Triumph

Yes, that picture is definitely made of WIN. Eph needs to post that picture on his AIMHack site to preserve it for posterity.

Err...on a lighter note, some of my favorite quotes from Fire Emblem (the first one released in the US, for the GBA, called just Fire Emblem). That game had some of the best dialogue ever: “The Bartre before you is not the same one you faced then!” – Bartre “Who are you giving orders to, fool!? Yarr!” – Dart “Bah! You daft fool!” – Dart “Eliwood, I have always despised you. How I’ve longed to smash you and your pathetic morality into pieces! I’ve dreamed of this day, and here it is at last!” – Erik “Pegasi are noble animals! So, they must eat noble carrots, you see!” – Farina “What part of my hairdo looks like a bird’s nest?” – Geitz “I have an attention span of only about half an hour. Too bad, huh? Heh, heh!” – Geitz “I am Glass! The gods fear my name!” – Glass “…Man, why do I get stuck with all the lame henchmen?” – Hector “Lowen…Would you mind explaining exactly how you managed to fight your way back from Pherae while stopping to have a picnic during every battle?” – Isadora “As a rule, assassins are weaklings.” – Legault “Uh-oh. Looks like someone hates me. What a pity.” – Legault “Gah! Do-don’t do that. Warn me when you’re about to talk! It’s not polite to frighten me.” – Legault “Lord Marcus!! How is it that you know everything!?” – Lowen “Did…Did you eat breakfast, my lord?” – Lowen “Do not fear! I’ll always have you to protect me should things turn sour!” – Matthew “I am a sweet, helpless little cleric…You have to protect me!” – Serra “You’re making fun of me in a roundabout way!” – Serra “Ah…I’m so cute it’s almost criminal!” – Serra “I don’t see any trigger there. Do you? I didn’t think so.” – the game’s tutorial “Ah, we meet again. You disappoint me by your persistent refusal to drop dead.” – Vaida “Grrrr!! Not again! This is the 75th time! I could have SWORN Caelin was in this direction!” – Wallace “Oh, great…If it isn’t Mr. “Manual of Knightly Prowess”! I mean…General Wallace!” – Wil “I might as well be Normal Archer number three!” – Wil

L. O. L. Oh Kurex. I'd love to see Vitze and Kurex get into an argument. Or even better, Vitze and Xuan! "My crazy plan that involve claiming we come from the moon trying to escape an evil wizard named Zarusa is better than your plan!" "No, my plan that we catapult flaming turtles into the enemy camp is vastly superior!" It would be a riot! Oh, wait, riots... Truly, having Vitze and Xuan in a party would be totally amazing.

Ooh, the designer speaks from on high, dispelling rabid speculations! Thanks for the reveal; it is interesting to know what you decided on the map front.

Ah, good catch Hypnotic! I hoped someone would remember exactly which zones they are in.

Line also dropped. I would love to see Lanrezac investigate Kurex, as I explained in the line.

I look forward to seeing more Abjuration spells. Maybe there'll be something I should adopt? I like the party's level-up development. They really seem to be cultivating a broad skill base (not that that matters if the dice are out to help the goblins, but it's the thought that counts). And yay Patches!

Oh, they are annoying. One lives in the zone with the path along the shore, where you meet the guard on your way to San Ru - Swampy Shore. The other two...I don't remember which zones. They are in two of the following: Southern Marsh, Vlish Woods, Methane Swamp, Roamer Marsh; I'm just not exactly sure which of the four. They are present randomly; that is, in the zones in which they live, they aren't always there. If you enter one of the above zones and get a message about feeling a chill or something along that line, you know one of your roamers is at home. If you don't get that message, then the Icy Roamer isn't present. So basically, you have to keep going between the zones until you get the notification that one is home, and then go hunt it down. Hope this helps!

Hahaha. Well, development may be questionable at times, but Xuan and Kurex are undeniably vivid characters.

Ooh, another excellent epilogue! Kurex develops in an unexpected direction! Good stuff.

I'm sure Slarty would facepalm anyone and everyone to death trying to affirm that Luck does not affect item drops. I've seen him say it lots of times in various games, after extensive investigations. Yet for some reason this heresy keeps arising.

Looking at the zone script for Benerii where Rhakkus is, I found a possible clue for your Click to reveal.. Somewhere in the zone is a place with some drakons held in stasis by a machine, and apparently you can let them loss. That might be a way to get at Rhakkus. Somewhere else is a machine or vat of acid/chemicals that you can apparently cause to flood/overflow/something, and will refill periodically. That might be another way to target Rhakkus.

I think the seamless A4-A6 world COULD work just fine...if the world were built for it. The biggest problem with it was that it felt funny trying to squeeze the game world (Avernum) designed for the old system into the new system; this led to both the squished feel (because Jeff had to squeeze all the major cities of Avernum into a smaller space and had to leave out a variety of smaller landmarks) AND because you had lots of the fans of the series who had a developed a sense of the grand scale of the caves that was now missing. In the new Avadon, Jeff can make a new world where everything fits and where players have no prior sense of scale to be disrupted.

No. You are absolutely supposed to use combat mode for stealth. Really, stealth is impossible with out doing that. And yes, you ARE supposed to be able to finish the games without fighting (instead relying on Leadership/Mechanics/stealth). I played through most of G3 relying on those methods, never striking a blow myself. It was a slower style of play, but quite interesting in its own way. I haven't played all of G2, so I don't know the solution in this situation, but I think surely there must be one. Good luck! I check the FAQ on Gamefaqs, and didn't see anything on HOW to take out Rhakkus, but it did give some indication of what you'll do to kill Easss Click to reveal.. Somehow you'll talk him into using the Geneforge in a way that gets him killed, I assume after some kind of sabotage somewhere.

I, too, look forward to some spectating fun. What horrible things will Sarachim do to you all next? Zombie landsharks? Chitrach infestions? Boiled turnips? I shudder at the thought. O.o

Bravo, Sarachim! Originally Posted By: Vitze's Epilogue No, she was just eager to get away from Zarusa, who she still suspected might secretly have been behind all this, not that Vitze would dislike her any less if she weren't. And Lanrezac, who thought he was so damned clever. And Nixak, who had the nerve to look down on her as if he was all sweetness and light. Kundak was inoffensive enough, but she wouldn't miss him any. Boregloaf seemed alright, for a guard. Hilarious! I like it. So those two she, ah, talked to in Sarden were sent out by Cromk to hunt her down? I was never quite clear on how that had worked, but it makes sense now. Edit: You know...based on the epilogue and what Sarachim said earlier...it would be amazing if in a later campaign, Vitze came back as a boss enemy NPC.

Geneforge certainly offered opportunities in this area, with many instances throughout the series where the use of diplomacy (Leadership skill) would allow one to avoid a fight (and still receive experience and sometimes even other reward).

Originally Posted By: Ephesos I still miss the old Avernum-style movement with towns and outdoors being distinct areas. Created a much better sense of scope. This. AMEN!

The newt is cute!!!

Originally Posted By: *Logan* Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba As usual, G1 for having the best atmosphere. I don't quite understand what you mean by this statement. This game has no music, and minor sound effects. How could it possibly have the "best" atmosphere? Music and sound are very important to establishing atmosphere... In Spiderweb games, atmosphere does not come from sound effects, orchestral soundtracks, and hyper-realistic graphics. It comes from the writing. These are games meant to read and imagined, not seen and listened to. (That doesn't mean music/soundeffects/graphics don't matter at all, just that they aren't the most important facet of the games). So, The way G1 is written, the way the places and people and things in it are described, creates a great sense of ambiance and mystery that set it apart from some of the later games.

Originally Posted By: Dantius So like as shopkeepers or sages or questgivers? Like, Boregloaf could dispense quests and Kurex could train in spells or Amadan could sell herbs? That's... interesting. Oh come on, you know Kurex wouldn't train anyone. He'd be too busy berating them as weaklings or threatening to set them on fire.

I might have to ask you to write spells whenever I get to play AIMHack again. These are too cool.

I would love to see characters from throughout the various AIMHack campaigns traveling through Mote and appearing in different campaigns. It makes whole setting more real, deeper, I think, if you can see characters from different campaigns connecting. The more campaigns and more characters there, the more "history" there is to which to make connections. While I wouldn't necessarily want one of my characters (well, currently my only character) relegated exclusively to being an NPC, I think one-time cameos (as either an NPC or played by the character's...player) would be really cool for making those intra-campaign connections. It would be something similar to the role of Temmyn in Bloodmarsh...but only intended to be for one session, or even part of a session, thus avoiding the scheduling issues that came up when trying make Temmyn a full member of the party. The point would not be a full revival of the character, but making fun and interesting connections amongst the characters. FWIW. Oh, I also definitely want the chance to play AIMHack with another character besides Lanrezac, but I would enjoy using him further.

Another postmortem question, about the future: in both Selos and Bloodmarsh, Eph left obvious hooks for future campaigns. Do you, at this point, want to eventually have further campaigns with your same character used in Selos/Bloodmarsh? If you want to use the same character in future campaign(s), do you want the same party (all the same characters or as many others as want to return)? Personally, I would like to eventually use Lanrezac again, particularly in a continuation of the Selos campaign. I think having the same party would be fine. However, I also think I would like changing up the party. I think there could be a lot of interesting character interaction if there such changes depending how the party composition changed (for one example, having another human in the party for Nixak to interact with could be really interesting, I think).

Originally Posted By: Sarachim There's certainly a lot to be said for all-around competence, but I think I've gotten the most fun out of the times the party created a problem for itself and then solved it in awesome fashion. The best example of this might be way back in the first Labyrinth session, when the party stupidly picked a fight with (and then proceeded to defeat) the giant octopus. What's no fun at all is when the party creates a problem it can't solve, and then just limps along until the GM finds a way to bail us out. Ah! I can agree to that. I was mainly venting frustration with our (Selos') self-caused failures that I don't think we succeeded in solving. Many of the various parties' various failures do remain entertaining, to be sure.