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B, as tempting as it is to just wander around freeing slaves is too important. A guy was entrusted with an important task but he wandered out into the desert and now you had to do the same important task... and you wandered out into the desert?  (there was an update near the end of the last page)
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Mar 28, 2023 13:47
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B, we've been here all this time, might as well.
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Mar 28, 2023 15:17
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B and learn some dark magic on the way.
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Mar 28, 2023 19:57
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I vote 'B' too. First we end chattel slavery, then wage slavery. =================================================== By the way, Purple, did you submit all of your former LPs to the archives? I just noticed that neither Return to Krondor nor Betrayal are on the archives. I know that neither was great and the latter nearly gave you brain fever, but they deserve to be preserved regardless. I see Albion, Betrayal and W&W, but that's it. Given how
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Mar 30, 2023 03:20
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There is an Albion LP? gently caress yea. I need to check that out.
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Mar 30, 2023 07:32
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JustJeff88 posted:By the way, Purple, did you submit all of your former LPs to the archives? I just noticed that neither Return to Krondor nor Betrayal are on the archives. I know that neither was great and the latter nearly gave you brain fever, but they deserve to be preserved regardless. I see Albion, Betrayal and W&W, but that's it. Given how Yep, I did, but I never received any replies from Baldurk after the first couple(the ones that actually did get in), so I just assumed the remainder weren't wanted for whatever reason and that there was no reason to keep bugging them. Rubberduke posted:There is an Albion LP? gently caress yea. I need to check that out. Don't think too harshly of me when you read it, it was my first one and I was still figuring out how the gently caress everything worked.
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Mar 30, 2023 10:47
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PurpleXVI posted:Yep, I did, but I never received any replies from Baldurk after the first couple(the ones that actually did get in), so I just assumed the remainder weren't wanted for whatever reason and that there was no reason to keep bugging them. Try re-submitting, possibly with more profanity this time. I don't think that the archive excludes anything, but they probably handle a lot of requests. By the way, how did you end up getting Antara to run? Someone in the Old-School RPG thread was asking, the brave soul.
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Mar 30, 2023 14:17
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JustJeff88 posted:Try re-submitting, possibly with more profanity this time. I don't think that the archive excludes anything, but they probably handle a lot of requests. Several of them were re-submits, hence why I feel like re-re-submitting would just be my not getting the hint. Maybe it's a matter of quality, too many LP's, my being Danish... I don't know and I'm not too concerned. As for Antara... black magic? Like... there were a couple of caveats to getting it to run at all. Firstly, of the multiple versions I tried, the GOG version was the least hosed up(not saying much), the Steam version was somewhat less cooperative. This was also the case with Return to Krondor. You also have to compromise between the game being parseable at all(even when it's looking its best, it's a grungy mess, though) and being able to see the cutscenes without crashing. So what I ended up doing was going for a game where I and the viewer could tell what was going on(no matter how little we liked it) and then found the cutscenes on YouTube(they're in some sort of bundled-up proprietary format in the files). If I remember it right, getting it to run but having the cutscenes be hosed was just the default, with no compatability settings or anything else on. EDIT: Oh right and the Mysterious Disappearing Temple that requires you to literally gently caress around with the game files to get it to exist is still an issue with the GOG version.
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Mar 30, 2023 16:09
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PurpleXVI posted:Several of them were re-submits, hence why I feel like re-re-submitting would just be my not getting the hint. Maybe it's a matter of quality, too many LP's, my being Danish... I don't know and I'm not too concerned.
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Mar 30, 2023 16:29
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Xander77 posted:The latest LP was uploaded in November 2022, so I imagine it's not an issue particular to you. No, that's impossible, I'm a genius who's not being given their due, deeply discriminated against, I can't just be like everyone else.
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Mar 30, 2023 16:38
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PurpleXVI posted:No, that's impossible, I'm a genius who's not being given their due, deeply discriminated against, I can't just be like everyone else. You're danish and playing Gothic 3 of your own free accord.
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Mar 30, 2023 17:41
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Jack-Off Lantern posted:You're danish and playing Gothic 3 of your own free accord. Exactly. No one else is making bad decisions of this magnitude.
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Mar 30, 2023 17:55
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Someone in the classic RPG thread was asking about Antara. Sad to hear that the GOG version is less than whole, as that is what I recommended for obvious reasons.PurpleXVI posted:Exactly. No one else is making bad decisions of this magnitude. Hold my drink
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Mar 30, 2023 21:20
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JustJeff88 posted:Someone in the classic RPG thread was asking about Antara. Sad to hear that the GOG version is less than whole, as that is what I recommended for obvious reasons. Honestly I think all versions of it have that bug, I don't think ANY patch ever fixes it, so you've recommended the best of the versions available for getting anywhere.
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Mar 30, 2023 21:28
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I'm posting this deliberately to wind Purple up, but I just bought the strategy guide and mini-guide for Wizards & Warriors. Paid about 135 dkk for the lot - that includes shipping. Edit: Confusing verbiage JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 01:18
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Not the worst price for a bunch of old guides.
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Apr 8, 2023 01:19
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Cooked Auto posted:Not the worst price for a bunch of old guides. No, very cheap. Two years ago just the big guide without the mini was about 240 krone. Don't know why it dropped so much, not complaining. I used to collect with vigour, but stopped years ago. Now I pick up about one or two per year. Been looking for the Thief Gold guide and the ToeJam & Earl 3 guide for years. Never even seen one for sale.
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Apr 8, 2023 01:43
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm posting this deliberately to wind Purple up, but I just bought the strategy guide and mini-guide for Wizards & Warriors. Paid about 135 dkk for the lot - that includes shipping. drat, that's a lot of money just for a single sheet of A4 paper that reads: "Uninstall the game. You have now accomplished the most satisfying ending." Also updates are still coming, it's just been A Week.
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Apr 8, 2023 09:10
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PurpleXVI posted:drat, that's a lot of money just for a single sheet of A4 paper that reads: "Uninstall the game. You have now accomplished the most satisfying ending." How dare you judge sight unseen... it is in fact extremely high-quality A3 paper that uses a lovely font to tell me that I am in idiot who likes lovely games.
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Apr 8, 2023 15:08
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JustJeff88 posted:How dare you judge sight unseen... it is in fact extremely high-quality A3 paper that uses a lovely font to tell me that I am in idiot who likes lovely games. Honestly, here's the sickest part of Wizards & Warriors: For as much as it's absolute trash a lot of the time, at points it actually gets kind of satisfying. When you find a way through a bugged or completely mis-calculated encounter, often through abusing the game systems, you feel a certain degree of satisfaction: You've outwitted DW Bradley and his boobed-up monster ladies once again.
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Apr 8, 2023 19:23
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Update 08: Orknarok and Roll  Last we left off, we did all the groundwork needed to beat the hell out of everyone in Braga later, and in between updates we agreed that it was time to end slavery, racism and all bad things forever by utterly siding with the Nomads and dunking on the Hashishin. To this end, I'm going to visit every town and do all of the quests I can do that don't involve fighting the Nomads, to make sure we actually get an experience of them as something other than slavering hordes of stabmen that want to end my life.  The three towns in Varant we haven't visited yet are Ishtar, Mora Sul and Barakesh. Conversations seem to indicate we won't be welcome in Ishtar until we get enough goodboy points with the Hashishin, and Barakesh would be back over a lot of stuff we've already seen, so I'm heading to Mora Sul first.       The path is mostly just sand, as long as we stick to the road there are barely even any animals who'll hassle us. Around the time we can see the distant spires of Mora Sul vaguely through the haze, there's an attraction off the road.    This small ruin overrun with Sandcrawlers has a single one of them that's labelled as "injured," though as per usual for any "named" monster, it's exactly as strong and capable as base version. What's interesting about it is that unlike the other Sandcrawlers, it actually has something in its inventory...   I wish I knew what these Fire Chalices were for, exactly. Hopefully someone's at least willing to provide me with a fat payday when I hand them in whereever they're wanted.       A bit farther along is an extremely dangerous oasis. First it has like eight bloodflies hanging out by the shore, then past it a few lionesses are roaming outside of a cave. The bloodflies are tough because I can kill one, maybe two, at maximum range with my bow before they close and sting the poo poo out of me, forcing me to run, and just one sting poisons me hard enough I'm about to die. The lionesses are just quite tough animals that require a lot of kiting to take down, especially in groups. I kill about another eight of them as they flood out of the cave, to get access to it, reasoning that anything guarded like THAT has to be great.       Where's the treasure? Don't tell me I just killed a bunch of cats for no treasure. I killed a bunch of cats for no treasure.      Well, at least we're now right on the edge of Mora Sul.     East of Mora Sul, below the plateau its on, there's an oasis that I initially approach because I figure it might be full of Nomads eager to bring down the local government and passing out quests. Instead, one side of it is full of aggressive wildlife(mostly jackals) while the other side has a small Hashishin camp.   Murat doesn't really have any dialogue except telling me to check out his girls.   Alima is an unapologetic gold-digger, briefly interested when there's a chance we have a lot of money, then not caring.   And Yasmin seems resigned to being sold to a man at some point, but hopes it's someone who appreciates her for something other than her ability to gyrate in the desert heat 24/7(Gothic 3 still has character schedules, but unlike Gothic 2, they seem to consist of like 4 hours around midnight where everyone sleeps and then the rest of the day they're at full activity. I don't ever actually see someone sleeping until I reach Mora Sul.)    There's a massive field of ruins south of Mora Sul, and as I leave the oasis to circle around the plateau and look for a way up, I catch a glimpse of torchlight. Thinking someone interesting might be camping out there, I head in to investigate.     Hey, what are you guys doing here in the ruins after dark? Oh you're waiting here to mindlessly attack me if I get too close? Cool. I love that. My favourite thing to encounter.     It doesn't usually seem to work out well for anyone who tries it, though, now to rifle through your pockets... Holy poo poo you're loaded! Hope you've got more buddies back there.Usually enemies barely carry any currency, instead carrying a variety of dented weapons you can recycle at merchants back into gold, so just getting a couple hundred in flat cash off someone is actually pretty big.    I'm sorry to report that you're too valuable to live. ...I get a strange feeling that someone, somewhere, appreciated me doing that. Just one of those vibes and... Is that a T-Rex?!It's either a T-Rex or a family-sized Snapper. Considering that normal-sized Snappers already ruin my day pretty effectively, I decline to visit it to get my day super-ruined.      Circumventing the big fellow, I get closer to the plateau and resume circling around it counter-clockwise.   Mora Sul is kind of weird in that it doesn't really seem to have a proper road leading up to it, just some coincidental slopes, and the exterior looks kind of ragged. Then again in general everything in Varant looks kind of ragged and it's clear that the place was much less hosed in the past. Some of the locals comment on this being a consequence of Innos' Wrath, but it's unclear if they chose to serve Beliar because Innos(or his servants) hosed them over with a sun-related curse or if they got cursed because they chose to serve Beliar. I might be reading too much into it, but I find it as sort of an interesting idea that Innos, as the harsh lawmaker, is capable of loving large regions over just as well as Beliar being the father of monsters.       We actually hit Mora Sul during the downtime part of its cycle, where most of the characters present are either asleep or doing their relaxation actions.    Hot gossip or lucrative jobs would be nice, got either of those? Well, I've been looking for this very cool magical amulet that's in the ruins. Oh, so I have to go into the ruins, fight some monsters and get it? Now Ilja the trader has it. So... go and buy it from him? He would charge an arm and a leg if he knew I was interested. So you want me to go buy it for you and you'll reward me with delicious experience and maybe a bit of gold. On it.  I'm not even sure why I'm asking, since I can see the floating tag over your head. Really? Really. Orknarok was my cool arena nickname, then I got my rear end beat by a newcomer and Felipe, the arena owner, sold me off to a merchant named Masil. That's rough, buddy. Yeah, well, at least I don't have people swinging swords at me every day, that's a bonus.  Hey, wake up, hey, wake up, hey, wake up.Walking into people's homes and waking them up just makes them start up their normal conversations, unlike in Gothic 2 where it would make them tell you to gently caress off and leave them alone.   Also if you wake me up again I'll hire someone to cut your throat. Noted, but since you're awake, got any work for me? Hmm, yes. I recently bought a slave, Orknarok, but he's weirding me out. Do you mind bringing him to the Temple of Mora Sul and passing him off to... anyone? Just get him out of my sight. Sure, as soon as I figure out where the temple is.I promptly assume that the Temple of Mora Sul is in Mora Sul, like a fool and a moron, and decide that I should find it before picking up Orknarok.     Mora Sul is definitely the most... city-ish city so far. It's still more or less just a village in real population terms, but it's actually large enough that on my first visit I got slightly lost and was unsure of where I actually was. Showing up at night didn't exactly help, mind you, nor does the fact that Mora Sul has practically no straight streets, just curving ones.   Oelk is one of the fighters for the local arena. He is, as he says, here to FIGHT.    Angar?! I have a lot of questions. Did you know I'm champion of the arena now? I have a lot more questions, like how the hell did you get here? We didn't bring you on the ship. Well, I kept having those headaches for a while after you all sailed off, so I decided to smoke some swampweed to dull the pain. Then a bit more swampweed. Then a bit more... and by the time I woke up I was outside Mora Sul. I suppose that's the best explanation I'm going to get. Then I decided to pick a fight in the arena, battled my way all the way to the top and won the legendary Moon Blade. It's pretty cool, I sure hope no one wins it off me.  Bandaro here doesn't have a lot of interesting dialogue, but he does give us a couple of quests. One is to find Yussuf, a thief who stole stuff from the excavations in the ruins to the south, and the other is to find Ramirez, a Hashishin who disappeared in the ruins to the south.    Nasib here will let us get Mora Sul favour, needed to get to Gonzales, by paying him off with gifts. Among the things we can hand in are a small amount of gold(1000) and a packet of swampweed(after Lago I'm hauling around several of those), I believe one of Murat's female slaves is also an option, but that would be gross, so we're not doing that.     This building doesn't have anyone to disturb on the ground floor... because it's a copypaste of Sancho's house from Ben Erai, and thus all the bedrooms are on the top floor, which you can only reach via the out-of-the-way staircase around the back.      What the hell are temple keys? Keys for getting into the temple. I could've figured out that part myself, dick. Maybe see me during the day rather than tossing me out of bed if you want intelligent responses. Fair enough. So let's say I was interested in these things. I bet he can tell you more, he's in the other room. Well, that's surprisingly helpful, thank you. Heh heh heh. Was that a sinister chuckle about some revenge you were getting on me for waking you up? Uhhhhh, no?   How did you know? Oh, I heard you yelling at Hector. Just like that? Just like that. Follow me and we'll kick their asses and get the key for you. I wish every quest would be as easy and full of helpful people as this. Heh heh heh. Was that a sinister chuckle about how you're going to betray me? Uhhhhh, no?   And so, I follow Kirk into the desert night!  Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No! I'm hungry. My feet hurt.   If only I could somehow have predicted this.  So the two desert raiders just past the broken wall are supposed to help Kirk beat your rear end, but if you just run a bit backwards and pull Kirk with you, they get bored and walk away.    Wait, you had one of the keys already? ...I thought you had one too, so I attacked you. Well, finder's keepers!Kirk is a moron, but interestingly fighting him is by default NOT to the death. Kind of odd that there's no new dialogue after beating him into the sand, though.     Coming in from the opposite side, I run into Kaffu by the ramp up to Mora Sul. Hey, sorry about killing those guards of yours out by the ruins.He actually doesn't mind, because they stole money from him and ran away with it. He asks for his money back, in addition to killing them, but it's worth your time to do so since A) you get to keep some of it and B) you get some XP, and gold for XP is almost always a good trade.      Ishmael the blacksmith is uninteresting except that he's interested in the MOON BLADE from the arena. Gonzales also wants the Moonblade, but Ishmael gives free Smithing skill points for it, so he's more important than Gonzales.      I generally really like the look of Mora Sul, it's a cool place, genuinely feels somewhat ancient but lived-in.   But it looks better during the day, so I run into a random home and sleep in some random person's bed until dawn.  Waking up, I see one of these Arabic-looking banners on the wall behind the hero. Is this just someone's attempt at meaninglessly emulating Arabic script or is it actual Arabic script in some way? Probably we'll never know.      Across the street and up a narrow staircase lives Ilja, the antiques trader. He has the amulet that Hamid wants. If you tell him you're getting it for Hamid, he overcharges you, so just say you want it for MAGIC POWER and he'll sell it at a decent price. Ilja also coughs up another Temple Key just in exchange for promising to get him a vase from inside the temple. Sure, whatever.    Isn't everyone from the north compared to Mora Sul? Indeed! It's an excellent icebreaker. Want to hear the latest gossip? I love gossip. We made a fabulous profit! But ever since that Yussuf stole the temple keys the orcs wanted, the slaves have stopped bringing us artifacts. I'm sensing a quest in this... Indeed. If you could visit the slaves in the ruins and convince them to make us rich, that would be nice. Sure, I bet they'll be extremely eager to enrich you at risk to their own lives.   As a nice touch, shrines to Beliar in Varant tend to have places of honor rather than just being crusty roadside stones.    No, I just like to walk into people's houses and bother them until they give me quests to go away. A man after my own heart. Would you care for a quest? A few months ago, an enterprising trader convinced all the richest people in town that without owning a SOUL CHALICE they were at risk of having their souls reaped by the SOUL DEMON, after which he sold them cheap, gaudy tat at a high markup to "save them." I'd like you to steal their "soul chalices..." and then once they're terrified enough, I'll sell them back to them at an absurd price. That's genius and also funny, I'm in.Sadly, unlike the Blood Chalices in Gothic 2, there's no complexity, hiding or heisting to these. All the merchants just have them resting on their beds and they're nowhere near said beds during the day, so just walk around them and steal their poo poo, like I did, off-screen. Doing so turns Ramon into a Thief trainer. At this point I also conclude that the temple of Mora Sul is in fact not in Mora Sul, look up the location, and go to fetch Orknarok to a trip out to the temple.    Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No! I'm hungry. My feet hurt. I'm starting to understand why Masil wanted to be rid of you.  The temple's this big cube in the ruins south of Mora Sul, like the one south of Ben Sala was.     Surrounding the ruins, a bunch of orcs and some slaves are encamped, mostly wandering around and looking busy without really doing much.   "The Fat Man" is apparently the leader/representative of the local slaves. Our options for getting him to get back to enriching the merchants of Mora Sul are to either beat his face into the dirt until he cries for mercy OR to hand him a big pile of performance-enhancing drugs(Endurance Potions). I pay him off but later realize that the right answer is actually violence, since that gives you a free +1 to Strength and doesn't cost you potions that could be sold for money later.      The person we're meant to hand Orknarok off to, though, is Fasim.   Some insane person told him to watch out for paleskin northerners, so he refuses to accept Orknarok as a slave and instead wants us to foist him off on his boss, an orc.   Pull what off? A heist or something? You could say that, I need to get into this temple. I only have one out of five. If only some sort of brutal mercenary could find the rest for me. Yeah, I wish I could farm out my heroing to others myself, sometimes. ...I was hinting that you could find the keys for me, and I'd reward you. Oh! Yeah, I could do that. Also I brought you this guy, he's called Orknarok.  ...do you just do the last thing anyone brings up? Pretty much.      The desert beasts(or desertbeasts as they're called in most of the written dialogue) are really just ginger Shadowbeasts. I think about the first time Gothic has been lazy enough to just drop an unapologetic palette swap on us outside of the Sandcrawler/Minecrawler thing.     There are two lone ones, and two pairs, that need dropping to complete the quest. The lone ones are no trouble as Orknarok is a competent tank, but the pairs are ROUGH and killed me several times before I managed to figure out the rhythm of keeping their aggro on Orknarok while still managing to handle the damage-dealing part of things.  And then at the end of that you get to tell Orknarok he's free and that he can just go do his own thing.      Next, I head northeast of Mora Sul. If needled about it, Fasim will say he suspects Yussuf, the slave who stole the Temple Keys from the ruins dig, ran off to the northeast of Mora Sul, so I'm in hot pursuit.       It's not a short walk and it's also somewhat off the main road, so it can easily take a good bit of searching the desert to find if you don't have a map or get lucky.    Yussuf spills that he's still got one of the keys, and we can either get it by gutting him like a fish(and thus making the Hashishin happy) or letting him get away(thus not being a huge rear end in a top hat). I choose to let him get away, thus putting me at three out of five keys, and knowing that Kalesch already has one of them, that leaves only one more to find. Yussuf also helps by telling you who he sold the keys to if you haven't already found them. The only one we're missing is Gonzales.    Cruz is a paladin wandering the desert in full loving plate mail, the absolute psychopath. He had a Fire Chalice, which got eaten by a Sandcrawler, hence the one we got off the Injured Sandcrawler earlier. There's a dozen Fire Chalices in the game, and they're used for a quest I've never actually completed before, so I'll see if I can collect them all before we're done.      As I return to Mora Sul, I remember that I never actually cashed in Hamid's quest.   After returning the amulet, he insists that we visit Murat and buy a wife for him. I diplomatically say that I'll "think about it."  Which makes Hamid refuse to have anything else to deal with me. Well, good. He can go gently caress himself, I'm not doing any goddamn human trading.   After having liberated Orknarok, Masil now has a super lovely quest for us. He's in debt to several people... whose names he will not tell us(Ilja, Ramon and Hector), and wants us to buy his debt off them. To help him do this, he gives us a single Magic Ore Blank and sends us off. Once we find them, Ramon won't ask anything for it, suspiciously enough, but I don't think it's actually a hint or setup for anything else. Ilja will trade off the debt note for either 2000 gold or the Magic Ore Blank. The Magic Ore Blank is worth like... 600 gold, tops, so that's a good deal. Hector will ask 1400 gold and there's no way around that. At the end, we get 2000 XP and another Fire Chalice, setting us to 3 out of the 12 of them in the game, so this is just an elaborate way of exchanging gold for XP. Now it's time to go stab some people at the arena.    The Mora Sul arena is a bit larger than the Cape Dun arena and the Lago arena, having four opponents.  The first one is Paladin, who isn't a paladin, just a Myrtanan soldier who got it as an arena name to make him sound cool.      As a sword and board fighter, Paladin is probably the easiest enemy in the arena. Sword and shield enemies tend to be pretty conservative in the way they fight, which means you can very safely get into a rhythm of attack, step back, attack, step back, etc. until done.   He's also the first enemy, so predictably easy to handle.    Anktos is a bit tougher, requiring actual blocking since he's using a two-handed weapon which means his increased range results in not being able to just backstep calmly out of range of him while also delivering hits every time, this applies to "overworld" two-hander enemies, too, if you're kiting them with a bow, occasionally you need to actually turn and run and increase the distance.     Oelk is another sword and shield fighter like Paladin, but slightly sturdier and harder hitting if you screw up and do eat a hit or two from him.  Where the real meat of the Mora Sul arena is, is the arena champion, ANGAR. Or as we used to know him in Gothic 2: Cor Angar.  I run through the battles so fast that when I get down here to fight Angar, Oelk has only just picked himself off the ground and is eating some lunch while I'm about to have a dramatic duel.  Angar is what's probably the toughest type of non-caster humanoid enemy I've met so far: A dual-wielder. Dual wielders seem to always be faster than the other types, and their power attack is this double spin attack which deals damage with four hits(two swords per spin), that drains a ton of your stamina if you tank it with a block, and completely obliterates you with high damage if you eat it unblocked.   Long story short: Angar whips my rear end like ten times as I try to fight him properly. He requires exquisite timing and patience, no getting greedy, because he's also got a ton of health and good armor, so I barely do 5% of his health with each swing I can get in, having to rely on the small, quick jabs rather than the proper swings as they execute quicker and have slightly better range, even if they do also do less damage. So what's a hero to do? Simple.  Cheat.  I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you! Get the hell back here, you rear end!  Make me. Blowing my full supply of scrolls takes away about half of Angar's health, which gives me a good advantage(but it still takes three tries to pull off). The ice scrolls also temporarily freeze him, letting me follow up with a full power sword swipe. Now, if you're doing something like this, the important thing to remember is to finish him off with a melee attack, because spells and arrows generally default to killing rather than KO'ing, even for "friendly"/sparring enemies. I believe the only arrow exception is the Headknock arrow.  Even cheating my best, it still comes down to the loving wire. I'm clearly not intended to be fighting Angar for some levels and gear-ups yet, but whatever, it wouldn't be a Eurojank LP if I wasn't doing stuff I technically wasn't supposed to.   I heave a sigh of relief and hang around to heal up while Angar picks himself up so I can have a talk with him.   I mean, after I kicked your rear end and all, and became the new arena champion. Well, you're still unrivaled in being a cheating bastard. Dick. So what are you going to do now you're out of a job? You know, because of me kicking your rear end and all. I was thinking I'd follow you around, be as annoying as possible, maybe steal some of your work.This unlocks Angar, alongside Diego, as another old companion we can just ask to accompany us if we need it. I'm thinking that's going to come in handy while we purge some slave-owning dickhead Hashishin.     Aside from that, our reward is the MOON BLADE, which, despite being ancient and having a "mysterious aura" is actually weaker than some janky homemade sword I smashed out on a forge a couple of days ago.       Ishmael gets it because he rewards me with delicious skill points. While self-forging weapons in Gothic 2 was largely a fool's errand, except for a couple of super-top-tier Paladin and Mercenary weapons, in Gothic 3, weapon upgrades are somewhat farther between, most weapons off enemy corpses are beat to uselessness, and self-forged weapons get an inherent bonus, so it's suddenly actually worth your time.   This, in any case, makes us famous enough for Gonzales to give a poo poo.    Nice supervillain throne setup he's got here.  Settle down, I already gave your guard a literal pound of weed and a thousand gold. Then why are you bothering me? Oh, yes, I do have one of those, hmmmm... yes, I'll let you have it. Perfect! But first you either have to do a little war crime or pay me ten thousand gold. Well, I'm not murdering the nomads for you guys, so it's ten thousand gold... or is it?    After all, now that I know the key is in his inventory, nothing prevents me from just stabbing him and taking it, right?VOTE A: Let Gonzales have some of our hard-earned money so we can see what's inside the Temple of Mora Sul(probably zombies, it always seems to be) right away. Since I'm at about 30k and the next armor upgrade costs about 40k if I don't find a way to get it for free like the last one, that would set me back quite a ways. B: Wait until we've checked out Barakesh and Ishtar, then stab Gonzales and all his dickhead buddies in the head and get the key for free. The reason for waiting to do this is that it'll probably be the thing that permanently aggros all the Hashishin and tips them off that we've been the ones murdering all their buddies.
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Apr 11, 2023 22:38
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B, duh. When has our hero not been a cheating thrifty dirtbag?
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Apr 11, 2023 23:13
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B, killing and looting the corpse is always an option.
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Apr 11, 2023 23:37
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I say B. In fact, in these Gothic games I am compulsively unable to commit until I do every quest possible pre-committment for all that sweet XP. I think it's probably not really needed in Gothic 3 (I never played it all the way through), but it really saved my butt in Gothic 2. Also, my head cannon was that Varant was always a hot desert, and so the god of light/heat Innos was naturally seen as evil while the god of darkness was seen as good for these desert dwellers. In contrast, if you go up to the freezing north, suddenly Innos is good and Beliar is bad. This of course neglects all the other aspects of those gods but whatever...
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Apr 11, 2023 23:44
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B KILL KILL KILL!
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Apr 12, 2023 00:33
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Adding my hat to the B) pile with everyone else.
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Apr 12, 2023 01:27
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[b]B/b], duh! Also that Albion LP is really great. I enjoy your writing there, Purple and the adventures of Tom Driscoll, psychopath.
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Apr 12, 2023 07:19
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Keldulas posted:B, duh. When has our hero not been a cheating thrifty dirtbag?
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Apr 12, 2023 09:59
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Rubberduke posted:[b]B/b], duh! I also vote b. Let him continue being a principled sociopath who eventually does the right thing but only when he has maximised his personal utility first, like a billionnaire giving to charity. You reminded me that I never read Purple's Albion LP - I need to do that.
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Apr 12, 2023 13:47
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Update 09: The Duds of the Gods Well, that settles it. It'd be much harder to rip these nerds off if I crossed the arbitrary threshold that let them intuit I've murdered a few dozen of their countrymen.     On the way to Barakesh, the farthest east point in Varant, there's yet another large ruin field. As I approach it, I get an XP bonus for discovering "Al Shedim." So I guess this is Al Shedim.    The Al Shedim ruins are absolutely CRAWLING with monsters, so I choose to loop around until I see a sign of civilization, expecting a bunch of orcs I could scam.     Wow, the one water mage who hasn't gotten a face lift since last we met. Rub it in, why don't you? Yeah you're salty, whatever. What's going on here? Why are you hanging out in these ruins? Ah, yes, "order," best achieved by tossing papers and bottles everywhere in the sand. Maybe you could actually tell something about what's going on here, though, you big nerd. Well, you see, the temples were made prior to the great flood when Adanos killed everyone- Great choice worshipping him, by the way. -and now contain the ancient, divine artifacts of Adanos, except for the one that never got there because the deliveryman got distracted. Considering you haven't actually gotten into the temple, I'm guessing because of a mixture of keys and orcs, have you found anything interesting out here? Some priceless archeological treasures? Adanos, no. It's all garbage. You're the worst archeologist.  Also why did you just leave a bed out here exposed to the elements? Whatever, wake me up at dawn.Aside from being a terrible archeologist, Myxir also hands you two free +5 Ancient Knowledge tablets. I'm finally reaching the level where I can actually cast useful spells!    I wonder who else is around here...  Aside from all the booze bottles scattered around, there are also a few STONE TABLETS OF THE PRIESTS. I think there are five or seven and if you find all three you get a minor XP bonus. It's really not worth the hassle and they have no other use. They are probably the least annoying thing about Al Shedim, though.    Wow, you actually look like yourself. Also nice to see you, too, jackass. Why the high blood pressure? Do you think you could be more condescending if you tried? Did you forget about me helping you in Jharkendar? And getting everyone out of the Valley of Mines?  I also remember a large amount of archeological artifacts that mysteriously disappeared from Jharkendar. Wow look at the time, time for some exposition! Well, long story short: the orcs beat us here and we only have one out of the five keys needed to open the temple. A lot of folks seem really interested in those. Why are they so important? That's good to know. Now, the keys, I'm guessing you've been looking for them already? Right, and the rest? Still somewhere around. Take this map, it should help you know where to look. And once we get inside? Oh, probably a lot of skeletons.  Really, you think Myxir will be useful? Well, we all need a laugh sometimes. How about I teach you some magic instead?As far as I can tell the aside about the Artifact of the Guardians of the Dead is a red herring or cut content. Myxir just rambles something useless when asked about it, and I can't find any references to it online that explain where or what it is, so I think it doesn't exist. I also get Saturas to teach me Ice Arrow so I finally have something to use my mana for, then head to visit the last named member of this camp.     So they've started digging up the keys needed to get into the temple? Well, no. They haven't found a single one yet. Oh, then they've started breaking through the temple gates by force? Actually they're digging on the wrong side of the temple for that. But they might do either of those two things some day, so we should stop them. I was thinking I'd go stare menacingly at their camp until someone convinces some more nomads to attack the orcs, and then I'd still keep staring menacingly at their camp until someone smacks the orc leader right in the face and then I'd rush in to help. Is it too late to change sides?Wutras literally says he'll attack when you give "the signal" and says "the signal" is you stabbing the local orc leader in the face. Anyway, let's get hunting for some artifacts, starting by checking out Saturas' map and...  Holy poo poo it's actually (kind of) mostly useful! It indicates the general area where one key was found and where the other four ought to be. Shame this isn't enough to not make Al Shedim suck, but let's get underway.      The main problem with Al Shedim is that it's insanely flooded with monsters in huge packs. Like insane, tedious amounts of monsters. Also check out how skeleton heads go flying when you kill them, it happens every time!   I also forget if I've mentioned it, but there are mummies, too. They walk towards you slowly, like zombies, punch harder, and if they punch you, they cause Disease which stunts your stamina regeneration until you drink a disease-curing potion. They are also stupidly tanky when engaged at range.    Look how many loving arrows are stuck in this guy. Anyway, monster swarms.   This is just what's guarding ONE of the keys.  Now, the wise and clever among you might smirk and go: "Ah, but Purple, greatest of gamers. Why not simply run in, grab the key, and run out again?" The "why not" is because in Gothic 1 and Gothic 2, you could open a chest at any time, even if someone was stabbing you in the head. In Gothic 3 you can't even open a chest if something in the area is aggroed, much less biting your ankles off. Which is further annoying because...  ...the local monsters have a habit of aggroing through walls, and there's an enemy on the other side of practically every wall. So after clearing out that big pack of monsters, I then had to spend fifteen minutes running circles and clearing out every skeleton and zombie unable to navigate to me.  But at least we now have the first key of five for the Temple of Al-Shedim! Don't ask me how this thing works as a key, in any case, it looks a Bat'leth that someone smashed into a wall several times.   At least the edges of Al-Shedim have a few new enemies, or at least old friends from the other games returning. Fire Golems are much like they were before, very dangerous at range, possible to stun-lock up close.    If you can just tank or dodge the first fireball, then rush in, you can sometimes blitz them down once you get into melee since they're "animal" enemies that don't really block or otherwise defend in that sense. But they hit like trucks, so if you're not fast enough, you're lucky if you survive just a couple of hits. I am not lucky in that regard and decide to skip this burny boy.     It's while killing off some local wildlife and poking through the ruins for the next key that I almost have a heart attack.   I see these things, these sand-coloured items in sand-coloured environs, capable of being crammed into every corner, and am terrified that they're quest-necessary items I need to collect. Thankfully they are, like the Stone Tablets of the Priests, just things you can collect for extra XP if you get all of them, except in this case there are ELEVEN of the loving things. And these aren't the worst ones.    Sandy and also TINY. But at least there are only nine "figurines of the warriors." Cool, I think this one is a Space Marine.   The second key, in the Warrior section, is comparatively unguarded, this one you COULD technically just sneak in and get, though getting past like fifteen Dark Snappers in the area around it without aggroing them would be hard.    They didn't even try with this one, it's just the same loving urn as before, but with a different name. gently caress collecting all of these.      In addition to finding the keys, you probably also want to find the groups of nomads in the ruins that Wutras mentioned, there are two and neither require any effort to get to join the fight, though Pakwan here complains that the orcs are going to kill him and his family and his dog and his dog's family and also the sun if he fights them. He's a bit of a weenie, is what I'm getting at.       Not far away is Onatas, who's his opposite, eager to rush in and fight. Whatever, as long as they do fight so I have less orcs I need to personally kill.   I've also been cutting out most of the combat because it's honestly not very interesting, but just imagine this poo poo over and over. Sandcrawlers, Dark Snappers, Undead. In big lumps.    The last type of "collectible" in Al-Shedim is these piles of scrolls. Which are also sand-coloured. In a sand-coloured environment. Who the gently caress thought this was a good idea.  After that I stumble on a new kind of enemy, a trio of them, which is a much more reasonable group combat.  By now you'd probably be used to being careful and kiting with most enemies, but gargoyles reward the opposite kind of combat strategy. If pressed up close, they will ALWAYS retreat, so they're easily stunlocked, especially if you can corner them against a wall or other obstruction. But the moment they have a bit of range to you, they do a hard-hitting attack where they jump into the air and swoop at you, I had trouble dodging it, so I just always kept on the offense.  They're also worth a pretty fat chunk of XP for how comparatively easy they are to kill.   They were guarding a Heavy Chest, and Heavy Chests I've by now opened enough of that they're yielding stuff worth talking about. Crossbows are, well, they're like bows that require Strength instead of Hunting Skill to wield. They're somewhat less mobile, because they slow you down a lot more while loading them, hit slightly harder per shot, and their shots have less of a ballistic arc. If you can already use bows and have a good bow, there's usually not much of a reason to use crossbows, but if you disdain Hunting Skill and go pure Strength, then they're worth picking up to have SOME ranged options beyond scrolls and magic powers.        The third key of Al-Shedim is just around the corner, guarded by a pack of Sandcrawlers I kill off-screen because they're tedious. Now, at this point, if you're like me, you start to lose your mind. Because you've found three keys, and you know Saturas has one, the one from the Priests' Quarter, but you've been completely unable to find a key in the Healers' Quarter. I spent like half an hour CONVINCED I had missed a chest somewhere before I finally caved and looked up a guide. It annoys me that the game in no way hints at where the key is if you don't give up searching and stumble on it.      East of the temple there's an orc camp, you can't side with them, oddly enough, the leader is brusque and tells you to gently caress off and get back to being a slave. There isn't even an option to duel him for his respect like we've had with some other orcs.   Not sure if their slaves are looking for keys or trying to dig under the temple to get to its lower chambers without going through the front door.      Once you've talked to him, Wutras is here, within spitting distance, looking at the camp and somehow not being noticed by the orcs. I let him know the whole nomad gang is ready to get to fighting, which means that once I start poo poo, they'll all come rushing to my rescue. I don't think you really NEED to kill the orcs here, but why not? There are no faction repercussions for doing so. You already get +5 Nomad Rep for just preparing the assault, but actually completing it will give you another 5 and a decent chunk of XP. Anyway, the orcs don't have the key, the nomads don't have the key, the key isn't in the ruins. Where could the key be, the world wonders?    Well, you'll find out if you locate the one digger who has a shirt and isn't actually digging in the same place as all of the rest.  Got to the edge of the desert, orcs knocked me out, bundled me up, dragged me out here. Been digging since. drat, so I'm assuming they disarmed you, took your gear and kept you under close surveillance? Actually no, I've still got a huge spiked mace and since they set me to digging, I've been digging up a bunch of those tablets that make you better at wizardry. You want some? Not going to turn down anything free. Can you help me with some spells, then? Not really, no. Except for the spell of hitting things with a huge spiked mace. I mean, besides the usual. Oh, it's because of these several pounds of weed I've got in my pack. Yeah, go ahead, take it, get stoned. Thanks! I owe you. Oh, yeah, you want this temple key I found while digging? Seems like the sort of thing you'd want.The guides I found all insisted that Lester wouldn't give up the key until after the local orcs were killed, but he happily surrendered it to me, not sure if it was the weed gift or not that did it.   Once I've got the key from him, he also becomes yet another follower that'll come with me through thick and thin. I'm bringing him along immediately to help me with some violence.      I'm pretty sure I could just take a swing at him and it'd have the exact same results, but there's an option to "provoke" Tamkosch. None of it's too interesting, but it seems like his hide's too thick for anything except an insult to his tribe to bite.    The next step is to run in circles with all the orcs trailing me until the nomads pile in and start distracting them.        Since they're not in my "party" it's important to killsteal as much as possible so they don't get any of my goddamn XP.   The last orc is a generic guard locked in a fight with Wutras out here.  As I dash in to killsteal, I accidentally whack Wutras because Gothic 3 is really bad about not locking on to allies in the heat of combat.   He promptly kicks my rear end for this transgression, but lets me live and doesn't even loot my body. What a pal.    Huh, Lester's bravely battling my attacker. Maybe I should help him. Hmmmm. Nah.  Wutras beats Lester's rear end and steals his wallet, but much like when he fought me, he leaves Lester alive.  As I jog over to the temple entrance(having gotten Saturas' key off-screen, he surrenders it once you have the other four), I notice the slaves are still working. They disappear at some point, not sure what triggers it, but for now they don't seem to care that the orcs are dead, they've got digging to do.      Moment of truth, let's see what's inside. You still with me, Lester? making GBS threads myself with terror, but I'm here.   Uh, Lester, there's something behind you. If I can't see him, he can't see me.But yeah, as predicted by Saturas and anyone with half a brain, this place is full of more undead.    Ice Arrow does a lot of work breaking up the groups of skeletons and making it easier to bonk them one at a time. Pretty great spell.    The layout inside is exactly like the temple south of Ben Sala, but with more "spiderwebs" cluttering up the entrance.      Generic undead fill most of the space coming down...   ...and TWO undead priests guard the final threshold. They're a bitch to fight, but the most important thing is to get them into melee first, which stops them casting their drat spells. They still hit like a truck in melee, but they're a lot easier to handle than casting spells.  Wait, the "Divine Artifact of Adanos" is in a loving basket? On the bright side, it's a piece of armor that absolutely loving slaps for this stage of the game. Double our current protection against all physical sources of damage, and a nice chunk of defense against magical/elemental sources. Additionally it also provides for free the "Water Mage" perk which vaguely enhances the Adanos/transformation selection of spells.  I'm not sure Saturas is going to like this. What's he going to do? I'm wearing his god's coat, I'm pretty sure that means I'm Saturas' manager, and he has to listen to me or get a bad quarterly review. How the hell have you saved the world twice?       That much is plainly obvious. How much damage did you cause doing it? He didn't gently caress up the temple that much, but you might have to pry a few splintered skulls out of the ancient friezes and murals. C'mon, cheer up, Saturas. The orcs are gone and I succeeded. Why are you so sour? Just... get the hell out of here while I fix things. What about me? Eh, you're free to go smoke weed for a while. I don't want to accidentally get you killed until it would be funny. I'm not actually sure where Lester ends up when dismissed, but I would strongly assume he's back to shovelling in the desert.    Time to continue the journey eastwards.    There are a few packs of jackals, dark snappers and ogres out in the desert between Al-Shedim and the oasis southwest of Barakesh, but nothing I can't kill or juke my way around.     This is coincidentally where I accidentally travelled to after freeing Vatras the first time around.    Oddly enough, Ateras, the leader of the local nomads has zero dialogue at this point. I can talk to him, but that just gives an option to attempt pickpocketing.     Knut, on the other hand, is chatty, and wants our help raiding Barakesh. Obviously we're going to help him once we've gotten what we want out of the place. He keeps chatting about how he's "joined up" with the nomads with "his men" but as far as I can tell there's only one other Myrtanan in the camp.    This guy who always sits by this campfire but still keeps insisting that he's busy "dividing up the loot."    On the bright side, this thing is comfy. On the downside, I'm pretty sure it's made of asbestos: pale fibers, exceptionally fire resistant, dug out from deep underground.
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Apr 21, 2023 23:22
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I just love that you know look like a hollywood starlet in a white fur coat... with an arsenal of medieval weapons on your back. Would you be willing to do some short videos of spell effects, now that you are getting some magic attacks? I would rather like to see them.
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Apr 22, 2023 00:14
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JustJeff88 posted:I just love that you know look like a hollywood starlet in a white fur coat... with an arsenal of medieval weapons on your back. Oh, sure, I'd be up for that. Just be prepared for be underwhelmed.
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Apr 22, 2023 01:25
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Lester, I too would remurder a few skeletons if a guy gave me a couple pounds of weed first 
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Apr 22, 2023 02:16
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That was a great read, I love the dialogue. Almost makes me want to replay the game.
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Apr 22, 2023 04:33
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PurpleXVI posted:Oh, sure, I'd be up for that. Just be prepared for be underwhelmed. Why else would I be here?
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Apr 22, 2023 05:40
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I probably asked in the last LP as well, but can you see the health of your followers \ NPC allies? Do they regenerate naturally over time?
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Apr 26, 2023 09:00
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Xander77 posted:I probably asked in the last LP as well, but can you see the health of your followers \ NPC allies? Do they regenerate naturally over time? You have to walk up to them so you're "targeting" them to see their health bar, and they don't seem to naturally regenerate. For instance, after he got his rear end beat down by Wutras, Lester at was at like 10% HP and I had to pass him potions to heal up. Otherwise, NPC's seem to use potions from their inventory automatically if they have any, and if they pass out of your "activation radius" they also seem to heal up, though it seems a bit wonky exactly how it works, and I'm not 100% sure it works for follower NPC's as well as monsters.
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Apr 26, 2023 09:38
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Do npc's fully heal when you rest? Of course it might not be practical to run to a bed and sleep for a while during an escort quest but it's how I keep npc's alive in for example Oblivion where an hour of rest works.
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Apr 26, 2023 12:51
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Poil posted:Do npc's fully heal when you rest? Of course it might not be practical to run to a bed and sleep for a while during an escort quest but it's how I keep npc's alive in for example Oblivion where an hour of rest works. I'm going to confess that I'm not sure. Considering that it would be a handy quality-of-life function when you've got allies along, I'm going to guess "no" because Gothic 3 does not seem to want to do anything that makes my life easier.
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Apr 26, 2023 15:17
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Often times it should work in Gothic but doesn't for various reasons
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Apr 26, 2023 18:16
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