Avadon out (on Mac)

[Humanity has risen!]

Why is everyone acting so surprised? Vogel has been praising quest compasses, streamlining, autoresurrects and so on for years now. I'm honestly surprised it took him so long to implement all his beloved mechanics. I guess he thought the new series was the perfect time.

It all goes to waste when any casual which accidentally happens to learn about his game instanty dismisses it because of the 10 years old graphics and turn-based combat.

Seriously, who even knows that the company exists? One has to be a seriously dedicated hardcore RPG fan to even be aware of them.

 

[ElectricOtter]

Why is everyone acting so surprised? Vogel has been praising quest compasses, streamlining, autoresurrects and so on for years now. I'm honestly surprised it took him so long to implement all his beloved mechanics. I guess he thought the new series was the perfect time.

It all goes to waste when any casual which accidentally happens to learn about his game instanty dismisses it because of the 10 years old graphics and turn-based combat.

Seriously, who even knows that the company exists? One has to be a seriously dedicated hardcore RPG fan to even be aware of them.

Yeah, what HHR said. I never thought Jeff would actually go full retard and ruin his nice little niche for him. Oh well. C'mon, Basilisk! This is your chance!

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I honestly tried to make some friends I know try one of his games.

What happens is always this: the guy says "Looks pretty cool", and then he notices the bad graphics and and lack of production values, and suddenly I see his smile wane subtly, and a bit of annoyance settling in, knowing he will never touch it with a ten foot pole.

You have to be a extremely hardcore RPG fan who enjoys old-school game to tolerate them. Exactly the kind of guy who loves being challenged in every possible way.

Most everyone on Jeff's forums all want the game NOT to be dumbed down.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I honestly tried to make some friends I know try one of his games.

What happens is always this: the guy says "Looks pretty cool", and then he notices the bad graphics and and lack of production values, and suddenly I see his smile wane subtly, and a bit of annoyance settling in, knowing he will never touch it with a ten foot pole.

You have to be a extremely hardcore RPG fan who enjoys old-school game to tolerate them. Exactly the kind of guy who loves being challenged in every possible way.

Most everyone on Jeff's forums all want the game NOT to be dumbed down.

Incline of HHR.

However, the way the Vogel fags respond will be a mixed bag; some will deplore the move, others will shrug and play, and others will continue fellating as usual.

Mind you, if he does pick up new fans over this more...welcoming gaming system, expect the old fans to really hit the roof. Perhaps there may be a Spiderweb forums exodus to the Codex.

 

[flushfire]

Medals are reported to pop-up in game a la wow. Would have preferred them to be not so visible like the ones in eschalon. JV reasons that they are expected if the game is to be on steam or mac game center.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I honestly tried to make some friends I know try one of his games.

What happens is always this: the guy says "Looks pretty cool", and then he notices the bad graphics and and lack of production values, and suddenly I see his smile wane subtly, and a bit of annoyance settling in, knowing he will never touch it with a ten foot pole.

You have to be a extremely hardcore RPG fan who enjoys old-school game to tolerate them. Exactly the kind of guy who loves being challenged in every possible way.

Most everyone on Jeff's forums all want the game NOT to be dumbed down.

Incline of HHR.

However, the way the Vogel fags respond will be a mixed bag; some will deplore the move, others will shrug and play, and others will continue fellating as usual.

Mind you, if he does pick up new fans over this more...welcoming gaming system, expect the old fans to really hit the roof. Perhaps there may be a Spiderweb forums exodus to the Codex.

If things are as dumbed down as people say, then Vogel has made a biiiiggg mistake. I thought he understood niche/segmented marketing better than to try to pull Bioware fans and new-to-the-genre types.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

If things are as dumbed down as people say, then Vogel has made a biiiiggg mistake. I thought he understood niche/segmented marketing better than to try to pull Bioware fans and new-to-the-genre types.

I suppose Vogel has enough funds to give it a shot and see what happens. If it is a flop, expect a standard Vogel game to be rushed out within 6 months. If it is a hit, then he wins...and will continue in this vein.

I am fairly pissed at this development to be honest. His games were something to look forward to for me, more so as The New Shit totally took over the RPG scene in the big leagues. Thankfully there are a couple of other indy devs making games (albeit slowly) to continue on with. I may have to give up on CRPG's and just stick with war games and the odd other game that interests me.

 

[Monocause]

But what got really 'dumbed down' in Avadon?

- Achievements? Come on, who the fuck cares. I don't get why people get butthurt about these, the same with sex cards in TW. Hardly an important part of the game.

Besides, here's what Jeff wrote:

I always liked achievements in games, and, if I want to get on Steam, (not to mention the Mac Game Center), they are expected. So that's why there's that.

- Jeff Vogel

Sounds reasonable.

- Quest compass could be dumbing down but really, I don't recall any JV game since Avernum that had exploration-based quests. Everything quest-related was always extremely easy to find as it was. Avernum is no Morrowind.

The only thing I'm wary about is unconscious/health regen thing but I stand by my opinion that it doesn't have to gimp gameplay if done correctly. In fact I'm playing Drakensang:RoT right now and combat is still challenging despite the same mechanic being implemented. SW forum members are often obsessive-compulsive types and they rate Avadon combat favorably in terms of difficulty - and those are the guys who insist on the masochism that is soloing later Avernum games on torment.

 

[flushfire]

haven't read more than what's been mentioned here so I am not thinking that it's as bad as JV pulling a DA2. eschalon had achievements too so I don't really mind. feedback on quest compass is negative, so maybe the windows version will have an option to turn it off (no such option in the demo). on a more positive note, there's word that torment is different this time in that it's not just tedious bec. enemies have tons of HP but bosses will have different abilities as well. overall difficulty is said to be a lower than A6 tho.

 

[foobie42]

Googling `vmware hackintosh leopard' right nao. Hope this is worth it.

 

[torpid]

If I'm reading the description correctly, the blademaster has an aggro mechanic?

VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL

Looks like Vogel has finally jumped the shark and gone down the casual route, as per his blog fantasies. As others have said, I don't see this working out for him.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Sounds like there will be an opportunity for someone to take-over Vogel's niche.

 

[Antagonist]

I'm also not very happy about Vogel's tendencies to dumb down his titles but I reckon that watching people earn millions with just one casual game on the iPhone/iPad in mere months which is probably more than he earned with all of his titles in almost twenty years can have such an effect on a person.

Unlike many of the third-worlders/lazy bums here I actually do own a Mac so I'll give it a try sometimes later this week and try to report back.

 

[Johannes]

Yeah quest compass sucks. Acheivements, annoying, but not a big deal.

Auto-regen outside of combat doesn't sound bad, at least when compared to his earlier games where it was pretty much a matter of going out of dungeon and resting, then returning, since next to no enemies respawned. Which gave about the same result with more work. You lost ingame time but since the timed quests never seemed very tight, it wasn't much a problem either.
Hopefully he balanced it so that every fight is potentially lethal (on high difficulty at least).

 

[Sisay]

Having actually played (and bought) the game, here are some comments:

There is no quest compass after the very beginning of the game. There are achievements. They show up in a silly way when you get them. Like the later Geneforge and Avernum games, Avadon is quite linear. The game is not particularly difficult at the normal setting, though of course some fights are much more challenging than others. I have not tried Torment. The setting is not as unique nor interesting as Geneforge (esp. G1) but it's better than Avernum. The writing is mostly what you would expect from Vogel.

Edit: I was wrong about the quest compass, it does exist in further parts of the game. It's less noticeable after the beginning, though. I think it only comes up when someone tells you an exact location (such as writing it down on your map) but I am not sure.

The new character system works ok. The classes are AD&D with the names changed but they are different enough and each have their own skill tree. I am not a big fan of the DA:O inspired "cooldowns" (you can only use abilities every x turns) but it works well enough in practice. The amount of active abilities and the movement changes make melee characters much more interesting to play than in Jeff's other games. There is no speech skill. You do not create a party like in Avernum/Nethergate, just your player character like in Geneforge. You get one party member of each class and you can take two of them with you. They occasionally comment on things that happen or the surroundings. The party member select screen is clearly Bioware inspired.

The combat is much better than ever in Geneforge. The changes to movement rules are great. You can only move one step on your turn if an enemy is in a square next to you and vice versa. This makes positioning very important. You protect your casters by positioning your characters in a non-retarded manner, not by using the taunt ability (which is really not very useful). Health regeneration (and especially resurrection) after combat is a bit silly. The heal spell has no vitality cost so in theory it's just saving you time. In practice, you would spend mana to cast healing spells and use up a strategic resource in his other games whereas in Avadon you just stand around for a bit. I don't think there is any penalty for characters falling unconcious in combat.

 

[Luzur]

Unlike many of the third-worlders/lazy bums here I actually do own a Mac I am very smug about this issue. so I'll give it a try sometimes later this week and try to report back.

i dont think you should really be that smug about owning a Mac... :/

but anyway, how about some ingame pics, Maccers?

 

[7hm]

Having actually played (and bought) the game, here are some comments:

There is no quest compass after the very beginning of the game. There are achievements. They show up in a silly way when you get them. Like the later Geneforge and Avernum games, Avadon is quite linear. The game is not particularly difficult at the normal setting, though of course some fights are much more challenging than others. I have not tried Torment. The setting is not as unique nor interesting as Geneforge (esp. G1) but it's better than Avernum. The writing is mostly what you would expect from Vogel.

The new character system works ok. The classes are AD&D with the names changed but they are different enough and each have their own skill tree. I am not a big fan of the DA:O inspired "cooldowns" (you can only use abilities every x turns) but it works well enough in practice. The amount of active abilities and the movement changes make melee characters much more interesting to play than in Jeff's other games. There is no speech skill. You do not create a party like in Avernum/Nethergate, just your player character like in Geneforge. You get one party member of each class and you can take two of them with you. They occasionally comment on things that happen or the surroundings. The party member select screen is clearly Bioware inspired.

The combat is much better than ever in Geneforge. The changes to movement rules are great. You can only move one step on your turn if an enemy is in a square next to you and vice versa. This makes positioning very important. You protect your casters by positioning your characters in a non-retarded manner, not by using the taunt ability (which is really not very useful). Health regeneration (and especially resurrection) after combat is a bit silly. The heal spell has no vitality cost so in theory it's just saving you time. In practice, you would spend mana to cast healing spells and use up a strategic resource in his other games whereas in Avadon you just stand around for a bit. I don't think there is any penalty for dying in combat.

Wait, what?

 

[Johannes]

"Falling unconcious" would probably be a better term then. So as long as whole party doesn't get wiped out, they will be ok again after combat.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Beats reloading I guess.
Is there at least an XP penalty for the 'dead' folks?

 

[Johannes]

Or same xp just gets shared between the standing partymembers - that's how it worked in Avernums/Exiles I think.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Everything I hear about this game just screams decline.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

You get one party member of each class and you can take two of them with you. They occasionally comment on things that happen or the surroundings. The party member select screen is clearly Bioware inspired.

Bioware...and three party members?

I don't think there is any penalty for dying in combat.

Worse than Bioware?

Everything I hear about this game just screams decline.

Indeed. The aspect I found most amusing when you look at them together was the 'some battles are challenging' mixed in with 'there is no penalty for dying'.

Not sure how that works, but anyway...

 

[Canus]

This was one of the games I was most looking forward to, but every time I hear something new it just seems to slide further and further down into the well of not giving a shit.

 

[Gondolin]

Everything I hear about this game just screams decline.

With a thousand voices.

 

[Johannes]

There was no real penalty for dying in the later Avernums either though. You lug your ass back to town and are auto-revived, the dead/unconcious can carry loot as well, that's just an inconvenience. Or if you're in some dungeon you can't instantly leave, use one of the raise dead scrolls you find plentifully.

If the encounter design is made properly with the autoheal in mind, that can be much better than the repetitive trash mobs wasting your time, that are usually found in his games. When every battle can be designed so that it should almost kill you.

Will see if it will be worth playing, depends on how well made the combat is in the end. It still looks more interesting than the upcoming blockbuster "rpgs" or playing an older spidweb game featuring snoozy combat.