The Tale of Archon Discussion/Updates

Well im sure of buying it because if Ian reccomends it, its mine.
Let's just hope, since he is the story line guy that the main character isnt named archon, and there isnt a big battle at the bigging where, coincidently a druid named alpheus is killed, and then a captain named darius gets away. TTOA is kewl and all, but that means that TTOA would die and DOF would consume it!

what are you on about? you DON'T want playable TToA?! ^_^

actually, the best thing about TToA is/was the 'medieval-English-country' atmosphere in p2 anyway. i liked part 2 a lot more than 1, even though there was no killing in it (rare for me ^_^). it wasn't even that i didn't work on 1 and did on 2 (though that maybe contributed to it)...

Hahaha.

I'm not really the main story guy. I hope to play a fairly important role in the storyline development, but we're bringing in a professional eventually ^_^

And I'll try to keep that 'medieval-English-country' type of atmosphere to TTOA if I can. Though its a bit hard to keep that mood when I start dishing out the Orcs, tropical isles, Black Hammer warriors, an ancient fallen elf-life race, snowy places, a massive city under siege, and wierd black-skinned frost-obsessionist psychos. ^_^

Wow... that was the most horrible, rushed, strangest, most non-informative way I've ever laid out parts of TTOA's story. It was also a long, winding, annoying sentence, much like the one I'm current dragging out for as long as I possibly can drag it out, simply for the fact that I feel like being odd and dragging this sentence out for as long as I can possibly drag it out.

Er... I'll shutup now and go play Neverwinter Nights or something ^_^

- Iron_Ian

Professional? Why when they already have one? I think these people are just making up ranks!
Well if the story is gonna be like that, then maybe it should be named more appropriatley 'Middle-age Central Europe'. (ex. Ice freaks=Northern Norwegeaners, Orcs=Tough, dark, strong German stereo type, Elves=Belguim (since its a dying race of elves it can resemble small country) Massive city under siege can kinda sorta relate to a world war I atmosphere depicting how the Americans took so long to aid France and instead relaxed on tropical isles(another example) and got there as slow as possible without letting the Central Powers conquer Europe.

Heh, I didn't really base many of the ideas in TTOA off of modern/semi-modern warfare. I know Tolkien did, last year my US history teacher made references to it when talking about WW1. Germans = Orcs, Humans = UK, Elves = France, Hobbits = US, etc...
Actually as soon as I heard that, I really tried to stray from using too many historical references for plotline ideas. I would rather create something original, even if it takes one month to develop an idea compared to one week. Of course one must almost ALWAYS refer to history in some way when creating a medieval-type fantasy world, well unless you're another Shakespeare that is...

Heh I dunno... maybe that last paragraph there was all words, no real deep thought put into them. I don't really know what I use for my inspiration. Sometimes something just takes a hold of my passion, and inspires me to take my ideas to new bounds. If something strikes me on a whim, and it sounds good, I often use the idea. My brain works in a very strange way.

I must say some things that have inspired me the most are:
LOTR - What I strive for... just that goal down inside, that I want to make something to rival even perhaps the greatest story ever written.
Baldur's Gate Series - My introduction to the D&D world. I loved Baldur's Gate, the characters, everything. It was one of the major influences for TTOA, perhaps the thing that made me try to diversify things as much as I could in the world of Arasil.
Gladiator - This is a great movie... so well done, a matter of fact, just about perfectly done. If I ever do make TTOA a movie, this is the level of profession I seek to obtain from it.
Unreal (The original game) - Unreal was a great game, the perspective, and the way the story was unraveled made it a wonderful game. It was a great blend of Sci-Fi, and primitive people living on a lush and beatiful planet. The storytelling is superb, and you can really feel the suffering of the 'Nali' (the native race).

Recently Neverwinter Nights has also been awakening the sleeping creator inside (those D&D RPG's have that effect on me). The freedom of character development, and replayability as a different motived character is very entertaining to me, and I begin to draw up ideas from things that keep me enthralled.

Wow, that went on for a bit longer then I originally intended it to. I'm going to head off and play some more Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark (what a great game, the expansion pack is awesomeness).
- Iron_Ian

Well I beat NWN: Hordes of the Underdark. It was much better than the original game in terms of story & character interaction. The combat was crazy (as I was a lvl. 28 fighter, and I could hack the living piss out of everything in sight dual-wielding my +10 over-enchanted swords and with my Improved Two-Handed Fighting feat.

I must say it drew me in more than the original game for much more intriguing reasons. I actually cared about a lot of the characters more. The original campaign was only drawn on by the story of Lady Aribeth, shes about the only character that was exceptionally done in the first game (though some things she did were a bit far-fetched), though a few others were nice characters, and many were just not executed as well as they could be. And then of course the fact that I wanted to finish the game, the graphics were l33t, and it was fun hacking-and-slashing stuff to pieces.

The first expansion pack (Shadows of the Undrentide) was alright, there wasn't much that drew me into the storyline at first, and the beginning was a bit awkward, and somewhat cloning to the original campaign in terms of the first main quest. It picked up a bit more at the end, the 2nd chapter was pretty cool, learning about a fallen ancient civilization, and how the city of Undrentide had fallen out of the sky long ago.

And then finally I'll talk a bit more about Hordes of the Underdark. HOTU continues off of SoU, and it really adds a whole bunch to the game. Added in is a crafting system, an enchantment system, and much much better character interaction.

The crafting system is awesome (though I have yet to try it out much myself). You can modify different parts of your armor & add a robe (like you can put a bit burly robe over your armor). You can also modify parts of different weapons, and 1/3 of the way through the game, you meet a Drow enchanted capable of enchanting your weapons up to +10, and adding other numerous effects to them. There are also dies for different types of armor & cloth, so you can change the colors of your armor very easily as no crafting skill is even required to dye armor. Wizards can create potions, scrolls, and wands from empty bottles, blank scrolls, and basic non-enchanted wands.

In the original campaign, you could only have up to one other person travelling with you at a time (your henchman). In HoTU however, you can take two people with you. Now the characters interact with each other, and they even strike up conversation with you, which was something that was not done before except right before the final batle in the game. Many of the henchman you can take with you are from the original campaign, though you can't travel with them throughout the entire length of the game.
Deekin, a funny little kobold bard from SoU was also included. He is the only character that can accompany you through all 3 chapters of the game, whereas others make appearances in 1 or 2 chapters. Deekin was the comic relief for the game, and he is pretty funny a lot of a the time. Hes a bit naive and childish which makes him funny... and also the fact that hes a kobold bard.
HoTU tried to incorporate the popular "romance" relationships for your PC as was done in Baldur's Gate II. Unfortunately it didn't really feel authentic, as in BG II you had been traveling with your companion for 50+ hours before your relationship developed, whereas in HoTU, it seemingly pops up out of nowhere in a few hours. But it was a nice feature nonetheless, and at least made some of the fates of the characters at the end of the game turn out nicely.
Some people expressed dislike over the fact that Aribeth was included in HoTU (and there were a few contradictions, such as she suddenly became a half-elf in HoTU, when she was an elf in the original game). I also didn't really like the fact that they put her into HoTU. I don't really like when a game makes big assumptions based on "what you did during the original game" (there were many choices to what you could do to Aribeth in the original campaign, and the choices I made were not compatible with her being in HoTU). At least she was well done in the HoTU campaign as well, her character was portrayed well, just I think it would have been better to leave her fate a mystery, and maybe throw her a little role in Neverwinter Nights 2 (which is plotted to come out in 2006 sometime).

So theres my mini-review of the actual gameplay & story of Neverwinter Nights.
I could go on talking about the fecking awesome real-time shadows, the beautiful musical score by Jeremy Soule (the Howard Shore of game music composing), and how powerful the editor is, but I'll just leave it with a simple.
9/10 --- This game gets the "Iron_Ian thinks this game is f***ing awesome award"

I may do more little game reviews like this in the future, maybe when I have the cash to buy a maintain server, I'll have a reviews section on my site.

- Iron_Ian

At last the finale of COTD has been released! It's a wonderful cinematic, and a fitting end for the entire COTD storyline.

I have nothing more to say than "Download it right now or I'll inflict upon you big stabby death!" ^_^

TTOA Server download link
Wc3sear.ch download link

Well that's a pretty crude course of action don't you think? I mean what of those dl-upers who will wait days to get it? Though i watched it last night and felt it was very great. 6/5.

i still haven't watched 3 or 4...

and yes, i am ashamed ^_^

Lol... fine I'll change it to "download" it right now or I'll inflict upon you big stabby death.


Woe to you! Woe to you! Thou hast shamed me!

Iron_Ian
Tale of archon rocks dude it pwns 10/10

Thanks, I still love to hear people's comments and feedback ^_^

heh lolz its really good tho

2/10/04

Heya guys, I decided I'd fix up the Screenshots thread and do a few other things last night. Now all the screenshots work, and I uploaded a bunch of old ones of WIP/Unused stuff as well. I also made a thread with the credits, and updated the FAQ thread.

- Ian

I personally preferred nr 1 above nr 2, more action and all that stuff. Archon 2 is more of a cliffhanger preparing for archon 3... yeah thats right you meany!! ^_^
the 1st part with the black isle magic sounds and stuff were cool, I tried to put together a map of baldurs gate II the first chapter once... unfortunately, I suck, so I stopped after a short while, realizing that, (as always in my life ) I have good idea's but no skill to make them come true. Your maps are awesome, 2 bad that you quit, good luck with whatever youre gonna do.



grtz Shoarma Sheepz