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Alcritas Series


mrsensitive

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Just finished playing Tomorrow after replaying all his scenarios, they are even better then I remember. But he never finished that story arc...? Are there notes or something I could track down online to get an idea of how it ends, or does anyone know his current email address so I could pester him with annoying questions?

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To quote another source, "The War is never over". There is no "ending", per se.

As you should have noticed throughout the series of "The Arc" there is always a war going on somewhere and the final installment points out that fact.

And, as the Mage who destoned the Party says, “Quickly! We must hurry!” She says, “We have very little time and much to do!” as she hurries back up the staircase.

It's still going on.

To me, Al was writing about the consequenses of war, not war itself. If you simply played each Scenario for the game and didn't sense, or realize what was happening to the characters in the stories then I fear you missed what he was really writing about.

Do you remember the couple who lost their child in "On a Ship to Algiers", or the girl in the Dungeon Cell in "Falling Stars"?

I've re-played all his Scenarios at least a couple of times and am impressed as to what a good Author he is; more than just a writer of games.

Al has answered a couple of postings within the last year, so I presume he still watches this column from time to time. However, I'd imagine that he, like so many others from the BoE Community, has moved on with his life and he may not watch this column very often.

Sorry to ramble on so, but I obviously think very highly of what Al has accomplished.

me

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Your not rambling, I guess my question should have been phrased "did he end that story where he wanted to or did he not complete it for some reason".

When I started playing An Apology and took a few steps in Fort Tassle and the prisoner was killed by an interrogator, and once I talked to him(the interrogator.)I started to realize that just because my characters are on this side does not make me the good guy.

 

I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but well into Falling Stars I was exhausted/sick of the fighting and death, unlike with almost every other scenario I didn't see myself as the hero anymore I didn't see a difference between the Nordakar/Xancrest side and the UNL side. By the time I made it to the part behind enemy lines with the undead I'd stopped killing UNL soldiers. In Pollox with the vampire fight I dismissed my NPCs so they wouldn't attack everything and just killed the vampires and ran. Rokig Kodar was the worst(best?) UNL outside dwarves trapped inside Orcs below them(who you can talk to get to know, hell trade with them before the inevitable slaughter, maybe thats why that they were so weak, kinda made me feel worse.) and under all that an Ettin.

 

Everything killing everything else even the followers of the "good" gods, Caines, Vayla, Orinna, are killing each other.

 

I guess that despite all of that I was still looking for a clean neat ending all questions answered, but like real life there aren't any. Just unanswered questions.

 

Alcritas really is a genius, I thought I was playing a game, but what he created is so so so much more.

I hope this makes sense/slash is understandable.

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Yes, Alcritas' scenarios are one of the reasons that BoE was so successful in its primetime. I myself still don't feel I truly understand the whole meaning of the scenarios, and I would have liked more, but I think you and Tonweya are right.

 

Of Good and Evil is probably the simplest story out of the Arc, in my opinion, but that's by no means saying that it is not a complex story. I think OG&E would translate well into a movie (which would be on the 'refuse' side of the plot) as it would give the audience lots of moral questions to answer and still be easy to follow. I think it would be a welcome addition into the 'fantasy' genre, as too many fantasy genre movies/books are not well written.

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I appreciate both responses and I'm sure Al does, too.

And, yes, what you've said is quite understandable.

I should have mentioned earlier that you go back and re-read what McTavish had to say to the Party at the end of "Falling Stars" regarding to how humanity has progressed throughout history.

As to the killing everything; I adamantly agree. Long ago, during the early days of the 286/386 genre, our oldest son had become deeply involved with computers and computer games. He ran bulletin boards from C-64 to this day. Back then he explained to me that to "win" these games you had to "kill everything".

Obviously, I've never done well at computer games.

I do, however, fare pretty well at research, data collection and documentation.

I took an early retirement pension and purchased the Exile Trilogy and Blades of Exile primarily because I wanted to delve into the stories and make Walk-Throughs of them. Once I realized what Blades was, I saw a veritible Gold Mine of enjoyment ahead of me. There were hundreds of scenarios I could work on.

I tried Al's Scenarios early on, but they were way beyond my comprehension. After some easier Scenarios, I managed to get into them and was amazed at his subliminal story information. Battles be damned; he seems to be someone who has felt the true inhumanity of war. I've played most all his scenarios several times and Falling Stars the most.

I'd recommend that you play them through again, in order, and this time you can read the documentation more closely. It's worth the time you'll spend on them.

me

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It's nice to hear people still occasionally get some enjoyment from my work. It was such a long time ago, but I'm still quite proud of the overall work I did in BOE.

 

To answer the original post, as is obvious, I still swing by here from time to time, and (type my name here)@yahoo.com will get to me via email. But the answers you've received already in this thread are largely accurate. While I wrote Tomorrow to provide as many answers to The Big Giant Mysteries of The Arc as possible, there really never is an end.

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