hammerorn mine level 1 *spoilers*

[CrazyBernie]

I was trying to steer the conversation away from this and back to the original poster's question -- what is all the extra passageway for? just to confuse you into thinking there's a way to avoid the sentinel stalk room?

It's the other way around.

I eventually choose the "certain death" path and very quickly found the secret wall that lead me to the same place that i ORIGINALLY thought was certain death. IMO that's bad game design. Not every player will design a character for battle and forcing people into battle is kinda lame. the way I made it out was just saving right before and seriously just playing it over 15 times until I didn't get wacked immediately and was able to make it to the door. I was a mage with very low HP, no armor, and I pissed off all the towns by killing people so I had very little spells ( no nimbus cloud whatever ).

If you aren't building a character to do battle, then you should be building a character that has the ability to avoid battle, be it through spells, abilities, potions, or outrageous stats. You were warned to be prepared before you entered the mine, and again before choosing a path. The fact that you decided to kill townspeople and make them hostile toward you doesn't help your case either.

No matter how much you want to avoid fighting, you should still be prepared in the even that you do have a hostile encounter.

[yodabomb]

yea, i'm just whining. Take it as that. The game rocks. I made it through even w/ all those impediments.

[CrazyBernie]

Dude, if people never whined, shit would never get better.

[OneEyedJack]

I think you're mistaking a "why does the sign say that?" with "this is too hard, make it stop!"

sign says: "one way to success, another to death"
go left -> go into "empty cells". find secret passable wall to teleporter. end up in deathtrap
go right -> proceed straight to deathtrap

so the question is: is there some super secret way to avoid the deathtrap room altogether. how do the miners get in there?

no, I meant exactly what I said.

here we have a player saying "he was forced into a death trap unprepared"; well the solution to that is to reload to your previous save point and prepare yourself. don't blame the game designer for your lack of foresight.

it's an old-school style game, meaning there's going to be dungeons at some point so therefore you need to make sure you're adequately prepared. the premise being you wouldn't venture into the unknown without your 10' pole, your flint and steel and tinderbox, and your chalk, so why not make sure you've got it beforehand? (you can tell I cut my teeth on 1st edition AD&D, not this new-fangled 4th edition from Lizards of the Coast)

I agree with the original complaint, and I'm an old-school gamer, too. I remember the good and bad old days. This mine thing is just poor design. No, really. I found what I presume to be the invisibility potion, but I can drink it because my Lore is too low. My fault, you might interject? "You should have known better," you might say. Bull. It's a role-playing game with plenty of skills. The fun part is building a unique character and not the typical mage/fighter/priest hybrid, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type that pervades what you might call "new-school" games. You cite AD&D, yeah, that's old school -- but there's a party of people involved (generally, or a DM to adjust for party composition). This is a SOLO game. Not everyone is going to be the uber-fighter or the guy who just happened to get the right spell or skill before waltzing into the INESCAPABLE dungeon. Bad, bad design.

If "old-school" means hop in your time machine and save/reload until the numbers let you live, then I guess this is a fine example. It certainly doesn't make it good design -- just a re-hash of bad design decisions in the past. This area of the dungeon smacks of an angsty, pimple-faced DM who has to smack down the players to show who's REALLY in control. And it's not whining; it's a legitimate complaint. Sometimes people make mistakes, and this was a mistake made by a very small design team with limited resources. I hope they fix it; otherwise, I'll be starting the game over -- and jeez, isn't that the best example of the worst "old-school" has to offer. Remember those days, dude? Starting games over because your character build wasn't exactly what the designers had in mind? Yeah, pass me that beer. We'll talk.

[CrazyBernie]

I agree with the original complaint, and I'm an old-school gamer, too. I remember the good and bad old days. This mine thing is just poor design. No, really. I found what I presume to be the invisibility potion, but I can drink it because my Lore is too low. My fault, you might interject? "You should have known better," you might say. Bull. It's a role-playing game with plenty of skills. The fun part is building a unique character and not the typical mage/fighter/priest hybrid, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type that pervades what you might call "new-school" games. You cite AD&D, yeah, that's old school -- but there's a party of people involved (generally, or a DM to adjust for party composition). This is a SOLO game. Not everyone is going to be the uber-fighter or the guy who just happened to get the right spell or skill before waltzing into the INESCAPABLE dungeon. Bad, bad design.

If "old-school" means hop in your time machine and save/reload until the numbers let you live, then I guess this is a fine example. It certainly doesn't make it good design -- just a re-hash of bad design decisions in the past. This area of the dungeon smacks of an angsty, pimple-faced DM who has to smack down the players to show who's REALLY in control. And it's not whining; it's a legitimate complaint. Sometimes people make mistakes, and this was a mistake made by a very small design team with limited resources. I hope they fix it; otherwise, I'll be starting the game over -- and jeez, isn't that the best example of the worst "old-school" has to offer. Remember those days, dude? Starting games over because your character build wasn't exactly what the designers had in mind? Yeah, pass me that beer. We'll talk.

If I tell you that I'm sending you into a shopping mall full of flesh eating zombies, are you going to NOT bring a shotgun? If I tell you that when you waltz into your house, you are going to be set on by a swarm of angry bees, are you NOT going to wear a bee suit? If I tell you that you're about to take a one way trip into a dungeon, are you NOT going to properly equip yourself for what's pretty much some guaranteed monster encounters?

I've gone through Hammerlorne with a Fighter, a Ranger, a Rogue, a Mage, and a Cleric so far, and not once did I die in that room full of angry stalkers (well there was one time, when I was goofing off with my rogue... 0_o ). The first two times were both surprises as I took a different path for each character. Not once have I played the game with any sort of hybrid uber character (although the Cleric comes pretty close). When I first read the "one-way" sign, I hoofed it back to the different towns and picked up some healing potions, stone-kin potions, and a couple of haste potions. I "prepped" myself for a possible fight... 'cause that's what you're supposed to do.

Now if there wasn't a sign that proclaimed the mine entrance to be a one-way trip, I could see the complaints. But you were forewarned. "You should have known better." Bitching about it and calling it bad design because you were caught with your pants down is most definitely whining.

[OneEyedJack]

I agree with the original complaint, and I'm an old-school gamer, too. I remember the good and bad old days. This mine thing is just poor design. No, really. I found what I presume to be the invisibility potion, but I can drink it because my Lore is too low. My fault, you might interject? "You should have known better," you might say. Bull. It's a role-playing game with plenty of skills. The fun part is building a unique character and not the typical mage/fighter/priest hybrid, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none type that pervades what you might call "new-school" games. You cite AD&D, yeah, that's old school -- but there's a party of people involved (generally, or a DM to adjust for party composition). This is a SOLO game. Not everyone is going to be the uber-fighter or the guy who just happened to get the right spell or skill before waltzing into the INESCAPABLE dungeon. Bad, bad design.

If "old-school" means hop in your time machine and save/reload until the numbers let you live, then I guess this is a fine example. It certainly doesn't make it good design -- just a re-hash of bad design decisions in the past. This area of the dungeon smacks of an angsty, pimple-faced DM who has to smack down the players to show who's REALLY in control. And it's not whining; it's a legitimate complaint. Sometimes people make mistakes, and this was a mistake made by a very small design team with limited resources. I hope they fix it; otherwise, I'll be starting the game over -- and jeez, isn't that the best example of the worst "old-school" has to offer. Remember those days, dude? Starting games over because your character build wasn't exactly what the designers had in mind? Yeah, pass me that beer. We'll talk.

If I tell you that I'm sending you into a shopping mall full of flesh eating zombies, are you going to NOT bring a shotgun? If I tell you that when you waltz into your house, you are going to be set on by a swarm of angry bees, are you NOT going to wear a bee suit? If I tell you that you're about to take a one way trip into a dungeon, are you NOT going to properly equip yourself for what's pretty much some guaranteed monster encounters?

I've gone through Hammerlorne with a Fighter, a Ranger, a Rogue, a Mage, and a Cleric so far, and not once did I die in that room full of angry stalkers (well there was one time, when I was goofing off with my rogue... 0_o ). The first two times were both surprises as I took a different path for each character. Not once have I played the game with any sort of hybrid uber character (although the Cleric comes pretty close). When I first read the "one-way" sign, I hoofed it back to the different towns and picked up some healing potions, stone-kin potions, and a couple of haste potions. I "prepped" myself for a possible fight... 'cause that's what you're supposed to do.

Now if there wasn't a sign that proclaimed the mine entrance to be a one-way trip, I could see the complaints. But you were forewarned. "You should have known better." Bitching about it and calling it bad design because you were caught with your pants down is most definitely whining.

Not at all a fair comparison. It's more like being dropped into a mall full of zombies after all the other battles had been solved with a feather duster -- and not being told the mall is full of zombies. Save your strawman nonsense. I'd wager the first character you went through with was suited for that particular room... after which, you knew what to expect. An invisibility potion would solve the problem... and YES, it is available. But because of poor game design, the player can't use an unknown item. That's all it would take. Let the player drink and unknown potion and the problem goes away... for the most part. Someone might make a mistake of using it too soon, but at least the player knew the option was available. In this case, the game is fighting the player with an arbitrary rule.

I really don't understand what the fight is about. You got lucky... really, you did. Role-playing games are kinda nice in that they're not all about min-maxing, you know? I was prepared, in relation to every other battle I've been in. But before this, I didn't NEED the Lore skill. I didn't NEED some obscure spell, one which I may not even be able to learn. When a game forces any player into a no-win, start-over situation (i.e., inescapable dungeon and a particular set of skills or items to survive the insta-death room), then that's poor design. Game design is "controlled frustration." It's times like these when the line is crossed. That's all. I'm not saying anyone's stupid or "impure" or <gasp> going "new-school," whatever that is. Any time a game forces players to save/reload dozens of times (you are the exception, apparently), it's a bad design.

Or even if the designers assumed every player would comb the world three times over to stack up experience points and gather all the gold and goodies there are to gather before a certain fight, it's a mistake in design. That's all. You may very well be the exception. Hurray for you. Put yourself in someone else's shoes, huh? Empathy's a good thing. The poster in this thread who first started complaining (sorry, didn't catch his name) had a good point. I agree. A little tweaking in this particular area of the dungeon might be needed. Maybe you're more of a man than the rest of us. I'll concede that. Maybe you have mad old-school RPG skills and could roll dice with the best of them. OK. The design of this particular area of the game is shaky. I'd wager most people who got through this did so after many saves/reloads. And that crosses the line of "controlled frustration" to "Maybe I should play another game for a while."

[CrazyBernie]

You're invading dwarven territory after a precious artifact, and you see a sign that says "One Way Trip, Be Prepared." How the heck is that not a fair comparison? How can you not expect more resistance than you've run across previously?

I fail to see how "Being Prepared" makes me luckier, more skilled, or manlier.

I didn't have the lore skill. I had plenty of unidentified items in my inventory, several of them potions which would have been useful. I didn't play with a min-max character. I didn't have some special spell. Yet I survived the encounter by being prepared, looking at my surroundings, drinking a haste potion, then a stoneskin potion, putting myself in parry mode, and then RUNNING AWAY. No reloading of a savegame required. I did far, far more reloading in rpg's of yore. I highly doubt I'm some sort of special exception. You also shouldn't assume that because a couple of people voiced their opinion about having a hard time with that section, that everyone else is having the same problem. That's a gross generalization, since you're not going to hear anything from the people who didn't have an issue.

It also comes across to me like you're saying there should always be an easy way out. Eschalon isn't that sort of game, nor does it advertise itself as such. I've said it before, but too many games these days hold your hand to the extent that you barely have to do anything to play the game. If that's the kind of interaction I want, I'll go watch a movie, or read a book. It's refreshing to have a choice, even if that choice doesn't always lead to a happy ending.

[Lhoric]

Did someone say 'Happy Ending'??

[Dragonlady]

Okay youngsters. Agree to disagree and lets move on. Thanks you.

[CrazyBernie]

Hey, this is an important debate! The fate of the free world hangs in the balance! 0_o

[Dragonlady]

Hey, this is an important debate! The fate of the free world hangs in the balance! 0_o

My mind goes numb as I imagine a dragon giving you the Bronx cheer..all that tongue and dragon drool...

[Asgard The Elder]

what is the solution then? where is the correct secret door? {or lever} any
help an / or advice apreciated.

Sometimes a wall is not a wall even though it looks like one. Try bouncing off the walls, you might hit it the right number of times and get through to the other side.


Clue: invisible exit in one of the walls in the death trap room. You can also duck behind the chest to get a breather.

DL There is Much Fun to have Here and lots of EXP Points to be had..!!! Have your fun before ducking out.
So I had the Nimbus Spell Therefor I did 't Get Hurt Much sufficent Mana Potions and the Fire Dart Spell to have fun blasting the thorny Stalks to oblivion.

It just may be how you approach going into the unknown, You and I as players do not know what is around the next corner. You Need to save often and be as prepared, Right DL?

[Asgard The Elder]

Hey, this is an important debate! The fate of the free world hangs in the balance! 0_o

My mind goes numb as I imagine a dragon giving you the Bronx cheer..all that tongue and dragon drool...

Ooo and maybe a bit of fire to go with it too...?