So with my good knowledge of Spiderweb games I'm doing really well in the earliest portions of the game. As I'm still confined to the demo, I'm forced to really clean up all the little trash combat areas. That has got me up to Level 8, and I managed to get the Icy Rain spell, which is a nice area spell that helped me defeat a young drake and his lava lizard pals in the lizard den. Got some nice stuff from that.
This new skills system gives you choices of neato traits about every third time you level up. That means you have to choose wisely, because there is no way you'll get all of 'em. If Jeff has kept the Level 30 cap (I sure hope not--there were lots of complaints about that in Avernum 1) then we might get ten picks. Fortunately one of them allows mages to wear some armor. I'm betting, though, that about midway through the game we're going to find a mage magic robe, and my mage won't need armor. I got him one level of it, though.
The quest in the Areana lair has become a cinch in this game. It never was before. No doubt that's because it's in the demo. The Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders (GIFTS) are a standard part of most Spiderweb games, and they are fun. I'm sure Jeff wanted to introduce them to his new players, so their quest became far easier than before. Fine. It was fun.
Being stuck in the demo version is going to become fairly frustrating pretty soon, I can tell. I can't buy a boat, for example, and there are islands I want to visit. There's a quest for a hidden ogre lair that doesn't seem to be available yet.
I will get the chance to clear out a Slith fort. That should involve some nice combat, and they're much tougher than, for example, nephils. The goblins are going down with one arrow shot now, mostly.
I really was forced to use some of my consumables when I fought the drake. That was good. I'm getting the sense behind forcing us to go back to towns to rest. (I remember in the earliest version of Avernum, all we had to do was run back and forth inside the dungeons to regain energy and health. Yeah, it was too easy.)
So far I'm not having too much trouble finding secret buttons. They're fairly large now, and you do get so you know where to look for them. No doubt on the Spiderweb Forum there's a fix to make them sparkle, but I think I'll forego that this time. I'm experienced enough with these games now to find most of them, as long as I remember to look.
So I've completed lots of quests, most of them pretty easy. Having fun! Looking forward to the end of the month, when I can buy the game, if I don't succumb to temptation before then.
But once I hit the wall in the demo (probably tomorrow), I really do want to get back the Scratches and Baldur's Gate and finish 'em!
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