MissSea

This may have been asked already under another name (I call them "hidden switches"). There are a few switches in that room in the pit with all the bridges. I killed the dead and see my "sparkles" indicating a hidden switch. Can I access these switches? Also, is there a way to get access to that room with the rune on the floor? Thanks! Miss Sea

Many thanks! Glad to see Jeff planned ahead for those of us who were stressing over not getting dead by the advancing water and thus failed to grab the extra one or two ores in the caverns.

There are a few cheats posted about how to bypass the gates. Check out one on someone who forgot to defeat Merula. It's a pain that these gates shut automatically, huh?

I saw the previous post about locations of the blue ore (those beige pillars), but I'm having trouble with quantity requirements. I keep going back to the smith to turn in my ore, and he says he doesn't have enough. I reverted back to an earlier save and noted one location after the water run where I missed a pillar. Do we have a final count as to how many blue ore deposits are required? I currently have four. Thanks, MissSea

I searched the forums for this one, but couldn't find anything. Does anyone know if/how to adjust the background on the map? I'm in the desert near the dragon's aerie, and it's difficult to distinguish walls I've discovered on the map from the background. Is there a way to make the background of the map opaque? Any help would be appreciated. MissSea

Originally Posted By: Soul of Wit A "wealthy dude" can afford to hire a financial advisor to assist him in creating a credit score. Using and paying off a credit card every month is one way. It has the side benefit of paying you cash for using it (or other perks). Another option for a "wealthy dude" is to put up non-cash assets as collateral for the loan. Surely, a "wealthy dude" has non-cash assets? I suppose he could have done the former. He does have friends in the financial sector with said experience. He ended up going with the latter, however. His loan came from a previous employer, and he used some stock options as collateral. :::shrug:::

I notice a lot of people posting their iPhone/iPod experiences. Is this being ported there as well? Because I can hardly stomach playing Pocket Frogs on my iPhone, much less something as incredibly massive as a Spiderweb Game. Though I will admit I enjoyed "The Quest" series and Undercroft -- gah, I loved Undercroft!

Bringing the pendulum back to poverty: My father-in-law is a wealthy dude. He tried to buy a house in California. Wanted to put down 80%(!) of the multi-million value IN CASH. Needed a loan for the remainder. He was a "don't buy it unless you've got the cash" guy. The last credit-type purchase he had made prior to the current house was his previous house in 1975 (which was paid off in the late 1980s)! Every car, vacation, kids' college tuition was paid for with cash or a check. Therefore, he didn't have a credit score. The bank refused to give him a loan. Meanwhile, though I am currently a stay-at-home mom and lack a pot to pee in, I have a score in the high sevens. What to take away, kid at home wanting a better computer? When you get those offers for a credit card on a college campus in the next few years, go ahead and get one. But don't use it. Wait, save up your money, use the card and pay it off right away. Then you won't lose your dream home in Newport Coast because you were seen as a financial liability.

I have never been more grateful to have an iPad and to be unemployed in my lifetime ...

<SIGH> Just what I dreaded/eagerly anticipated hearing ... my hubby already resents the H-E-double hockey sticks out of my iGear. Books, gaming, movies, TV -- how did I ever function without my iPad?!

Well, IGN did say that the top two gaming consoles ever created were the NES and Atari 2600. That's pretty old ... http://www.ign.com/top-25-consoles/ -MissSea

Thanks, CM ... I realized that after posting.

Originally Posted By: Mastery and Mischief In any case, I don't think I get it. People describe "happy" and "sad" all the time. It's meaningful and communicative to talk about them. What's the problem? Okay, now I'm confused. I may have to go back and check the original post here, but I thought we were discussing how math is the only discipline unable to be defined by anything else. My original comment was indicating that though people can describe happy and sad, there are infinite ways to describe it. Therefore to be able to quantify emotion is something with which language struggles, just as math struggles to define things occurring or existing in the universe. Originally Posted By: Mastery and Mischief Math is, and mathematicians don't create new math so much as they discover new ways to manipulate mathematical concepts or prove one theorem true and another false. It's a platonic discipline. Hmm. What I glean from your comment is that all math already exists in the world, while language is something that's constantly evolving, therefore math cannot be described by other disciplines because it already exists. But I think that's a short-sighted view of both disciplines. Just because a language dies doesn't mean its roots aren't found in other languages. And it seems to be making math very insular. Why do mathematicians seek to discover anything in the first place? What is the point? Knowledge? Pride? Societal betterment? I don't for a second think that math isn't affected by other disciplines. And that it is affected by other disciplines also means that it can be described by them. -MissSea

My apologies as well ... perhaps I should cut and paste and move this misunderstanding to the conversation in the Avadon forums re: language usage? And it's not unplayable. The learning curve is just ... sharper than I had anticipated. I forget that Jeff modified the gameplay between titles to adjust for feedback. Just because I'm playing them in reverse order doesn't mean the entire system is backwards as well. -MissSea

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Originally Posted By: MissSea How do you describe happy? Or sad? What does hate mean to you? Those are all abstract constructs. Are they really? They aren't physical objects, but they are objectively identifiable human experiences. Are experiences abstract constructs? I think activities can be described objectively. We went here, we did this, etc. The emotions you feel aren't absolutes, though. What registers as a reaction of happy to one person, may not appear in another. The emotions themselves aren't definable, which is why language struggles to describe them. It's a constant pursuit to write that one phrase that describes everything one is feeling. Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Originally Posted By: MissSea Linguistics seeks to quantify these constructs, even if it lacks the the formula of how to arrive at such an undefined limit... Not really. Well, at rare times I suppose, but that's kind of like saying "math seeks to calculate the value of irrational numbers to more and more decimal places." While technically accurate, that is a tiny and unrepresentative part of what math as a discipline seeks. Likewise here. Linguistics is not about mapping out specific semantic domains with increasing precision -- that's a goal more often pursued by prescriptivist language teachers. Yes, but the flip side of prescriptivism is descriptivism -- linguists who are trying to determine <i>why</i> we use the language we do. And couldn't you say that understanding is the same as quantifying emotion? For example, many teachers (especially in middle schools) have "dead word graveyards" on their walls -- words that aren't particularly descriptive, and thus deserve to be buried and not used. An example is "great". A prescriptivist teacher might ask, "What does that word mean, really? Could you find another word that may better describe what emotion you'd like to convey?" On the other hand, a descriptivist teacher might ask, "Why did you choose the word in the first place? Is it deliberate? Are you trying to convey some emotion by using it?" (See: Misunderstood teenager being stopped by Mom on her way upstairs after a particularly grueling day of Calculus. Says Mom: "We're going to have family game night." Says daughter, voice dripping with disdain: "Great.") As an aside, personally, I don't ascribe to any words being considered "bad". I think words are devoid of morality. Some can evince strong emotion, though. But society applies that morality. And watch out bashing prescriptivist language teachers -- don't you need to learn the rules before you then break them? How else can rebellion and revolution take place unless a recognized set of rules is first applied and then broken? - MissSea

Originally Posted By: Txgangsta 1) You mean when you walk around in real life you can see around corners before you get there? How cool! Please don't be snarky. I'm providing a response to the original post about remaking A3. And I never said not seeing around corners before I got there. It's after I've already seen around corners that bothers me. Originally Posted By: Txgangsta 4) Its a bit slower, but it encourages me not to cheat. Its nothing to throw a tantrum over, nevertheless. This is not a tantrum. A tantrum is watching a grown man crying and making a scene because the local Game Stop didn't have a copy of Halo 3 he had preordered. Seriously, this guy looked at least 40. <SIGH> And I like cheating. Except on tests. Or your marriage. Ever. After reading the above comments, I will go back and try again. But perhaps Ishad said it best: It all depends on your personal taste. I'm hoping I like the taste of the remake more than the original! -MissSea

Originally Posted By: Math is not a wizened llama. ... abstract constructs of language with no basis in any real language. It sounds to me like you just provided a rather concise definition of emotion. How do you describe happy? Or sad? What does hate mean to you? Those are all abstract constructs. Linguistics seeks to quantify these constructs, even if it lacks the the formula of how to arrive at such an undefined limit (apologies for the pathetic math analogy -- I barely survived my freshman college Calc class). And, my dear Alorael, though as you stated, math describes all things, math can also BE described by many, many things. For just as language can be descriptive of an object, so can the way the language is constructed be descriptive of the creator. Go with me here: for example, the pythagorean theorem (one of the only things I remember from geometry) states the a squared plus b squared equals c squared. Pythagoras was not only a man of science, but by all accounts, he was deeply spiritual. Perhaps in his studies, he deducted that a (the science) plus b (the spirit) joined to explain c (all things). Two sides that reach the same path. Just a theory, but it shows how history, language and psychology all pulled together to explain the universe in a very deductive way. Of course, I could be totally off. I did use Wikipedia to look up Pythagoras ... -MissSea

News flash, folks: Wikipedia is a great platform for continuing research, but check out some of the links ... you can randomly enter anything as a "link" and unless a diligent editor is checking, you can get away with it. As a former English teacher, I banned Wikipedia as source. Instead, I suggested it as a launching pad for further investigation. Ahh, many Fs were given that fateful first paper to students who neglected to cite other sources than Wikipedia ... good times, let me tell you. And Dintiradan, MLA formatting requires edition numbers for all serialized works, including periodicals and reference books. MissSea =)

Apparently this discussion has been raging as I've been attempting to soothe my Avernum addition with Geneforge. Not a wise decision. The good versus bad thing started to annoy pretty early on, especially as I didn't see everything as black and white as my decisions made me out to be. Switching to the first Avernum trilogy was supposed to be a pleasant compromise, or so I thought. I saw this post, gleaned its meaning and had to comment. Forgive the snarkiness ... 7 sliths did this to me. As a member of that rare group called "Casual female RPGers", I have to say I played about 25 minutes of the demo of A3 and turned it off. Please, Jeff, please, for the love of all that's holy, remake that trilogy. I, for one, would love A1-A3 updated to at least match A4-A6. 1. The engine was PAINFUL, people, PAINFUL. The "not having the entire screen available to your sight as you went around corners" was downright stupid. Why people pined for the indoor/outdoor thing is beyond me. And I had to put on my glasses to see my party. Grr ... 2. No matter how I tried, I couldn't figure out how to distribute my skill points. Especially irritating when I had to reload arrows for my archer Nephil, had no arrows, but had failed to drop any points into melee weapons when creating him. Where's the 'train' button?! 3. Not automatically healing when entering towns blew as well. I get it if some singleton on torment wants to torture him/herself, but I'd really like to enjoy the story and kick back. Please make it an option on the preferences, if you must. 4. Finally, what happened to shift+D? I saw the character editor on the menu, but being able to access it in A4-A6 was so much more user-friendly. Especially after running out of juice in several battles in A4-A6 -- "iamdrained", indeed ... I look forward to the remakes ... I'll be the first in line to buy my trilogy. With the expansiveness of the first trilogy at Jeff's disposal, I cannot WAIT to see the amazing product! MissSea =)

Thanks all for the Geneforge advice. I am now happily plowing through the first island. It's definitely different, as far as playing goes. I keep leaving it "paused" (with the inventory open) so I don't get whacked as I deal with my baby. But if Greta drops one more time, I may just write her off. MissSea

I believe there's continuous respawns, so you can never truly beat the town. Plus, I also read somewhere on these forums that you stop gaining exp, or rather, you gain very little per kill. It also seems, from experience, that they are certainly more difficult to off than the average baddie. I tried to start offing the groups around the west of Formello near ... oh, crap, I can't remember his name. You know, the paintings guy. Anyway, I had already blown through most of the Slith Lands on the north and east side, so I figured I was golden. Nope ... had to resort to a restart to get out of there. They just keep coming and coming! Could anyone else elaborate? MissSea

Well, regardless of staying in fight mode or having to think fast, Geneforge sounds like it works for me. I'm in it for the storylines versus "how can I kill monster A in fewest moves possible" ... I think that's why replaying holds no value for me. Oddly enough, I can watch movies/read books over and over again and still glean enjoyment. Strange ... On another note, does anyone know if Jeff plans to novelize any of his games? He may not want to continue the series in game form, but there's so much back story left to tell! MissSea

Thanks, Dantius ... I saw you online and hoped you'd post before signing off! What do you mean, real time? I heard there was something in the previous Avernum installments with the Tower of Magi disaster and you needing to do something before that happened. Are you on a clock somehow? In other words, is it timed at all? MissSea

So, I'm several days off of Avernum, and I'm jonesing for a fix. Pretty please could I get some advice on where/what to do next as far as Exile or Geneforge? I started with A4 and LOVED it. Went to A5 and HATED it. Finished with A6 and am happy again, if not twitchy for another game. I've also read the game engine from Geneforge is similar to A4-A6 ... I'm not about replaying the same installment over again, so thanks but no thanks. Many thanks! MissSea

I enjoy the cliche of X's mad scientist persona, so he gets my vote. But would Rentar count? I mean, she did manage to piss a TON of people off, as well as bedeviling them so much they had to send packs of adventurers after her to kill her, and then she came back (again and again) in various ways. I think she certainly should get some sort of honorable mention. MissSea