Diplomacy with the Dead

[*i]

Diplomacy with the Dead

 

Author: Jeff Vogel

Difficulty: levels 25-35

Version: 1.0

 

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Composite Score: 3.5/5.0

 

Best: 0.00% (0/15)

Good: 60.00% (9/15)

Average: 26.67% (4/15)

Substandard: 13.33% (2/15)

Poor: 0.00% (0/15)

[encouragenecro]

 

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Edited August 5, 2014 by SylaeBot
Automated Sybot edit; worker IPB::csrThread/vanadium

[*i]

An interesting scenario with the usual Jeff Vogel polish. The problem here is there is a little too much of the Geneforge/A Small Rebellion two sides, moral ambiguity stuff here. Don't get me wrong, that can be a good thing. Did it work well in A Small Rebellion? For the most part. Geneforge? No question. Here everything is too short and compressed for me to really develop any emotional attachment to either side. Both are evil in some way, but the other part of the equation is missing. What makes them good? There wasn't enough time to flesh that out. It just felt like I had to choose which bad guy to help.

 

So nice try, but play A Small Rebellion instead.

 

Rank: [rating]Substandard[/rating]

[S M Adventurer]

Now here's a scenario that really is cool. It's pretty interesting. The plot? Kinda played out, there's undead prowling around the area. Jeff keeps it fresh by throwing in some new kinds of undead. I liked that.

 

The combat was rather hard I noticed, at least until I got some higher level spells. Then again, I did play this scenario right after A Small Rebellion, so I guess it's expected. Still, it was very interesting.

 

I liked the scripted rise from the dead zombies that were all over the place in this scenario. It certainly took me by surprise a few times.

 

The town design was very good. I liked how Selecuia looked from outside and inside. The dialogue was excellent too, particularly when you have to deal with that snobby shopkeeper.

 

There were some cool artifacts in the scenario too, my favorite being the Dagger of Defense. I gave it to my Nephil priest, which helps out big time.

 

Overall, I liked this scenario a lot. Many interesting side quests, decent plot, good town design and dialogue, well developed characters, and nice artifacts.

 

Rating: [rating]Good[/rating]

[Nioca]

DIPLOMACY WITH THE DEAD

 

SUMMARY - A mixed bag, to be sure. On one hand, this scenario has the worst design and graphics of any pre-packaged scenario. On the other, the plot's decent, if not stellar. And then we hit combat, where the real meat of the scenario is. Quite a few fights are good... but quite a few of them tend to be hack and slash, with little variation. Overall, it's decent, and you should play it. Just be prepared for some of the best and worst combat to grace Blades. In terms of combat, design, and graphics, this is the worst of the pre-packaged scenarios. However, its plot still trumps Za-Khazi.

 

NOTABLE POINTS

* Heavy combat

* Decent plot

* Empty outdoors

* Loot Heavy

 

 

Enjoyment - Average

Starts decent enough. While the whole undead plague bit doesn't exactly draw one in, the designer did include a bit where a guy runs up to you and tells you to leave. It's neat, and helps draw you in to the scenario a bit. You encounter a few bits of what the undead are doing, see the terror on the farmhouses, so forth. Then you talk to Mayanard, start to get into the plot, and find out what the master of the undead is up to.

 

Unfortunately, it's right about here you'll start noticing the combat, if not sooner. Namely, the fact that a good deal of fights consist of waiting, luring the enemy in, and then pounding them with what-have-you until they're dead (again). Then you start noticing issues with plot. It's called Diplomacy with the Dead, but... where's the Diplomacy? It seems more like just beating the crap out of zombies and such.

 

 

Plot - Good

As mentioned, the whole undead plague thing isn't exactly a major draw. However, it soon starts getting more interesting as you delve a little deeper into the dark secrets of Seleucia. A complaint is that there's too much time spent on building up the mystery around Vahkohs, and not enough with the actual diplomacy and dealings with him. You're given very little time to determine if you want to switch sides, and it's a one-time offer to boot.

 

Both sides are rather despicable, but I found myself definitely favoring the Vahkohs side of the equation. That said, both sides are balanced well-enough to be a bit of a dilemma. On one side, a ruthless lord with good publicity and good intentions. On the other, a deadly, evil creature who got the short end of the stick.

 

While not original, the plot was amazingly bullet-proof when it came to player cleverness. It's entirely possible to shoot for a third option and take out both sides, though you have to know what you're doing. Definitely the most satisfying ending, in my opinion, and I'm glad that the option is there for us players who hate both sides.

 

Atmosphere was decent. You got a feeling for the terror surrounding the countryside of Seleucia, and that nowhere was safe. However, the scenario was a smidge too short to really pull it off.

 

 

Combat - Substandard

This is where the meat of the scenario is. Combat. I'm really not sure how to rate combat here. Some of the best fights in the game are placed alongside some of the worst things to ever have the indecency to visit BoA. Unfortunately, the bad side of things tends to win out.

 

Starting on the good side, we have the boss fights. New tricks for every one, along with the need for varying strategies to defeat them, was a very nice touch. In fact, pretty much every unique fight was well done. Fights in most towns were done well too, and were generally kept interesting. There were also some neat encounters such as the trap in the Cavern of Bones. The undead variety was nice, providing a break from the typical skeletons and zombies.

 

I also was pleased to find out that there were a few hidden traps and such in place. Not only that, but there's a few combat encounters in places you wouldn't expect. Both are nice touches. Also, some of the creatures did enough damage to kill of a full-power meat shield armored to the hilt within the space of a round, which made certain strategies somewhat useless. And God help you if they catch you from the rear, where your nice squishy mages are at. Betty, the joinable NPC, was a blessing in this respect.

 

Then we hit the flipside of the coin. While there was variety, there wasn't nearly enough. There was so much potential with scripted abilities that it was a real shame it wasn't used. Then add that to the fact you're often fighting one kind of enemy at a time. If you're fighting zombies, you're fighting only zombies. If you find a skeleton, don't expect much more than skeletons. And so forth. Furthermore, most enemies are melee enemies, meaning that almost every fight that didn't involve a boss could be dealt with by hitting the Wait button and letting the undead come to you.

 

Then we have the rather gratuitous spell exploits available to the party. It's hard to take Lord Mayanard seriously when you can cast Capture Mind and have him kill his own allies for you, then allow you to take free shots at him. Or when you can knock off the super-powerful Vahkohs in two rounds with a careful application of Cloud of Blades and/or Simulacrum. Seriously, would it have killed the designer to make them have Mental Immunity, upped physical resistance, and be Special monsters?

 

While the various traps were nice, some of them had an unfortunate tendency to be utterly useless when you could see them coming. Hit a player once with the spawning trap (you'll know the one), and you catch them off-guard and do some serious damage. Hit a player twice with it, and you still do some serious damage when the player gets caught with their guard only partially up. The tenth time? Yeah, that zombie/skeleton/ghoul won't last the round.

 

Also, someone apparently wasn't paying attention to what undead got what resistances. For example, Burning Bones are vulnerable to fire and immune to ice. Allow me to repeat that. A skeletal monster MADE OF FIRE is vulnerable to getting burned to death. And we also have Foul Skeletons, who have total magic immunity because they... um... smell bad? Does this mean that if I don't take a shower, I'm immune to magical bolts of lightning too?

 

Finally, the fighting tended to devolve into mindless hack'n'slash, particularly versus the outdoor encounters. Once you've figured out how most of the monsters behave, you can take them down quite easily. It becomes a game of buffing up and kicking the rear side of reanimated pelvic bones. Which is sad.

 

(BEWARE, INCOMING RANT)

 

I reserved a special place in this review for the Spectral Warrens, however. Why? Because I'd like to nominate it as THE WORST DUNGEON IN THE HISTORY OF BLADES. Hack'n'slash versus monsters? Okay, I don't mind hack'n'slash, I actually find it enjoyable at times. Complex but well-done maze filled with traps? Count me in. Monsters that can knock a character into next week with a single hit? Awesome. Good atmosphere? Check. And an awesome boss fight to end things? Where could this dungeon POSSIBLY go wrong?

 

Actually, it's right around where the designer thought it'd be a good idea to make the hack'n'slash super monsters respawn EVERY. SINGLE. TURN. Oh, and this happens an infinite number of times, and there's no way to turn it off (other than breaking into the scripts). Yeah, suddenly you're getting swarmed by an unceasing swarm of monsters, and are completely unable to take more than a step without having to reengage an enemy. Believe me, I wish I was exaggerating. Sadly, I'm not. So, to sum up, you're getting swarmed by killer hack'n'slash monsters while having to deal with monsters popping up from traps and navigating a maze, all to reach an otherwise excellent boss fight that becomes aggravating since you're too drained by the spectres to actually do much against the boss. I'm convinced: evil parties don't go to Hell. They're trapped in this awful dungeon for the rest of eternity, forever tortured by hack'n'slash cranked up to absurd levels.

 

(END RANT)

 

 

Design - Substandard

Another sad point for this scenario. The only design that really stood out was Seleucia, which was awesome. Other dungeons, such as the Cavern of Bones, were nicely done. But overall, most of the dungeons and the only other town in this scenario was rather bland.

 

But that's nothing compared to the outdoors in this scenario. The surface map is a solid 3x3 chunk of emptiness. You get trees. You get the occasional encounter. And that's about it. This scenario's surface world could quite easily be compressed into a 2x2 map and be considerably more exciting then it is now. Having to trek over 200 spaces just to get any action is just plain wrong.

 

The underworld, thankfully, was quite a bit better. But it too could have been sized down.

 

Dialog and dialogue was well done, thankfully. A little bit of humor was present, which was a nice touch. But other than that, there isn't much else to mention.

 

 

Graphics - Average

The custom graphics were a nice touch to this scenario... except that several of them had noise in their death animation. It's a little disconcerting to watch goblins or Vampiresses die surrounded by a flurry of white pixels. Other than that, the scenario was visually unimpressive. The outdoors were basically long stretches of the same two trees repeated over... and over... With a river or two thrown in for variety.

 

Towns looked good, and there was definitely a good use of heights. Seleucia in particular was rather impressive. Plus, there were quite a few SFX. However, it just wasn't visually exciting.

 

 

Scripting - Good

There were quite a few neat scripting tricks used here and there. It's extremely solid, which is good, and there were a few interesting effects implemented with it. However, considering this is the one pre-packaged scenario not ported from BoE, I definitely expected a bit more. Still, thinks like teleporting foes away and healing scripts added nice touches.

 

FINAL VERDICT

----[rating]AVERAGE[/rating]----

[Tyranicus]

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

 

Your basic Spiderweb hack-and-haul, with a plot twist that's as unexpected as a thing the Inevitability News Network tells you to really really expect and as consequential as the border between North and South Dakota. Its world is drawn more coherently than others by JV: fewer -- which isn't to say, no -- tract housing developments of assorted monster families living side-by-side in suburban dungeon cul-de-sacs. And there are some eye-catching frills and details here and there. As for combat, I went in underpowered and found things nicely challenging, which may inflate my score a bit. The engine improves on the ported Spidweb scenarios by gesturing toward creature tactics, though it overuses the "hunter" bit. The main problem is one we'll probably have to learn to love: what BoA can't supply by way of balance, it attempts to supply by volume -- overstuffed bosses, floods of anonymous baddies, etc. That, and mines. In a turn-based game. WHY??? Fight Geneforgization!

 

So I'll call it the mirror image of BoA's ASR: decent game-play, not-so-decent plot.

 

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

[Tyranicus]

From TM on the CSR:

 

Being the designer of Corporeus, I can sorta tell when a designer is trying to insert some sort of conflict or "underlying message" into the scenario, although coming from Jeff, it won't be the greatest- I picked up a "people will fight vigorously to live" message, I'm not sure if other people came to the same conclusion or not. (And let it be said right now that I am docking points for Jeff's using the name "Desirea" to represent "Desire". English 101, children.) On the other hand, it wasn't executed well. I couldn't pick up as many symbols or recurring examples of the subliminal struggles; either of these would have boosted the scenario's score. What made A Small Rebellion work in many ways was the constant examples of brutalities, but any "themes" Jeff may have tried to establish in Diplomacy were poorly established and poorly executed.

 

Then, we come to the conflict itself. Why was the party given the choice at the crystal anyway? Maynard knew the ritual, so why couldn't he walk up to the crystal and cast it himself?

(EDIT: After a replay (and a vague hint I picked up on the boards), I was able to find out the "dark" side of Maynard. My deduction in this respect still holds, however, on account of how insanely difficult it is to pick this up.)

 

That aside, gameplay was quite good. With the high HP of the undead and the limiting of magic in BoA, Dispel Undead was a useful way for a spellcaster to use his/her turn, but was not a panacea. Slow speed but high HP embodies the way zombies *should* act. I enjoyed many of the Vahkos fights- radiating cold to do damage twice (an important concept in all Spidweb games) was nice, as was the chasing sequence in general, although being flooded by spectral warriors and avatars was a relative low point. I would have prefered more dialogue pics- especially ones for the two protagonists. Everything "clicked", except for some traps in the Selucia Sewers, which should have "clicked" only once.

 

Saying "I recommend that you play this scenario" is sorta silly, but if this was a scenario that wasn't pre-packaged with the editor, I'd probably still recommend it to a potential player, even if it isn't the best BoA will ever offer. (And let's not forget how grateful I am that Za-Khazi isn't the scenario all BoA players will finish before moving on to 3rd party ones...!)

 

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

 

EDIT: In retrospect, this entire scenario seems to be riddled with anti-Communist propaganda. I'd challenge you to find the bits and pieces, but that's like asking you play Where's Waldo when there's only one man on the page.

[Tyranicus]

From an unknown reviewer at the CSR:

 

I wasn't as fond of this as I'd hoped; better then VoDT, worse then ASR.

 

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

[Tyranicus]

From an unknown reviewer at the CSR:

 

1 - A major point about this scenario is that for me it suffers the comparison with VoDT:

 

1.1 - The mood is much less efficient despite the good undead subject. In VoDT the mood is well build arround people pain and few mysteries. In DwtD there nothing equivalent, a little bit of mystery but I didn't felt the undead dark shadow above the area there was missing something. The only thing would be the dominant undead stuff all arround but that isn't enough story wise and it's a bit repetitive.

 

1.2 - The strong outdoor focus is much less efficient for me. In DwtD most things seems related strongly to main plot. That should be a good design base. In fact the links to main plot is too often it's an undead encounter, nothing more. That could be logical, anyway it fails build the story and even involves not enough pleasant surprise of disconvering and too much repetitions. Also it fails build the feeling of a real area because of not enough non undead events. In VoDT, there are many side quests or just discovery to do outdoor, many aren't directely linked to main plot but some are and their diversity build the feeling the that's a living area with fun to get from exploration and discovery. Plus those events/side quests that are linked to the main plot take their part in the story and has a much better link than the "it's undead" poor link of too many side events in DwtD.

 

2 - It's anyway a good scenario

Despite undead repeatition, the fighting diversity is ok. There's a also a good difficulty rising. The "open area" freedom is well managed versus the global plot. The global story is good I just felt it should deserve a better realisation.

 

3 - Better mood required

For me there was missing something to build better the mood. You arrive at a static state when undead already disaster plenty area but other area are under strong control of the empire. Then it mainly results to just discover empty houses and no npc really linked to that so emotion efficiency is weak. And on the other side, in area under control of empire, you mainly met people worry but too few really involved with past events.

 

I met two people that had lost relative, but for none of them I found information about them. This should have been used much more in order to build a strong mood. And some of these lost people should have been mostly impossible to not found in a state or another, cadaver with bye letter for his love, undead that still have few memory of his relative, a child just lost in wood, and so on and so on. A massive ammount of idea are possible arround this general idea and that would have help a lot to build a mood.

 

Another general idea to build a mood arround the theme should be to have a really noticeable evolution as the area states progress and not mainly only through one captain comments and few farms behavior. One trick to play arround that could have been a strong use of refugee. Like having refugee camp that later are removed. Or having refugee in town and later they leave to return back to their farm or other activities.

 

I know it's a lot of work but the subject choosed need it in order to get efficiency.

 

4 - Not enough events links

In general too many undead events occured without a real links to something else or main plot. This main plot should have progress through each different area found and for most encounters more story stuff and direct link to main plot would have improve a lot.

 

The hard stuff is managing the non linearity but well final results suffer of this lack.

 

5 - I could haven't been a good player in this scenario

Unlike the three previous scenario, there was at least three subquests I didn't solve, when they should have build story and improve mood. It could be because of some player tricks tougher to find than in previous scenario. Well it happens like that for me, I can't say more.

 

[rating]AVERAGE[/rating]

[Tyranicus]

From miluk at the CSR:

 

 

What, didn't I rate this yet?

 

I was disappointed with the ending. It seemed sort of unfinished, or stopped too early, leaving too many things open.

 

If my memory is correct, all the dungeons were more or less interesting, generally more than in A Small Rebellion.

 

(However, it's about a year since I played this, so I won't say anything more specific, because I may not remember correctly.)

 

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

[Tyranicus]

From an unknown reviewer at the CSR:

 

I really disliked this scenario. There's nothing of substance in it other than a lame attempt at a plot twist. Lots of irritating combat. No actual characters. It just felt like JV decided that he ought to make a new scenario for BoA, and just banged this out without much actual interest in the scenario itself. Bleh.

 

[rating]AVERAGE[/rating]

[Tyranicus]

From Thralni at the CSR:

 

This is actually the only scenario of the four I really felt involved in the game. When talking to Vakhos in the spectral warrens was really the only moment in the entire game I actually started doubting whether to kill him or not. This was totally different in "A small rebellion" Where it actually seemed rather obvious for me to just kill the rebbels.

 

I rate it [rating]GOOD[/rating], albeit just for that one moment of doubt I felt.

[Tyranicus]

From Nioca at the CSR:

 

This scenario really isn't getting the credit it deserves. While I also found the twist predictable, I enjoyed the freedom of choice I had throughout the scenario. Multiple routes to the main dungeon, each with varying amounts of combat, a little bit of freedom with the twist, and a few side quests and joinable NPCs as well. The plot wasn't all that original or fresh, but it definitely wasn't stale or boring. Combat was excellent, far above the standards set by the other three pre-packaged scenarios, and I enjoyed playing through certain fights repeatedly. In fact, this was one of the very, very few scenarios that had a fight which I would reload just to play over again. The atmosphere could have been better, but it still worked. Plenty of good dialog, a good many secrets to find, and it looked nice too. Overall, an excellent scenario.

 

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

[Tyranicus]

(see reposted review -Bain)

[Tyranicus]

From Jewels at SV:

 

Enjoyable enough as long as you have high repel spirit. Some twists and turns and multiple endings. Technically sound.

 

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

[Tyranicus]

From Lord Grimm at SV:

 

Show up, get hired to stop massive numbers of undead, find out the guy who hired you is a poor but stubborn liar, run off to kill a vampire... and start getting lectured to by the vampire.

You really aren't paid enough for this.

 

The dungeon-delving motif in The Valley of Dying Things meets the political back-and-forth play of A Small Rebellion in a nice little story that spins off from a side quest in A3. There are a good deal of side quests, lots of areas to explore, and a good deal of loot to find, if you know how to look. Combat is balanced, the scenery is pretty.

Only thing it's really missing is a good in-game plotline. It's more just a series of encounters and choices.

If there is an intended process message, as TM suggests, it was lost on me.

 

 

Plot: 1.2/2

Gameplay: 1.6/2

Presentability: 1.3/2

Scripting: 1/2

Personal Entertainment: 1.3/2

 

Rating: 6.4 / 10 ([rating]AVERAGE[/rating])

[Tyranicus]

From Enraged Slith at SV:

 

Way too many zombies. I'd really like to know where Vahkos found this massive trove of dead people to manipulate (assuming that's where the zombies came from). There needed to be more exposition on the plot and less killing of undead + random reward. It's been a while since I played, so I'm not really sure where the goblin massacre and small rebellion (hee) fit in.

 

[rating]GOOD[/rating]because it's polished and worth a few playthroughs

 

There really aren't enough scenarios of this magnitude.

[BainIhrno]

Ick. I didn't like this very much. It just seemed to have mindless hacking and too much wandering around. Profoundly boring.

 

[rating]Substandard[/rating]