Thaluikhain

A few times in Exile 3, you come across some helpful spirits or something. One in Upper Exile (near a pool, IIRC), once in far north Valorim (and another ghost that leads you into an ambush), and IIRC, one that unlocks a cell door.

 

Also, there's the ghost of that renegade thief that hides treasure in animal pens (which, BTW, was a great idea, you see them all around but players aren't going to search them unless they know to), that you see in the destroyed town with the slimes.

 

IIRC, you meet an NPC that spoke to a ghost telling them to help you as well.

 

What's with those? I've never been able to work that out. Are they all the same ghost? Why are they helping you and how do they know what's going on?

Nephil's Gambit.

 

...

 

And/or that epic scenario I'm totally going to dig up and finish or start when I get round to getting BoE running on my computer.

...

 

Demo?

 

Would I be right in thinking that "demo", "demon" or "demonstration" would all be equally valid?

 

...

 

Well, if I was totally wrong about them all, they'd all be equally valid, I guess.

I suppose the obvious question regarding fixed genderss is "how hard will it be for players to customise their own?". Lots of fun in Exile, probably be much harder here, but people will still give it a go if they can.

It's a good idea, but I think, realistically, some changes have to be made.

 

For example, get rid of all the slith and nephil business...the main characters should include one emotionally fragile teen coming to terms with having superpowers. Also, a "too cool for school" bad girl type, in a big coat. Preferrably the illegimate daughter of Batman and Catwoman.

 

Oh, and they should fight crime, and live in a giant clock for no adaquately explored reason.

 

Admittedly, this is something of a departure from the original material, but it seems likely to be more along the lines of how such a series would end up.

Not to mention, it'd lower the bar quite alot, let some high budget, low effort games seem worth playing.

I think its suspicious that people say "conspiracy theory", not "conspiracy hypothesis".

There's also a decent list of where you can get the various spells and recipes (though I've added to this myself), at least for the E3 one.

That's true, yeah...though at the level you need to be to cast them, most of the stuff you can nick isn't really worth the effort.

 

Moving barrels and stuff is great, though.

 

I remember one bit in Sharimik where troglos attack the guards...afterwards, it struck me that if I'd not helped so much, the people there would have died and left all sorts of stuff unattended.

It also has the advantage of not spreading smallpox across the world...it's hard to get diseases to respect political or ideological boundaries.

Now, a crop blight, one that affected a plant (or animal, I suppose) that was important for the economy of the enemy, but that isn't important where you are...

I like the idea of spraying nitrates around near an airport, so that the security systems nitrate detectors get swamped...cause a massive fuss.

Hmmm...maybe it's because they spend points on less than useful things like lock picking, archery and thrown weapons, instead of worthwhile things.

Hey? The pre-generated party costs more to create than what you're given?

To that I'd also add that I felt the interface was much more user friendly in the Exile than Avernum games.

 

Though I would say that I think the Exile graphics were a lot nicer than the Avernum ones.

I quite liked this scenario. Alot of effort went into creating an atmosphere and a world to put it in, which I feel is always important.

 

Others have mentioned that they liked the town, with its heavy nodework, and I agree with that.

 

The pyramid itself was quite good in parts, but, again as mentioned by others, got rather long. On the other hand, it was one of the few large dungeons I didn't mind getting stuck in. It got a bit tedious at parts, but in my mind, that is alot better than frustrating. Also, the pyramid came across as being somewhat creepy, which is something of a rarity.

 

The custom graphics were quite nice when they worked, though some (the scorpions come to mind) have patches of off-white were they should have been white, which aren't transparent as I assume was the intent.

 

The thing about religion was a bit odd. IMHO, it didn't quite work...but having it somewhat work is still better than not having it, and the scenario would be much poorer without it.

 

Somewhat torn between good and average...I'm going to go with

 

GOOD.

Yeah, not knowing exaclty how things works keeps an element of mystery.

 

And...I like all the weird and wacky stuff. Loads of spells in the Exile games that don't really work and you'll *almost* never use, but it's still cool to have them.

Yeah, I know, it'd muck everything up, it just seems a shame the way the weapons work, compared with alot of the other game mechanics.

 

Though, there's alot of things that don't work, but they generally aren't neccesary and don't get used.

Though it would be alot of work done exclusively by people who aren't me, I would like the way weapons work to be revised.

 

I mean, for armour, with encumbrance you've got actual reasons why eveyrone doesn't just wear plate armour all the time.

 

But for weapons...the one which does the most damage (broadsword (or waveblade if you can find it) for single handed, halberd for double and don't bother with bashing at all) is the one you want, anything else is something you carry round until you get the best.

 

Now, I don't know what you could do, really, to make using other weapons at all viable. Making double handed weapons more powerful, but less accurate or giving them extra encumbrance would make them characterful, if not very accurate. Maybe some kind of bonus or "negative" encumbrance for smaller weapons or double handed ones (that don't do more damage than single handed)?

Hmm...i had already tried editing away all my food or money, which didn't work, and then I edited myself 100 gold and gave that away at th temple, and it still isn't working.

Welllll...under Islamic rulers, much new knowledge was gained and old knowledge preserved. Alot of Greek philosophy caught on in the East, for example, which tends to be overlooked nowdays.



Definitely.

Just replayed this one.

 

Losing most of your stats and getting some back was an interesting idea, I thought (I created a new 1pc "party" for this one). The in-game reason for this, the amnesia, wasn't really used that much. The concept has alot of potential which wasn't used...it doesn't have to be the usual "flashbacks at unexpected moments that gives clues about the story" thing (although there was a solitary example of that), but I would have liked the scenario to try bringing this bit to life a bit more.

 

The other thing this scenario is known for is the over-use of Variable Town Entry. Of course there's no particular reason why this is a bad thing (although I like my maps), it's just very noticeable, and gets a bit tiresome after a bit. On the other hand, it did allow people's dialogue to change every time anything happened at all in the scenario. I quite liked how the cost of weapons increases once the murders start, it brings the people to life. Unfortunately, nothing much else did, although this isn't unusual for BoE scenarios.

 

The way important people got killed off could also have done with some jazzing up. There was one or two mentions of the deeper implications of this (along the lines of "not much, but the best the island had, so it's important to you" sort of things), but I think this was an area that could, and probably should, have been developed more. Also, since your stats are zero in many areas, you are reliant on NPCs for some things you'd normally be able to do yourself, and when they start dying, it gets a bit awkward.

 

The combat in this scenario was very hard in parts (though that could just be me). On the other hand, being helpless in the face of mere goblins did make the game more exciting and realistic, it brought you down towards ordinary NPC levels so you could appreciate the danger alot more. Though, being poisoned without any priest spells stops being an annoyance and forced me to use the editor more than once.

 

The monster didn't really convince me. I do like the idea of the clues about what it was, only they didn't really prove it was what it was.

 

In general, I'd say that the scenario had some really great and novel ideas, but that it generally dealt with them in a superficial way. On the other hand, this meant that there was nothing massively frustrating, no maddening puzzles to get stuck in and so forth, which tend to really annoy me.

 

I'm torn between Good and average on this one. I think I'll go for

 

GOOD

 

but only just.

Over billions of dollars on totally unrelated things. Maybe if the Chinese get their space program going, then the US will want to compete, but otherwise there's always something more important to spend money on.

No, you only get him once. Fortunately, he's not that important.

For a time, yeah.

In Exile 3, one of the towns east of Kriszan has an evil acolyte named Oppenheimer (IIRC) who Jeff Vogel seems to have forgotten to set to non-hostile as he sits in a shop and you can talk to him (I think he does identification) if you charm him.

He'll still be friendly for a while after you do that, but I came back later and he was hostile again.

Charm is great for those long dungeons where it takes several goes to completely clear out and/or there are wandering monsters.

Yeah, ok, true, but my way is almost a whole second faster. Woo!

Been playing "Brotherhood of the Hand", and it's bit pretty good so far, but now I'm stuck in the bit with all the gelatinous cubes and don't know how to get any further...it seems I have to reach the runes in the middle of the giant monster, which I can't reach.

 

Also can't figure out how to be judged "worthy" in the Vahnatai temple