🚀 go-pugleaf

Tsk tsk, what a frustrated little man you are.

Just return the game and get another one

Haha... Yeah that was a pretty pathetic post that guy did.  Typical
gay bashing..... and stereotyping.  How to say absolutely nothing in a
bunch of lines.  (I think the only half-useful remark was about the
combat, but even THAT was pretty insipid).

One of my very best asian friends just happens to be bisexual/Trans...
And I have another really nice friend whose gay.
I have no problem with them at all.  The only problem I have are with
those who want to suddenly have "sex" with someone right after meeting
them.  Kinda reminds me of Prostitution :(   Then again, I've seen
straight people want to have sex with a girl right after meeting her
too.

Have you noticed its always the *guys* who want to get a little
friendly too soon (regardless of sexual perference?)   (I can't speak
for _Lesbian_ women, but women certainly seem to be a lot more
patient--and smarter).

And about that "boy scout" incident...don't tell me there aren't
*straight* people who act out of line either?  Funny how straight
people don't get flamed on the groups when you hear about sex
offenders molesting girls.  Nothing about that..... but when a gay
person does something illegal, all hell breaks loose.  Hmm...
So what's next?  All sex offenders/child molestors are gay?

Kinda reminds me of the old Racial Profiling thing....

It's really getting too late for me to be writing posts like this...
zzzzzzz........back to Demise.....must hack...slash.......

On Thu, 3 May 2001 11:53:04 +0200, "Trash" <boye...@yahoo.com>
enlightened us by scribbling this gem of wisdom:

>Tsk tsk, what a frustrated little man you are.
>
>Just return the game and get another one
>



Somebody set up us the bomb
All your base are belong to us

-Falkentyne Dragon

On Thu, 03 May 2001 08:32:02 GMT, Thrasher <spect...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Yeth? Yeth, Yeth.
>
>That's the lisping homosexual protagonist in Evil Islnad being given
>an instrauction...

Heh.  Did you read the Gamespot review by Brett Todd?  Excerpts:

"What's more disconcerting about the game's characters is the truly
horrific voice acting found throughout. Zak basically sounds like a
reject from the show Will & Grace. Lines like, "Oh! Are we not
FRIGHTening!" and "I love MAgic!" quickly distinguish Zak from other,
more masculine fantasy heroes."

He also complains about the puzzle solving and the critical hits
during combat.  Strangely enough, Brett still ended up liking Evil
Islands and found it quite addictive, even though he had little good
to say on any particular part of the game.
-- 
http://www.kynosarges.de

On Thu, 03 May 2001 08:32:02 GMT, Thrasher <spect...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>After the Boyscout incident gays are pretty low on my priority list
>for tolerance. I want proportional representation for ethnic
>minorities, people who speak English as a second language, handicapped
>people, stupid people and ignorant people before I'll even consider
>the proposition that gay characters belong in computer games. And even
>then, I shouldn't be forced to PLAY a gay person. It's a ROLEPLAYING
>game, we are supposed to be able to RELATE to the character we are
>playing, ya know? Guess what, game developers? Most of your customers
>aren't gay!

Omigawd. Thrasher is Jeff Durbin's evil twin!


-- 
Hong Ooi                    | "I used to use my real name many years ago. I
hong...@maths.anu.edu.au   |  got just as much disrespect then as I do now."
http://www.zip.com.au/~hong |    -- T.
Canberra, Australia         |

"Thrasher" <spect...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:cn42ftgclgrtjmbls2r46s8jsjnv8tjckf@4ax.com...
> I don't know who in the
> hell they thought they were making this game for, but it wasn't me.

Obviously not.  But why you can't just take it like a man and return it is
beyond me.  Or is every game developer required to contact you for your
approval?

> After the Boyscout incident gays are pretty low on my priority list
> for tolerance.

Do you mean the one where the scoutingest Boy Scout ever was denied his wish
to teach the next generation of Scouts because he spanks his monkey to
pictures of naked men instead of naked women?  Yeah, that made a lot of
sense...

> I want proportional representation for ethnic
> minorities, people who speak English as a second language, handicapped
> people, stupid people and ignorant people before I'll even consider
> the proposition that gay characters belong in computer games.

What does proportional representation have to do with it?  I think you're
making stuff up here.  Correction: I know you're making stuff up.

> And even
> then, I shouldn't be forced to PLAY a gay person. It's a ROLEPLAYING
> game, we are supposed to be able to RELATE to the character we are
> playing, ya know? Guess what, game developers? Most of your customers
> aren't gay!

Most of them aren't magic-wielding amnesiacs with a thirst for combat,
either.  So what's your point?

Free tip: if you don't like it, don't play it.

Note to self: no more responding to immature, bigoted trolls.

In article <p4j2ft0p1st615l95...@4ax.com>, 
hong...@maths.anu.edu.au says...
> On Thu, 03 May 2001 08:32:02 GMT, Thrasher <spect...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >
> >After the Boyscout incident gays are pretty low on my priority list
> >for tolerance. I want proportional representation for ethnic
> >minorities, people who speak English as a second language, handicapped
> >people, stupid people and ignorant people before I'll even consider
> >the proposition that gay characters belong in computer games. And even
> >then, I shouldn't be forced to PLAY a gay person. It's a ROLEPLAYING
> >game, we are supposed to be able to RELATE to the character we are
> >playing, ya know? Guess what, game developers? Most of your customers
> >aren't gay!
> 
> Omigawd. Thrasher is Jeff Durbin's evil twin!

This time, I can *sorta* see his point (the "boy scout incident" aside - 
the boy scouts having had so many incidents, it's difficult to determine 
which has crossed Thrasher's horizon) Remember the female Ultima players 
getting all po'd when they couldn't be a female Avatar?

Besides - I like his reviews. How well I will enjoy a game correlates 
precisely to how much he hates it. :) I loved the "S" game.

AQ

On Thu, 03 May 2001 13:48:26 +0200, Christoph Nahr
<see@reply-to.invalid> wrote:

>Heh.  Did you read the Gamespot review by Brett Todd?  Excerpts:

No, I generally just look at comments on usenet from people whose
tastes seem to be similar to mine before I buy games. Unfortunately I
couldn't find any comments about this game. All in all I'm still glad
I bought it though, it actually compares well to most the trash titles
that came out last year. I find myself continuing to play no despite
being hugely annoyed with the game much of the time. It's gotta have
something going for it.

>He also complains about the puzzle solving and the critical hits
>during combat.  

What's got me pissed now at about the mid point in the game is that
the weapons I have available to me cannot penetrate the armor of the
tougher critters I have to fight. The best damage weapon I have right
now is a stone battle axe made of obsidian. On a lucky role the big
loud guy can do 2 or 3 damage with it to an orc that compares "Equal".
Unfortunately, they regenerate so fast that that amount of damage
vanishes before he even attacks again. I can't figure out what the
hell they were thinking when they play balanced this game - some of
these fights are unavoidable because the quest calls for you to kill
an enemy.

The other thing that has hacked me off right from the start is the
magic system. I couldn't figure out why spells worked so well for
enemies but were totally useless for me until I saw what was happening
with the weapons. Most the damage spells have a base damage rating of
6, 7 or 8. The skimpiest leather armor has an armor rating of 7. Armor
values are being deducted from spell damage when the player casts
them, but not when the NPCs cast them. Since this makes spells a total
no-go as damage dealers for the player I can only assume that the
original intention was to have armor not apply to spell damage and
they made a last minute and ill-advised code change because somebody
thought spells made the game too easy.

Whatever the case, I just got a bitchin shell horn that casts a high
level Acid Fog spell. I immediately tried it out on some orcs I left
alive a few days ago that are now considered "Weaker" than me. Tada!
No damage. Bunch of 0's floating up the dcreeen for 10 seconds. I
didn't even do a single point of damage to them. 

The least they could have done is make magic equally useless for the
AI - but no, they have endless stamina and always hit for full damage
with spells. Somebody seriously needs to find a new line of work I
have never seen a computer game so poorly play balanced and I've been
playing them for 20 years now.

>Strangely enough, Brett still ended up liking Evil
>Islands and found it quite addictive, even though he had little good
>to say on any particular part of the game.

The game could have been something really special, they were on the
right track but took a lot of wrong turns. I'm hoping they do a sequel
that corrects the numerous problems with the combat engine, and go the
whole RPG route instead of doing a glorified adventure game. 

The last time I saw a game with so much wasted potential was
Cyberstorm I think. Probably this game willl share Cyberstorm's fate
:(

On spells,

I hacked the demo database to "fix" the fire spells by moving the base
damages from 7 to 10.  It very much improved the game for me.  Didn't mess
with the acid/elec spells because the weren't in the demo, but considering
it's doable I plan to pick up the game after finals are over (end of next
week) and I'll do the same.

If anyone wants a copy of the executable to take care of the database, email
me.

Chris Woods

Thrasher wrote in message ...

[snip]

>The other thing that has hacked me off right from the start is the
>magic system. I couldn't figure out why spells worked so well for
>enemies but were totally useless for me until I saw what was happening
>with the weapons. Most the damage spells have a base damage rating of
>6, 7 or 8. The skimpiest leather armor has an armor rating of 7. Armor
>values are being deducted from spell damage when the player casts
>them, but not when the NPCs cast them. Since this makes spells a total
>no-go as damage dealers for the player I can only assume that the
>original intention was to have armor not apply to spell damage and
>they made a last minute and ill-advised code change because somebody
>thought spells made the game too easy.
>
>Whatever the case, I just got a bitchin shell horn that casts a high
>level Acid Fog spell. I immediately tried it out on some orcs I left
>alive a few days ago that are now considered "Weaker" than me. Tada!
>No damage. Bunch of 0's floating up the dcreeen for 10 seconds. I
>didn't even do a single point of damage to them.

[snip]

On Fri, 04 May 2001 01:50:25 GMT, Thrasher <spect...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>What's got me pissed now at about the mid point in the game is that
>the weapons I have available to me cannot penetrate the armor of the
>tougher critters I have to fight. The best damage weapon I have right
>now is a stone battle axe made of obsidian. On a lucky role the big
>loud guy can do 2 or 3 damage with it to an orc that compares "Equal".
>Unfortunately, they regenerate so fast that that amount of damage
>vanishes before he even attacks again. I can't figure out what the
>hell they were thinking when they play balanced this game - some of
>these fights are unavoidable because the quest calls for you to kill
>an enemy.

	Are you using the Strength spell?  Are you aiming your
attacks?  Disabling an arm slows down an attacker big time.  A few
shots to the leg keeps those pesky archers from running off.
Headshots are triple damage (but have a -25% chance to hit, so up your
melee skill and go for head shots.)
	If you can't hack through someone's armor, either avoid them
or try to backstab them.  The only problems I had with bouncing off of
enemy armor were the black boars, and the veteran skeleton warriors or
whatever.  Had to run from those puppies.
	However, I will admit to saving before most every combat.
Many times I had to keep reloading to kill a quest character with a
backstab and a few headshots.  (Most notably traitor and the 3rd
ogre.)

	Overall I'm liking the game.  However, I dislike not being
able to retreat.  Mobs hunt you down w/o any stamina worries of their
own.  Since all quest destination/objects show up as great big
blinking red blocks on the minimap, it feels like you're being lead by
(mostly) intangible nosering.  And the magic system's offensive spells
(not enough damage, but mobs rip you a new one.)

Sorry it took me such a long time to reply to this, finals week is fin :)

Ok, so yeah, their database is a disaster at best when it comes to trying to
hack it, but here is what I could get from it:

In a hex editor, do a plaintext search for "fireball" to jump down to the
fireball entry.  The entry is orginied like this:

Each "field" of information is preceeded with a numerical identifier and
0x08, so the field headers in plain Hex go : "01 08 ... 02 08 .... 03 08
..." etc.  Why this is done this way is completly beyond me.

The fields that I figured ot are:

01 08 is the spell fullname

02 08 is some "short name"

0C 08 is the number of default targets, stored as unsigned int

15 08 is the Complexity of the base spell, stored as unsigned int

0D 08 is the duration of the effect, stored as short int, in 1/10 sec.  A
value of 0 represents an instant.  Giving duration to things like fire arrow
may have odd results.

10 08 \ both these values crash the game if changed at all.
11 08 / I think they have to do with the casting animation.

12 08 is the icon in the "shop screen"  (pointer to an array)

0A 08 is the "base effect" stored in two byte values that seem to be put
through a function internally.  Taking fire arrow as an example, which has
the values E0 40, when you preturb the first value (E0 -> D0) you get a +/-
1 to the effect, when you preturn the second value (40 -> 41) you get a +/-
21 to the effect.  Furthermore, changes seem to defy logic, as another
change might do something totally weird.  (E0 -> 70 == -13 to effect? -- I
have verified this)  I went all the way to playing with this equation in
binary and never could figure out "how it works".  I was able to apply the
+/- 1 to get from 7 to 10 with no problem, which is all I had set out to do,
so I walked.

My final program (hack) replaces E0 40 with 20 41 which causes the effect to
become 10.

I was waiting until I get the retail version next week to really try to
determine whats going on as well as map the other fields in the spells, all
the above work was done vs the demo.

database.res is the file to attack, btw.

Chris Woods

Brothel wrote in message ...
>On Thu, 3 May 2001 23:57:20 -0500, "Chris Woods" <woo...@okstate.edu>
>wrote:
>>On spells,
>>
>>I hacked the demo database to "fix" the fire spells by moving the base
>>damages from 7 to 10.  It very much improved the game for me.  Didn't mess
>>with the acid/elec spells because the weren't in the demo, but considering
>>it's doable I plan to pick up the game after finals are over (end of next
>>week) and I'll do the same.
>>
>>If anyone wants a copy of the executable to take care of the database,
email
>>me.
>>[...]
>Can you post a format desc? I couldn't make heads or tails from their
>compressed (?) format
>
>TNX

On Mon, 07 May 2001 02:40:20 GMT, st...@home.com (stoic) wrote:

>	Are you using the Strength spell?  Are you aiming your
>attacks?  Disabling an arm slows down an attacker big time.  A few
>shots to the leg keeps those pesky archers from running off.
>Headshots are triple damage (but have a -25% chance to hit, so up your
>melee skill and go for head shots.)

This is all good advice in the combats where you can do damage to your
opponent. But how about those missions that call for you to kill an
ogre and the best damage your weapons can do against their AC is 3 or
4 and they regenerate that away before you ever even see it? Or how
about that mission where you have to kill whip aga and lash aga who
have 360 hiptpoints and AC 26, with both attack and defense scores
substantially higher than the player is likeley to have at that point
in the game? Or how about generic veteran orcs, even, when your bone
long bow and obsidian axe will rarely do better than a 0 aganst their
armor?

I suspect they play balanced this game on Novice and expected that
most of their customers would play it like that. All of the tips you
listed work well at Novice setting but do absolutely nothing when you
can only roll for low damage. Getting a critical for 10 or 12 doesn't
help much when an enemy has 300+ health and is tagging YOU for 100+
damage at the same time. It's the obscene regeration rates that make
this game impossible to play on Normal. You can't even whittle an
enemy down over time. You really can't do ANYTHING except skip the
mission til later, if possible, or change the difficulty setting.

>	If you can't hack through someone's armor, either avoid them
>or try to backstab them.  

Look, 500% of 0 is still 0, I don't understand this comment. You
apparrently haven't tried this yourself. It's the same with criticals.
It doesn't take an expert to figure out that if all you see is
BACKSTAB 0 and CRITICAL 0 scrolling up the screen you better get the
hell out of dodge...


>The only problems I had with bouncing off ofenemy armor were the black boars, 
>and the veteran skeleton warriors or whatever.  Had to run from those puppies.

Sounds ,ike you haven't gotten verey far in the game. I didn't have
any problem with the boards but those veteran skeletons were among the
enemies that you( or I ) couldn't really fight with weapons available
to us. Especially since they had piercing resistance and the two
highest damage weapons we could have (Green Dragon Bone long bow and
Green Dragon Bone spear) both did piercing damage.

Luckily those Veteran skeletons could be avoided. You will come upon
enemies that have to be killed as part of the mission objectives that
are just as tough or tougher than that.

>	However, I will admit to saving before most every combat.
>Many times I had to keep reloading to kill a quest character with a
>backstab and a few headshots.  (Most notably traitor and the 3rd
>ogre.)

I'm guessing that you also lowered the game difficulty for both. The
"demon" especially was difficult even at the novice setting.

>	Overall I'm liking the game.  However, I dislike not being
>able to retreat.  Mobs hunt you down w/o any stamina worries of their
>own.  Since all quest destination/objects show up as great big
>blinking red blocks on the minimap, it feels like you're being lead by
>(mostly) intangible nosering. 

Well, you are. It's a completely linear strategy game - and not a very
good one - with a lot of RPG "elements" added in. It _should_ have
been a full blown RPG. It could have been a huge success as such. As
it is, the game it  most reminds me of is Mech Commander.

> And the magic system's offensive spells (not enough damage, but mobs rip you a new one.)

The magic system just blows, all the way through the game. It's the
worst ever. The game would have been better with no magic at all than
the way it's implemented in Evil Islands.

On Fri, 11 May 2001 02:43:38 GMT, Thrasher <spect...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
>This is all good advice in the combats where you can do damage to your
>opponent. But how about those missions that call for you to kill an
>ogre and the best damage your weapons can do against their AC is 3 or
>4 and they regenerate that away before you ever even see it? Or how

	Had to land several lucky headshots on the ogre to kill it.  I
did too little damage and it regenerated too quickly for a standup
fight to work.  I also cast strength on myself and weakness on the
ogre.  And reloaded a lot.  *grumble*

>about that mission where you have to kill whip aga and lash aga who
>have 360 hiptpoints and AC 26, with both attack and defense scores
>substantially higher than the player is likeley to have at that point


>in the game? Or how about generic veteran orcs, even, when your bone
>long bow and obsidian axe will rarely do better than a 0 aganst their
>armor?
	Weakness and strength.  And/or backstabs to the head.  I was
also using a green dragon bone spear.
	Attacking their weapon arm also worked.  Damage to an arm
slows down attacks.

>
>Look, 500% of 0 is still 0, I don't understand this comment. You
>apparrently haven't tried this yourself. It's the same with criticals.
>It doesn't take an expert to figure out that if all you see is
>BACKSTAB 0 and CRITICAL 0 scrolling up the screen you better get the
>hell out of dodge...

	According to the manual, head shots do triple damage (they're
flagged as critical hits.)  A backstab + a head shot can work wonders
(as in that was the only way to kill a few of the tougher boss mobs.)
	head shot == triple damage
	strength = +30% damage
	backstab = 5x damage?
Put it all together and you can do a few one hit wonders.

>
>I'm guessing that you also lowered the game difficulty for both. The
>"demon" especially was difficult even at the novice setting.

	Only way I could kill the 'demon' was a strength spell, and a
backstab to the head (after half a dozen reloads.)
	I've played on Normal level throughout.

On Fri, 11 May 2001 04:10:24 GMT, st...@home.com (stoic) wrote:

>On Fri, 11 May 2001 02:43:38 GMT, Thrasher <spect...@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>This is all good advice in the combats where you can do damage to your
>>opponent. But how about those missions that call for you to kill an
>>ogre and the best damage your weapons can do against their AC is 3 or
>>4 and they regenerate that away before you ever even see it? Or how
>
>	Had to land several lucky headshots on the ogre to kill it.  I
>did too little damage and it regenerated too quickly for a standup
>fight to work.  I also cast strength on myself and weakness on the
>ogre.  And reloaded a lot.  *grumble*

I had an entirely different experience there - after getting the quest
("You want me to kill WHAT?" :-) I sent the party over just to see how
badly they would get their faces mushed. To my surprise, they managed to
beat both Byr and Gym first time, with relatively little difficulty.
Utundry and the Demon went down with backstab-criticals, so I have no idea
how they'd stack up in combat - I may reload an old game later and try it.
Personally, I thought the lake lizards were far more annoying.

>>in the game? Or how about generic veteran orcs, even, when your bone
>>long bow and obsidian axe will rarely do better than a 0 aganst their
>>armor?
>	Weakness and strength.  And/or backstabs to the head.  I was
>also using a green dragon bone spear.
>	Attacking their weapon arm also worked.  Damage to an arm
>slows down attacks.

I think that taking out a limb may also reduce a creature's defensive
rating. Not sure about that, though.

>	I've played on Normal level throughout.

Same here.

On Fri, 11 May 2001 04:10:24 GMT, st...@home.com (stoic) wrote:

>	Weakness and strength.  And/or backstabs to the head.  I was
>also using a green dragon bone spear.

So, you used your 2x green dragon bones for the spear and not the long
bow? Or did you go back and clear the map after you got the other two
pieces of green dragon bone from the lizards?

The veteran orcs conned "Nasty" or "Tough" to me, can't remember
which, but they had defense higher than my attack which means I missed
a whole lot. They didn't. Which leavse the choice of reloading for
half an hour every fight until the luck all went my way or changing
the difficulty setting. Either way, play balance = suck.

>	According to the manual, head shots do triple damage (they're
>flagged as critical hits.)  A backstab + a head shot can work wonders
>(as in that was the only way to kill a few of the tougher boss mobs.)

>	head shot == triple damage

3 x 0 = 0

>	strength = +30% damage

0 x 1.3 = 0

>	backstab = 5x damage?

0 x 5 = 0 	(level 1 backstab)
0 x 7.5 = 0	(level 2 backstab)
0 x 10 = 0	(level 3 backstab)


>Put it all together and you can do a few one hit wonders.

No, actually you can't.... When your avearge hit does 20 damage and
the enemy has AC 22, most of your criticals will be 0. A few may be 8
or 12.

>	Only way I could kill the 'demon' was a strength spell, and a
>backstab to the head 

I used strength and weakness throughout, I don't know how the game
plays without these spells. All of my comments assume these spells are
in use.

> 	(after half a dozen reloads.)

Play balance = suck, as I said. That's probably why I got so much
further in the game than you in about the same amount of time. I gave
up on playing the game on the Normal setting on the very map we are
discussing here. They obviously didn't intend that the game be played
on that setting. 

>	I've played on Normal level throughout.

You are a masochist :)

Seriously, if you could't kill those Veteran Skeletons you are not
going to be able to kill some of the critters that quests call for you
to take down later on. I settled on finishing as much as I could on
normal and then going back to those things I couldn't do with the game
set on novice.

It's a damn shame they didn't play balance their product properly. The
novice setting is absurdly easy and the normal setting is impossible
(for those of us unwilling to spend an hour or more reloading saves
each and every combat every time we get into a fight). A well balanced
game should allow a skilled player using good tactics to win most
combats on the first try, and punish people for making mistakes or
using poor tactics. In Evil Islands it's all about luck and patience.

On Fri, 11 May 2001 18:08:59 -0400, Brothel
<niffa...@straw.shack.org> wrote:

>Well, the answer to all that seems to be that getting throught the 1st
>island absolutely depends on you finding several stashed goodies -
>the ancient sword (one that casts weakness), 10 AC helmet and a
>lightning rune.

Had all that.

>That sword keeps the enemy from hitting you pretty well (+15 defense),
>while casting weakness.

Does shit for damage though.

>The stupid goblin wand let me get that first obsidian, and obsidian
>battle axe really _does_ some damage.

Aye, that was my big damage weapon until leaving Gipath. Not as good
as the bone spear, but most the big critters resisted piercing, so...

>Skeletons are too tough... But they aren't supposed to be taken
>head-on... In the end, once you got the dragon quest bonus, you can get
>back at 'em...

Nonsense, Thrasher don't play that way. I clear maps and take names.
Besides, if you actually follow the quest advice and avoid the enemies
they say you should avoid you will miss out on 2 sets of armor (the
best armor avaialable) on the second island.

And besides the besides, by the third island you are required to kill
enemies that have double your health and half again your offense and
defense scores - even if you dumnp most of your points into them.

But maybe that's the issue I had with the difficulty. I tackled quests
and cleared maps as I got them, I didn't move on and do other things
to buff up and then come back to them.

>Aw, hell. It's more addictive than some other stuff I tried. I still
>haven't finished BG - getting too bored with it :)

It wasn't bad, I like what they did with game engine. I especially
like the way all of your various gera shows on yoyr character. I
haven't seen any other game handle equipment and weapons as well.
Revenant came close but didn't have anywhere near as much variety.

I liked being able to customize my gear and spells too, though the
spells were mostly useless. Putting heal spells on all the armor was
sup[er cool. By the third island I healed for 60 every time I got hit,
even when I got hit for 0 :) 

>Magic rocks, it just isn't supposed to be easy :) Right now I have a
>damage 56 lightning bolt on a second isle, and the fat mage fella can
>parcel 2 of these in a row. 

Yeah, he's not bad but I didn't use him. After I spent most of the
first island buffing up my two sidekicks assuming I got to keep em, I
decided to solo the rest of the game. Exp comes MUCH faster solo. 

>Guess what - that pretty much assures taking out most fellas. 

Not. 56 - 22 armor = 34. You can kill weakened normal guards on that
island that way but not the veteran mercenaries or whatever. And that
fat bastard can't even take 2 hits from the Unicorns.

I just thought the whole magic system was stupid. AT any given point
in the game you can take out enemies faster with using high damage
weapons and going for head shots.


>If not - those four wands of lighting 32 keep their HPs
>down while archer tries to score an eye hit :)

32 - 22 armor = 10 damage on the second island. I'd rather have
somebody shooting with a bow than using those wands, myself. You can't
go for a critical with a spell.

>It's just that you can no longer be a rockin'a'rollin' tank mage. I had
>to give up offensive magics for main char, leaving only sword and
>healing magic.

I gave up on offensive magic for everyone. It's broke. That fat guy
was pretty effective for me againts the regular guards when I got them
one at a time but I got tired of having to babysit his stamina bar and
recast lightning all the time, and I got tired of him croaking every
time he got somebody's attention. I am really unhappy with the
implementation of magic in this game. It's not effective enough to
justify wasting the exp points and the cash to develop it, in my
opinion.

>Once you stack all your armor with healing magic, it's not bad at all.

That's the only use I had for spells. Double duration continuous
strength on a meteorite chainmail shirt plus double or triple strength
triggerred healing on everything else and I could tank everything on
the thir island for quite some time. I lot of it I couldn't do much
damage to, but that's a different story.

>BTW, on both isles I stripped the extra characters bare - that's how I
>got myself the long bow, some spells, and finally brissen's armor :)

But of course! That's what they are there for!

Brissen's armor is crap though. Best armor on the second island is the
heavy canian army plate. You can lift a full set off the veteran
mercenaries. I already had it (made of steel) before Brissen would
even join me anyway.

>So, I admit, it's tricky, but that keeps the life interesting

I disagree - it's not very "interesting" to rely on reloading save
games all evening just to advance though a couple fights. I like to
live with the consequences when things go badly for me. Any game that
is _designed_ with the intent the player will be reloading a lot to
get through the tough spots is one I won't like much. I realize a lot
of people like to play games that way, but I never have - and I don't
like this extreme example of that sort of philosophy either.

For all those people bragging that they got through the game on
"Normal" - is it really an accomplishment to LOSE the same fight 30
times or more before you finally win it? That's nothing to crow about.
In most games it's harder to win a combat the first try on easy
settings than it is to stumble through it doing the save'load shuffle
for 20 minutes on the hardest settings.

"Falkentyne" <kyle...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:3fe2ft0fqtt7jl3uh9sgl5gukpsebgg52n@4ax.com...
> Haha... Yeah that was a pretty pathetic post that guy did.  Typical
> gay bashing..... and stereotyping.  How to say absolutely nothing in a
> bunch of lines.  (I think the only half-useful remark was about the
> combat, but even THAT was pretty insipid).
>
> One of my very best asian friends just happens to be bisexual/Trans...
> And I have another really nice friend whose gay.
> I have no problem with them at all.  The only problem I have are with
> those who want to suddenly have "sex" with someone right after meeting
> them.  Kinda reminds me of Prostitution :(   Then again, I've seen
> straight people want to have sex with a girl right after meeting her
> too.
>
> Have you noticed its always the *guys* who want to get a little
> friendly too soon (regardless of sexual perference?)   (I can't speak
> for _Lesbian_ women, but women certainly seem to be a lot more
> patient--and smarter).
>
> And about that "boy scout" incident...don't tell me there aren't
> *straight* people who act out of line either?  Funny how straight
> people don't get flamed on the groups when you hear about sex
> offenders molesting girls.  Nothing about that..... but when a gay
> person does something illegal, all hell breaks loose.  Hmm...
> So what's next?  All sex offenders/child molestors are gay?
>
> Kinda reminds me of the old Racial Profiling thing....
>
> It's really getting too late for me to be writing posts like this...
> zzzzzzz........back to Demise.....must hack...slash.......
>

He's right you know. Intentionally or not the main character  in Evil
Islands is quite gay. Hes also annoying as hell and have a some what inbreed
look to him.

"> This time, I can *sorta* see his point (the "boy scout incident" aside -
> the boy scouts having had so many incidents, it's difficult to determine
> which has crossed Thrasher's horizon) Remember the female Ultima players
> getting all po'd when they couldn't be a female Avatar?
>
> Besides - I like his reviews. How well I will enjoy a game correlates
> precisely to how much he hates it. :) I loved the "S" game.
>
> AQ

Wait a minute, what happened with the Scouts?
>

Lot's going on here.  First, yes the magic system is crap.  Only worth putting the lightning bolt on weapons, or weaken. On clothes, strength and haste (though won't really happen until your far enough that you can either receive or buy item triggers.  

Next- the talk of "gay characters".  Zak is not gay!  He sounds pretty lame but if you follow the storyline-WARNING-SPOILERS-, yes he turns down the witches daughter, but ends up liking a woman he finds in Cania, and ends up finding he's another guy who is dating her. He's more a lame excuse for a pretty-boy than a gay character.  The official-I can understand only to the point that all the Khadiganians sound that way (minus the Expedition Officer guy who just sounds like a prick).  Their "gay" speech is pretty much their way of life, kissing up to the guy over him. Hell, watch any movie where there's evil henchmen (who are human), they are often kissing up and sounding that way to their master.  Yes the guy said it towards the "Chosen" but as it happens it's a trap! Think the only character in the game that could maybe be referenced close to gay is the Captain guy after Gort, "my, that sounds really nice."