Aydin

I didn't leave the zone. I went through, killed the giants, walked inside the fort, talked to the goblins, then left the fort and walked all the way back to the soldiers who had vanished.

Well, that was a fun hour of my life wasted. I saw the troops in the hill giant area and decided to clear out all the outposts first, to ensure they had minimal casualties before following me in to hold the fort. But, oops. It looks like if you kill all the giants and then go back, the soldiers have mysteriously vanished. Now I need to redo the entire area all over again to get the events with the soldiers properly. Ugh.

This isn't really a problem, but it doesn't seem to be worth making a topic about it. Can I just keep Lockpicking at 0, ignore every locked door I come across, then retrain and max it out to go on a lockpicking spree? And is there any downside to doing so?

And now I talk to Natalie in her room and she has a fit with me for not taking her out with me more often. Despite the fact that she literally hasn't left my side outside of Avadon since I first brought her in the dungeons with me. That was an odd conversation to have.

#1: As said in my previous topic, the buildings are all unnecessarily huge and never match up with their outside / inside dimensions. Avernum's buildings felt realistic in their size and the things filling them. #2: Secret panels are practically impossible to find for anyone not playing in the largest resolution, leaning forward and squinting at the screen at all times. In Avernum: Escape I could at least see secret panels with a quick glance around as I moved through dungeons. #3: Animal skins are worth money. Iron bars are worthless and useless. This makes no sense. In fact, that the game even offers to let me pick up things that are worthless to begin with is perplexing. Why give me the option to load up on heaps of trash and bars / blocks of junk? #4: Extremely limited loot selection. One of the most enjoyable parts of RPGs is the loot. I can't count how many daggers I've encountered thus far, or how many copies of the same exact weapons I'm already using. Looting after battles just gets tedious instead of exciting. #5: "You're too weak, come back later." - This is not something you ever want to tell your player. It diminishes what accomplishments they have and shines a spotlight on the fact that you're railroading them. Quests, no matter how difficult, should be available if the player wants to attempt them suicidally. Besides that, these people are telling Hands of Avadon that they're weak when normally they're peeing themselves at the sight of me. Who is going to insult Avadon's henchmen and get away with it, honestly? #6: When dealing with baddies, they always offer me a bribe to get me to let them go. Curious, I save beforehand and accept the bribe. Then I reload, deciding "No, I'll take the bribe and kill you" and... mysteriously whatever they were going to bribe me with isn't there. This doesn't really make sense. Where did Neray's 300 gold go, exactly? #7: The enemy selection is extremely limited. I can only fight so many generic groups of 3-4 spiders, rats, wolves or wretches before I get bored. The existence of fatigue means you won't be using your flashy abilities against them either, unless you want to trek all the way back to the pylon and waste a few minutes of your life.

I just finished Avernum and it was a wild ride from start to finish. Watching the world develop by talking to all the NPCs was exciting, and so was each new area I explored. I spent the past hour or two alone wandering the main area of the game before using the teleporter and I feel bored. All the rooms are unnecessarily large, even in the first town I teleport to the interiors of the buildings are extremely large. The better portion of my game so far has been waiting for my party members to walk from one room to the next, with no apparent way to get them to hurry it up. Why is every room so massive and yet at the same time with so few interesting things to fill it? Why is getting around taking forever?

Not sure what to do now that I've completed all three main quests. I told the King and Thanthria that I killed the Emperor. He just congratulated me, she - in a fit of stupidity - tried to kill me after hearing that I bested everyone in the castle. Erika gave me two level 3 spells I have no use for now that the three main quests are done. No one else besides Aydin's crew seems to care that I killed the Emperor. Is there anything left?

I still prefer the game not depict my characters as a bunch of cowards.

I play my party as a bunch of people who are trying to wipe out pretty much all the monsters in the underworld. So it's bothersome whenever I explore a ruin on the world map and see "Thanks to your knowledge of caves, you got away!" so many times. I would have prefered the option to stand and fight or flee with adequate Cave Lore.

So I found Aydin's tower before I went to visit Erika. I talked to him about everything, then went to talk to her. She tells me to talk to Aydin. So I go back to Aydin, talk to him about everything again, then return to Erika. The quest isn't registering as complete and is still in my quest list. Is there something special I need to do, is the quest bugged or what?