Spiderweb Spiderweb games

So what's everyone's beef with Avadon? I've seen shitheads constantly compare it to a shitty Bioware game, but in what ways? Is it chocked full of superficial, meaningless C&C? Annoying characters whose sole purpose is to cry and be sexed by the player? Lame, linear plot? Writing done by morons trying to out-Whedon Whedon? Trashmobs? Linear corridor shooters? Dumbed down stats and RPG systems--well, actually, that one I have heard explained, so never mind, I guess.

 

Uhm.If your post in an attempt at humour, good. If it's serious....well, almost all of your points are right, bar the linear corridor shooters and sexed characters. And Whedon.

Yes. 'Only' two main factions and most of the choices are meaningless. Even in little things! An example- early in the game, your team of cliches get a mission to kill a camp of Not!goblins from a farmer. I went to the camp and found them quirky and far more interesting than the farmers: I thought 'Good. Not-avernum Vogel game- I can ally with them and crush the quest giver (pretty much standard in GF)' . Nay! You can only kill them. And one of the few reasons to play such a graphics/mechanics poor game IS freedom a choice- Vogel games are text-based most of the time. Take it out, and what is left? Achievements?

Yes. Bioware Brooding Male (TM). Annoying sorceress. Redbeard (someone I know has the opinion that Red is a self-insert of Vogel...maybe. Compare the looks of them....). The writing is poor compared to GF, and you have the feeling that all the 'POWERFUL ORGANIZATION' is a badly done rehash of the Shapers- only with inferior writing. I did not play Avadon long enough to discover if there are creepy romances.

Yes. And slow.

Main problem is that Vogel has proven to be capable of writing better stuff- most of Avadon gives a Biowarian feel in the worst sense, even the MAP is... dry. If feels like a cheap map from a trashy fantasy novel you found for 5 cents.

 

Exile series are great games. Personally I prefer the original tilesets (very difficult to find), possibly nostalgia reasons. For me it was my first RPG I got really hooked into (as a kid/young boy) so I'm kinda biased. I love how you need to type in words when talking to NPCs.
I also remember opening Exile in ResEdit (Macintosh resource fork editor) to find out some secrets (about every conversation was there in plaintext)... bad boy!

 

Heh, I have a list of ALL NPCs and they key words from Exile and Exile 2 somewhere.

 

How bad is the filler combat in Geneforge?
For reasons beyond my comprehension, Vogel seems to consider it an interesting feature in all of his games, to the point it represents 98% of the combat. Given that I mostly play RPG for the combat, it has prevented me from going far into most of his games (Avernum 4 and 5, Avadon, Nethergate).

 

IIRC the combat in Geneforge is pretty banalshit, but they go fast enough that it's not a huge problem. Just don't bother with battle shaping.

 

Battle shaping in the 5th game is overpowered. In 2,3,4 go fire and magic for delicious vlish and gazers. Don't remember much about combat in 1.
Also, in all games except maybe 1 and 5, Mental magic is overpowered and much better than any shaping, and so are agents. Cast Daze, and all enemies stop in their tracks for a few turns.

 

G1 - cryodrayks FTW. Additionally, it's the only game in the series where resummoning a creation as soon as your shaping skill increases is more befenicial than leveling one from scratch.
G2+3 - vlish FTW
G4+5 - can go for pretty much any shaping IIRC, the point is to get lvl4-5 creations ASAP, the rest is easy.

Never tried combat magic tbh, but can attest that mental magic is, well, pretty mental.

Combat in Geneforge is pretty banal usually, unless you get into higher level zones when underleveled, or stumble upon a special encounter, of which on each map there is at least one of. These special encounters can be pretty interesting.

 

IMO, Avernum 3 (huge open world) is Jeff's best game by far. I first got into Spiderweb around Exile 2, so the Exiles/older Avernums are still my favorites in general. The Geneforge series is pretty innovative, and also good. Avadon/Avadon 2 are very linear, involve tons of backtracking through the same relative handful of maps, and have hard level caps you'll probably hit 3/4 of the way through the game - i.e. they're mediocre at best, but unfortunately, they appear to represent the "new" Spiderweb.

I'm just looking forward to the upcoming remakes of Avernum 2 (Jeff's next title) and Avernum 3 (Jeff's third next title, after the A2 remake and the probably blah Avadon 3).

 

I played through Geneforge as a Guardian who could shape, and found the combat relatively interesting and difficult at times. Definitely some of the better combat in RPGs.

 

Then I strongly suggest avoiding Avadon - which manages to make the combat and such much much dumbed down.

On the bright side you have 3 other good Geneforge games to play in 2, 4 and 5.

 

Superficial, meaningless C&C check - Annoying cliched characters yep. Linear plotting ya.

Trash mobs yep.

Game is much much more linear than any of his previous titles and smaller maps. For someone who has made exploration focused games it was a really disappointing thing to see from Vogel. The Geneforge games had less exploration but compared to Avadon they are nearly Avernum-esq. (Okay that might be overstating it a bit but not much.)

The stats got slimplifed as did all the rpg systems and combat in general.

 

I second this and add that it all depends on your character build. There are unfun options (like a full retardo mind magic agent who just mindrapes everyone) and there are fun options (like a balanced shaper character who doesn't keep his creations for long so they don't become too trained).

 

I've only played the demo (although I do intend to play the full game one day when I will have made time for it) but I was under the impression that it is generally regarded as optimal to not keep your creations around too long and rather treat them as expendables. Are you saying it is optimal (although less fun) to keep them around longer so they become more trained?

 

Yeah. It doesn't quite work for the lowest-tier ones (hence the initial impression, I think), but once you get to the really good ones (usually tier 3+, though there is an exemption with vlishes in early parts of the series) it's much more profitable to level them up significantly. That way, they're getting much higher levels (generally unreachable by "honest" shaping because of the diminishing returns skill system) and much greater damage potential. But, obviously, you can't adjust your tactics this way - if you're leveling up 3 drakes all the way (I've played through the Geneforge 2 on hard difficulty in such manner and it was much easier than going through normal with the constantly resummoned critters), you're leveling them up and that's that.

 

So, those of you who have played both Avadons. Is the second game better than the first one? Any improvements?

 

Zero improvements, and quite literally so. It's an incredibly lazy sequel, and new stuff implemented can be almost literally counted by the fingers of one hand. Avoid like plague.

 

/Thread

 

I am now a lucky enough man to own both Geneforge and Avernum series . Yay. How long are these games ? Do saves transfer?

 

Do yourself a favor, get exile and play it instead of avernum, its much, much better and its free.

They are fairly long, and they tend to get a little old if you play too much of them, so id advise you to mix it up playing a Geneforce first, then an Exile.

 

What he said. The only reason to buy the Avernum set is so that you can continue where the Exile trilogy left off. Avernum 1-3 are copies of the original Exile trilogy (though Exile was better), but Avernum continues the story in a second trilogy (Avernum 4-6).

 

Otoh the downside of Exiles is that the interface is really really clumsy to use at places. But if you can handle that, they are indeed a bit cooler than the Avernum remakes. Though something you can consider is playing a game from both series, so you get to switch up the character system.

 

Exile III is better than Avernum 3 (though I have trouble getting the former to work right on my comp). But Avernum has a lot more stuff than Exile I. Exile I is a decent game, but it feels somewhat empty.

 

Havent tried past the first hour of avernum, but exile is full of shit everywhere, multiple secrets in every map and in the world map, high difficulty and a world that doesnt give a shit about you, fun fun fun.