Just finished, many questions

[thoon]

Well, finally got through. I swore to finish this one with no outside help, and as supergood, not killing any npc unless absolutely required. Didn't make it on either count. Spent way too much time because I was so slow realizing things -- I probably put in the actual 400 hours of play. My favorite game so far after Wizards and Warriors and Planescape:Torment.

Party: Lizardman Fighter, Mook ranger, Elf bishop, Hobbit Bard, Faery mage, Hobbit Rogue. Finished on game day 153, with characters at levels 29, 27, 27, 29, 28, 29.

Q1: What's typical ?

Q2: How well is this game selling ? Enough to encourage some new developer to try W9 ?

Q3 Is there a detailed walkthrough somewhere? The only one I know is very sparse.

The rest contains spoilers; I will leave a space?
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I had Vi and Madras in my party until I got tired of their non-stop bitching in Rapax Rift. If I play through again I won't take any npc characters.

Q4 what's the general opinion on this?

Biggest gripe: Have to get very close to keyholes, etc. for keys and other objects to work. This cost me many, many hours and caused me to have to look for help four times.

Q5 Do others find this a problem?

After a while, I lost interest in the gadgets, and sold them all. Just not my idea of fun.

Q6: What did I miss? Is there actual fun later?

My path was Monastery - Arnika - Trynton - Swamp - Marten's bluff (top) - Swamp - Bayjin (where I learned the npc wouldn't go). My party was way too weak for this area, and I had the most desperate fighting I've ever experienced in a game. I gained at least three levels and in the grand battle against 18 crabs, four plumed serpents and six sprites (took me six tries and at least six real hours to win) I got 179 000 points, the most for any fight until Rapax castle, and Ascension Peak.

Unfortunately, this made my party too strong, and fighting was no challenge for a long time.

I had real trouble with the crabs just outside the monastery ... just couldn't beat them hack and slash, but finally learned to blind them with flash powder. Then it was no problem. Anybody else have this?

Q7 I finally killed the Mook to get the Chaos Moliri ... Just too dumb to realize that's probably what the fake Astral Domini was for. What did I miss? What's in their ship, and what's the ship used for.

Q8 I found a blue feather in the swamp (I think), obviously meant for something. What's it for?

Q9 in the swamp there's a plateau with trees and creatures on the top and three tree trunks leading up to it. Are we supposed to get up there, and if so, what's there? I suspect the tree with the tunnel through it was connected to that but I never found anything.

Q10 When my character was kidnapped later, I found two blue flowers. After only a week or two I realized they were clues to look at Croc's since those flowers grew rather prominently around his place. But the inventory says they are usable. For what?

Q11 There is a door behind Croc in his shop. How do you get him out of the way to go through?

Q12. The house near with the T'Rang teleporter only uses one room for the teleporter (which crushed me once). What's in the rest of the house, and how do you get there?

Q13: In Bayjin I found a broken blaster. How do you fix it?

........ I'll stop there, but there's plenty more if anyone shows any interest in this thresd.

thoon

[armakh]

I don't have answers to everything, but here's what I can remember....

The stuff outside the monestary is just pretty hard at the beginning. I had a lot of trouble my first time through there.

Give the blue feather to Fuzzfas-he'll make a potion out of it.

Gadgets are awesome....but you have to have a gadgeteer. My gadgeteer has become my favorite character because of all the cool stuff she can do. The broken blaster is one of the pieces of a cool gadget that casts Boiling Blood.

I finally killed Crock to get into his house...wasn't very much cool stuff in there in his chest, but the upside to that was that I got my gadgeteer items from him after I killed him, and that was nice.

The mook ship is one of those unfinished things....there's nothing to do about it.

[Nightowl2]

NPC'S: Well, everyone has their own take on this subject. I preferred only RFS, who goes everywhere except the Rapax Away Camp. Eventually, I didn't even take him along, doing the game with just my own band of six. Some people don't mind the whining of NPC's forced into areas they don't like, but I'm not one of them.

Yeah, the game isn't all that consistent on using items. I was very annoyed myself over the "gotta be nose-up-to-it" before many keys and such would work.

The Mook ship and the area in the swamp are in the "unfinished because of no time left" category. There are other places in the game, like the condemned house in Arnika, that belong there, too.

Never found any use for the blue flowers from Crock's place. By the way, if you look at the idol (right-click), written on it is the warning "Beware of the Crock". But I think that most people - including me - missed that one

Some people managed to squeeze past Crock (dunno the exact method), but usually anyone who wanted to see the upstairs of his place had to kill him.

The broken blaster can be repaired only by a gadgeteer with the microwave chip from the Arnika monastery microwave oven. It basically does a "boiling blood" spell.

Nightowl2

[Wolfie]

A1: Yeah, about typical, most ppl are finishing with characters in the 24-30 level range.

A2: Some thing many of us would like to know

A3: Dunno

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A4: Not a big fan of having NPCs along, sucking up their share of the XP, but this is a personal choice, it's up to you

A5: No real problem, the only one I found tricky was the keyhole in the Rapax castle, this probably comes down to operatpr dexerity and mouse settings

A6: Explore every map entirely ("mow the lawn" method), this will find you a few (non essiental) things you appear to have missed.

A7: Yep, you should use the fake AD to fool the Mook and swipe the DD

A8: Check out the shop sign outside Fuzzfas's place in Trynton, hmmm...

A9: Not sure where you mean, but probably an incompleted part of the game.

A10: They don't appear to have any "use", just hints to visit Crok, again, probably a leftover from a part of the game left out.

A11: I've heard of ppl leading monsters into the area, and then Crok rushing up to attack, and so leaving the way clear to "sneak" up the stairs, but I've never been able to do it.

A12: Um, you should be able to get into the rest of the house, "downstairs" has a door which you can open to the Arnika road.

A13: Have a Gadgeteer merge it with the X-ray chip found in the Monastery to "repair" the blaster that casts Boiling Blood spell

[img]smile.gif[/img]

[otter]

also kewl would be finishing all the bits that are drivin' us nuts & sell upgrades at cost and the whole game as a new product.....

[thoon]

Thanks for the responses!

Considering the time it took for the game to come out, it's amazing that things were left out due to time limitations.
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On Q6, I meant, is there any more fun to be had with the gadgets. I figured the gadgeteer made weapons from the parts you found ... I had Madras, the gadgeteer from the observatory in Trynton, in my party for a long time, 'til I tired of his bitching. Do you get anything from the gadgets except better weapons?

Q14 Does the tunnel in Arnika, from the jail to the bank vault, have any purpose, aside from the amusing message on the teleporter ... "dedicated to improving employee survivability" ? That side of the vault has nothing in it that I could find, and going in there makes the bank employees hostile.

Q15 Entering the swamp from from Marten's bluff, if you hug the wall on the left, you come to a nasty lake. If you use an empty bottle on it you get a cherry bomb (as many as you have bottles, I think). Because of this I kept many empty bottles and tested everything I came to, if I thought of it. I never got anything else. Is there anything else?

Q16 I took the T'rang mission, but couldn't find the 'operative' (until too late). When I went back to try to get a hint, the chief T'rang cussed me out for joining the Umpani and they all turned hostile. I cleared the place out (not too hard). but was it necessary? Would they have turned hostile if I had brought the prisoner back?

Q17 I noticed the T'rang secret weapon (mind blaster?) had an initiative of -6, so I sometimes gave it to my bishop so he would heal the party AFTER the first round of fighting, to heal current wounds. I fiddled around with this for a while. Did anybody else think it was worth while to change the equipment around to get the order of fighting you wanted?

Q18 I got the following bizarre situation: when I recruited Dr'zzt (SP?), the T'rang prisoner, I went back to their base. With everybody dead, there was nothing for him to do, but I couldn't get rid of him! I carried his body around for a long time (he was feeble compared to my party). Did I miss something ? (this was an alternate branch of play I didn't finish)

Q19 In the Rapax castle, I saw a key under a grate, a treasure room, and, on the roof, a sunken room. I could never get into them. I also had a key called the rift key that I never used. How do I get into those places. and where do I use the key?

........ well, there's plenty more, but that will do for now.

Armakh: I'm glad to see SOMEBODY else admitting they had a hard time outside the monastery.

Nightowl2: Do you know if anybody tried 'using' the flower on Crock? There may be some action there.

Wolfie: In the T'rang teleporter house, there was a room with the teleporter, and a door to the outside. That was it as far as I could see. From the outside you can clearly see that it has an upstairs, but unlike the Umpani teleporter house, you can't get up there, as far as I could find out.

Otter: It's a dream, but will never happen. Planescape:Torment had all sorts of unfinished areas. The talk was that the company told the workers "Either produce a finished game now or get out". The same company (Activision) also abruptly cancelled a game (Torn?) because, so they said, it just wasn't getting finished.

[Nightowl2]

Well, the gadgets are meant as a way of getting spells, much the same way as bards do magic with their instruments. At the same time, the gadgeteer is more effective in combat with the omnigun, though that takes some time to develop. The disadvantage to both classes is that neither has access to all spells in the game. But they do get a fairly decent selection.

The jail tunnel is meant as an easy, nonhostile, way of entering the main vault and obtaining the goodies. That's all.

Far as I know, that swamp "lake" is the only place you can pick up something in a bottle.

There is an alternate path through the game where you can bring about an alliance between the Umpani and the T'rang. The usual method is to sign up with both sides and do quests until they want their enemy's ship destroyed. Around then, you go to the Away Camp, rescue both prisoners, and return to see Z'Ant and Yamo (in that order). Then you get to waste the black ship (of course, the Savant isn't on it). The whole segment is worth 1.2 million exp. per party member. The drawback is, you have to have the two rescuees in the group until you're done. Then you see Yamo once more and the two leave. From what I've seen here, if you're stuck with either or both, you can let them die and then dismiss them, but I never had that problem myself and never tried it.

The Rapax treasure room can't be entered. You can get the items from the chests by using desposit slips in the small room off the trophy room in the Upper Castle. The constable carries a key. That key opens the safe in his room upstairs that holds the deposit slips. The key under the grate is the portcullis key. Somewhere in the Upper Castle is a room with a raised design on the floor. Standing on the design will raise the key. It's no big deal, and I only bothered with it once. The Rift Key opens the locked door of that room with all the slanted uphill corridors (the one you get into by breaking open the wall).

Never saw any mention here about anyone trying to use or give the flowers to Crock.

Wiz 8 was shopped around for a long time before they brought it back in house. My guess is that Sir-Tech was running out of money and the game had to be shipped, even though some of it wasn't really done.

I never found a way into the rest of the T'Rang house; that may be another unfinished item.

Nightowl2

[otter]

Gadgeteers can merge empty bottles with gunpowder to make Noisemakers, which 'cast' Sonic Boom.
Yes, the T'rang teleporter house is smaller inside than out.

[ 04-27-2002, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: otter ]

[Wolfie]

Originally posted by otter: Yes, the T'rang teleporter house is smaller inside than out.

Hmmm, an anti-Tardis you might say (ask someone in their 30s or older if you don't understand this).

[img]tongue.gif[/img]

[otter]

Hah! And why aren't there any Savant Daleks?