Minimum Requirements • Windows 95/98/ME • Pentium 333MHz MMX or equivalent (Pentium-II 450MHz or faster highly suggested) • 48 Meg system RAM (64 to 128 Meg or more suggested) • 800 x 600 monitor and video card, 16-bit color, 4Meg Video Ram (AGP port suggested) • DirectX-7 * (or better) compatible video and sound card. • Stereo sound card, mouse, and keyboard • Internet connectivity (not used for game playing) to Online Community and additional game content downloads. Latest news and updates can be found at this internet address: http://www.siege-of-avalon.com/ Installing the Game Inserting the CD should automatically prompt you to install the game. If your game does not automatically install, you can manually install the game. This game uses a standard Windows SETUP program. Whether or not your game automatically installs, remember these points: • Before installing any sizable game it is a very good idea to run ScanDisk to check the hard drive for errors and Disk Defragmenter to organize it so that the game receives the best starting environment. These are Microsoft Windows utility programs that are usually installed and if so, are located in the Programs / Accessories / System Tools tab of the Start Menu. Help for these programs can be found in the Help tab of the Start Menu. • Be sure other programs are not running while the setup is active. If your game does not automatically install, follow these instructions for manual installation. 1. Double-click the My Computer icon on the desktop. 2. Find the CD-ROM drive letter and double-click on it. (The letter of your CD-ROM is usually D: and/or indicated by a CD-ROM icon.) 3. Run the Installation Program. 4. Follow the on-screen instructions. * DirectX: This game uses Microsoft's DirectX. If you do not already have the most current version installed on your computer then you must install it now or the game will not run. The needed files are available free from Microsoft at this Internet address: http://www.microsoft.com/directx/homeuser/downloads/default.asp Uninstall: Should you ever need to remove Siege of Avalon from your computer, just follow these steps: *Note: Use caution when performing these instructions. 1. Select Uninstall Siege from the Programs / Digital Tome / Siege of Avalon tab of the Start Menu and follow the on-screen instructions. 2. Double-click the My Computer icon on the desktop. 3. Find the letter of the drive where the game has been installed and double-click on it. (The letter of the drive is usually C:) 4. Find the Program Files directory and double-click on it. 5. Find the Digital Tome directory and double-click on it. 6. Find the Siege Of Avalon directory and right-click on it. 7. Select Delete from the menu and follow the on-screen instructions. Starting the Game To play, select Siege Of Avalon from the Programs / Digital Tome / Siege Of Avalon tab of the Start Menu. Introduction to Role Playing Siege Of Avalon is a game based on quick wits, a careful tongue, and a large sword. It is the twisting tale of a city plagued by war. It is the story of heroic knights, fair maidens, powerful enemies, and magic. Life, especially for our heroes and foes living in Avalon, is much more than a simple game of checkers. The factors they must consider when facing an enemy, talking to a stranger, or simply getting involved in their community will test their every ability. They must ensure that they have the physical fitness, communication skills, and equipment in order to justly solve the problems they will encounter every day. The Main Menu The Main Menu is displayed after the introduction, either by pressing a key during the opening animation, or by clicking Exit after you've read through the introduction. You can also access the Main Menu during the game by pressing the Esc key. Note that it is a very good idea to read through the introduction so that you will have a better understanding of what is going on when you start the game. New Game - Choosing this option will start a new game, and display the Character Creation Screen. Due to the nature of Siege Of Avalon, you can play the game a number of ways, and may replay the game as a different character. For more information on creating a character, refer to the Character Creation Tutorial. Load - Choosing this option will display the load screen, where you can resume a previous game from where you last saved it. Selecting a game from the list on the right displays a picture of the area where the game was saved. To load a game, select the desired game slot and click the Load button at the bottom right of the screen. Description: This shows the description of your saved game, Save - Choosing this option will save your current game. This allows you to play the game and come back to it later. To save your game, select a slot and type a description for the game. Then click the Save button at the bottom right. Options - Choosing this option will display the options screen, where you can customize the playability of the game. • Sound Effects Volume - Moving this slider to the right will increase the volume at which sound effects are played during the game. • Music Volume - Moving this slider to the right will increase the volume at which background music is played during the game. • Object Shadows - This toggles the shadows that are cast by the player and non-player characters during the game. Turning this option off may increase the speed at which the game will run on slower machines. • Spell Key Assignment - This table lists the magic spells currently known by the player and gives a short description. During the game, you may find that it is somewhat easier to have quick access to these spells, rather than choosing them from the spells bar. Assigning a function key to a spell means that during the game, you can select a spell to cast by pressing its assigned function key. To assign a key to a spell, click on the row of the spell you wish to assign a function key to, and press the function key. Acceptable function keys are labeled on your keyboard as F5, F6, F7, and F8. Other keys in this range are used for other purposes during the game. Update - This option is not currently available. Credits - Choosing this option will display the credits screen. Exit - Choosing this option will display a confirmation dialogue. Choosing Yes will exit the game. Choosing No will cancel the exit command and return to the main menu. Resume - Choosing this option will return you to the game currently in progress. This option will only be available if you have started a game. Character Creation Selecting New Game from the Main Menu displays the character creation screen. You can change the physical attributes of your character, as well as his abilities. In the upper left of the screen is a box labeled appearance. This is how you character will appear in the game. You may change the color of his shirt, hair, etc. by clicking on the arrows beside each option and selecting the desired change. When you've finished making your character look his best, you can change his name by clicking inside the black box labeled Name and typing one in. Be creative! What do you think a man of your selected features would be named in the middle ages? Below the Name box is another option labeled Training Style. This determines how some of the players will react to you when you enter the game. • Fighter - The fighter is the most popular of the professions. He takes up arms against even the most powerful foe, for he knows that those with the courage to protect the common people will obtain honor. He is the knight, the mercenary, and the champion who defends the meek. He is a master of weaponry and defense. • Scout - The scout is cunning, quick, and deadly. He cloaks himself in shadows to obtain the secrets of the enemy. He prefers strategy to strength, although his skill with the dagger and the bow are not to be underestimated. He is the spy with information that will destroy his opponent, and the director of their demise. • Magician - The magician spells his destiny. He uses his paranormal powers to surprise and confuse his enemies. His robes refract his enemy's mightiest magic, and in his hands are the fires of creation and destruction. He protects his companions with unprejudiced philosophy and the power of the supernatural. For purposes of this tutorial, choose the magician as your profession. Beware, as there are parts of the game designed to test your abilities in every profession. You may be required to handle a situation as a warrior, even if you are a scout or magic user. Siege Of Avalon is flexible enough so that your character should develop into a hero of your own making. Training Points and Abilities Below the Training Style option is a table of your Character Stats. These are the abilities your character will use when interacting with the inhabitants of the land. Notice how changing your character's profession also reflects how his skills are distributed. Leave this alone for now, as we will explore this later in the tutorial. When you're sure you've created the perfect hero, click the Continue button at the bottom right. Adventuring for Beginners When you've finished creating a character, you will be presented with the first entry in your journal. Your journal is a diary of your adventures and the various folk you will encounter. You can refer to your journal at any time during the game. Once you've read through the first entry (press Next at the bottom right to advance through the pages) and clicked Exit to leave the journal screen, you will automatically begin the game. Assuming you've read the introduction, you should be eager to explore this curious land. You begin the game in the outer keep of Avalon. Remember that the castle is big, and there are some places you cannot visit until you have gained permission. Although you are here to visit your brother, Corvus, you have heard of the struggles going on in this land and are zealous about lending help to the cause. Like many young men of this time, the passion for adventure has burned inside you since the day your ship set sail, and you find yourself wanting for more than a home and family. You have agreed to join the defensive and help these troubled people. The parchment on the screen is called a dialogue box. This is how you will communicate with other characters in the game. Since your brother, Corvus, is talking to you, his name precedes the bulk of the text. When you have finished reading what Corvus has to say, you can pick from a selection of responses. Selecting different responses yield different answers, and information is the key to understanding what it is you should do. You can choose any response you wish, but remember you must accept the consequences for your actions in Avalon. The castle is under siege, and Sir Roth will not allow chaos to rule at a time like this. Click through the dialogue by picking the answer you think best describes how your character would respond to this person. Some dialogues are story-driven, though, and may only have a single response to choose from. In a roundabout way, Corvus will tell you to give the Commission Letter to Winchell for some equipment and then leave the room. You should be able to use your mouse to walk around now. Clicking on the floor will make the character walk to that point and stand. Containers Click on one of the two chests along the north wall of the room. This brings up the inventory-trading screen. You can move items between your personal inventory and the chest by clicking on the desired item to pick it up, dragging it into the opposite box, and clicking again to drop it there. The sizes, number, or arrangement of items may sometimes prevent you from carrying everything you find, so you should keep in mind the value of the items you carry. It is also a very good idea to keep some free space in your inventory for items that some of the people you will meet may give you. Right clicking on an item brings up its description. You can get back to the inventory screen by clicking outside of the description. Click the Back To Game button in the lower right corner when you are finished trading items. You may open and inspect the other box if you wish. Also, holding down the Ctrl key while clicking on a door or container will close it. Inventory Screen When you are finished rummaging through your brother's things (how rude) you can look at your character's equipment inventory screen by clicking on the satchel icon labeled Inventory at the bottom right of the screen. This screen is not unlike the inventory-trading screen in that it allows you to wear items from your inventory. You can pick up an item from your inventory by clicking on it. Notice how a portion of the figure to the right may highlight when you pick up the item. These highlighted places represent where you can wear that item. If you drop the item on one of the highlighted places the character will wear that item. If no highlighted places appear, then the item cannot be worn. The box labeled Ground represents the floor area around the player. If you drop an item into this box, the item will remain on the floor until a character picks it up. Use this to place items you find useless or cumbersome. You should feel comfortable with changing out clothes and items before continuing with the rest of the tutorial. Click the Back To Game button in the lower right corner when you are finished equipping items. Player Statistics and Abilities Notice the player's portrait and name in the upper right corner of the screen. If you click on the portrait, a screen showing the character's statistics will appear. This chart represents the statistics and abilities of your character. You may recognize the abilities on the leftmost side; these are the primary stats. The stats chart (believe it or not) comes in handy when deciding what kind of armor and weapons to equip. Although it may seem complicated, it's easy enough to figure out. Primary - The abilities listed in this column represent your primary stats, or the abilities that can be raised permanently by adding training points. The arrows control the raising and lowering of abilities. The primary stats are listed here: • Strength - Strength is a universal attribute required by almost all professions. The stronger your character, the more damage he will inflict when he strikes an enemy. • Coordination - Coordination is the measure of aim and agility. The more precise your character is, the better chance he has for hitting an opponent. Coordination also determines how adept your character is at dodging an enemy's blows. • Constitution - Constitution is the measure of a character's stamina and vitality. If a character has a high constitution, he has a better chance of surviving long battles and recovering from a deadly attack. • Perception - A character's perception determines his awareness. It allows him to detect hidden motives and sometimes when another character is being untruthful. • Charm - A character with charm radiates with a positive energy. He makes an impact on people he meets, and makes friends with influential citizens. • Mysticism - Mysticism is the measure of a character's aptitude in the magical arts. A high mysticism makes spells stronger and use less mana, or magical energy. • Combat - The higher a character's combat skill, the better he is with weapons. Combat determines how skillful an individual is with his armaments both in attack and defense. • Stealth - Stealth is a character's ability to travel unnoticed. Your foes can be surprised, and most enemies can be dispersed easily when they fail to detect you. The column labeled base represents your character's base level of that skill, without any additions or subtractions. The column labeled adj represents the adjusted level of skill, which means that the ability has been altered in some way. If you have a 'belt of strength', and you equip your character with this belt, the adjusted strength should be more than the base strength. This is because the 'belt of strength' has modifiers, which may alter your abilities. Modifiers can affect any ability for the better or worse. Heavier types of armor may give the player protection, but make noise and can lower the character's stealth ability. You can see if an item has modifiers by reading its description. You should also notice that you now have 20 training points. Training points are a reward for solving certain obstacles that the game will present to you. As a new character, you have been given a few points to help you get started. Clicking on the arrows beside an attribute will raise your lower your character's ability in that skill. If you want your character to be strong, you can give him a few strength points by raising his strength level. Some of the abilities require more training points than others to advance. All of these attributes will eventually be needed to finish the game, so use caution when allocating these points. You should also leave a few points (5-6) for an exercise later in the tutorial. While distributing these points, you may notice some of the values in the other columns change. This is because your primary statistics, along with items, have a direct effect on your secondary statistics. A description of each stat and value can be obtained by moving the cursor over the item. You might try going to the inventory screen and removing the player's shirt, for example, and then returning to the stats screen to observe the change in statistics. Click Back To Game in the lower right corner of the screen to return to the game. Training and Items When you move the cursor over the door along the south wall of the room, it will highlight. Click on the door to open it. When you leave the room, Deman will talk to you and tell you to see Captain Avarous in the Outer Bailey. Clicking far away from your character will make him run. Go in a northeast direction to the end of the hall and then northwest to the door of Elarath's chambers. Click on the door to open it and walk inside. There are two characters in this room, and one of them is Elarath's Assistant. The gray-headed gentleman with the long brown robes is an old and wise wizard named Elarath who will both train you and give you items. Moving your cursor over the characters in the room should show you their names in the bottom middle of the screen. After talking with Elarath (you may have to talk to him more than once), you will get a Spell Book, which you can view and even equip by opening your inventory screen. You can also learn new spells and also learn new skills here, just by asking about training. After asking Elarath about training, he should prompt you with several types of training followed by the amount of training points they will cost you. Choosing one of these training sessions will result in a slightly better use of training points than if you allocated them yourself. It is a very good idea to keep a few unallocated training points in case you should run into trainers like Elarath. Awards and Titles The award medal icon labeled Awards & Titles is located in the middle right of the bottom portion of the screen. Clicking on this icon brings up a screen displaying any awards or titles the player has received. Awards and/or titles are achieved either by completing a quest, or by training with another character. If you trained with Elarath, you should notice the training you received listed on the page. If not, you can train later after you've earned more training points. Exit the room and run southwest to the end of the hall, and then southeast to the most southern corner and open the door. This room belongs to Mudam, the appointed scoutmaster. You can learn some scouting skills by talking about training. The Map In the bottom right corner of the screen is a map icon conveniently labeled map. Clicking this icon brings up the map screen, where you can view the areas you have explored. The small red dot represents the your character's position on the map. Equipping Weapons At this point in the tutorial, we will assume you are somewhat familiar with moving your character, dialogue boxes, and managing inventory items. From this point, the directions will be less precise and directed towards teaching you the basics of the game. Leaving Mudam's chambers, run northwest and take the hall to the right. The north room of this center hall is the weapon master 's room. Enter this room and talk to Winchell. When you tell him that you need both a weapon and armor, he will oblige as best he can, and take your Commission Letter. Leave the room and walk south where a few people have gathered. Saving and Loading Games Now would be a great time to save your game, as you are about to enter dangerous territory where your character could be killed. Press Esc to access the main menu and choose the Save option. To save your game, select a slot and type a description for the game. Then click the Save button at the bottom right. If for any reason you should die, you can access the main menu, choose the Load option, and load this game by selecting the game to load and clicking the Load button. There is also a feature called Quick Save, which you can utilize easily by pressing F2 while playing the game. This saves your game in a slot labeled Quick Save, and overwrites the previous Quick Save game each time you use it. This is faster than accessing the save game option from the main menu every time, but you should periodically save your game in a separate slot anyway, especially if you plan to leave the game and come back to it later. When you press F2, you should receive a confirmation message in the information box at the bottom of the screen. Take the stairs, which are located in the eastern section of this level of the castle, down to the first level of the Outer Keep. You can explore this area to get yourself familiar with moving your character and initiating dialogue, but if you are ready to tackle a quest, read on. Quests Go to the southwestern section of the map and you should see the dining hall, a wooden paneled room with rows of tables. Northwest of this room is the kitchen, where you can find the cook Anora. When you talk to her, you should find that she wants you to kill the creatures in the basement, which are spoiling the food. Make sure you agree to do the quest, and find the stairs just south of the kitchen down to the basement. The box labeled Quest beside the map icon allows you to view the Quest Log, a list of quests you have obtained. The box labeled Adventure will display a brief summary of your adventures, called the Adventure Log, and the Journal button will bring up your journal. Before you venture into the basement, you should read the following so that you will be prepared for the attack. Combat You should check your inventory screen and make sure you have a weapon equipped, and if you have any armor, that you are wearing it. Press the spacebar. This puts you in combat mode. You can turn on/off combat mode by pressing the spacebar. When in combat mode the player character will yield a weapon (if equipped), and crossed swords will appear behind the portrait of the character in the top right corner of the screen. Once in combat mode, target the object you wish to attack and left click. The player character will automatically attack the character until one of you dies. One of the things you should keep in mind is that there are different types of highlights that determine the character's relationship with the highlighted object. A green highlight on a character means that character is your friend, yellow means that character is neutral to your character, and red means the character is an enemy. Remember that while in combat mode the player cannot talk to friends or neutral characters. Clicking on an enemy will automatically make your character attack it. If the player is in combat mode, he will attack with a weapon. If the player is not in combat mode, he will attack with fists, which don't do much damage. After you defeat an enemy, you can loot the corpse by clicking on the body if combat mode is turned off. The process for looting corpses is the same as looting a chest, except that items cannot be placed back on a corpse once they are removed. Spellcasting A list of spells your character can perform can be accessed by clicking on the spell icon in the middle bottom of the screen. After choosing a spell from the list, the player can cast it with the right mouse button. If you chose the magician as your profession, you should have the Charge spell. The charge spell doesn't do much damage, but you can try it out on the beetles in the basement if you wish. Be careful not to accidentally cast spells at or attack friends or neutral characters, or you turn the entire castle against you. Everyone is under a lot of pressure from the siege, and you won't be able to talk yourself out of trouble if you attack a friend. Mana and Health Casting spells requires mana. A blue amulet on the rightmost side of the screen depicts the amount of mana you have available. When you cast a spell, you lose mana. The amulet will recharge based on the recharge rate from your statistics screen. When your character is attacked, you will lose health. The amount of health you have remaining is depicted by a red vial on the rightmost side of the screen. Your health will recharge slowly, but only if you are not being attacked. There are some monks who can heal you on this floor of the castle. Conquering the Day Go downstairs now and kill all the beetles in the area. Remember that the spacebar toggles combat mode on and off. These beetles scare easily, so you will have to look for them all. Press the X key to toggle X-Ray mode on and off. X-Ray mode will let you see through some walls and makes it easier to find hidden objects (or rooms, maybe?). The beetles shouldn't be too tough, but after killing them all, take the stairs up and go talk to Anora. She and the guards thank you for ridding their food stores of the insects. If you open your Quest Log, you should see that Anora's quest is no longer there. If Anora doesn't acknowledge you for killing the beetles, you might not have found them all. Talk again with Anora. This time she will ask you to go to Guard Davet in the Mess Hall and convince him to repair the hole. You know what you have to do. Seems for now you'll have to prove yourself as a good helper rather than a hero just yet. But your time for battle will come soon. Talk to everyone and inspect everything. General help can be accessed with the F1 key. Warfare is more complicated than just one army attacking another, so spend time learning from the people in the castle. Save your game often, and enjoy being a major player in the tale of the Siege Of Avalon. ...