As I've gotten a couple of requests about it, and I know some people don't want to read a bunch of text, here's the basics. Once you reach Sallow, or at any point where you can still access it, you can go to the tombstone in the Sallow graveyard and input the word "Storytime" (no quotes, case sensitive) and this will open the portal to the cheat room. If you'd like to go back to it for some reason, grab the orb near the exit and you'll be able to warp back in from certain maps. (The campsite near the crypt, the Forge inn, Verdenheim castle guest rooms, Endless Sands way-station, and player base in Feron's room.)
Why would I include something like that? Mostly because I know some people don't want to deal with combat in the game, or just want to see a different story path since the game includes two at the minimum with a lot of different variable endings. While I don't care if you save edit, I'd rather you didn't as if you try to mess with certain switches you'll break the game and I'm not going to fix anything you break by doing that. The room was originally where I parked Feron at to test chunks of the game by putting an NPC up that set various switches or variables and then transferred me to exactly where I needed to be to trigger a cutscene or explore a map I just built, without needing to create a bunch of saves at a bunch of different points. I decided to re-purpose the room to make sure that people that wanted basic things that could be accomplished by save editing didn't need to.
So what's in the room?
- The above mentioned orb to allow you to get back if you want to.
- A pile of currency that will give you up to 500,000 Silver. (Yes, I know it's a pile of ore. No, I wasn't going to spend time recoloring the pile of gold sprite just for this.)
- The "cheat" weapons, Oroth and Eneth, which can only be equipped by Feron. Oroth has a 100% chance to proc an "instant kill" attack on basic attack, increases your attack speed, SP regen rate, and increases your Attack, Agility, and Luck stats. Eneth has a 100% chance on Guard to proc a party wide revive while restoring all health/mana/SP, will make you immortal, regen 10% of Feron's HP per turn, and increases your Attack, Defense, and Magic Defense. Note that the "instant kill" effect will not work on Ifnar or the first phase of the final boss as both are specially coded to resist the "knockout" effect that is applied whenever anything in the game dies, however it will still do a significant amount of damage to both of them. The weapons cannot be equipped during the challenge fights.
- A chest of Act 3 vendor available armor and weapons if you want "end game" gear at the start of the game but don't want the cheat weapons.
- A potion seller carrying a wide selection of potions.
- A training dummy enemy. There is no penalty for losing or fleeing. There are three ways you can fight him. The default form, where he will not attack. The Physical Attack form, where he has one attack that deals physical damage to test armor Defense ratings. The Magical Attack form, where he has one attack that deals magical damage to test armor Magical Defense ratings. Each of the stones near him give a break down of what stats he has and lets you set his various forms.
- Access to Pierce without needing to reach Act 2 and recruit him in the Rockford Tavern. I know that some people may not like NaN as a healer as he is strictly a healer so having a hybrid healer/damage dealer that has access to a status cleanse, unlike Venesh/Sarrina, is something many players might want so you can get it early here. Recruiting him in there will trigger the switch that marks him as "collected" so he won't appear in Act 2.
- Another gravestone to recruit a mysterious companion. No you get no hints as to the password. Also, no it's not Ashendal.
If there are other things that people would like added I'll consider popping a few more options in there, however there are two things that I will not add.
- No switching between Venesh and Sarrina. There are too many followup bits that are linked to that choice. If you tried to alter it during the events of Act 2 you would flat out break progression and I'm not going to code my way around that. That's part of why the cheat weapons are there so you can blitz through from the start of the game and pick the other one. Do not try and save edit these switches once you make your choice. I won't fix anything it breaks by you doing so.
- No switching between Helscen's forms. Helscen and his form choice are going to be a part of one of the upcoming planned content releases and like the Venesh/Sarrina choice will be tied to certain events there although there are certain bits in the base game that rely on that choice. Do not try and save edit these switches once you make your choice. I won't fix anything it breaks by you doing so.
Other than those two there's not a whole lot that I'm against adding, so if there's something easy to add in that I missed go ahead and toss me an email or leave a comment back on the release platform.
At the moment I'm working on fixing a few bugs that I received an email about and will be putting out a patch for those in the next few days as none of it is a major progression stopper that can't be worked around and the only thing that locks the game up requires you to work yourself into a corner very early on. The rest are small things that don't impact anything major though are annoying so I won't be waiting too long to get fixes for them out. I'm still planning on a Mac and Linux release on the 12th of this month which should give anyone else that has anything major to report time to get that in and for me to fix.