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     Moonring is a free RPG from Dene Carter, one of the designers of Fable. It’s Ultima-like to the point of half your screen being your stats and a combat log, as well as occasionally needing to manually type in keywords to interact with NPCs, open locks or cast spells. Even if you’re not into old-school 80s RPGs, though, there is a lot to like about Moonring! Yes, you will still be pressing keyboard shortcuts and tabbing through menus to play the game, but most of your interactions can be controlled with just the mouse or even just arrow keys and enter. Things like stealth, your line of sight, and even available topics to discuss with NPCs are all helpfully visualized on screen with graphical effects. And while it’s a tile-based game with minimal animation, Moonring makes brilliant use of its palette and moody soundtrack to keep the experience feeling quite lively. It’s a very slick, stylish package overall, one that I daresay will ease a new audience into a game that in many other ways feels very old-school. The Premise Moonring is pretty coy about the world you inhabit and what you do, so I’ll keep this pretty vague. Your goal in the game is to travel the world and collect relics from major dungeons, each of which is dedicated to one of the setting’s five gods. These gods and your relationship with them are the mechanical cornerstone of the game. They’re how you raise your stats, gain new abilities and equip more powerful weapons. Each god has its own town, which will give you clues to finding the god’s associated relic to complete the main quest. Combat If you’ve played the old Ultima games or a roguelike, you have some idea of how this game works, though it diverges from both inspirations in some core ways. First, it’s all “bump” combat like Rogue, so you’ll walk into enemies to attack them in melee. All the other characters move at the same time you do, and there is no diagonal movement. You’ll notice that your character always has a dotted line box around them while walking around. This shows the range at which enemies detect your presence. You can press Q to go into sneak mode, which halves your speed, douses your light source (narrowing your field of view), and shrinks the dotted line box. If enemies weren’t already aware of you when you do this, and you attack an enemy without them entering the box, you get a 1.5x damage bonus. Almost every kind of character can make good use of this bonus, regardless of build, so don’t ignore this mechanic! The other big core system element is called poise. Poise is more or less shields from Halo. You have a certain amount of temporary HP that begins to refill itself as long as you’re not in melee with an enemy for a couple turns. As long as you have even one point of poise, you cannot take direct HP damage. You’ll want to exploit this mercilessly, using hit and run tactics to keep enemies from ever touching your real HP reserves. The game will helpfully play a sound and warn you when an enemy has broken your poise, signaling that you may want to back off for a moment to recover. Your movement speed is also something you want to keep an eye on, which is modified by your encumbrance. It’s displayed as a % value. Having less or more than 100% movement speed affects how often you will get a “free” turn compared to your enemies, and will let you, for example, eventually outpace a pursuing enemy so you can recover poise. Remember that sneaking halves this number. Layered on top of these core systems is the plethora of god abilities, mechanical devices, and spells you’ll find in the game. The god abilities in particular use energy, which you have 100 of and recover while fighting enemies. You’ll want to figure out which of these abilities works best for you and use them a lot, because it’s difficult to just passively level yourself into bumping every enemy to death. You’ll need to put your energy and inventory to good use to survive the tougher encounters. Gods The RPG mechanics work like this: doing a couple different things in the game nets you devotion points which you spend on any of the five gods to gain abilities which you then mix and match to form your build. Each point spent on a god raising the god’s associated attribute. For example, buying the wolf god’s abilities will give you +5 strength for each new ability purchased. The stats primarily serve as requirements to wield new weapons, but every stat has some passive benefit as well. You get the points to devote to the gods by completing quests associated with each god (handily listed under the god’s description in your menu), and range from major accomplishments like finding their associated relics to small things like killing X enemies while blind. You can find items that give you points to spend as well. One last mechanic associated with the gods is “dedication.” If you dedicate yourself to a particular god, the energy cost of using their abilities is halved and you gain a special boon offered only to the dedicated followers. The cost of this is that you have to avoid committing that god’s “taboos.” For example, followers of the Lords of Dust are forbidden from using potions, but get a boon that auto-identifies constructs and makes them more durable. Note that dedicating yourself to a god grants a full heal and can be done at any time, so consider doing it when you’re about to die. Breaking the taboo inflicts a curse on you from that god, but you can donate money to their town or find items to mitigate this. As such, don’t stress out too much about which god to dedicate yourself to; it’s fairly safe to experiment. Exploration While this game has roguelike elements, most of it works like a typical old school RPG. You’ll travel across the countryside to towns via a world map, search for ruins, talk to townspeople, solve puzzles, etc. The things outside of the dungeons are persistent and pre-designed, but the dungeons are randomly generated and do not allow saving. Once you step into a major dungeon you’ll need to complete all of it without dying, or you’ll lose everything you’ve found on that run. The smaller dungeons do let you exit early with your loot, at least. Where most games would have darkness for you to fight off with your lantern, this game has Amber mist. When you stand long enough in a cloud of Amber, you will go “insane” and your movement becomes erratic. Fill your lantern with oil to ward this off, as getting caught by enemies without full control of your character can lead to a quick end. Once you’ve filled your lantern, the only way to stop it from using oil is to go into sneak mode. One thing that’s important to remember while exploring the world is that while the game shows you keywords floating around your character’s head to ask NPCs, any keyword not mentioned by that NPC will need to be typed in if you want to learn about it. So if Bob in Village A tells you to go ask Charlie in Village B about mistletoe, you need to actually type in the word “mistletoe” when talking to Charlie in Village B. Early Game Tips
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Oct 6, 2023 23:04
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i loving adore how this game looks. i feel like it being free actually undercuts how cool and well put together it feels
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Oct 7, 2023 20:54
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This game is weirdly engrossing. I've been playing it for the past week or so and I'm finding it really hard to put down. Anyone on the fence should really check it out! It's free, it's not like you've got anything to lose  One thing I could use a bit of a hint on is how to get my hands on a ship deed. I'm clearly not supposed to save up the 100k gold to buy it, and the item description hints that it might be possible to persuade someone into forging one. Do I need to talk to a particular NPC or is it something else?
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Oct 7, 2023 21:50
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This really does feel like Ultima IV between the aesthetic and dealing with gods and their taboos, although I guess that's a bit more optional than the virtues since you don't have to devote yourself to one, you still have to engage with their quests to level up so it gets you thinking a bit about what they're all about. Took me a few restarts to really get going with it, since you can't make saves and between spending my points unwisely and getting autosaved outside of dungeons deep in the wilderness with no health I felt pretty stuck a few times. Current run's going well. Definitely recommend aiming for the vampire bite ability to easily restore health early on. I haven't really made any progress with the plot but exploring's fun once you're competent in a fight. Shoutout to the great wolf summon for having a magical bite attack that saved me when I got surrounded by ghosts none of my physical weapons could hurt.
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Oct 8, 2023 22:09
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I wandering around the overworld getting in all sorts of mischief. I can take on those random buildings you find now, at least. I'm not sure which relic to pursue first so I went east since it seemed comfy.
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Oct 8, 2023 23:54
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I've got a bunch of high profile cutting edge games waiting for my attention but I've just been playing this instead.
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Oct 9, 2023 05:52
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:One thing I could use a bit of a hint on is how to get my hands on a ship deed. I'm clearly not supposed to save up the 100k gold to buy it, and the item description hints that it might be possible to persuade someone into forging one. Do I need to talk to a particular NPC or is it something else? Try breaking into the houses in Harrowdus.
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Oct 9, 2023 18:15
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Nickoten posted:[*]There is a devotional tear in Moon-Upon Thoss in an alley between a four-quadrant building you’ll see right at the start of town. Pick it up, and check that alley every time you come back to that town. It regenerates on some timer no one has figured out just yet. I have gotten at least five of them from there, and am honestly not sure whether or not this is a glitch. how do i actually open the door to lead to this edit: oh, lockpicks are items ok another q: how do i know what each status effect does? Verviticus fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Oct 9, 2023 |
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Oct 9, 2023 22:19
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I got myself a boat and went sailing on the sea to find the guy who stole the triangular key who was supposedly hiding on an island somewhere. Found a guy on an island who was not in fact the thief but instead dumped a whole bunch of capital-p Plot on me. Like randomly coming across Nasrudin in Arcanum. I wonder if there was meant to be some signposting putting me on the guy's trail? edit: Also fun tip, the Burrowing Shot ability is basically infinite ammo. Any enemy you shoot with arrows will drop those arrows on death (mostly) so if you hit multiple targets with the same attack, they all drop arrows even though you only fired one. Shyrka fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Oct 10, 2023 |
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Oct 10, 2023 12:24
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Henges: I got a couple of them working. Pretty cool to have a lore-based fast travel feature with a bit of mechanism in how it's used. As for general play, I'm getting to the point where I'm not just wandering around and getting my bearings and instead focusing on completing quests and solving mysteries.
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Oct 10, 2023 21:02
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Has anyone managed to get into The Jest in Harrowdus? I've found what I think is the entrance a hidden door in the bedroom of the grocer to the right of the town entrance which leads to a twisty mini-maze and I'm positive I've decoded the riddle 'death has dominion over all' but I've tried yelling that out in various spots and nothing's happening.
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Oct 10, 2023 22:10
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Anyone tried this on deck? I know it may seem foolhardy but I have a toddler so I need to be able to RPG while sprinting around the house.
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Oct 10, 2023 22:32
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Shyrka posted:Has anyone managed to get into The Jest in Harrowdus? I got stuck here for a bit too. A hint is that there is more to investigate in that maze. Check the southeast.
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Oct 10, 2023 22:33
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Nickoten posted:I got stuck here for a bit too. A hint is that there is more to investigate in that maze. Check the southeast. I really should've just bumped every wall or ran around there with revelation active, that did it thanks!
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Oct 10, 2023 23:29
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doomfunk posted:Anyone tried this on deck? I know it may seem foolhardy but I have a toddler so I need to be able to RPG while sprinting around the house. There's a community layout that works a treat. conversations need the virtual keyboard but otherwise it's silky smooth on deck, if anyone else was wondering.
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Oct 11, 2023 03:23
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I've been playing this a lot more than other stuff recently, beating up stuff for fun and profit and delving into dungeons and places I deffo should not be and just recently got myself a ship! I also tried out something I *probably* should not have and uhhhh.... 
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Oct 13, 2023 11:59
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I've been playing this for a few days and I just adore it. Never could I have imagined I would get to play a new Ultima-like game again. It really, really feels like one of those games, down to the very non linear style of gameplay. The fact that it's free is just incredible.
Node fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 12:13
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if you happen to know a spell called Betrayal probably don't cast it in town. oops!
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Oct 13, 2023 12:27
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Man gently caress the Tower of Veils. After several attempts I finally got as far as floor 6, quit in frustration as I kept getting set on fire and was running out of water and health potions and seemed to be dead ended anyway. Came back later more energised to try again, and found a dropped scroll with the last part of the dampen spell. I cast it expecting just to douse myself instead it turned every wall on the floor into a puddle of water, completely neutering the fire threat and showing me where the hidden doors I needed were because they were the only ones not to turn into water. Well on the way to victory then, the game crashed. But it's cool, I had that recent save remember? Nope, game reloaded me on the world map outside the tower. In frustration I cheated myself to the top of the tower just to get it done with, but the game now crashes during the boss fight every time, and it's not exactly an easy fight I can quickly damage race up with the gimmick it uses. I guess I'll just go try the Necropolis instead, hope this poo poo gets patched by the time I come back, but man it's disheartening.
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Oct 14, 2023 17:00
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Yeah my run ended early, too. After the October 7th patch, I could no longer refill my food meter by sleeping at inns. I didn't have the patience to scrounge for food constantly, so I'm waiting on the next patch.
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Oct 16, 2023 02:16
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fwiw the dev is really responsive, so if you have bug reports or gameplay complaints (dunjon), they will listen if you post em on steam
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Oct 16, 2023 02:27
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Binged on this game for a few days, and got the first ending. Do like that the twist is that the "gods" are actually eldritch beings, feeding on the fear and worship from the masses of your world.They will periodically replace their "vessel" who is the Archon, the replacement is unfortunately you if you don't listen to the hermit living on a secluded island. Going for the second ending later. There are some bugs here and there, and got a crash once when fighting one of the bosses, thankfully didn't happen again when I tried it the second time. Granted I went to do the other boss fights needed to collect the important macguffins. Really enjoying this little game and was surprised it's free. The setting is cool too in how the people follow the moons or deities, and exploring the world to search the ruins for treasure and lore from the past. The puzzles and riddles are nice as well to help get that brain working, even if I suck at those.
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Oct 16, 2023 10:04
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Nickoten posted:Yeah my run ended early, too. After the October 7th patch, I could no longer refill my food meter by sleeping at inns. I didn't have the patience to scrounge for food constantly, so I'm waiting on the next patch. You can buy food at grocers, it's so cheap that it's inconsequential. I just beat the game and got the 'good' ending. Overall I'm extremely pleased with it, my biggest complaint is the fire debuff. There's too much loving fire in the game, it spills onto one tile walkways way too much, and does like 250 damage. I never found an amulet that warded flame, so the later dungeons were absolutely miserable. It made them take way, way longer than they should have. And just hope you don't manage to lose to a relic guardian and have to do 6+ levels full of fire again. The very excellent responsiveness, speed, and snappy UI is going to make going back to clunky Ultima 4 extremely difficult.
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Oct 16, 2023 11:26
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More that I don't want to constantly buy and use food. It's effectively free; just it would significantly increase the amount of time I spend on something that is, as you said, basically inconsequential.
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Oct 16, 2023 15:30
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really struggling when there are clues like with the ship deed finding exactly where people want me to go. found the villager who made it who is sending me to find the click-clack gang in the "marshes", and then its a loong search through a really tedious area. i dont need modern quest markers, but maybe a little more info sometimes would be nice
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Oct 17, 2023 21:14
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Verviticus posted:really struggling when there are clues like with the ship deed finding exactly where people want me to go. found the villager who made it who is sending me to find the click-clack gang in the "marshes", and then its a loong search through a really tedious area. i dont need modern quest markers, but maybe a little more info sometimes would be nice It's on the west coast of the marshes.  Alternately you can just murder the guy selling ship deeds in Moon-on-Thoss and get a legit one. Also you're really gonna loving hate finding the true names of the gods holy poo poo I was tearing my hair out over that one.
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Oct 17, 2023 22:33
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Nickoten posted:Yeah my run ended early, too. After the October 7th patch, I could no longer refill my food meter by sleeping at inns. I didn't have the patience to scrounge for food constantly, so I'm waiting on the next patch. If anyone else has encountered this, according to the Steam forums it's a known issue and you can get around it by sleeping directly in the bed rather than talking to the NPC. I haven't tried it yet myself but plan to soon.
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Oct 17, 2023 22:40
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Shyrka posted:It's on the west coast of the marshes. do people respawn in towns if you take em out
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Oct 18, 2023 03:56
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Can someone give me a hint about the party you get invited to in Harrowdus? It says it's in a forest to the northwest and I've checked forests so far out at this point that I'm sure I'm overshooting it.
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Oct 19, 2023 16:12
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This game is absolutely my jam - I really love that it's a fantasy RPG which actually credits the player's ability to figure things out for themselves. For all that I'm buying swords, fighting monsters, and exploring dungeons the atmosphere of the world is unnerving and alien and mysterious - partly down to the pixel art, partly down to the terse dialogue, partly down to the fact that the writers are really good at hinting at lore without smashing you in the face with it. I also really love that levelling up isn't a question of murdering things until you become stronger (ok except for the one god devotional quest that is literally "murder 200 things") but of interacting with the world and engaging with the game mechanics.
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Oct 22, 2023 12:02
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Nickoten posted:the dungeons are randomly generated and do not allow saving. Once you step into a major dungeon you’ll need to complete all of it without dying, or you’ll lose everything you’ve found on that run. The smaller dungeons do let you exit early with your loot, at least. How long roughly do dungeons take to complete? Are we talking coffee break/lunch break or dedicate an evening to them kinda thing?
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Oct 22, 2023 14:06
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Danger - Octopus! posted:How long roughly do dungeons take to complete? Are we talking coffee break/lunch break or dedicate an evening to them kinda thing? The major dungeons took me something like 1-3 hours each because of the god drat fire. You're waiting for fire to burn out in front of you, or fade off you, you're healing yourself because of it, you're using gifts (spells) to remove part of it. I spent more time waiting around because of fire than I did actually exploring the dungeon. It sucks. Worst part of the game for me, easily. Minor dungeons are only one floor and most of them don't have fire, they take about 10 minutes.
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Oct 22, 2023 14:45
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if you have bottles of water or the winter amulet you can just mostly ignore the lava, tbh. but before these they take a lot longer.
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Oct 22, 2023 15:33
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Is there any way of obtaining bottles of water? I have dozens of empty bottles and I'm beside a pool but I cannot fill them??
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Oct 22, 2023 17:33
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DoubleCakes posted:Is there any way of obtaining bottles of water? I have dozens of empty bottles and I'm beside a pool but I cannot fill them?? water is actually a type of potion that you can brew if you have the right herb
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Oct 22, 2023 18:26
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Brandon Proust posted:water is actually a type of potion that you can brew if you have the right herb sounds thread titleish
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Oct 22, 2023 18:30
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tbh I don't know how I'd live if I wasn't down with the crimson moon. I'm gashing everything these days
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Oct 22, 2023 19:15
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Patch came out the other day that fixed those Tower of Veils crashes so finally finished it, got ending 2. 26 hours is some pretty loving good value for money. That said I did get pretty frustrated/bored doing both Tower of Veils and then Tether Dungeon in quick succession, and wound up console commanding heals to get rid of fire, and after dying to the Tether Dungeon's boss I just skipped back down to the bottom rather than replaying it, kind of just wanted it to be over at that point. I never actually got any spells - one time I got all the parts of the Dampen spell but that was on a Tower of Veils runthrough that crashed and the spell components never spawned in on any subsequent runs. Pretty disappointing since seeing what Dampen did I really would've wanted to see the others. Also the game economy is kind of hosed. At the very start when I was hitting up every town I saw all kinds of cool poo poo in the shops, but merchants are constantly spawning on the map and getting killed by monsters when you're nowhere around which reduces town prosperity and reduces the stock in shops. By the time I actually had money I never saw any of those cool magic cloaks again. Could've really used one of the anti-fire ones too. Main plot spoilers I kind of wish there'd been some form of dialogue with the Gods before you banish them. Some way for them to present their case or try to sway you. I mean, I liked summoning that wolf from the wolf god, he seems kind of cool just for that! For that matter them taking away all their blessings before you fight the Tether would've made some kind of sense.
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Oct 23, 2023 02:23
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I believe if you use the sign at the front of a town to boost its economy you will see those cool items again, but I haven't tried it myself.
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Oct 23, 2023 02:35
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Nickoten posted:I believe if you use the sign at the front of a town to boost its economy you will see those cool items again, but I haven't tried it myself. I actually did try it, but the amount of money needed was impractical. I suppose I could have went around every shop selling all of my orbs of whatever to build up cash but I didn't want to, so I just cheated the money and even then I didn't actually see any difference in the shop inventory. Maybe it takes time to update but by the point I was just console commanding stuff to hurry through to the end I wasn't inclined to wait. Would've console commanded myself one of those anti-fire cloaks or amulets if I knew the item name.
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Oct 23, 2023 13:11
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