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Carioz

Novice
Joined
Dec 8, 2002
Messages
19
Korak said:
St. Proverbius is right. There are all sort of metaphorically ways in which you can view paper as "harder" or at least "more powerful," but I think one great thing that this riddle sets up is the very literal mindedness of Thaumaturgist. By and large they're extraordinarily down to earth. It's basically a discipline like hard core science or engineering. Note the spell names, "Harden Armor" etc. They're ain't no poetry or metaphor there (and don't think that we couldn't have come up with some if we wanted it-- tee hee)

Ohhh. That's just awesome. I am stunned. Now everything does fit right in. Well that settles the riddle quest for me. It is just exceptional.

And speaking of the ncklace quest I think there should have been a "fight your way to freedom" option (I really don't think any speaker could convince any man that he was standing just right there next to his wife alone when she choked and died, expecially when said man is under the influence of Rolucia), once the mayor's wife died.
Otherwise I am with the devs: it is true you have actually two chices and (maybe) a warning when you are looking at sleeping beauty, but, if you are not completely blind over the clues scattered everywhere you notice:
a)Rolucia is unnaturally charming and probably they gray power behind the mayor, and enjoys the status quo of the town
b)Rolucia doesn't want you to pick up too many informations on the necklace (he lies rather blatantly when confronted with a question about where you bought it)
c)Rolucia for sure gave the necklace to sleeping beauty

Now, if Rolucia wanted to just kill the wife, why couldn't have he just done it (a fine meal from the barrier, maybe)? He maybe needed her to be in the situation which the player stumbles upon. Why? I don't know, but one can pretty much hear many people say sleeping beauty opposed Rolucia pretty vehemently.

Now, thinking of Rolucia as an Evil Master Mind (TM) who has had at least the Evil 101 course, it doesn't take too much effort to imagine he would have prepared at least another already trademarked B Plan, if someone tried to mess with the necklace (trying to bring back to full activity his worst enemy): and such plan is "If someone removes the necklace (which has -cause of the sleeping enchantment written all over it-, my enemy dies, and meanwhile, I kill the artificier). So messing with the necklace, which is magical (either you get it from game text, or you guess it through the effect it has on the mayour's beloved one), and is the key for the power of Rolucia, looks like a bad idea to me.

Obviously you need to think a bit to figure it out, but were we not the ones screming for "No more Fed-Ex!"?
This said, I think it should have been a better solution had the devs put a "fight your way to the door after you screwed-up" possibility.
 

Carioz

Novice
Joined
Dec 8, 2002
Messages
19
Saint_Proverbius said:
It's a disruption in flow. You've gone from enjoying your place in the setting to something that arbitarily makes you deal with the fact you're no longer dealing with the game world to being knocked on the head that it's a computer program. It's bad karma, baby!

As opposed to min/maxing your character armors/weapons/speed/damage ratios, which incredibly hepls immersiveness? :wink: :wink: :wink:
 

Saint_Proverbius

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Vault Dweller said:
Yes, SP, I brought up the DM thing, but I would not compare go East or West to this quest. I would compare it to a thief attempting to open/disarm a trapped chest in a room full of dead bodies. It's thief choice to take a risk without knowing the nature of the trap or whether his skills are sufficient. You fail the roll you might die, period. The player takes the risk, and if he did and dies as a result, he should not blame a DM for a deadly trap, but himself. Otherwise the campaign turns into a bed time story, a 34 hp thief attempts to disarm a trap, fails, and gets hit by a level 1 magic missile for 2 points of damage. The party hugs the thief saying "you dare-devil, you."
.

Your analogy doesn't work for a number of reasons.

1.) There's only a warning if you have a decently high thaumaturgy skill. If you have a party without that skill, or it's low, you don't get that warning. That's a far cry from having lots of dead people around a trap.

2.) There is no roll involved here. It's simply, "Do you remove the necklace? Yes? You die."

3.) Traps are supposed to kill people and do bad stuff when you trigger them. Trap has a negative meaning from the start. You know what to expect. A trap is just much different from an enchanted necklace.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Well, again I would like to note that I'm not trying to prove anybody right or wrong. I'm discussing a subject that I find interesting enough to call for your attention.

First of all, we agreed that 'game over' is too much. No doubt. Now let's discuss the situation itself. A common sense, so to speak, so well introduced by Zero-sum that it might as well become their trademark.

I agree, lots of dead people in my example is a warning, but what about common sense? What if it's not a trapped chest surrounded by corpses, but a thing that is out of place, a thing that raises your suspicion (without a dm telling you so), like a ring that flashes briefly in a dark dungeon where there is no light to account for the flash as if to atract your attention or an object on a patch of squicky clean floor in a dusty dungeon?

Now tell me, when you picked up the necklace were you really hoping she would wake up? I did not, by then, by the style of the game, I knew it would have been too easy, so I just wanted to see what happens next. As I said I wish there would be something that motivate a player to keep playing even after he screwed up, but ....

I was thinking about the riddle. So you played a thau mage, so did I. It's very easy to get the first spell, the Academy teaches you the second for 50 bucks, and then you have a 50/50 chance to screw up another 3 spells. Well, the thau is as usefull with the first 2 spells as with all 5, don't you think? I think that having almost guaranteed that if you pick a mage all spells will be provided in timely and orderly fashion takes something away from the game? Just like to be able to reroll a conversation till you reach a desirable result.

Let's look at the bombing quest. I noticed there were people who complained why the game did not warn them when they got the food delivery quest that there will be bombing later. Do I need to explain how ridiculous it sounds? Why don't we introduced a char called Santa's Little Helper that follows you party saying "oh, you might wanna hold on to this food for a week or so, cause you know, wink, wink, there is more to it that meets the eye" or " I would not fool with that necklace, 'cause my inner voice that you obviously lack tells me that you might not like the results".
 

Saint_Proverbius

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Vault Dweller said:
I agree, lots of dead people in my example is a warning, but what about common sense? What if it's not a trapped chest surrounded by corpses, but a thing that is out of place, a thing that raises your suspicion (without a dm telling you so), like a ring that flashes briefly in a dark dungeon where there is no light to account for the flash as if to atract your attention or an object on a patch of squicky clean floor in a dusty dungeon?

Common sense doesn't enter in to the necklace thing beyond, "The necklace is doing this." In fact, that's so obvious, the husband should have figured that out on his own and tried to remove it.

I was thinking about the riddle. So you played a thau mage, so did I. It's very easy to get the first spell, the Academy teaches you the second for 50 bucks, and then you have a 50/50 chance to screw up another 3 spells. Well, the thau is as usefull with the first 2 spells as with all 5, don't you think? I think that having almost guaranteed that if you pick a mage all spells will be provided in timely and orderly fashion takes something away from the game? Just like to be able to reroll a conversation till you reach a desirable result.

I would say that 2/5 spells at that point is useless because they can only do 40% of what they would be able to do otherwise. If you're only going to use Call Lightning through the whole game, then that's fine. However, if you wanted to be a melee Thaum character, Harden Armor, Fast Weapon and Sharp Weapon would all be up your alley.

My Thaum is a melee Thaum.

Let's look at the bombing quest. I noticed there were people who complained why the game did not warn them when they got the food delivery quest that there will be bombing later. Do I need to explain how ridiculous it sounds? Why don't we introduced a char called Santa's Little Helper that follows you party saying "oh, you might wanna hold on to this food for a week or so, cause you know, wink, wink, there is more to it that meets the eye" or " I would not fool with that necklace, 'cause my inner voice that you obviously lack tells me that you might not like the results".

You had warning on this from the Watcher. You warned at the start not to tell anyone that you were working for him. You were warned not to kill the priestess. That's a far cry from the riddle thing or the necklace thing.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
My Thaum is a melee Thaum
Well, you got me.

the husband should have figured that out on his own and tried to remove it.

He is a moron, that's why the Valley needs heroic adventurers like us :lol: Otherwise we'd be out of business. :lol:

Common sense doesn't enter in to the necklace thing beyond, "The necklace is doing this."

Then I repeat my question, did you really expect her to wake up when you removed the necklace? Besides, what's the point of using an enchanted necklace if every adventuring fool with a sharp eye can remove it and end your little scheme? On the contrary, you use the necklace to put your victim in a coma then wait the first person to remove it, killing your victim, and getting blamed for the death. Make sense?

You had warning on this from the Watcher. You warned at the start not to tell anyone that you were working for him

Indeed, but I was talking about the _best_ way to solve the quest, which is
SPOLIERS








to get the food delivery quest, to learn about the sleeping herb, to get the bombing quest,
to spike the food, to drag the priestess outside, and then to blow up the temple.

Technically, you had no way of knowing about the bombing before you get the food delivery quest, thus limiting yourself to exposing yourself as a spy and thus severing one of the main story branches or killing the priestess and damaging your karma somewhat.

Many people who got spoiled by click-fest games complained about not being warned in advance. But realistically, if you think about it, why would you party agree to deliver the food to the temple. As I stated in other post, you are not role-playing a pizza delivery boy, you are on a rather important quest. The only reason to do it is for oh so sweet exp points , while in "reality" you party was told about a food delivery problems, noted it, went on its way, and only when the delicate bombing situation came up, only then they decided to use it to help their main quest. Make sense? Kudos to Zero-Sum for trying to weave side quests into main story.
 

Saint_Proverbius

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Vault Dweller said:
Then I repeat my question, did you really expect her to wake up when you removed the necklace? Besides, what's the point of using an enchanted necklace if every adventuring fool with a sharp eye can remove it and end your little scheme? On the contrary, you use the necklace to put your victim in a coma then wait the first person to remove it, killing your victim, and getting blamed for the death. Make sense?

If Blaen were so smart, he wouldn't have given the necklace directly to the husband in the first place. If the husband had any clue at all, he would have suspected everything to begin with.

Technically, you had no way of knowing about the bombing before you get the food delivery quest, thus limiting yourself to exposing yourself as a spy and thus severing one of the main story branches or killing the priestess and damaging your karma somewhat.

I agree, that quest shouldn't be given or triggered until the bombing thing comes around. That's a problem with the scripting.
 

ikarius

Novice
Joined
Feb 25, 2003
Messages
10
Design decisions

Heheh,
Part of this argument is reminding me of when I first played the adventure game "secret of monkey island".... Remember all the sierra adventures that constantly forced you to try all sorts of things, and if you didnt do the right thing, you were often killed immediately, and presented with the "Restart, Reload, Quit" dialog? Then along came monkey island where they decided they wanted you to play. If you tried silly things, then often silly things would happen in response, but you never had to go back and reload. At one place I came to a cliff, and I clicked over the edge of the cliff. My character walked right off the cliff, and a dialog box came up stating "Restart, reload, Quit". I was shocked! A few moments later, the character bounced back up, landed back on the edge of the cliff, the dialog box went away, and the character looked at me and said "Rubber Tree". I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Ok, so it's sorta off topic, but it was truly a funny moment. I will say that I truly appreciate a game where they want you to "just play", and dont force you to reload every time something goes wrong. It's just more immersive.

--Ikarius
 

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