ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

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Palog
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by Palog »

No my comment doesn't support Erubor's Ending. That is another perspective. Clearly, for me, Malkur (and the which) presents the more logical issue, now is Malkur lying or not is a question that remain, he could as well just go back home and let the future he knows survive.

Erubor is leading you to the dragon to get from him his knowledge and the Dragon just confirms Malkur view. Ie Erubor himself is leading you to Malkur conclusion, himself can't do the step but the hero could. That's ok I would agree there's a real choice, faithful to friends and keep the faith (bot in fact not because the hero just give up), or sacrifice all friends for the logical decision.

The problem is still that Malkur is using evil tools, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Malkur can't be sure he is right, and if he is wrong his road to hell would be build. And if he is right was his plan with torture and more was really a necessity? Nothing obvious here, ie even if he is right he build his road to hell.

Now ok is the hero, the pendant evil side. Objectively the question is a bit fake, you go in a country, any, and people try kill you, and that's your fault? No that logic is false. That the game doesn't let much choice but get a special gameplay of run not necessarily fun with all type of characters, isn't a hero choice, it's just a game designer choice.

Offer the character to kill/murder a neutral character or another choice without the murder, and that is different. But my character didn't killed the king, nor Lilith, nor any neutral character as far I remember.

EDIT: In fact the time loop seems a wrong assertion, there's no paradox, Malkur leaves, what was supposed to happen in the past of his future happens, and everything is ok, he just need arrives after the group go in past. That is triggering the point that Malkur is lying to show himself as a good people he isn't. So the hero could join his cause. All of that not meaning he is right or wrong.

EDIT2: Is the hero an invading army? Well for the game rules perhaps, for the symbols, not at all.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by SpottedShroom »

The most interesting interpretation is that Malkur is telling the truth and that doing Erubor's bidding will destroy the world forever. In that case, would you rather help an amoral monster or stand by and watch the world end?
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by Palog »

If you go there, the "most interesting" interpretation is that Malkur is right and is lying and then do you choose his side? It's what I did the first time, Malkur was "obviously" right but was probably lying about his sacrifice.

After this end, I just reloaded and choose the Smallville Superman choice, ok Malkur is right but this guy is bad and my friends worth I save them, and after we will see how we will save the world anyway. That's my own end choice. :-)

EDIT: Neither Malkur nor Erubor are saying the truth about world's end in case of Erubor choice, none know what's the truth is, it's just one can be right, or the other, or none of them. But Malkur choice is choosing a bad but known ending (it doesn't matter if Malkur sacrifice will happen or not) it's a sort of fatalism choice, Erubor is a choice of incertitude but a sort of optimistic choice.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by serenetempest »

Vroqren wrote:While I'm not trying to argue, and in fact, completely agree with your point, I thought I'd post this. Unfortunately, it's not possible in Book III.
[+] SPOILER
Knowing that you don't actually need the Crux of Terra, I don't know how many kills are necessary. Right not the only ones I can think of are in the final battle, the ones required to tip the turning point of the battle.
Image
Actually, there might be a way to do it. My first time through the final battle I was playing as a warrior, and found that the idea strategy for the final battle was to go into parry mode and intentionally try to get all the enemies to target me. I was fully decked out in heavy armor plus a shield, and parry added another 25 to my armor class. I don't think anything other than the spearmasters and the dimensional had more than a 1% chance of hitting me, and even when they got lucky I still had 15 points of damage reduction. While the enemies were wasting all their attacks trying to take me down, my allies steamrolled them. Once they had the battle well in hand I helped them mop up, but I easily could have gone the whole battle without actually killing anything and it would have still been a landslide.

Furthermore, you can buy heavy armor and shields from a trainer. So even if you're playing a thief, you could conceivably blow a ton of gold at the end of the game buying the skills and a nice set of heavy armor just for that battle. Plus it would kind of go with a clever thief type doing the last thing anyone would expect him to at the final confrontation.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by Vroqren »

serenetempest wrote:
[+] SPOILER
Actually, there might be a way to do it. My first time through the final battle I was playing as a warrior, and found that the idea strategy for the final battle was to go into parry mode and intentionally try to get all the enemies to target me. I was fully decked out in heavy armor plus a shield, and parry added another 25 to my armor class. I don't think anything other than the spearmasters and the dimensional had more than a 1% chance of hitting me, and even when they got lucky I still had 15 points of damage reduction. While the enemies were wasting all their attacks trying to take me down, my allies steamrolled them. Once they had the battle well in hand I helped them mop up, but I easily could have gone the whole battle without actually killing anything and it would have still been a landslide.

Furthermore, you can buy heavy armor and shields from a trainer. So even if you're playing a thief, you could conceivably blow a ton of gold at the end of the game buying the skills and a nice set of heavy armor just for that battle. Plus it would kind of go with a clever thief type doing the last thing anyone would expect him to at the final confrontation.
Interesting idea indeed. Obviously it works (you proved it), so it may very well be a possibility. Can anybody think of any other monsters that are a 100% necessary kill? If not, I'll work on devising the perfect character to get 0 kills.

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SpottedShroom wrote:There's evil and then there's just being contrary to your own best interests
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by SpottedShroom »

Vroqren wrote:Can anybody think of any other monsters that are a 100% necessary kill? If not, I'll work on devising the perfect character to get 0 kills.
Okay, so to finish the game all you absolutely need is the two essential widgets: titanium gear and platinum bolt. The gear is easy - just loot the shipwreck. The bolt is harder, since you have to retrieve it from the castle basement. It should still be possible, though - (carefully) blast the palisade open and head down the stairs. You don't have to kill anything to get to the chest with the bolt. Once you're through Omentor, it's a cakewalk to the ending.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by BasiliskWrangler »

Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:Why does Lilith make you travel to the Baasilt Dunes to meet her? No story reason is given.

Malkur has a secret passage built between the Astral Range and Valley of the Wanderer so his forces can move quickly. Why are his minions looking for the widgets? Shouldn't he already have them in a secure location? How exactly did the Tungsten Bracket Widget get to the Akadai Underworld where the Crux of Terra is?
There are a number of reasons why Lilith camped at Baasilt Dunes. Lilith lands at Macross Point and works her way West looking for you. It makes sense that after one full pass across Mirkland, she would hold her position and wait for you to find her rather than both of you aimlessly wandering, looking for each other. She told the gem dealer, whom she was confident you would speak to, a specific location where she would be at the end of her westward trek. She is very smart- one of the best Trackers ever- and she knows that if she doesn't find you after one pass through Mirkland that it is more efficient to wait for you to come to her. Baasilt dunes offers a safe, private area for her to wait with drift wood for fire and the ocean for fresh fish, allowing her to camp for weeks if necessary without drawing attention to herself from people who travel the main roads.

Malkur is the designer of Omentor, but clearly he would have had the labor done for him. The laborers who built Omentor, probably Goblins and slaves from Barrea, crafted the mechanisms of Omentor but knew not how they functioned. The keys (widgets) to Omentor were entrusted to several of Malkur's Minons to hide in locations of Malkur's choosing, but the Bracket was lost. A goblin Lieutenant named Mudgrave was ambushed by Akadai scouts who found the strange widget and took it back to their tunnels, where they kept other artifacts that they deemed precious.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by BasiliskWrangler »

Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:
BasiliskWrangler wrote:A goblin Lieutenant named Mudgrave was ambushed by Akadai scouts who found the strange widget and took it back to their tunnels, where they kept other artifacts that they deemed precious.
Where is this mentioned in Book III?
The world of Eschalon is literally filled with side stories, lore, and history that never made it into the games. If Eschalon was actually a trilogy of real books, then I could address some of this somewhere in the text, but as a video game I just can't put it all in there. I am just one person- it's too much work to put a full novel worth of text in there and build an entire game around it.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by BasiliskWrangler »

Prismatic Maelstrom wrote:Alright Thomas, no need to get all defensive on me. Since nobody else cares about the story like I do I'll keep my thoughts to myself in future.
?? You have it all wrong! I am not defensive. I enjoy talking about this stuff with you or any fan. You asked why it wasn't in the games, and I just stated the reason in a way that other people would understand.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by IJBall »

BasiliskWrangler wrote:The world of Eschalon is literally filled with side stories, lore, and history that never made it into the games. If Eschalon was actually a trilogy of real books, then I could address some of this somewhere in the text, but as a video game I just can't put it all in there. I am just one person- it's too much work to put a full novel worth of text in there and build an entire game around it.
Is it likely that at least some of this material is going to be publicly released, esp. some of the historical (e.g. pre-Book I) Eschalon lore?

Knowing more about the trilogy's storyline/lore might really assist anyone looking to make pre-Book I Eschalon Mods...
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by MyGameCompany »

IJBall wrote:
BasiliskWrangler wrote:The world of Eschalon is literally filled with side stories, lore, and history that never made it into the games. If Eschalon was actually a trilogy of real books, then I could address some of this somewhere in the text, but as a video game I just can't put it all in there. I am just one person- it's too much work to put a full novel worth of text in there and build an entire game around it.
Is it likely that at least some of this material is going to be publicly released, esp. some of the historical (e.g. pre-Book I) Eschalon lore?

Knowing more about the trilogy's storyline/lore might really assist anyone looking to make pre-Book I Eschalon Mods...
That's what I was thinking! I was also thinking that this backstory might make a nice Book III mod - expanding the unfinished areas of Mirkland, where the player comes across the remains of the goblin expedition (which perhaps had been taken prisoner by the Akadai).
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by mbrowne »

BasiliskWrangler wrote: Malkur is the designer of Omentor, but clearly he would have had the labor done for him. The laborers who built Omentor, probably Goblins and slaves from Barrea, crafted the mechanisms of Omentor but knew not how they functioned. The keys (widgets) to Omentor were entrusted to several of Malkur's Minons to hide in locations of Malkur's choosing, but the Bracket was lost. A goblin Lieutenant named Mudgrave was ambushed by Akadai scouts who found the strange widget and took it back to their tunnels, where they kept other artifacts that they deemed precious.
FWIW, I thought that calling the keys, essential artifacts, "widgets" to be unfortunate considering the history of widgets as placeholders in earlier games.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by Kreador Freeaxe »

mbrowne wrote:
BasiliskWrangler wrote: Malkur is the designer of Omentor, but clearly he would have had the labor done for him. The laborers who built Omentor, probably Goblins and slaves from Barrea, crafted the mechanisms of Omentor but knew not how they functioned. The keys (widgets) to Omentor were entrusted to several of Malkur's Minons to hide in locations of Malkur's choosing, but the Bracket was lost. A goblin Lieutenant named Mudgrave was ambushed by Akadai scouts who found the strange widget and took it back to their tunnels, where they kept other artifacts that they deemed precious.
FWIW, I thought that calling the keys, essential artifacts, "widgets" to be unfortunate considering the history of widgets as placeholders in earlier games.
I thought that was precisely an in-joke as to why he DID call them widgets, though with more specific names.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by MyGameCompany »

Yeah, I liked that too. We always wondered what the purpose of those seemingly useless widgets were from Book 1. I thought it was another nice touch to tie the game back to Book 1 and bring everything full circle.
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Re: ESCHALON TRILOGY - Q&A (SPOILERS)

Post by Donovan »

Just finished Book III this weekend and I just wanted to post a hearty thanks to Thomas and the gang for developing the trilogy. I've been playing the newly released Baldur's Gate II and was worried that when Eschalon Book III came out that I would be underwhelmed. I wasn't. It's quite fun and addictive--well done.

I, for one, loved the ending, and plan to play through again without racing to the dragon once in the Astral Mountains. I chose to fight with Erubor as it seemed like Malkur's helpers and methods were always on the dark side. Malkur against the rest in an effort to save existence seemed like the greater stretch--Malkur the all powerful (and corrupt) seemed to make more sense.

I loved the mechanics of this (I played a mage), and while it wasn't hard to survive, the constant rounds and the depletion of mana points made me worry I would not make it to the end. Quite a fun twist, because you don't expect to be transported to the final battle scene, so there was no time to prep.

Well done and thanks.

On a separate note, I disagree with the overall notion that good/evil is in the eye of the beholder--I think the great wisdom teachers of the past have a fairly good take on this. Certainly one's take on allies and enemies can certainly take on notions of good versus evil that may be relativistic at best, but even here, some objective truth can be seen. Take for example the Crimean example. One can easily fall into the pessimistic, "we have our truth and the Russians have theirs". But if that's the case, why are the Russians shutting down the free press to close down all political debate on this? It doesn't quite add up to a true he said/she said equality. Not trying to let this devolve into anything, just some thoughts to consider.
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