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Bold Robot posted:Okay, I figured out how to get into most of the Brigand's Madhouse and killed the eyebeast, but does anyone know how to get into this part in the center here? There's a switch somewhere. It may not be in one of the adjacent rooms. Sometimes switches are really sneakily hidden; check near wall decorations. I can't remember the specific one for that wall though. Maybe it's just in a storeroom or something.
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Jan 29, 2015 03:11
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Bold Robot posted:Okay, I figured out how to get into most of the Brigand's Madhouse and killed the eyebeast, but does anyone know how to get into this part in the center here? The lever next to the bed should do it.
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Jan 29, 2015 03:13
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R.C. Pro Am Porn posted:The lever next to the bed should do it. Durr, dunno how I missed that.
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Jan 29, 2015 03:16
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Bold Robot posted:Durr, dunno how I missed that. I missed it on my first and second pass through the room, I was looking for a wall switch. What I started doing when looking for hidden stuff is to press the U key, which gives you an overlay of usable objects (doors, switches, containers) within character sight.
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Jan 29, 2015 03:25
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JustJeff88 posted:Well, I actually did mention Avadon 1 coming out before Escape from the Pit and Avadon 2 being between Escape from the Pit and Crystal Souls, but I see your point about wanting to space things. Plus, I'm sure that it's long hours for months leading up to a major release followed by patches and the like, so I'm sure that he gives his staff and himself some holiday time as well. I'm just OCD and, now that the first two games are out, I really want to put a bow on the trilogy. I normally don't care much about visuals, especially in story- and tactics-heavy games, but I really love the look of Escape from the Pit and Crystal Souls. I know that they are both in the Resurrection engine, but I didn't find Resurrection nearly as visually pleasing as those other two. I think that it's the colours and overall aesthetic, rather than the engine itself. Yeah, he sort of rotates back and forth between one remake (which takes 2-3 months of coding), then a brand new project (~1 yr of work), then another remake. Note though that the 2-3 months I mentioned are just the effort on his side to recode, do whatever graphics/mechanics updates, add the couple new dungeons he always sneaks in there, etc. In terms of actual release time, you need to add in another few months of delay for beta testing, arranging stuff with Steam/GoG/etc, the minimal pre-release marketing he does, and various logistics crap like that. Chinook posted:From the final email to the beta testers for Crystal Souls: No remake of Blades of Avernum given the whole "it nearly killed the company" thing.
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Jan 30, 2015 02:13
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MagusofStars posted:No remake of Blades of Avernum given the whole "it nearly killed the company" thing. Frankly, I'm amazed he even tried. I mean, Blades of Exile was pretty great, but it also came out in a time where there really weren't many good options for making your own CRPG. By the time Avernum 3 came out (early 2000s, IIRC), there was a lot more competition in the space.
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Jan 30, 2015 02:25
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Wow, I didn't know that Blades of Avernum was that bad. What the gently caress happened? I take it that it wasn't just a bad game, but far more dangerous than that.
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Jan 30, 2015 04:27
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JustJeff88 posted:Wow, I didn't know that Blades of Avernum was that bad. What the gently caress happened? I take it that it wasn't just a bad game, but far more dangerous than that. One issue was that it was just way more of a pain to work with than BoE. To make a scenario, you had to learn a scripting language and use a text editor to create multiple script files for each town: things like terrains with special properties and NPCs with customised behaviour all needed their own separate files, so it got fiddly fast and messed with the workflow of BoE designers who were used to doing everything in a single program. Custom graphics were also more difficult to make, so there were fewer art assets available to aspiring designers. Item and monster stats also had to be defined in script files rather than in an easy-to-use GUI editor like BoE: the format wasn't that complicated once you got used to it, but it was enough of a barrier of entry to scare new designers off. It also split the design community it inherited from BoE -- some moved on to designing for BoA, some stuck with BoE and some gave up on making scenarios entirely -- and didn't attract enough new blood to make up for that. Also, the engine was probably one of the least satisfying things Spiderweb has made gameplay-wise. Attack spells were overpriced enough and buff spells overpowered enough that buffing and then hacking away at everything in melee was by far the optimal strategy compared to anything else, and it just wasn't that much fun. To give you an idea of how BoA did compared to BoE, there are over 300 BoE scenarios out there in the wild. There are less than 100 BoA scenarios, and a significant percentage of those are ports of BoE scenarios. Thuryl fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 04:47
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I loved Blades of Exile. I had no idea what the hell I was doing with the editor since I was only in 6th grade at the time, but being able to mess around and make my own towns was cool, even if I couldn't save or play them (shareware  ).
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Jan 30, 2015 05:53
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Jan 31, 2015 03:44
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JustJeff88 posted:Wow, I didn't know that Blades of Avernum was that bad. What the gently caress happened? I take it that it wasn't just a bad game, but far more dangerous than that. It's an excellent game and you should play it.
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Jan 31, 2015 06:52
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Ijuuin Enzan posted:It's an excellent game and you should play it. Well, the way that it was portrayed above, it seemed like it was so bad that Jeff's fanbase stormed his house and/or studio in Seattle and tried to bun them at the stake. More likely is that it just didn't sell well and put Jeff into a bad financial situation, and thus imperilled him in that way. Or it could just be melodrama.
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Jan 31, 2015 07:06
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Just started Avernum: Escape from the Pit when it was 80% off. I'm really liking it. Like a gigantic Icewind Dale with 1995 graphics.
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Jan 31, 2015 10:53
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JustJeff88 posted:Well, the way that it was portrayed above, it seemed like it was so bad that Jeff's fanbase stormed his house and/or studio in Seattle and tried to bun them at the stake. More likely is that it just didn't sell well and put Jeff into a bad financial situation, and thus imperilled him in that way. Or it could just be melodrama. It was the second - Blades of Avernum sold so poorly that it ended up being a net loss and hugely affected the company's finances. Which of course has a big impact on a small developer since they don't have huge cash reserves to weather the storm. When it was followed up by Geneforge 3 which sold well, but didn't make a huge splash, they almost went under. Fortunately, Avernum 4 was far enough along in writing/development that they held on for another few months to see what happened with it...and it was a huge hit and basically saved the company. In terms of quality, Blades actually has some fantastic scenarios out there and some very interesting concepts. I'd definitely recommend grabbing it if you ever see it on sale. It's just that financially it was such a disaster that it'd be straight up idiotic to remake it (this also explains why there's no Blades of Geneforge).
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Jan 31, 2015 13:44
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Yeah, but... what was it, what was wrong with it, why didn't it sell?
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Jan 31, 2015 16:58
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Xander77 posted:Yeah, but... what was it, what was wrong with it, why didn't it sell? Blades of Exile/Avernum were RPG game creation toolkits that let you make your own scenarios and play other peoples' scenarios, using the same engine as the Exile/early Avernum games. And it's been described why BoA didn't sell well (BoE was quite popular) -- it was too hard to make scenarios, so there wasn't as much content available, so people didn't buy the game.
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Jan 31, 2015 17:30
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I actually have BoE (which is now freeware and available from SWS directly) and BoA, which is still purchasable I believe from SWS and is also in the GOG Avernum bundle, I've just never played either one. I'm sorry to hear that BoA was such a flop, but I'm glad that they managed to weather the storm. I actually prefer the long, coherent narrative flow of Avernum and so on, rather than "episodic" games. The only game like that I can really remember playing a fair bit were those two Resident Evil Outbreak games on PS2. While entirely understandable, it's a pity, though, that BoA will never get a remake... I'm really keen on the new Avernum trilogy and would welcome any games made in that style/engine.
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Jan 31, 2015 18:35
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It's not really the same sort of thing. There are several scenarios with long coherent narrative flows.
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Feb 3, 2015 17:44
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Ijuuin Enzan posted:It's not really the same sort of thing. There are several scenarios with long coherent narrative flows. They're still nowhere near the size of the full games, though. Usually they range anywhere from being about like Chapter 2 of Exile 2 to being about the size of, say, the eastern third of Exile. You can fit a lot of plot into such an area, but most scenarios have a somewhat smaller scope. "Episodic" is a pretty good description honestly. Blades of Exile shipped with three scenarios written by Jeff Vogel (i.e. Spiderweb Software) that were designed difficulty-wise to be played in sequence with the same party, but narratively they have nothing to do with each other.
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Feb 3, 2015 17:54
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I liked Blades of Exile. The Zha-Khazi(?) Run was excellent because you were pressed for time. You had 20 days to get from point A to point B and there were just endless obstacles.
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Feb 3, 2015 20:43
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:They're still nowhere near the size of the full games, though. Usually they range anywhere from being about like Chapter 2 of Exile 2 to being about the size of, say, the eastern third of Exile. You can fit a lot of plot into such an area, but most scenarios have a somewhat smaller scope. "Episodic" is a pretty good description honestly. There are a handful of BoE scenarios that are the size of the Exile games or even bigger, but BoA didn't really get any giant-sized scenarios like that.
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Feb 4, 2015 02:24
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Do the remakes (and newer games I guess) still have pop-culture references buried in them? It was kinda funny realizing that one entire town in E3 was a reference to Babylon 5, in addition to the odd Happy Fun Ball reference and in Blades the South Park references.
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Feb 4, 2015 03:43
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Parts Kit posted:Do the remakes (and newer games I guess) still have pop-culture references buried in them? It was kinda funny realizing that one entire town in E3 was a reference to Babylon 5, in addition to the odd Happy Fun Ball reference and in Blades the South Park references. Not that I'm all that great at noticing references, but I think so. At the very least, NPCs don't generally get new names/personalities, so when a town's NPCs are lifted from a TV show (and Bab5 isn't the only such instance), they'll still be like that in the remakes.
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Feb 4, 2015 04:01
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How much work is it to get blades, nethergate, or original avernum to run on windows 7 64bit?
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Feb 4, 2015 21:22
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Molybdenum posted:How much work is it to get blades, nethergate, or original avernum to run on windows 7 64bit? If you mean the Original Nethergate and not Resurrection, it has always run fine for me on that very same operating system. Nethergate the original was the first Spiderweb game written 32-bit, so it runs on 64-bit OSs natively. Resurrection was remade for modern OSs specifically, so you shouldn't have any trouble there either. The original Avernum trilogy (1-3), on GOG at least, should run fine on modern systems; same with Blades of Avernum. All of the Exile games and Blades of will require you to play them in an XP virtual environment, which is only included in Win7 Ultimate and one other version.
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Feb 4, 2015 22:07
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You can also just use a virtual machine and an ancient copy of win98 scrounged from an office that finally is throwing their ancient stuff out of storage, like what I did. Granted setting up win98 is a pain in the rear end since you have to hunt down drivers and poo poo to get over 640x480 and 256 color. Last I knew you could also get win98 install disks off ebay for like $10 too.
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Feb 5, 2015 00:33
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JustJeff88 posted:The original Avernum trilogy (1-3), on GOG at least, should run fine on modern systems; same with Blades of Avernum. All of the Exile games and Blades of will require you to play them in an XP virtual environment, which is only included in Win7 Ultimate and one other version. There's some good news about Blades of Exile, at least: the source code was released a while back, and people have updated BoE to run on modern versions of Windows and OS X. You can find links in the header of the BoE forum over at Spiderweb's website.
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Feb 5, 2015 03:48
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Thuryl posted:There's some good news about Blades of Exile, at least: the source code was released a while back, and people have updated BoE to run on modern versions of Windows and OS X. You can find links in the header of the BoE forum over at Spiderweb's website. Thanks Thuryl, that's very good to hear. Edit: I just installed this without the 64-bit binaries on Win7x64 Ultimate. It installed and started up very well, but I didn't actually play, so I can't vouch for its stability. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 17:21
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How do I get to the body outside the unpickable door in the Barrier Tower? I couldn't get there when I first came by because the piercing crystals aren't powerful enough.
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Feb 6, 2015 07:07
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Zereth posted:How do I get to the body outside the unpickable door in the Barrier Tower? I couldn't get there when I first came by because the piercing crystals aren't powerful enough. I seem to remember slipping through a crack in the wall itself in Avernum 2 (previous remake).
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Feb 6, 2015 07:49
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Zereth posted:How do I get to the body outside the unpickable door in the Barrier Tower? I couldn't get there when I first came by because the piercing crystals aren't powerful enough. I just tested using the resetboats cheat to go through Dark Waters again with my endgame-level party and it turns out even level 3 Dispel Barrier won't break those inner barriers. I couldn't find a way there from inside the tower either, so I'm just going to have to assume that one body is there to taunt you.
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Feb 6, 2015 10:19
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Wait I think I remember how to get that open. Max level Open Doors or whatever would open any door period. But it doesn't' exist anymore.  Anyway, I seem to have missed whoever I do a thing for to get the Protection tome activated in the tower of magi. What quest do I need to do for that? Helpfully the hintbook doesn't actually tell you this!
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Feb 7, 2015 11:06
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Zereth posted:Anyway, I seem to have missed whoever I do a thing for to get the Protection tome activated in the tower of magi. What quest do I need to do for that? It's Vincent's quest for a black drake fang, I think. There are enough of them in the game for everyone who wants one, so don't worry if you already gave some to other people.
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Feb 7, 2015 12:03
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Man, I love these games. All of them. I've been playing since the first Exile game and I've bought all the Exile/Avernums, most of the Geneforges, both Avadons, and Nethergate. Good poo poo. I still don't think any game has managed to capture the feel of playing the first Exile: Escape from the Pit at age 10 for me. Having my three members of my six person team armed with crude stone weapons getting killed by horrifying lizard men and the rest barely escaping was magical. I think I'm gonna give the Avernum 2 trial a shot but I can't imagine making myself by the same game for a third time. I'm kinda hoping Jeff moves on to a new series or even a standalone game after this.
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Feb 7, 2015 12:12
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Rough Lobster posted:I think I'm gonna give the Avernum 2 trial a shot but I can't imagine making myself by the same game for a third time. I'm kinda hoping Jeff moves on to a new series or even a standalone game after this. He's said that his plan is to do Avadon 3, then the Avernum 3 remake, and then probably something new.
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Feb 7, 2015 12:19
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Public service announcement: When Patrick wants a Fine Steel Waveblade, he can and will take better, magic ones instead, right out of your sword-user's hands. Even if you have a Fine Steel one in your inventory. Be careful and save often.
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Feb 7, 2015 12:43
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Have we ever been able to use X's anvil spell? That thing is a huge cocktease.
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Feb 7, 2015 16:45
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Does anyone remember where the alchemist who makes Wisdom Crystals is? I'm wrapping up the game and want to convert all my mandrake roots and associated herbs into raw experience but I never wrote down where the dude who can make them was and now I can't find him again.
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Feb 7, 2015 16:52
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Zereth posted:Public service announcement: When Patrick wants a Fine Steel Waveblade, he can and will take better, magic ones instead, right out of your sword-user's hands. Even if you have a Fine Steel one in your inventory. Be careful and save often. I was distinctly unimpressed by waveblades in this version. Same damage as broadswords, but while waveblades are a bit more accurate (mostly pointless past the early game), broadswords give melee damage protection. So I ended up selling all the waveblades I found, leaving none left in the world to satisfy Patrick's quest Meiteron posted:Does anyone remember where the alchemist who makes Wisdom Crystals is? I'm wrapping up the game and want to convert all my mandrake roots and associated herbs into raw experience but I never wrote down where the dude who can make them was and now I can't find him again. He's in Patrick's Tower.
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Feb 7, 2015 17:03
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I was distinctly unimpressed by waveblades in this version. Same damage as broadswords, but while waveblades are a bit more accurate (mostly pointless past the early game), broadswords give melee damage protection. So I ended up selling all the waveblades I found, leaving none left in the world to satisfy Patrick's quest Also if you didn't go get the Alien Blade out of that one pillar in the south of the Great Cave which has mysteriously turned into a normal Fine Steel Waveblade you can go try that. That's particularly odd since the whole "undead urging you away" thing is still there, and the event for pulling it out is all ~spooky~  but it's just a... sword.EDIT: Sadly the "go find enemy vahatnai and beat them up until a fine steel waveblade pops out" doesn't seem to work anymore since enemies don't always drop their gear. Zereth fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 17:20
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