Ceiling Durkheim

That's the spirit! We'll make a good Darkside Loyalist of you yet. And gameplay-wise, the more fighter type characters give respectable experience, even if the looting is kinda mediocre.

Interestingly, there seems to be a noticeable change in scale between A5 and A4/6. It's not quite as dramatic as the change from the world map/town map system in A1-3 to the unified map in A4-6, but it's still significant. In terms of the actual area one plays in, A5 isn't that much smaller than A6: A5 seems to have about 150 zones, A6 about 180 (estimate based on checking through the script folders). If you compare the 'world maps' of A5 and A6, the Northern Frontier seems to be about 20-25% of the size of Avernum proper.

I'm just not partial to eggnog, m'self.

You've been to Voodoo donuts?! Good times. I'm a vegetarian, but I've eaten part of a bacon maple bar by accident. It was dark, there was a donut bucket.

And this changes what I said about the difficulty involved in massacring Harkin's landing how?

Perhaps some bacon vodka to go with the egg rum? http://www.bakonvodka.com/

I think Real real men would find a way to get all those manly things done while maintaining bearded status. There's no topic drift like Spiderweb forums topic drift.

Heck, why wait? I've taken them out right after they decided they hated me. They're pretty tame compared to, say, Khora-Vyss. It is a pain about the quests, though. I think it's pretty funny that killing people and taking their stuff nets you far fewer things than buying their inventory or doing odd jobs for them.

I was hoping someone would post that in response. Hurray Kate Beaton!

They never forgive you. The 'pleaselikeme' cheat might make that happen, but I kind of doubt it. It's more for when you attack non-hostiles/steal too much, rather than doing major plot things that make towns hate you.

Hey! Some great people down through the years had neckbeards. Like Emperor Nero. And we all know how fabulous he was from Nethergate, yes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nero_1.JPG How can you not love a face like that? It cries out for your love! IT WILL HAVE YOU EXECUTED IF YOU DO NOT LOVE IT.

E3 also has monster listings, but you need to actually cast Scry Monster to get them. E/A2 is also my favorite in the series (though 6 comes pretty close). While I prefer the gameplay of the newer entries, the story and flavor of the game are very pleasing to me. E/A1 is interesting in that it's more of a sandbox than later Avernums, but I think there are better sandboxes out there. For that matter, Jeff has made better sandboxes, viz. Geneforge 1, 2, and 5. I prefer those games, and for that matter the Fallout series and Planescape: Torment because they let you make real choices about the way your characters relate to the world, whereas in A1 you're kind of stuck in the heroic mold, so the choices mainly seem to boil down to "do I do this quest, or is it not worth the trouble?"

Nimoy Sunset Pie? Nimoy! Sunset! Pie! http://nimoysunsetpie.tumblr.com/post/687036509/kobayashi-schools-spock

I imagine it's at least inordinately expensive for that area of the game? Anyway, whether it's "cheating" or not, it still sounds like it breaks that part of the game (I've only played the Playstation remake of FF1, so I couldn't say). There are other overpowered items and abilities in games that people simply don't use if they're looking for a challenge, despite them being in the game by deliberate design. Knights of the Round is the classic example of this. (Or, say, Erde Kaiser in the Xenosaga series.) I maintain that while using something like KotR is not literally cheating, in the way that loading your saved file on a Gameshark and maxing out your party's stats is, it amounts to the same thing because it removes the challenge from the game. There is, however, a fine line between build optimization/mild exploits and more serious ones. Hmmm...while I suspect that an hour of killing goblins is not actually going to net a party of 4 75 SP a piece/a party of 5 60 SP a piece, the fact that this is the original Nethergate we're talking about does change things a bit. If this were a game with levels (i.e. every other Spiderweb game, including N:R), then that sort of grinding would be impossible because of diminishing experience as one levels up. Since that isn't the case, this exploit is a bit less cheat-y than a similar one in the Avernum series. Ultimately, I think players should do what they find fun. I for one find it more fun to use the character editor if I want an obscenely powerful party, rather than go to the trouble of using a more convoluted exploit like the blessing pool, but YMMV.

I find myself confused as to why the blessing pool exploit matters. This isn't one of those minor exploits that gives you a little extra power or helps circumvent a difficult fight. Rather, this seems to be basically a form of cheating, in that it (presumably) isn't intentional on the game designer's part, and if used to the extent that it can be, is completely game-breaking. There seems to me be little if any distinction between turning 100 healing draughts into 100 knowledge brews and just giving yourself 300 extra points worth of skills in the character editor, so why not use the editor?

X/Sylak? Ahahaha. I wonder if anyone's written any of that? "Is that an anvil in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" (Or the alternate version, involving 'Crystal Wands.')

When I said "The point of my comparison to The Empire," I meant that I was making an analogy between the size of The Empire from Avernum and the possible size of the Sholai. More specifically, positing that the Sholai were likely substantially smaller than The Empire, and probably not much (if at all) larger than the Shaper nation. None of this involved suggesting that The Empire exists in the Geneforge world, or anything else about the two plots taking place in the same setting. And even if they did, the Shapers totally wouldn't be Vahnatai. Except maybe Taygen.

The point of my comparison to The Empire (specifically, the one from Exile/Avernum, should have mentioned that before) is that it controls several continents/most of the known world.

Agreed. I'm not sure I can think of any direct quotations to back this up, but the impression I've gotten from Sholai throughout the series is that their society is of comparable magnitude to that of the Shapers. At the very least, it seems odd that Trajkov and company would feel so threatened by the Shapers if the Sholai were some vast 'The Empire'-style empire, and I don't recall any Sholai mentioning awe at the size of Shaper lands and populations, either.

I think in order to actually kill Rahul you need to trigger an event in Click to reveal.. Chadwick Prison, where Rahul throws you after you try to attack him the first time, assuming you're on the mission from Akhari Blaze. In general this game and Geneforge 4 don't seem as amenable as 1, 2, and 5 to players going off the main shaper/rebel (G3-5) or Awakened/Taker/Barzite/Obeyer (G1 and 2) 'tracks.'

Is this your way of insinuating that 'Johnny' is a tool?

The monastery caves require two entry bracelets. The possessed golem in Benerii-Eo Labs drops one of them, and the other is in the center of Benerii-Eo Vat Core.

It's surprising how many people don't know about this. I didn't for all of Avernum 4, and the first of my two plays of A5.

No, no, no. Taygen and Leena's half-vahnatai offspring are the actual ones behind all these conspiracies. The regular vahnatai/Shapers are just a front. Portland hasn't had snow this year, but then Portland usually doesn't have much snow.

Or you can be a cheapass and press 'u' in areas where you think there might be secret buttons/levers.