Eschalon Book 2 is out for Windows.

[Sudanna]

Apologies for advertising(kinda), but I know it's of interest to at least a few forumers.

 

Observe.

[lampshade]

I tried out Book I and didn't really get in to it. I thought it was too slow and didn't enjoy the environment. What's improved in II?

[Randomizer]

It's no longer too slow even for older computers.

 

All weapon skills now have feats after you get to level 10 in a skill with each weapon doing something else special. Examples are swords get an extra damaging attack and all attacks that round are riposted. Cleaving weapons can do a sweeping blow that attacks adjacent targets. Bludgeoning weapons reduce the armor of the opponent. Piercing weapons like daggers get two swings. Bows do a focused shot for extra damage. Thrown weapons can be volleyed to hit adjacent targets.

 

More skills and you have to seriously train in them to get the benefits. For instance hide in shadows will make monsters not see you, but you need between 10 and 15 levels in most places. Also this is a great way to rob people without getting caught.

 

Bigger world so it takes about 40 hours to see everything. More quests and areas are supposed to be added on to the game at a later date so the game will get better.

 

More potions so Alchemy is really useful this time.

 

The game keeps track of challenges so you can get extra experience and better treasure for restricting how you play and get a final score to boast about when you finish.

 

Overall much better than Book 1.

 

Edit - I just spent two months beta testing it on an old Mac iBook with a 133 GHz CPU so I know that you can play it without the usual slow motion crawl that Book 1 had when you hit a town. You can still have problems if you have too many other programs open at once especially streaming YouTube at the same time.

 

The game is much better even with the few remaining minor bugs. You can wait two weeks and an update version will be out when the Mac and Linux versions are released.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

an old Mac iBook with a 133 GHz CPU

I wish my old powerbook's processor was that good...

[Ephesos]

...on a related and significantly more awesome note... LINK

 

Oh, and if that wasn't good enough, FREE PORTAL.

[lampshade]

How do I properly destroy this dragonei nest? All my weapons break on this thing and my fists don't work.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

Oh, and if that wasn't good enough, FREE PORTAL.

Dear Valve:

I want the $10 I spent on the Orange Box back. Are you trying to beggar me?





Smart move on Valve's part, as most people who would have bought the game have already done so. This will drum up publicity, get new people interested, and remind people that Portal 2 is coming (the ending to Portal has changed, if you haven't played the game since the Portal 2 announcement).

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: lampshade

How do I properly destroy this dragonei nest? All my weapons break on this thing and my fists don't work.

Click to reveal..

The nest has lots of hit points, somewhere between 450 and 600. The easiest way is to move 4 kegs of black powder and place them next to it and then stand way back and detonate with a spell or range weapon.

Your weapons are doing damage, but there are wearing out from lots of use.

[Toby-Linn]

Oooooh, awesome! Downloading and installing as I type...hehe

[Slawbug]

So this is the "Geneforge 3" of Eschalon... "wait a minute, didn't I just play this exact same game?" Okay, I guess there are bigger improvements, including especially the speed (which is still not perfect). And some obvious attempts were made to balance the gameplay, even though gameplay remains horrendously unbalanced... by which I mean, worse than overpowered Bless and the Tower of Magi donation bug from Exile 3, put together. It's still a fun game that combines some thoughtful elements with some boneheaded ones. I just don't understand how it took two and a half years to produce the sequel when it appears to have almost exactly the same chassis as the original.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

I just don't understand how it took two and a half years to produce the sequel when it appears to have almost exactly the same chassis as the original.

Some of the game content was only tested in the last month and half before release. Most of the time was spent reworking the graphics part so the game plays faster and putting in the new features.

Hopefully Book 3 won't take so long, but I'm sort of worried since there is supposed to be a Blades type editor to allow players to create new content.

[Slawbug]

The new features couldn't possibly have accounted for much of that time. A food/water meter for a game that already had food items and other meters that update based on passing time, and where every single turn takes up the same amount of game time including when resting? Storing/loading rng seeds? Tweaking skills by updating a few constants and CSV files? Degrading/repairing equipment I guess could take a little time, but still it's just meters and skills. I know the content was only tested recently, and that's why I'm so confused.

 

If Book 3 is seriously supposed to have a Blades type editor, it will be years and years away. Either that, or Basilisk already starting working on it and used it for Book 2, and THAT'S why it took so long.

[Lilith]

shareware game author is lazy; stop the presses

[grasshopper]

was the eschalon 1 game any good? I only played the demo, and got a bit frustrated at how slow it was.

[waterplant]

I must have got the only properly functioning download they had. The game wasn't noticeably slow for me - the time it took to walk everywhere made the game feel a little larger if anything. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the Mac release of Book 2.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

shareware game author is lazy; stop the presses

In related news, the sky is blue. Tune in at 8 for a shocking expose with Larry King that the pope is actually a secret Catholic.

[Slawbug]

indie yes, shareware no, lilith. $25 via the same kind of commercial registration systems that larger companies use is hardly "shareware." the dev talks about the company / development the same way jeff talks about SW, in terms of "this game cost x tens of thousands of dollars to make" when that really is just putting the value he feels like on his time. except that's more believable when jeff pumps out 1-2 games a year.

[waterplant]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

In related news, the sky is blue.

Why then aren't birds and aeroplanes covered in blue after they've been in the sky?

[Ephesos]

Duh, non-stick coating.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

Duh, non-stick coating.

So birds are teflon? No wonder chicken has always seemed so... rubbery.

[waterplant]

The same non-stick coating that skydivers wear. :-P

 

Besides - I thought that was only the space shuttle.

[Alorael at Large]

"Indie" is just the new term for "shareware," and we're past the phase when people thought it was a good idea to give out games that could be unlocked. Now they're demos that can be expanded, basically.

 

—Alorael, who still has no desire to play through Eschalon. Something about the game, or the interface, or the delays just make him happy to quit.

[Warchief]

I bought the first Eschalon, but never finished it. The demo had me hooked but I grew tired of the gameplay about half way through. For me, playing a magic user was extremely hard as I was constantly resting to regain energy. I suppose my character probably needed more perception for regeneration and energy/level.. I tried to split my skills between melee and magic so I'd have a backup for when my energy ran out. Maybe I should've focused more on pure magic (or should i say magick)?

 

Also, once I learned some of the second tier attack spells I was a bit disappointed to find out that they usually did less damage/mana than my original fireblast spell, simply using up my mana more quickly for the same effect. I read that in EB2 there is some sort of bonus when you cast an attack spell at a higher level so that might change things up a bit.

 

As mentioned by other posters the walking pace in Book 1 is very slow. I got pretty bored of exploring nearly identical forest areas, which were basically just thin paths through otherwise impassable woods. I never made it to the south west side of the map though... On the plus side the simultaneous turn-based combat was neat, and the graphics are nicely animated for the most part. I will give Book 2 a try when the Mac version is released to see what the changes are like.

[Randomizer]

After lots of complaints about waiting to recharge mana to cast a spell, the recharge rate is better and casting a higher level version of a spell takes slightly less mana. So a level 6 version of a tier 3 spell takes 49 instead of 60.

 

I never had too much trouble with magic users except finding something to do while waiting to recharge in Book 1.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

indie yes, shareware no, lilith. $25 via the same kind of commercial registration systems that larger companies use is hardly "shareware." the dev talks about the company / development the same way jeff talks about SW, in terms of "this game cost x tens of thousands of dollars to make" when that really is just putting the value he feels like on his time. except that's more believable when jeff pumps out 1-2 games a year.

why are you stealing my gimmick

but yeah a guy setting up a one-person corporation and paying himself a salary is the most hilarious thing on earth

[Hakkeshu]

I enjoyed the first one but due to playing the Geneforge 4 with 5 following after it and then Avernum 4-6 I can't dedicate time to playing the 2nd one till later on. I fiddled with the demo a bit but it's hard to settle on a character to play.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

but yeah a guy setting up a one-person corporation and paying himself a salary is the most hilarious thing on earth

I though Spiderweb was Jeff, Marianne, and that one other person whose name I forgot. Or are you talking about Basilisk?

[Niemand]

As described by Spiderweb's 'About Us' page, the third employee is Linda. A glance at Wikipedia suggests that this may have been more a description of Basilisk with "one full-time employee. . . as well as several contract employees", but it's roughly accurate for either of them.

[Randomizer]

Eschalon: Book 2 is now out for Mac and Linux systems.

[grasshopper]

how hard is it to recompile programs for different computers, meaning, why are there not more games out for mac and linux!

 

the demo is a 275mb download...i'm expecting great things...!

 

Oh well it depends on glibc-2.11, which is not available in pre-2010 versions of ubuntu, the game'll have to wait until i'm bored/stupid/drunk enough to upgrade my system.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: boggle

how hard is it to recompile programs for different computers

Quite.

(It's more than just a recompilation.)

[The Ratt]

I think that the download is the full version with only a demo area open to exploration. Basilisk sure has high expectations for the game.

[The Ratt]

I have been trying the demo and I am having trouble with one of the game mechanics. Most of the enemies I am fighting have a 40% chance of hitting me, while I have a 70% chance of hitting them, but it seems like the reverse. I've been keeping track and the enemies are hitting me more than I am hitting them. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

Edit: Praise Jeff for being able to get the hit calculations right!

[Randomizer]

There's a whole topic discussing the "problem." It really requires more testing than it's worth.