: Alas I left my manual at home when I came here to
: university. Correct me if I'm wrong but all I recall
: is that they were "not of this world". Give
: me a quote to refresh my memory and I'll withdraw my
: complaint.
Exact quote:
Fetch
Priestess summoned from another world by Balor for their magical abilities. Disturbingly proud of their ability to singlehandedly decimate legions of veteran warriors, the Fetch wear the skins of the men they've electrocuted as trophy and warning.
The Fetch fires blasts of electricity from its withered fingertips.
: Where does this come from? Unless it's from the manual I
: can't recall a single reference from Myth:TFL or Myth
: II in which the Myrmidons were said to be Balor's
: alone, or dependant on Balor for survival. Yes, they
: were turned to the Dark by Balor, but he wasn't the
: only Fallen Lord to use them.
Come to think of it, the Deceiver used them, too. I would suspect they were bound to their creator. When Balor died, the magics kepping them alive stopped, and that was it.
: Yes, poorly trained soldiers do run slower. I wasn't
: contesting that. You may notice that I used the term
: "leadership", not "training". In
: fact I meant to write "discipline", as the
: Brigands are described as running slower because they
: are "undisciplined". Discipline is not the
: same as training. I can't believe that a brigand, a
: seasoned fighter, is too "undisciplined" to
: move as fast as a warrior, most of whom have only just
: beaten their ploughshares back into swords.
Undisciplined is about the same thing. At least in sports, discipline has to do with going out every day and kepping in shape. With no real leadership, the Brigands are a little more lax in their physical training.
: I'm sorry, I didn't really make myself clear. I didn't
: mind the flavour text, I minded the fact that they
: were a new unit type. They're still just bowmen. Do
: they have some disadvantage that regular bowmen do
: not? Again I think that any such disadvantage is
: silly. I thought they were just bowmen who happened to
: serve on the other side, does that make them deserving
: of becoming a new unit type?
So all your complaining about is the fact that they're called a different unit? They made them they're own unit so they could give them differnet flavor text and uniforms. There is no other difference.
: The living can be pretty nasty. Nevertheless a Myrmidon
: looks a lot more fearsome, and was a whole lot more
: original, than a Maul. When I saw the Myrmidons I
: found them pleasantly original. When I saw the Mauls I
: thought "oh. A pig-man." As for the Ghosts,
: maybe I'm just irrationally prejudiced against them
: but ghosts to me are supposed to be frightening.
: Little dwarf ghosts that plod up to you and throw real
: molotovs at you strike me as hardly what a ghost
: should be like.
I'd agree that the Mauls weren't the most impressive creatures, but the Mahir and a lot of the other new units are pretty original. As for the ghosts, I thought they were pretty creepy. The way the berserks would disappear then laugh, things would appear behind you, etc. In many reviews, this was said to be the best level of the game, and I'd have to agree.
: At least we get to hear about how The Deceiver and The
: Watcher "had it out" after the battle for
: Tyr, and see their forces hacking each other to bits.
: Yes, there wasn't much more to it than that, but it
: was deliberate. It was a mystery, one that you weren't
: supposed to be able to fully comprehend but which left
: plenty of room for expansion. When you read about the
: Summoner for the first time, the Codex tells how he
: will visit horrors on the world untold in history or
: myth. From the sound of him, he was supposed to be
: worse than the Fallen Lords. What kind of plot do we
: get for him in Myth II? Tell me what we discover from
: Myth II and I may take back what I said about it.
The horrors spoke of were a concrete thing, the Myrkridia rather than horror itself. Also, the codex doesn't seem to be above engaging in hyperbole. What we mainly learn is that Soulblighter doesn't have the Codex, as stated by the narrator.
: Ah, but the magic behind the undead was much more
: mysterious. When I fight the Thrall I think "here
: come the undead", not "here come the
: magically-reanimated corpses". When I fight the
: Stygians I think "here come the magical suits of
: armour". Where is the mystery in that? What does
: it take to slap together a spell to make a suit of
: armour move? Reanimating the dead is much more
: mysterious and spooky, much closer to the dark feel of
: Myth:TFL.
I'm not sure of your point here. What makes you think it would be easier to animate armor than the dead? The flavor text suggests otherwise.
: First of all, whose magic do you use? Warlocks, The
: Deceiver, an ancient sword, animated suits of armour,
: and Alric. How many of those were The Province's
: doing? Besides, if this much magic appears in the
: world in sixty years, the Fallen Lords should have
: been able to conquer the world in no time! They had
: millennia to develop their magic!
I was mainly referring to Alric's magic. He's had sixty years to make dispersal dreams without having to use them. Also, he apparently has destiny on his side. The Fallen were immensely powerful for that very reason, and that's why they were a lot harder to beat than just Soulblighter.
: Second, as I have said, there is too much magic. It has
: lost its mystique. Instead of being a rare and
: mysterious thing, magic pops up in a great number of
: levels in Myth II. I found magic in TFL to be
: mysterious and very well done because it was used
: sparingly. As I said before, if I want a world in
: which magic plays such an overt role in so many
: missions, I'll go play Warcraft. It's not that I don't
: like magic--indeed, when I got the Bow of Furious
: Incandescence in "The Road North" I thought
: it was great--but when magic is used too much, it
: ceases to be 'magical'.
The undead were magical. The FEtch could be considered magical. The whole Tain was magical. The main difference between TFL and Soulblighter is that it's the light using a lot of the magic in Soulblighter.
: Where did the Heron Guards go? The lands east of the
: Cloudspine were pretty much all overrun before TFL.
: Did they spread around the West? Even then, when the
: West was getting its butt kicked before TFL begins,
: many would have been found and killed. If there were
: some area that had been untouched by the Fallen I'd
: agree with you, but it just doesn't seem that there
: was that much room for them to wander off to given
: their numerous return. Besides, though they may have
: been shamed, did that make them willing to let the
: Fallen walk all over the West? They may have been
: shamed by the Empire's fall but I would have thought
: that they would have still felt some compulsion from
: their noble heritage to protect humankind against its
: greatest foes, the Fallen.
A bunch were killed. That's why they're re-instating the tournament. The difference is during the great war, and for quite a whie afterward, they were spread among the hundreds of groups that make up the legion. Then, they all went to Muirthemne.
: Very well, I see your point. It's all about the Emperor.
: I merely felt that they would be less than thrilled
: when Alric came along and suddenly proclaimed himself
: their emperor. He wasn't even remotely related with
: the Catch Bruig. He was already king of the West. I
: would have thought that many Journeymen would have
: felt it was a sham.
This is apparently how the emperorship normally works. He's the great hero of the great war. They all love him. It's quite likely a lot of the journeymen are from the west as well.
: Once again, I think it wasn't much of an achievement.
: Given the number of the enemy that attack you in that
: mission, defending the walls was not much of a task,
: especially when you have the Trow and the mortar
: Dwarves on your side. I would have thought it would
: have taken more of an effort than that to restore
: their pride.
That was probably symbolic, much like the hundred berserks that smashed the Watcher.
: Yes, I do. Our age is an industrialized and extremely
: technological one. We have made more advancements in
: the last 60 years than in the past centuries of
: humankind's existence. Look at Myth. If one had to
: attempt to compare them with a historical period, it
: would be medieval. Yes, they knew about gunpowder in
: medieval times, and in the late medieval era they
: actually tried to use it a fair amount. However,
: MythII asks us to believe that from throwing molotov
: cocktails, in sixty years the Dwarves have suddenly
: discovered how to make compact, portable mortar
: launchers with quite a decent range to them. These are
: mortars too, not merely small arms such as handguns. I
: think that given the state of development of the Myth
: world, and given real-world precedent it is
: unbelievable that in the space of sixty years the
: Dwarves could develop such a potent weapon, seemingly
: from scratch. The Ghols using cannons are even more
: ludicrous. When have the Ghols been masters of
: creativity or ingenuity? How could they make cannons,
: let alone compact ones like the ones they use?
Mortars, technologically speaking are actually simpler than guns. It's basically am matter of putting an explosive behind something in a tube to launch it rather than just throwing the explosive itself. Once you have gunpowder, this doesn't neccesarily take long. The main trick is keeping the mortar from exploding inside the barrel, but being brilliant engineers, the dwarves could undoubtedly do this. The dwarves are in a period comparable to the post WW2 period in the US.
As for the Ghols, just because they're operating the cannons doesn't mean they made them. If they did make them, they probably stole the technology from their mortal enemies, the dwarves.
: In Myth II we have a whole legion being sent through a
: World Knot. I can't even remember how many times the
: narrator is sent through world knots. From being
: ancient sites of mystery they have become a
: commonplace method of transportation that can handle
: huge armies at a time. Why didn't they use them to
: transport huge armies in Myth:TFL?
They didn't have use of very many of the knots at that time. The few they use apparently haven't been used any time recently. Once the light controls them all and the knowledge of how to use them becomes more common, of course they'll use them more.
I think the main problems with Myth II had to do with technological things, like unit clumping and AI auto attack. These don't really hurt the single player game much, though.
