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Avernum 5 - 9.01 (10.0/6.0) in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Monday, March 10 2008 22:02 Profile Homepage #23
8.3.

Pros: Almost everything to do with the engine and interface. The story. The characters. The look. The atmosphere. Casting 'Return Life' on a pit we've been in four times before this one and making it look cool again. Original and interesting dungeons with original and interesting enemies.

Cons: Minor niggling details. Several things that didn't feel quite right. A lot of irritating, time-consuming random monster encounters. The linear nature of the plot. The Big Reveal, if you were loyal to the Empire, of who was the one passing on your information was a little overdone for something so totally predictable. While the new characters were invariably excellent, the returning ones weren't always.

A damned good game, but not a brilliant one.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Avernum 5, May Update in Avernum 4
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Friday, May 25 2007 14:21 Profile Homepage #23
quote:
Originally written by Infernal Flamming Muffin:

Jeff said that Rentar and Erika are gone. Period.
Did he not also say there would be no Avernum 4, period?

Of course, I'm glad he went back on his sworn word in that case, but I'm just saying: when you're a game designer trying to get people to buy your stuff so you can feed your family, I'm sure nothing is impossible. :P
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Place Your Bets in Avernum 4
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Friday, May 11 2007 16:12 Profile Homepage #8
A bit of action on "Imperial Soldier" at three-to-one is looking really sweet right now, I gotta tell you.

And if I were to take the two that depended on game choice, they're obviously the Anama (the really easy pick) and the Darkside Loyalists (the slightly-less-easy pick). I'd happily wager somebody else's house on the lot.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
It's taken two years, twenty-eight weeks, and three days in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 00:43 Profile Homepage #13
quote:
Originally written by moonear:

what I like is the high number of postings for the low member number. :(

You're like a roast turkey with nothing inside. ;)
No respect for us lurkers. When I was yer age, we were waiting for the Windows port of Exile III, and we liked it that way! Whippersnappers.

[ Thursday, February 22, 2007 00:43: Message edited by: Lord Bob ]
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Oldbiehood in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Saturday, February 17 2007 20:32 Profile Homepage #82
Oldbie definitions based off "time alone" strike me as flawed. I was on the IkonBoard, for instance. My avatar was a stock image of a little blue penguin. Very handsome. I have a nice low member number here. Yet I wouldn't consider myself an oldbie because I lurk and don't have a presence in the community.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
The next Scenerio Design Contest? in Blades of Avernum
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Wednesday, June 14 2006 06:22 Profile Homepage #17
quote:
Originally written by Drakefyre:

You can't enter a scenario that was part of the first contest. You can't enter a plagiarised scenario.
Blast. So much for my planned debut, 'Tulips of Reckoning'.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
What continent do you live on? (in which the voices take over) in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Tuesday, June 6 2006 15:46 Profile Homepage #60
Pralgad.

What?
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
My God can beat up your God! in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Saturday, May 20 2006 10:08 Profile Homepage #35
My god is me. So yeah, yours could probably beat mine up. Although I think that Mohammad Ali might be a bit of a shaky choice.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
a4 is the best game yet in Avernum 4
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Wednesday, May 17 2006 15:02 Profile Homepage #82
quote:
Originally written by Little Billy Sue:

X, my friend, has an anvil gun.
That reminds me of one point I've been wanting to make for a while: I swear right now that if Jeff ever releases an Avernum game in which the PCs can learn 'X's anvil spell, I will buy a copy no matter how bad it is.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
a4 is the best game yet in Avernum 4
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Wednesday, May 17 2006 14:26 Profile Homepage #80
quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:

This particular thing was quite intentional. Solberg was basically put on ice for a game. I intend for him to be back in a notable role in Avernum 5.
That's one of the more bizarre teasers I've ever heard. Now I am rather more intrigued by A5 than I ought to be.
Avernum 5: The Vahnatai Didn't Do It, It Was Solberg All Along.

Also, 'X' will have a machine gun.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Irritating L'il Bug in Avernum 4
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Sunday, March 12 2006 10:46 Profile Homepage #0
Noticed this on my second play-through (yes, you people who want to rate Avernum 4 a -5 out of 10, I played it twice).

You know the mission to raid the Darkside Loyalists base near Fort Saffron? The one with all the regenerating pillars? Through that base, there is a exit out into the Scree Pits through two gates. If you take that exit out into the Scree Pits before getting the task to get the vahnatai box from the Scree Pits and opening up the barriers in Fort Emerald, the gate might close behind you and you might end up, barring a cheat code, trapped in the Scree Pits.

But that's not all. Even if you haven't got the vahnatai box mission yet, the vahnatai box is still there. If you go get it, cheat your way out of the Scree Pits, and go to the Castle, you will be relieved in this box in the usual manner despite having not got the mission yet, and things will continue. This has a number of odd effects:

1) You can skip a large chunk of the pre-Starrus Castle quests.

2) Fort Emerald never opens, meaning the only entrance out into the Scree Pits is through the Fort Saffron Darkside base and the only way out is to cheat.

3) Depending on when you get it, there might be other things. For instance, I got the box before Almaria had been opened up, so Almaria remained closed and hostile even after I killed the shade. The vahnatai envoy was said to have died in Almaria.

Very interesting stuff. It's not like, other than Demonslayer, there's anywhere worth going in the Scree Pits anyway, and Almaria can be teleported around 99% of the time. Still.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Av4 Character Editor... will one ever be made in Avernum 4
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Wednesday, March 8 2006 10:23 Profile Homepage #23
quote:
Originally written by Red_Sage:

I'm making one but unfortunately, it will only be for windows users (being as I'll be using Visual C++ .NET) and I dont think I have the stamina to allow for item editing. Itll just be stats, traits and money editing. Ive figured out most of the save format info with regards to characters.

"Header" stores the little image, time, date and all that. "Data" is where character info starts. Stuff like Level, for the first character, is stored at the 23968th byte, stats begin at the 24006th etc. I was bored last night. :D

p.s. i started because i didnt pay attention to the unlock door - tool use connection. :mad: :mad: Took care of that problem. :)
Glad to hear it. Good luck to you!
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Did the forums help you register? in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Sunday, March 5 2006 10:28 Profile Homepage #22
These forums made me choose to get BoE free with A1 instead of Nethergate. So I'm going to count that as "yes, once".

I don't think I've played BoE once in the last year, though. Wonder if I can find the CD.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Rate Avernum 4. in Avernum 4
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Saturday, March 4 2006 18:09 Profile Homepage #25
Just beat it. On balance, enjoyed it. Worth the money. Probably still the weakest of the four.

The good news: Avernumforge didn't kill my brain. As everybody else has said, combat was wonderful, even though I was getting stomped repeatedly in the early game before my brain got into the groove. I like the idea that party members aren't dead, just unconcious, don't mind returning to town to heal, and went insane from having to return to town to reenergize. Spells were better, although Arcane Blow remains the Great White Elephant of the spell set. I liked walking around all of Avernum as if it were indoors A1-3 style a lot more than I thought I would. That was really neat. Elimination of mild annoyances as mentioned above. A lot of the graphics looked really neat. The fact that there's a new Exilvernum story for the first time since I learned Spiderweb existed. That neat bit of dialogue where the Empire tourist says that nobody's sure whether there were conveyer belts or lasers. No more "omg teh vahanati did it".

The bad news: omg teh vahanati did it. The end game (as in, the game actually ends when you pummel Rentar) irritated me to no end, since I had been planning to go back and deal with stuff like the Mertis undead, the Darkside guys, and a large list of other things after killing Rentar A1/A2 style. The whole Darkside name, just because it made me quote Star Wars for the entire game. Lack of elevation. Those little geographical oddities caused by moving the map over to an entirely new engine (I've played A1 and A2 about a dozen times, so I said 'hey, that's odd' so often I began to feel profoundly loserish). The fact that I could take my Shaper into a cavern full of fyoras. The fact that none of the character graphics I usually used were ported over. The end of those funny pictures for each skill and attribute on the character sheet. The Geneforge combat system, which annoyed me every time my one surviving warrior got slowed and couldn't attack anything, nicely allowing the wimpy monsters surrounding him to beat the tar out of him unimpeded.

I was going to put 'lack of the classic Avernum artifacts' as a bad, but apparently somebody up there met Demonslayer and the Jade Halberd while I didn't see any, so I can only presume I missed them because I inadvertantly skipped a large fraction of the game.

I think the bad list is longer than the good one, but a lot of the neat stuff about the three Avernums (the atmosphere, the just-one-more-cave value) was present here and, frankly, was too diverse to remark upon. As I said, though, I think it's still the weakest of the quadrilogy, although, surprisingly, it's not mostly the engine's fault. I vaguely liked the idea that Rentar'Ihrno could decide to go quietly (I was aggressive in our first confrontations, so she wasn't listening to my requests for peace). I'll replay it again at least once more to see what I missed. But my Avernum II CD will be getting a lot more wear than this one.

7.3 out of 10.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
If you could, when would you... in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Friday, November 18 2005 15:46 Profile Homepage #9
I'd go back in time to the last big lottery draw that nobody won. I would take with me a piece of paper with the lottery numbers on it. You people and your Coke stock, pshaw.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Can you code? in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Wednesday, November 9 2005 23:47 Profile Homepage #25
If I could pick one programming language to know, it would be C++. If I could pick two, they would be C++ and COBOL, just to screw people up.

(And I can't code worth a whisker, although I do nice things with PennMUSH softcode and my HTML is fairly good. Neither of those really count, though.)
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Kissing a girl in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Wednesday, October 5 2005 09:46 Profile Homepage #60
I'm a fan of, shall we say, same-gender interaction if I find that gender attractive to the eye. I can't explain why I'm a fan of it, I just know that watching it happen makes me feel tingly in places I probably shouldn't talk about on Spiderweb.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Petition for constant monikers in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Sunday, September 25 2005 13:35 Profile Homepage #4
quote:
Originally written by Grouchinati:

How many people are Blademasteris or Postlinesses, mention that skribbane is a peerless beverage, end their posts with...

—Alorael, who believes he is the only such person.
Excepting, of course, those who try and imitate Alorael because they want to look cool, only to be mocked and scorned before they flee into the arms of the only one who has ever loved them. Or something.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
"I built time machines" in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Tuesday, August 2 2005 13:44 Profile Homepage #13
I think the John Doe in this context is just the relater of the anecdote using a generic placeholder for the guy's real name. His real name might be Edward H. Ffalenger III, but the poster might have been trying to protect his privacy. Perhaps out out of fear somebody would come backwards in time to beat him up.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Long-distance relationships? in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Monday, August 1 2005 14:19 Profile Homepage #20
The experience of others around me (I've never been in such a relationship myself) leads me to believe that it's luck, more than anything you can do, that'll make a long-distance relationship work. I mean, sure, there's the obvious stuff like staying in touch, but at the end of the day, luck has an awful lot to do with it (as with any relationship). So, you know, go to it.

The good news is that, of course, if you're getting cheated on long-distance, what you don't know can't hurt ya! Unless your partner gets an STD. Then it can hurt ya...
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Favorite game... in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Sunday, July 31 2005 20:05 Profile Homepage #31
In no real order: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Knights of the Old Republic (I know, a Star Wars game!), Avernums 2 and 3, Civilization II, NHL: Eastside Hockey Manager 2005. Two posts in one day...is that my personal record?
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Web "anonymity" vs. real life identity in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Sunday, July 31 2005 20:01 Profile Homepage #27
My real name isn't hard to find out, as in "not hard -at all-", so, clearly, anonymity is not my major concern. I'm not worried about all my many, many RL friends finding out that I'm Spiderweb's Lord Bob...my oh-so-many friends...hee hee hee...
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Elections: The Registration Thread in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Saturday, June 18 2005 15:50 Profile Homepage #8
I want to make a mockery of democracy by voting.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Who is AM and TM? in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Saturday, June 18 2005 12:17 Profile Homepage #69
I've only had the one name, but, then, I post so seldom that I could have changed my name fifteen times and nobody would have noticed. Lord Bob contents me. To bits.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Who lives where in General
Lord Bob
Shock Trooper
Member # 55
 written Saturday, November 27 2004 20:33 Profile Homepage #28
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00

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