The Drunken Lizard Pub

Space aliens showing up in the last two areas of the second game in a 3 game series? Give me a break. No indication of scifi vs fantasy--except for the plasma wand which I thought was just poor taste. I've played mixed universes before nazi's vs wizards etc but this is just so out of left field. It also doesn't make sense. Apparently the Orkonar(sp?) have been around forever. They haven't managed to build a ship in all those years but just one of them managed to build a small ship all by himself in just the last few years--or maybe he built the ship and then started the war for the crux's. He can teleport in and zap everyone in the end scene but he can't get any of the other crux's except by using proxy armies. The good Orkonar outnumber him but can do nothing to stop him? Seems like a few good Orkonar could easily help you and track him down. Also if they're from space why are they living underground? Why build a spaceship underground? Why split your power source into 4 pieces and entrust them to primitives for protection? It would seem to me that if the One could cloud peoples minds disintegrate them in a flash and teleport around he should be more able to sieze the pieces from primitives than from whatever passes for an Orkonar safe. Clearly the One is more powerful than my character was when I got the crux of fire so why couldn't he just get it on his own? It seems like while the One is more powerful than the rest of the Orkonar put together he's too weak to break into a dwarven mine and steal a gem. Given that the book said that the orkonar were so powerful that they couldn't be defeated or captured why should the One need to assemble armies of primitives to steal stuff? If he could cloud sparrows mind why not the dwarfs who controled the crux? What a lousy ending and a horrible plot twist.

Also ending a game with a cliff hanger is in poor taste. Especially since the last installment won't be out for years.

But to be somewhat positive the game was good up until the end.

** in my best Yoda voice **

Quick to make assumptions you are, yes? Hehehe!

Looks over at Muldur's poster, "The Truth is Out There."

How much of what we hear in Book 2 is actually true? Some of the information is contradictory. You have the One controlling followers' minds and telling them that all 4 cruxes are needed, but Shina the dying Orakur says that the One only needs 2 of the 4 and you just brought the second one here to destroy the first. We get a whole new game where we start over from scratch with a gem and fading memories. Let the confusion begin.

What I don't like is this: since I thought my character was basically behaving like an idiot (What Korren told him boiled down to "All 4 Crux at the same place means HORROR, so let's gather at least 2 of them at the same place, you know, uh, to destroy them" - it's natural to think that he WANTS the 4 Crux to be joined), I stashed the Crux of Fire neatly in a chest before confronting Gorr. And what do you know? The game didn't take into account that I didn't have the Crux in my inventory! The ending credits played as if my character was holding the Crux which he had previously hidden in a chest elsewhere!

This is not a wrong assumption on my part -- this is the game missing an important variable!

Elwro wrote:I stashed the Crux of Fire neatly in a chest before confronting Ghorr

HA. I knew I couldn't be the only one.

On the subject of plot holes, it seemed a little strange to me that the Crius people wanted at all costs to keep the Taurax from getting any more Crux, so their solution was to...bring them another Crux. Uh huh. OK.

Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to steal the Crux of Ages first? Oh sure, you might have a problem escaping, but the whole thing was probably doomed to fail, anyway, so why bring a gift? And if the viewing glass could be used to teleport somebody in, surely a way could have been found to teleport somebody (or something) out.

It made me wonder if the Crius folks had been subverted, and I wish I'd had the option to act on that suspicion somehow.

Unfortunately, plot and writing are not the strong suits of the Eschalon series, though the games still manage to be mostly very enjoyable.

Edit: sniped

silverkitty wrote:HA. I knew I couldn't be the only one.

I'm glad to see that, too

You know, just a single text window telling me that I was blasted to death by "the One" due to not having any form of defense available would have been nice... no need for an extra ending sequence (meaning: an additional investment).

Turtle wrote:On the subject of plot holes, it seemed a little strange to me that the Crius people wanted at all costs to keep the Taurax from getting any more Crux, so their solution was to...bring them another Crux. Uh huh. OK.

Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to steal the Crux of Ages first? Oh sure, you might have a problem escaping, but the whole thing was probably doomed to fail, anyway, so why bring a gift? And if the viewing glass could be used to teleport somebody in, surely a way could have been found to teleport somebody (or something) out.

It made me wonder if the Crius folks had been subverted, and I wish I'd had the option to act on that suspicion somehow.

Unfortunately, plot and writing are not the strong suits of the Eschalon series, though the games still manage to be mostly very enjoyable.

Edit: sniped

So many assumptions here, people!

You have to remember that you are a subordinate who followed very specific orders. Your character has the option to protest these orders, but you are essentially accused of treason if you question Korren's decisions.

So who really was Korren and what was his actual plan? Was he under The One's control? Is there any truth to what Shina told you? Was Shina even real? What really are the Orakur, for that matter? It is surprising how quickly people jump to "obvious assumptions" when there are so many possibilities!

Oh, the wait for the next game will be murderous! Perhaps their will be some new info in the add-on?

Right, you can protest, but you can't actually do anything other than follow orders if you want to finish the game. There ought to be another way.

That said, I look forward to seeing the add-ons.

Well, I wrote my post in the way I did precisely so it wouldn't be vulnerable to the "don't make too many assumptions" counterargument.

Once again: 1) Why should our character trust Korren's proposal, which -- I'm very sorry -- really sounds stupid? Like an obvious trap? You know, this is the main plot, it really shouldn't feel like you're forced to do unreasonable things with no possibility of (effectively) questioning them. 2) Why doesn't the game react to the fact that our character had hidden the Crux somewhere before the last confrontation?

BasiliskWrangler wrote: So many assumptions here, people!

as I said last time you dropped this blithe answer in the middle of a thread wherein I was discussing the middle-game plot, it's quite the opposite. you never replied then, and I doubt you'll reply now, but I'll repeat the basic argument, anyway:

I'm going on almost no assumptions. None at all. All I know is
a) up to this point, I've been told bringing the 4 cruces(*) together is BAD
b) I only know where 2 are
c) I know Ghorr wants them
d) Korren wants me to put those 2 together - but, moreover, he wants me to do it in a risky mission where I might well be killed and thus basically give one of them to the enemy, who has the other that I know about already.

No need to reference the ending or any extra knowledge to think "this is the stupidest plan ever conceived". There's no contingency or backup for my potential failure to get the Crux of Fire to the same room as the Crux of Ages and summon Korren. None at all. Ridiculous.

If it's certain I can defeat Ghorr, then I should do that first and then get the Crux of Fire and do the destruction thing.

If it's not certain I can defeat Ghorr, then the very last thing I want to be doing is dropping the Crux as part of the loot he gets for killing me.

It's when we "make assumptions" (i.e. see the rest of the part 2) that the plan even starts to make sense. We have no idea in the mid-game that the Crux will be our only defense against the Orakur weapon at the end. Other than keep it around as a shield against that, though, it's still kind of wobbly.

Actually, it's an "assumption" that anyone besides Ghorr is behind the plot at all. All we're told until midgame is that Ghorr wants the cruces together, and he's conquered one kingdom and is willing to conquer the next to bring this about. So if you can defeat Ghorr, then the naive (i.e. making no further assumptions - not predicting the rest of the plot - NOT knowing about the Orakur) solution is "go ahead and defeat Ghorr." A plan that involves defeating Ghorr and doing other stuff seems like extra leg work for no reason (again, given that we do NOT know the rest of the game), and a plan that involves maybe defeating him shouldn't include "and if you fail, he wins automatically." If we buried the Crux of Fire in the bottom of the secret society's drinking well in their cleverly hidden lair, then at least if you failed, there would be a chance that Ghorr would have troubles fetching the Crux of Fire. Rather than him just rifling through your backpack.

BasiliskWrangler wrote:Your character has the option to protest these orders,

except only in the character's mind, not in any dialog or actions in the game

BasiliskWrangler wrote:but you are essentially accused of treason if you question Korren's decisions.

even if questioning the orders and being accused of treason were an option, c'mon? accused of treason by a secret society? I don't even think that's what treason means. But going with that for a moment, who is accusing you? There are only 4 members of this group that you meet: including one who dies as soon as you meet him, and another who is already trying to kill you when you meet her. Even if their numbers are double that, you could probably handle them in your sleep - even assuming that killing Korren his wizard buddy would somehow inevitably lead to you and not just be attributed to actions by the actual enemies of this group. In any case, it's not like they're going to report you to the "actual" authorities (various local kings and rulers), because they're a secret society.

(*) yes I know the proper English plural of "crux" is "cruxes". "Cruces" is an in-joke for the right people to get.

silverkitty wrote:I'm going on almost no assumptions. None at all. All I know is
a) up to this point, I've been told bringing the 4 cruces(*) together is BAD
b) I only know where 2 are
c) I know Ghorr wants them
d) Korren wants me to put those 2 together - but, moreover, he wants me to do it in a risky mission where I might well be killed and thus basically give one of them to the enemy, who has the other that I know about already.

a) Correct.
b) Correct.
c) Ghorr doesn't want them. The One wants them. Ghorr is just a bulldozer being used to sweep the lands to make the acquisition of the Crux possible for The One.
d) Again, you are assuming you know Korren's intentions. Up to this point you also don't know that The One is looking for just two Crux. Perhaps Korren was setting you up? Or could it be that Korren was telling you the truth that destroying the two Crux needed to happen in a remote place and so you needed to take the CoF to Amireth? Why not take out the entire Taurax stronghold when you smash the Crux together?

There's no contingency or backup for my potential failure to get the Crux of Fire to the same room as the Crux of Ages and summon Korren. None at all.

Sure there is. There are still two other Crux that can be found and destroyed. The thing is: you don't know about The One's need for just two Crux until you are essentially at the end of the game. The contingency could have been for Korren and Erubor to find the other two Crux if you failed...that is, of course, if you assume Korren means to do what he says.

I am not going through the rest of your post point by point to correct you silverkitty. As long as you enjoyed the game, then we succeeded. I am sorry you found the storyline lacking and I can assure you most of what you are commenting on doesn't have much to do with what is coming up in Book III. Hopefully you'll stay with us to the end and find out for yourself.

Hey, BW - any plans to deal with Elwro's point above?

That seems to me like a pretty serious plot 'bug' that should probably be dealt with.

Maybe the easiest way to handle would be for the game to deny you entrance to Talushorn (or perhaps just to Level 4?...) without the Crux of Fire in your possession?... Just a thought.

The game already does not permit you to throw the Crux away so that it would disappear. Thus, perhaps the easiest -- not satisfying plot-wise, but still -- solution would be to extend the restriction to the Crux leaving your char's inventory at all. It's a special item, once you get it, the game could make you hold to it. What's the text which appears when you try to throw the Crux away? I don't remember the details, but perhaps it could simply be reused.

BasiliskWrangler wrote: c) Ghorr doesn't want them. The One wants them. Ghorr is just a bulldozer being used to sweep the lands to make the acquisition of the Crux possible for The One.
d) Again, you are assuming you know Korren's intentions. Up to this point you also don't know that The One is looking for just two Crux. Perhaps Korren was setting you up? Or could it be that Korren was telling you the truth that destroying the two Crux needed to happen in a remote place and so you needed to take the CoF to Amireth? Why not take out the entire Taurax stronghold when you smash the Crux together?

c) I don't know that. I'm going on no assumptions here (i.e. what I know midgame), so I don't really know that Ghorr is not the One yet - I've been given a name of someone willing to kill kingdoms to get the Cruxes, and I've been given vague allusions to "the One". there's no need to assume (yet) that those are different entities (in a world of magic, there's no need to assume a Taurax can't get mind control powers via some wizardry. Maybe he has a super artifact? I don't know yet.)

d) I don't know his intentions, I just think his plan is made of fail. There's little reason I can't travel to a remote location after fetching both Cruxes but before destroying them -- since his plan requires me to beat Ghorr and thus basically behead the Taurax offensive, I'm not feeling the time pressure anymore (and I don't know that some mystical One will just promote some other big Taurax to replace him. don't know it yet).

I'm not assuming I know his intentions - but I am forced to go along his plan, so I may as well not be made to feel like I'm working for the enemy - in fact, if I were to make an assumption about his intentions, I'd have to assume he's working for Ghorr, because his plan sounds an awful lot like the reply to "hey, I have an idea. instead of marching all my grassland loving Taurax across a lake of ice to get the Crux, why don't I trick some adventurer into delivering it to me?"

BasiliskWrangler wrote: Sure there is. There are still two other Crux that can be found and destroyed.

Given that we are explicitly told "we have no idea where one is (somewhere on some remote continent)," a good general will assume the enemy has already acquired that resource while planning. In any case, it's still pretty crazy to carry around 1/4 of the enemy objective as part of your lootbag instead of securing it against your potential death. When Korren says, "get to the Crux of Ages and then I'll teleport to you," the first thing I want to do is hand him the Crux of Fire and say, "awesome, when I get there, bring that." Sure, that's assuming I can trust him, but since the game doesn't give me a choice but to go with his plan, I may as well make his plan work in a sensible way.

The funny part is, I really like the game.

I spent the entire time from Korren telling me his master plan until I met Shinra thinking "why am I doing this? this is dumb." Because that happened in the past, it's not like any amount of present discussion can erase how I felt then.

But that was only a mild detraction because I'm used to be railroaded into dumber things by other games. I only bring this stuff up because in Book I, I felt almost no railroading at all, and thus it was glaring when it started happening here. (And I only bring it up this second time because Elwo felt the same way, and I was hoping to express why we felt it - oddly, I think it's even fixable. When I get the Crux of Fire and bring it to Korren, he could say "gimme that, and I'll teleport to your location when you get to the Crux of Ages" and then you can either (a) do it, or (b) say, "uh, I don't trust you, hows about I bring it with me?" and he can say "that's dumb, what if you die?" and you can then hand it over, or say, "it's a risk I'm going to have to take because I'm not sure about your plan," or say, "try to stop me, sucka." (nefarious) to which he'd reply with a sigh, "no, no need for us to fight internally. I guess I'll just have to hope you won't die". Then proceed with game as written, and suddenly you feel a lot less like you're the dumby in the room)