Annatolia or Crewl? (possible spoilers)

[hoppy]

Does the plot line differ hugely depending on which one you kill? After killing an agent on behalf of crewl annatolia and hecht's names were on a piece of paper with an upside down crown, so is the "right" thing to do kill annatolia?

[*i]

The only consequence to killing them is their respective town becomes hostile. The reward for killing Annatolia is decent, but make sure you have done everything you want to in Spire first.

[Celchu]

Well, if you actually act like an assassin and jump Annatolia without saying, "Hey, we're here to kill you!" The rest of the town won't notice, and you'll still get the reward from Crewl. So be a bit less boisterous about it.

[Ephesos]

I wish I'd realized that it's possible to get by without killing either of them (those traps in the passage under Bargha aren't really that bad). I just wound up thinking that Annatolia was a bit more dishonorable... and I wish I'd thought to kill her without saying it to her face. It was really "fun" trying to run out of Spire without killing anyone...

[*i]

You should get the key for just killing the Darkside Loyalist agent. There is no need to kill either Annatolia or Crewl. Of course, killing her and not everything going hostile is a bug and probably should not be exploited.

[Alorael at Large]

If so, it's a strange bug. Normal behavior would make the town hostile if you attack Annatolia, and indeed this was originally what happened. The conversation option just ended the conversation and didn't make anyone hostile.

 

Apparently the results of comments on the beta made attacking Annatolia only make Annatolia hostile. It's too deliberate to be a mistake. It's just weird.

 

—Alorael, who supposes the people of Spire are loyal enough to protect their queen when she calls for help but not so loyal that they defend her when a band of roving adventurers whips out their implements of savagery and get to work.

[*i]

Then it should be counterbalanced with getting no reward for killing her dishonorably.

[Celchu]

I was just running some tests in Fort Draco about the behavior of towns regarding your murdering tendencies. You can kill any character in solitude without any of the town getting angry at you. This includes storekeepers, guards, inn patrons, the captain of the guard, etc. Killing in plain view will only anger those who see you; ie, you can clear an entire street of the pesky town guard, go inside the barracks and have a friendly conversation with the captain. This leads me to believe that Annatolia was given no special programming regarding surprise attacks, and just follows the normal rules for murdered citizens. If this is indeed a bug, it would be very simple to fix in the next update.

 

Update: more on standard behavior regarding attacking citizens. I also tested Tower Colony and Fort Monastery, killing such distinguished gentlemen as X and Kellner. The exact behavior for people going hostile is as follows:

1) anyone you specifically attack will go hostile

2) anyone who sees another character go hostile will also go hostile

This second part is very narrowly defined. If you swing a sword or fire an arrow inside a guard's sight range, the guard won't go hostile if he can't see the guy you attacked. As an added bonus, if the guy you attacked comes after you, the guards still friendly to you will do combat with them. I got some very entertaining guard-on-guard battles going with this in mind.

[Darkstrike]

So do I not need to kill the agent? For some reason I can't

find her.

[ArsonPerBuilding]

Look towards the farmhouses to the west of Baghra, as Crewl tells you.

[Istara]

Quote:

Originally written by *i:
There is no need to kill either Annatolia or Crewl. Of course, killing her and not everything going hostile is a bug and probably should not be exploited.

Nah - I reckon that no one in the town really liked her, she was a nasty dictator type.

In fact they should probably congratulate you and lower their prices in reward

[Sirhc2690]

I can't find the agent either. I see 2 farmhouses west of bargha, one where I was forced to kill both, and the second which seems to be empty. What am I missing?

[*i]

It's the house in the northweat corner by the river. Get close to the walls and such.

[Sirhc2690]

Bashing my head into all the walls of that room for an hour to no avail. Does it have something to do with the switch nearby? I've flipped it many times, and done some headbashing with it in both positions.

[Kelandon]

There are no secret passages; headbashing is unnecessary. So is the quest: you really don't have to kill either.

[Sirhc2690]

I'm talking about killing the darkside agent, not crewl or Annatolia.

[Alorael at Large]

Bashing walls is unnecessary. Walking around west of Bargha where Crewl tells you to look is. There's no great secret to finding the agent. Just poke around.

 

—Alorael, who hopes you aren't poking around in the houses in the no-man's land between Spire and Bargha. This house is definitely about as northwest as you can get in the Abyss.

[Lilith]

It's worth noting that I found the passage wouldn't open for me again after I'd already killed Imelda and left. So you might want to check your map and make sure the secret passage isn't already on there.

[Donald Hebb]

Quote:

Originally written by Thuryl:
It's worth noting that I found the passage wouldn't open for me again after I'd already killed Imelda and left.

Someone has Langrisser on the mind.

[Lilith]

If so, then that someone is Jeff, because I'm pretty sure Imelda is her name.

[VCH]

I thought it was Isengla........ something

[Sirhc2690]

I've been looking for about another hour, haven't found anything. What am I looking for, and where?

[Contra]

A small toolshed (or something like that) with a lever inside of it. Pull the lever to reveal a hidden passage.

The shed can be found up against the rockwall, west of Baghra.

[Sirhc2690]

The only lever I can find is outside the house. When used, I get: "You pull the lever. Nothing happens."

[Lilith]

I just checked the scripts. If the secret passage isn't already open, pulling that lever should open it. Go into the house and see if there's a passage in the north wall.

[Sirhc2690]

I didn't get any message about a secret passage, and I can't move north at any of the three squares next to the wall.

[Sirhc2690]

No one can help with this? It's rather game killing.

[*i]

Please do not double post. Did you play around with the lever outside the hut? Experiment with it in both positions.

[Sirhc2690]

Only for an hour or so, as I've already said.

[*i]

I don't know then, perhaps it is a bug. I believe you can still get through the tunnel without doing this quest, however.

[Sirhc2690]

And where can I find the tunnel?

[Lilith]

In the northern cave wall a very short distance west from Bargha. Stand near the wall and a passage will open. You'd better either be really good at opening locks or fairly good at fighting if you want to get past without the key.

[Sirhc2690]

If that passage is supposed to be north of the house where you get a "There are some footprints in the gravel here, heading north." message, that won't open either.

[Lilith]

Yes, the passage should open if you follow the gravel path from where you get that message to the north.

 

This is odd. Has the game displayed any error messages recently?

 

If not (or even if so), do you mind opening up your Scripts folder and posting the entire contents of the files z12abyssdlg.txt and z22barghadlg.txt so that we can see if they've somehow become corrupted?

[Sirhc2690]

I've never had any errors.

[Lilith]

I'm curious: what happens if you try to talk to an NPC in Bargha? Can you carry out a conversation as normal? It sounds almost as if your dialogue scripts aren't working for some reason.

[Sirhc2690]

It's all normal. I've come to the conclusion I was looking for really then: The game is unbeatable until you register.

[Lilith]

Wow. Um, I hope you had fun playing through 70% of the game in the dark?

 

I can understand why those passages wouldn't work in the unregistered version, though. The script for both of those secret passages checks to see if there's a wall where the passage is, and removes the wall if it's there. If you're playing in blackness, the terrain types for walls are switched with different ones, so the script doesn't find the terrain type it expects, and therefore assumes the passage has already been opened.

[Sirhc2690]

Yes, it was quite a pain to test this.

[Lilith]

It'd probably be a fairly simple matter to edit the scripts to allow yourself to proceed, if you were so inclined. I'm not about to tell you how to do it, though.

[Sirhc2690]

Neither am I, as I've bought the game.

[VCH]

The blackness what fun!

[Alorael at Large]

Now that your great trial is over, Sirhc, I want a verdict. Would it have been more or less painful to go through the scripts to check for problems like the one Thuryl found?

 

—Alorael, who cannot imagine the suffering involved in playing through A4 in the dark. This is a task surpassing Hapless and his opposite (Avatar?), who were merely plagued with unfortunate traits.

[Sirhc2690]

It really isn't too bad once you learn about how explored terrain displays. The major problems came with the emerald chestguard, which I actually couldn't navigate to, and the same with the oozing blade. For the most part, I didn't find the darkness much of a problem. I don't really know what would be involved in changing the scripts, so I can't really say.

[*i]

Quote:

It's all normal. I've come to the conclusion I was looking for really then: The game is unbeatable until you register.

Thanks for telling us beforehand...