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moot the hopple posted:Jeff actually released all the old Exile games here for free. Standard compatibility issues for old, unsupported games apply, though. I would love it if he'd do some porting so they'd work on modern operating systems without VMing. Of course, he already did essentially that and much more when going from Exile to Avernum, but I still have a soft spot for plain Exile like many people here. To be fair, setting up a Virtual Machine works well and is pretty intuitive, but I see your point. The original Nethergate, though not hosted anywhere, is available for free from Spiderweb if you just ask, which is what I did. I just send an e-mail asking where it was to support and they sent me a reply with the game attached. Nethergate was the first game that they did that was written in a 32-bit architecture, and it runs just fine for me with no extra work on various versions of Win7x64.
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Feb 23, 2014 17:25
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JustJeff88 posted:To be fair, setting up a Virtual Machine works well and is pretty intuitive, but I see your point. How is it different than resurrection? Does it use the Exile engine?
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Feb 24, 2014 12:58
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Chinook posted:How is it different than resurrection? Does it use the Exile engine? The original Nethergate was Spiderweb's first isometric game, and as such uses a predecessor of what became the Avernum engine. Character building works a little differently, and some skills are more or less useful in the remake compared to the original. It's still got the same plot and similar overall gameplay, though.
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Feb 24, 2014 13:10
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I beat the poo poo out of Exile 3 and loved every minute of it. Avernum never did the same for me, I got bored partways in. Which is his best game out now that you recommend?
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Feb 24, 2014 13:13
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If Avernum bored you then you're screwed.
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Feb 24, 2014 13:33
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Chinook posted:How is it different than resurrection? Does it use the Exile engine? Thuryl posted:The original Nethergate was Spiderweb's first isometric game, and as such uses a predecessor of what became the Avernum engine. Character building works a little differently, and some skills are more or less useful in the remake compared to the original. It's still got the same plot and similar overall gameplay, though. Thuryl would know far better than I. I'm currently involved with another indy RPG, but I'm planning to start playing Resurrection after I conclude this one. I just fired up Nethergate the First for a few minutes, was surprised and delighted that it ran on a 64-bit OS, and that was it. Fiddled with the character editor a bit, but that's hardly a gameplay experience.
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Feb 24, 2014 16:07
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I played avernum 1/2 then got nethergate and beat it as Romans. I sent an email to Jeff telling him all the things I liked in this new engine vs. the old Avernum engine 
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Feb 24, 2014 19:43
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I was planning on playing avadon for real sometime soon ; which class is most fun to choose for your PC?
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Feb 28, 2014 00:20
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andrew smash posted:I was planning on playing avadon for real sometime soon ; which class is most fun to choose for your PC? For Avadon 1, probably Shadowwalker. They've got incredible survivability, especially if you do a Dex/evasion-based build with just enough Str to wear heavy armour, and they can also pick locks, teleport around while stunning entire groups of enemies, do AoE damage... they're just a really strong and versatile class in general.
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Feb 28, 2014 04:08
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Thuryl posted:For Avadon 1, probably Shadowwalker. They've got incredible survivability, especially if you do a Dex/evasion-based build with just enough Str to wear heavy armour, and they can also pick locks, teleport around while stunning entire groups of enemies, do AoE damage... they're just a really strong and versatile class in general. Cool, thanks. I've played the first mission like three separate times and just never got into the rest of it but i have some free time coming up and want to clear it.
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Feb 28, 2014 04:21
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moot the hopple posted:Jeff actually released all the old Exile games here for free. Standard compatibility issues for old, unsupported games apply, though. I would love it if he'd do some porting so they'd work on modern operating systems without VMing. Of course, he already did essentially that and much more when going from Exile to Avernum, but I still have a soft spot for plain Exile like many people here. It would be interesting to see them open-sourced at some point rather than just abandonwared. I imagine that somebody could work up a pretty good conversion of the original Exile games to an HTML5/JS engine if the assets and data were available for use.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:54
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Roadie posted:It would be interesting to see them open-sourced at some point rather than just abandonwared. I imagine that somebody could work up a pretty good conversion of the original Exile games to an HTML5/JS engine if the assets and data were available for use. I'd love to see that happen. The Exile quartet (including Blades), Might & Magic 1 and 2, and the early Wizardry games are high on my list of games that could really do with a modernisation and a lick of paint. GOG has been able to get a lot of old games working on modern systems, but so far as I know there's no wrapper you can put on a 16-bit game to make it run on a 64-bit platform, and setting up a virtual box isn't available in every OS and is pretty demanding for someone who isn't especially tech-savy and just wants to play fun games. The original Nethergate only works so easily because it was Spiderweb's first 32-bit offering. Now that I think of it, I've never tried to run Exile on my old XP32 laptop... has anyone tried it? Were you able to run the games in 32-bit (more) modern OS's natively?
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Mar 1, 2014 03:18
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The exile games run fine on every xp virtual box I've used.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:36
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GodFish posted:The exile games run fine on every xp virtual box I've used. Assuming that you were responding to me, and ignore this if you weren't, I meant has anyone tried to run the games outside of a virtual box on any 32-bit version of XP or especially vista/7? I got them running just fine on my XP box under 7x64 complete, but I want to know how they run natively.
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Mar 1, 2014 08:12
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GreenNight posted:If Avernum bored you then you're screwed. Avernum (well, excepting the first half of 4, which was my first exposure to Spiderweb games) bored the hell out of me, but I loved Geneforge 4 and 5 for what it's worth.
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Mar 1, 2014 08:43
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I guess I'm kind of bringing this back from the dead, but I stumbled on the thread recently and wanted to ask some quick questions. I have really fond memories of playing Exile with a friend way back when on his mac. Never really understood the game, and if I remember correctly we always just died all the time. I picked up the Spiderweb pack on steam which seems to have absolutely everything the guy has put out recently. I am thinking of just starting with Avernum; Escape from the Pit and working my way through everything. Good idea? Also, can anyone vouch for steam cloud working with these things? MY experiences with steam cloud have been pretty hit or miss and, while it's not a deal breaker if it doesn't work, I'd really like to be able to play the same game on both my office laptop and my home desktop.
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Mar 5, 2014 23:34
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Escape from the Pit is an excellent place to start. As for Steam Cloud, when I played I had to throw my saves into Dropbox to transfer them between my work and home computers, Steam Cloud didn't do that.
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Mar 6, 2014 00:05
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USMC_Karl posted:I picked up the Spiderweb pack on steam which seems to have absolutely everything the guy has put out recently. They have all of the newest stuff, but Steam is missing Avernum 1/2/3 and Blades of, which can be had on GOG, though GOG does not have Escape from the Pit and Nethergate. Nobody has Exile 1/2/3/Blades of, but those and the original Nethergate are available from free from Spiderweb - The Exile games are free for download and Nethergate is available if you just write and ask them. You would have to play the Exile quartet on an older PC or a virtual machine as they are 16-bit applications, but Nethergate the Original runs just fine on 64x operating systems. Pardon my OCD - I'm really rather obsessive about these things and rather annoyed that no sight carries *all* of the Spiderweb games. Seems silly to me.
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Mar 6, 2014 17:17
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I'm not sure why it matters. Just add links to the other games in steam and you can launch them all from the same place.
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Mar 7, 2014 00:36
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GreenNight posted:Escape from the Pit is an excellent place to start. As for Steam Cloud, when I played I had to throw my saves into Dropbox to transfer them between my work and home computers, Steam Cloud didn't do that. Thanks, good to know. The Steam cloud thing seems to not be working for me, which is ok. I've decided to play Escape from the Pit on my work computer, and in my off time I'm playing Avadon: The Black Fortress on my home computer. I think I'm the only guy going through these things relatively fresh, but I'll still post my first impressions. Escape from the Pit - As awesome as a remember. The graphics and GUI are really quite fine and make the game pretty intuitive to play. The story is fun, very old school feeling. I feel like I can do anything I want, just messing around in the first cavern and searching around is a lot of fun. My party is a Tanky warrior, a Melee rogue, a Priest, and a spellslinger. Looking forward to playing around more! Avadon - Wow! I'm still just starting out, haven't even gone on my first mission yet, but the amount of lore laying around the keep is pretty cool. I'm having a blast reading up on all the different cultures and what not. Do the other games have this amount of lore in them? I haven't managed to find any in Escape from the Pit yet. I know that Avadon is supposed to be fairly linear, but the story and game so far is really awesome. Built myself a Shaman since I always love to play Clerics or their equivalent. I plan on making her a support caster and summoner, would this be a relatively viable build? I'm playing on Normal, if it matters. Either way, very pleased with my purchase. These games are just old school enough to hit all the right spots, but have been updated enough to stand on their own. I'll definitely have to pimp them around to my game playing friends.
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Mar 9, 2014 06:22
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USMC_Karl posted:Avadon - Wow! I'm still just starting out, haven't even gone on my first mission yet, but the amount of lore laying around the keep is pretty cool. I'm having a blast reading up on all the different cultures and what not. Do the other games have this amount of lore in them? I haven't managed to find any in Escape from the Pit yet. I know that Avadon is supposed to be fairly linear, but the story and game so far is really awesome. Built myself a Shaman since I always love to play Clerics or their equivalent. I plan on making her a support caster and summoner, would this be a relatively viable build? I'm playing on Normal, if it matters. The other games do have just as much lore in them, but usually it's not as blatantly obvious and concentrated. Avadon's lore is mostly concentrated in the books, which tell you everything about a single topic, like an "Avadon History 101". The other series (Avernum and Geneforge both) have just as much lore, but spread among several different people - There's one guy who tells you how the Empire found out about Avernum in the first place, a second guy who tells about the initial exploration, a third talking about how they formed Avernum's government, etc.
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Mar 9, 2014 13:14
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MagusofStars posted:The other games do have just as much lore in them, but usually it's not as blatantly obvious and concentrated. Avadon's lore is mostly concentrated in the books, which tell you everything about a single topic, like an "Avadon History 101". The other series (Avernum and Geneforge both) have just as much lore, but spread among several different people - There's one guy who tells you how the Empire found out about Avernum in the first place, a second guy who tells about the initial exploration, a third talking about how they formed Avernum's government, etc. Yeah I like Vogel's approach to lore, you have to go looking for it but it's there. Back when I had time /cared about fantasy game lore I could read it all, now that I mostly play rpgs to kill lots of mook enemies I can just click the books, take the xp and move on. I'm really glad there are no unskippable cutscenes etc.
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Mar 9, 2014 18:38
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MagusofStars posted:The other games do have just as much lore in them, but usually it's not as blatantly obvious and concentrated. Avadon's lore is mostly concentrated in the books, which tell you everything about a single topic, like an "Avadon History 101". The other series (Avernum and Geneforge both) have just as much lore, but spread among several different people - There's one guy who tells you how the Empire found out about Avernum in the first place, a second guy who tells about the initial exploration, a third talking about how they formed Avernum's government, etc. I'll have to go looking around for lore in the other games, then. I don't have a huge amount of time to play these days, but for some reason I just can't pull myself away from all the lore tidbits. I think I spent 30 minutes of my hour of play time last night staring at the codex in Avadon, haha. andrew smash posted:Yeah I like Vogel's approach to lore, you have to go looking for it but it's there. Back when I had time /cared about fantasy game lore I could read it all, now that I mostly play rpgs to kill lots of mook enemies I can just click the books, take the xp and move on. I'm really glad there are no unskippable cutscenes etc. This, too, is very nice. He takes a very low-key approach that is totally unobtrusive to the player.
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Mar 9, 2014 22:55
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So, after a lot of trouble in the Breza Pits, and a lot of trouble with the drake fight in Nathalie's quest I have to ask if I am under leveled in Avadon. I just finished the drake and I am level 20. If I am on level I either really suck at this game or normal is pretty tough. There isn't a gamefaq so I have no way to know if I have missed a lot of side quests in an area. I typically have done one to two side quests in each area.
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Mar 14, 2014 15:51
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keyvin posted:So, after a lot of trouble in the Breza Pits, and a lot of trouble with the drake fight in Nathalie's quest I have to ask if I am under leveled in Avadon. I just finished the drake and I am level 20. If I am on level I either really suck at this game or normal is pretty tough. There isn't a gamefaq so I have no way to know if I have missed a lot of side quests in an area. I typically have done one to two side quests in each area. I'm in the exact same place, I just finished Nathalie's quest, and I'm a level 23 Blademaster, usually running with Shima and Nathalie, however normal mode hasn't been very difficult at all. Almost all fights I succeed first try, and when I don't I just make a point to use consumables more frequently. That's what made the game go from annoyingly hard to kind of challenging in the beginning for me, I had to subdue my tendency to hoard items constantly and recognize when I needed to use them. Have you been outfitting your companions and yourself well enough, including item enchantments?
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Mar 14, 2014 20:37
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The game scales so that consumables that are useful early quickly become poo poo. There's little point to hoarding your wands of fire, just pop em when you feel line it.
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Mar 14, 2014 20:41
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This is basically an Avadon walkthrough: http://keepersofavadon.com/
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Mar 14, 2014 20:45
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The only consumables that are really worth hoarding, or at least that I used in the final fight/optional super-boss to any effect are potions/elixers/scrolls of speed and scrolls of resurrection. I also got good use out of potions/elixers of health and whichever one gives anti-cooldown, but those were common enough that I probably didn't need to horde them like I did. Also, when you return to an area, make sure to check back with the people who gave you sidequests the first time. They'll usually have something new for you to do. e: Oh, and the status-curing crystals, gently caress charming. Arrhythmia fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 22:16
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Arrhythmia posted:e: Oh, and the status-curing crystals, gently caress charming. Opaline Scarab is great for this, I think, it gives you a group cure which is great for taking back your characters. You can find it in the second level of the stacks in Avadon, after you take Eye Leira's first sidequest in the library of Avadon.
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Mar 15, 2014 00:30
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Invisible Ted posted:Opaline Scarab is great for this, I think, it gives you a group cure which is great for taking back your characters. You can find it in the second level of the stacks in Avadon, after you take Eye Leira's first sidequest in the library of Avadon. It's super good, and would probably have been even better if I'd actually remembered to put it on to fight the super boss.
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Mar 15, 2014 01:46
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I don't think that I asked about this, but if I did sorry... I'm about to finish up this indy RPG I've been working on for months (not that long of a game, I just work a lot) and when I am done I am either going to play Nethergate: Ressurection or that game "Last Dream" (moronic title) on Steam that's $5 and reminds me a ton of Final Fantasy 1. Any advice starting out? I'm just concerned about gimping my party and having proper balance, etc. I'm definitely playing the Celts and want to go more magic heavy and I know that I can get a couple more party members at the second town, but I'm still worried about doing myself a disservice.
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Mar 15, 2014 18:28
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JustJeff88 posted:"Last Dream" (moronic title) on Steam that's $5 and reminds me a ton of Final Fantasy 1. You know there's a reason they called it that right?
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Mar 16, 2014 05:26
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JustJeff88 posted:I don't think that I asked about this, but if I did sorry... You did ask a while ago, but you weren't clear on whether you were playing original or Resurrection so I gave you a bunch of only partially applicable advice for the original Nethergate. Unlike the original Nethergate, Endurance is actually good in Resurrection, and gets better as you level up, so invest in some of that when you can spare some skill points. It's totally viable to go magic-heavy as Celts: you probably still want one melee fighter to act as a tank, but your other three characters can be druids. It's nice to start with one druid who focuses on war magic at first, one who focuses on healing magic, and one who gets a mix of both in order to beeline for the powerful utility spells in the Craft and Spirit circles as soon as possible. You can expect that eventually your druids' builds will converge as they max out most of their circles, so even if you start out as a healer don't be afraid to invest in offensive magic later on. Finally, don't underestimate slings: they're a nice reliable option for free ranged damage when your casters are trying to conserve energy.
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Mar 16, 2014 06:37
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Thuryl posted:You did ask a while ago, but you weren't clear on whether you were playing original or Resurrection so I gave you a bunch of only partially applicable advice for the original Nethergate. That all sounds very familiar, Thuryl. I definitely asked before, then. Sorry to repeat myself, but thank you for replying twice. I do have a question about companions, though... are they more like PC's that you can get at certain points that are fully controllable and stick with you for as long as you like, are they more story-oriented and come and go at certain points in the plot like in the Gold Box games, or are they AI-controlled? One of the things that sold me on Nethergate, besides being based on an area of history that doesn't get much press and not being part of a series, is that you can have 6 people in your party and I'd just like to know how recruitable non-starting characters work. andrew smash posted:You know there's a reason they called it that right? I figured as much, but the reference is over my head. The only thing I can think of is that this game is a pretty obvious reimagining of Final Fantasy I, and if memory serves that game was the last gasp of Square and ended up saving the company and launching a very long, celebrated, whiny series.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:39
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It's been a while, but I believe you can only have 5 max people in your party while the 6th slot is used by the occasional NPC during certain events and missions. The way it works is you start off with the four characters you make at the beginning. Later on in the game, you'll reach a town that has four more members (two for each faction), of which you can only recruit one. IIRC, the two Celtic recruits will be specced out as fighter types. They will come with stats and skill points already assigned, but after that you'll be able to control and level them up as normal just like your original four. You can also edit their appearance or even change their name in the character sheet if you wish. As far as party creation, I went with a single warrior and three druid initial party like Thuryl. Druids are pretty straight forward: start off specializing in one different spell school for each member but then pump up the other school since you'll need an equal amount of both to unlock the advanced spell circles. Most of your points will go into your druid abilities to unlock all the spells, so develop those when in doubt. Feel free to take a smattering of herb lore and tool use as well.
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Mar 16, 2014 17:18
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moot the hopple posted:It's been a while, but I believe you can only have 5 max people in your party while the 6th slot is used by the occasional NPC during certain events and missions. The way it works is you start off with the four characters you make at the beginning. Later on in the game, you'll reach a town that has four more members (two for each faction), of which you can only recruit one. Thanks for the advice. If I can get another pre-made tank early on (the first recruitables are in the second town according to my research), then starting out with 3 casters/slingers and a tank makes good sense... a 5-man party (not counting guest characters) with 2 tanks and 3 casters seems a good balance. I just didn't want to permanently handicap myself by not having enough muscle.
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Mar 16, 2014 18:04
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Zereth posted:I can't loving wait for Avernum 2, it was the best of the trilogy. No way man. Exile/Avernum 3 was the best by far. I recently got all six + Blades on Gog. I am so happy. I replayed 1 earlier in the year before getting that. I'm now on 2. It's good for sure, but nothing compares to how big 3 was compared to the first two. I screwed around in the second trilogy a bit a couple years ago and it didn't seem as interesting to me. But I plan on going through them all now. I always seem to do pole weapon/sword tank/mage archer/priest archer with my builds in Avernum. When I get high enough I slowly turn my casters into hedgewizards
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Mar 17, 2014 05:19
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THE MACHO MAN posted:No way man. Exile/Avernum 3 was the best by far. 
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Mar 17, 2014 05:28
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2 is great in of itself, 3 was great if you played either/both of the previous ones. ( 2 is the better one )
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Mar 17, 2014 05:39
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I think 3 has the cooler late game though 2 definitely has the better first half without a doubt.
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Mar 17, 2014 05:41
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