PantherShadow

The 9000 in A1 is is correct, though. (I remember because it made training blademaster a long, slow process...)

'Cept for troglos, giants, and what-have-you... They relieve themselves whenever I draw my sword and charge I agree with Capt. Ackers on the ring thing... Two rings is much better. Of course, Jeff did give us bracelets... Anyway, I completely, 100% agree on two weapons. At the end of E2, my primary fighter was a force-and-a-half to be reckoned with all because of dual weilding. Maybe make it only available to characters with at least X strength, and/or impose an accuracy penalty on one weapon (since Avernum doesn't have the ambixtrous trait)?

What would be cool is if after Sliths take a set amount of damage from fire, they automatically get haste cast on them. Reverse it for cold: after the amount is reached, they're slowed. I mean, they are cold-blooded, right?

I have the registered versions of A1 and A2, and the demo of A3. I hated A3; the damage just made melee way too overpowering. A2 definitely had the best story plot of the trilogy, and the Vanhatai (sp, I know...) graphics owned. The chapter thing was nice; it let you feel like you were really making progress. But I honestly think I enjoyed A1 the best (but A2 was a _very_ close second)... Killing Pyrog, defeating Grah-Hoth... Good times. And when the special event (you know which one!) happened at Fort Remote, it was a complete change to my thinking. (It also inspired me to finish the Grah-Hoth quest as quickly as humanly possible.) I don't think A2 would have been the same for me without having player A1 first. (Actually, I had played and beaten E2 before I played A1... It made for a very interesting retroactive experience!) Granted, A1 did lack the quest log. But hey, I normally write things down when I play anyway.

If you post a time, you might want to post difficulty level, too; that'd probably make a large difference.

There's no school like the old school

I never found any advantage to joining the Scimitar... They do give that quest to destroy Empire caches, though. Or at least they give the reward.

If Jeff puts up old-school E1 graphics, let me know! I loved E1 (even though I only had the demo...), but I agree with, um, whomever said that blue cave floors are irritating. 'Cause I think they're irritating, too.

I think it sounds like a good idea... The interaction, not shooting Rent-an-Ihrno (who, IMHO, has a cool name), that is.

I'd like these features: 1. Keep the dang thing turn-based! Do you know how hard it is to find quality turn-based RPGs any more? 2. Someone already said it, but it deserves to be said again: house building and item crafting. I so want my own house (with storage area) and my own custom-built mithril rapier. 3. Being able to go from the surface back to lower Exile would be nice... Extremely time consuming to code, but nice. (I know, not going to happen... But I can dream, can't I?) 4. Definite race differences... Aside from graphics, I can't tell if my slith has a bonus with spears or just really high dexterity. 5. The A1/A2 weapons damage model. In A3, damage started to get entirely too high, even without assassination (or I just trained my skills abnormally high). 6. Again, been said before, but deserves to be said again: single-shot area spells. Who remembers fireball from Exile? I used that spell clear through the end of E2; the multi-targeting spells just don't cut it like fireball (and others) did. With a single-shot area-attack spell, there's strategy involved (getting opponents to clump together while avoiding clumping your party). That's all I can think of right now for A4; as for the multi-player idea someone mentioned, heh. I emailed Jeff way back before E3 came out (a loooong time ago...), and he said that it's been mentioned and considered, but it's just not the direction he's going (or it wasn't then). Besides, programming a single-player game is vastly different from coding a multi-player internet game.

Pfft! By that criteria, I should get one too!

But from A2 to A3, the damage thing for strength/skill/weapon thing was rewritten (x-X per level of STR+skill). This created some really powerful hits... Anyway, personally, I prefer Exile 2 and 3. I randomness of the game is what I like.

Nephilim do develop slowly, but toward the game's end, archery/throwing gets quite powerful with the right help. A magical bow (blessed, I think) with steel bolts/arrows (or better) against a paralyzed enemy is devastating. Razordisks (in A2) work nicely, too. Just don't abandon melee skills.

I answered "X" to many of the questions... I think he was awesome! I mean, come on! Who wouldn't want an anvil-flinging guardian?! Now THAT'S what I call important research.

Quote: (Look! He killed my father the expert swordsman! Since I'm only 10 and have no real purpose in life, let alone skill, I'm gonna hunt him down and make him pay!) Sounds like the general line of thinking for Inego in The Princess Bride. Anyway, IRL I sided with the Awakened, until (as it was mentioned) I realized that I was doing all their dirty work. In-game, however, I'd side with the Takers, just because the Obeyers didn't appeal to me very much.

Curse All is also wonderful. Once you get the mage version of Ravage Enemy, however, they both become relatively obsolete.

Indeed, then. The <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags used to be used, but I think everyone has forgotton about them...

Heh... I did a very nice rant in favor of the old-school Exile. It's on the Avernum boards, go check it out for the primary differences.

I've noticed that too, but like FBM said, the only way to get back there is something we can't talk about here

Make sure to pick up the nifty eq made from Pyrog's remains! I missed it first time around because I was mainly concerned with getting in and out as quickly as possible.

Quote: Originally written by Prince Albert in a Can: It will surprise you to know that you are the first person ever to mention any of these things, and that nobody else misses them at all. Them's fightin' words around the older crew. I miss it. So what if Avernum gives you the chance to weild a 2h weapon? Sure, you can get assassination damage added to it. But in E2, Alien Blade-Shocking Wave Blade combo essentially gave you the same damage as an A2 2h weapon+assassination damage. Add to that the chance of assassination kicking in on the Alien Blade, plus any poison damage if the poor sap survives the initial blows. Area spells were the bomb. They didn't hit X enemies per Y levels in skill Z. They depended on your positioning and your opponents' positioning. Thus, watching where you walked now required strategy. They also made early-game fights a bit easier. Fields were also helpful, especially after it was discovered that doomguards couldn't split into fields. And once you learned Anitmagic Cloud, you could actually take on several rakshasi at once and stand a chance! And, something no one has yet mentioned: random items. Certainly, things like special loot (the aforementioned weapons, for example, and dragon loot) are fixed. But as for things like monster drops, things are randomized. In Avernum, they're relatively fixed. While this lends to realism, it also means that if you take the steup of (sword/bow/thief,spear/throwing,pure mage,pure priest, assume all characters use a sheild), then 90% of parties are going to end up with almost identical equipment. Granted, Avernum does have good points, like different levels of spells (as opposed to a new, more powerful spell). Also, the terrain elevation engine, while not much for function, showed us cool things. And as for Ferox, Avernum's graphics aren't much to look at, either. Overall, though, I'd take Exile of Avernum any day. Not only for the reasons stated above, but also because it simply took (and still takes) me longer to complete E2 than A2 (don't have full of E1 or A3, I'm poor)

Silo? Is that something she'll respond to? Great, now I'm gonna hafta load up E2 again and find out...

I will steal anything I can, if it's worth quite a bit. Occasionally, I'll steal and make the town mad, go to the editor, and reset the town. But only two or three times have I done this. The only friendly town I've cleared out was Spire in A1 - those bandits, thieves, and that <insert derogatory term that I'm not sure I'm allowed to post here> they had for a mayor deserved to die.

Slith archmages do have sweet graphics. But as for mad skills, I've gotten Motrax in my soul crystal once, on E2. It took over 100 tries, but I finally did it. And let me tell you, he's quite a wonderful help!

If you are on E2, then she has some nice stuff. If you can survive long enough to get to it, grab it and leave town via the editor. There's a suit of armor in there you won't find anywhere else, except MAYBE Brantford.