Thaluikhain
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Posts posted by Thaluikhain
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Certainly (also, Shade and Spirit). I personally find it annoying to run into a group of monsters, some that are relatively powerful magic using spirits, and some that are merely shades. i can't really see a good reason for having multiple monsters using the same graphics, beyond having to create less graphics.
But, it's not like it breaks the game either way, just my personal preference.
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I'd suggest a new graphic for Turquoise, I don't like monsters, especially with very different capabilities, having the same graphic, though the Ice ones do generate ice fields around them so they look different.
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IIRC, there was a room in which it looks like slimes are eating, a wolf, a goblin and a lizard, but on closer inspection they are trying to merge with them. I wonder if they were supposed to do that, or having been left to their own devices they're moving beyond just running round dissolving things.
Out of interest, what is the Crimson Slime's special ability?
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No, CRIMSON slime. I had to go with the naming theme of not using primary and secondary color names, but rather, shades.
Was wondering about that, yeah.
As an aside, I always thought the best bit about the slimes was that room where slimes are trying to merge (The Thing style) with other creatures. That was never really explained why or how that what happening, or what it would lead to. But it had lots of potential.
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Is it called "Red Slime"?
I mention the slimes in that they seem to be the plague with the least "presence" and would be easiest to replace.
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I thought Ishad Nha already completed that, actually - a terrain-only conversion of the entire E3 game. If I recall correctly, he could have converted NPCs too but was asked not to.
Really? Didn't know about that.
In any case, one thing I'd be very interested in is the (presumably inevitable) variants of E3 that could get made. There were 3 possibilities going for who was behind everything, could rewrite the ending to make it one of the other two and keep it a surprise, or even randomise it.
Bit ambitious, though, OTOH, replacing the slimes with another type of monster and putting them in new dungeons, say, shouldn't be that hard
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I believe Exile III could probably be ported to the OBoE engine without too much work. One forum member (Ishad Nha) has partially done this already (specifically, porting the terrain so you can set BoE scenarios in the same settings), and I think he could probably finish it if asked; the main reason he didn't wasn't technical issues if I recall correctly.
Really? There'd been discussion of that sort of thing in the past, and usually dismissed as too much work, though I think it was usually assumed to be a scratch built BoE scenario.
In any case, even forgoing E3, it'd allow people to take E3 towns and put them in BoE scenarios. Some towns from E3 got made into a BoE format, but not many IIRC.
Though...tbh, that might have been exciting a few years back, but nowdays interest in BoE seems to have waned. Being able to play E3 again without mucking round for compatibility would be quite nice, though.
EDIT: Not meaning that as a slight on the hard work done by devoted, fans.
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If I ever finish any of my scenarios, I wonder if anyone will even play them. I'll probably work on them anyway though. Eventually. (I especially want to finish the two-town one that uses a lot of the new features.)
Well, I'd start, but I tend to get fed up and quit easily when I get stuck and go replay old favourites.
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Hmmm...what about the events on the surface that led to people being sent down there?
IMHO, though, the games worked better when you are thrown into an unknown environment, where you know as much as the characters.
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I liked the idea of having enemy archers drop arrows when they die, so you can restock that way, and because it sorta makes sense. But unless you went all out and made a scenario friendly to archer PCs, it wouldn't do much.
Had wondered about that, as being a good archer is a nephil stereotype, so having useful archery might be desirable in a nephil based scenario. Wasn't sure how this could be done, excepting with new, more powerful items, lots of arrows around or maybe level and monster design that made archery useful.
I sort of want to fix this so that the monsters summoned by the spells are hard-coded into the engine (though still allowing a scenario to intentionally override them somehow). I might never get around to it though.
Why? Was there a problem with telling designers not to muck about with those monsters?
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The idea is great, but in Exile, it's like, "Ooh, Arrows of Light! And Exploding Arrows! Oh, wait, I have six uses of each, then they're gone, and there's nowhere to replace them. Hmm, and here's Demonslayer and this Magic Wave Blade that I can use as much as I want..."
The same could be said of scrolls or wands, though you don't need a bow or archery skill to use them.
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Yeah, if you just use archery occasionally, it's not a big deal, but if you want it to be the primary attack for one of your PCs, it's a pretty huge hassle.
Ah, you mean a dedicated archer, not someone fulfilling another role who has a bow. Never even considered trying that.
It also devalues magical arrows, because you get so few uses out of them; and that further devalues archery compared to regular weapons.
You mean because fighters will have magic pole/edged weapons they use all the time, and archers can only use magic arrows sometimes? While that's true, they can use magic bows, and I do like the idea of carrying different types of magical arrows with different uses.
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really, the main problem with archery is just that keeping arrows in stock is annoying enough that archery would have to be better than other damage-dealing options to justify it, and it isn't
Huh...never saw that as that much of a problem. There's the infinity arrow, for one. OTOH, even when I had arrows, I'd rarely bother using them, so I didn't tend to run out fast.
the monsters those spells summon aren't actually hardcoded fwiw: change the monster definitions that they refer to and they'll summon different things. some scenarios took advantage of this on purpose and others did it by accidentOh sure, the editor just tells people not to mess with them.
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Wasn't archery being useless a bug, though? If so, that should be fixed in OBoE and archery should no longer be totally useless.
I thought it was just the way the game was balanced, rather than a bug as such.
Yeah, I found this restriction annoying and have done quite a bit of work to remove it. It's not accurate that the summoned creatures are stored directly in the item, but they're included in party data somewhere. It may still be a little buggy.There are still items that can't be carried between scenarios, mind you. Mainly ones that call a special node (which is also a new possibility that I added). There are several "item abilities" that make it call a special node in various contexts, such as when you strike a monster with it, when you drop it on the ground, when you equip it, when you use it, etc (can't recall if I did all of those, but most of them).
Ah, fair enough. I always thought it was weird that there are spells that summon specific monsters that a arty can keep between scenarios, but not items that summon the same ones.
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(I hear Pyramids did this and kind of annoyed people who didn't catch on as to why the shop was selling a particular item at the beginning of the scenario, not having which would strand you midway through the scenario.)
Oh yeah, the rope. That was annoying.
Using regular items can call special nodes now too, and you can design simple E3-style books that you can even take between scenarios, if you wanted.Hey? Would they still work in another scenario? I thought you couldn't move across items linked to specials, the same as you couldn't move stuff that summoned monsters, because you wouldn't know what you'd get on the other end.
In any case, yeah, you can have all those shops, but, for me at least, I'd not miss them if they'd gone. In A Ship to Algiers, you can have goblins kill shopkeepers, IIRC, if you aren't fast enough, and if the wrong ones died that could make things very hard. But there's some types of shops I might not notice if the NPCs weren't there anymore.
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Oh, congratulations.
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In my experience, the place where you can sell stuff is the most visited, the sage to ID the stuff so you can sell it just below that. Below that is the blacksmith for new armour and weapons. Maybe the random item hop to see if there is anything nice/cheap today. And of course people to train you or teach spells. I don't use alchemy though others might.
I don't usually visit other shops much at all.
Archery shops are common, but only as useful as the archery skill, so not much. Paying for healing isn't useful when you've got priest spells to do the same for free (though at lesser levels you won't have all the spells for all the options you can buy). Inns aren't any better than resting in a friendly town. In E3 there were a few "tool shops" where you'd buy lockpicks or torches and lamps which are useless if you have a lvl 3 mage. Being able to buy enhancements for weapons is sorta cool, only way too expensive to actually do.
There's also marginally useful shops that sell a limited amount of items that don't need replacing. For example, a store that sells both types of boots which is worth visiting once and then not again.
Of course, shops like that can add filling and flavour to a town even if they aren't particularly useful as shops.
Was wondering if people tended to use the same sorts of shops. Also, for larger scenarios, how few and far apart can they be before their absence becomes noticeable? Being far from shops can be inconvenient (which can be a plot point, of course), but how far is "far"?
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I know I'm a bit late to this, but:
Slarty is the NSA!
Isn't that a Miley Cyrus song?
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When you get to Exile 3 with weight limitations, it becomes easier to buy ingredients and make your own potions to use inside a long dungeon trek. You can use them up and replace their weight with loot.
Hey? Do you mean easier than having pre-made potions and using those?
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So, Valorim was settled some 200+ years before E3, but Kriszan and Bigail weren't until 20ish beforehand? Do we know why they weren't settled beforehand, were there lots of natural monsters in the way between Blackcrag and there? Or were they sending resources to Avernum instead?
Also, who was building the human pre-Empire stuff (that circular crypt in Bigail comes to mind)?
One also wonders what the Vahnatai thought when they heard about this "Upper Avernum" plan the humans were working on, did they try to get it delayed to have more time for the plagues to work?
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The Shareware Demon?
Very important if you've got a shareware version of a game it's in.
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Huh, I thought this'd be "hated" as a good villain, not a poor character.
There's a number of Exile3 Empire people that mostly fit that, people who aren't going to forget the war and who've decided to keep on hating. Which is neceesayr for the setting, but I hate the characters (as people, not as bad characters).
I always imagined the many Merrys in X3 actually being the same person trying to prevent me from returning a faulty set of lockpicks, a la the
.Eh, there's already one of those (Fletcher), and he has a terrible memory so that'd work.
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Yeah for the harmony of the world. Im really cool with it so long as folks don't put their lives and stability because of it. There is plenty of good you can do while still putting yourself first you know? I mostly posted this cause im tired of seeing a friend of mine not prioritising her life all for the sake of being good. She's not at all assertive when people cross lines or take advantage of that.
Ah, in that sense, when "good" is equated to "don't make a fuss", I'd agree.
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Dunno...there are plenty of problems with what makes someone a good or bad person, but then trying to muddle through and be a good person as much as possible is still to be encouraged.

Exile Remaster
in Blades of Exile
Posted
Just checked, and other way around, but yeah one of each so easy to distinguish.
Mind you, I have accidentally fireballed one of my own party, because the PC graphic with the armour and red and gold shield looks sorta kinda not really like the Troglodyte Defender with the armour and red and gold shield. I think I did that more than once.