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food court bailiff posted:Uhhh I went looking for the pylon in Formello and met Thantria and now Formello is aggro on me? What happened? Do I need to reload or can I just bum around Avernum for a while and they'll eventually cool off? You probably said something or did something to piss people off. Not sure what happens in that encounter that can do that. You'll need to reload.
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Sep 29, 2018 11:19
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I think there's a debug code to un-anger towns, if you want to go that route. You probably picked up an owned stick or something.
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Sep 29, 2018 12:11
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It couldn't be that, the re-remakes just don't let you steal if someone would get mad. Which lead to a lot of waiting around for brownian motion to carry the rear end in a top hat away but hey, someone's got to bankroll this fight against the empire and it apparently won't be micah.
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Sep 29, 2018 12:30
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Arrhythmia posted:It couldn't be that, the re-remakes just don't let you steal if someone would get mad.
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Sep 29, 2018 14:09
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Arrhythmia posted:You probably said something or did something to piss people off. Not sure what happens in that encounter that can do that. You'll need to reload. Weird. I reloaded a save right before fighting her sentry drake, went back to town, everyone's still happy and nonhostile. Go back, fight the drake, back up to check. Still nonhostile. Talk to Thantria a bit, come back, still nonhostile. I think I've done literally everything I did the first time (except kill the Vapor Rat in the south tunnel) and everyone is hunky-friggin'-dory this time around. I asked about the assassin quest the first time and was trying to be really noncommittal to basically see if I could find the guy and warn him or something the first time, but I have no idea why that would trigger a fight, Thantria herself seemed annoyed but mostly happy with my answers.
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Sep 29, 2018 17:23
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Did you poke at Thantria's quarters? That pisses her off, and might affect the rest of the town, I forget. You'd probably remember though because fighting her is distinctly nontrivial.
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Sep 29, 2018 17:39
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Did you poke at Thantria's quarters? That pisses her off, and might affect the rest of the town, I forget. You'd probably remember though because fighting her is distinctly nontrivial. Nope. Only thing I can think of is I looked at/tried to talk to her golems, but it didn't aggro her so I have no idea. Oh well, I literally had a save right outside her door so it's no big deal at all, other than the curiosity that will gnaw at me forever
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Sep 29, 2018 17:42
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Are Avadon 2 and 3 significantly better than the first game? I'm about to beat it. It's okay, but not great. Way too many trash mobs, way too many empty spaces, plot is kind of just there.
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Nov 12, 2018 06:23
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prometheusbound2 posted:Are Avadon 2 and 3 significantly better than the first game? I'm about to beat it. It's okay, but not great. Way too many trash mobs, way too many empty spaces, plot is kind of just there. I actually found I enjoyed Avadon 2 less then the first, and frankly never finished it.
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Nov 12, 2018 07:51
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I liked Avadon 2 more, but also never finished it. It wasn't so different that I think it would like, really change your opinion.
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Nov 12, 2018 15:35
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The party members are a lot more interesting imo and I think it has a stronger hook; but it’s not a completely different game or anything
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Nov 12, 2018 15:46
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ProfessorCirno posted:I actually found I enjoyed Avadon 2 less then the first, and frankly never finished it. This was exactly my experience. I didn’t love Avadon to begin with and the second one bored me. They both felt very lazily designed.
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Nov 12, 2018 20:26
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I never could get into Avadon. I played the first one for a few hours (like the second main quest hub?) and lost interest. I bought the second one on sale just to support him and because I heard it was a little better, but...just no real desire to try again.
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Nov 12, 2018 23:04
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I just didn't feel invested in the characters or concept. Vogel did a good job of motivating why the Shapers, despite being a horrible authoritarian culture, also had very good reasons for being so ironfisted; you're constantly encountering poisoned wastelands, uncontrolled experiments, and other Bad poo poo that was caused by people not following proper procedure sometimes centuries in the past. I don't remember seeing anything nearly so compelling for the society in Avadon. Like, it's this synthesis of a bunch of different cultures, and they have to be unified to protect themselves against some nebulous outside force...but all I remember of said outside force was my party trouncing them when they showed up. Without that motivation, the decision of whether to be Fantasy Gestapo or to rebel against the existing power structures feels unfulfilling.
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Nov 12, 2018 23:47
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I thought the first Avadon (my first Spiderweb game, so I didn't really know where the bar was) pulled a very neat trick with the reveal that your NPC companions were assigned to you by Miranda specifically for the purpose of turning you against Avadon; it had very much worked on me the exact way it was supposed to and made me felt like the game had erased the distinction between me the player and my character in a way I don't remember experiencing before. Aside from that, though, and especially after playing the Geneforges and being blown away largely for the reasons in the post above, I don't remember too much about the first one. Actually just returned to Avadon 2 last week after setting it aside (on a second attempt, IIRC) for like 18 months according to the dates on my save files and... I think I'm gonna finish it this time but yeah, it's just a pretty competent but unremarkable implementation of a very standard fantasy setting. Not certain I'll bother with 3. Avernum I can obviously see is way more interesting but I haven't finished it either cause I have trouble with roll-a-whole-party RPGs like the Icewind Dales vs. one main with written NPC companions. Do intend to finish those some day, and I'm looking forward to the Kickstarter one even if it does sound a little Avadon-ish in setting, hope he learned some lessons.
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Nov 12, 2018 23:57
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I enjoyed Avadon 2, the turret guy is obscenely broken. I haven't tried 3 yet but I heard it wasn't anything special.
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Nov 13, 2018 01:13
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Did jump back into Avadon 2 and have a mechanics question I've forgotten: are all storage cabinets or whatever in Avadon safe to leave items in indefinitely? Prompted cause I was using this birdbrain method of organizing all my gear between missions by splitting it up between characters, like Yoshira takes all head, chest and cloaks; Alcander holds belts, pants and shoes; and so forth. Then Yannick went off on his loyalty quest after I returned from my last main quest and luckily he was fully dressed but he took basically all the consumables and charms that weren't equipped on other characters with him and I now realize that is a dumb way to do it.
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Nov 13, 2018 05:07
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I honestly don't remember about Avadon specifically, but I'm pretty sure that as of the Geneforge games Vogel decided that all items persist everywhere. Just pick a spot to be your stash and drop all your crap on the floor.
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Nov 13, 2018 05:55
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One small thing to watch out for is that if you manage to put more than 200 separate items in a single map area, the game may start losing some of them. Other than that, you can put things basically anywhere and they'll be right where you left them.
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Nov 13, 2018 13:14
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prometheusbound2 posted:Are Avadon 2 and 3 significantly better than the first game? I'm about to beat it. It's okay, but not great. Way too many trash mobs, way too many empty spaces, plot is kind of just there.
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Nov 13, 2018 16:38
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My biggest problem with Avadon is it felt like each game basically rehashed the exact same poo poo over and over. It'd have been better if Avadon 3 had like actually had Redbeard dead or had you siding against him rather than going through the same poo poo again.
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Nov 13, 2018 17:23
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Even though I was close to beating it and had spent dozens of hours on it, I just uninstalled Avadon out of frustration. If there's one word I can use for the game, it's tedious. My breaking point if a fight near the end with a shaman. She's invincible until you kill another monster that's providing her an invincibility aura. Fair enough-that's a standard RPG fight trope. The problem: The fight takes place in a very large arena, so you have to hunt the invincibility token down in a turn based combat system that features lots of mobility limiters. That would again be okay, but after you kill the invincibility token the first time, it comes back! It's very obviously a fight intended to pad the length of the game rather than present a real challenge. It's a real shame because I'm a huge Spiderweb Software/Jeff Vogel fan otherwise. I would favorably compare Geneforge 4 and Geneforge 5 to Triple-AAA rpgs in terms of story and quest design. But Avadon is just really poor. As others have said in this thread, there's just little reason to care about the pact. Avadon does a very poor job of showing why The Pact is necessary-it seems the various nations would be better off with it than without. Perhaps that's the point. Maybe it's trying to do what the original Deus Ex did so well with UNATCO--but if that's the case, it takes entirely too long to get there. As I said, the game is just tedious as embodied by the fight I described above. Another issue along those lines: the maps are entirely too large with entirely too little content. Even though its the shortest of Spiderweb's games, it feels longer than it is. I did like the character building system well enough. With that said, I found the combat pretty boring. The level of attacks that limited movement really slowed things down. Perhaps it was intended to make ranged weapons useful, but it didn't seem efficient to build a character good at both melee and ranged combat. I've always been a fan of turn based combat. But with games like Original Sin and XCOM as blockbusters, there's an embarrassment of riches on this front and Avadon compares poorly. Other Spiderweb games are great for exploration. This is a testament to Vogel's skills, given the extremely primitive graphics and engine. But Avadon completely squanders this since its structure is very much based on backtracking. It could have been better done if there were more changes to locations you revisit based on your choices, but I didn't really get the sense that this was happening. I would still readily recommend Avernum, Geneforge, or Nethergate to anyone interested in RPGs. But Avadon is just terrible. I hope his new project doesn't follow suit. prometheusbound2 fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Nov 17, 2018 |
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Nov 17, 2018 12:24
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Honestly I preferred the combat in avadon more than his other games. It felt like most abilities were actually useful and balanced for the most part.
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Nov 17, 2018 17:47
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I've never played his games for the combat, but yeah, Avadon just didn't play to the strengths. It doesn't help that the second game just...mostly retreads the same ground as the first. The comparison between Exile/Avernum 1 & 2 and Avadon 1 & 2 is a poor one for Avadon - and gets real bad if you look at Geneforge 1 & 2. At the same time, I remember him saying something along the lines of Avadon 1 being a major hit, so I can't begrudge him for keeping it going. Guy's gotta stay in business, after all.
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Nov 18, 2018 00:25
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Avadon, Geneforge, and Nethergate ( ) are all solid games, the problem to me is that the first Exile/Avernum trilogy is just a really tough act to follow.
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Nov 18, 2018 20:41
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Still waiting for Geneforge 2 to be topped 
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Nov 18, 2018 21:21
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ProfessorCirno posted:Still waiting for Geneforge 2 to be topped Good news, he made Avernum 2
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Nov 18, 2018 22:14
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I would have liked Avadon a lot better if the combat was faster and deadlier. Everything takes too many hits to go down. I guess it's a tough balancing act when your party of four might be fighting 20 shitlings or one demigod or some combination thereof. But I didn't find Avernum or Geneforge to suffer from this nearly as much.
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Nov 19, 2018 00:29
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Gorelab posted:My biggest problem with Avadon is it felt like each game basically rehashed the exact same poo poo over and over. It'd have been better if Avadon 3 had like actually had Redbeard dead or had you siding against him rather than going through the same poo poo again. This really nails the problem with the trilogy. The changes to the setting between the games are minor in the and nothing new is revealed about the characters or their motivations. Hell, even Dheless is basically just what you'd imagine at the start of things. The combat is really slow especially during the first character levels, and the plot is slow to really get going, especially with 2 and 3, mainly due to the need of explaining events from past games. I almost feel as if the series would've been better by changing the player's point of view more between titles or by starting later titles at higher levels - each option could've spiced up the early parts of the games, and the combat is not very deep even on high-level characters so it should've still been somewhat easy to get into. Still, I wouldn't call the series terrible or even bad, it's just very flat and static. The setting isn't the most interesting, but I'd argue it also has to do with the fact that you never really get to experience things like the rebels' point of view and homelands or Pact politics.
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Nov 19, 2018 11:32
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Qtamo posted:Still, I wouldn't call the series terrible or even bad, it's just very flat and static. The setting isn't the most interesting, but I'd argue it also has to do with the fact that you never really get to experience things like the rebels' point of view and homelands or Pact politics. 
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Nov 19, 2018 12:25
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The most recent Queen's Wish update has me legit excited. I hadn't realized how much I'd disliked the Poser models and stiff animation of Vogel's last dozen games until I saw this screenshot. I honestly think this is a substantially superior art style to trying to do 3D when you just don't have the resources or expertise to make good 3D.
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Nov 21, 2018 20:00
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The most recent Queen's Wish update has me legit excited. I hadn't realized how much I'd disliked the Poser models and stiff animation of Vogel's last dozen games until I saw this screenshot. I honestly think this is a substantially superior art style to trying to do 3D when you just don't have the resources or expertise to make good 3D. Going back to his Realmz roots, I see
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Nov 21, 2018 20:34
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This is my first time seeing any SS of the new game, and I personally think that it's bloody hideous. I'm sure that it will still be a good game, but that looks awful to me. I genuinely enjoyed the art style of Avernum 6/EftP/CS/RW.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:27
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To me it mostly looks really, really weird.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:32
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Vogel's graphics unironically peaked with the original Exile 3. Crisp pixelwork that made the sprite clear and got the job done. Also, you could make your own custom sprites super easily. That said, the Exile 2 MSPaint-style graphics will always hold a special place in my heart.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:37
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ProfessorCirno posted:Going back to his Realmz roots, I see As I recall they just shared the cost of an asset pack, and the Realmz guys acted as a publisher for Exile for awhile. Also, god dammit now I want to play Realmz again. JustJeff88 posted:This is my first time seeing any SS of the new game, and I personally think that it's bloody hideous. I'm sure that it will still be a good game, but that looks awful to me. I genuinely enjoyed the art style of Avernum 6/EftP/CS/RW. You liked having every humanoid have the same poses and animations? You liked tiny-rear end dragons that were squeezed into the same size tile that the giant rats used? You liked every single skill using the "poke my sword forward a bit" animation? If my choices are "every creature gets a single static sprite" or the above limitations, I'll take the static sprite and use my imagination to fill in the rest. Glare Seethe posted:To me it mostly looks really, really weird. This, however, was always going to be true. No matter what, Vogel's games are always gonna look a little off, simply because he doesn't have the time to spend on visual polish.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:43
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:You liked having every humanoid have the same poses and animations? You liked tiny-rear end dragons that were squeezed into the same size tile that the giant rats used? You liked every single skill using the "poke my sword forward a bit" animation? I can't say much about the animation quality in a static screen shot, but I found the general aesthetics of those Avernum games superior to this one. It is my personal opinion which I understand that other people may not share. I've always respected you as a poster and I enjoyed your Escape from the Pit LP, TMA, now grow the gently caress up and accept that other people have different preferences than you.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:48
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JustJeff88 posted:I can't say much about the animation quality in a static screen shot, but I found the general aesthetics of those Avernum games superior to this one. It is my personal opinion which I understand that other people may not share. I've always respected you as a poster and I enjoyed your Escape from the Pit LP, TMA, now grow the gently caress up and accept that other people have different preferences than you. I'm glad I've earned your respect, and I mean that sincerely. So please believe me when I say I'm not attacking your prefererences. You are free to like what you like, and I wasn't judging you, though I can readily see how my post could have been read that way. I was pointing out the specific things I find objectionable about the art style and inviting you to present counter-arguments.
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Nov 21, 2018 22:19
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I like the previous graphical style better and hope this is still draft level but I’m sure it’s not and either way it won’t keep me from playing.
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Nov 21, 2018 22:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:As I recall they just shared the cost of an asset pack, and the Realmz guys acted as a publisher for Exile for awhile. Also, god dammit now I want to play Realmz again. It was but a joke based on how that screenshot looks and their shared history v  vI'm not really sold on the art style in that screenshot, but then it also took me quite awhile to get over the Avernum/Geneforge style too. Also you totally can still play Realmz! It's bizarrely still available online and they released all the codes for the first party scenarios and whatnot awhile back. It's...it's definitely still the same game it was back then, hahaha.
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Nov 21, 2018 22:41
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