Sorry to hear that; my condolences. Stay strong and take care 
-
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Completed Let's play Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor
- Thread starter Azira
- Start date
Alright, I've started playing the game again, so an update might not be too far off. My father's still dead, and I partly blame myself (could I have done something else, something more?*), but life goes on and so will this LP! 
As to when the actual update appears, I have only vague notions. Probably some time next week.
*) I'm a doctor, I make housevisits, and on the day my father fell ill, my mother contacted me as he didn't want another doctor in the house. Though everyone else involved has assured me that I did everything I should and with due haste, I still harbour a nagging doubt. Could I have called the ambulance sooner, told them to drive with the sirens on? Directed them to another hospital with the appropriate specialities? It's all for naught though, it won't bring him back. But they're doubts that I will carry with me to my grave I suspect.
As to when the actual update appears, I have only vague notions. Probably some time next week.
*) I'm a doctor, I make housevisits, and on the day my father fell ill, my mother contacted me as he didn't want another doctor in the house. Though everyone else involved has assured me that I did everything I should and with due haste, I still harbour a nagging doubt. Could I have called the ambulance sooner, told them to drive with the sirens on? Directed them to another hospital with the appropriate specialities? It's all for naught though, it won't bring him back. But they're doubts that I will carry with me to my grave I suspect.
Alright, I've played enough with the darksiders now, that I could prepare an update. It's rather image-heavy, but then again, it represents the third from last update to this LP, so we're nearing the end. After this one, I'll bring the lightsiders up to the same point, and from then on, only the endgame awaits (basically just 2 more dungeons and then the ending cinematic).
I'm not promising an update today, as I'm home sick with the cold. This has let me play the game, but I'm feeling somewhat incoherent as I type this, so any update will take time to prepare.
In the coming update though, the darksiders break the game, more or less.
I'm not promising an update today, as I'm home sick with the cold. This has let me play the game, but I'm feeling somewhat incoherent as I type this, so any update will take time to prepare.
In the coming update though, the darksiders break the game, more or less.
In the coming update though, the darksiders break the game, more or less.
With excessive use of Sharpmetal at close quarters?
That spell helps, but the real gamebreaker is Protection from Magic.. M:
I'm trying to write an update, I really am.. But Imgur has decided it will only let me upload one picture at a time, then I have to log out and log in again before it will upload the next picture. Seeing as I have 154 more images to upload just for this update, I'm getting to be rather annoyed. I hope this is something temporary that will be fixed shortly, or the next update will be delayed for a while. 
If imgur fails to work, you can always switch to dropbox.
I have considered that. I currently have about 2.75GB free on my dropbox account, so maybe that's what I'm going to do. Can't do much today though, the whole day's been scheduled for work, movies and football. Maybe tomorrow? In the meantime I've filed a bugreport at the imgur support forum. Maybe I'll get some feedback there.
As promised, this LP would not die a silent death, no matter the unfortunate circumstances that put it on hiatus.
Back when I did suspend the LP, I had already played a bit further than the last update, but not much. Most of this update was played in the last few days, but some of it is more than a month old. I hope this isn't too apparent when I am finished.
Anyway.
The next darksider update will feature the conclusion of the game. So just one more lightsider update, then I'll do a combined light and dark ending update.
I hope it was worth the wait. We'll soon be done.
Back when I did suspend the LP, I had already played a bit further than the last update, but not much. Most of this update was played in the last few days, but some of it is more than a month old. I hope this isn't too apparent when I am finished.
Anyway.
The votes had been tallied, and the darksiders rejected Mr Stantley's proposal, just as the lightsiders had done. The two month deadline however meant that the consequences wouldn't appear until the end of this update chronologically, but here you can see a picture of low-level enemies being ripped apart by our darkside companions:
Seriously, they were a pushover for the lightside group, and when they appeared in my darkside playthrough, my party was 20 levels higher than the lightsiders had been..
With that out of the way, let's see about progressing a bit in the storyline, shall we?
Last time we checked in on our darksiders, Archibald Ironfist had asked us to see his advisors for some special quests, so that's where we're headed.
So those are the advisor quests. Or three out of four. Seems we'll need to do those three first, then the fourth. These advisors have a hard time trusting someone, don't they?
Well, they must have their reasons.
I'm amused by the last one. We need to fetch an item from the Temple of Darkness, but we're allowed to kill any and all guardians, just for fun!
I knew there had to be perks to being on the dark path.
The quests themselves are rather straightforward, clearing 4 dungeons in total, to find 3 things. Before we leave The Pit though, there's something I want to show you. Black potions first:
In MMVI, quaffing a black potion would raise one stat while lowering another. Not so for MMVII. Here they boost one stat and have no drawbacks, except you can only get the benefit for each type once. So basically, we can get +50 to all stats, if we spawncamp the apothecaries that carry them enough. It'd be stupid not to, as it represents a rather minor investment in time.
Another thing I believe I mentioned was that most screens are animated. That goes for screens inside houses, the screens that pop up when you are about to enter a dungeon and the like. Here are two examples, both town houses from The Pit. I've taken three screenshots of each, to give you the general idea. Most of these screens have tiny sound loops as well, very atmospheric.
Cozy, aren't they?
Enough dilly-dallying. We have 9 dungeons to clear in this update, so I'd better get cracking!
First up is the Temple of the Darkness.
The Temple offers healing at the entrance, which is handy if you need it. The temple shouldn't be too difficult at this point in the game however, and using town portal to go to our own temple inside Harmondale castle is much cheaper. But I like the possibility.
We don't go far inside the temple before a guard grumpily tells us not to stray...
Remembering what Kastore told us, we're free to ignore this guard, kill whomever is the temple, loot it for all it's worth and noone will blame us. So that's what we proceed to do.
It's guarded by Priests of Darkness, which we've covered in a previous update, and Vampires, the three tiers of which I've screencapped below:
It's been a month, so I don't remember if they had any specifically nasty tricks up their sleeves, but I remember them as beefy melee monsters and not much more. Having the pain reflection spell running does wonders for taking down heavy-hitting monsters.
Inside the temple, I get a nice surprise as a seemingly normal chest yields an artifact!
Pre-enchanted with cold damage and a nice +to hit and damage.
The altar-piece we're looking for is hidden beneath the altar. Where else would it be? Manipulating the altar makes it move a bit, and a chest is revealed beneath:
That's half of one quest done. The map of the temple is here:
The blue crosses are the points that when you cross them, the guards turn hostile. 1 denotes the altar with the piece beneath.
An easy dungeon at this point, especially considering that you can just run out and get healed by the priests of the very same temple. Still, as Kastore said, killing the guards was good fun.
There are still two promotion quests we have yet to complete. The bounty hunt quest, and the quest for the dragon egg. The bounty hunt quest is highly dependent on the RNG. If you're lucky, bounties will spawn for creatures that are powerful but within your reach, making for a larger profit. If you're unlucky though, you'll get a bounty for, say, a giant rat, and after collecting it, you'll need to wait another month for a new bounty at that town hall.
Turns out that two town halls offer bounties that pay OKish and are easy to complete.
That's 4200 gold closer to the 10000 total needed.
I forgot to turn in the Arcomage quest for our darksiders, so we do that now. You've already seen what the reward is, it's the exact same whether you align with dark or light.
The gold award alone makes it worthwhile to complete the quest, regardless of the fact that actually playing the arcomage game is also rather fun.
Having tied up that loose end, we continue on our quest to assemple the whole altar piece and town portal to Celeste. Once there, we enter the Temple of the Light. We take the opportunity to get our mana restored by choosing the heal option first though.
The temple of light is defended by angels, priests of light and monks. The angels are quite annoying as their first tier incarnation can cast dispel magic, nulling all buffs immediately.. This makes them the top targeting priority.
Lucky for our darksiders, even the beefiest angel mob only sports 700hp, and their annoying first tier mob has a measly 180hps. They go down quick enough.
I've also got pics of the monks, as I were unsure if I'd caught them all earlier.
Didn't cap the first tier 'monk', but they are rather unremarkable. The master has a measly total of 153 hps.. Fodder.
Of note in this temple is the vistas. They can be impressive. When they built it, it seems they decided they didn't need a roof.
And they managed to fit some rather deep rooms as well. This temple also holds a puzzle, though in keeping with the other puzzle dungeons of MMVII, you can find a clue to the solution in the very same dungeon.
Sun in the west...
Moon in the north...
And stars in the east...
All that remains is to touch the altar.
And a secret door opens to a room with a few chests, one of them holding the piece we were seeking.
The reason we're off collecting these altar pieces will become clear later. For now, let's take a look at the layout of the dungeon.
1. This is where you find the "torn scroll" with the clues to the puzzle.
2. Touch the sun symbol
3. Touch the moon symbol
4. Touch the star symbol
5. Finally fondle the altar
6. And loot the chests!
This dungeon I'd rate higher in difficulty, purely because of the dispel casting angels. If you're not paying attention, having suddenly lost all buffs can be quite a nasty surprise. At this point in the game, you'll be having regeneration up at all times, and depending on what path you're following, either pain reflection or HoP/DoP/DotG. Loosing those is nasty.
Still, it's not too difficult, and I liked the layout.
That's one advisor quest down, two more to go. Next stop is Clanker's Laboratory.
This lab is supposedly a place where magical artifacts are made and then sold from, but it seems the shopkeepers have all left and there's nothing but a lot of guards and some loot. The guards consists of golems and floating eye type monsters.
The golems are annoying in that they explode upon death, causing damage to the whole party if within melee range, but the eyes are much less annoying than they were in MMVI. They can't cast dispel magic anymore! Much, much less annoying.
The place does have its charm. It holds a stable of the secret door trope:
"Push the right book in the bookcase to open the door"
And it holds a named piece of equipment for the hoarder.
The amulet is really not useful to us though, as we don't make our own potions. If we had a druid, it might be different. But honestly, I never really bothered with alchemy in MMVII.
In another chest we found another piece of equipment that might actually see some use.
+15 to learning skill translates directly into +15% to all experience earned. At the end of this update though, you'll see why this isn't as necessary as one might first assume.
Our reason for coming to this lab though, was to disable the "teleport shield". I didn't test if it actually prevented Lloyd's Beacon and Town Portal from working, but manipulating this altar-looking device seems to satisfy the requirements.
And with that, Clanker's Lab is cleared and finished.
1. Bookcase with "cleverly" hidden secret door lever
2. Teleport shield controls
3. Laboratories with lots of alchemy ingredients free for looting.
4. Fountain that supposedly poisons active character, if you're careless enough to not have Protection from Magic up.
Very straightforward and easy this dungeon, easier than I remembered. Maybe because last time I played, I cleared this place on my first visit to Avlee, instead of waiting until I actually received a quest to go here. I don't know.. It was simple enough for our darksiders in any case.
That's two out of three advisor quests done. We also had some secondary quests in our logbook though, so I decided to go to Nighon next, to first deal with one of these secondary quests, then tackle the third advisor quest afterwards.
While in Nighon we killed some local wildlife.
The chaos hydra is the real threat here, as it's ranged attack deals energy damage, against which there is no defense. They're top priority. Though, as dark siders, we have pain reflection up at all times, which means that whatever damage gets dealt to us, is returned point for point, no resistance counted. So even the 20-100 energy damage the chaos hydra can deal isn't as frightening anymore, as long as the party has enough mana for healing.
The first dungeon we enter here in Nighon is called The Maze.
No extra points for guessing what type of monster is most numerically present here.
The headsman can inflict insanity on attack. The lord can cause instant death, if you're not warded by Protection from Magic.. Add to this that they're rather beefy hp-wise, and pack a whallop, these monsters are actually a threat to our current party.
It's still not a dungeon we retreat from. By being careful and managing our mana supplies (ie, shrapmetalling only when the minotaur lords are not alone) we get through without suffering more than one casualty (Protection from Magic ran out, and Kayerts suffered an instant death attack, a tactical retreat followed by a raise dead remedied that). In the Maze we can find two quest items.
And that's it for that dungeon. It's interesting in that the monsters are placed with some care. You don't find minotaurs outside the maze part, and you don't find warlocks inside the maze part. You can find hydras both places though..
1. Chest with Angel Statuette
2. Chest with Haldor's remains
This was one of the most challenging dungeons in a long time due to the excessive amount of minotaurs! I liked this one. Don't actually recall if I'd cleared this ever in my previous playthroughs..
After clearing out the maze, the darksides venture into Thunderfist Mountains, an area they've previously moved through, largely while invisible however. With their newfound mastery of dark magic, the place is set to be cleared.
This place is inhabited by minotaurs in much lower numbers than the maze, by warlocks and by floating eyes. The warlocks are perhaps the easiest of the bunch.
In MMVI, they had an annoying insanity-causing attack. Not in MMVII. Here they simply deal elemental damage and can cast an elemental type damage spell. Rather straightforward and like all caster-type enemies, quite squishy in melee.
We've already covered the minotaurs and floating eye type of monsters, so I'll not go into further detail about them here. I did catch some amusing screenshots of their status-altering attacks, or rather our party when afflicted by them.
Everyone's frothing with insanity, even our mind-immune lich.
And what do you know, she can even be put to sleep, her pink eyes narrowing into tiny slits. D'awww...
Anyway, we're in this dungeon for two reasons.
This being one, the quest item for the third advisor quest.
This being the second. We can reach the Tunnels to Eofol from Thunderfist Mountain. These tunnels takes us to The Land of Giants, where our final promotion quest sees us.
First though, we take a closer look at the map of Thunderfist Mountain.
The place is riddled with entrances/exits.
1. is the entrance from the tunnels under Stone City
2. is the exit to the Tunnels to Eofol
3. is where the Soul Jars are kept
A large dungeon filled with dangerous creatures. Though, after clearing The Maze, this place felt a bit ... tame. Our party is not all-powerful, yet, but they are surely climbing that scale. Again, I cannot stress enough how a difference getting acess to dark/light magic makes. Or rather, getting access to the second tier promotions.. The dark magic is just a bonus. Light magic on the other hand... but we'll cover that in the next update. I mean, I love shrapmetal and dragonbreath for the insane damage-output, but - I'm getting ahead of myself.
The darksiders found themselves in the Tunnels to Eofol. Those tunnels are populated by two types of enemies. Medusae and Behemoths.
Protection from Magic nullifies the greates threat the medusae pose, so the challenging monsters here are the behemoths. And these tunnels are made for sniping large creatures..
The tunnels are uninteresting apart from the monsters, so we quickly skip to the exit.
Immediately upon exiting though, we receive an important message:
Seems our advisors have disposed their ruler and inserted themselves. Who knew Archie was such a softie after all?
The weapon he talks about is a blaster. You'll recognise it from MMVI. We don't have the skill to use it yet though.
Let's take a look at the map of the tunnels before we proceed.
Long, twisted corridors packed with monsters. This place is made so you need to fight your way past the monsters. Here, you can't simply cast invisibility and run past. Aside from that fact, the place is rather unremarkable. And after clearing The Maze, well. This place was easy, though we did have one time where Lightbane was stoned as Protection from Magic ran out without me noticing.
Aside from that, no hiccups.
Now that we've reached the Land of Giants, we can break the game. First though, we stumble upon a sign that warns us without words, that we're in a dangerous place..
Atmospheric and cute.
In the minimap you can see a house almost immediately north of the group. The grandmaster armsmaster trainer lives there, but what is more interesting is the wishing well just outside his house. For some reason, I did not take a screenshot at the well itself, but these two pictures can begin to explain why this well can break the game for you.
We haven't moved at all. We haven't trained, killed more monsters or anything. We've simply clicked enough times on the wishing well, and some times, you're granted skillpoints upon activation of the well.
You run the risk of triggering an eradication/kill attack when using the well, but that attack is nullified by grandmaster Protection from Magic... Meaning, as long as you are mindful to keep that spell up at all times, you can milk this location for infinite skillpoints...
At this point the game is almost done, but still... It's clearly intentional that they left this thing here. It certainly saves you from grinding monsters, if you find you're having trouble. But if you're having trouble, you're clearly doing something wrong.. Ohwell. We milk this cow a bit, but for less than 100 skillpoints per partymember. Just enough to get the most important skills up past 10.
Leaving the well behind, we start to turn in quests. First off a secondary quest in Nighon.
A lich saved and 35000 gold richer.
I admit I was a bit disappointed with the reward from this quest. 50K gold is good, but considering the effort put into finding the statues and then running around placing them, I felt it was a bit cheap. But I'll take it, gold is good, even if we're running out of stuff to spend it on. M:
Well, having cleared the questbook of those two secondaries, we return to the Land of Giants. Can anyone guess why it has that name?
...
We still need to finish the warlock promotion quest (druid line), and for that we need to find a dragon egg somewhere in this part of the world.
It should come as no surprise that these caves are inhabited by dragons. Seeing as I milked the well for skillpoints enough to make Bee a grandmaster at monster identification, we can now get the full rundown on their stats:
Impressive beasts they are. They're relatively few inside the dungeon though, so they are easily dispatched. And we find what we're looking for...
We actually found two eggs, not sure if this is important or not.
There are two dragon cave entrances here in the Land of Giants, so we enter the other one as well.
Inside we find a named dragon.
That, aside from the name, is totally indistinguishable from a normal red dragon, and when killed, the game also reports it as such.
to Kayerts for laying the big nasty to rest.
I'm pretty sure the loot from its body is random, but we got quite lucky and found this.
No drawbacks and a lot of advantages. Though considering the mythology, one might assume the sandals would actually allow you to fly, and this is not the case here. I'm not complaining though, the other boosts make up for it by far.
The tiny map of the dragon caves is here.
1. Dragon eggs
2. Mega-Dragon
Inhabited by dragons. Not much more to say. M:
With the egg in hand, we finally return to be recognised as honorary warlocks!
Isn't he cute? Now, actual druids would receive a +3 boost to all magic skills and passive mana regeneration, simply from having this pet. We'll just have to settle with the cutest follower NPC in the game.
With these tasks done, we return to The Pit and turn in the three advisor quests.
Kastore certainly doesn't seem shifty, does he? Turning in these quests means we can finally get the fourth advisor quest.
He doesn't care if we kill him. Cute. Like we'll have a choice. (I tried, stealing apparently doesn't work). Ohwell, an assassination mission, sounds simple enough seeing as I've cleared Celeste of the guards long ago.
It is indeed simple. A quick town portal, no guards around, we just need to find the right house and enter. Inside we find a rather agitated Robert the Wise.
Immune to mind, light and dark magics. This is not a foe we can shrapmetal to death. We can, however, pummel him to death, which is what we do. He can heal himself with Power Cure, and his attack can cause eradication if you fail to keep Protection from Magic running at all times, but apart from that he's simple to take down. It just takes a bit of patience.
Bee strikes the killing blow!
And we pick up the cube. For your convenience, here's also a screenshot of a blaster. Robert had a second one, so we now have two of them.
Though the blaster seems weak, the trick about it is that it causes unresistable energy damage, and it fires very fast. We give the two blasters to Bee and Storyfag, as they're our weakest melee hitters.
Here's a map of Roberts house.
Small. Only inhabited by Robert. You can supposedly run around like a scared rabbit if you decide he's too powerful for you, but that'd accomplish nothing, as he can heal himself. Not much to remark about the house.
At this point I realized that the history book had been updated after I turned in the advisor quests. Here's what our historian had to remark upon our progress.
I like the atmosphere the history book adds to the game. I found that I missed this from MMVI when I did the LP for that game. It's such a simple tool, but effective.
Now that we have killed the head advisor for our adversaries in Bracada, we can move to the finishing stretch. First though, we hand in the quest and read our history book.
We're destined for greatness indeed. Now, let's go see what Kastore wants done next.
I'm not sure about that last screenshot. Archibald has promised forces? Really? Why? Because we'll be able to rescue his brother once we enter the Devils' lair? I'm not sure it's explained, but that's the best I could come up with. I just wonder why the martial/confrontational faction of the necromancers is so reliant on the forces from the scientific branch, but whatever. Killing devils is something I will enjoy. In the next darksider update.
Here's what the mastery levels of the blaster skill buys you:
With grandmastery available at 10 skill level, that translates into a +50 to hit. Add to this the really good speed of the weapon, and you can quickly mow down any single target in real time. They won't have a chance to react. In turn based, it's a slightly different matter, but the weapon is still very effective.
Before I end this update, I thought I'd show you the quick ref sheet.
I don't know why Bee has a level on everyone else. I guess she's just awesome somehow. Or maybe she has some +learning item equipped.
Oh, and feel free to be impressed by Kayerts hitpoint pool.
Here's a look at the quest book.
That annoying bounty quest.. And we need to kill some griffins, just because. We have no need for the gold. But it'll piss off our enemies in Erathia and Bracada, that should be reason enough.
Finally, we take a look at the skill charts for every character. Lightbane first:
I've chosen to focus on the mace skill, simply because paralyzing opponents is pretty overpowered. 20% chance for each and every hit. That's just nasty.
Kayerts:
19% chance of evading every attack aimed at him, combined with his bloated hp pool makes Kayerts a proper tank!
Storyfag:
Dark magic. I don't believe I need to explain why?
Crooked Bee:
Again, dark magic rules. Bee also has an item that gives her a 50% boost to her dark magic skill, making it even more impressive. For enemies not immune to dark magic, this means we can mow them down with impunity.
Seriously, they were a pushover for the lightside group, and when they appeared in my darkside playthrough, my party was 20 levels higher than the lightsiders had been..
With that out of the way, let's see about progressing a bit in the storyline, shall we?
Last time we checked in on our darksiders, Archibald Ironfist had asked us to see his advisors for some special quests, so that's where we're headed.
So those are the advisor quests. Or three out of four. Seems we'll need to do those three first, then the fourth. These advisors have a hard time trusting someone, don't they?
Well, they must have their reasons.I'm amused by the last one. We need to fetch an item from the Temple of Darkness, but we're allowed to kill any and all guardians, just for fun!
I knew there had to be perks to being on the dark path.The quests themselves are rather straightforward, clearing 4 dungeons in total, to find 3 things. Before we leave The Pit though, there's something I want to show you. Black potions first:
In MMVI, quaffing a black potion would raise one stat while lowering another. Not so for MMVII. Here they boost one stat and have no drawbacks, except you can only get the benefit for each type once. So basically, we can get +50 to all stats, if we spawncamp the apothecaries that carry them enough. It'd be stupid not to, as it represents a rather minor investment in time.
Another thing I believe I mentioned was that most screens are animated. That goes for screens inside houses, the screens that pop up when you are about to enter a dungeon and the like. Here are two examples, both town houses from The Pit. I've taken three screenshots of each, to give you the general idea. Most of these screens have tiny sound loops as well, very atmospheric.
Cozy, aren't they?
Enough dilly-dallying. We have 9 dungeons to clear in this update, so I'd better get cracking!
First up is the Temple of the Darkness.
The Temple offers healing at the entrance, which is handy if you need it. The temple shouldn't be too difficult at this point in the game however, and using town portal to go to our own temple inside Harmondale castle is much cheaper. But I like the possibility.
We don't go far inside the temple before a guard grumpily tells us not to stray...
Remembering what Kastore told us, we're free to ignore this guard, kill whomever is the temple, loot it for all it's worth and noone will blame us.
So that's what we proceed to do. It's guarded by Priests of Darkness, which we've covered in a previous update, and Vampires, the three tiers of which I've screencapped below:
It's been a month, so I don't remember if they had any specifically nasty tricks up their sleeves, but I remember them as beefy melee monsters and not much more. Having the pain reflection spell running does wonders for taking down heavy-hitting monsters.
Inside the temple, I get a nice surprise as a seemingly normal chest yields an artifact!
Pre-enchanted with cold damage and a nice +to hit and damage.
The altar-piece we're looking for is hidden beneath the altar. Where else would it be? Manipulating the altar makes it move a bit, and a chest is revealed beneath:
That's half of one quest done. The map of the temple is here:
The blue crosses are the points that when you cross them, the guards turn hostile. 1 denotes the altar with the piece beneath.
An easy dungeon at this point, especially considering that you can just run out and get healed by the priests of the very same temple.
Still, as Kastore said, killing the guards was good fun. There are still two promotion quests we have yet to complete. The bounty hunt quest, and the quest for the dragon egg. The bounty hunt quest is highly dependent on the RNG. If you're lucky, bounties will spawn for creatures that are powerful but within your reach, making for a larger profit. If you're unlucky though, you'll get a bounty for, say, a giant rat, and after collecting it, you'll need to wait another month for a new bounty at that town hall.
Turns out that two town halls offer bounties that pay OKish and are easy to complete.
That's 4200 gold closer to the 10000 total needed.
We won't actually be completing this promotion quest in this update..
The gold award alone makes it worthwhile to complete the quest, regardless of the fact that actually playing the arcomage game is also rather fun.
Having tied up that loose end, we continue on our quest to assemple the whole altar piece and town portal to Celeste. Once there, we enter the Temple of the Light. We take the opportunity to get our mana restored by choosing the heal option first though.
The temple of light is defended by angels, priests of light and monks. The angels are quite annoying as their first tier incarnation can cast dispel magic, nulling all buffs immediately.. This makes them the top targeting priority.
Lucky for our darksiders, even the beefiest angel mob only sports 700hp, and their annoying first tier mob has a measly 180hps. They go down quick enough.
I've also got pics of the monks, as I were unsure if I'd caught them all earlier.
Didn't cap the first tier 'monk', but they are rather unremarkable. The master has a measly total of 153 hps.. Fodder.
Of note in this temple is the vistas. They can be impressive. When they built it, it seems they decided they didn't need a roof.
And they managed to fit some rather deep rooms as well. This temple also holds a puzzle, though in keeping with the other puzzle dungeons of MMVII, you can find a clue to the solution in the very same dungeon.
Sun in the west...
Moon in the north...
And stars in the east...
All that remains is to touch the altar.
And a secret door opens to a room with a few chests, one of them holding the piece we were seeking.
The reason we're off collecting these altar pieces will become clear later. For now, let's take a look at the layout of the dungeon.
1. This is where you find the "torn scroll" with the clues to the puzzle.
2. Touch the sun symbol
3. Touch the moon symbol
4. Touch the star symbol
5. Finally fondle the altar
6. And loot the chests!
This dungeon I'd rate higher in difficulty, purely because of the dispel casting angels. If you're not paying attention, having suddenly lost all buffs can be quite a nasty surprise. At this point in the game, you'll be having regeneration up at all times, and depending on what path you're following, either pain reflection or HoP/DoP/DotG. Loosing those is nasty.
Still, it's not too difficult, and I liked the layout.
That's one advisor quest down, two more to go. Next stop is Clanker's Laboratory.
This lab is supposedly a place where magical artifacts are made and then sold from, but it seems the shopkeepers have all left and there's nothing but a lot of guards and some loot. The guards consists of golems and floating eye type monsters.
The golems are annoying in that they explode upon death, causing damage to the whole party if within melee range, but the eyes are much less annoying than they were in MMVI. They can't cast dispel magic anymore! Much, much less annoying.
The place does have its charm. It holds a stable of the secret door trope:
"Push the right book in the bookcase to open the door"
And it holds a named piece of equipment for the hoarder.
The amulet is really not useful to us though, as we don't make our own potions. If we had a druid, it might be different. But honestly, I never really bothered with alchemy in MMVII.
In another chest we found another piece of equipment that might actually see some use.
+15 to learning skill translates directly into +15% to all experience earned.
At the end of this update though, you'll see why this isn't as necessary as one might first assume. Our reason for coming to this lab though, was to disable the "teleport shield". I didn't test if it actually prevented Lloyd's Beacon and Town Portal from working, but manipulating this altar-looking device seems to satisfy the requirements.
And with that, Clanker's Lab is cleared and finished.
1. Bookcase with "cleverly" hidden secret door lever
2. Teleport shield controls
3. Laboratories with lots of alchemy ingredients free for looting.
4. Fountain that supposedly poisons active character, if you're careless enough to not have Protection from Magic up.
Very straightforward and easy this dungeon, easier than I remembered. Maybe because last time I played, I cleared this place on my first visit to Avlee, instead of waiting until I actually received a quest to go here. I don't know.. It was simple enough for our darksiders in any case.
That's two out of three advisor quests done. We also had some secondary quests in our logbook though, so I decided to go to Nighon next, to first deal with one of these secondary quests, then tackle the third advisor quest afterwards.
While in Nighon we killed some local wildlife.
The chaos hydra is the real threat here, as it's ranged attack deals energy damage, against which there is no defense. They're top priority. Though, as dark siders, we have pain reflection up at all times, which means that whatever damage gets dealt to us, is returned point for point, no resistance counted.
So even the 20-100 energy damage the chaos hydra can deal isn't as frightening anymore, as long as the party has enough mana for healing.The first dungeon we enter here in Nighon is called The Maze.
No extra points for guessing what type of monster is most numerically present here.
The headsman can inflict insanity on attack. The lord can cause instant death, if you're not warded by Protection from Magic.. Add to this that they're rather beefy hp-wise, and pack a whallop, these monsters are actually a threat to our current party.
It's still not a dungeon we retreat from. By being careful and managing our mana supplies (ie, shrapmetalling only when the minotaur lords are not alone) we get through without suffering more than one casualty (Protection from Magic ran out, and Kayerts suffered an instant death attack, a tactical retreat followed by a raise dead remedied that). In the Maze we can find two quest items.
And that's it for that dungeon. It's interesting in that the monsters are placed with some care. You don't find minotaurs outside the maze part, and you don't find warlocks inside the maze part. You can find hydras both places though..
1. Chest with Angel Statuette
2. Chest with Haldor's remains
This was one of the most challenging dungeons in a long time due to the excessive amount of minotaurs! I liked this one. Don't actually recall if I'd cleared this ever in my previous playthroughs..
After clearing out the maze, the darksides venture into Thunderfist Mountains, an area they've previously moved through, largely while invisible however. With their newfound mastery of dark magic, the place is set to be cleared.
This place is inhabited by minotaurs in much lower numbers than the maze, by warlocks and by floating eyes. The warlocks are perhaps the easiest of the bunch.
In MMVI, they had an annoying insanity-causing attack. Not in MMVII. Here they simply deal elemental damage and can cast an elemental type damage spell. Rather straightforward and like all caster-type enemies, quite squishy in melee.
We've already covered the minotaurs and floating eye type of monsters, so I'll not go into further detail about them here. I did catch some amusing screenshots of their status-altering attacks, or rather our party when afflicted by them.
Everyone's frothing with insanity, even our mind-immune lich.
And what do you know, she can even be put to sleep, her pink eyes narrowing into tiny slits. D'awww...
Anyway, we're in this dungeon for two reasons.
This being one, the quest item for the third advisor quest.
This being the second. We can reach the Tunnels to Eofol from Thunderfist Mountain. These tunnels takes us to The Land of Giants, where our final promotion quest sees us.
First though, we take a closer look at the map of Thunderfist Mountain.
The place is riddled with entrances/exits.
1. is the entrance from the tunnels under Stone City
2. is the exit to the Tunnels to Eofol
3. is where the Soul Jars are kept
A large dungeon filled with dangerous creatures. Though, after clearing The Maze, this place felt a bit ... tame. Our party is not all-powerful, yet, but they are surely climbing that scale. Again, I cannot stress enough how a difference getting acess to dark/light magic makes. Or rather, getting access to the second tier promotions.. The dark magic is just a bonus. Light magic on the other hand... but we'll cover that in the next update.
I mean, I love shrapmetal and dragonbreath for the insane damage-output, but - I'm getting ahead of myself.The darksiders found themselves in the Tunnels to Eofol. Those tunnels are populated by two types of enemies. Medusae and Behemoths.
Protection from Magic nullifies the greates threat the medusae pose, so the challenging monsters here are the behemoths. And these tunnels are made for sniping large creatures..
The tunnels are uninteresting apart from the monsters, so we quickly skip to the exit.
Immediately upon exiting though, we receive an important message:
Seems our advisors have disposed their ruler and inserted themselves. Who knew Archie was such a softie after all?
The weapon he talks about is a blaster. You'll recognise it from MMVI. We don't have the skill to use it yet though.Let's take a look at the map of the tunnels before we proceed.
Long, twisted corridors packed with monsters. This place is made so you need to fight your way past the monsters. Here, you can't simply cast invisibility and run past. Aside from that fact, the place is rather unremarkable. And after clearing The Maze, well. This place was easy, though we did have one time where Lightbane was stoned as Protection from Magic ran out without me noticing.
Aside from that, no hiccups.Now that we've reached the Land of Giants, we can break the game. First though, we stumble upon a sign that warns us without words, that we're in a dangerous place..
Atmospheric and cute.
In the minimap you can see a house almost immediately north of the group. The grandmaster armsmaster trainer lives there, but what is more interesting is the wishing well just outside his house. For some reason, I did not take a screenshot at the well itself, but these two pictures can begin to explain why this well can break the game for you.
We haven't moved at all. We haven't trained, killed more monsters or anything. We've simply clicked enough times on the wishing well, and some times, you're granted skillpoints upon activation of the well.
You run the risk of triggering an eradication/kill attack when using the well, but that attack is nullified by grandmaster Protection from Magic... Meaning, as long as you are mindful to keep that spell up at all times, you can milk this location for infinite skillpoints...
At this point the game is almost done, but still... It's clearly intentional that they left this thing here. It certainly saves you from grinding monsters, if you find you're having trouble. But if you're having trouble, you're clearly doing something wrong.. Ohwell. We milk this cow a bit, but for less than 100 skillpoints per partymember. Just enough to get the most important skills up past 10.
Leaving the well behind, we start to turn in quests. First off a secondary quest in Nighon.
A lich saved and 35000 gold richer.
I admit I was a bit disappointed with the reward from this quest. 50K gold is good, but considering the effort put into finding the statues and then running around placing them, I felt it was a bit cheap. But I'll take it, gold is good, even if we're running out of stuff to spend it on. M:
Well, having cleared the questbook of those two secondaries, we return to the Land of Giants. Can anyone guess why it has that name?
...
Yep, you guessed it, Titans!
We still need to finish the warlock promotion quest (druid line), and for that we need to find a dragon egg somewhere in this part of the world.
It should come as no surprise that these caves are inhabited by dragons. Seeing as I milked the well for skillpoints enough to make Bee a grandmaster at monster identification, we can now get the full rundown on their stats:
Impressive beasts they are. They're relatively few inside the dungeon though, so they are easily dispatched. And we find what we're looking for...
We actually found two eggs, not sure if this is important or not.
There are two dragon cave entrances here in the Land of Giants, so we enter the other one as well.
Inside we find a named dragon.
That, aside from the name, is totally indistinguishable from a normal red dragon, and when killed, the game also reports it as such.
to Kayerts for laying the big nasty to rest.I'm pretty sure the loot from its body is random, but we got quite lucky and found this.
No drawbacks and a lot of advantages.
Though considering the mythology, one might assume the sandals would actually allow you to fly, and this is not the case here. I'm not complaining though, the other boosts make up for it by far. The tiny map of the dragon caves is here.
1. Dragon eggs
2. Mega-Dragon
Inhabited by dragons. Not much more to say. M:
With the egg in hand, we finally return to be recognised as honorary warlocks!
Isn't he cute?
Now, actual druids would receive a +3 boost to all magic skills and passive mana regeneration, simply from having this pet. We'll just have to settle with the cutest follower NPC in the game. With these tasks done, we return to The Pit and turn in the three advisor quests.
Kastore certainly doesn't seem shifty, does he?
Turning in these quests means we can finally get the fourth advisor quest.
He doesn't care if we kill him. Cute. Like we'll have a choice. (I tried, stealing apparently doesn't work). Ohwell, an assassination mission, sounds simple enough seeing as I've cleared Celeste of the guards long ago.
It is indeed simple. A quick town portal, no guards around, we just need to find the right house and enter. Inside we find a rather agitated Robert the Wise.
Immune to mind, light and dark magics. This is not a foe we can shrapmetal to death. We can, however, pummel him to death, which is what we do. He can heal himself with Power Cure, and his attack can cause eradication if you fail to keep Protection from Magic running at all times, but apart from that he's simple to take down. It just takes a bit of patience.
Bee strikes the killing blow!
And we pick up the cube. For your convenience, here's also a screenshot of a blaster. Robert had a second one, so we now have two of them.
Though the blaster seems weak, the trick about it is that it causes unresistable energy damage, and it fires very fast. We give the two blasters to Bee and Storyfag, as they're our weakest melee hitters.
Here's a map of Roberts house.
Small. Only inhabited by Robert. You can supposedly run around like a scared rabbit if you decide he's too powerful for you, but that'd accomplish nothing, as he can heal himself.
Not much to remark about the house.At this point I realized that the history book had been updated after I turned in the advisor quests. Here's what our historian had to remark upon our progress.
I like the atmosphere the history book adds to the game. I found that I missed this from MMVI when I did the LP for that game. It's such a simple tool, but effective.
Now that we have killed the head advisor for our adversaries in Bracada, we can move to the finishing stretch.
First though, we hand in the quest and read our history book.
We're destined for greatness indeed.
Now, let's go see what Kastore wants done next.
I'm not sure about that last screenshot. Archibald has promised forces? Really? Why? Because we'll be able to rescue his brother once we enter the Devils' lair? I'm not sure it's explained, but that's the best I could come up with. I just wonder why the martial/confrontational faction of the necromancers is so reliant on the forces from the scientific branch, but whatever. Killing devils is something I will enjoy. In the next darksider update.
Here's what the mastery levels of the blaster skill buys you:
With grandmastery available at 10 skill level, that translates into a +50 to hit. Add to this the really good speed of the weapon, and you can quickly mow down any single target in real time. They won't have a chance to react. In turn based, it's a slightly different matter, but the weapon is still very effective.
Before I end this update, I thought I'd show you the quick ref sheet.
I don't know why Bee has a level on everyone else. I guess she's just awesome somehow.
Or maybe she has some +learning item equipped.Oh, and feel free to be impressed by Kayerts hitpoint pool.
Here's a look at the quest book.
That annoying bounty quest.. And we need to kill some griffins, just because. We have no need for the gold. But it'll piss off our enemies in Erathia and Bracada, that should be reason enough.
Finally, we take a look at the skill charts for every character. Lightbane first:
I've chosen to focus on the mace skill, simply because paralyzing opponents is pretty overpowered.
20% chance for each and every hit. That's just nasty. Kayerts:
19% chance of evading every attack aimed at him, combined with his bloated hp pool makes Kayerts a proper tank!
Storyfag:
Dark magic.
I don't believe I need to explain why?Crooked Bee:
Again, dark magic rules. Bee also has an item that gives her a 50% boost to her dark magic skill, making it even more impressive. For enemies not immune to dark magic, this means we can mow them down with impunity.
I hope it was worth the wait. We'll soon be done.
I really appreciate the crown, makes me a proper d0rf lord
Also, the hammer. Looks much, much better than the later pic with the blaster pistol, but oh well.Will you be playing MMVIII after this?
Erebus
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2008
- Messages
- 4,847
Nice job !
It's definitely possible to steal the Cube of Power (it's what I did each time I played the game). It may take quite a few tries, though.
I've always found it a bit frustrating that you can't choose whether you'd like to support Archibald rather than his "advisors". Of course, it's likely that Archibald wouldn't offer us anywhere as good a deal, but not being given a choice doesn't feel logical. Lightsiders don't have the same problem, since their allies aren't stabbing each others in the back.
It's definitely possible to steal the Cube of Power (it's what I did each time I played the game). It may take quite a few tries, though.
I've always found it a bit frustrating that you can't choose whether you'd like to support Archibald rather than his "advisors". Of course, it's likely that Archibald wouldn't offer us anywhere as good a deal, but not being given a choice doesn't feel logical. Lightsiders don't have the same problem, since their allies aren't stabbing each others in the back.
Will you be playing MMVIII after this?
While I have bought the game recently on gog.com, I doubt I will be starting an LP of it anytime soon. For one thing, DaveO has already done a really good LP of it here, though it's a video LP. But another thing is that I'm slightly burnt out LP-wise and have a lot of games sitting on my harddrive, just waiting to be played.
I've also considered picking up where Bee left off her space-adventure LP, as I'd like to see where our professor ends up. But whether that actually becomes reality, I don't know yet. I do know that I initially planned to LP 6,7,8 and 9 of the MM series, and I might eventually complete this goal. But not likely right now.
Things might change however.
I also claimed I wouldn't LP UFO Extraterrestrials, and see where that got me. Thank you.
I did only try to steal it about 4 or 5 times before I decided to simply kill him instead. Felt that was less hassle. On the other hand, I've never really bothered to build up the steal skill, so I can't tell how effecient it is. I rather felt the skillpoints were better spent on weapon/spell skills.
And yes, the choices and consequences aren't legion in this game. There's the Mr Malwick proposal in the start, then you choose between light and dark, but that's pretty much it. There's a bit of backstabbing available just before making the light/dark choice, but most of that is of no consequence later. The only choice that bears any significance is who you turn over the Gryphonheart Trumpet to.
That does not mean the game's not enjoyable. Just don't expect many meaningful and world-changing choices. M:
DaveO
Erudite
- Joined
- May 30, 2007
- Messages
- 1,258
Thanks so much for mentioning my LP of MM8, as well as continuing your LP after your recent loss. I've been out of LP mode for quite some time, and I'm not sure when I'd return. I definitely want to finish the games that are not complete on my channel(especially Eternal Dagger), but I've been rarely active to try to keep myself off employer radar from Google searches.
When I actually do another M&M LP, it will probably be Swords of Xeen since there is no Codex LP. I could try MM9, but I'm not sure what enthusiasm people would have for it.
When I actually do another M&M LP, it will probably be Swords of Xeen since there is no Codex LP. I could try MM9, but I'm not sure what enthusiasm people would have for it.
I know. I'm a bad person. I'd like to say that I've been busy, and while this is true, I've also been a lazy bugger who should have updated this LP instead of playing Warlock.
I promise, I will get around to it. I have all the screenshots ready, just need to upload them and write the commentary, which shouldn't be too much work, seeing as the light-sider update bears many similarities with the dark-sider one just up above.
Once that update is done, I think there will be just a single update left before the LP is concluded, as we're very close to finishing up. So the final update will feature light- and darksiders in a happy confusion, not unlike the first update in this LP. Whether I actually finish the LP before I bugger off for a short vacation come this weekend, I do not know.
I hope to have the next update up before thursday.
I promise, I will get around to it. I have all the screenshots ready, just need to upload them and write the commentary, which shouldn't be too much work, seeing as the light-sider update bears many similarities with the dark-sider one just up above.
Once that update is done, I think there will be just a single update left before the LP is concluded, as we're very close to finishing up. So the final update will feature light- and darksiders in a happy confusion, not unlike the first update in this LP. Whether I actually finish the LP before I bugger off for a short vacation come this weekend, I do not know.
I hope to have the next update up before thursday.
Redlands
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2008
- Messages
- 983
Probably a good idea; that's the Codex holy day.
Alright then, let's get this show moving. I've been postponing this for far too long with no proper excuses.
This is the second-to-last update in the LP, and the one following this one should see the game to its conclusion, for both lightsiders and darksiders. But first, we need to get the lightsiders to the same point the darksiders stopped in the last update.
I hope the next update will be up sooner than this one. On the plus side, I start my vacation on friday, on the negative side, the first 5 days I will be out of the house, meaning the computer that I have the game installed on will not be available, and I'm currently feeling far too lazy to install it on my laptop.
There still should only be the one update left, and I don't foresee the need to play much to get it done. So hopefully it will be up next week.
This is the second-to-last update in the LP, and the one following this one should see the game to its conclusion, for both lightsiders and darksiders. But first, we need to get the lightsiders to the same point the darksiders stopped in the last update.
First off, we pick up the first three quests the advisors give us.
So, one quest is completely the same, one is very similar in it has the same quest item, and the last quest is different. The two paths in this game are remarkably similar, but I feel the light path is easier, by virtue of the spells being more useful. More on this later.
For now, we need to collect some altar pieces, muck up the soul jar operation in the Pit and kill some vampires.
We start with the closest objective, the altar piece in Celeste's Temple of Light.
Resurectra asked us not to harm the Temple's guards, and being goody-two-shoes, we acquiesce. The lightsiders don't really need the xp from the temple when compared to the darksiders, as the guards inside the Pit are far more numerous and worth much more xp than the guards in Celeste. Therefore I feel pretty confident about leaving these guards alone.
After Celeste, we hop off to Tatalia to examine the rumours about vampires.
It doesn't take much snooping around to find a house with a cellar..
The wine cellar is located in Tatalia, and as such might be targeted at less experienced groups. The fact of the matter is that it's populated by a not too fearsome array of monsters, including ghosts, bats, necromancers and a few vampires.
The Speaker for the Dead is the most dangerous of the bunch, meaning it's more or less a pushover at this point.
I'll just proceed directly to the map of the place.
As should be apparent, the cellar is a small location, and doesn't have the room for very many monsters. The room with the sarcofagi holds a tiny trap, in that when you manipulate one of the doors at either end of the room, the opposite door opens. That might surprise the unwary spelunker, but not us.
Completing the quest objective is as simple as clearing this dungeon, so we proceed towards the final two quest objectives the advisors put to us. This takes us to The Pit..
You've seen this map before, yes? I repeat it here to give you an idea of the size of this place. Easily double the size of Celeste, and holding many and more guards. It is handily broken into four seperate parts however, making it possible to escape and rest, should you need to. We didn't.
The guards consists of a few handfuls of Vampires and a lot of necromancers and liches.
Queens of the Dead are annoying and highly dangerous. They can buff themselves with Pain Reflection which is annoying, but not too dangerous, and they can cast Dragon Breath which can decimate a poorly prepared party.. So you need to be careful around them. If you're lucky, you might be able to hit them with the Paralyze spell:
This is effectively an I-Win button. It doesn't work every time though. For the liches, lightsiders have an advantage in the Destroy Undead spell. It's cheap and highly damaging.
The Lich King has the same spells as the Queen of the Dead. But they have less hitpoints (280 compared to 400) and are targetable by the Destroy Undead spell as mentioned above. Two or three castings of the spell is usually enough to kill them.
To sum it up, take out the Queens ASAP. The other mobs are dangerous as well, but they're by far the greatest threat. By being a bit careful however, the lightsiders manage to clear out the Pit, and move on to the Temple of the Dark.
No relics or artifacts were found by the lightsiders, so I don't have any additional comments when compared to the darksider run.
For the final part of our visit to The Pit, we need to go into the headquarters of the enemy:
The guards in this place consist of vampires and necromancers. So the same procedure which worked in The Pit, works in here.
1. is teleporting boats! Yep. Jump in one, touch the steering pin, and you're teleported to the next boat in the line. Don't know how they made wooden boats work on lava, but it sure is handy..
2. is the throne room. They seem to lock the door when uninvited visitors knock...
3. is the chest where the soul jars are located
4. is where the tapestry Mr Stanton wants you to steal, hangs
For our lightsiders, the tapestry isn't interactable, so we leave it hanging.
Having retrieved the case of Soul Jars, our job in the pit is done. We do however, have some sidequests as well we might as well take care of, just as the darksiders did.
So we port to Nighon and go find The Maze.
Same as for the darksiders, minotaurs are daunting foes due to the massive damage they can deal, but the lightsiders have an easier time making it through here due to the HoP, DotG and DoP spells. In the end of the update, when I post the quick reference sheet, you will also see that Cappen is an absolute beast in close combat, which clearly helps as well.
Having navigated the Maze, our lightsiders set out to clear Thunderfist Mountain.
Just for fun, I check if the case of Soul Jars that the darksiders had to collect is also available for the lightsiders..
Ayup! We only need to turn in one of them, the other stays in our inventory. I imagine the lightsiders keep it around simply to troll any sorcerers with lich ambitions.
Anyway, the reason for entering the tunnels is to clear the way to the Land of Giants.
It seems TheGreat0ldOne is salivating at the thought of entering the tunnels, and who are we to deny him?
Not going to repost what I had to say in the last update. The tunnels are even simpler when you have the light-magic buffs.
In the Land of Giants, we of course pay a short visit to the Wishing Well of Game Breaking, so the Id Monster skill gets to maximum level, then we visit the dragon caves.
I make the visit to see if the dragon eggs are also here, and they are indeed. It seems the quest items are all generated before you make the choice between light and dark, which would make sense, sort of. Why shouldn't the light-side crew be able to find dragon eggs? Thing is, they have no use for them, except for LARPy reasons, so I imagine Mrowak has taken one of the eggs for his own and is trying to hatch it using his own body heat.
Now all that remains is to run some errands and turn in some quests. First up is the statue quest.
Then we visit Mazim Dusk to turn in Haldar's remanis.
And finally, we return to Celeste to turn in the quests we ran for the Advisors.
After turning the quests in, I noticed that speaking with the advisors again afterwards, they had some comments for us for completing their quests.
Nice touch. I like these small things and how they add a sense of life to the game.
We're not done with the advisor quests yet though. We need to complete the fourth.
No surprise, this is another assassination quest, complete mirror to the dark side one. Even down to the layout of the house in question.
Before our return to The Pit, we peruse the history book, as recent events will undoubtedly have been chronicled.
The history updates look similar to the ones in the darkside part of the game, but the wording is slightly different, changing the mood and feel to the game. I like how it's handled, you're not overtly Evil just because you're following the darkside path, but you are ruthless and ambitious, whereas the lightsiders seem more hippie-like, but still pragmatic. See Roberts comment about killing Tolberti being "O.K. too".
Slightly squeamish, but willing to get the job done.
I've always found the Lawful Good stereotype paladin goody-two-shoes sentiment idiotic, when interpretated in a way that you cannot kill goblin children for instance, because that would be EVIL, while ignoring the fact that all goblins you encounter during the average D&D game are bent on your destruction. It would make more sense to purge this Shitstain of Evil from the land, but then again, I don't think my current PnP group would let me do the Extreme Paladin, though I would find him incredibly amusing to play. M:
Anyways, back on track. We got a mission to get a cube, and just like in the darksider update, I aim to kill.
Again, the Small House is aptly named, as the dungeon is, indeed, small. Tolberti is easy to find.
Fortunately, our lightsiders include a knight that has trained his Armsmaster skill, and that combined with the powerful light buffs mean we can do damage like this:
Our thief lands the killing blow. Daggers can cause triple damage, if you have master training.
We pick up the cube and return to Robert.
As with all plotadvancing quest completions, we Updated our Journal, so let's see what has been written:
No mention of the actual assassination, if you disregard the headline. Instead, we get treated to some plot-exposition. If Archibald hadn't already contacted us when we exited the Tunnels to Eofol, these news might even have been surprising. As to whether Archy will be willing to settle for peace, time will tell.
Time to pick up the final quest in this update!
"we don't want the Necromancers to grow bored waiting for us"..
Yeah, well, it's the same quest the darksiders got, and from here on out the quests play out exactly the same. The difference being the ending movies, which I hope to present to you soon. And as to the devils being more resistant to light magic than dark magic, that is not true. It matters little however, as dark magic holds more direct damage spells, and light magic holds utility and buffing spells, but maybe that's what she meant? Anyhoo, the most direct approach is often the best, so we'll most likely be running straight up to the devils and bashing them over the head. The only enemies that doesn't work against is the oozes.
Finally, we'll take a look at the quick reference chart
Killing all those guards in The Pit means the lightsiders have a few levels on the darksiders, but it shouldn't make a huge difference. Of note however, is the hitpoint total and damage potential of Cappen.. That's some serious smackdown!
Which cues his skill sheet:
Grandmastery of the Armsmaster skill, which is even boosted by a massive +17 (enchantment on his plate) means he adds +72 to hit and damage with melee weapons. Any further skillpoints will go to pumping Armsmaster to even greater levels.
Cappen's not alone however, he's backed up by three equally important party members, TheGreat0ldOne first:
He's also building Armsmaster now, though he "only" has it at master level. It's still pretty damned good.
Erebus is focusing on light magic now. I had him build body to 16, because that means he has a total skill of 24 when factoring in a ring he picked up earlier. Why is this important? It means the regeneration spell lasts 24 hours, which is rather useful.
Fire and light magic are Mrowaks focus areas. Light magic will not be boosted any higher, as it doesn't hold as many direct damage spells as fire magic does. I did decide to build it to 20 for some reason that currently eludes me. Oh, and him and Erebus were the recipient of the blasters, as their melee output were the most disappointing ones.
So, one quest is completely the same, one is very similar in it has the same quest item, and the last quest is different. The two paths in this game are remarkably similar, but I feel the light path is easier, by virtue of the spells being more useful. More on this later.
For now, we need to collect some altar pieces, muck up the soul jar operation in the Pit and kill some vampires.
We start with the closest objective, the altar piece in Celeste's Temple of Light.
Resurectra asked us not to harm the Temple's guards, and being goody-two-shoes, we acquiesce. The lightsiders don't really need the xp from the temple when compared to the darksiders, as the guards inside the Pit are far more numerous and worth much more xp than the guards in Celeste. Therefore I feel pretty confident about leaving these guards alone.
After Celeste, we hop off to Tatalia to examine the rumours about vampires.
It doesn't take much snooping around to find a house with a cellar..
The wine cellar is located in Tatalia, and as such might be targeted at less experienced groups. The fact of the matter is that it's populated by a not too fearsome array of monsters, including ghosts, bats, necromancers and a few vampires.
The Speaker for the Dead is the most dangerous of the bunch, meaning it's more or less a pushover at this point.
I'll just proceed directly to the map of the place.
As should be apparent, the cellar is a small location, and doesn't have the room for very many monsters. The room with the sarcofagi holds a tiny trap, in that when you manipulate one of the doors at either end of the room, the opposite door opens. That might surprise the unwary spelunker, but not us.
Completing the quest objective is as simple as clearing this dungeon, so we proceed towards the final two quest objectives the advisors put to us. This takes us to The Pit..
You've seen this map before, yes? I repeat it here to give you an idea of the size of this place. Easily double the size of Celeste, and holding many and more guards. It is handily broken into four seperate parts however, making it possible to escape and rest, should you need to. We didn't.
The guards consists of a few handfuls of Vampires and a lot of necromancers and liches.
Queens of the Dead are annoying and highly dangerous. They can buff themselves with Pain Reflection which is annoying, but not too dangerous, and they can cast Dragon Breath which can decimate a poorly prepared party.. So you need to be careful around them. If you're lucky, you might be able to hit them with the Paralyze spell:
This is effectively an I-Win button.
It doesn't work every time though. For the liches, lightsiders have an advantage in the Destroy Undead spell. It's cheap and highly damaging.
The Lich King has the same spells as the Queen of the Dead. But they have less hitpoints (280 compared to 400) and are targetable by the Destroy Undead spell as mentioned above. Two or three castings of the spell is usually enough to kill them.
To sum it up, take out the Queens ASAP. The other mobs are dangerous as well, but they're by far the greatest threat. By being a bit careful however, the lightsiders manage to clear out the Pit, and move on to the Temple of the Dark.
No relics or artifacts were found by the lightsiders, so I don't have any additional comments when compared to the darksider run.
For the final part of our visit to The Pit, we need to go into the headquarters of the enemy:
The guards in this place consist of vampires and necromancers. So the same procedure which worked in The Pit, works in here.
1. is teleporting boats! Yep. Jump in one, touch the steering pin, and you're teleported to the next boat in the line. Don't know how they made wooden boats work on lava, but it sure is handy..
2. is the throne room. They seem to lock the door when uninvited visitors knock...
3. is the chest where the soul jars are located
4. is where the tapestry Mr Stanton wants you to steal, hangs
For our lightsiders, the tapestry isn't interactable, so we leave it hanging.
Having retrieved the case of Soul Jars, our job in the pit is done. We do however, have some sidequests as well we might as well take care of, just as the darksiders did.
So we port to Nighon and go find The Maze.
Same as for the darksiders, minotaurs are daunting foes due to the massive damage they can deal, but the lightsiders have an easier time making it through here due to the HoP, DotG and DoP spells. In the end of the update, when I post the quick reference sheet, you will also see that Cappen is an absolute beast in close combat, which clearly helps as well.
Having navigated the Maze, our lightsiders set out to clear Thunderfist Mountain.
Just for fun, I check if the case of Soul Jars that the darksiders had to collect is also available for the lightsiders..
Ayup! We only need to turn in one of them, the other stays in our inventory. I imagine the lightsiders keep it around simply to troll any sorcerers with lich ambitions.
Anyway, the reason for entering the tunnels is to clear the way to the Land of Giants.
It seems TheGreat0ldOne is salivating at the thought of entering the tunnels, and who are we to deny him?
Not going to repost what I had to say in the last update. The tunnels are even simpler when you have the light-magic buffs.
In the Land of Giants, we of course pay a short visit to the Wishing Well of Game Breaking, so the Id Monster skill gets to maximum level, then we visit the dragon caves.
I make the visit to see if the dragon eggs are also here, and they are indeed. It seems the quest items are all generated before you make the choice between light and dark, which would make sense, sort of. Why shouldn't the light-side crew be able to find dragon eggs? Thing is, they have no use for them, except for LARPy reasons, so I imagine Mrowak has taken one of the eggs for his own and is trying to hatch it using his own body heat.
Now all that remains is to run some errands and turn in some quests. First up is the statue quest.
Then we visit Mazim Dusk to turn in Haldar's remanis.
And finally, we return to Celeste to turn in the quests we ran for the Advisors.
After turning the quests in, I noticed that speaking with the advisors again afterwards, they had some comments for us for completing their quests.
Nice touch.
I like these small things and how they add a sense of life to the game.We're not done with the advisor quests yet though. We need to complete the fourth.
No surprise, this is another assassination quest, complete mirror to the dark side one. Even down to the layout of the house in question.
Before our return to The Pit, we peruse the history book, as recent events will undoubtedly have been chronicled.
The history updates look similar to the ones in the darkside part of the game, but the wording is slightly different, changing the mood and feel to the game. I like how it's handled, you're not overtly Evil just because you're following the darkside path, but you are ruthless and ambitious, whereas the lightsiders seem more hippie-like, but still pragmatic. See Roberts comment about killing Tolberti being "O.K. too".
Slightly squeamish, but willing to get the job done.
I've always found the Lawful Good stereotype paladin goody-two-shoes sentiment idiotic, when interpretated in a way that you cannot kill goblin children for instance, because that would be EVIL, while ignoring the fact that all goblins you encounter during the average D&D game are bent on your destruction. It would make more sense to purge this Shitstain of Evil from the land, but then again, I don't think my current PnP group would let me do the Extreme Paladin, though I would find him incredibly amusing to play. M:
Anyways, back on track. We got a mission to get a cube, and just like in the darksider update, I aim to kill.
Again, the Small House is aptly named, as the dungeon is, indeed, small. Tolberti is easy to find.
Fortunately, our lightsiders include a knight that has trained his Armsmaster skill, and that combined with the powerful light buffs mean we can do damage like this:
Our thief lands the killing blow. Daggers can cause triple damage, if you have master training.
We pick up the cube and return to Robert.
As with all plotadvancing quest completions, we Updated our Journal, so let's see what has been written:
No mention of the actual assassination, if you disregard the headline. Instead, we get treated to some plot-exposition. If Archibald hadn't already contacted us when we exited the Tunnels to Eofol, these news might even have been surprising. As to whether Archy will be willing to settle for peace, time will tell.
Time to pick up the final quest in this update!
"we don't want the Necromancers to grow bored waiting for us"..Yeah, well, it's the same quest the darksiders got, and from here on out the quests play out exactly the same. The difference being the ending movies, which I hope to present to you soon.
And as to the devils being more resistant to light magic than dark magic, that is not true. It matters little however, as dark magic holds more direct damage spells, and light magic holds utility and buffing spells, but maybe that's what she meant? Anyhoo, the most direct approach is often the best, so we'll most likely be running straight up to the devils and bashing them over the head. The only enemies that doesn't work against is the oozes.Finally, we'll take a look at the quick reference chart
Killing all those guards in The Pit means the lightsiders have a few levels on the darksiders, but it shouldn't make a huge difference. Of note however, is the hitpoint total and damage potential of Cappen.. That's some serious smackdown!
Which cues his skill sheet:
Grandmastery of the Armsmaster skill, which is even boosted by a massive +17 (enchantment on his plate) means he adds +72 to hit and damage with melee weapons.
Any further skillpoints will go to pumping Armsmaster to even greater levels.Cappen's not alone however, he's backed up by three equally important party members, TheGreat0ldOne first:
He's also building Armsmaster now, though he "only" has it at master level.
It's still pretty damned good.
Erebus is focusing on light magic now. I had him build body to 16, because that means he has a total skill of 24 when factoring in a ring he picked up earlier. Why is this important? It means the regeneration spell lasts 24 hours, which is rather useful.
Fire and light magic are Mrowaks focus areas. Light magic will not be boosted any higher, as it doesn't hold as many direct damage spells as fire magic does. I did decide to build it to 20 for some reason that currently eludes me. Oh, and him and Erebus were the recipient of the blasters, as their melee output were the most disappointing ones.
There still should only be the one update left, and I don't foresee the need to play much to get it done. So hopefully it will be up next week.
I imagine you're a horrible LARPer :DAzira said:
I imagine you're right.
Just look at his avatar 
I was one sexy d0rf in that game. You should've seen my golden-shoe dance...
You should've seen my golden-shoe dance...
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,559
Then Pathfinder is the answer for all of your troubles. Here Paladins "only" have to follow a Code of Honor (no lying, no cheating, etc.), but exterminating a whole race of evil-doers is OK for them (unless one of them tries to surrender, but that's another problem)
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