hm...after reading some of the more recent comments, it appears much has changed with this module, as far as I recall there was no fight with the shadow queen. I only recall her giving you a warning, and telling you to run through the nearby portal while she holds off some unknown foe. after running through the portal, you end up with the nexus realm where you meet the reaper for the first time. I guess I'm going to have to download the remake, and sequel. I remember enjoying the module anyway, the only complaint I ever had was being lvl 12, and having to kill a shadow dragon(very hard with SoU equipment btw, doable, but hard), heh. I don't recall if I ever actually voted on this module, so I guess I'll find out.. _________________________ jml's list of community addons/overrides, etc. Link
No one's posted on this in three years which says something but I'm going to post anyway in case anyone is looking through old mods to play.
This mod has a lot of potential ... some good ideas that are well-implemented. It is, of course, a much older mod but I'm sure it was cutting edge for it's time and even an old mod can be a good one if the story is right, it has some original scripting, etc.
However the fundamentals of dialogue and plot development are so poorly attended to that the mod becomes just almost too annoying to play and, finally, I think unfinishable.
I'm not talking here about any absurb final fight since, as you'll see, I'm unable to get there.
I'm talking about simple aspects of dialogue and plot ... here are examples:
Dialogue options for NPCs at the festival and elsewhere very often presume that you have knowledge which you don't have. This is the main problem and takes many, many forms and is so pervasive that it becomes almost intolerable. Examples:
When you meet the mage of Boccob at the festival you have dialogue options to ask about the shadow plane I think and about a "shadow queen" even though you may never have heard of these before.
I knew Lanellar's name somehow before I had any reason to whatsoever ... this will happen with at least two other NPCs as we will see, Tatsumat and Rith.
At one point I had only two dialogue options with Lanellar, both rude or threatening ... being a paladin, I escaped from conversation. This led me to just proceed on out into the Darklands without any idea of what I was supposed to be doing. That's a common theme in this mod ... walking around aimlessly ... and is another strike against it.
Later, with one of the shadovar leaders at the festival I somehow knew that the name of the rogue he was after "Rith" even though Lanellar had called her "Delia" and I had never found out her actual name before she was dead ... I completed the quest before ever having been given it. The only way I'd have "known" her name is by looking over her head and seeing "Rith". Her name was not listed in the book that was on her as Rith and was not given to me by anyone else as that and I never had any chance to talk to her.
When you talk to Tatsumat if you have not already talked to Darchime's projection, then you don't know it's him or even that you're supposed to be looking for him and don't have a dialogue option to that effect, which is fine. HOWEVER, if you talk to his guardians then, again even if you haven't talked with Darchime's projection, you somehow DO know that you're looking for someone named Tatsumat, even though you've never even heard the name and really DON'T know that.
On and on and on like that.
But here are the game breakers:
1) The Shadow Queen never appeared or never talked to me to give the initial poem at the fortress. That means that I can't get Tatsumat's key without killing him ... and I'm not even sure that would work. I doubt it would as you'll see. Regardless, as a paladin I'm not fond of slaying gold dragons.
2) One of the deific minion groups, the one around the purple interlinked stone circles, simply doesn't spawn. Since I'm guessing that the key on that map is not retrievable without killing all the minion spawns that means that that key is not retrievable since, well, you just will never meet all the spawns.
3) I already gave away the very first key I obtained, the one from Rith, to the Shadovar at the Festival. He had given me no offense and my best evidence showed that the rogue he was after had in fact stolen things from the festival and they ought to have been returned. My best evidence showed that, shadovar or not, he was the rightful owner so I did.
Jointly, 1-3 mean that, even if I find the "two extra" keys, I'll still end up one key short and, therefore, the mod can not be completed. One might think that you could simply take the last key off of the Shadovar's dead body or off of Tatsumat's body. But I'm not about to hostile someone who's given me no reason to. Ironically Tatsumat has given me more reason to kill him since apparently my world will be covered in darkness unless I get the key from him and he just wants to sit there and play riddle games. And anyway, I don't think the key will spawn from their bodies since I already wasted the Shadovar after having given it to him just to check and there was no key. (He threatened me AFTER I had returned his key and I was just curious if it was there and didn't save the history in which I killed him.)
SUMMARY:
Dialogue very frequently presumes far too much about PC knowledge. This is such a basic error and there are so many of them made that it just can't be overlooked.
The plot is broken since, with a nonfiring spawn in one area resulting in no key there and an option to give away and never recover another key, then if you miss the riddle at the beginning then it's unfinishable. I don't think I ever even saw the queen at the beginning anyway to get the riddle.
Final assessment: BROKEN and unrateable. If I had to rate the mod now it would get maybe a generous 6.0 just for the good features it does have. It should probably get less though since I'm less than 60% through I think and it's actually been mostly just frustrating. Maybe a 4.0?
Posted by Dallo at 2005-02-21 03:13:36 Voted 8.75 on 02/21/05
Posted by c00lm at 2005-01-22 02:51:27 Voted 9.00 on 01/22/05
Posted by fido at 2004-10-24 05:30:19 Voted 8.00 on 10/24/04
Posted by Omegaman ( 24.197.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-10-14 11:23:00
Tom:
SPOILERS WARNING.
I am only going to echo what others have said and re-emphasize the point that the final fight is ridiculous. NOT ridiculously hard, but just ridiculous.
I loved your entire module, minus some sticking points, but the fight with the SQ is just about to ruin it. If you need to play a magic user to defeat the boss, you ought ot say that at the beginning, I am playing a level 14 ranger with dual wielded katanas and my ABs are like +15/10/5 and +14/9, also I have used two +3 weapons at about the same ABs. The problem is, that all the spells I use from items fail (this is the shadow plane... why should a fireball fizzle? A true seeing? A hundred other spells? I can't even use the flame lash from my helm of brilliance) The good thing is that most of the SQs spells fail as well. She hasnt even attacked me more than twice or so. Just sits there casting damage reduction spells and shifting, and getting more temp HPs every time. So I have been walloping on the two melee fighter forms (celestial and something else?) and have had them in "badly wounded" for well, well over 1 hour. Just sitting there (I have taken several breaks and come back just to see the fight still happening as normal), hitting every time they switch back, and I have hit for well over 30 crits. on those two forms just while I have been watching, not to mention all the whittling away with my acid damage from katana #1. Over all, I would estimate that the lowest number of HPs I have hit either of those two forms for is well over 250. My point is, I still haven't seen "near death" and I am well into hour three of this fight. My other big beef is that 50% concealment means that regardless of the rolls, over half of my attacks fail immediately. So this means not that the fight is more difficult, but merely longer. Like I said, she isnt even attacking. I was about to give you a great vote for this mod, but after this fight you aren't going to want me to vote. *Incidentally, the gloom was a much better battle- I never killed her, but I got her down to near death two or three times before I got hacked apart. At least that one was eventful.
Posted by Omegaman ( 24.197.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-10-14 11:23:00
Tom:
SPOILERS WARNING.
I am only going to echo what others have said and re-emphasize the point that the final fight is ridiculous. NOT ridiculously hard, but just ridiculous.
I loved your entire module, minus some sticking points, but the fight with the SQ is just about to ruin it. If you need to play a magic user to defeat the boss, you ought ot say that at the beginning, I am playing a level 14 ranger with dual wielded katanas and my ABs are like +15/10/5 and +14/9, also I have used two +3 weapons at about the same ABs. The problem is, that all the spells I use from items fail (this is the shadow plane... why should a fireball fizzle? A true seeing? A hundred other spells? I can't even use the flame lash from my helm of brilliance) The good thing is that most of the SQs spells fail as well. She hasnt even attacked me more than twice or so. Just sits there casting damage reduction spells and shifting, and getting more temp HPs every time. So I have been walloping on the two melee fighter forms (celestial and something else?) and have had them in "badly wounded" for well, well over 1 hour. Just sitting there (I have taken several breaks and come back just to see the fight still happening as normal), hitting every time they switch back, and I have hit for well over 30 crits. on those two forms just while I have been watching, not to mention all the whittling away with my acid damage from katana #1. Over all, I would estimate that the lowest number of HPs I have hit either of those two forms for is well over 250. My point is, I still haven't seen "near death" and I am well into hour three of this fight. My other big beef is that 50% concealment means that regardless of the rolls, over half of my attacks fail immediately. So this means not that the fight is more difficult, but merely longer. Like I said, she isnt even attacking. I was about to give you a great vote for this mod, but after this fight you aren't going to want me to vote. *Incidentally, the gloom was a much better battle- I never killed her, but I got her down to near death two or three times before I got hacked apart. At least that one was eventful.
Thanks for writing in - appreciate the comment. Yes, the Queen is very difficult to defeat, and in hindsight perhaps should be more balanced.
Out of curiosity, what class where you runnning?
Posted by MT Silver ( 217.215.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-10-02 02:30:00
I've played this module for about a week now and so far I have enjoyed myself. But now I have stopped enjoying myself.
***SPOILER ALERT***
I have reached the Shadow Queen but I can't finish her off! As many here have pointed out, she is WAAAAAAY to hard for a poor level 15 character. She keeps changing form and everytime she does she gets alot of new temporary hitpoints. When she changes into dragon form, for example, she gets like 100 new hitpoints and since you can only damage her once before she shifts again you cannot harm her. This is seriously UNFUN and you should consider altering her to NOT recieve any Temp HP.
***END OF SPOILERS***
Otherwise, this is a fun module. Very nicely done and with some nice visuals. Keep up the good work!
Posted by Elorin at 2004-08-15 12:22:24 Voted 10.00 on 08/15/04
Wow, sorry I missed your earlier posts. Glad you finally made it past the Malaugryms, nice tactic BTW. They are especially tough w/out an enchanted weapon - if you have suggestions on how to further balance the end, feel free to email me, I'm currently in the middle of a re-write of the module.
Posted by Mirgalen ( 221.124.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-07-11 06:47:00
OK Last post
* spoilers *
Here the thing that did work after a long while. Summoned a succubus and that's about it. Went into melee (Flurry of blow) and waited. The succubus slowly drained the life of the Queen. Nothing else did work for me.
Last room.
Option 1: Try to fight and die (or something like that)
Option 2: Run, grab the bag and watch the cutscene
Posted by Mirgalen ( 221.124.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-07-11 05:33:00
Post continued
Right after posting my previous message I went back I tried pretty much every weapon, item and scroll I could use. See the time beween the posts to find how long the combat took.
Nothing. It's a stale mate she cannot touch/harm my character but I cannot do a thing to her either.
She is changing form every second or so. So trying to switch to the right weapon or cast the right spell at the right time is impossible.
she resists all my spells BTW. I have summoned some pets but no luck.
I may try to open a Gate and use the cloack of Greater Sanctuary to get away but I am not sure if this would work or not depending on faction settings.
Otherwise this is going to be a dead end.
Posted by Mirgalen ( 221.124.xxx.xxx ) at 2004-07-11 02:54:00
I have left this module asside for quite a long time (months).
I was going in circle with no clue of what to do next.
This time I loaded the latest saved game and went from where I was to the end in one go.
* Spoilers and hint request *
Well true up to the final combat. I never had to fight a shifter before and I have no shifter character yet I am starting to smell something fishy.
During the combat, I left the computer running for at list two hours but she is not dead yet. Perhaps a clue or two in the module would help.
Anyway if you are a monk you will fight her w/o weapon as I did and the henchman does not like weapon either.
What we see is her changing shape over and over. We also see her being injured in some forms but not in other forms. I assumed that either the shape shifting or the damage reduction or the heal power would last at some point but no.
Also you don't get a fedback like "you cannot damage her with your present weapon" so we keep punching and kicking we do see however damage absorption mesage but it does not seems to last.
Can anyone provide a minor hint - no major spoiler please
Thanks
Note: I am playing with my ninja who is Fighter 1/Monk 6/Assassin 6 (yeah I know how can a ninja be a disciple of master Drogan ;-)
I think you have this module confused with SQ2 - there is only 1 cutscene (at the end) in this module. Still, thanks for writing in, appreciate the feedback.
I read many of the other posts and it sounds like this is still a work in progress so I thought I would add my comments to let the author know what bugs I found.
I started this module and was wondering if anyone else found it frustrating that when you move from one area to another and you get a cut scene all of your spells expire plus your weapon is removed from your hands. In addition to that you don't actually go to where you are suppose to.
Posted by ptc075 at 2004-05-31 04:39:24 Voted 8.00 on 05/31/04
This game was pretty good. Certain characters just aren't going to be able to kill the final boss, though, & that really hurts my final score. My first try through, my dude fought the final boss for an hour and a half before I shut it off. The boss can cast stoneskin at will, & never runs out of them, so you need to be able to punch through a stoneskin really really quickly. Also, the boss has 15/+3 DR, so you need at least a +3 weapon. As the author points out, there are +3 weapons available, but only a few, so if you use something exotic, be warned, you will need to bring a good weapon with you before you start!
Posted by LYG at 2004-05-26 09:08:34 Voted 7.00 on 05/26/04
Would have been 9 or 10, but the darkness was so pervasive as to reduce my enjoyment (old eyes, I'm afraid).
Posted by Lomondra at 2004-05-20 21:44:04 Voted 9.00 on 05/20/04
I enjoyed the mod very much, it was just the right mix of all catagories (I hate 100% hack and slash) and it had a story!!!! Very well done. And, to my personal pride, when I was interested in wanting to play but couldn't get in, it was determined that a movie was blocking me so the author made a mod named the Lomondra Build (my character's name is Lomondra) that allowed to me play this wonderful game!!! I am very proud and just a BIT overawed that someone would do that just for me. _________________________ Does this armor make my butt look big?
Thanks for the pointers - I'm compiling a list for things to work on when I re-release the mod and will take these into consideration. Thanks for trying it out, hope you enjoy the rest of the module.
Posted by mikeyonker at 2004-05-13 03:37:04 Voted 5.00 on 05/13/04
I actually went back to play SoU again, this, next I'll play HotU again to play your post-HotU mod for the contest.
I thought the visuals, the concept, and some of the monsters were good and original. I thought the story was incoherent (sorry, but I felt I stumbled through and I'm not sure what I really did) and the constant saves annoying. It was okay. It seemed liked it needed polishing.
Posted by Draznik at 2004-04-30 12:19:50 Voted 8.00 on 04/30/04
Loved the Darkling, felt bad having to leave the little bugger behind at the end !
Almyback � thanks for writing in and I appreciate the feedback
****Spoilers Follow*****
The end boss is difficult I admit. You need a +3 or higher weapon to damage the boss (there are several in the game), and when it take damage it automatically assumes a different form. If the new form hasn�t taken damage yet it has full hit points. On top of this the boss regenerates hit points over time. Here are two tips for defeating the boss � and there should be a few more in this forum.
Tip 1 � If you damage the boss very frequently, the Boss will become too busy shape-shifting to fight. Area of effect spells work nicely. Fighters with many attacks also can succeed using this tact.
Tip 2 � Pick one of the boss�s forms and focus in on it. For example, when the boss becomes a dragon, use hard hitting, massive damage spells or items on that one form. When the boss isn�t in this form, use wimpy or lower costing attacks until it shifts back to the dragon form.
Nice mod with several unique "touches" but what's with the end boss? I tackled this mod twice with a LVL 14 & 15 Fighter/Bard/Arcane Archer plus the summoned creature, plus the henchman and could not prevail. After 30 minutes I was out of assistants/spells/potions and still faced an undamaged enemy. Unable to defeat her and finish...and that's not fun.
Posted by Varamyr at 2004-03-09 06:37:48 Voted 9.00 on 03/09/04
Posted by Kamiryn at 2004-03-01 04:15:05 Voted 9.00 on 03/01/04
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