I'm thorougly enjoying Arx Fatalis at the moment and are just about to get into the thick of the Akbaa temple, but before I do, I have a rather menacing query lurking in the back of my characters subconscious:

Am I able to slaughter all of the goblins with bloody merry abandonment without losing any potential xp or creating a 'show stopper' in damaging the game in any way?

I hope to have already finished most of the quests where dealing with these sneaky slimy villains is necessary. I've already used stealth to greedily nick their entire cache of gold/gems, leaving only the last two chests which I'm sure Alotar has the keys to. I'm playing mainly a fighter type, but with some 'all round' abilities aswell to keep it challenging.

I think my character has heard the phrase "I'm an important guard for King Alotar ...stupid human" one too many times - although it still makes me laugh to hear it. Every time a repressed memory returns from what they did to my character as a prisoner, a heightened snarl ensues, a growing bloodlust for a complete rout of the Goblin City! :D

So is it ok? Can I kill them? Can I can I? :D

The game's ambience is very immersive and my skin veritably crawled on level four when I first encountered the slow moving cultists. My only complaints so far would be the lacklustre automap (inability write on it, as in the Ultima Underworlds, the games which Arx pays homage to on more than one ocassion.) and also the lack of choices in dialogue - the cutscenes are effective, but do take away some of the freedom in roleplaying. [img]smile.gif[/img] Otherwise, very good so far!

Cheers,
Cerebrodragon

Damn it, you! Because of YOU I installed Arx again, and now I'm hooked AGAIN! Bah! Now I'm staying up late at night, killing monsters, and loving it.

Dang it! Thanks! :D :D

Arx ROCKS! I wish they released an editor with it, I'd make new levels!!! Arx 2 is in the works BTW. I can't WAIT!

Err, sure, no worries Ziroc....(I think...) [img]graemlins/knightsmile.gif[/img]

Since no-one responded to my query, I shamefully took the brazen risk of adopting the policy of evisceration upon every goblin on sight. :D
Its worked so far, at least for the fun factor rather than the more avatarly one ;)

Hacking up King Alotar whilst on the toilet has to go down as one of the funniest cold-blooded murders I've ever indulged myself with. :D

Needless to say though I got my own healthy serving of FEAR on level 8....
The encounter with the black beast and a couple of roof dropping spiders were absolutely terrifying. :D

"Ug, me tough." - Guard in Jhelom from Ultima IV.

Such a joyful barbaric expression of strength took new meaning for me this evening when I finally killed a Yliside for the very first time! Huzzah! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'd previously tried numerous times but had been mashed to tiny bits due to poor strategy and to put it simply, the Ylsides penchant for some unknown performance enhanching drugs. (speed? the arx equivalent of caffeine? hmm)
Anyhow, here's how I did it:

I first cast bless and speed and went toe to toe with the my slayer blade. After lucking out with two or three double damage slashes, I try to hide from my prey and to heal. With barely enough time and space to do anything, I then cast levitate, going up on top of one of the rocks above my assailant. Then like a wimpering coward I used 3 mana potions up on trying to scorch him with fire spells. :D After this, the Yliside was still alive!
So I gathered the courage to fall down and with one fateful groaning slash, it fell!

I was victorious! [img]graemlins/knightsmile.gif[/img]
A minor victory, I'm sure, but it sure felt good to see!

Cheers,
Cerebrodragon

I forget, what keyboard key moves you UP and DOWN when you activate the LEVITATION spell?

BTW, where the human fort that was attacked, up on the rock face looking out of the fort, you can see a glowing object (A great magical ring) I used Telekinesis and grabbed it and something else I think.. maybe a rune? I forget. But the ring is awesome.

killng all the goblins will give you a net loss in experience.
u
you can actually kill every man woman and child in the game you see but you will miss out on quests. the experience is in quests not in killing things

On the contrary, I think killing things and doing quests both gain xp to some degree, however I do use discretion and only kill who I believe is justified from the view of my interpretation of the character. [img]smile.gif[/img]
As long as the game isn't damaged or ended in any way due to my maiming of goblin-kind I don't see a problem with my choices.

Ziroc - I was going to ask this aswell about levitation! :D So far I have persevered with just using the W key. When I did the dragon Ice Caverns near Greu, I just moved forward alot with W and the momentum seemed to have the desired effect. :D

I know there's still ledges on level 4 I haven't reached yet however, as I can't seem to find the right place to start jumping. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Tonight, I'm going to try taking out Akbaa! If I'm not succesful or find it too hard, I'll try to find some more light devices and finish up the Crypt properly. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Unfortunately, it's a levitation spell, not a fly spell. So if you want to go up and down, you've got to find something to run into that will lift you up. It is a royal pain in the keister....

Aside from the loss of quests, the game doesn't penalize you for slaughtering everyone in it. At least, not really. If you kill an NPC in an area, everyone else in that area may get mad and attack you, thereby expanding the amount of killing you need to do.

I'm playing my second character ('cause the first died miserably at the hands of an Ylside). I gotta tell ya... there's a lot of satisfaction involved in watching an Ylside crumple to the ground after getting one of Smarties' fireballs in his face :D I'm running at a rate of one fireball per Ylside... cleaned out the human city and castle before I went to the prisons to have Kultar "help" me. Still, at 500XP apiece, I like Ylsides... :D

I think my next run through will be with a rogue. It's frustrating not being able to open up all these locks... :(

I have come up with a couple of sneaky tricks that I didn't see on the Jowood forums that I'll pass along.

1. Pressure plates for traps are nasty. But if you toss 'em a bone, the bone weighs enough to set them off and keep them down. Then when you run across 'em again, they don't go off. I used this in the crypt...

2. Shift-click on an object, and it goes right into your inventory (combining with other things, if appropriate). I just checked the book, and it doesn't mention this... I stumbled across it quite by accident. Man, has it been useful since...

I'm sure there are a couple of other things, but I can't think of 'em right now. That's what gaming until 2AM does for you... when everyone else gets up at 7 [img]smile.gif[/img]

Good luck on Akbaa...