Future so Bright He's Got to Wear Shades: Let's Play Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire

I don't think it can... maybe try no spaces and if that don't work, change-a yo name-a.

Nope, nothing worked! I went ahead and imported Garcon then changed his name to Garcon Perseii Jackson III (the third) and played back up to where I was.

So, from now on please enjoy his adventures as you have enjoyed those of his clone/doppelganger/twin/nemesis

Okay, that's pretty bad design. What was Sierra thinking, letting you put in a name so long but then having an in-game text entry limit smaller than your name could be? Well okay, I guess they were thinking that nobody would put in a name that long, but it's still a dumb oversight to allow a name of about 40 letters and then requiring players to type it up at some points with less text space. =/

Oh well, it'll be easier to manage now. It's not like my Seepgood suggestion would've made sense until the final game, anyway. =P

This is the lesson you've been taught
Guybrush Threepwood you are not.

What's the word for characters that all take up the same amount of space regardless? Lady would know... Anyway. I noticed that I was able to put in more characters when I typed the name in all lowercase than I was capitalizing the first letters... It might just have been a small oversight in the coding, perhaps they didn't realize that different characters take up different amount of space

We can always change it back when we get there!

I think you're thinking fixed width. Anyway, it's entirely possible this was an edge case -- remember that Garcon's name fit into the QFG1 parser. They might have reduced the name length for QFG2 without altering the imported character data. An easy oversight, if a nasty one.

FYI I usually leave town and fight a bandit, which should give you enough for the map before seeing the money changer.

Can you "ask about streets"? it translates the street names, but might have been a VGA remake addition.

It's not that big of a deal. I have the map that came with the game and I just use that until I exchange the money. Though your idea isn't bad either!

You can "look sign" while near a street entrance and while walking in the corridors and the game will tell you the names of the street you are on and the names of the streets coming off that street. This is usually enough to get you through until you have the map.

:0

That's actually a really clever idea. Lateral thinking!

During the day a Saurus rental shop is right here, but not during the night time... So, we'll have to go by foot...



Those have got to be some ofthe most obvious constellations I've ever seen...



What about Saurus head over on the other side of the sky? first we go east for a few screens:



'til we find:



Despite Garcon's efforts no amount of watering seems to help the barren tree, he heads back to the west, past the city:









On the way back to town I get assulted by a pack of Jackelmen!

That is a lot of Jackelmen! And while I could normally take them I don't have any SP which means every attack I do takes my HP away...



After killing one and getting into the 'danger zone' Perseii runs for it:



After escaping from the Jackelmen Jackson sees how he has improved:



Danar has had enough of the desert, it's boring and full of flea ridden vermin. Besides, didn't the money changer mention something about a job?





"of course I am! Didn't I do that ridiculous dance earlier to show you how interested I am?"



"Fat loot, eh? I'm in! If, of course, I can find my way to this street in this godforsaken labyrinth of a town"

With that Seepgood heads off again, somewhat hopeful, that he will find his way to this house of loot before daybreak. And, after that find his way back to the Money Changer...

Highlights from Garcon's trip through the city:



That blue lamp? That tells you this is the place to steal from! First things first



Of course I will...

Eventually, Perseii gets inside the house:



"Welp, that's the job! But since I'm here I might as well look around..."







"What else looks out of place here? That giant rug perhaps?"



"Bingo!"



"Crap! What to do, what to do? Eeps!"



Not our thief's finest moment. Thank Erana for booze! Okay back to that trapdoor!



Of course, he does!

Danar quickly closes the trapdoor, rolls the rug back in place and hides



Great hiding place Seepgood...



Okay, back to rolling the rug, opening the trapdoor and then picking the chest lock:



This is beginning to seem hardly worth the effort...



"changed my mind totally worth it!"



"new plan, don't get caught!"

Perseii then meandered through the city until he, again, stumbled upon the Money Changer only to find it closed. =/ Which is fine, cause as you can see from that last shot Jackson is exhuasted and he's done enough for one day.



Sadly, Danar missed the meals. So, where's my bed?



Seepgood sleeps 'til dawn. Fat lot of good it does him seeing as it was just before dawn when he got to the inn.

End of Day One.

QFG2 unlike QFG1 has some very time specific events. The elementals we'll soon be seeing don't pop up til day four and from there our hero has a limited amount of time to kill them before they destroy the city and end the game. So, there will be some days where our hero won't be doing anything more than practicing skills, exploring the city, and venturing out into the desert. I could just get all the supplies I'd need to defeat all four elementals now. If you've been paying attention you might have seen that I've already done some of that. But it'll be more fun to do them as they come up, I think.

Also, about the heist on Day One. So, as you go through the night the game allows less and less out of place before getting busted. The first guy doesn't notice anything. Even if you leave the rug down and stand out in the open. The second guy will call out if you don't hide but will only comment on misplaced items. The last guy, the guard, will notice anything out of place and will report you unless you are in the wardrobe. Oh, and I forgot to mention there is a silver dagger in that chest, which had a false bottom. If you're a fast typer you can get it before you have to replace everything and hide. Otherwise, once the guard goes to bed you have to do everything over again to get it.

These thief missions are way more tense than the ones in QfG. Can you do whatever you want once the guard is gone?

In that room? Pretty much. As long as you are sneaking.

Looks like it was quite an eventful day for EVERYONE!

....unless the game cut out the boring part about how our hero spent a month helping his friends set up their business.

I'd enjoy it if you did some exploring before the elementals start showing up and just solved them as they pop up.

Although i'm not a fan of the map or the timed events in this game, I do love how much more alive Shapeir is compared to Spielburg. So much personality!

Garcon wakes up pretty early and seeing how late he was getting to bed it doesn't appear as if the poor guy got much sleep at all. First things first he rushes to the Money Changers office to sell his hot goods, only to find that she sleeps in late. Well he does have some money still from the exchange so he might as well spend it. He heads to Laffin's Magic Shop and asks hims what spells he is carrying:



Perseii already has three of those spells (he bought Detect in Spielburg, 'Enry gave him trigger, and he won Dazzle by defeating Erasmus at the Mage game, remember?) Force Bolt and Levitate are new though! He picks them up:



Hopefully that burned enough time cause it certainly burned through our Jackson's wallet! Back to the Money Changers:



After we hand over the Tea set she wanted so badly she let's us in on another job, well more like an opportunity:



That is some useful information, Danar also sells her the bowl and silver dagger and finds his wallet restored:



As I said last post. QFG2's main story events happen at set times. So we have the rest of today (and tomorrow) to explore the city somewhat and maybe even venture out into the desert! So Seepgood decides to fill out that map of his so that he won't have to be exploring the maze-like streets of Shapier any longer... He heads back to Laffin to ask about other magic users in the city and just poke around his shelves:



This is a hint as to how to find the Wizards' Institute of Technocery which is the Magic User's special quest line in QFG2, we'll see more of it later!







(see my LP of Space Quest 3 if you don't know what an Orat on a Stick is, see my LP of Space Quest 1 to see what an Orat is)





Aziza is the magic user that will be dropping mystical knowledge bombs all over us later on.

After his chat with Laffin Garcon leaves and heads out to the front gate, hopeful to purchase his very own saurus:




These saurii sound nothing like the ones we're familiar with in the Spielberg valley... We won't get our own though until the seller shows up. Danar heads back to the Fighter's Plaza to talk to Rakeesh and pick his brain on some topics:





"Being a Paladin sounds like a drag! Who'd ever want to do all that?"

Since he's in the fighter's plaza he hits up the blacksmith, you know to scope out his place for a future nocturnal excursion (nocturnal excursion is the name of my next band) and to ask about the EOF (the fighter's special quest line), he doesn't get far at all:



"Oh, I can't wait to rob your dumb muscle-bound brain blind"

"What was that?"

"Nothing!"

At some point Garcon got directions to Aziza's place. She's at the end of a nameless street in the northern part of Shapier. He heads there now. Once he arrives:



(Here is where I ran into trouble with our original name that no matter what I did just would not fit... So I re-booted the game altered the name and played again so)

You can say Laffin here as well.




Can you guess which element is associated with Aziza? Aziza, if you couldn't tell from the questions, the invitation to enter and everything everyone else has said about her, is a stickler for rules and ritual so the first thing you need to do is:



Then Aziza serves us some tea. Drink the tea don't try to talk to her before that!







"No REALLY?!"



Seeing as I already know what is going to happen in the next few days and we're here anyway I get the elemental asking out of the way

"SPOILERS!"

Always mindful of his manners, Danar says goodbye:



On the far east part of the town is the one plaza we haven't yet visited the Palace Plaza:




One more place on the map... Next up is the Astrologer who is in the south-east corner of Shapier. He's pretty easy to find his shop is at the end of 'Star Street':




(I find it a very clever joke that the astrologer wears super thick glasses and can't see a lick but can somehow read the stars...)



What will we learn from this reader of the stars? You'll find out next week, maybe as I'm going to be busy (TALCON!)

Man, last time I played QfG 2, we had the little Sierra hint books (which were awesome, because they gave actual hints before giving you the answer, and you were given a little card thing with a piece of red cellophane in it to decode the answers) so I completely forgot about the Elemental introductions. I'm constantly impressed by the graphics in these games.

That last line is probably the most subtle pun in the game.


I finally understand the astrologer's rebus!

P + Ka-boom - M, Eye Sea U

Alright! Garcon is going to get his future told! That should be helpful, somehow? Welp, but it's going to take some time so Perseii heads back into Shapier, as he leaves the Astrologer leaves him with one last nugget of wisdom:



What to do now? I suppose we will wander for awhile... We could go to bed but then we'll miss seeing our katta friend do her dance... And my log of pictures here doesn't seem to be making much sense because the next pictures are of me purchasing a Saurus. Before going to sleep again and before seeing the katta dance. So, I must assume that the comments from the city guard re: Suarii must be from Day One and I included them in the second shoot because I didn't on the first day. So, that is what we're going to say. You can't buy a saurus on the first day but you can on the second. Back to the story:

(That's two of the Groucho brothers (Chico is Alichica who sold us the map and compass. But, where's Harpo?))

Despite the sales pitch Seepgood ain't buying yet and heads back into the city to talk to Keapon and Harik the Apothocarist about the jobs they posted in the Guild Hall:

Despite the sales pitch Seepgood ain't buying yet and heads back into the city to talk to Keepon and Harik the Apothocarist about the jobs they posted in the Guild Hall:



Anyway that's enough wasted time! Let's see if our fortune is ready!




"Yikes! I don't like the sound of that at all... But adventuring is all I know how to do! Maybe there's a loop hole?"

I'm sure everything will work out in the end... What Danar needs now is a good distraction, one that helps raise his stats... But where?

How about the weaponsmiths...? We've got to scout out his place for some late night burgling anyway...



Fighter's who have an actual strength stat are encouraged to do this often enough, until they can realiably beat this meathead. Garcon pays the man his money and silently vows to make it back the easy way! Right outside the Weaponsmith's door Jackson runs into a street performer:



This is exactly the kind of thing though that a thief, like Seepgood, excels at! He walks up to the man:

"I can do that!"

Garcon hands over a dinar (what a sucker we're totally going to fleece him!):



The acrobat then leaps up the platform and shows the crowd how it's done:



"I'll show you! ... no good, showboating bastard, get my money back..."




"Easy money."



"I'd be more than happy to take more of your money!"



"Like milking a cow, this guy..."



Walking the tight rope is pretty easy with an decent agility. I never bother trying to adjust my balance to the left or the right. Move foward and then stabalize, repeat this until you're across. The acrobat will let you go three times (15 dinars profit) before you clean him out. It doesn't hurt your stats either:

Remember when we asked Keapon about Magic and he mentioned WIT? That's the Hogwart's of the Quest for Glory universe and it has a branch in Shapier. Perseii heard they have a large collection of precious objects just lying around so he figures it's worth a shot to find. But how? Well, you use magic of course! Casting 'detct magic' in the corridors will reveal a big magic arrow that you can follow to WIT's door:




The door only opens if you cast 'open' on it which Danar does:



"nice place... A little ostentatious though."



Jackson tells them his name.



Danar lies to them, something sentimental like wanting to become a wizard and contribute to society... They eat it right up



"Hrm... Well who do you got? Let's take a look at these here walls..."



That's the lady who ran the magic shop in Spielburg



That's the lady who's garden you slept in the Speilburg valley, the one with the magic fruit and the openable rock. Genesta is the good fairy from King's Quest 4.