MM6: Fastest times (without using bugs)
Eric Vanheest
Determined to beat my previous time of just under a year, I took a party of
three druids and a sorceror (I never did have much use for light or dark
magic, but the Day of Protection is handy and Dragon Breath is good against
Efreets) all the way through the game in about four days of realtime. I
skipped the Dragon Riders hideout and didn't kill a single dragon, although
I did slaughter every Titan on the map. I used the teleport to the shrine
of the Gods, and the +256 stats in the NWC dungeon, but I refrained from
using the Obelisk treasure bug (didn't need it anyhow; gold is plentiful
by the time you get it), and only hit the Fire Lord button once. I
accidentally gave a few of my characters skill in axes and swords, but
didn't use those types of weapons (didn't use any weapons at all, really,
only magic). I trained a total of six times, getting to level 7, 17, 39,
58, 86, and 105, respectively. I completed the following quests:
Candelabra
Spider Queen
Rescue Angela
Shadow Guild proof
Goblinwatch Code
Rescue Sharry
Retrieve Harp
Rescue Damsel in Distress
Destroy Crystal in Temple of the Fist
Destroy Devil's outpost in Kriegspire
Destroy Warlord
Retrieve Mordred
Rescue Sherell
Retrieve Hourglass of Time
Rescue Emmanual from the Temple of the Snake
Proof of Silver Helm meddling
Retrieve Chime of Harmony
Fix Free Haven Temple
Retrieve Ethric's Skill
Retrieve Jewelled Egg
Cure the Werewolves (and associated pearl to Ironfist)
Defaced the Monolith (mostly for gold :)
I (eventually) obtained all six dual promotions (although the Druids took
forever because they required a certain date). I did not enter the Control
Center at all (who needs blasters when you have Acid Burst at an effective
level of 35?), although it was still required to find the Control Cube.
My NPCs were either a Pathfinder and Explorer for covering ground
quickly, or a Mystic and a Spell Master for spellcasting power.
Priority 1 was a Water Master, above everything else, then other
skills fell into place. I was fighting and questing from 6:00 AM
until 2:00 AM almost every game-day.
Final score: 185942
Time saving Enroth: 0 years, 4 months, 8 days
I bet at least a month could be shaved off of that time; anyone done it?
Karrde
> I used the teleport to the shrine
>of the Gods, and the +256 stats in the NWC dungeon, but I refrained from
>using the Obelisk treasure bug (didn't need it anyhow; gold is plentiful
>by the time you get it), and only hit the Fire Lord button once. I
>accidentally gave a few of my characters skill in axes and swords, but
>didn't use those types of weapons (didn't use any weapons at all, really,
>only magic). I trained a total of six times, getting to level 7, 17, 39,
>58, 86, and 105, respectively. I completed the following quests:
Could someone fill me in on the +256 stats at the NWC dungeon? I have
been there, adn the shrine O' the Gods, but don't know about the +256
stats thing....
Any help appreciated!
Karrde
Reder
Karrde asks:
spoiler space
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
Click on Von Carneghem's (sp?) desk. It's the room where your party becomes
"afraid" as they enter the room.
George Ruof
e...@netcom.com (Eric Vanheest) wrote:
>Final score: 185942
>Time saving Enroth: 0 years, 4 months, 8 days
That's pretty impressive. I don't think anyone at our office has done
it that fast.
--
George Ruof gr...@pacificnet.net
Senior Programmer New World Computing
I speak for myself, not my employer.
Please do not repost this message without prior permission.
Peter Seebach
In article <655FDB58CC19D24B.3649462B...@library-proxy.airnews.net>,
George Ruof <gr...@pacificnet.net> wrote:
>e...@netcom.com (Eric Vanheest) wrote:
>>Final score: 185942
>>Time saving Enroth: 0 years, 4 months, 8 days
>That's pretty impressive. I don't think anyone at our office has done
>it that fast.
That's probably because you're all clueless *idiots* who obviously don't
know the *first thing* about computers!
If you were any good with computers, you would be able to produce a patch
that would have perfect 3D support on a 1MB trident card, and would get
40FPS with polygon everything even on a P120. In fact, you wouldn't have
used those digitized faces, even the character portraits would have been
made of polygons! Furthermore, we wouldn't have heard any of these lame
excuses about how it's not your fault if I kick the computer every time
I load a game, and sometimes it crashes. Good programmers aren't going
to be stopped by weensie little hardware faults.
Man you guys suck.
I only wish I were as cool as the folks who are demanding hardware 3D support,
and knew more about 3D hardware and software than *anyone*, the way they do.
-s
--
Copyright '98, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Not speaking for my employer. Questions on C/Unix? Send mail for help.
Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
Eric Vanheest
Peter Seebach (se...@plethora.net) wrote:
: used those digitized faces, even the character portraits would have been
: made of polygons! Furthermore, we wouldn't have heard any of these lame
I hate polygons :)
RumTmTiger
>e...@netcom.com (Eric Vanheest) wrote:
>
>>Final score: 185942
>>Time saving Enroth: 0 years, 4 months, 8 days
>
>That's pretty impressive. I don't think anyone at our office has done
>it that fast.
>
>
>George Ruof gr...@pacificnet.net
>Senior Programmer New World Computing
>I speak for myself, not my employer.
>Please do not repost this message without prior permission.
Personally, I don't want to finish fast. I am doing all I can to make this game
last a long time. I'm on my second game year and trying to clear out areas and
seeing what else I can do.
Eric Vanheest
RumTmTiger (rumtm...@aol.com) wrote:
: Personally, I don't want to finish fast. I am doing all I can to make this game
: last a long time. I'm on my second game year and trying to clear out areas and
: seeing what else I can do.
That's what the first time through was for :)
Stephen J Stanec Jr
Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg: 31-May-98 Re: MM6:
Fastest times (wit.. by Kar...@ix.netcom.com
> been there, adn the shrine O' the Gods, but don't know about the +256
> stats thing....
>
> Any help appreciated!
>
> Karrde
>
Can someone please tell me where the NWC dungeon is located? I've
finished the game and never encountered it.
Steve
R. McPherson
On Sun, 31 May 1998, George Ruof wrote:
:e...@netcom.com (Eric Vanheest) wrote:
:
:>Final score: 185942
:>Time saving Enroth: 0 years, 4 months, 8 days
:
:That's pretty impressive. I don't think anyone at our office has done
:it that fast.
:George Ruof gr...@pacificnet.net
I agree, very fast. I deliberately visited each shrine and it is still December
of the first year in my replay. I am obviously not going fast enough. Let me
ask Eric questions about his strategy. 1. What level did you train to since it
takes a week to train? 2. Did you run past everything inside certain dungeons?
3. Did you clear the Hive in real-time or turn-based mode?
I am deliberately exploiting all the advantages within the game. I cleared the
fire lord dungeon at level 14 and clicked on the "quest" bug 300 times to get
3.8 million experiene and trained to level 89 before the experience ran out.
But I'm still chugging along trying to actually kill all the monsters in the
memory crystal dungeons now. Maybe I should just run past them and telekinesis
the crystals out and beam away eh? Oh well, very fast score Eric.
rjmc...@uci.edu Ron McPherson
Gorgeous George
On Sun, 31 May 1998 06:05:23 GMT, se...@plethora.net (Peter Seebach)
wrote:
>If you were any good with computers, you would be able to produce a patch
>that would have perfect 3D support on a 1MB trident card,
Why should I need a Trident card?!!! I shouldn't have to go shoot $10
on an upgrade just to play the latest and greatest game, damnit!
>and would get
>40FPS with polygon everything even on a P120.
There are still those of us who've found no need to upgrade from our
386s. There should be a toggle to play the game with MM2's engine!
>In fact, you wouldn't have
>used those digitized faces, even the character portraits would have been
>made of polygons!
Rendered in real time! My whole party must look like Max Headroom!
(Damnit!)
Gorgeous George
On 31 May 1998 15:12:11 GMT, rumtm...@aol.com (RumTmTiger) wrote:
>Personally, I don't want to finish fast. I am doing all I can to make this game
>last a long time. I'm on my second game year and trying to clear out areas and
>seeing what else I can do.
Yeah, but I think the original poster had already completed the game a
time or three.
Peter Seebach
In article <3575c699....@news.feist.com>,
Gorgeous George <nos...@yada.yada.yada.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 31 May 1998 06:05:23 GMT, se...@plethora.net (Peter Seebach)
>wrote:
>>If you were any good with computers, you would be able to produce a patch
>>that would have perfect 3D support on a 1MB trident card,
>Why should I need a Trident card?!!! I shouldn't have to go shoot $10
>on an upgrade just to play the latest and greatest game, damnit!
Yeah, you're just another whiner without the cash to back up your ego.
It costs *big* bucks to play computer games these days, so smash open
that penny jar.
>>and would get
>>40FPS with polygon everything even on a P120.
>There are still those of us who've found no need to upgrade from our
>386s. There should be a toggle to play the game with MM2's engine!
Actually, I'd love to have this, if it weren't completely incompatible with
my favorite new feature - real 3D dungeons.
>Rendered in real time! My whole party must look like Max Headroom!
W W W Why? Don't Don't Don't they already ready?
Eric Vanheest
R. McPherson (rjmc...@rigel.oac.uci.edu) wrote:
: ask Eric questions about his strategy. 1. What level did you train to since it
: takes a week to train? 2. Did you run past everything inside certain dungeons?
: 3. Did you clear the Hive in real-time or turn-based mode?
1. I think I mentioned that I trained a total of 6 times (and probably
didn't need the last set). To level 7, 17, 34, 58, 86, and 105.
That's where the majority of my game-time went; 48 days in all for
six training sessions.
2. I generally eradicates every creature in every dungeon, with a few
exceptions (notably skipping the oozes in the Dragoon's place in
Ironfist and some others). It took about one game day per dungeon to
clear out everything; some required two game days, but that was rare.
Darkmoor castle I completely cleared out but required three days of
gametime and was probably completely unnecessary (the jump spell
is incredibly useful for vaulting over hordes of lichs to get the
goodies...)
3. I had to clear almost everything in turn-based mode because the game
repeatedly crashed anytime I tried to go it in realtime (I believe it
was related to the too-high stats problem and the +256/all in the NWC
dungeon.) I prefer realtime when possible; I can not understand why
in realtime the monsters do what they need to do in the time they get,
but in turn-based if there are more than about 10 monsters in a room
(which was frequent), it took an annoyingly long time for the monsters
to "think" about what they were doing.
x. That +256 temporary stat boost made clearing Goblinwatch and
the abandoned temple a cakewalk with level 1 sorceror and druids using
the default bad staff and bad dagger :)
: I am deliberately exploiting all the advantages within the game. I cleared the
: fire lord dungeon at level 14 and clicked on the "quest" bug 300 times to get
: 3.8 million experiene and trained to level 89 before the experience ran out.
I don't see any particular point in that; might as well just start yourself
with 5 million experience and 5 million gold and train to level 100
immediately. You can finish the game in about 10 hours of real-time that
way; not sure about game-time (you cross the map borders a lot).
: But I'm still chugging along trying to actually kill all the monsters in the
: memory crystal dungeons now. Maybe I should just run past them and telekinesis
: the crystals out and beam away eh?
I didn't find it terribly difficult to blow away all of the critters;
basic tactic was pour SP at the enemy until you run out, beacon,
portal, refill tank, repeat from 6 AM to 2 AM every game-day. I have
to admit to finding a certain cheese factor to this method, but having
gotten halfway through the game with a party of all knights, I have to
wonder if the developers ever intended that the game be played without
the beacon cheese. I gave up with the knights when they got to the
werewolves (even though that isn't necessary to finish the game) and
kept getting knocked out in one hit. Bah. Knights should be better
than that, and should have a better "resistance to magic" than a
measly +10 to resistance to begin with. It should be virtually
impossible to instant-kill a Knight in any circumstance, in such a
magic-heavy game. Especially when you consider that the Knight is
otherwise useless; there is no way of using said knight to actually
protect (God forbid) your weaker characters from any sort of attack.
Gorgeous George
>I agree, very fast. I deliberately visited each shrine and it is still December
You'd do better to just set a beacon in NWC and use the stat boost
there.
>I am deliberately exploiting all the advantages within the game. I cleared the
>fire lord dungeon at level 14 and clicked on the "quest" bug 300 times to get
>3.8 million experiene and trained to level 89 before the experience ran out.
If you're playing a blitz game and using bugs, you should have milked
it for a lot more than that: level 200 at least. :)
>Maybe I should just run past them and telekinesis
>the crystals out and beam away eh? Oh well, very fast score Eric.
Yes. I think I'd make "jump" a quick spell too. :)
gu...@corecom.net
In article <edvEtu...@netcom.com>,
e...@netcom.com (Eric Vanheest) wrote:
>
> RumTmTiger (rumtm...@aol.com) wrote:
>
> : Personally, I don't want to finish fast. I am doing all I can to make this
game
> : last a long time. I'm on my second game year and trying to clear out
areas and
> : seeing what else I can do.
>
>
Technically, the first time through is for playing the game without cheating.
The second time is for rampantly cheating, leveling up your characters to
undreamt-of levels, and waiting for Darkmoor to respawn so you can walk in and
kill eyes with a Dark Magic 110th level dragon breath. (Not that I'm planning
on doing this of course... Firelord, my characters are only 10th level, but
they can smell your dungeon, and after we're done with it, we're having a LONG
conversation with you...)
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
R. McPherson
On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Gorgeous George wrote:
:On Sun, 31 May 1998 12:07:18 -0700, "R. McPherson"
:<rjmc...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote:
:
:>I am deliberately exploiting all the advantages within the game. I cleared the
:>fire lord dungeon at level 14 and clicked on the "quest" bug 300 times to get
:>3.8 million experiene and trained to level 89 before the experience ran out.
:
:If you're playing a blitz game and using bugs, you should have milked
:it for a lot more than that: level 200 at least. :)
:
Here is the problem I ran into. I was level 14 and I was broke. I clicked on
the firelord quest button 300 times figuring that would take me to level 200.
I had no way of knowing either 1. how much experience I needed to get level 200,
or 2. how much experience I was getting as I clicked on the quest button.
I could not leave the screen to check without escaping and thus losing the
opportunity to get unlimited exp. I now realize that I should've clicked on it
1000 times.
But even when I was done and I had 3.8 mil exp, I didn't know what level that
qualified me for because I was broke. Otherwise I could've kept a save just
before the firelord screen, gone and trained to the max, and then decided how
much more I needed to click. However, I had to play for a bunch more saves to
both get money to afford to max training, and to keep visiting shrines.
So the 3rd time through the game someone could really exploit things.
In retrospect, I could've loaded up my original party saved game, looked at how
much experience they had to get to level 124 (about 6 million), then clicked on
the firelord screen and seen how much exp per click I was getting , then
calculated how many clicks I needed to reach 6 mil, then estimated how many more
to reach 200. Someone had posted a formula of exp/level also so I guess I
could've posted a question and waited days for assistance.
Silly me, I just figured clicking 300 times for about 5 minutes had to be
sufficient. By the way, level 90 is sufficient to win the game, however,
everything goes faster when you get your skill points up and your attacks do
more damage. I don't think I'll play a 3rd time, at least not right away.
rjmc...@uci.edu Ron McPherson
Zweldron
>Someone had posted a formula of exp/level also so I guess I
>could've posted a question and waited days for assistance.
To gain a level you need one-thousand experience times your current level. For
level 2, you need 1000. For level 3, you need 2000 more (3000 total), etc.
To go from level 1 (new game) to level X, you need 1000+2000+...+(X-1)000=
1000*(X-1)*X/2 experience total. So for level 200, you need
1000*199*200/2=19,900,000 experience. To find out how many times you need to
complete the firelord quest, save before finishing it. Complete it ONE time,
and see how much XP you got. Divide and you know what you need for the XP.
Training costs I don't know the rule for.
--- The Qurqirish Dragon, (Matthew Charlap)
<<UDIC>>
RumTmTiger
>On 31 May 1998 15:12:11 GMT, rumtm...@aol.com (RumTmTiger) wrote:
>
>>Personally, I don't want to finish fast. I am doing all I can to make this
>game
>>last a long time. I'm on my second game year and trying to clear out areas
>and
>>seeing what else I can do.
>
>time or three.
>
play the first time through taking my time and enjoying the game. Next time
and any time after, who knows? Cheats or trainers are fun then.
Trung Nguyen
R. McPherson (rjmc...@rigel.oac.uci.edu) wrote:
...
: Here is the problem I ran into. I was level 14 and I was broke. I clicked on
: the firelord quest button 300 times figuring that would take me to level 200.
: I had no way of knowing either 1. how much experience I needed to get level 200,
Exp = ((level# * (level# + 1)) / 2) * 1000
For level 200, you'd need to have ((200 * 201)/2) * 1000 = 20.1 Million exp.
That's a lot of clicks.
________________________________________
Trung Nguyen (tnng...@vnet.ibm.com)
SLIC Resident Development D407/030-2
IBM Applications Business Systems
Rochester, Minnesota
Gorgeous George
On Sun, 31 May 1998 04:01:48 GMT, e...@netcom.com (Eric Vanheest)
wrote:
>Final score: 185942
>Time saving Enroth: 0 years, 4 months, 8 days
>
>I bet at least a month could be shaved off of that time; anyone done it?
Don't you have to do the Nicoli quest, though? If so, then 3 months
(0 days) is the least you could get, since the circus first opens in
April in Blackshire (right?), and you start at January 1.
Is there a way to get into the circus in January? If so, you could
probably pull it off in a week or two (game time) just by running a
circus/resort loop until you got a bunch of "of power" items (you
wouldn't have to train at all). Sell everything else and use that
money to buy any spells you need. Get enough power that you could
storm Kriegspire and get all those horse shoes, bump someone up to
master water, and you're pretty much set. Plant a beacon at the
Kreigspire well (+30 levels) and optionally in NWC (+256 stats) and
then just run through the dungeons to get the relevant items (the
levels/stats would be mainly for hit points so you could survive these
runs). If you really wanted to, you could go clear the western maps
and then go train once (that'd probably afford you skill 20 in
something).
Eric Vanheest
RumTmTiger (rumtm...@aol.com) wrote:
: Sorry, didn't realize that this was not his first time through. I also like to
: play the first time through taking my time and enjoying the game. Next time
: and any time after, who knows? Cheats or trainers are fun then.
Anyone who managed to finish this game in under one year of game time
without looking at hints or exploiting bugs, I have a great deal of respect
for :)
Gorgeous George
On 1 Jun 1998 15:53:57 GMT, tr...@nguyen.rchland.ibm.com (Trung
Nguyen) wrote:
>Exp = ((level# * (level# + 1)) / 2) * 1000
>
>For level 200, you'd need to have ((200 * 201)/2) * 1000 = 20.1 Million exp.
>That's a lot of clicks.
Each click gives you 10000 experience (for each character). So around
2000 clicks. That's around 7 minutes at 4-5 clicks per second.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Eric Vanheest
Eric Vanheest (e...@netcom.com) wrote:
: Anyone who managed to finish this game in under one year of game time
: without looking at hints or exploiting bugs, I have a great deal of respect
: for :)
I feel the need to add that I needed one hint, and took another one out of
boredom; I had to look up how to get the Eel-Infested waters. Personally,
I think it was a load of dung that you are supposed to figure that one out
yourself, and I don't often give a puzzle that kind of rating. Sheesh. I
had even gotten the hint that "only certain ships leave for <some
continent>, and it takes six weeks to get there" (which as far as I can
tell isn't any sort of hint to anything in the game at all), and set a
beacon at every shipyard I could find, and spend game-weeks resting and
portalling to each of those yards seeing where they went. "Island South"
didn't lend anything whatsoever to the destination. By the way, don't most
shipyards have timetables of destinations? Add the realism where it
actually helps! Council Halls open from 10 til 2 may be realistic but it
is nothing but bothersome.
(The other thing I didn't bother to figure out was where the Third Eye was;
I had already cleared out the Hive and just wanted to finish the game)
Trung Nguyen
Trung Nguyen (tr...@nguyen.rchland.ibm.com) wrote:
: R. McPherson (rjmc...@rigel.oac.uci.edu) wrote:
: ...
: : Here is the problem I ran into. I was level 14 and I was broke. I clicked on
: : the firelord quest button 300 times figuring that would take me to level 200.
: : I had no way of knowing either 1. how much experience I needed to get level 200,
: Exp = ((level# * (level# + 1)) / 2) * 1000
: For level 200, you'd need to have ((200 * 201)/2) * 1000 = 20.1 Million exp.
: That's a lot of clicks.
Oops, this would be correct if you start out at level 0. As someone else
already stated in this thread, the inside part of the above equation
is (level#-1) * level#. 20.1 Mil exp is required for level 201 not 200.
19.9 Mil is needed for level 200.
In any case, it's still a lot of clicks.
Gorgeous George
On Mon, 1 Jun 1998 19:54:28 GMT, e...@netcom.com (Eric Vanheest) wrote:
>I feel the need to add that I needed one hint, and took another one out of
>boredom; I had to look up how to get the Eel-Infested waters. Personally,
I took three. Two turned out to be in the journal entries I didn't
read (shield and eye), and the other was about a skill I had no use
for (perception). No regrets, since they were all pretty lame. (The
shield chest is about the size of a rat turd and you can't see it
while flying at reasonable altitudes. They basically make you afraid
to use wells by endgame. I had no use for perception [don't care
about scrolls in skull piles or gems in crystal clusters]).
>I think it was a load of dung that you are supposed to figure that one out
>yourself,
Hehe. It was kinda silly. I was sure it was going to take me to
Bootleg Bay at first. :)
>and I don't often give a puzzle that kind of rating. Sheesh. I
>had even gotten the hint that "only certain ships leave for <some
>continent>, and it takes six weeks to get there" (which as far as I can
That sounds about as useful as "The best enchantments occur on <such
and such a day>," when all your enchant item spells have the same
effect regardless of day. The peasants were all brimming with useless
info, so I quickly learned to ignore them. If not for wanting light
master, I'd have HAPPILY Armageddon'd every town.
>didn't lend anything whatsoever to the destination. By the way, don't most
>shipyards have timetables of destinations? Add the realism where it
>actually helps! Council Halls open from 10 til 2 may be realistic but it
>is nothing but bothersome.
AMEN.
>(The other thing I didn't bother to figure out was where the Third Eye was;
>I had already cleared out the Hive and just wanted to finish the game)
Same here. Depressingly enough, I think that was the only thing I
DIDN'T click on in Ironfist (I developed something of a well-phobia
after several eradications and being dropped in the center of a
bullman party.)
Mike Weldon
In article <6ktktc$53l$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> gu...@corecom.net writes:
>In article <edvEtu...@netcom.com>,
>Technically, the first time through is for playing the game without cheating.
> The second time is for rampantly cheating, leveling up your characters to
>undreamt-of levels, and waiting for Darkmoor to respawn so you can walk in and
>kill eyes with a Dark Magic 110th level dragon breath. (Not that I'm planning
>on doing this of course... Firelord, my characters are only 10th level, but
>they can smell your dungeon, and after we're done with it, we're having a LONG
>conversation with you...)
If you just want to kill eyes there are some in Agar's Lab. In a few
different rooms there is a switch that will raise a platform out of the
floor with 6-8 assorted eyes on it. If you are already in turn-based mode
they won't even get a shot at you. Hit the switch, turn around, and give
them some Dragon Breath. You should be able to kill them all in one shot.
I imagine these rooms would be difficult for low-level characters, but
with Dark 20 + Ring + Morgan/Igraine (I forget which), it's laughable.
Mike
Mike Weldon
In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.980601...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> "R. McPherson" <rjmc...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> writes:
>But even when I was done and I had 3.8 mil exp, I didn't know what level that
>qualified me for because I was broke. Otherwise I could've kept a save just
>before the firelord screen, gone and trained to the max, and then decided how
>much more I needed to click. However, I had to play for a bunch more saves to
>both get money to afford to max training, and to keep visiting shrines.
XP required for level X is:
X * (X+1) / 2 * 1000
At least I'm pretty sure that's right.
Mike
Michael Kim
Gorgeous George (nos...@yada.yada.yada.com) wrote:
: >
: >I bet at least a month could be shaved off of that time; anyone done it?
: Don't you have to do the Nicoli quest, though? If so, then 3 months
: (0 days) is the least you could get, since the circus first opens in
: April in Blackshire (right?), and you start at January 1.
You don't have to do the Nicoli quest to finish.
After fooling around with different party combinations, I decided to see
just how fast I could finish this game.
I finished the game in 2 months 13 days w/o using any cheats or bugs.
(unless you consider the NWC as a cheat). I could have easily shaved off
a week or so if I had tracked down NPCs for faster travel and if I had
budgeted my time a little better in the beginning. I think you would be
able to finish the game under two months, if you were a little more anal
than me...
Anyway here's the route I took:
I started a party of archer/cleric/sor/sor. I wanted to use a druid but
you can't upgrade until March 21st, and those upgrades are essential, so I
used an archer instead.
I traveled to ironfist to deliver the letter, get bow skills, etc. Then,
I got myself a gate master right away and started travelling to mist,
freehaven to do the easy promotion quests for exp and some easy gold and
equipement in the freehaven sewers. I then came back to NS to do the early
dungeons. I used the NWC stat boost and raided their cash drawer a few
times when I needed some extra cash. I didn't click on Nicoli since I
needed access to Ironfist.
I finished most of the dungeons in NS and ironfist and didn't train until
I had enough for lv 13 (which is the minimum you need to train to water
master if you give one character all the horseshoes)
I got one sorc water master, and cranked up the air and fire on the other
sorc and archer. I got a spell master and apprentice (+6 boost) so my
sparks and fireballs would be more effective. I didn't add any points to
weapons, just built up disarm, identify and repair. I didn't add any to
merchant or any of the others.
Then I started doing all of the council quests. I did all of them except
for Garick's forge (I even cleared out warlords). I then trained to lv
40, and got three of my characters dark magic master lv 10 and cranked up
the archer's air skill to 20.. I got all the characters to expert weapons
and armor, but didn't add any more than lv4 to these areas.
At this point I was ready to tackle the tougher dungeons. I did all of
the oracle quests except for Darkmoor. I was short on cash to train, so
what I did was hire a duper and a merchant right before I trained. That
cut costs down a lot. with the same NPC combo I then went out and bought a
bunch of high powered spells.
I then trained to lv 66 and cleared out dragonsands since I had really
crappy equipement until then and the circus wouldn't come to town until
april. With three dark masters at sk lv 20 + NPC boost, moonbeam is
incredibly effective. I finally put some more points into armor and
weapons so that the characters could master in them. Up
until this point, it was spells all the way.
Once I was properly equiped, I cleared out darkmoor. It was riddiculously
easy, just dragon breath and toxic cloud all the eyes. With 2300+ sp
points between the cleric/sor/sor you can cast a lot of dragon breaths.
Tomb of Varn was a bit tougerh because the guardians of Varn are immune to
magic, but not too bad.
After that, I skipped the control center, and went straight for the hive.
It took a long time to destroy the reactor w/o blasters, but it went down
eventually. I couldn't find any spells that would affect the
reactor so I just jump up on the platform and hacked away. Sparks and
sharpmetal is all you need to clear out the demons in the hive.
And that was that. 2 months 13 days, 208,522 pts. Of course you must use
the stats boost and +30lv boost fountains. I never rested once in the
game, just kept playing around the clock and used the night time between
1-5 to travel to different areas. Didn't do any of the seer quests, but
went to all of the permanent stat boost areas.
I've managed to get four different party combinations to at least lv 40
and here are my thoughts:
Might sucks in the middle of the game. I had a party of K/K/Arch/Pal and
it was really easy in the begining. But once you go into the tougher
areas, you really wish you had some more area afecting spells and more
fire power in general. But once you pour a lot of points into the weapon
skills, the fighters become incredibly effective at high levels, dealing
out 100-150 pts a shot if you master spear/axe and sword, with most of
your points going into spear/axe.
The easiest combination to play has been Archer/Druid/Cleric/Sorc and the
Druid/cleric/sor/sor. Three dark masters make the game a cake walk.
Sharpmetal and sparks have to be the most effective spells in the game,
but also the most difficult to use properly. With the sparks, you kind of
have to bank the shots off the walls and get real close. With Sharpmetal,
you also have to get real close to do good damage. I cleared out dragon
riders with lv 40 characters by using sparks alone. The twisting
corridors are perfect for spark barrages. By the time the cuisinarts
reached me, they were down to only 10-20% hps. I think everyone should
consider having a party of three air masters. The game becomes
so much easier to play if you can just spark away and throw in a fireball
now and then just to change it up.