Monday, March 6, 2023

Serpent Isle: Snake in the Grass

Oddly, this seems to work.
      
With Monitor at our backs and the rest of the Serpent Isle ahead of us, we hit the road. I am toying with adopting a more interesting exploration pattern, but the Inn of the Sleeping Bull is so close to Monitor I've already wandered into it a couple of times by accident.
 
Sleeping Bull is a small settlement on the coast northeast of Monitor. It is named after a legend involving a mage who created a stone bull to drive off trespassers. It consists of the central inn, several small houses around its periphery, a livestock pen, a barn with a forge in it, a dock, and a nearby guard tower. The inn is a large building with multiple guest rooms. I have several reasons to stop there, or at least I think I do:
    
  • We have to warn them about the goblins' plans to attack.
  • I have a note to Ruggs from his paramour in Fawn.
  • I found out Ruggs is a member of the Fellowship, likely one of the people traveling with Batlin, and I'd thus like to interrogate him. 
  • The slippers that replaced my swamp boots might have come from there.
      
I'm not able to achieve most of these goals. First, Ruggs isn't staying there. I don't know where I got the idea that he is. And the pikemen at Bull Tower aren't interested in anything I have to say, and the dialogue option doesn't come up with any of the other NPCs in the area. As for the other NPCs and encounters:
   
  • Miggim is the librarian from Monk Isle, hiding in the barn. He says he was the one who found the passages in the writings of Xenka that foretold my coming and my destiny to repair the disorder in the land. He says that Xenka disappeared but may still be alive. He thinks someone is going to try to assassinate me soon.
  • There's a Victrola against the wall in the inn's common room. I didn't know the people of this world had recorded sound. You can double-click on it to get a slider, which allows you to choose one of eight tunes. The NPCs have various reactions to the selections (e.g., "This tune is most dark"; "Everybody dance!"; "Another song, perhaps?").
     
"The Love Boat" theme song is my go-to TouchTunes selection.
      
  • Many of the NPCs mention Hawk, captain of the Arbella, who put into port at the Bull during a storm and refused to sail again, stranding his annoyed passengers. One of them, Flindo, complained to the pikemen of Monitor about it. When they questioned Hawk, he took a swing at one of them, landing him in jail, unable to pay the fine to free himself. At first, I thought he must be one of the corpses back in Monitor, but Argus tells me that he's being held in Bull Tower. I'll need his ship if I want to get to Moonshade, and his ship won't sail without him aboard. 
        
Possession is 9/10ths of the law, Shamino.
      
  • Selina, a well-dressed woman from Moonshade, runs up and immediately asks for my protection. She says that people have been disappearing from the inn, either because of the teleport storms or "something more sinister." The missing people include Silverplate, who built the inn; Angus, the current owner; an employee named Theron; and two guests, a mage and a very strong man. She looks exactly like Lydia, the tattoo artist in Monitor who poisoned me.
  • Flindo is a provisioner visiting from Moonshade, stranded because of Captain Hawk's refusal to sail. He offers to introduce me around Moonshade if he ever gets back there; he even knows Filbercio the MageLord's mistress, Frigidazzi. He tells me more about the denizens of the inn and the disappearances; I guess Silverplate, who was Angus's grandfather, disappeared a long time ago. Silverplate was apparently a pirate, and some think his treasure is still hidden on the inn's grounds. He also tells me about Stoneheart, a banned substance that enhances certain spells; it may be the "ruddy rock" that has replaced my Black Sword. It's found in the Mountains of Freedom, which Filbercio has made a prison for his enemies.
  • Ensorcio is a mage exiled from Moonshade after a dalliance with an adept's daughter. He's rude to me immediately, saying that the Knights of Monitor are "tyrants." He has nothing but contempt for the skirt-chasing Filbercio and the corrupt Council of Mages back home. He befriended Batlin during the latter's two visits to the Bull. He mentions that Batlin's gargoyle companion was named Palos. Batlin originally visited with Palos alone, but then returned with Brunt, a dull muscleman, and Deadeye, a one-eyed pirate. He thinks Batlin stole a serpent's jawbone that Ensorcio had received from his master, Vasculio, who had received it from Erstam. Erstam is still alive, living as a hermit on an island off Moonshade. Vasculio was exiled for necromancy and his experimentations with Stoneheart. For a bribe, he teaches me how to use my chunk of Stonehart to create "Bloodspawn" needed for death spells. He also sells spells, for when I have a spellbook.
     
Anything I do will just prove his point, Iolo.
  
  • Kane is a shepherd waiting for passage to Moonshade. His older brother, Edrin, was hit by lightning one night, leaving behind a parrot (also running around the inn) that Kane calls Ale because of the bird's fondness for the drink. He hopes the mages of Moonshade can tell him what happened to his brother. I could tell him, but I have no dialogue option to do so.
  • Argus is the son of Devra and the missing Angus. A knight in Monitor and former Captain of the Wolf Command, he came home when his mother wrote about his father's disappearance, although he was already thinking of resigning his command over disgust at how far the knights have fallen. Argus's brother, Wilfred, is also a knight. 
  • Devra is the wife of the missing Angus and mother of Argus and Wilfred. She has our swamp boots, which we trade for her missing slippers. She asks for our help finding Angus. The night he disappeared, she heard some noise in the cellar but found nothing there.
  • Devra also exchanges money, including gold nuggets, gems, and jewelry! I guess I left some valuables back in the goblin camp. We have 75 gems, though, which would give us 3,750 gold if we exchanged them all. 
  • The inn's register shows that "Batlin of Fawn" stayed twice. Some of the NPCs above are listed but not all of them. Nakholy of Fawn, Rodolfo of Moonshade, and Rishar of Monitor are three other names; the latter two may be the other missing guests. On the other hand, Selina's "mage and very strong man" may be Batlin and Brunt.
   
I wonder if many players give up the game during the Sleeping Bull visit. I like NPC dialogue--I make it a key part of my GIMLET, even--but there's way too much of it here, delivered by NPCs who bustle around the same room, making it hard to identify all of them. It took me two hours just to get through all the dialogue in a single room.
   
It's nighttime when we're finished, so we rent a room and head upstairs. I pick the locks on the other doors, just to check for evidence. Each of the rooms has a scroll in a nearby drawer that welcomes guests to the inn. That's cute. Another room has a journal in a drawer in which the author complains about working for Batlin ("I wish he'd fall off a cliff"). The author says he wants to return to Britannia and particularly Buccaneer's Den. All of the rooms have closets with switches. I don't know what they do, but we flip them all up.
     
I half expected to find a Book of the Fellowship in the same drawer.
    
After a night's sleep--our room has four beds--we eat some food and start poking around the inn. The basement proves to be too dark without torches, and I've run out, so we have to head back to Monitor to buy more. On the way, we stop by the guard tower to free Captain Hawk, but when we offer to pay his fine of 100 monetari, the guard suddenly says they want 600 instead. 
   
We go to Krayg's shop for torches--I can't believe I'm buying torches--and return to the inn. As we walk in, Selina approaches and says that she's heard we need finances. We reject her help and go back to the basement. (Aside: there is perhaps nothing more annoying in this game than trying to find a torch in the dark in a crowded backpack.) The rooms are full of beer casks, and just like in The Black Gate, if you turn one on, your party members freak out.
         
But they have nothing to say when you steal or kill innocents.
         
There's also a locked metal door in a corner with no obvious means of opening it. This seems to be the sort of thing the switches might open, so I return to the second floor to make sure we flipped all of them, and it turns out we missed one in the first room. And yet, the door is still closed after we flip it. We return to the basement, this time hunting for secret doors, and we find one in the gap between two kegs. It leads to a small room with a switch and two chests. One of the chests has a key--at this point, the number of keys I'm carrying becomes officially unwieldy. The other explodes but has some monetari and bandages.
  
The switch opens the metal door, which leads to another stairway going downward. It takes us to a cavern full of little cells--apparently Silverplate's prison. One of the cells has a corpse lying on a straw mat. There's a scroll on his body that identifies him as Bren, Silverplate's bos'n. Bren indicates that Silverplate was crazy, having accused the author of theft. Silverplate somehow used the switches in the inn's rooms to spy on his men, but only if the "master wardrobe," situated somewhere in the catacombs, is active. Silverplate also talked about a "serpent gate" somewhere where the torches mark the hidden entrance.  
      
I guess Silverplate didn't give up piracy even after he built the inn.
     
Further along the catacombs, we find a secret door across from a pair of torches. In the caverns beyond, we're attacked by little rats, giant spiders, and slugs. We find some nice armor upgrades, money, a magic scroll with "Create Food," and three empty trapped chests that leave two of us poisoned.
   
We also find the serpent gate and a nearby chest with an "Explosion" scroll, a key, and a map to something called the "Dark Path." The key opens a nearby door with a teleporter on the other side. I'm confused what these "serpent gates" are. I thought they were teleporters. We head back upstairs to the rooms, but the switches still do nothing.
       
I'm glad I'm blogging about this game, because I'd otherwise lose track of it very quickly.
   
Returning to the catacombs, we try a different path and end up at a door that reads "WARDROBE ROOM." One of my keys opens it. The large cavern beyond has four fountains in the corners. They seem to poison, cure poison, put you to sleep, and make you invisible. There's a stone structure in the center with multiple alcoves and switches and a row of treasure chests on the back wall. Almost immediately, partly because being invisible yourself makes it easier to see, we notice an invisible chest on the north wall. This chest has a couple of magic scrolls and a sack with money. I'm more grateful for the sack, which I use to store all my keys. I put it on the Avatar's waist, as people are in the habit of giving us keys, and items given to us go there first. 
        
Time to get organized.
     
The chests in the back all explode, except one that has a key and a map to Silverplate's treasure. It shows a dungeon deep in the Glacier Mountains, which I can't find on my main map. But it shows them next to the Skullcrusher Mountains, which my game map shows far to the north. 
       
The key, meanwhile, opens the door to the "master switch." After we activate that, each of the switches in the alcoves takes us to a different room in the Sleeping Bull, and the switches in those rooms take us back again. 
      
This huge contraption saves the user from two flights of stairs.
      
Back in the inn, we have no new dialogue options with Devra or Argus, and I'm not sure we really solved the mystery. Did the disappearances occur while people were fiddling with switches in their rooms? If so, who activated the master switch in those cases? Did they occur when people stumbled into the catacombs? If so, how did they get past all the locked doors, and why couldn't they get back? I assume Batlin used the jawbone to teleport via the serpent gate (Erstam's account in the manual mentions this can be done), but did he take Angus with him? If so, what happened to the others? Did the various skeletons we found belong to them?
       
We exchange some more money to pay Hawk's fine, but now the pikeman suddenly wants 1,400. It's a little annoying that, as a knight of Monitor, I don't have any sway over him nor any way to report this extortion. 
      
#$%@% hell, Shamino.

         
We return to the inn to spring Selina's fairly obvious trap. I assumed she was Miggim's assassin the moment I met her. She relates that one of the teleportation storms zapped away a lighthouse on the coast to the northeast, leaving some kind of vault in its place. She has the key, which she says she got from her boyfriend, who has since deserted her. It's probably Batlin. She'll show me the way in, but only if she joins the party. She suggests that we leave the rest of the companions behind for their safety, but I refuse, more out of a desire to avoid having to swap inventory around. Selina is Level 1 with horrible statistics (12, 12, 14). She wears chain armor, fishnet stockings (which I resist giving to Dupre), and a Gwani cloak. In her pack, she has a key and a "Columna's Intuition" scroll, whatever that is.
       
Those don't really seem to go with this outfit.
     
On the way up the coast, we pass a monolith and happen to notice the outline of an invisible locked chest atop it. I note this for later.
   
A little ways up the coast is a two-story brick structure with bars on the windows and a sign out front that reads, "EXPLODING POWDER MAKER." I enter and note that it's occupied by two ethereal figures that seem to be ghosts. I run away screaming. 
     
The place looks pretty dangerous anyway.
    
Further along, we come to a large stone building, also with bars on the windows. The teleportation storm picked up not only the building but also half of the surrounding street of whatever city it came from.
   
We unlock a side door with Selina's key and enter. Once we enter, complete chaos ensues. Spinning teleporters appear, gating in cyclopes, trolls, headless, skeletons, and mongbats, at the same time scattering the party in rooms all over the building. As we try to fight them, we keep triggering more teleporters. Finally, I just ignore the enemies and start looting chests. The place has numerous gold bars, nuggets, and coins. 
        
Does "finders keepers" apply to an entire building?
    
When we exit, Selina says, "We are attacked again! Now that we have the gold, I think that it is time for me to use my Blink Ring and escape. I'll see thee at the inn!" With that, she's gone . . . leaving all her stuff on the ground. And we weren't even attacked again. I'm not sure what she was talking about. I never saw Selina again, nor any other assassin that Miggim would have been talking about. Is it possible that with Miggim's warning, my choice to keep my companions with me stopped Selina from attacking?
   
We head back to the inn. As we enter, we meet someone that either wasn't there before or we didn't pick out of the mass of NPCs milling about the common room: Wilfred, Argus's brother and Devra's other son. He has the most punchable face of any NPC I think I've ever seen. He doesn't like his brother, who he says fled Monitor after killing another knight named Flessar in a duel. Wilfred believes Batlin is responsible for his father's disappearance and is trying to find him. He reiterates that Batlin stole a blackrock serpent before he left Monitor.
        
Dupre, for the millionth time: No one knows what "the Avatar" means here.
    
Selina is nowhere to be found. I can't imagine the pikeman will accept 1,400 monetari any more than he would take 100 or 600, but I try. Naturally, he now wants 2,000. However, "gold bars" is also an option for paying the fine, and the pikeman happily takes them and gives me the key to his cell. This makes me wonder whether there was any place to get gold bars before now or whether the "bank job" was necessary. Anyway, we let Hawk out of his cell in the tower basement, and he says to meet him back at the inn.
     
I feel you, buddy.
     
Before going back there, I have a look at the map. I've included it below, focusing on the southwest section. We started next to those mountains to the southeast, then made our way to Monitor. In previous sessions, we explored north of Monitor up to Fawn, including all sides of the mountains with the Knight's Test and the forest to the northwest. This session, we explored from the Sleeping Bull on the eastern bay (across from the island called "CLAW") up the coast to the grassy northeastern peninsula, across the strait from the island that has Moonshade on it.
      
The area of the game so far.
      
We haven't explored the entirety of the southeast mountains (marked "FURNACE"), nor the rest of the coast leading up to the "SWAMP OF GORLAB." I decide I might as well take that all in before sailing to Moonshade--which I've already decided is my next destination because it's time I got a spellbook.
   
The southeastern expedition is a bust. There's only one entrance to Furnace, and I've already explored it. There are a few ruined buildings in the area nearby, but I don't find anything of interest in any of them. However, just south of the Sleeping Bull, I find another tree hollow with a key and two sacks. One of the sacks has potions; the other monetari.
   
At this point, I remember the invisible chest on top of the monolith. It's inaccessible from the ground, and I waste what seems like all day trying to build a stairway to the top of the damned thing with crates and bales of wool, but the bales don't really work for stairs and I can't find enough crates. I give up and leave it for later. Moving things around in this game can be annoying. Half the time, the game honks at you and tells you that something can't be moved where you're trying to move it because you were one pixel off.
      
This should have worked, but I couldn't walk on the barrel. It turns out you can't walk on bales of wool at all, but you can stack crates on top of them, but only if they're horizontal bales. It's very confusing.
       
Other findings:
   
  • On the northwestern peninsula, north of the bank we burglarized, there's a non-ruined building made of black stone with an altar. No ideas.
       
This seems important.
     
  • Something is flashing, barely visible, in a ruined building surrounded by foliage. It turns out to be a scroll with a "Blink" spell.
  • The southwestern part of Serpent Isle is blocked from the rest of the island by a swamp full of slimes and alligators. We try to cross it via a thin thread of land, but something puts the party to sleep one by one. This sends me to a dream where I navigate a craggy landscape in the middle of a void. Cantra is there, in a stone house, begging for me to slay some beast before it devours her, but I see no beast. Another area has a bunch of naked people running around playing tag. Eventually, I find a building with a roaring bonfire. A sign says "ENTER THE FLAMES." I do, and we wake up back at the beginning of the swamp.
       
The Avatar explores Tel'Aran'Rhiod.
    
We find a little village on the coast between the swamp and Fawn. It's occupied by a bunch of Fellowship missionaries from Britannia, spouting the usual nonsense about the Triad of Inner Strength. Ruggs is there, and grateful for his letter. A little turd named Leon looks like he'd fit perfectly in a Prosperity Gospel meeting. I get to tell him that the Fellowship has been disbanded in Britannia.
       
A satisfying dialogue option.
    
A cartographer named Scots finally gives me a map that I can use in-game. He also tells me that Gwenno brought an obelisk to the Serpent Isle for the Fellowship before she went off on her own. The obelisk later exploded.
        
At last!
     
A girl named Alyssand turns out to be the owner of the engagement ring. She gives me my gauntlets back but says I can keep the ring since her fiance, Keth, disappeared when lightning struck his ship. Alyssand is not from Britannia; she joined the cult from Fawn. She tells us about the Cause, a secret group that believes the Oracle in Fawn has been corrupted by the city's leaders.
        
That doesn't mean she doesn't have a point.
    
Whew. That was a long update. This is a thick game, with lots going on. I came here to find Batlin and foil the Guardian's plans, but I still don't really understand what they are. The world is tearing itself apart with storms, which may have nothing to do with the Guardian. Either may or may not have anything to do with Xenka's prophecy. Each town has its own drama; goblins are attacking everyone; and something called the Bane of Chaos has possessed Cantra. I'm still trying to find most of my stuff, including a very dangerous Black Sword. Even in writing all of that out, I think I might have missed a few things. 
        
Lost item update:
 
  • My spellbook was replaced with a chunk of pumice. Harnna thinks Krayg might know more about it. Krayg says such stones come from the center of the Earth, and Standarr often goes deep on his Quests of Courage. Standarr mentions a dungeon called Furnace.
  • My Black Sword was replaced with a ruddy rock. The rock may be Stoneheart, a volatile substance found in caverns near Moonshade called the Mountains of Freedom.
  • My glass sword was replaced with a pinecone. Pine trees are found in the great forest to the north, according to Harnna.
  • The blackrock serpent was replaced by a pair of fine stockings.
  • A hunk of mutton was replaced by a bottle of ice wine. Harnna suggests that I run it by Simon at the inn. Simon says it's probably made by the rangers of Moonshade.
  • A leg of meat was replaced by 83 filari, a currency from one of the cities. Shamino's note oddly doesn't mention the money. This is the only trade in which I came out ahead.
  • Rudyom's Wand was replaced by a strange apparatus. Harnna doesn't know what to make of it but thinks that it may have something to do with Fawn's statuary or Moonshade's magic.
  • My magic armor was replaced by an enameled breast plate, "suitable for ceremonial occasions." Harnna says I should ask Standarr the armourer about it. Standarr says that he made it for Kylista, priestess of Fawn.
  • My magic helm was replaced by a woman's fur cap. Shamino's note says it's "ridiculous." I think it's very practical and not obviously a woman's at all. Harnna thinks it might be the work of Cellia the Furrier. Cellia recognizes it and says she created it for a mage in Moonshade named Frigidazzi.
  • My magic gauntlets were replaced by a ring. Shamino's note says that it's a "finely crafted ring, of silver, of a size to fit a small woman or child." I don't know what to make of the Avatar wearing it, then. Harnna points us to Lucilla, who is "interested in baubles and trinkets," but Lucilla only offers that it might be a marriage or engagement ring. Selina at the Sleeping Bull thinks it might be from a "lesser artisan" in Moonshade. But it really belongs to Alyssand in the Fellowship village.
  • Dupre's Magebane has been replaced by a blue egg. Based on the thickness of the shell, Harnna thinks it probably comes from a bird that lives up north.
  • Dupre's Shield has been replaced by a Shield of Monitor. Harnna mentions that it could belong to anyone, and I should inquire around and see if anyone is missing a shield. Later, I hear that Luther has a new magic shield.
  • Shamino's 24 burst arrows were replaced with an odd hairbrush. "Crude," according to Shamino. Harnna has an odd reaction to it and says I should ask Templar about it. Templar says that it's a goblin hairbrush, made from the bones of their victims. Found in a goblin hut.
  • Shamino's dagger was replaced with a severed limb. The note clarifies that it's a "bloody hand." Harnna suggests we check with Renfry to see if he's encountered a body missing a hand. Renfry doesn't know where it came from, but he deduces that it's "not dead," so some kind of magic is involved.
  • Shamino's swamp boots were replaced with a pair of slippers, "such as might be worn in the privacy of one's home." Harnna doesn't believe they belong to anyone in Monitor and suggests I check with Krayg the Provisioner. Krayg says the closest place where someone might wear these is Sleeping Bull. They belong to the innkeeper's wife, Devra, who trades them back.
Technically, I think they were Shamino's.
  • Shamino's magic bow was replaced with a bear skull Found in the opening minutes.
  • Iolo's crossbow has been replaced with an urn with ashes. Harnna confirms what I already know: it's a funeral urn, and Caladin's grandfather's urn is missing. Found in the Monitor crypts.
  • Five torches Iolo was carrying in his pack have been replaced by a pumpkin. Iolo's list doesn't mention this substitution, and all the others have been one-for-one.
 
Time so far: 16 hours
 

142 comments:

  1. A meme in a cRPGAddict article ? Oh my !

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  2. AlphabeticalAnonymousMarch 6, 2023 at 12:38 PM

    So if we scale based on the number of recovered items, there should be roughly 30 hours to go...? The game does seem incredibly dense.

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    1. It definitely is. It's one of the few games for which the blogging process notably slows things down. I might have won it by now if I didn't have to write about it. That's not a complaint, exactly, but I do look forward to when I've finished the three major cities, and not every entry will have to be a summation of reams of dialogue.

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  3. >The Avatar explores Tel'Aran'Rhiod Nice
    Nice reference. BTW, what are your thoughts on the TV series, Chet? I admit being on of the typical book fans hating it. Though I'm not sure if there was a way to satisfy both mainstream *and* fans under the circumstances, I read people arguing they had not choice but to change the source like they did because the books are from another era. It's just funny how I feel what is called an era is for me just 20 years back when adaptions like Lord of the Rings where possible without completely changing characters. And Game of Thrones from even more recent times. So I really don't know what to believe.

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    1. I liked the first season of the series. I'm glad they made it more "adult" than the books. I'm fine with the fact that they had to cut content. There are 14 books in the main series, for the Creator's sake. I also think you're in the minority if you don't think characters and plots were significantly changed in both the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones adaptations.

      What annoys me about the series is what annoys me about every series these days: No matter how successful or acclaimed it is, everyone involved just seems to lose interest in between seasons. Amazon still hasn't announced a release date for Season 2. If it's going to take years between seasons, there's no way they'll ever get to the end of the story. This seems inevitably what's going to happen with The Witcher.

      People hate advertising, but I almost long for the days of advertiser-supported TV, when you could reliably count on the return of popular shows every year.

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    2. I meant to add: I'm curious what you hate about it so much.

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    4. This game reads like one of Jordan's books... long and wordy! I liked the series ok, but agree, too long of a wait. And having one of your main characters just walk of the set is a bit odd.

      I knew there was a problem when Jordan announced he had amyloidosis on his web page. He noted then that his doctors at Mayo assured him all was fine. Being an Oncologist... uhh, nopes... no so much. A very lethal disease indeed.

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    5. Sorry had to correct many spelling errors, I really shouldn't post large texts in a foreign language from my mobile phone...

      I'm aware that many people would disagree when it comes to the adaptions of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones being faithful to the books and I'm not saying they are. It's just that I really feel they got way more aspects of the books' characters or places right or did care more than Amazon did.

      Probably exactly what you liked about it, mainly changing characters that they seem more adult is what I can't stand much. I mean how Perrin is already married and Rand has an affair with Egwene. Especially the latter felt totally out of character for me compared to the books Rand and Egwene. Part of the appeal of Wheel of Time for me was the same thing that Tolkien already did and what Jordan just copied like many others before but I think in a very good and expanded way: Throwing innocent and unlikely people from a sheltered home into a complex world facing a big threat and their own growing up/changing in the process.

      Same with Emond's Field. What point does it make to present it as a metropolitan village comprised of people coming from many different regions of the world when this is exactly the kind of change for the small and very isolated village the book made a point to introduce later. Maybe the cause for this is exactly what you said, they didn't really care or plan for other seasons beyond the first in advance so they wouldn't know they kind of killed to introduce the change of Emond's Field into a multi-national town later on.

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    6. I only saw the first couple episodes (which seemed ok but not hugely compelling - my wife and I had a new baby so just kind of dropped it in the press of things), but did they really make Emond’s Field that cosmopolitan? It seemed pretty similar to how it was described in the book, at least per my memory - the travelers were a big deal, the indications about Rand’s father’s past likewise. Or do you just mean that they had a multiracial cast? I didn’t notice any indication that those casting choices were meant to map to any particular in-world history of immigration or cultural exchange or anything (actually, from what I remember of the backstory, the world is a post-apocalyptic rebuilding of what had been a very advanced society, so even if racial markers once mapped to geography you’d imagine that by the time the novels start, that’d be irrecoverably ancient history).

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    7. I'm not sure they intended to present Emond's Field as a cosmopolitan town so much as they decided that ethnic homogeneity in the service of worldbuilding wasn't as important as flexibility in casting. It's not like there was any dialogue in the show that presented the Two Rivers as the crossroads of the kingdom. I agree that it challenges the integrity of the world to some degree, but in a fantasy world with a different history than our own world, I'm willing to suspend disbelief. I admit I've occasionally rolled my eyes at a clearly "woke" casting choice, but it's rare that a specific ethnicity and its attendant physical features (hair color, eye color, etc.) are so integral to a person's character that it really hurts the story to cast someone who looks different.

      I agree that the changes to the characters are "out of character," but for me they're mostly in a good way. The sexual naivety of the book characters always made me cringe. (Matt spends the most of a couple of books looking for plump barmaids to "kiss and tickle" or whatever.) More important, what strikes me having recently re-read the first few books recently is how bland everyone is. Rand, Matt, and Perrin are essentially interchangeable characters until well into the third book. I rather like that the show sent them out of Emond's FIeld with more fully-formed personalities and backstories.

      But in reflection, I probably was never much of a fan of the books. I always wanted them to be something different. I thought Jordan did an incredible amount of world-building, and there are some truly epic moments, but I really don't care for trite good-vs.-evil plots any more. All the way through the last book, I hoped there would be some twist involving the Dark One that would be more nuanced than . . . well, what we got.

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    8. Regarding the release schedule, my understanding is that one of the big factors in the delay is lingering effects of COVID. A lot of the CGI studios shut down operations during the lockdowns, and they're now flooded with backlogged work.

      Combine that with Amazon wanting a wide slate of IPs to draw users to Prime, and their desire to not have any of those IPs sharing a release window, you get a really long delay.

      Filming on the second season ended a long time ago - they're currently working on the third season - so it isn't a budget issue.

      Delete
    9. I liked a lot about the series including the minor and major character/content changes, not so much the Perrin's wife subplot.

      But I thought the final episode of Season 1 was overall a letdown. Not Ishy offering Rand what he thought he wanted, but I think they didn't do a good job setting up the overall arc.

      Delete
    10. I didn't hate it, but the writer's room obviously hated Jordan's books. When in the first three sentences spoken in the series Moiraine says that the Dragon Reborn could be a woman, I knew they were going to disregard the story the show is based on. Ignore the changes in casting from the examples approved by Jordan and Sandersen that already exist, because stuff like that is superficial. But why would the Dragon be reviled and still feared if it could come back as a woman. Being unable to touch Saidin would make the threat of whether or not the Dragon would destroy the world moot,since saidar doesn't force female changeless to go insane. And the changes just continue to compound from there, until the final product isn't reminiscent of what people were fans of in the first place

      Delete
    11. I don't think the Dragon is feared just because he is going to go insane (though that adds), but also because they hold LTT responsible for causing the taint mess and breaking the world in the first place.

      A female Dragon might just go ahead and get Saidar tainted too.

      Delete
    12. @Chris

      The show only exists because the showrunner is a massive fan of the books and basically badgered Amazon into letting him make it.

      The Dragon isn't just feared in the books because he's guaranteed to go mad - he's a herald of the Apocalypse. Most just think he's returning to finish the job of destroying the world that he started at the end of the Age of Legends. Him coming back as a Saidar wielder doesn't change that.

      The show adding in "the Dragon might be a woman this time" is because they wanted to add the extra hook of a "Who's the Dragon" mystery - the original Eye Of The World gives most of the non-Dragon characters relatively little spotlight compared to the later books. The goal was to get the ensemble cast going from the beginning.

      And the last two episodes were a total mess because COVID hit and they could no longer do a lot of what they intended.

      Delete
    13. Yeah, I thought the series was fine until the last two episodes. Leaving Mat behind, and then the mess that was the Eye of the World just made no sense to me.

      Delete
    14. They had to leave Mat behind because the actor just up and quit - he never returned after the COVID lockdown. The Blight was supposed to be filmed in Madagascar, but travel restrictions made them have to throw something CGI together. COVID absolutely wrecked the production.

      Delete
    15. 'Obviously hated' is a bit much. Where are we, the user reviews section on Metacritic? :p

      Delete
  4. Serpent Isle was my first RPG, and although afterwards I played and enjoyed many slightly older titles (M&M 3-5, Wizardry VII, Dark Sun), I was always a bit disappointed about the amount of content, especially NPCs (except for U6 and U7, of course). I guess I didn't enjoy a game as much as the Ultimas until Baldur's Gate II and Morrowind, probably.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is a very weird place to start the Ultima series. Didn't all the references to past events make you feel like an outsider?

      But yeah, I get how other games might have seemed disappointing in content until the late 1990s.

      Delete
    2. That's probably the funniest part, I learned the Ultima lore through the U7 manuals... both written by unreliable narrators with a grudge!

      Delete
    3. That is funny. I think if I played SI with no previous Ultima experience, and relied on the game's manual, I'd be waiting for the Avatar to have some revelation about how he serves a tyrant or something.

      Delete
    4. Given that SI's intro portrays Batlin and the Guardian as evil, a player who starts the Ultima series with SI probably won't believe everything that's written in the manual's backstory.

      But I do think the Ultima you first play has a strong effect on how you see the Avatar. I started with U6, then played U7 parts 1 and 2, U8 and UU1. Never played the earlier Ultimas. For me, the Avatar is the same guy in every Ultima. I now know that this is a retcon, but I didn't know I it when I played U6 and it stuck in my head like that.

      It's going to be strange when I ever get to playing the older Ultimas. Also, it's funny for me to read how others dismiss the idea that the Avatar is a single person (I mean, I know they're right, but I feel I'm more right ;-)).

      Delete
    5. The Avatar is a single person, no controversy there. The big retcon (in Ultima VI) is that the Avatar was also the person who defeated Mondain, Minax, and Exodus in the first three games. I don't personally mind retcons and I kind of understand why they did it, but the story of Ultima IV kind of loses impact when it's changed from "regular person enters a strange world and becomes a paragon of virtue" to "veteran asskicker returns to site of multiple great victories to become Battle Pope".

      Delete
    6. Stepped Pyramids, you're right about the Avatar being one person; I should have been more precise in my comment. For me, the hero or heroes of the first 3 games, are all the same person as the Avatar. That's how I learned it when I started playing Ultima (with U6), before I had the Internet to tell me that it's all a retcon, and that's how it stays in my mind. Silly but that's how it is.

      Delete
    7. It makes a bit more sense when you play the games and realize you can play as an elf, a dwarf, or a "bobbit" in the first three games -- and in Exodus you control an entire party, which can be made up entirely of "fuzzies"!

      Delete
    8. If they were going to retcon, it would almost make more sense to declare that the hero of the first three games is now Lord British. Would also help with the fact that there's very little justification or explanation for British having this largely unopposed, undisputed thousand-year autocratic reign on the basis of having apparently won a significant but not decisive victory against Mondain in the backstory?

      Delete
    9. @Ross: The problem with that is that Lord British is in the first 3 Ultimas as a King separate from the player character.

      Delete
    10. "Lord British is a title held by many successive rules of Britannia" would be a better retcon than what they came up with.

      Delete
    11. Yeah, you'd need the Lord British of the Avatar trilogy to be "Lord British II", but I still think that makes the retcon smoother.

      Delete
  5. This was one of the first english games I played as a 13 year old German. It was totally fascinating - and utterly incomprehensible. I deeply enjoy this re-living of the journey that is "The Serpent Isle" through your eyes! For me you could go on for another dozen or more entries. Thank you for your work - it is just wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As I said on the first entry, that's the game thanks to which I learned English. I had played U7BG in French, but U7SI had never been translated (until a recentish fan-project), and of course I HAD to play the sequel.
      Most of my other non-translated games were either arcade or wargames, for the latter my father told me what the commands were and I rolled with that.

      Delete
  6. Can't recall exactly why, but have a memory of the treasury being from Brittania, is it possible the gold bars are marked?

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    Replies
    1. Hmmm. I just pulled up the two games side-by-side. The room layout is definitely identical to the top group of rooms from the Britannian treasury, and the contents of those rooms is essentially identical. The only things that are really different are:

      1. The building in SI has a barred window on the south wall. The corresponding building in Britannia has a door leading to another room there; a window wouldn't make sense because it's not the outer wall of the building.

      2. The building in Britannia has a plaque next to the door identifying it as the Royal Mint. The plaque is gone here.

      3. The southwest room in the SI building is missing a desk and chair from Britannia and has different-colored tapestries.

      Overall, I'm confused as to whether this is really supposed to be the Royal Mint (which would mean the teleportation storms are crossing universes) or whether it's just a reuse of assets by the authors. I don't think there's anything specifically identifying it as Britannia's mint. The plaque is gone, my companions didn't say anything, and no, the gold bars don't seem to say anything explicit.

      Delete
    2. IRC, the building is supposed to be the Royal Mint from Britain "exchanged" with another building from Serpent Isle. The building is definitely the same.

      I am not sure it makes a lot of sense narratively as I don't remember any character mentioning magic storms over Britain.

      Delete
    3. @Chet : I remember it says something about a Britannian seal when you double-click on the gold bars. I vaguely remember a minor consistency issue when later gold bars NOT coming from Mint have the same text. Maybe I misremember, it has been a while.

      Delete
    4. If I double-click on the bars, my companions just say, "I don't know where we can exchange these."

      Given that it doesn't make sense narratively, I need more evidence before I buy into the idea that this IS the Royal Mint and not just a lazy reuse of material.

      Delete
    5. I definitely read it as the Royal Mint, it looked almost identical to me, and I could have sworn there is a royal mint plaque somewhere nearby.

      Also the gold bars from there have an ankh symbol on them, the ones you'll find later on will not.

      And finally, not only are the gold bars only exchanged for 100 gold (which is 50 monetari, if memory serves), but the pikemen will accept a single one!

      Delete
    6. It is the royal mint (and no, given where the storms come from, it doesn't make sense that they show up in Britannia), and you'll find out proof jura lbh gnyx gb ybeq oevgvfu va gur ernyz bs qernzf.

      And no, there are no gold bars anywhere else up to this point.

      Delete
  7. You are definitely supposed to be attacked by a group of well armed bandits when Selina escapes; I don’t think the dialogue with Miggim has anything to do with it, more likely it was the game glitching.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shoot. You think the fact that I wasn't caused any long-term harm? I'm already about six hours beyond this.

      Delete
    2. I believe that if you were able to free Hawk you should be good; I don’t think the bandits carry any quest item.

      You have mostly missed out on a Sword of Defense and the usual highly incriminating scroll, whose text you can find here (courtesy of Nekar) https://lparchive.org/Ultima-VII-Part-2-Serpent-Isle/Update%2022/30-SI_16_23.png

      Delete
    3. I've never not been attacked by the bandits outside the haunted treasure place (played through 5-6 times).

      Delete
    4. I appreciate how they very much failed to destroy the note.

      Delete
    5. Probably Batlin should start using reverse psychology: “Make sure to carry this note with you at ALL TIMES and take care that nothing happens to it!”

      Delete
  8. Britannian labour laws: if you assassinate someone who gets automatically resurrected at a temple, do you still get payed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Another loophole we haven't thought of yet. Maybe they should specify you must kill him dead to get paid!

      Delete
    2. At least one D&D novel mentions that assassins in the Forgotten Realms routinely cut out the victim's heart and take it with them to be disposed of somewhere far away from the body, to thwart Raise Dead.

      Delete
  9. Good. You ran away from ghosts. As you should. Let's not risk any game-ruining bugs.

    Regarding the tense dialogues of this games. I guess this is where the influence of a professional writer, Raymond Benson, is noticeable in the original Ultima 7.

    While I really enjoy the dark twists and the soap opera of Serpent Isle, Black Gate probably did town characters much better.

    Britain is alive and full of characters, but you never feel burdened by talking to them as you do in Sleeping Bull.

    And it's like what 5-6 characters?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also... wherever you already are in the game, now is probably a good time to do the Silver Seed expansion. You don't have to finish it, but the xrlevat you will be given is really really helpful.

      You can travel between Silver Seed world and Serpent Isle world at will, if you are willing to sleep through some days for the teleportation thingy to recharge.

      Delete
    2. Hi, Joshua. I appreciate your thoughts and comments, and I hope you forgive me if I use this comment to go on a bit of a mini-rant. This isn't directed at you in particular but at everyone who keeps offering opinions as to when to "do the Silver Seed expansion."

      I play games blind. And when I have a game like this that's so full of story and lore, I like to play them organically. What would I do in a real situation like this? What would I prioritize?

      Unless I missed something, there's no sign in the game that says "THIS WAY TO THE SILVER SEED EXPANSION." I don't know where it starts. I don't even know what it IS. So advice like this is basically suggesting that I break my rules and preferred play style to look up spoilers about where and how the expansion begins and what content is part of the expansion and what isn't.

      Delete
    3. So you really have had no previous experience with Silver Seed?

      Wow.

      That's almost like having a whole new Ultima game to play. :)

      I hope I am not annoying you with this... regarding Silver Seed and Which Way To Expansion, the answer is already in your previous blogpost, titled Love and Lighting, in the first paragraph.

      Delete
    4. You would have annoyed me with a spoiler, so I appreciate that you just gave me a hint. I'll look at that first paragraph if I feel I need it.

      I last played SI about 20 years ago, and I honestly can't remember if the expansion was part of the version I played or not. I don't really remember anything about the main game except some bits of Monitor and my overall feeling that the game was way, way too long.

      Delete
    5. imho the expansion feels too gamey and does not feel much like part of the rest of the world. I don't know how much "spoiler" do you think it is if someone recommends you to address it or not, or if someone gives their opinion about it. I think you have a way to address the games that works for you and makes you enjoy them more, so go on with it.

      Delete
    6. The odd thing is that there IS something in the game that says "this way to the expansion", BUT you'll only notice if you first play the game without the expansion, and then install the expansion, and then notice the difference.

      Delete
    7. Discussed this in more detail in a previous post, but I think it is too early for the expansion. You probably want to have magic for that.

      If you don't recall much of Serpent Isle and never played the expansion again, it may even make sense to play it late as it gives background details you'd not learn that early the first time around.

      Delete
    8. Personally, I like to do the Silver Seed much later, for plot/immersion reasons (rot13): gurer vf n cbvag va gur cybg jura guvatf unccra gbb dhvpxyl gb or ernfbanoyr (gur Onarf trg gb gur guerr pvgvrf). V vafreg gur Fvyire Frrq gurer.

      Delete
    9. Adding to the above (heavy spoiler!): gurer vf nyfb rkgen qvnybthr vs lbh pbzcyrgr gur Fvyire Frrq dhrfg nsgre gur rcvfbqr jvgu gur Onarf. Gur zbaxf gryy lbh gung univat n arj Fvyire Gerr jvyy nyybj gurz gb erfheerpg nyy gur Onar ivpgvzf.

      Delete
  10. Fun little anecdote... the Sleeping Bull Inn is in the same place that the town of Bulldozer was in Ultima 1.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Huh. I didn't realize there was so much correspondence between the two maps. I can't believe I didn't look this up before. I'll have to blog about this in an upcoming entry.

      Delete
    2. AlphabeticalAnonymousMarch 6, 2023 at 4:32 PM

      Wow, that's remarkable! Good call, @Adamantyr.

      Delete
    3. Note the pun: bulldozer = dozing bull. The map from Ultima 1 has some rather stupid names on it, and the Serpent Isle team did a decent job of making them meaningful.

      Delete
    4. The Serpent Isle is the "Lands of Danger and Despair" from Ultima 1. The link below points to four annotated maps of Ultima 1.

      http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/pc/ultima1/overworld.shtml

      Limited to what Chester knows already:

      Town names in Ultima 7.2 vs. Ultima 1:
      1. Monitor = Turtle
      2. Sleeping Bull = Bulldozer
      3. Lost Friends = goblin village
      4. Fawn = Dextron
      5. Moonshade = Magic

      Dungeon names in Ultima 7.2 vs. Ultima 1:
      1. Knight's Test = Dead Man's Walk
      2. Cave to the goblin village = The Dead Cat's Life
      3. Furnace = The Hole to Hades

      Delete
    5. Also, one of the castles in the LoDD was called Funzvab'f Pnfgyr. Lbh jvyy ivfvg gur ehvaf bs gur pnfgyr qhevat guvf tnzr.

      Delete
    6. That isn't even a spoiler. It's on the game map.

      Delete
  11. I also agree that the Sleeping Bull is nearly a show-stopper. You come in and EVERYONE talks to you like you already know a bunch of local news and lore, and you're like "Wait, what? Huh?"

    A lot of Serpent Isle feels like it wasn't blackbox play-tested at all. (I.E. by a test team with no foreknowledge of the game.) We all know it was severely rushed at the end, and a lot of the dialogue reads like middle/late game dialogue you'd come back to hear later. (Like all the stuff about Silverpate.) It's also strange that no one seems surprised that a bunch of strangers show up from a completely different land.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. given the very short development and release schedules of games of this era, I wonder how many got any significant play testing at all? Not to mention the lack of time required to actually change anything based on feedback, beyond finding particularly major game-breaking bugs!

      Delete
    2. I'm not even sure Ultima 7 (as a whole including Serpent Isle) is particularly bad. Serpent Isle has quite a few of serious bugs, but it's worth noticing that they are all content bugs, i.e. flags being set too early or triggers not setup correctly.

      But the engine itself is very stable and the gameplay systems all work. It's not exactly Daggerfall.

      Delete
    3. Serpent Isle is very much like recently featured Bloodnet in that they clearly wrote way more than they could feasibly put into the game. If you look at some of the later cut content it's clear that they had lofty ambitions of a game where you would repeatedly revisit the same areas and see them changing as the plot progresses.

      Delete
  12. It's kind of fascinating being late to the party, but then reading a comments section about as sizeable and interesting as the main entry.

    ReplyDelete
  13. That shrine with intact black slabs around it... I don't recall ever stumbling across it. Could it be... n grzcyr gb bar bs gur iveghrf bs onynapr? Gur tnzr yrnqf hf gb nyy fvk grzcyrf gb gur beqre naq punbf iveghrf, ohg zbfg bs gur onynapr fghss vf yrsg sbe gur cynlre gb svther bhg, yvxr Sheanpr cebonoyl orvaq gur cevznel Pvgl bs Onynapr. Gura ntnva, gur "Ubyl Obbx bs gur Bcuvqvnaf" qbrf rkcyvpvgyl fnl gung gurer jrer bayl gur guerr cyhf guerr grzcyrf. Vf guvf, gura, fbzr bgure onynapr ybpngvba, be n yngre zlfgrel ybpngvba?..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. V whfg ybbxrq ng n znc (V unir FV'f znc nf uhtr CAT svyrf) naq gurer vf n fgnvepnfr whfg gb gur abegu bs vg. Qbja orybj vf n fznyy punzore jvgu antnf. Na vaivfvoyr pbeevqbe yrnqf fbhgu gb n fvzvyne punzore jvgu antnf, naq fgnvef hc vagb gur punzore. Gurer'f n ivxvat uryz naq fbzr yrngure nezbe gurer gb npdhver.

      Delete
    2. I'm surprised Chet didn't find that in his exploration of the area actually.

      Delete
  14. Well, after reading Nakar dissing Iolo for dozens of pages, it's refreshing to see you go after Shamino! By the way, the trick to dealing with keys in this game is simply to drop each key after using it. I'm pretty sure every key fits only a single door or chest. It would have been better interface design (but less realistic) to have them disappear when successfully used.

    And the Guardian's plans are nofbyhgryl abguvat naq lbh jvyy abg svaq bhg nalguvat ng nyy nobhg gurz va guvf tnzr be gur arkg, fbeel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I dropped the keys as you did, but I later learned there are less than a handful of them that open multiple locks (within the same area/town/dungeon/whatever). I would rather put all used keys into a bag, and empty it out when I leave an area.

      Delete
    2. The U7 engine does silently delete used keys from your inventory when you sleep (or at least it did in Black Gate). This can cause very annoying walking dead scenarios when the game is mistaken about whether a key has been used or not.

      Delete
    3. That's a bug in the original floppy disc release of Black Gate. It was fixed in a patch by Origin (1.1), which was subsequently included in the CD release. All the modern platforms such as GOG which sell the game also have the fixed version.

      Serpent Isle never had that bug.

      Delete
    4. Erik. That's interesting! I knew there were bugs involved, but I always thought the basic behavior was intentional. I guess it just seemed like a reasonable solution to key clutter to 12-year-old me.

      Delete
    5. Abacos, I did the same with keys in BG. Avatar would keep any found keys in a bag, then give them to Iolo or someone when used. I'd leave his bag along with unused armor at the castle when not in use.

      Radiant - maybe he's cutting Iolo a break for letting him die in Warriors of Destiny. Plus Iolo's been missing his wife for the last 18 months. Not everyone's as cruel as Steve. :)

      Delete
  15. I believe the "EXPLODING POWDER MAKER" brick building was accidentally left in the game. Inside, you will find a duplicate of a quest NPC there. Not the biggest deal, just makes things confusing plot-wise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, the "duplicate of a quest character" is a plotstopping bug. Chet was alerted already in previous comments.

      Delete
  16. "Pikeman: The fine is 100 Monetari
    You: OK I have 100.
    Pikeman: NO! Now it is 200 Monetari!
    You: OK fine now I have 200.
    Pikeman: NO! Now the fine is 400!
    You: OK, how about this gold bar which is in reality worth 50 Monetari?
    Pikeman: Oh wow DEAL! Man did we milk you for a sucker!"

    I may have misunderstood some comments but it seems like this is what it comes down to.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, that's exactly right. The Pikemen take a payoff that's worth less than their demand in their own currency.

      It's interesting how the Knights of Monitor are, more or less, gangster mercenaries. They claim they rebuilt the roads and built the guard towers to help the people of Serpent Isle, but in reality they're nothing more than thugs who demand protection money from everyone. And they waste most of their potential fighting one another in their inclusive "tribal" system of wolves, leopards and bears rather than working together. It's ironic that the leopards, considered the peacekeepers and moderate faction, are revealed as traitors who sold out their champion to the enemy for a shallow gain.

      Delete
    2. I think it's not just being protection money. The towers and the roads are an essential service, especially now with ship travel having mostly stopped and the goblins attacking all the time.

      The ones in the Bull tower are obviously misusing their position.

      Delete
    3. "It's interesting how the Knights of Monitor are, more or less, gangster mercenaries."

      I think the whole point of Serpent Isle was to show these people who are very angry at the "dictator beast British" but who are themselves questionable characters in their "virtues"

      Delete
    4. You see "gangster mercenaries", I see Mançur Olson's theory of the "Stationary Bandit" as the source of (proto-)States proven true once again !

      Delete
    5. It's really strange. They could have addressed this very easily by having the Mint contain some kind of unique item rather than gold bars. A golden crown or whatever. Or even just say that they want items from the Mint that they can pretend to have bravely retrieved.

      Delete
    6. Monitor isn't exactly the City of Braininess...

      Delete
  17. "I wonder if many players give up the game during the Sleeping Bull visit. I like NPC dialogue--I make it a key part of my GIMLET, even--but there's way too much of it here"

    First thing that comes to mind when I read this, is the original Baldur's Gate. When I got to the big city, I found all the dialogue and amount of small quests overwhelming

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I replayed Baldur’s Gate 2 recently and just after the starting dungeon you get constantly “harassed” by NPCs interrupting whatever you are doing to trigger new subquests, it’s kind of overwhelming as well (otherwise it’s still a fantastic game).

      It was mentioned recently in the comments, but another memorable (and tiring) dialogue-heavy CRPG location is the Brothel for Slating Intellectual Lusts in Planescape: Torment.

      Delete
    2. One of my mini-goals from following this blog since the beginning is to watch Chet hit the Brothel in PS:T, as I think it's one of the highlights of PC CRPG gaming. Sadly, it may take another 13 years for him to get there...

      Delete
    3. BG2 is infamous for the way it induces quest-anxiety, particularly in those early moments.

      Disco Elysium is kind of like Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts: The Game. In my view it has the best writing in RPGs. If you like Torment you should play it.

      Delete
    4. Bioware is famous for it in general. Irene and I were playing Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening the other day. I think at the end of the first hour, I had something like 27 open quests.

      On replays, I like to remind myself that you're going to be visiting these towns over and over, so there's no need to talk to everyone and do everything on the first visit.

      Delete
    5. As usual I'll be a dissenting voice in the PST topic: it's a lovely adventure game (story, plot), but a disaster of a RPG (combat, classes, builds, hidden xp points...)

      Delete
    6. I prefer PST as an RPG to most other if not all D&D games. It adds things that I generally favour in RPGs. Point buy systems at character chreation _and_ level up. More or less classless builds. Dialog options and solutions based on character build. Granted, I've only played it once and it's been a while.

      Delete
    7. I don’t think the strategy game component of PS:T is quite a disaster. It’s not very good, but it doesn’t usually detract from the adventure game side of things (because it’s mostly fast and easy). Keeping things spoiler-free: There is a memorable exception, one particular location sucks a lot to grind through.

      Delete
  18. ERRATA CORRIGE
    All your screenshots call the pirate "Silverpate", not "Silverplate".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AlphabeticalAnonymousMarch 7, 2023 at 10:52 AM

      Considering what Chet has revealed about his own pate, perhaps 'Silverpate' was intentionally tongue-in-cheek.

      Delete
    2. Just wait until we get to the next entry and I have to spell all the names of the mages in Moonshade.

      Delete
    3. Oh, you mean the other way around! It's really "Silverpate"?!? I can't believe I read it wrong every single time. I think I've found a Mandela Effect.

      Delete
  19. With apologies to both Jonathan Frakes and the CRPG Addict.

    https://imgur.com/a/oH8U7P4

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    1. Maybe it's just my current sleep deprivation but this is perhaps the funniest thing I've seen this month. Thank you for it.

      Delete
    2. Chiming in to say to anyone reading this: Look at the imgur mecha-neko posted, it's worth it.

      Delete
    3. I didn't know about this meme. Very amusing.

      Delete
    4. "Not a chance. We made it up. It's fiction."

      Delete
    5. Haha amazing. Is there a source for this so we can make our own?

      Next up, an Avatar/Downfall mashup?

      Delete
    6. While I was still laughing from, "Do you love to go a-wandering beneath a clear blue sky?," YouTube recommended this:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uC8mRy2p9w

      I'm dying.

      Delete
  20. I wonder though, even without Miggim's warning, is any player EVER going to fall for the idea to leave the party behind just because it's dangerous? That question makes an already-pretty-obvious trap just blatantly MORE obvious.

    ReplyDelete
  21. No idea if this is going to ever matter (and if it's already been mentioned or was obvious, I apologize), but it looks like the top of that in-game map has "Serpent Isle" written in a new snake-themed runic alphabet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha. I didn't even notice that. That snake-themed alphabet is so stupid. Honestly, we're supposed to believe that this culture had snakes on the brain to such an extent that they couldn't even conceive of letters that didn't involve snakes?

      Delete
    2. I mean, the whole point of an alphabet is that the letters are clearly distinct from one another. This ophidian mess consists entirely of identical squigglies that are rotated or mirrored. That makes it frustrating to do anything with.

      Delete
    3. I wonder if non-English speakers are equally frustrated with o b d p and q

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    4. It wouldn't be odd for writing systems in a fantasy-medieval setting to be primarily liturgical, with the monastic classes driving the preservation and evolution of the writing system, so it's not too far a stretch to assume that even if the population at-large thinks that a snake-themed alphabet is pushing it a bit hard, the people responsible for doing most of the actual writing were exactly the ones who were most especially into snakes.

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    5. I mean, Ogham is an actual alphabet that almost entirely consists of sets of parallel dashes, the only difference between the letters being the direction of dashes and the number of repetitions.

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    6. Ok, I stand corrected linguistically, but from a gameplay perspective these ophidian runes still strike me as needlessly annoying to the player.

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    7. Radiant, it's surprising sometimes what players can put up with. As a kid I once had to learn the ancient Greek alphabet, and I hated it. At around the same time I played U6 and had absolutely no problem learning the runic alphabet. I played SI when I was older, but even then that serpent alphabet didn't bother me much. Motivation can do that for you...

      Delete
  22. I love RPGs, ever since my first one (Eye of the Beholder II) led me to play many such games on my computer's over the years, but I've never played a single Ultima game in my life. I even have the Ultima Collection box set containing the games in the series (including Akalabeth) but have never opened it.

    Watching Chet play The Black Gate and Serpent Isle does make me somewhat interested in trying them (or starting from the beginning of the series to work my way through) but I'm still not sure I can bring myself to do it.

    There's just something about them that puts me off and I can't put my finger on what it is. Not sure I can be convinced about what I'm missing out on!

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    1. I started with EotB, and also mostly missed the Ultima games. I couldn’t get into VII, and one level of Underworld was enough for me. I’ve started playing IV though, and am finding it entertaining.

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  23. I don't think Shamino has any room to talk about how superior men are.

    I wonder how being invisible makes one see BETTER?

    is it just me, or is this game much more tightly-plotted (some could say railroaded) than Ultima VII? I suppose that's why some people like this one more, but it seems to lack some of the emergent gameplay and roleplaying ideas that Chester used in his playthrough of the first game, and I find that to be more of a disappointing read. Whatever the merits of a tighter game, it was certainly exciting to see Chester explain his roleplaying motivations for each choice he made in the first part, such as where to go next or who to talk to next.

    I know it was also an issue in the first game, but man, these "night/indoor effects" are not easy on the eyes. The game is already rather brown, grey, and "ornate" in general, the fancy shaded and anti-aliased golden text being an exemplar of that aesthetic, but that all REALLY does not mix well with tinting the entire screen a rainbow of colours from red to blue depending on how the game is feeling. I mean, that really ought not to even apply to the text of "spoken words" - it's not like you hear worse when the sun is down!

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    1. Oh yeah, and while I can excuse the scrolls changing colour based on the light as mimesis", I CANNOT excuse the FIVE-POINT font with ANTI-ALIASING! Some lowercase letters are FOUR PIXELS BIG! I would definitely welcome a larger font even if it required a "scroll"bar!

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    2. I didn't explain it well, but the invisibility potion doesn't make the CHARACTER see better. It just whites out the entire display, which makes it easier for me to pick out the denser white outlines of hidden chests.

      Agree with you on the lighting effects. It's applied to things it doesn't make sense to apply them to.

      Delete
    3. I absolutely hate the dialogue presentation in U7 (the font, the color, the lack of any backdrop), but the very modest shading/antialiasing on the text is not a problem. It looks fine at the game's native resolution (320x200). You may be seeing additional blurring in these images because your browser is upscaling them.

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    4. "is it just me, or is this game much more tightly-plotted (some could say railroaded) than Ultima VII?"

      It's not you. This game is much more scripted and linear. It evens things out by having many of those scripted events being plot twists and unexpected events

      Delete
  24. I think you can fill in the gaps on what happened to Angus a little bit more later in the game, but I am pretty sure it remains an unsolvable mystery as far as the NPCs are concerned; I think by now it's clear that Batlin murdered him.

    The guards will only accept gold bars as a bribe, and if I recall correctly they will take all of your gold bars, but you only need ONE in your inventory...

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  25. Granted, I'm no expert on mistresses, but someone with the word "Frigid" in her name doesn't sound like the best choice.

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    1. Having played a little ahead . . . the name is clearly meant ironically.

      Delete
    2. The names of almost every single character in Moonshade is like that - some reference to their job or character (like Fedabiblio runs the school - lots of biblios in a school). Kind of silly, but actually a pretty handy way to remember which character is which.

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  26. "I wonder if many players give up the game during the Sleeping Bull visit. I like NPC dialogue--I make it a key part of my GIMLET, even--but there's way too much of it here"
    A friend of mine who I tried to get into this game back when it was new gave up for this reason during the first few hours in Monitor, because "there wasn't any action, just talking." This was from someone who was perfectly happy to just RP conversations for hours on end when playing table top RPGs.

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  27. I just played this part with a female Avatar. Dialogue with Selina is very different. None of that "oh you mighty big man" angle.

    She speaks with the Avatar plainly, though in a way, it could also be taken as manipulative flattery. She says that in Monitor women can be warriors, but lose their femininity. In Fawn women can be beautiful, but are not allowed to intelligent nor independent. In Moonshade, women can be mages, but the real power is still held by men. But you Avatar, you are beautiful, powerful and intelligent all at once. People of these lands could learn a lot from a woman like you.

    I have to confirm this later with a male character, but it seemed to me that she offered very frank opinions about the culture of each city to female avatar that she doesn't with a male character. Especially their treatment of women. She's doing a feminist sisters against the world thing... but it also kind of felt sincere, the way her interaction with the male Avatar feels anything but sincere.

    I left my party members behind and went with her to the Royal Mint. As I was about to depart, I discovered that my Avatar has no weapon in her inventory. I didn't want to bother with asking my party members back, so I grabbed a pitchfork from the barn. My other option was the rake.

    When ambushed, I hit and ran around the bandits, trying to avoid their hits. Eventually, I managed to kill one of them with a pitchfork. Then I grabbed his two-handed sword and killed all the others too.

    I had a lot fun doing the encounter this way, and I also realized one unfulfilled potential of the Ultima 7 game mechanics.

    While it's possible to come up with creative weapons, you are never in any need to, because it's so easy to find a good weapon that you never need to change. Only if the players purposefully or accidentally restrict themselves from the obvious way of doing things, would they ever try something different.

    I've never equipped a pitchfork as a weapon before in any of my playthroughs. I haven't even thought of doing it. Actually, I think I've never even picked up a pitchfork in an Ultima game before.

    How much more challenging the game would be if there was a weapon deterioration mechanic, so you would actually have to try using random items as weapons in the game.

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    1. Interesting that Selina has such different dialogue with female PCs. It's a small step towards a time when dialogue, quests, and plots will be fundamentally different depending on what type of character you choose.

      I've had the same thought about weapon breakage in other games. Skyrim is a good example. Inevitably, around the 40-hour mark, I'll smith a dragonbone longsword and enchant it with something like "Shock Damage" using a grand soul gem, and I won't look at another weapon for the rest of the game. How much more fun would it be if you had to occasionally scramble to find a new weapon when your last one broke? If you had to actually use those miscellaneous enchanting tables that you find in the middle of dungeons to add ANY bonus, even using the cheapest soul gem? There's got to be a mod for that.

      Delete
    2. "How much more fun would it be if you had to occasionally scramble to find a new weapon when your last one broke?"

      I think you found the answer to that question while playing Ambermoon:

      "I haven't been talking about it as it happens, but weapon breakage is bull****. I've been reloading most of the time it happens. It feels cheesy, but I would have lost Firebrand seven or eight times by now otherwise."

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    3. Yeah, hah. But they're very different games. U7 and Skyrim are both open-world games in which combats are relatively easy; you have several resources to defeat enemies; and the difference between the worst weapons and the best doesn't cripple your odds in combat. It's easy in both games to flee battle since combat is integrated into the exploration interface. Ambermoon has a closed combat system; good weapons are less plentiful; and linear progression is more important.

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    4. Yeah, I personally have never gotten past "Weapon breakage is bullshit", but I can at least understand why people would feel differently. There's one or two games I strongly remember that have weapon customization and not weapon breakage, and it ends up feeling like it incentivizes picking a favorite pretty early so you can invest a lot in upgrades, then being angry when the endgame weapon becomes available, and you feel pressured to ditch your favorite for a weapon you won't have time to upgrade. (Or you hoard the upgrade items and spend most of the game without them in order to save them for the endgame) Weapon breakage is one way to get the player comfortable with the idea of approaching weapon upgrades as something more like a long-term-but-still-temporary buff.
      Though I think I'd prefer if they found other ways to accomplish that.

      Delete
    5. Interestingly enough, Ultima Online used to include weapon and armor durability.

      The difference between the qualities was noticeable but not hugely important unless you soloed balrons. But every repair had a chance to reduce the maximum durability, so you expected the equipment to wear out eventually.

      But then they redid the base equipment system, giving more powerful abilities to the equipment. And also added a consumable item that increases the max durability. So now having specific abilities on your equipment is more important, AND the equipment technically never gets destroyed.

      So the game went from the gear being nice to have, but not a huge deal if lost, to very important and never destroyed.

      Delete
  28. "It's a small step towards a time when dialogue, quests, and plots will be fundamentally different depending on what type of character you choose."

    To my eyes it doesn't seem to be any less than the typical modern RPG standard for different genders. I think only a handful of games have created a more different experience for male and female player characters.

    (The handful games being: Bloodlines, Arcanum, KOTOR 2, Dragon Age and maybe Mass Effect also)

    The gender specific reactions that you get in Serpent Isle are already very advanced.

    Also, I now compared Selina's conversations with both male and female Avatars. They are completely different conversations. Surprisingly a lot of thought was put into such a minor character.

    With the male Avatar, she plays dumb. She talks about the same topics as all the other characters in the Inn. Plus some Moonshade specific topics, but which are also general knowledge (she doesn't talk about these things with the female Avatar). She clearly doesn't respect men, and uses the same attitude with Avatar that she probably used with men in Moonshade.

    She respects the female Avatar enough to share her real thoughts. Her conversation with a female Avatar is much more intellectually interesting and it stands out from the other conversations in the Inn.

    She doesn't bother sharing her real opinions with a man, but with a woman (that) she (somewhat admires) does. There's enough here to write a thesis about.

    "The toxic sex and power culture of Moonshade."

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    Replies
    1. Point taken. It is the ARRIVAL of such a time.

      Thank you for going into more detail on the dialogue.It really does enhance her characterization.

      Delete

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