as being on average more intelligent, more alert, more expressive, and more interested in things and people around them than the average European or American is. ... That is, natural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, politically complex societies, where natural selection for body chemistry was instead more potent. Edit: There were horses in North America, too, but they disappeared around 10000 to 7600 years ago, according to wikipedia.

Regarding colonialism and the environment: Well, even if those noble savages hadn't been the object of colonialism, they would probably have found out at a later date that other people have cars and refrigerators, and wanted to have them, too. My point is that development, whether spread peacefully or not, is the underlying issue here. I suppose that the polar bears were better off in the Stone Age, but were humans better off? If you want to go "back to nature", you're free to do so. There ought to be some nice little uninhabited island in the Arctic where you can live like an archaic hunter - and hope the polar bears don't get you.

Are there still only two different nephilim models in Avernum 4?

Originally Posted By: Avadon World of Avadon, an MMORPG. It's an amusing coincidence that this was brought up just before The Elder Scrolls Online was presented. Never say never...

It seems that the priest spell Repel Spirit has been removed and replaced by a cold damage spell (largely redundant, since mages have one). Are there any demon-slaying or undead-slaying items other than Demonslayer? Do you miss this classic priest spell? Although it's hardly a big deal, it makes spellcasters less diverse. Also, 1000 posts.

The graphics are prettier. Before, the resolution was fixed at 800x600, of which a large part was devoted to the UI: Avernum in its first incarnation The skill system has been streamlined - you get fewer skillpoints, but you can add traits as you gain levels. Of course, these new traits are generally weaker than the old ones. Some new content, for example: Click to reveal.. A new starter dungeon - you start in a cavern below Fort Avernum.

I've managed to avoid the roamers, too. You can come back later and enter their room from the other side. EDIT: Mechanics 8 is required to keep the roamers locked inside.

I managed to register the Windows version.

Originally Posted By: Othar Trygvassen: Gentleman Quote: all of Rawal quests are the equivalent of bonus quests, no real opinions. Not quite true. If you do Rawal's final quest (the one in the Dera Reaches), you can't join Taygen's faction. You don't lose anything for doing his first two quests, though. Indeed. It's worth mentioning that you can still do the quest - and get the reward - after joining Taygen's faction, though. Munchkins rejoice!

Originally Posted By: DragoWaffle Do you not remember: Quote: for whatever reason I don't think if you played a shaper or some other weak pc, that it would easy. If you stand right next to the healing pool, it shouldn't be that hard, only tedious.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter How does this relate to the James Byrd case I was talking about? It does not, I was actually inspired by Kelandon's fiery rant against The Man. Maybe I should have quoted his post.

A black guy being sentenced to death by a mostly black jury is clearly part of the giant white racist conspiracy. Also, any crimes committed by black people are to be blamed either on the victims, or on the white racist conspiracy, of which Barack Hussein Obama, who is secretly a KKK member, is also a part. He is one of the secret masterminds behind the heinous genocide against black people, due to which there are hardly any blacks left in the world. Most of the nearly one billion people claimed to be living in Africa are the either propaganda lies or neo-nazi skinheads posing in blackface.

The only thing that happened to me was that Rawal himself refused to speak with me. All other NPCs I talked to continued to offer services.

It seems that killing Greta is indeed the key to preventing Rawal from heading the council, at least if you side with Astoria. Doing none of his quests - except the mandatory first quest - did not prevent him from heading the council when I let Greta get away. Doing all of his quests except the "lapdog poor ending" one did not help him when I killed poor old Greta. However, Astoria did not head the council either. After a peek at Dahak's GF5 endings page, I don't think it's possible for her to do that. The control tool was removed in both cases.

Does the removal of choices during character creation make Avernum gameplay faster or more fun, though? I suppose a simplified Avadon-style system won't make it unplayable, but what was wrong with the old system was poor documentation and buggy implementation, as in traits, attributes and skills that don't do what they are claimed to do. It isn't really a very complicated system, either. It's amusing that Jeff mentions - in this context - that players seeking excitement should try a higher difficulty setting. 4000hp enemies do not give you greater variety in party design, it gives you even fewer options, and also more grinding and longer-lasting battles with longer recuperation between them. Click...click...click-click-click. I suppose a World of Warcraft player such as Jeff might find killing 4000hp boars more exciting than killing 100hp boars, though.

Erm, you start out with 8 skill points, unless you choose custom class (perhaps because Jeff's prefab party is kind of crappy), in which case you get 65 (in Avernum 3, I don't remember if it was the same in Avernum). In contrast, you can gain hundreds of skill points later on, both from leveling up and from knowledge brews. Then there are mind crystals, trainers, special skills that are unlocked etc. A character editor is available for those who need respec, and unless you try a tank with "completely inept" and "brittle bones" on torment, the traits you pick shouldn't really make things much harder.

The elephant in the room here is the aura attacks that boss-level opponents usually have. You can't dodge those with high Dexterity.

Yes, those are not in the small part of the dungeon that is accessible only to Taygen's faction.

Milking all factions is much easier than in, say, Geneforge 2. Just keep a neutral reputation and postpone giving your opinion to NPCs who will wait for it. High Leadership also helps. Warning: Much munchkinism and minor spoilers ahead. You don't need to join Alwan's faction to get access to Control Core B, just a not-too-rebellious reputation. After doing that quest, you get access to skill training (in Shaping and magic skills). I don't think you need to join for that either, but I'm not sure. You do need to join to get access to advanced creations (cheapest War Tralls in the game). Taygen's faction offers you some minor rewards (a Healing Craft canister, a sword with +2 Mental Magic, a ring with +2 Mental Magic, some gold and sellable trinkets), although you miss out on the Guardian Claymore and Tek's Spectral Dirk. Ghaldring won't care about the Serviles you slaughter, but the Drakon Sighting side-quest could make you miss out on some information for a Ghaldring quest. You can also get to Control Core B by joining Litalia, although her quests actually make one of Ghaldring's quests slightly harder. If you join Ghaldring, you won't get Ur-Drakons or Eyebeasts, by the way.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Perhaps she had mercenaries from other tribes. Gaddika and company were certainly opportunistically traitorous. But let's look at Vahantai attitudes in X2. In general, they are not a particularly suspicious and untrusting people. However, they were uniformly furious towards the abductors of the Crystal Souls. The only real difference of opinion was whether it was OK for them to treat Exile as a different tribe from the Empire, or if all humans were bad. I have forgotten many details of the quests, but I don't remember that anyone in E2/A2 made a big deal of the traitorous Vahnatai. No one suggested that the Vahnatai should all go kill themselves for belonging to the same species as Gaddika. Double standards FTW! I wouldn't be too surprised if Rentar actually played a part the abduction, or at least was pleased to have an excuse to wage war on the humans. The brief alliance with Exile/Avernum could be seen as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy.

Indeed, their resistances according to the scripts are pretty high: Shapers: 40% physical, 50% fire, cold and energy Guardians: 60% physical, 30% fire and cold Agents: 40% physical, 30% fire and cold, 60% energy All three get 70% mental effects resistance, but I'm not sure how much it matters for player characters. Poison and acid are still problems. One might consider it an exploit that makes the game easier, of course.

Hit chance was 90%; I would have become suspicious if it were 95%. It would be surprising if dexterity increased damage without increasing hit chance. +5 missile weapons did increase damage, though.