Orifushi Mafuyu

Hmm, didn't realise I had to pick up the weapon from The Bunker before venturing here; I thought that was for the last area only. Running past the 4 hostile Crystal Souls is a cinch though, and I even managed to snag a soul copy. Assuming the 4 hostile Crystal Souls hang around Tinraya I suppose I could retrieve the weapon the guys at The Bunker made and return here to see if anything happens. It's only day 90 or so. Kinda thought I'd get to see the Tower of Magi disaster, meh. Guess I'll just have to spam resting to force the calendar ahead.

Now that I'm playing A3, I vaguely remember from E3 that you speak to a Crystal Soul near the end of the game, but I don't recall meeting a bunch of hostile ones here under E3's Tinraya. This thread ( http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthr...=true#Post36820 ) tells me I'd be better off just running past them, but of course the Adventurers' Code demands that I slay them. After having made a backup save, of course. I noticed that regardless of which 3 Crystal Souls you pulverize the message is always the same, Rentar becomes furious at you for killing "Jekknol-Bok, Lorta-Bok, and Vynas-Bok". I recognize Vynas btw, but the other two are new? They all appear to be simply tagged as "Crystal Soul". Hmm, wonder if they're good simulacrum material? They're immobile and have crap melee though, and my experience with caster-type summons is that they'll spend all their time summoning other creatures, ugh. It would be fun to toss some simulacrum copies at Rentar during the final battle to see her reaction. Surely lasering photocopies of your gramps violates some sort of taboo.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: Slartucker and (at least in E2, not sure if this is the same in A2) teaches them the highly guarded magical secret of Quickfire. She gives them a Phoenix Egg, which is as close to learning quickfire as the PCs ever come in Avernum 2. Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm certain we never actually learn the secret to creating quickfire. Otherwise, you know... absolute power and all that. I know I'd be tempted to light up a few towns because someone in them annoyed my party. Hell, I'd be lighting up dungeons on general principle, and waltz in to loot the place after the flames died down. Talk about cleansing fires, heh. On the question of the poll, I'm with Turnabout. It's been a long while since I played A2 (let alone E2) but I do remember it as being THE Exile experience. A3's too much of a surface thing for my liking (wasn't bad, just not my cuppa), and I didn't like the engine change so I never got around to playing 4-5. I wouldn't say A1's not much of a game - everything was brand new and I had loads of fun exploring the place. It's just that A2's war background really helped flesh things out. A1 had a more traditional let's-explore-this-place feel to it. Which is good, actually, because if the series started at A2's pace I know I'd have felt overwhelmed.

I'm pretty sure Dispel Barrier lv3 will also open the door to Linda's room. I'm approx early mid-game, and I recently returned to the Tower of Magi. I remember being able to dispel the two waves of magic barriers along the passage leading to Linda's quarters and being stopped by a story trigger barrier, but my last dispel hit the door and unlocked+opened it. Unless you're talking about another door, but I'm fairly sure that passage is the only way to Linda's room. Generally I cast far sight a bunch of times out of habit when a portion of the map seems out of reach. - Also, woah, you're on day 160+ and you haven't taken care of the giants? Just curious. I'm setting a fairly leisurely pace myself, around day 64 now - I did the slimes, giants/troglos next, and just finished doing the roaches. I remember the roaches should be second (more or less), but I was sorta touring eastern Valorim this time around. I'm a bit confused though, sounds like you haven't actually finished the giants/troglos yet. There are two entrances to the giants' area, both near each other. They're southeast of Lorelei, approx north across the mountain range from Castle Troglo. Also, I'm fairly certain neither area becomes inaccessible - if you can't get in via the front (e.g. castle troglo), enter via the barrier cavern (you'll find a map in the giants' area which enables you to find and enter that cave). As far as I recall, the only areas which totally disappeared from the map after doing them were that undead tower in the far southeast, and the roach place. You could pretty much revisit anywhere else. Could be wrong though, i generally don't return to dungeons i've "cleared" unless I made a specific note in my out-of-game notepad, e.g. "return here to take care of the altar when i learn the ritual of sanctification". Most of the time though, I don't bother to check old places again.

One more thing, the rings are actually removeable but it's a one-time deal and you don't get to re-purchase them. Also, there's always the Levy option if you really need an endless supply of a particular item.

You can complete the game either way, and since you're merely faking joining the Anama, other than pissing off some people there really isn't any noticeable change in the game.

Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of playing A3 as well, although not because I view it as the easiest. I'd played the heck out of E1 and E2, and only spent a bit of time on E3 before I got distracted with other things. Then I picked up A1-A3, and again I ended up finishing the first two and only dabbling in A3. So I'm finishing off A3 now. I'll probably do A1 after, and save A2 for last. Mostly because I like to do things sequentially. So far it's been great, although I kinda miss some of Exile's spells, especially the aoes and field-type spells. Oh yeah, and mindduelling. Kinda sad we can't crush lesser mages with just our minds anymore. Stabbing things is only entertaining for the first couple thousand times. Edit: you were asking to rank the series in difficulty? Hmm, can't really say. E1 was brand new to me, and although I'd say E2 was definitely tougher I'd already become used to the game, sorta. E3's move to the surface was kinda nice on one hand, but on the other hand it lost a little of the claustrophobic charm. I'd put it between 1 and 2.

I miss the cloud/aoe/barrier type spells the most. Utility ones such as scry monster were also sorely missed; I can see why some spells were removed (power balance?), but I don't know why scry was. Some of us like stats, stats, and more stats. About Avernum's autotargeting spells I think the aoe spells of Exile backfired on the monsters more often than it did on you. I think enemy casters tended not to care whether they would puree their own troops just to hit some squares your party occupied. A compromise would've been nice, though - a mix of aoe spells and Avernum's too-convenient autotargeting ones. One of my favourite fights was in E2 I think; far to the east, near the front lines of the Empire war, was it? Where you could trigger endless fights. I might be misremembering though. I recall it was one place where you could actually hit the summon limit pretty easily due to the casters on both sides, lol. After a mere handful of turns the battlefield resembled hell, with multiple layers of fields blanketing everything and magic flying everywhere. I'd have loved to attempt to have taken on the Empire army. Provided there was some cover you could retreat to (say, a nice rock wall) and enough enemy mages to mindduel for mp, there was no reason you couldn't outlast them. Ah, the nostalgia. Fights in Avernum on the other hand seem pretty tame by comparison.

I remember back in Exile 3 quickfire persisted in dungeons. However, when I triggered the quickfire trap in the temple here (by swiping that dagger from the altar), when I exited then reentered the dungeon it looked like it had been reset. As to how I got past the temple portculi (that was a nasty surprise >_> ), I simply went into combat mode, sent one hasted character to grab the dagger, then ran back to the temple entrance where I cancelled combat - which put my party together back outside the portculi. (I remember the Exile series had similar exploits, like when special encounters had to have a shiny white circle to trigger, and you could examine them from a neighbouring tile instead of actually stepping on them, etc). I went back in to retrieve my horse from the entrance, as I'd fled the quickfire via the one-way southeast exit. Was quite surprised to see no quickfire. Even went back to the temple. The portculi were open, and the altar didn't trigger anything else. So quickfire's been defanged?

Nice! I suppose the layer manipulation steps take care of the game turning parts of the character transparent which you don't want it to? What I did for my images was to simply resize them to what the game required and saving as .bmp, that was it. As you can see in the image in my first post, Kodama's white hair is transparent in parts. I was kinda lucky the art I grabbed mostly had all the characters on plain white backgrounds. Your tutorial should help me fix the rest of those who don't, though. Thanks! Edit: I forgot to add that all the character portraits (for A3 at least) are stuffed in one file, 904.BMP. Each character is allocated a 44 x 47 space, no transparencies to bother with. I normally just take a faceshot from the paperdoll image and paste it at the corresponding character location. A3 horseback sprites are also in one file, 1680.BMP, with a tiny version 1681.BMP. I generally don't bother with this one because I've yet to actually edit the individual sprite tilesets (1650.BMP to 1665.BMP, for A3 humans).

Oh, that would make sense. But no, I'd rather not mess around with such a general catch-all switch (not that I've angered any towns yet, I think). Thanks for the tip though. And yes, I'm pretty sure Durning doesn't show up elsewhere. At least according to the notes I have when I played this game previously, his name only appears in this town. I broke my rule of not looking at a guide, and happily his name doesn't appear anywhere either - I guess he's just one of those random flavour-text NPCs.

Ah, my bad. It's been a while since I played the Exile games though. As in, still-running-win95 kind of "a while". On a side note I remember Exile (2?) had those neat barrier spells you could cast and rotate before placing. Loved those. Layered a bunch of them in front of my party in large battles and let the enemy fry while trying to melee me. Those were among the things I missed in Avernum. Targeted spells are more convenient, true, but it lacks the same oomph. On the flip side, I guess it was bad because monsters fried each other when aiming those spells at us because they didn't care who else got caught in the aoe. Fun times, though. Miss 'em.

Oh yes, I forgot the barriers eventually go down. That's good, I'll just let myself in through the back door then.

I don't think there's anything particular spoilerish here... Anyway, I just wasted Elhioc for King Vothkaro (take that, organized religion!) and now I have to leave the castle. I've got a save with my party perched on the ledge just before jumping down to exit. I noticed that you can't go back in if you leave, though D: The runes at the entrance are simply impassable. Do we ever get another crack at the troglos? Not that I have anything against them, but business is business and Mayor Najib from Aminro has promised me a bounty for King Vothkaro's head. I'd rather not just turn right around and skewer King Vothkaro now, not when I just finished dealing with him. Rather unsportsmanlike, if you get my drift. Plus I've got to inform Mayor Knight in Sharimik that I've talked to the troglos, and I don't know how well that would go over if there was a continuation of that quest and he found out that I eliminated the troglos. I can see it already: Click to reveal.. Me: Mayor Knight? We've delivered your scroll to King Vothkaro, and he's agreed to a truce. Mayor Knight: That's great! Hmm, we should take advantage of this. Oh yes, we need to retrieve any soldiers they captured, I must set up a prisoner exchange program. Me: Err, there's a little prob- MK: *rubs hands* Why leave it at just a truce? We could offer them an alliance. It'd be good for us, they're in the way of those pesky giants. Yes, they'd make a nice buffer. Me: Well, he did say they hate giants more than humans, but- MK: They hate them already? Wonderful! Why, we wouldn't even have to make that many concessions if we're going to get them to deal with the giants for us. Me: Uhh, you see- MK: In fact, maybe we could interest them in a little trade. To help them against those nasty giants, of course. We wouldn't have to hoard weapons anymore, we could just sell them to the troglos. Why, this would revive our economy! We could bring people back! Me: I don't think- MK: No, let's not waste time thinking about it, this is a fantastic opportunity! Think of the profits! *coughs* Of course, we'll be able to clear our backlog of taxes - and then maybe we'll finally get word from the Empire! Me: ... MK: Yes! If anything would help us get back into their good graces, this will! *sheds a tear of joy* Oh, how can I ever thank you people? Me: Err, well, you know- MK: Oh yes, I remember, you wanted to see our library. Go ahead, that's the least we can do for you! *grins* Say, what do you think about a parade? Me: A, a what?! MK: Come on, it'll draw in the crowds! Give the people something to be happy about! Ahem, of course, we'll try to cast you in the best light possible, loyal citizens of the Empire and all that. You understand, don't you? Me: Uhh, sure, uh, but- MK: No, don't worry about it! No trouble at all! You're heroes now, you've saved us all! Now, I really must see to getting back to King Vothkaro on this. Did he mention anything else? Anything we could use? Me: He didn't, because, you see- MK: Oh, I understand perfectly, he must have wanted you to return with all haste! How wonderful, he likes us already! We really must take advantage of this- Me: ARGH! STOP! MK: Eh? Whatever's the matter? Me: We can't! We can't deal with him. MK: What are you talking about? You said he wanted a truce! Me: Yes, but... well, we kindofkilledhimafterwards. MK: You... wait, WHAT?

I've never gotten to move the Avernum windows (I only have A1-3 though). Not sure how it was with Exile, but I think it was the same. They're sorta locked in the middle of the screen.

There's no way to revive 'em? Sigh. I already compulsively close every door I can, but mostly because I don't like NPCs wandering off and getting lost. It's annoying to look for mr shopkeeper when he's wandered halfway across town. Combing through the town (Dellston) shows that the missing guy is the crazy kung fu dude (Durning). From what I can tell of my notes from previous playthroughs he isn't involved in any quest - so I suppose I lucked out. Still. I hate people dying on my watch. Not enough to reload to revive them though, it's gonna kill what little immersion left. R.I.P. Durning. I'll make sure to tell the mad monks down south that he said hi.

Couldn't find any mention of this. Playing A3 currently; I'm in a town where hostiles may randomly spawn. If they slay an NPC, am I totally screwed? After all you can't resurrect non-party members. I was far on one side of town when I noticed all those combat messages. Then after a while the messages stopped. Oops. When I arrived to clean up I took a quick headcount and noticed one guy missing. Exited town, reentered, still can't find him. I really hope he wasn't important, but if he was, am I boned? The character editor has an option to peace a hostile town but not raise dead NPCs. Now my memory might be going, but I thought one of the earlier games, maybe the Exile incarnations, had something about restoring NPCs or something.

I've always wondered about this. Considering that most players who want the new monster to go into a specific slot, we'll just save-reload until we get it. The only people this affects are really just the hardcore people who think save abusing is cheap. For everyone else it's just an annoying speedbump. If overwritten monsters contribute towards something interesting - like say the souls get sent to the Tower of Magi to be used as magical fodder towards the war effort - then maybe we wouldn't view the spell's behaviour as a meaningless inconvenience.

Considering games nowadays hit you for like $60 for a measly 6-8 hours of gameplay, I'd say whatever you buy here is a freaking bargain. I bought Exile 1-3 back in the day, then Avernum 1-3. Haven't tried Avernum 4 or 5, but I remember not liking the Geneforge engine. I'll give it another go sometime though.

Nah, I know to just upload the pics, that's all we need. Nice 3D look there, thanks for the link. I don't quite like that style though, it just looks like they were fished right out of a renderer. I'm planning to go with the simple 2D look and I'll be tweaking the sprites as well. The lack of hairstyle choices always bugged me more than anything else Between work and stuff it'll take a week or so, hopefully. Edit: Ok I overestimated my skill with GIMP ("how hard can it be to use, it's just like a bigger, more featureful MS Paint?" lol), forget about the sprites for the moment. I'll leave that to the long term.

My apologies if this topic already exists but a search only turned up one result and isn't actually what I was looking for. Has any additional art been done for the games? Currently I've got Avernum 3 running, my first reinstall of the game after a hiatus of about 5 years (I know, I know... my bad). The only link I got out of Google was a Finnish site with a sample pic but the links are dead. I threw something together in a hurry ( http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad72/mafuyuu/party01.jpg ) with some random images, it's pretty easy actually if you don't care about cleaning up the images as you can see with the glitches in some white areas. The game art is organized quite well, all I need to edit is only a handful of files. Very convenient. Are there any fanmade image packs already done out there? Or is this sort of tinkering frowned upon? (if so, I'm sorry)