12 - 20 hours depending on character class & sub quests completed
Number Players
Writen as single player.
Language
English
Level Range
1 - 10
Races
Any
Tricks & Traps
Medium
Roleplay
Medium
Hack & Slash
Heavy
Classes
Any
Scope
Part of Series
DMNeeded
No DM Required
Single or Multiplayer
Single Player
Max Character Level
01
Max # Players
01
Min # Players
01
Min Character Level
01
Content Rating
Everyone
Alignments
Good or Neutral
Gameplay Hours
12
Description
The Nature of the Beast Part I. Lake Glimmermere
by W.Nichols
After a hard season working on Barleymans Farm you find yourself packing up to leave. Winter is closing in and you have decided to head South to the big city of Port Last.
The snow is already falling, time to pick up your wages before you leave the Farm for good.
Note: Designed for level 1 characters of any class. Best suited to good or neutral alignment.
You should reach level 9 or 10 by the end.
The Main quest of this series will not become apparent until you reach level 7 or 8.
Please read accompanying document for more details.
To be continued in The Nature of the Beast Part II. Port Last.
My thanks to everyone that helped me out on the forums with this project.
SPECIAL THANKS to:
69MEH69, for the excellent MBH HenchmanKit v2.3
Jassper, for expert scripting advice.
Armin, for some very usefull advice during initial testing.
Hi Pond It's a great game, i had no trouble whith the game, but now there is 3 people who waiting to get in to Port Last. When are you coming out whith ch.2 I think some of the players didn't think back again when they talk to some of the npc and when they get hints about the last cave whith the dragon. I get all my question updatet and finish and is was a good game, so please come out whith ch.2 Thanks Jonny
Posted by Mr at 2007-04-0307:02:43
Well. let me address Riona?s concerns more fully as they give the impression that this is a badly scripted untested module, which of course is not the case. Apart from the hundreds of hours spent writing this module it has, of course, been tested many times both by myself, and a dedicated team of testers and in great detail. I would never release a module as ?Final/Complete? unless I was sure that it all the mayor components where in place and functioning properly. Firstly Roina clearly had problems finding the underground caverns, the clue of course is the title of ?Retired mining Engineer Reynolds? , I think ?The man who knows how to reach the caverns Reynolds? would have been a little too obvious. There are 2 circumstances under which the script would not fire., The first is: if the proper conditions had not yet been met. In this case you must first have successfully completed the task set by Councillor Torvall and returned the 3 sacred relics to the proper place within the crypt and gathered the relevant information from the ghosts of the undead kings of the tribe. Also you must have been set upon the path by Sven the Grazznaak chief. The second is if you had cheated to get past a point that you found difficult, this leads to variables failing to be set with the result that certain parts of Reynolds conversation would then not fire. Given Riona?s propensity to cheat when in difficulty I suspect the later in on this occasion. Cheating to bypass a difficult problem will always lead to errors later in the game and should be avoided. If you read the accompanying document I give my email address at the bottom and will always be happy to help out in any sticky points. Once again let me state clearly that I AM a native English speaker (I am from London in ENGLAND). All spelling has been checked and rechecked both by proofreaders and editing packages. Spelling is in English (not American English). Of course there are examples of purposefully miss-spelt words which are used to convey a lack of wit and intelligence, for example the ogres have a sign which reads ?STA OWT? (stay out), this is of course done on purpose and I?m sure that the majority of people playing the module understand that this is to convey that the Ogres are simply not too bright. On the issue of the door in the tower, I grant you that this could have been scripted a little better, however it does work and I therefore decided to leave it in place. I hope this is the last time I need comment on this matter. Bilgious Pond.
Posted by Riona at on03/21/07
"Hi Riona, there is really no need to cheat (by whatever means). To reach the caverns you must talk to the "Retired Minning Engineer Reynolds" who can be found with his bear outside the Grazznaak trading post where he is trading for fresh supplies. You DO NOT need to talk to the shady for this. Hope this helps" Well, I've already finished the game, but I DID talk to this guy, and I never ever got the option to even *ask* him about the caverns. I know there was a script there...but for some reason it never fired off. Difficulty is fine, but only if scripts are working properly. I also thought the door in the tower wasn't merely "hard" it was also counter-intuitive, because the player is led to believe she has to type something in based on the clues she has found. As it turned out, a script needs to fire off. I understand you aren't a native speaker of English...but that's all the more reason for me to say that extra proofreading would be a sound idea. Too many spelling mistakes turn some players off, regardless of the reason for them. Take care, Riona
Posted by Mr at 2007-03-2207:49:12
A re-built version for CEPv2 will be released soon, i'll try to iron out a couple of sticky parts (such as the problem with henchman and the fortune teller) if possible also. Bilgious Pond PS a note to Riona, I am a native english speaker and do my best to avoid spelling mistakes. Also the plot line is integral to the module and runs consistently throughout and will be continued in Parts 2 3. The idea behind the door in the tower was to have something that required a little more thought than just "press Tab" and click on it. Thanks for trying the mod. Bilgious Pond
Posted by Mr at 2007-03-2207:37:10
After reading some of the latest comments it would seem that a compltete walkthrough might be good idea. I'm not a fan of leading people by the nose through the module and think that a degree of difficulty is essential to a really enjoyable experience. If anyone would care to comment on this thought i'd be gratefull for thier views.
Posted by Mr at 2007-03-2207:28:03
Hi Riona, there is really no need to cheat (by whatever means). To reach the caverns you must talk to the "Retired Minning Engineer Reynolds" who can be found with his bear outside the Grazznaak trading post where he is trading for fresh supplies. You DO NOT need to talk to the shady for this. Hope this helps Bilgious Pond
Posted by Riona at on03/21/07
I really don't want to rag on this module. It had a lot of stuff in it that I liked, such as interesting towns and cultures (especially the Grazznaak orcs--very different!), giant crabs, and fights that were challenging without being absurdly difficult. However, it also had many annoying and even frustrating problems that *really* marred my experience and *almost* made me quit more than once. The two most notable (and most notorious) examples are the door in the top floor of the abandoned tower and finding the caverns to get into the Grazznaak temple. Regarding the door, I kept thinking I had to type in some unfathomable word to open the door, but it turns out that once the PC picks up the diary she is scripted to "read" an underlined passage in the book (the player has no control over this). I was relieved...but also annoyed. As for the caverns, it turns out you need to get this information from the shady guy outside the Blue Crab Inn, but every time I talked to him I only got the option to buy stuff. I had to cheat using dm_movetoarea to get to where I needed to go (which is, for anyone else who is also stuck here, the Lake Glimmermere Caves). One should never have to cheat to get through a game. As others have noted, a walkthrough would have saved a lot of frustration with these problems...it really should be a lot less sketchy than it is now, especially because some important items that you need to find--as Armin pointed out--are rather randomly scattered and seem to be found totally by chance. If you happen to come across fish, an apple or two, and a teeny little gnomish musicbox, don't throw them away! The module has some other problems too. I'm fairly sure English isn't the native language of this author...understandable, but the module is still pretty loaded with spelling and other writing errors--it could use another once-over by a good editor. While I appreciate the inclusion of Standing Stones, I still felt like this module contained a lot more backtracking than I would prefer...I spent no small amount of time just walking to places. And finally...where was the plot? There wasn't much of one. I definitely see hints of an interesting plot hidden somewhere in folds of this story arc...but they are just that, hints. The module's story mainly consists of the desire to get to a nearby city, and in the meantime she kills time by doing a number of fetch-and-carry missions. I understand this is a prologue of sorts, but prologues have to pique interest, too (see the Tales of the Sundering Prelude for an example of a prelude I like). Also, for all the importance the Tome supposedly has, the gnome Droippi didn't seem all that upset when I didn't deliver it to him. Sorry for being such a downer, but I have to be honest. I still think the author of this module has good talent and has a good story hook here, so I expect a follow-up module would be a vast improvement.
Posted by Riona at on03/21/07
OK, I'm happy to say that the issue I mentioned below is fixed once the henchman die and get resurrected. However... How on EARTH to I find this "hidden entrance" to the temple by the inn that the Grazznaak chief talked about? This should have been mentioned in the walkthrough.
Posted by Riona at on03/21/07
--"Really loved the mod, looking forward to the second part. Especially how the quests made sense, I hope you get what I mean. But, halfway through, after seeing the fortune teller, my henchmen [Merroim(?) and Enrico] became 'stuck'. They were still my henchmen but unresponsive and didn't follow. When I entered a new map they were right there but didn't budge, I couldn't talk to them. It fixed itself though when they were involved in a battle. Nearly dying made them responsive again :) I right click-ed and got rid of them and then invited them back but it didn't work either. Just that, thought it was odd though. Thank you for the mod" I'm having the exact same problem. :( This is a bug that needs to be fixed.
Posted by Steve_Savicki at on03/14/07
-.25: animal excretion is disgusting. The author may have chosen another object in place of that. -.25: faction bugs. I know I played kind of evil and killed a merchant, but I think the environment should be reset to neutral after some time. Too many important quests ruined due to other PCs becoming hostile. I got tired of using the DebugMode 1 dm_setfaction option over and over again. I think the author should look into the faction issue. _________________________ Steve's Characters - please don't forget to vote on them if you play them. Thanks, Steve
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