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I've seen round CD cases before. They are not common, however.

It has been upgraded within the last two days from a 4 to a 5, which makes sense.

I should add that Avadon is currently only on Mac and will be out for Windows in a couple months. Beyond that, I echo Dikiyoba.

I believe Jeff still distributes a CD (no box or anything like that since this is a mom and pop company) if you pay extra. Quite honestly, Jeff is really good about getting people new passwords if they switch computers or their hard drive crashes. As to which one to start with, that is matter of personal preference. I would say it is a good time to get into Avadon, since it is new. The other series of Avernum and Geneforge are, as of now, finished.

The reason I did not comment on the spent fuel pools is that there has been little consistent information regarding them. Unit 4 has been most a concern and I'm annoyed that TEPCO is not providing much information -- this could be because the area may still be too radioactive to inspect. From what I've gathered they have been doing their best to refill them via water cannons and helicopter drops. As to how much damage they may have suffered from being exposed (it is pretty clear they were in unit 4) it is still unclear. The good news is they generate a lot less heat than the fuel in the reactor and should be easier to cool. Bad news is these early designs did not do a great job of hardening them like the reactor. I suspect the large concentrations of radioactivity at the plant may have been from the spent fuel in unit 4 overheating, but this is speculation admittedly. Overall, things do appear to be settling down. Radiation levels appear to be dropping, which is very good. This may indicate they have been able to quench the spent fuel, but, again, speculation here. Electric power is being close to being restored at Unit 2 and the other units should follow within a few days. Overall I would rate this as much worse than Three Mile Island, but far, far less damaging than Chernobyl. From radiation levels I've seen outside the plant, it is highly unlikely there will be any negative health impacts for those outside the plants. We do not have dose reports on those within the plant, so I'm not going to try and speculate on that. Hope this helps a little. I'll be trying to get more information for you guys over the next few days. EDIT: I should add that we are not out of the woods quite yet on this. We do have plenty of good signs, however, in that the news in the last day and a half has been generally positive.

Tried it again and got the medal this time. Not sure what happened.

That could be part of the condition too. I'll have to try it out when I have time for that fight again.

I killed Redbeard and did not get the Terminal Insubordination medal. Maybe there is more you need to do for that.

I got "Employee of the Month" after my loyal game and becoming a Heart. Not sure if that last part is necessary. I suspect "Heart of Avadon" may be from winning the game on Torment in accordance with the "Hand" and "Eye of Avadon" medals.

Quote: What I heard was that the water vaporized, exposing the incredibly hot fuel rods to elemental hydrogen, which then exploded violently blasting a hole in the containment dome. The remaining superheated steam with boo coo vaporized UO2 was then exposed to the atmosphere and that's absolutely not good. On the other hand, that sounds almost exactly like what happened at Chernobyl, so I may be getting those two confused, since I doubt that Japan has suddenly descended into Soviet-level incompetence overnight. Dantius, I'm afraid you have misheard. This accident is far more in common with Three Mile Island than Chernobyl. Here's the deal with Fukushima. The fourth largest earthquake in recorded history occurred and was more severe than what most geophysicists were predicting. The reactor survived the earthquake just fine, but the resultant tsunami was several meters higher than what was predicted probable. This took out the ability of the operators to cool the plant. Because of this, after several hours the water started to boil and the fuel heated to the point where the zirconium tubes holding it had a chemical reaction with the steam. This last part is what happened at Three Mile Island. This chemical reaction released hydrogen gas, which ignited and caused an explosion destroying the reactor buildings. Note that the reinforced concrete containers that hold the reactors appear to be intact still. This reaction also damaged the fuel, causing radioactive material to enter the steam, which is vented to relieve pressure, releasing radioactivity. If the containment continues to hold (which appears likely at this juncture), there should be little chance of radiation exposure offsite large enough to impact human health, exactly like Three Mile Island. Of course, things have got plenty more complicated because radioactivity is high enough at the site to interfere with accident mitigation efforts. The Chernobyl accident occurred because the reactor entered a configuration where an uncontrolled chain reaction occurred, rapidly overheating the fuel and causing the steam to expand creating an explosion. This was over in less than a second. Since there was no containment like at either Three Mile Island or Fukushima, the reactor became exposed to the environment when its building was destroyed. The energy density of the event was great enough to cause the reactor to ignite and fires carried radioactive byproducts into the environment. This is very different than what you see here. Hope this helps clarify the differences between them and what is really going on from the information we have.

While I'm not Jeff, I suspect Avadon 2 will be larger. Jeff had to invest much effort in making the new engine, procuring graphics, writing the world, etc. Now that the foundation is laid, there should, in principle, be more time for content in the sequel.

Incidentally, there is text in the ending if you defeat Redbeard alone. I seriously wonder if anyone will ever be able to pull that off, even with cheat codes.

All the ending text is in textplot.txt.

That's true, although not from the designs I've seen. The pressures are far too low for such a thing.

It should be on your "world map" when you leave the area. I believe you get the info in his quarters if memory serves.

The tower can be reached in the northeast part of the Dhorla Woods.

Quote: True. However if there were to hit the reactor a quake at it's heart it might cause it to rupture and release a swirling vortex of plasma for a few seconds or minutes melting/evaporating anything in its path. Far shorter than that. What would happen once the delicate balance of magnetic fields are lost (faster than the structural damage) is what is called a disruption, where the plasma would rapidly destabilize, deposit its energy in the wall, and that would be that. Granted, this would be bad because the first wall would be heavily ablated and possibly melted, but the scenario you posit just can't physically happen. Worst that could happen is a tritium release, which would be a radiological concern in the immediate vicinity of the plant. Thankfully, tritium diffuses away quickly and its health effects can be mitigated by drinking lots of fluids.

Did you chase him to his chambers in Orgrym'Tor, not just in the throne room?

You will get a quest allowing you to enter here when you need to. I don't want to put any spoilers in, so if you have the quest and still have trouble, let us know and you can get more info.

You should be able to reach the level cap of 30 and have good enough stuff to challenge Redbeard without doing any of the Wayfarer's quests. Biggest thing with that is getting all your companions to fight with you and having lots of consumables like speed elixirs.

I would report this to Jeff so that he can either set her as unkillable or allow the quest to complete anyway if you do.

Nuclear fusion reactors cannot meltdown. The reason nuclear fission reactors, specifically current generation light-water reactors, can is that the fuel immediately after operation has enough radioactivity from fission fragments that it would heat it up to melting without cooling. Fusion reactors would not have this issue. Also no one is proposing fusion reactors on the moon; the helium-3 would be shipped for use on Earth.

Originally Posted By: VCH What about Helium-3? It's apparently worth (as of 2006) roughly $4 billion per ton. Russia has or had plans for mining it on the Moon by 2020. Helium-3's most useful application in neutron detectors because of its chemical and nuclear properties. The price is so high right now because of a shortage since we have not been manufacturing nearly enough tritium in nuclear reactors to keep up with demand. If supply increases, price will, of course, drop. Mining the moon is a ridiculously uneconomical compared to inserting targets in nuclear reactors, making tritium, and waiting for it to decay into helium-3. There is talk about using helium-3 as fuel for nuclear fusion since it produces very little radioactive byproducts. Only under that condition could mining the moon be a practical avenue. Sadly, nuclear fusion with helium-3 is significantly more difficult than the easiest fusion reaction, and we are only just approaching the ability to design a physics experiment, not a workable reactor, that ignites a deuterium-tritium plasma in something resembling to a steady state condition.

I would say that I like the new branching system. Granted, there is less short-term flexibility, but there is more emphasis on long-term development of the character. Since the choices are linked, where you allocate your skills earlier impacts how you should invest later. Sometimes it is better to go deeper and get to level 6 on a skill if you're already at level 4 or unlock a new one farther down the chain than it is to diversify. It really is a neat system. Also equally nice is a non-cheating way to retrain your character if you mess up too much. I know I made use of that when I later realized certain decisions I made earlier were suboptimal.

Indeed both Drakefyre and I were early members and moderators of the long forgotten Ikonboard days. Drakefyre was the first non-Spidweb admin followed by a brief tenure by Zeviz. Later Schrodinger and myself were added to make a triad since Drakefyre had an extended absence, if I recall. It's been so long now that I don't even remember becoming an admin or when I was actually given the post. At any rate, the other two have largely moved on, not being active much anymore. I don't think I've seen Schrodinger in years now, and Drakefyre still lurks occasionally.