Valley of Dying Things - Another Look

I received a registered copy of Blades of Exile in 2002, for my 13th birthday. Later, at the age of 14,I entered the Blades community. I generally posted at the now-defunct Lyceum message boards. That was a while now, and I’ll be 27 by the end of the year.

VoDT was, before BoE was open-sourced, the only scenario you could play without registering the game. From someone coming from Exile III, the scenario seemed okay, like the unregistered version of Exile III. Of course, repeatedly playing the only scenario available to unregistered users, it grew tiresome after a while.

When I got registered copy of BoE, finally, I had the freedom to play A Small Rebellion, Za-Khazi Run, and all the third-party scenarios! With that, why play VoDT? Why play it, when there are so many other adventures that are now unlocked?

That’s why I believe, upon my arrival in the community I may have judged the scenario on the CSR very harshly. So many better scenarios, VoDT must be awful! And it’s possible that others may also have judged it harshly, possibly for being the only scenario available to unregistered BoE users (not as much as me at the time, but still < 5/10)

But now I haven’t touched the scenario for years - until recently. How does VoDT truly stand on it’s merits?

Well I can say that when I played it the first few times, it definitely made me interested in buying the full game - my souring may have been to repetitively playing it.

When looking at the scenario on its own, the storyline is very basic, not unlike Exile III - you explore a cursed valley, trying to find the cause of the disease and end it. It generally works through exploring a closed School of Magery, where goblins/undead/gremlins have taken up residence. Essentially it’s a long dungeon.

Many have criticized the plot as too simplistic/basic - I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing if the rest of the scenario stands up. I have often felt that at the time, many made VERY big deals about the storylines, and definitions of “good storyline” were VERY specific.

(I in no way say this to defend my early scenarios - the plots were MUCH worse than simply “too basic”).

As for everything else - the town design was solid (the towns and dungeons appeared well constructed, albeit maybe less so than Exile 3). The combat and treasure were well balanced, and provided a good challenge for an entry-level party. Additionally, magic was strategically placed - you can buy all Level 4 priest spells in Marralis but all L4 mage spells must be found. There are also many short hidden sidequests and treasures to be found.

What could have been done better? I didn’t care for some of the new custom graphics (particularly the gremlins). Not sure how there became so many types of new gremlins (although maybe I missed the explanation).

In the end, I’m not sure that there was much that VoDT necessarily did WRONG - it was solidly made. However, there wasn’t really anything that particularly WOWED me about the scenario. It is, in the end, a basic but solid adventure.

I would give Valley of Dying Things a grade of B.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the review or scenario below.