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Also, sorry for my unannounced hiatus. We're coming up on the final stretch of Dragon Wars, but as I just pointed out, there are a few more places to check out before we go and ring Namtar's doorbell. They are: - The College of Magic - The Royal Game Preserve - Dragon Valley Let me know which you'd like to see next! If there is a tie or nobody bothers to vote by the time I get started on the next update, I'll pick one on a whim. Thanks for reading!
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Dec 18, 2015 06:05
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Thought this was dead; glad to see it back. The College of Magic seems like a consistent choice; also curious to see how a place that teaches magic has fared when magic is banned.
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Dec 18, 2015 06:25
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College of Magic ,because I can't remember it at all.
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Dec 18, 2015 15:53
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thetruegentleman posted:Thought this was dead; glad to see it back. Glad to be back, and thanks for reading! Remember, special glasses are needed to find the College. We can only hope that Namtar & company haven't found a pair of their own... MaskedHuzzah posted:College of Magic ,because I can't remember it at all. It's entirely possible to beat the game without putting Lanac'toor back together, finding the glasses in his lab, or going to the College. It's all pretty much just part of a pointless sidequest. Also, the college is out of the way and there aren't really hints as to where it is. So it's quite possible and understandable if you just missed it. Voting is still open, but it looks like College of Magic is the favorite so far!
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Dec 18, 2015 16:22
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Dragon Valley because it's Christmas Eve, and I'm a contrarion.
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Dec 24, 2015 08:15
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Next update is the College of Magic, it's just about finished, and it will be a two-parter because somehow I used more than twice as many images as I've used in previous updates.
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Dec 24, 2015 18:26
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Part 33: Journey to the Magic College After thinking it over, our band of "heroes" has decided, it's time to go to College! Sadly, much like the taverns in this game, the College will suffer from an alarming lack of both people and booze. To get to the College, first, we'll have to set sail for Rustic.  Okay, where to now?  No, not there...  Ah yes! Because if there's anything this game needed, clearly it was another bridge.  Paragraph 48 posted:A wall of rock stands athwart your path. Massive bronze doors guard a way through the rock; fearsome beasts guard the way to the door. Yes, because OF COURSE, you know, since it's a man and a woman... never mind, nope, not going there.  Piers: Not for us to pass? Wanna bet? CHARGE! Dolph: We all remember what happened the last time we followed that dumbass over a bridge, right?  I've read an FAQ saying that these scorpions are a really difficult fight. Maybe they're really difficult in the Apple version or something? By the time you're this far in the game, they're not too tough. At worst, they might stun a few characters and you might need to throw some spells at them, but they're not a major concern.  Kill Ray doesn't really live up to its name, sadly. It does deal 10-80 damage, but for a whopping 15 MP. Sun Stroke can do that for 10 MP. Fire Light and Rage of Mithras are also more efficient. However, if you don't have a lot of skill points invested in a given magic class, it might be the only thing in your arsenal capable of dealing 80 damage. Anyway, we can beat them without much trouble, but there is a "better" way to pass them without a fight. This will take some backtracking.   Mystic Wood is actually the exact place we want to go right now.  Remember this place? We can use the Golden Boots to jump onto the island, much like we did to get to Irkalla in the Underworld.   And we can use Arcane Lore to learn more about the shrine.  Paragraph 72 posted:This shrine is formed from rocks and wood and moss - it seems a profoundly natural thing, more an outgrowth of this enchanted wood than a thing built by man. The divinity worshiped here is none you recognize, but the feeling of theplace is one of harmony with nature. Now, even with the clue, this is a bit tricky. The solution? Use a weapon to cut yourself.    So for our troubles, we get the Enkidu Totem. Showing it to the scorpions causes them to let us through...  How would you know this, without looking it up in the official cluebook or an FAQ? Well if you paid attention to this LP about eight months ago, you'll know exactly why this makes sense...  Remember, any time you play an RPG this old, you write down everything anyone tells you, and I mean loving everything. Or play with a guide in your lap. They could tell you that Lanac'toor liked potato chips and it could be the secret to defeating Namtar. That said, getting the scorpions to step aside doesn't actually matter that much. It saves us a fight, but we were more than prepared for that fight. And one step beyond the scorpions...  These guys worry me a bit at first, because they look like wraiths (gently caress WRAITHS) but they don't have a ranged AoE attack like wraiths do. Instead, they have this:  That's cute. My turn.    You can encounter more than 3 of those Spirits, but even if you encounter 7 they're not much of a threat at this point. Mage Fire is all they have, and it just doesn't hit very hard. Taking another step forward, we encounter Bridge Wolves. Well maybe they're more of a threa-  -oh, okay.  Now, that gets us across the bridge, but if we deviate from the straight path, there are even more enemies to fight. Are any of them hard?  Holy poo poo, bears! With new sprites and everything! These guys look tough!  They are not tough, but they sure looked like they were!   After taking out one more Bridge Wolf, we get this. No locked chest or description or anything, just a "Who will get loot?" prompt and some items. The Magic Shield gives an extra point of AC, but otherwise there's not much here. The Barbed Flail is pretty obsolete by now and the gold doesn't matter much. This whole bridge area is kind of underwhelming, aside from seeing two new pieces of enemy art. What do the Bones do? I have no idea. Maybe a shopowner can tell us?  Nope, that was loving useless. As far as I know, they do nothing, just like the flotsam you find in Sunken Ruins. I guess it's just to mess with people who think every item must have a purpose. Anyway, we're done with the bridge, let's move on.  To Be Continued...
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Dec 24, 2015 18:36
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Part 34: The Magic College So here's the college. We'll have to walk around the perimeter to find the entrance.  Aha. That must be where the door is. It looks like just a wall, but that's why we need the glasses. We have to use them here. (Note: using tracker doesn't do anything, even though there are tracks.)    Not sure what this guy is talking about, but let's enter.    I still don't know what this voice is babbling about, but evidently this is a puzzle involving a literal firewall. Hmm, fire you say? Whatever shall we do to combat that?   Duh. That was easy. If we didn't have Ice Chill, we could have used Big Chill here (same effect, much higher MP cost).  Paragraph 141 posted:In the next chamber, you see fires identical to the first. "Very good," the voice intones. "You have potential, but I detected a flaw in your form. Please negotiate this wall of fire for me, that I might study your finer points." Well, okay, not sure what the point of making us do this again is...  Uhh...  Welp. What else do we have?  Well I'm not going to cast a fire spell on fire, this other stuff doesn't seem useful... what does Reveal Glamour do again?  Son of a bitch. THAT is what Reveal Glamour does. Now we know.  Again, we could use Mage Fire, Elvar's Fire, etc. but Fire Light for 1 is the cheapest option.  Another puzzle down.  Paragraph 142 posted:"Now you are learning. Not everything is as it seems," says the voice. You enter a chamber occupied by a stone gargoyle. The gargoyle's gaze is fixed on the door through which you must exit the room. "To be seen by the gargoyle is to know death," says the voice. "Yet the gargoyle sees the exit. What to do, what to do...?" Meh. We can take on anything. Gargoyle, bring it on!  Oh poo poo! Guess we really are going to get stoned at college.  Nice fake-out, I thought for a moment this might actually be a Game Over.  Remember that, kids. Getting stoned is an easy way to fail your next test and get kicked out of school. Don't get stoned. Let's try that again. The trick, of course, is to not be seen by the gargoyle. Hiding won't work here, we have to use the Cloak Arcane spell to turn invisible.    Paragraph 143 posted:"Now you have learned to listen. Excellent...you are half-way home," says the voice. You detect genuine admiration in its tone. "This college exists in the rarified atmosphere of the true academic, but not everyone you will encounter appreciates the Art. You must learn to deal with such ruffians." Out of thin air, a huge warrior appears, wielding a sword in both hands. "I'm gonna split yer lobe, highbrow!" he Casting Reveal Glamour doesn't help us here. If we walk over to the barbarian...  All right then, let's break out the offensive magic!  Huh. That's new. Well, let's try the old-fashioned way...     Geez, this guy takes a beating and dishes one out too. Let's go a few more rounds...  After tanking about another 100 damage, he stuns Ulrik too.  Finally. I don't know exactly how much HP this guy has, but it's a lot more than I remember him having. Even at my high level, he is a threat to kill someone (and no, the voice doesn't magically heal people who get killed). It's actually better if he stuns people. If someone is stunned, they won't be targetted again unless they're healed. But if he hits someone and doesn't stun, he could kill him or her with his next attack.  So yeah, this is kind of a trick. After a bunch of "use the right spell" puzzles, this time around you're supposed to just go bash the guy's face in. Also, if we run away or get our butts kicked, we get thrown out of the school again:  Of course, it's not a big deal, because any time we flunk out of the college we can just walk back around to the entrance and start over like we're brand new students.  Paragraph 144 posted:"I'm sorry that was so brutal, but I had to prove a point," the voice explains. "Some people can't appreciate Art...in such times, you must rely on more direct measures." You find yourself in a chamber over which is suspended a hugeblock of granite. The block is hung by a cable...the cable trails to a wall and down to the floor, where it stretches across the floor as a trip-wire. It doesn't take much intelligence to     Paragraph 145 posted:"That was novel. I don't think I've seen that solution before." Across the room you see your mysterious host. "I am Utnapishtim, also called the Faraway. I have been your teacher, now you must teach me something. I want to see something novel and new. Give me your best shot...you go first." The wizard waits for you to act. Wikipedia tells me that Utnapishtim is a character in the epic of Gilgamesh. As previously mentioned, there is a pretty long list of character and place names in Dragon Wars that are taken from Gilgamesh, and from other mythologies. I am not knowledgeable enough on the topic of Mesopotamian literature to really add much to this topic, but it's there. This is the final puzzle, and it's a bit tricky to describe. We're in a 2x2 room with a door directly to our north, as indicated in the following map:  That armored dude in the SE corner is us. The green "U" in the NW is Utnapishtim. If we go west, we get a note that Utnap is to the north. If we go north, we get a note that he is to the west. If we go to the northwest...  This looks like Mystalvision. It is not. And this looks like a battle. It is not. If we choose Fight or Quickly Fight, we get a "you chose poorly" message and flunk out of the College. No, really:  If we choose Run, it just moves us back one tile and we get to take another course of action. Of course, the only option left is to just go north through the door and into the next room.  Paragraph 146 posted:This time it is Utnapishtim in the flesh who greets you. "Well done!" he says. "Having learned to listen to me, you've learned you don't have to listen to me. Lanac'toor could not have done better." The old wizard shows no concern when you tell him Lanac'toor is dead. "There's death, and then there's death. I wouldn't worry about Toor." The Soul Bowl? That sounds like it should be the name of the annual football game between the College of Magic and the University of Kingshome.  Of course, the Soul Bowl is what we should select here. If we do, we get this message:  And then we get our parting gifts:   These are all High Magic. If we had a second High Magic user, this stuff would be really useful, but we only have one, and he has already learned most of this. Still, Madrick learns Group Heal and Fire Summon. Group Heal is useful, it does exactly what it says on the tin and is identical to Major Healing. Fire Summon is the most powerful summon spell, and is useless because it's a summon spell and we have 7 characters. It's a shame, because if there was a slot to fit a summoned party member, Fire Element would be pretty nifty:  Note that if we had selected the Staff or Ring here, we'd still get our High Magic scrolls but no comment about Zaton. Both items are useless. They're not even weapons or armor or anything, just more garbage items which take up inventory space. I'm fairly certain there is no possible use for them in the game (outside of Irkalla sacrifice fodder, and we've done that already.) Anyway, it's very important that we select the Soul Bowl and not one of the others, because we only get to choose one. Once we have made a selection, we are locked out of getting either of the other choices forever.  Oh. Where did that come from? If you walk back around to the entrance, you can start the College over again, solve the same puzzles the same way, and get all the way up to the previously-pictured 2x2 room with the fake Utnapishtim. There's one problem.   Soften Stone doesn't work. The only way out is to go to the tile with the fake Utnap, choose "poorly," and get kicked out of a school we've already graduated from. In a nutshell, this is because of the limitations of 1980's scripting. The door is meant to be a one-way door, so when you walk through the door, it changes to a wall. It never changes back, because there's no reason for it to change back. Once you go through that door, you've solved the final puzzle and beaten the dungeon, so there's no need to go back after that point. So how is it possible to graduate a second time? Well, any changes in doors/walls such as casting Create Wall or Soften Stone will reset when you move to a different map. So if we exit the College map out to Dilmun and come back in, the doors all reset and we can complete the College once again. This means we can get all three items, or even multiple copies of an item. There is no reason to do any of this, unless you screwed up the first time and got something other than the Soul Bowl, or if you have multiple High Magic users and want the duplicate scrolls. That's all for the Magic College. More of a Magic Diploma Mill if you ask me, but whatever. As Utnapishtim suggested, let us pay our respects to Zaton. His grave is in the Mystic Wood.  Use the Soul Bowl.  Paragraph 79 posted:There is a deep rumbling as storm clouds gather. Abruptly rain begins to fall in relentless sheets, threatening to flood the stone, the forest, the entire world.   We already have most of these. Invoke Spirit is another useless summon spell. On one hand, all we got for this entire quest was a bunch of scrolls, mostly for spells we already had or didn't need. On the other hand, summoning the ghost of Zaton and restoring natural order was pretty cool. rujasu fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Dec 25, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 18:38
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Hope you all enjoyed the update. The Magic College is a pretty useless side-quest, but I like it a lot. Anyway, the next update may or may not come before the end of 2016, but we're down to two possible destinations now: - The Royal Game Preserve! - Dragon Valley! And once we've tackled both areas, it will be time to go Namtar-hunting!
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Dec 24, 2015 18:54
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Um, the quotes are broken, starting at the disarm trap portion. Dragon Wars.
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Dec 24, 2015 19:46
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GrizzlyCow posted:Um, the quotes are broken, starting at the disarm trap portion. Thanks, fixed. So that's a vote for Dragon Valley then?
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Dec 25, 2015 01:28
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Yes.
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Dec 25, 2015 02:18
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Dragon Valley. I mean c'mon dragons are the coolest.
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Dec 25, 2015 14:01
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Game Preserve. Sounds less dramatic than the Valley, so it's bound to be important.!
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Dec 25, 2015 14:32
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Dragon Valley sounds like the last place that might be genuinely threatening, so visiting there sounds good.
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Dec 26, 2015 05:08
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I do like that the magic school does give you a ton of magic spells in the end.
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Dec 26, 2015 18:38
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Game Preserve to add poaching to our long list of crimes against the state.
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Dec 27, 2015 08:45
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Whuff, just caught up with things, thanks for the trip down memory lane so far, rujasu! And yeah, let's hit up the Dragon Valley.
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Dec 28, 2015 00:42
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The mythical figure Utnapishtim is notable for building a giant boat at a god's behest, filling it with animals, and using it to survive a flood that destroys the rest of the world. This may sound familiar if you've ever attended Sunday school.
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Dec 28, 2015 03:41
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Looks like Dragon Valley wins and Game Preserve will be after that. I shall get to work on it soon.Seyser Koze posted:The mythical figure Utnapishtim is notable for building a giant boat at a god's behest, filling it with animals, and using it to survive a flood that destroys the rest of the world. This may sound familiar if you've ever attended Sunday school. I did read that in my 60 seconds of googling the name. I do wonder what, if anything, the connection between that and the Dragon Wars character is.
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Dec 28, 2015 15:48
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Still working on Dragon Valley. Without spoiling too much, I'm going to say that this update is possibly the most challenging one I've had yet. One thing I noticed by accident: using the Soul Bowl at Zaton's grave seems to grant some experience points in addition to the scrolls. I don't know exactly how much you get, but it must add some because Valar was able to gain a level when I ran away from a battle. Sadly, completing the Magic College does not grant experience, crushing my dreams of finding a repeatable experience source to exploit the game with. (There are other exploits anyway, but we'll save those for later.)
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Jan 4, 2016 06:41
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Yay, glad this is still going.
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Jan 4, 2016 17:58
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I just started using Rightload to upload my screenshots. What was I thinking not using this earlier New update coming soon, after some review/revision.
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Jan 19, 2016 02:27
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Part 35: Dragon Valley Remember how, last time, the battles were stupidly easy and all we did was solve a bunch of simple puzzles? Yeah, this isn't going to be like that. We're going to be doing some serious combat today. So before we do anything else, we're going to head to the Underworld for a recharge.  Also, we have some unassigned skill points for Madrick, and I'm going to pour them all into Spirit.  Remember, Spirit x 2 is MP, so Madrick now has 44 MP, which is a big number in this game.  As I said in the beginning, I wasn't going for a fully-optimized party here. The downside to this is that Dolph kinda sucks. High Dexterity isn't all that useful for a mage and he only has 30 MP. If I was really min-maxing, I would have made two pure mages (probably High and Sun with one of my melees getting Druid from the statue) with as much MP as I could give them and maybe a few points to HP, while giving the lores/abilities to the two melee fighters. But this will be fine.  We'll set sail for the Sunken Ruins, as it shares an island with Dragon Valley.   There's no introduction or "Read paragraph 365" to start off. Instead, the first thing we'll run into here is a battle, which really sets the tone for what's in store here:  As the game helpfully tells us, Fangers (which look like turtles but are meant to be baby dragons) are the weakest enemies in this area. Which is good, seeing at they sometimes show up in packs of 25. The single Dragon Warrior isn't a huge problem. He hits hard, but he's a single melee attacker and he's 120 feet away. The real problem here is the Cockatrice, who will just sit back at 60' away and use a breath attack on our whole party, forcing us to either waste turns advancing, or try to kill it by slinging 10-point Rage of Mithras at it. The first approach is the way to go, but we can't advance through those Fangers. Additionally, the Dragon Warrior advances at 30' per turn, so it will also be in front of the Cockatrice before long. So, the best approach for now is to take out the Fangers in one turn and start advancing. Obviously, we're going to need magic to quickly dispatch a group of 25. Valar will cast a 10-point Inferno and Madrick will throw in an Poog's Vortex to pick up the remnants. Elvar's Fire might be enough, but if it leaves even one Fanger standing, that will prevent us from advancing on the Cockatrice next turn. Better to use the extra MP and make sure we get it right the first time.  We're off to a good start; a Cockatrice attack can hit for a lot more than 1 damage. We got lucky.  The Fangers advanced into melee range, so Louie is able to take one out, not that this will matter much.   Good. We got all of the Fangers in one turn, so we can start advancing on the Cockatrice.    OK, now our front four and Valar will attack the Warrior. Dolph & Madrick will heal.       Awesome. We still have to advance three more times through the breath attack, of course.   drat. We're still 20' away and need to heal. Have I mentioned that I hate these breath attacks?    At least Valar can get some shots in with the Gatlin Bow.   I may have gone overboard on the healing this turn. One more time advancing.  I just want to emphasize that this is our 8th time getting hit by Cockatrice breath in this fight. Remember, we're advancing, so we don't even get to do anything this turn.  And there's the 9th.  Finally. See how much of a chore that fight was? Well guess what, that's just a standard-issue battle here in Dragon Valley! Yep, we get a scripted encounter just like this every 2-3 steps, plus random battles (which are frequently even worse than the one we just faced) whenever the game feels like it! Doesn't that sound like fun? Fortunately, there's a way to make this area a lot less frustrating. We'll hang a left here.  One thing I do like about this area is the buildup. These tough battles are just the beginning. You actually randomly hear a dragon roar sound every few steps, which is cool. Of course, it would be cooler on something better than an IBM internal speaker. We'll take another left here.  Dear Dragon Valley, gently caress you. Love, rujasu Even with a pretty strong party, we are not going to win this battle. 5 Cockatrices will stun our whole party faster than we can heal up. The one Fanger will advance 50' in one turn and get in our way if we try to advance. And the Mage... well, we'll talk about him later. The Mages around here are in their own special class of evil. Anyway, this battle is semi-random, so the best thing is run away, come back, and hope we encounter something beatable.  Nope.  Nope.  NOPE.  Okay this is fine.  One thing I'll point out about this fight is that I used Fire Storm. It's less cost-efficient than Inferno, but being able to hit everything from 60' out for good damage is useful. As you can see here, it didn't give me a great return for the 20 MP (2/3 of Dolph's total) I put into it.    Here it is. This is what will make the rest of this area significantly easier. The Dragon Tooth is a weapon. It is a melee weapon, and it hits for 2d20 damage. That's not as good as our current melee weapons, but there's a key difference: the Tooth hits from 60' away. Despite having range, it's still a regular melee weapon, no limited ammo or need to reload. And we can pick up as many as we want. It's an infinite supply. All of our front four will be equipping Dragon Teeth for this area. The Sword of Freedom just got benched.  Fights against 7 Cockatrices will still be impossible, but something like this becomes much easier. Everyone attacks the Cockatrice, Valar casts an Inferno, and that's pretty much it. The Cockatrice gets in one breath attack instead of nine.  We continue north, getting a couple more (relatively reasonable) encounters.  Which we win. Thankfully there are no encounters with large groups of Cockatrices or Mages this way.    Ultimately we want to take a left from here, but let's take a quick detour to the right.   These are nothing special. Vorn's Guard raises AC by 2 during combat for 6 MP. It would be more effective to sink that MP into Cloak Arcane, which lasts for multiple battles, not that we really need it anyway. Sala's Swift raises Dexterity by 8, which is a nice bonus, but again, only for one combat. It's not worth spending valuable MP on. Cowardice makes foes run away, unless they resist the spell, as it "works best against weaker opponents." I shouldn't have to explain why that isn't worth it. However, there's one cool thing worth pointing out here:  Madrick has now learned every High Magic spell in existence. Now where were we?   Paragraph 134 posted:In the very heart of the valley you find the sacred hive of the Dragon Queen. The Queen sits atop a mountain of eggs, some of which hatch young saurians even as you watch. The Dragon Queen is colossal - easily ten times the size of any beast you've confronted thus far. She fixes you with a fierce glare.  All right, epic boss fight time! Let's do this!  OK, so they're 150' away, which should give us plenty of time to throw up some buff spells, wait for them to walk into Dragon Tooth range, and...  OH GOD WHAT  Well I hope everyone has enjoyed Let's Play Dragon Wars! We lost the war with the dragons, but I hope everyone had a fun time and enjoyed the ride! Stay tuned for my upcoming LP of Windows Solitaire!
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Jan 19, 2016 05:02
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(Working on part 2 of Dragon Valley, probably won't be up tonight though.)
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Jan 19, 2016 05:07
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I don't recall this at all - must have somehow overlooked it in my playthroughs.
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Jan 19, 2016 18:39
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Well, that...uh...happened.  But I'm not just some wet behind the ears wanna be adventurer who jumps every bar wench he see's and thus gets his soul sucked out by a demon in disguise! Now, what item did you miss in that maze...the game isn't going to let you just kill the biggest dragon on the planet, so I'm guessing you need something to show her that protects you...another dragon's favor perhaps? Or maybe some item that makes you invincible to dragons so she's forced to negotiate instead? I'm guessing an item, since the game gave you a turn before it killed you (it usually just kills you with a text box), but I can't really figure out what item would help here. Maybe a magic tent? Regardless, there's nothing to really indicate she hates the big bad, so I'm guessing she'll bribe you to make you leave: if this were a jrpg, you would get a dragon that would let you fly around the world map, but since this is the west...I'm guessing dragon armor, lots of gold, and a bunch of spells you don't need.
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Jan 19, 2016 18:56
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thetruegentleman posted:Now, what item did you miss in that maze...the game isn't going to let you just kill the biggest dragon on the planet, so I'm guessing you need something to show her that protects you...another dragon's favor perhaps? Or maybe some item that makes you invincible to dragons so she's forced to negotiate instead? I'm guessing an item, since the game gave you a turn before it killed you (it usually just kills you with a text box), but I can't really figure out what item would help here. Maybe a magic tent? It's the Flotsam. Or the Parrot. I'll post the next part as soon as I can remember which.
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Jan 19, 2016 20:19
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So, is it better to get a game over from a cutscene, or get clobbered with large numbers and remove all doubt?
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Jan 20, 2016 03:06
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I prefer the big numbers approach. It's just really classy to use the already present game mechanics to tell the story.
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Jan 20, 2016 06:25
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Glazius posted:So, is it better to get a game over from a cutscene, or get clobbered with large numbers and remove all doubt? I don't think either are really better than the other as long as it's done well, and both can be done poorly (a cutscene that has you lose to something that in a normal gameplay segment would be easily beaten, or an enemy that's only a threat because it was given an infinite amount of health so it's not immediately obvious that you can't win and thus waste a lot of time bashing your face against it to no avail).
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Jan 20, 2016 07:38
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Part 36: Dragon Valley Continued You can really get yourself in trouble here, if you save right after reading paragraph 134, while the Queen is preparing to kill you. Even if you try to run from her, she will always go first and use her absurdly powerful breath attack. The good news is that it is possible to survive the battle with the Dragon Queen. I don't mean that we can "win" it, but it's possible for the damage roll to be a little lower, resulting in our being stun-wiped instead of getting an actual Game Over.   If you reload enough times, you can get out with all of your party members stunned. Then you get dumped back at the entrance, and all you have to do is slap a Band-Aid on those dragonfire burns. You can return to the northern part of the valley and the Dragon Queen will still be there, but she will not attack you again. The best thing to do is to not get into a battle with the Queen at all. As you might have guessed, before her attack, we need to use the Dragon Gem.  Paragraph 120 posted:The Dragon Queen recoils when you show the Dragon Gem. "Curse you!" she hisses. "The Dragon Gem marks you as friend of dragons, and binds me to your will." The Dragon Queen looms above you, seeming impossibly large. "I grant you your life, and I dismiss you from my presence. When next you use the Dragon Gem, I will respond...but the sacrifice you offer must be sweet, or I will turn on you, and the Dragon Gem be damned!!" Sadly, the other enemies don't leave town with her, but this is important. There is a place where we'll want to use the Dragon Gem. If we try to use it in the wrong place, nothing happens, we just get the usual "item has no use here," which is a bit disappointing. It would be more fun if the Dragon Queen would show up and blast your party into oblivion for wasting her time. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be so much fun. One more thing: each party member gains 500 experience after the Dragon Gem is used here. I've found that a lot of game events give experience points like this. The ones I know of for sure are winning the Byzanople vs. Kingshome battle, reviving Zaton, and this one, but I'm sure there are many more that I haven't pinpointed. If someone in the party would gain a level, they gain it after the next battle you fight, even if you run away without killing an enemy. None of this matters much at all, but it's interesting to me. Also, the Dragon Gem only lets us control the Queen. All of her hundreds of children will continue to make every effort to kill us, everywhere we turn.  At this point, we can leave Dragon Valley, as gaining control of the Dragon Queen is the main reason to come here. And that's probably what a sane person would do, as the battles are both dangerous and tedious.    Oh great. The game is guilt-tripping us for killing the baby dragons who are all trying to eat us. Just for that, I'm taking them all down! You wanted a Dragon War, you've got one!    Spare me the half-baked morality lesson. More blood means more experience!    This isn't like Might & Magic where destroying the monsters' nest removes their spawn point. We just get -- what else? -- a bunch of loot.  The equipment is a marginal upgrade, the Holy Lance isn't worth bothering with, and the Dragon Tears don't do anything. The Dragon's Eyes are very useful though, as they are more powerful Dragon Stones. These battles have chewed up a ton of my MP, so this is a very nice pickup. And with that, there's nothing left to do but finish the massacre!    And with that, the only encounters left in Dragon Valley are random ones. The bad news is that the random encounters include fun groups like this:  I've hinted at this before, but Mages are the absolute worst around here. On one hand, they actually don't do any damage. On the other hand, they do this:  Yeah. They constantly spam the "lose a turn" spell, which is every bit as annoying as it sounds. Not only does it make them difficult to fight, it's also really annoying to run from them. The "good" news about Brambles is that it doesn't seem to have a particularly high success rate. When it says, "the party misses an attack," it really just means that at least one member of the party will miss a turn. Even with six Mages spamming the spell every turn, one or two attacks will get through. In most cases, that's still enough to make the battle impossible, but since there is only one enemy who actually deals damage (the Dragon Warrior), we'll be fine. We'll just attack the Warrior with Dragon Teeth every turn, then attack the Mages. We'll win, we won't take much damage, but it will be a very slow process.  Also, that's the message we get if Brambles misses all party members. It doesn't come up all that often, but enough to indicate that the hit rate for Brambles isn't all that high.   Easy, right? Well, aside from the fact that it took about 30 turns just to get enough attacks off, sure.  Goodbye, and good riddance!  Off to Rustic! Next time, we'll tackle the Royal Game Preserve, likely to be our final stop before Nisir!
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Jan 21, 2016 06:48
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You just randomly can't do anything for one round while someone beats on you? Wow, that's really just kind of begging for chain reloads.
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Jan 23, 2016 01:00
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Glazius posted:You just randomly can't do anything for one round while someone beats on you? Wow, that's really just kind of begging for chain reloads. Yeah, there's a reason Dragon Valley took me so long to do. Most areas in this game, I go through, get my screenshots, and write. For this one, I was reloading constantly. If the blizzard here in the northeastern US doesn't take out my power, the Game Preserve update will be up this weekend, and then I'll get started on the endgame.
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Jan 23, 2016 04:21
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Part 37: Royal Game Preserve  We just got back from having hundreds of dragons breathing fire on us. Somehow, I doubt that some guy with a bow & arrow is going to be a huge problem for us. Almost immediately upon entering, we encounter the main gimmick of this area: traps.   These traps are no problem. Just have someone like Piers use the Strength attribute and we're free:  Piers: Haha! What would you all do without me? If for some reason we didn't have someone with enough Strength, using any weapon in our inventory will do the same thing (yes, even an unequipped bow will work), or if we're not smart enough to figure that out, we could just keep trying to walk, and after a while the rope will snap. It's nothing more than a minor annoyance. Now, we can dodge these traps easily with Sense Traps, but there's one trap around here we actually want to set off.   I don't know why the Bandits have Goblin sprites. My guess is that the Goblin sprite is first in the list, and they never bothered to set a proper sprite for the Bandits, because I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be humans. The Bandit Leader has a generic Soldier sprite, and uses a breath attack for some reason.  They're pretty weak though. We barely break a sweat taking them down.  Paragraph 91 posted:Some bandits were evidently holed up here. Their campfire is still warm. Evidently they were eating a meal when you showed up, as half-finished bowls of gruel stand all around the fire.  Fire Column (or "Column of Fire") is Sun Magic and is not nearly as impressive as it sounds. It costs 5 MP and prevents a group of enemies at 40' away from advancing for a turn. I guess I could see some use for this against melee attackers, to hold them off while attacking with the Dragon Teeth, but I'm pretty sure it's just not worth the MP. I'll keep it in mind though, maybe there will be a use for it in the final dungeon. Battle Power raises Str by 10, but costs 8 MP which is far more than I am willing to pay for such an effect. So what else is there around here? Well, the Preserve is an open area with a river running north-south through the middle of it. We're on the eastern side. Just over the river, we can see a hut:  I believe this is the only area where that hut sprite is used. Naturally, it's a place of interest, so we'll have to cross the river.   Now, there are two possible approaches here. One is to use the Tracker skill here.   The Stag does not attack. It just waits, and is easily killed.  But of course, we get no meaningful reward for taking it down.  Paragraph 92 posted:The magnificent stag lays dead. As you kneel beside your kill, the shaft of an arrow buries itself to the feathers in the sod between your feet. You look up and see an old but very dangerous-looking man aiming yet another arrow at you.  Hmm. Looks like a place to make use of our negotiation skills (by having Kali use Bureaucracy).  Welp, that didn't get us anywhere. This actually kicks us out of the Preserve map entirely, so we'll have to come back in and find Jack once more. This time, we'll try going straight to his hut, making sure to use Sense Traps as it is surrounded by snares.  Paragraph 96 posted:An old man leaps to his feet and lunges for his bow when you enter the shack. "Glory be - ye got past me snare!!", he exclaims. "That's quite a feat, but it still don't do to go bargin' in on honest folks without so much as a knock!"  Here we go again. What happens if we just fight him?  That sounds imposing, but Jack is nothing. His bow does very little damage, we can take him down easily. He does attack from 100' away, but it's not really a big thing.   Yep, all you get for killing Jack is 57 exp and a single Magic Bow. We already have one of those, and it's not nearly as useful as the Gatlin Bow (it does have much greater range, but it doesn't do enough damage to matter). There is a more "correct" path here, though it won't get us any additional loot or experience. Remember, Old Jack is guarding the private preserve of King Drake. We have Drake's Signet Ring. Let's show it to Jack.  Paragraph 74 posted:Old Jack's eyes grow bright when you show him the signet ring. "His majesty..." Jack whispers. You sadly shake your head, indicating Drake is dead. Tears form in Jack's eyes as he sighs. "Me poor, poor king...I knew ye'd come to no good with that demon Namtar!"   Pour one out for Old Jack, folks.
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Jan 25, 2016 04:10
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So, for the next update, we'll be heading for the mountain of Nisir. There's no real choice to vote on, Nisir is the only place left to go at this point. However, there's some choice in terms of how we get there. So, shall we get there using brute force, or shall we sneak our way in?
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Jan 25, 2016 05:05
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Brute Force. Let's be Big drat Heroes.
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Jan 25, 2016 05:44
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Brute force, for Old Jack.
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Jan 25, 2016 10:40
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Piers: Brute force! Like real men!!
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Jan 26, 2016 00:27
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senrath posted:Brute force, for Old Jack. There is no response other than this. Old Jack may have touched our lives briefly, but it was all the sweeter for it.
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Jan 26, 2016 06:15
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