HoonDing

Did you miss the "Careful with that axe, Eugene"? That was an obscure Pink Floyd reference. The game is brimming with easter eggs like that.

fixed

For our next and final training mission, Laurelin asks us to hunt a Blood Wolf by following the trail of traps set by a couple of trappers that are hunting the wolf, and disarm the traps along the way. As the Blood Wolf is too cunning to get caught by them, the traps are only hurting innocent animals. After disarming a few traps, the two trappers show up and try to take us out. However, they are driven off rather easily. Eventually, we reach the edge of the Dark Forest where we encounter a young sorceress fighting some wolves. Not far from this scene, there are two bodies of smugglers that were transporting some goods. HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: By Hesinde, where did you come from all of a sudden? You only escaped being turned into charcoal by a whisker! URDIRIEL: These bodies... they obviously have bite wounds. Do you know who these people were? HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: No, I asked myself that too. They look like a bad lot to me. Smugglers perhaps... but that's not why I'm here. URDIRIEL: Even so, shouldn't we attend to these men? HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: There's no time for that now! A diseased wolf is wreaking havoc here... and I have come to kill it. From the look of these corpses, the beast can't have gotten very far yet. URDIRIEL: I'm also here to free the forest from this sick animal's clutches. Eventually, the Blood Wolf and his pack show up and we are drawn into a fight. Between our own archery skills and the support of both Hesindiana's magic and Laurelin's soul animal, the wolves are easily defeated. HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: Thank you for your help. I must say I am very glad you were there to help. That Blood Wolf was more of a danger than I thought... URDIRIEL: Before we attend to the victims, could you explain to me why you were hunting this creature? HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: The blood of this sick creature is an important ingredient for magic experiments. However - and no insult intended- I suspect you would not understand the details. URDIRIEL: Whatever you think... alright, now what are we going to do with these bodies? HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: Perhaps we should find out more about them first... let's see what they have on them... HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: Hmm... exotic food, various things... and a letter. Let's see... hmm, signed with an "S.B."... no arcane text, no alchemist's recipe, how boring. URDIRIEL: A letter? That certainly sounds interesting. HESINDIANA ZOLTAN: Do you think so? Well... here is the letter. I must hurry back to my Master. I wish you well, and I thank you once again! Upon returning to Laurelin, he congratulates us on our success, summons the forest creatures and officially ends our apprenticeship. Laurelin also grants us the recipe for the Improved Soul Bow as a parting gift, which will eventually give us the opportunity to craft the best bow in the game. After finishing our apprenticeship, our character has moved to level 2. We make use of some of our leveling points to learn the spells Balm of Healing, Thunderbolt and Fastness of Body from Laurelin. NEXT UPDATE: adventure calls.

Intent on finishing our apprenticeship, we go and find the old lady Ilma Broadtree near the East Gate of Nadoret to get directions to Master Laurelin. Her directions are clear: Laurelin can be found near the aptly named Troll Bridge. However, she also warns us not to try and cross this bridge to avoid getting squished. After a bit of walking, we finally meet Master Laurelin. LAURELIN: Sanyasala! URDIRIEL: I greet you also. LAURELIN: What leads you to me, Sister? URDIRIEL: I'm Urdiriel Teardream. Elodiron Shining-Crystal sent me. She told me I could learn from you. LAURELIN: I'm pleased to hear about Elodiron from you. I would be happy to share my knowledge with you. LAURELIN: I can feel intuition and dexterity in you. And I perceive that you aren't a stranger to life in the forest. URDIRIEL: Ai! But there's a lot more I'd still like to learn from you. Some paths have so far remained hidden from me. The first task Laurelin gives us, is gaining the trust of his soul creature, a badger. This task is easily accomplished using our character's Animal lore skill. Next, Laurelin sends us and his badger to destroy five nests of giant fireflies who are endangering the region, and convince the beekeeper who's breeding them to snap out of it. After destroying the nests, we find the beekeeper near the city's South Gate, selling the nectar he collected from the nests. BEEKEEPER: Hello! Do you want to taste my delightful dragon syrup? You won't find a tastier.. treat in all of the Kosh. URDIRIEL: No! Laurelin has sent me to speak with you... BEEKEEPER: Ah, I already had a discussion about my work with the pointy-eared gentleman. He had some reservations... URDIRIEL: .... which you obviously failed to heed. Instead, you have continued to breed those unnatural creatures. BEEKEEPER: I'm sorry, but I don't understand your point. My fireflies wouldn't hurt anyone. Please tell Master Laurelin that he is worrying needlessly. We find it rather hard to convince the beekeeper of his erroneous ways. The game gives us the opportunity to use one of the social talents, Fast Talk, but this is doomed to failure due to our character's total lack in social skills. URDIRIEL: [Fast Talk] Those fireflies are unnatural. Who knows what they might do?! They're a terrible menace! BEEKEEPER: [Failure] Those beasts are less harmful than bumblebees. And their syrup sells fantastically! To make matters worse, the Harbormaster shows up as well, disregards our arguments and kicks us out of the town. All there's left to do for us is to report back to Laurelin, who warns us about the Harbormaster and sends us on our next training mission.

After our heroine got knocked unconscious at the end of the previous update, Forgrimm starts the next part of his tale. Our character wakes up to the quarreling voices of the three merchants she met in the camp. Only now their names are revealed: the Dwarf is Forgrimm, the young human is Cano (who is also Gladys

No. Nebula engine. It's the same setting, but TDE 4th edition rather than 3rd edition like RoA. Hence, there are no negative attributes. You can however, pick negative & positive traits during character creation.

original, the battle for arrakis, 2000, the 3-D sequel to 2000... which one's the fifth? "Frank Herbert's Dune", second Dune game from Cryo Interactive.

All Dune games (all five of them) are good.

The travelling 'merchants' turn out to be not very sociable. HUMAN MERCHANT 1: I'm sorry, but we're in the middle of an important discussion. URDIRIEL: The Captain has sent me to tell you that the camp is set for the night. HUMAN MERCHANT 2: Oh, thank you for this reassuring piece of information. I'm sure we've earned a nap. DWARF MERCHANT: I have to agree with him there. I'll sleep like a log after all that cursed rocking and rolling about on the ship. HUMAN MERCHANT 1: Nobody is going to bed yet! Or have either of you slackards come up with a good idea yet? DWARF MERCHANT: ...errr..... HUMAN MERCHANT 2: ...hmmm... HUMAN MERCHANT 1: Please explain to the captain that we have matters to discuss and that it will take as long as it takes... we wish to remain undisturbed. Understood? Now, we can leave it at that, but we can also harass the three some more. URDIRIEL: are you also travelling to Nadoret? DWARF MERCHANT: That's for me to know and you to find out, Pointy Ears. Haha! Well... we don't have anything to hide, so I can guess we can tell you... We... HUMAN MERCHANT 1: We are... we're merely travelling merchants... with important matters to discuss. DWARF MERCHANT: That's right, we have a private matter to discuss, so push off! HUMAN MERCHANT 2: Oh my, you are such an elegant and subtle character, Gammlund... I'm impressed. DWARF MERCHANT: What's that supposed to mean? Are you making fun of me, Cano... err.... Foxhill... I mean Foxhill! HUMAN MERCHANT 1: It would be better if you left us alone now... I'm sure that one of the... boatmen... would be glad to chat with you. URDIRIEL: Why are you being so unfriendly? I just wanted to get to know you! DWARF MERCHANT: So you want to get to know us, do you? If you don't stop listerning to our conversations, you'll get to know my axe! HUMAN MERCHANT 2: Don't take it to heart. My friend's axe is much sharper than his mind... and his moods are far worse than his breath! DWARF MERCHANT: Cano, just say the word and I'll introduce you to my axe as well! HUMAN MERCHANT 2: Ah, thank you for your kind offer but I have already had the pleasure... And by the way, my name is Dabro, not Cano. Dabro Foxhill, remember? HUMAN MERCHANT 1: Stop it, both of you! Now let's get on with our discussion, if we may! Forgive me, kind Lady, but we wish to be alone. When we finally leave the three alone, it seems we didn't really make a good first impression. Anyway, after reporting back to the Captain, we can finally lay to rest, only to be rudely awakened in the middle of the night. The entire camp is in chaos and fighting who appear to be pirates. Soon our character is attacked by two ruffians as well, and must defend herself with her puny dagger. The two mooks go down quickly, but our heroine is attacked again by a large brute with an even larger warhammer. However, he is dispatched quickly as well. In the meantime, the Captain got himself in trouble and we rush to his defense... But our character is brutally beaten down from behind... and everything turns black. NEXT UPDATE: arrival in Nadoret.

Let's play Drakensang: the River of Time, the 2010 sequel to Drakensang: the Dark Eye. The story starts in Ferdok, setting of the first Drakensang, with two joinable characters of that game, Forgrimm & Gladys, reminiscing over an old painting. Eventually, the Dwarf starts telling the story of what happened 23 years ago. Character creation: we decide to play with an Elven Ranger with the colourful name Urdiriel Teardream. Elves are naturally geared towards magic & nature talents, while having troubles integrating in human society. The game starts on a boat and according to our journal our character is supposed to travel to a town called Nadoret to finish her training with an Elven master called Laurelin. However, for now we are stranded on an island and must help the Captain with some menial tasks. CAPTAIN ALBASS: It's good of you to join us on land, young lady. We'll camp here tonight before we reach Nadoret tomorrow. CAPTAIN ALBASS: You promised to make yourself useful during our journey. I forgot all about that, or I would have given you something to do much sooner. URDIRIEL: And of course I'll keep my word, Captain. What can I do to help? CAPTAIN ALBASS: Lend old Piet a hand to set up camp for the night. We'll set off at first light tomorrow - our paying passengers are in a hurry. Piet turns out to be an old curmudgeon who quickly sets us on our way to fetch some fungus with the young sailor Janah. PIET: Who? What? Oh! It's someone from the boat. What was your name again? URDIRIEL: ... Urdiriel Teardream! How could you forget? PIET: Oh right! You're the one who couldn't afford to pay the full fare... the one that I can use for odd jobs. I don't know how I could forget that. URDIRIEL: Yes, the captain was so friendly PIET: Friendly? Hurumpf, well if you enjoy working so much... you can do my job as well! PIET: Or not. Who knows what a mess you'd make of it... I seem to remember that someone chose to waste their money on betting instead of buying tinder fungus in Ferdok. JANAH: No, that's not true! Somebody stole the money and I was so shocked by the theft that I forgot to buy the tinder fungus. Really! URDIRIEL: I don't have any tinder fungus either. How can I help? PIET: Well, someone will have to find some dry tinder fungus on this island and YOU are going with them, just in case.. JANAH: I'm not scared! I would go on my own if it wasn't so dull... PIET: Make sure she comes back in one piece, or you'll have to deal with me! Janah is in enough trouble as it is. URDIRIEL: Of course. Come on, Janah, let's go. After all said and done, Janah leads us to a spot with tinder fungus, but of course she messes it up. JANAH: It's as wet as a bowl of Kosh Cabbage Broth! We won't find a shred of dry tinder fungus out here if Efferd has blessed the entire island with his wonders. URDIRIEL: What shall we do now? JANAH: I know! While we're here, let's take a look inside the ruined tower. I bet it's still nice and dry inside. URDIRIEL: That sounds like a nice little adventure. I'm in. I forgot to take screenshots of the tower, but what happens is that the two companions get attacked by some bats and eventually find some dry tinder fungus. After returning the fungus to Piet, the Captain gives us the task to inform three travelling merchants (one of them a Dwarf) that the camp is set for the night.

Mark Meer. As much as I dislike his voice-over in ME, I can totally understand why he was hired. The man's steaming hawt.

BG was good for it's time but nowadays I couldn't play that turd for 5 minutes. So in 20 years from now, all current games will be turds as well?

Manny seems to be lacking in potions. With level 4 Fireball, those skeletons shouldn't have been a problem.

So it's better than Planescape: Torment (93), but worse than Oblivion (95) and NWN (95).

I have no idea actually I just thought it was always possible to travel between settings, to me it's just like different planes of existence I dunno, can't you jump from DarkSun to Dragonlance? I summon Volo to the thread There's many worlds on the Prime Material Plane. That's why you meet for instance Knights of Solamnia (from Dragonlance world of Krynn) in BG2.

Speaking of witty, what happened to your NWN playthrough?

Yeh, and the rest of the world. The further that lady is kept from any red buttons, the better.

Well, I already mentioned a comic book and a tv series villain, how about some crook/cop/mutual nemesis pairings? E.g. Moriarty/Holmes, William Chaloner/Sir Isaac Newton etc.? Bond/Blofeld

I have all those French letters & signs on my keyboard.

After what was established in Divine Divinity & Beyond Divinity, Damian is hardly random. For the Dragon slayers, he's next in line after they wipe out the last Dragon knight. EDIT: you can actually pause the game during combat.

fixed

Good news for Dungeon Siege 3... provided it doesn't get delayed either.

Krull (watched it when I was 5)

I played through HotU as a pure fighter once and one-shotted Baalors with that +8 sword. Let's just say that *arcane* magic sucks balls in 3rd & 3.5 edition. Clerics filling their entire spellbook with Persistent Buffs are better than fighters and invulnerable against everything. Ask Kaelyn.

I would've picked Gargamel.