Joe Dever is a malicious $#%&^

SableWyvern

Mongoose
Heh. I've just been reading though Fire on the Water, and discovered two interesting things.

1. If you sneak onto the carriage to Port Bax, you will die. However, depending on a few random results, you might die virtually straight away, or you may hang around for a while.

2. If you lose the Seal of Hammerdal, you will die. However, the no-Seal death will not occur for quite some time, and quite possibly not until you have wandered around in circles in Port Bax for a considerable while, with growing exasperation, endeavouring to acquire a Red Pass.

A truly malevolent mind at work there. :twisted:
 
The worst bit of Fire on the Water for me was the tunnels to Hammedal. If you don't have a magic spear or animal kinship you die. If you are nice and give your spear to Rhygar you die.
 
Greg Smith said:
The worst bit of Fire on the Water for me was the tunnels to Hammedal. If you don't have a magic spear or animal kinship you die. If you are nice and give your spear to Rhygar you die.

That bit always annoys me -- I WANT to give Rhygar every chance, even though I know he has no chance in hell.

In fact, in the online version at www.projectaon.org , this has been changed so that you can give the spear to Rhygar and still have a chance.

Yrs
Martin

P. S. This week I went on a Lone Wolf binge and played through all the books that appeared in Swedish (the first twelve) without cheating. Damn, that was hard! :? I must have cheated until I was blue in the face last time I played them.

For example, in Dungeons of Torgar, where you first (depending on the path you take) run into the Ziran, and then, battered and bleeding and seriously Endurance-challenged, you run into Baron Shinzar...

Yup, he sure has a mean streak, that Mr. Dever! :)
 
Anonymous said:
Greg Smith said:
The worst bit of Fire on the Water for me was the tunnels to Hammedal. If you don't have a magic spear or animal kinship you die. If you are nice and give your spear to Rhygar you die.

That bit always annoys me -- I WANT to give Rhygar every chance, even though I know he has no chance in hell.

In fact, in the online version at www.projectaon.org , this has been changed so that you can give the spear to Rhygar and still have a chance.

Yrs
Martin

But even in the Projest Aon one you die if you give the spear away and don't have animal kinship. :(
 
I actually really liked the way Rhygar needed to be abandoned. While I always tried to play Lone Wolf as nobly as possible, that circumstance really drove home for me the gritty seriousness of the series. The other similar bit I liked was joining the Knights for the suicide charge on the castle (can't remember which book, or the specifics of the situation), which got you killed.
 
Sure he was vindictive and made the books,<cough> challenging </cough>, but he was no where as mean as Gary Chalk was in the GS books. I'd make points and references, but it'd take way too long......

But even then, Mr. Dever WAS the editor of those books, and he could have tried to rein in Mr. Chalk, but he didn't... Perhaps yet another way his malicious mind could move against his myriad fans, mayhaps?
 
I was not impressed with the Grey Star books, mainly because of the arbitrary choices leading to death.

In Lone Wolf, you either have some hint that a decision is bad, a way to avoid death with an appropriate skill choice, or -- at the least -- a random opporutnity to avoid a death. Further, as shown above, some certain deaths are obscured, so that you don't realise quite how arbitrary they are at the time.

Re Grey Star, OTOH, the one thing that really sticks in my memory is that you can choose to jump down a hole on the Daziarn plane. In doing so you die. There is no indication that doing so is a bad thing; further, being Daziarn, you have every reason to believe it may lead you somewhere useful. No fun at all.
 
adgramaine said:
Sure he was vindictive and made the books,<cough> challenging </cough>, but he was no where as mean as Gary Chalk was in the GS books. I'd make points and references, but it'd take way too long......

But even then, Mr. Dever WAS the editor of those books, and he could have tried to rein in Mr. Chalk, but he didn't... Perhaps yet another way his malicious mind could move against his myriad fans, mayhaps?

Surely you meant Ian Page and not Gary Chalk?
 
Eternalknight said:
adgramaine said:
Sure he was vindictive and made the books,<cough> challenging </cough>, but he was no where as mean as Gary Chalk was in the GS books. I'd make points and references, but it'd take way too long......

But even then, Mr. Dever WAS the editor of those books, and he could have tried to rein in Mr. Chalk, but he didn't... Perhaps yet another way his malicious mind could move against his myriad fans, mayhaps?

Surely you meant Ian Page and not Gary Chalk?
um, yeah, of course I did.... :oops:

it's been a LOONG weekend....
 
As for the magic spear dilemma, I agree it is understandable.
Lone Wolf's life is of utmost importance, he's the only person on Magnamund who can use the Sommerswerd and kill Zagarna. Giving away his only chance of survival (should he meet with a Helgast in Tarnalin) is a big mistake.
 
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