lets play Playing Exile for the first time...

[Slawbug]

The whole trope that "everything you do must be formulated as a quest, which is explicitly stated by a single person, who you can also report your success to, usually for a reward" wasn't even remotely universal in 1994.  Very little of what you can do in the game follows that formula.

 

Luck: one point can be worth adding early.  The first point gives you a 40% chance to lower damage sustained by 1, and a 30% chance to not die when you otherwise should.  After that the increase is not as steep.

[ladyonthemoon]

7 minutes ago, "Nothing Left" said:

The whole trope that "everything you do must be formulated as a quest, which is explicitly stated by a single person, who you can also report your success to, usually for a reward" wasn't even remotely universal in 1994.  Very little of what you can do in the game follows that formula.

The very first video game I ever played was Avernum, I'm not used to older games.

 

8 minutes ago, "Nothing Left" said:

Luck: one point can be worth adding early.  The first point gives you a 40% chance to lower damage sustained by 1, and a 30% chance to not die when you otherwise should.  After that the increase is not as steep.

Ah thank you for the info.

 

I begin to see monster fleeing instead of attacking; is that related to the total amount of Luck my party has?

[Thaluikhain]

As I understand it, that's because your level is too high.

 

Not sure if that's intended to represent them being scared of you (which makes sense) or it's more a gameplay thing, because low level monsters would annoy players.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Thaluikhain

[ladyonthemoon]

8 minutes ago, Thaluikhain said:

As I understand it, that's because your level is too high.

My current party members levels trank from 8 to 5. It seems a bit low to scare mindless creatures.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

There ARE many of those not requested quests. A lot of text and details were added in the remakes, like I said.

 

EDIT: Sorry, didn't see page 2. But also, in Blades of Exile, when your party reaches an average level of 8, all monsters in scenarios rated Low difficulty will see their HP doubled. So monsters fleeing at level 5 to 8 isn't unusual.

Edited August 30, 2020 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[ladyonthemoon]

On a side note, I have a real pleasure playing this game but I cannot play too long sessions due to the outrageous number of monsters to fight; this easily annoys me. I would like it much more if more of them fled. Two hours is the largest limit.

[Thaluikhain]

11 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

On a side note, I have a real pleasure playing this game but I cannot play too long sessions due to the outrageous number of monsters to fight; this easily annoys me. I would like it much more if more of them fled. Two hours is the largest limit.

 

Second that, lots of monsters that have little or not treasure and exist solely to get in the way gets tiresome.  IIRC, E3 had a lot less of that.

[Hondero]

I remember making a topic on the monster numbers for Exile II maybe 10 years ago — I had to check that thread and I still think the same! 

 

In dungeons in Exile 1, I recall the enemies respawning at a ridiculous rate. It was most noticeable in some of the linear dungeons (“I know I cleared this area out”) and did feel like a tedious slog. Sort of a false difficulty — you’ve already potentially cleared a dungeon, beaten the boss and horde, and yet you still have to deal with leagues of respawning critters. 

 

If you give Exile 2 a shot, the dungeon respawning is not nearly as bad, and it only seems to be a characteristic for some dungeons. Many of them don’t seem to have respawning. I remember playing some E1 dungeons and seeing enemies respawn right before my eyes as I walked around! 

 

For the wandering monsters just leveling up your party will help a lot. Like you noticed, even level 5-8 may make wandering goblins and such run away. It is annoying to be exploring and get 2-3 groups of monsters attack you sequentially, especially after you just cleared a dungeon. Like Thaluikhain said, Exile 3 had a preference setting for less wander monsters, and it was nice to turn on when you get tired of them. Fortunately, leveling up helps a LOT, and by the time most of your characters are 15-25+, you can walk around most areas of Exile without most wandering monsters attacking. Feels good

 

When I started playing Exile 2 again a couple weeks ago, I was annoyed at the wandering and respawning monsters sometimes getting in the way of the game. Since there is no game setting to change it and because I think it is sometimes a cheap move on the game’s part (like the false difficulty I mentioned), so I started just buying a lot of energy potions and giving myself the gold back via the game editor. You still have to slog through the duplicate enemies at times, but at least you don’t have to get stingy with the spell points and hold off of buffing your characters. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Hondero

[ladyonthemoon]

1 hour ago, Hondero said:

It is annoying to be exploring and get 2-3 groups of monsters attack you sequentially,

I experienced this yesterday. My party had discovered the Crystal Cave and were resting inside it. Their health and energy points were very low so I had them rest several time in a row; after a while I was getting "monsters nearby" each time I pressed the rest button. I ventured outside and there was 4 bands of enemies queueing outside the cave entrance!

[ladyonthemoon]

I've played a bit today; unfortunately I wasted a lot of time killing hordes of monsters...

 

My party discovered Cotra where they took the Nephilim Fort quest; they eventually found it after hours wandering and fighting monsters, as already mentioned. They have begun their exploration of the cave.

 

They levelled up but couldn't get much training since they didn't have much money... They hope that the reward for freeing the prisoners will be handsome, really handsome!

 

Monsters waiting for the team outside the Crystal Cave:

 

 

 

[ladyonthemoon]

Hurray! They freed the prisoners and got at nice reward! 700 coins!  They become stronger and stronger and more and more monsters flee when they are close now. Phew!

 

They found a soldier who was hiding in the fort; I haven't been able to find the words that triggers him escaping.

 

 

There is an ominous altar in the fort; they decided not to take chances this time.

 

 

 

 

 

[ladyonthemoon]

My party's current stats; their levels spred from 7 to 9, all the fighters are level 9.

 

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

You will be beaten to a pulp if you mess with that altar right now, if that's the altar I'm thinking of. I suggest coming back when you're stronger though. You could also try saving, testing your abilities, and then reloading if you can't handle it.

 

In conversation, when in doubt, try asking about every word you see in conversation one by one. Exile 3 and BoE make this easier, by allowing you to click on words instead of typing them all in, but for this situation, my hunch would be to start by asking about "portcullis", "open", or "escape".

[ladyonthemoon]

15 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

my hunch would be to start by asking about "portcullis", "open", or "escape".

I've tried these words, and a lot of others I can't remember, several times with no luck. I even tried words that were not in the conversation, like "flee", "free", "leave".

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

What does he say in the message before that?

 

EDIT: Yeah, I just blasted in with an edited party to find out. I opened the portcullis, freed the other captives, and then tried a bunch of keywords with Gordon and still couldn't figure it out...

Edited September 6, 2020 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[ladyonthemoon]

17 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

EDIT: Yeah, I just blasted in with an edited party to find out. I opened the portcullis, freed the other captives, and then tried a bunch of keywords with Gordon and still couldn't figure it out...

Sigh Looks like the poor guy was left behind.

 

Thanks for trying!

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, did that dungeon a few days ago, don't play with the altar (really don't, a Haakai is way too tough, in E3 they are about the toughest monster that isn't a special character.) and I think that guy is just to give exposition and doesn't escape, or at least doesn't have an explicit gameplay escape thing.

[ladyonthemoon]

4 hours ago, Thaluikhain said:

I think that guy is just to give exposition and doesn't escape, or at least doesn't have an explicit gameplay escape thing.

He does escape in Avernum...

[Fireball Fodder]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that guy can't escape in Exile I.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I'm finding that Exile 3 feels less bogged down than A1:EftP or A2:CS. There's a lot less description and flavor like I said, and Jeff's writing is engaging in the remake remakes, but Exile 3 feels easier to play without thirty screenfuls of text in every town. I'm surprised. I thought I would like it less, but I don't.

 

I forgot to add a point of Luck when I created my party, and got worried when I saw Slarty's post earlier in this thread and remembered. But then I remembered Luck costs 0 gold to train in, just skill points, so it's better to train it after party creation, where everything else that is otherwise not free, is still free.

[ladyonthemoon]

Nothing much to say about this week's round. The party went up North after freeing the prisoners from the Nephilim fort, exploring. They stumbled on a "remote temple" and managed to get out of it alive, but it was close.

 

 

They carried on exploring and eventually found Formello. They visited the city and found its hidden treasure; they disarmed the traps but left the loot on the spot.

 

 

Then they paid a visit to the mayor who tasked them with retrieving her magic necklace.

 

On to the Nephilim Fort then! Before that, they need to go back to Fort Duvno; they have many unknown objects  and nobody is able to identify them in Formello.

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by ladyonthemoon

[Thaluikhain]

Running back and forth to ID stuff is a pain, yeah.  Secret treasure in Formello, didn't know about that.  Took one look at the Remote Temple and decided not, might give it another go.

[ladyonthemoon]

1 hour ago, Thaluikhain said:

Took one look at the Remote Temple and decided not, might give it another go.

These guys are tough indeed. My party will go back there later too.

 

By the way, I know how to avoid monsters spawning too often: do not sleep outside...

[ladyonthemoon]

I'm still playing Exile, it's just that I haven't managed to get enough spare time lately to play significantly.

 

Right now my party is in the Nephilim Fort near Formello, trying to recover the necklace. With them levelling up, fights have become less frustrating.

[Warrior Mage]

What happened to your Avernum characters then?

[ladyonthemoon]

11 hours ago, Warrior Mage said:

What happened to your Avernum characters then?

Nothing I guess; they are still resting until the Exile party has caught up with them.

[Warrior Mage]

I am eager to know how gameplay is going...

[ladyonthemoon]

On 1/2/2021 at 2:47 PM, Warrior Mage said:

I am eager to know how gameplay is going...

Well, I'm afraid the gameplay is suspended right now, for various reasons. I'll get back to it one day or another.

[Figgy20000]

Just started reading this thread.,

 

Make sure to update us eventually it can't end like this!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Exile 2 is fantanstic you have to at least make it there

[Losrandir]

Say hello to Motrax from me! 😊

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

EDIT: Clicking the Recent Activity items does not take you to new posts.

Edited February 8, 2021 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[Randomizer]

9 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

EDIT: Clicking the Recent Activity items does not take you to new posts.

You have to go to the sub forum and click to the left of the bold faced topic to get recent activity. I know you didn't used to have to do it that way.

[ladyonthemoon]

I'm sorry guys but I'm using Linux now and I don't like WINE. Anyway, I tried playing Exile with WINE and the result was not good.

 

The only game made by Spiderweb that has a Linux version is Avadon: The Black Fortress. I still have Windows installed but it's rather boring to have to switch from one os the other. If only anyone could make a Linux version of Exile, Avernum and all the other games... sigh

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Most of the games run just fine with WINE. What don't you like about it?

 

EDIT: Nevermind, I don't remember whether I had issues with the Exile series specifically. It's been a while. I remember them running fine but I might be mistaken, and I'm not sure I know how to troubleshoot WINE anymore.

Edited February 21, 2021 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[ladyonthemoon]

15 hours ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

Most of the games run just fine with WINE. What don't you like about it?

Well, WINE is huge for once and I don't need it, I would only use it for my Windows games and most of them would not work fine under it. So...

[arampl]

Hi all!

This is my first post on Spiderweb forums. Posting into this thread because found discussion about Linux and WINE here.

 

I like Spiderweb games very much (bought games from official site, Steam and GOG). Played "Avernum: Escape From the Pit" (Windows 7), completed "Avadon: The Black Fortress" (Linux). Several days ago got "Geneforge: Mutagen" from GOG.

 

Please, people, can anyone tell: did you really played remastered games using WINE? It installs and runs, of course. But there's is very nasty lag that prevents to have fun with games: when in combat and mouse cursor is hovering monster or your character/summons all is OK. But when mouse is somewhere else on the screen it became laggy as hell (any combat action or text messages about damage is very slow).

Tested it with Debian and Xubuntu (WINE and CrossOver with different settings (gdi/opengl, sound, input)).

 

Thank you in advance.

 

 

 

 

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Yes, I recall having that problem with slow performance. I stopped using Linux when I got a new laptop a couple years ago though, because of the warranty.

[ladyonthemoon]

Is there any way to convince Jeff so that he ports his games to Linux, at least Ubuntu and the versions that are based on it?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Yes. Make it financially worthwhile for him.

 

There's a Linux version of Exile III, at least.

Edited March 4, 2021 by The Almighty Doer of Stuff

[arampl]

Linux port would be a wonderful thing. Surely all Linux gamers would be grateful. Spiderweb games already uses several cross-platform libraries, SDL for example. Also "Avadon: The Black Fortress" already has Linux port.

Sadly while building native executables is a matter of several hours, testing can take long time and a lot of energy.

From financial point of view personally I could only promise to buy all remakes that is not in my collection (Avernum 1, 2, 3, Avadon 2, 3 etc.).

Maybe some sort of poll how profitable Linux port would be is available here?

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by arampl

[joleneth]

On 2/21/2021 at 3:45 PM, ladyonthemoon said:

I'm sorry guys but I'm using Linux now and I don't like WINE. Anyway, I tried playing Exile with WINE and the result was not good.

Old thread, I know, but I've been playing Exile 1 under Linux without difficulty.  I used Lutris to do the install, which uses a "community installer" to set up a Wine environment for each game you install.  It doesn't do anything you couldn't do yourself, but saves a lot of time messing around with different Wine settings.  Perhaps give it a go.  You're right that it does take up some space, but from my perspective it's worth it for the amount of gameplay I get out.

I notice Geneforge 1: Mutagen also has a community installer, but I haven't tried it yet.

Cheers,

John

Edited July 2, 2021 by joleneth

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

Exile: Escape from the Pit. Dang, I haven't played that in over a decade. The first version had white ground and the walls were also way different. Talk about playing a game that was hard. If you didn't keep notes, you definitely lost track from time to time. Those were the days...

Post #737

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

26 minutes ago, Arch-Mage Solberg said:

Talk about playing a game that was hard. If you didn't keep notes, you definitely lost track from time to time. Those were the days...

I failed to take my own notes on a Jobs Dispatcher job, then stopped playing Exile 3 for several weeks. I come back, look at my jobs list, and see a request for "monster parts". Great.

[ladyonthemoon]

On 7/2/2021 at 9:36 AM, joleneth said:

You're right that it does take up some space,

Unfortunately I cannot afford allowing to much space to something like WINE...

[joleneth]

I haven't tried it, but you might manage to install Windows 3.1 inside DOSBox, which should come out much smaller.  There are a few posts on these forums about doing it on Windows and Mac.

[ladyonthemoon]

On 7/14/2021 at 11:38 PM, joleneth said:

I haven't tried it, but you might manage to install Windows 3.1 inside DOSBox, which should come out much smaller.  There are a few posts on these forums about doing it on Windows and Mac.

Thanks for the tip! I'm going to give it a try. :)

[ladyonthemoon]

Okay, it might be obvious to everyone but I need to confirm that I have given up on playing Exile... Not really proud of it but I'd rather use the limited spare time I have to replay Avernum, the first trilogy (the original version), the one game that introduced me to playing video games! I'll never thank Jeff enough for those! .

 

I mainly prefer games 1 to 3, I don't really like games 4 to 6 but maybe I'll give them a try, if I can.

 

I deleted my Exile gallery.

 

And... happy new year everyone! I hope the covid didn't make members here scarcer...

Edited January 21, 2022 by ladyonthemoon
link added

[Hondero]

On 1/21/2022 at 4:42 AM, ladyonthemoon said:

Okay, it might be obvious to everyone but I need to confirm that I have given up on playing Exile... Not really proud of it but I'd rather use the limited spare time I have to replay Avernum, the first trilogy (the original version), the one game that introduced me to playing video games! I'll never thank Jeff enough for those! .

 

I mainly prefer games 1 to 3, I don't really like games 4 to 6 but maybe I'll give them a try, if I can.

 

I deleted my Exile gallery.

 

And... happy new year everyone! I hope the covid didn't make members here scarcer...

I was honestly curious how it was going, sorry to hear you deleted the gallery! It was fun to read. Glad you can spend the time on Avernum though. Do you have a favorite of A1-A3? I forget if you mentioned before. 

 

I started E3 a couple weeks ago, then realized that I never truly finished E1 and that I liked the classic cave setting anyway ... so restarted E1 and have been running through all the quests. 

[ladyonthemoon]

18 hours ago, Hondero said:

Do you have a favorite of A1-A3?

Yes! My favourite among the three is definitely Avernum, the very first game. I have a fond memories of this one, less of the others unfortunately, which will make them interesting to re-play.