Game News Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor now on Kickstarter

[Tacgnol]

Jeff can make superb games when he puts his mind to it. Sadly he's mostly a lazy whiner these days.

I was really hoping the Geneforge remake might refocus him on his past success.

 

[V_K]

Subsequent Ultimas [...] didn't have non-human party members

IIRC, neither did Exile 1.

 

[MRY]

Subsequent Ultimas [...] didn't have non-human party members

IIRC, neither did Exile 1.

Oh, right, it's Exile 2 where you got to add lizardmen and catmen!

 

[Elwro]

Looking at Avernums 1-3, they're example of tight design and good progress in an rpg series.

Avernum 1 is already amazing by itself, always a good start in a series The choices at the end are a bonus.

Avernum 2 starts with extended exploration of new areas, then we return to the old ones and see how they progressed from the first game. No one would ever say the 2nd game was a rehash of the 1st; there's plenty of new stuff and the reused elements are creatively reinterpreted.

Avernum 3's main addition was seemingly the overground layer. But there's lots of additional stuff, e.g. the city deterioration mechanics. Again, many things are reused, but all of them meaningfully.

The engine was the same in all 3 games and no one would say a word. Design-wise the trilogy is a lot better than anything I've ever seen in Ultima. Unfortunately, with the 4th game in the series it started to deteriorate.

 

[Tacgnol]

The engine was the same in all 3 games and no one would say a word. Design-wise the trilogy is a lot better than anything I've ever seen in Ultima. Unfortunately, with the 4th game in the series it started to deteriorate.

I always quite liked Avernum 6, aside from the lazy encounter design where Jeff just started giving everything a ton of HP bloat for difficulty. Exploration/story wise it was pretty decent though.

Avernum 4/5 were very linear from what I remember and quite a departure from his usual style.

 

[baud]

lack of art direction; emphasis on tedious pre-buffing, rest-spamming, and grinding; lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels

I'd say that in QW 1, Jeff tried to avoid the issues with rest-spamming (which you can't do in dungeons) and grinding (since it's not possible (only quests/dungeons give XP) and useless as there's level scaling). The pre-buffing seems not as prevalent, even if buffs are still important
Though the two other (art direction, lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels) are still true.

QoL features? I never did miss anything while playing his games,

I made a list of list of annoyances in my Steam review, more on UI, but there's some QoL misses in the list

-UI/UX is clunky:
--why when clicking on a merchant, does my character selection reverts to the MC?
--Why do I have to dismiss the inventory window to go to the stats/skill screen?
--Why can't I see the HP/energy points when the inventory/skill window is open?
--What does bloodletting means (a few other skill/bonus, like Tactical Understanding aren't explained as well)?
--Why can't I see the stat changes when comparing equipment pieces? There's enough empty screen space that could have been used for this
--Why can't I see actual damage numbers for the buff and debuff, especially for DoT like bleed or poison?
--Why is there no tooltip for the buffs and debuffs applied to the enemy?
--How do I know which skill defense are for which special attacks?
--Why can't I cast healing spell while outdoors?
--Why can't I sell to the alchemist?
--I feel like the chest in the forts should be shared between all the forts.
--I feel like the combat log should have more information
--No way to sort item stored in chests
--Being able to see in what order characters are taking their turn would make the combat more interesting as that would allow more complex tactics (though easier)

 

[MRY]

lack of art direction; emphasis on tedious pre-buffing, rest-spamming, and grinding; lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels

I'd say that in QW 1, Jeff tried to avoid the issues with rest-spamming (which you can't do in dungeons) and grinding (since it's not possible (only quests/dungeons give XP) and useless as there's level scaling). The pre-buffing seems not as prevalent, even if buffs are still important
Though the two other (art direction, lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels) is still true.

That may be, but at a glance, QW lost the formulaic elements that drew me to his earlier games (such as the non-traditional fantasy settings he kept recycling and the form of isometric art used from Nethergate in 1998 to Nu-Avernum 3 in 2018). "World building" is what made those games so appealing for me, though I can't exactly explain what that meant -- the lore wasn't amazing, the graphics weren't amazing, the way you interacted with the world wasn't amazing (i.e., very little use of non-combat skills), the characters and factions were pretty shallow, etc. But all the same, the basic setting concept was fairly novel, and the sense that there were interesting things to be found everywhere made exploration really enticing. And within that framework, the combination of map design, graphics, and interaction options were at least good enough for the whole thing to come together. Probably Fallout 1 and AOD are the only RPGs I can think of where the exploration engaged me more. When I looked at QW, the initial draw wasn't there.

 

[Whisper]

lack of art direction; emphasis on tedious pre-buffing, rest-spamming, and grinding; lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels

I'd say that in QW 1, Jeff tried to avoid the issues with rest-spamming (which you can't do in dungeons) and grinding (since it's not possible (only quests/dungeons give XP) and useless as there's level scaling). The pre-buffing seems not as prevalent, even if buffs are still important
Though the two other (art direction, lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels) is still true.

That may be, but at a glance, QW lost the formulaic elements that drew me to his earlier games (such as the non-traditional fantasy settings he kept recycling and the form of isometric art used from Nethergate in 1998 to Nu-Avernum 3 in 2018). "World building" is what made those games so appealing for me, though I can't exactly explain what that meant -- the lore wasn't amazing, the graphics weren't amazing, the way you interacted with the world wasn't amazing (i.e., very little use of non-combat skills), the characters and factions were pretty shallow, etc. But all the same, the basic setting concept was fairly novel, and the sense that there were interesting things to be found everywhere made exploration really enticing. And within that framework, the combination of map design, graphics, and interaction options were at least good enough for the whole thing to come together. Probably Fallout 1 and AOD are the only RPGs I can think of where the exploration engaged me more. When I looked at QW, the initial draw wasn't there.

Did you play Tower of Time? or Lords of Xulima?

This two games have best exploration in crpgs (probably played all of them in last 15 years except jrpgs).

 

[MRY]

Neither. Was intrigued by Lords of Xulima, hadn't heard of Tower of Time. These days, I don't have time to play RPGs at all, alas.

 

[vortex]

Neither. Was intrigued by Lords of Xulima, hadn't heard of Tower of Time. These days, I don't have time to play RPGs at all, alas.

Why? What do you play then?

 

[MRY]

Not much of anything, but essentially only stuff I can play with my kids (Mario Kart, adventure games, Portal, Street Fighter, etc.).

 

[baud]

lack of art direction; emphasis on tedious pre-buffing, rest-spamming, and grinding; lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels

I'd say that in QW 1, Jeff tried to avoid the issues with rest-spamming (which you can't do in dungeons) and grinding (since it's not possible (only quests/dungeons give XP) and useless as there's level scaling). The pre-buffing seems not as prevalent, even if buffs are still important
Though the two other (art direction, lack of satisfying character progression/itemization at higher levels) is still true.

That may be, but at a glance, QW lost the formulaic elements that drew me to his earlier games (such as the non-traditional fantasy settings he kept recycling and the form of isometric art used from Nethergate in 1998 to Nu-Avernum 3 in 2018). "World building" is what made those games so appealing for me, though I can't exactly explain what that meant -- the lore wasn't amazing, the graphics weren't amazing, the way you interacted with the world wasn't amazing (i.e., very little use of non-combat skills), the characters and factions were pretty shallow, etc. But all the same, the basic setting concept was fairly novel, and the sense that there were interesting things to be found everywhere made exploration really enticing. And within that framework, the combination of map design, graphics, and interaction options were at least good enough for the whole thing to come together. Probably Fallout 1 and AOD are the only RPGs I can think of where the exploration engaged me more. When I looked at QW, the initial draw wasn't there.

yeah, I won't really defend either the world building and exploration of QW. Though at least I wanted to point out that Vogel might be aware of some of the flaws of his games and he tried to correct them; but then he apparently declined in other areas

 

[MRY]

It's hard to fault Vogel. For over a quarter century, he's supported himself entirely by making the games he wants to make, the way he wants to make them, no boss, no shareholders, and (until recently) no crowdfunding backers. All of the things that seem stubborn or unreasonable -- such as his longstanding refusal to accept offers of free labor from artists to help with his graphics or art direction, his endless recycling of the same games, etc. -- ultimately are vindicated by his success. Maybe he could've been more successful, but 25 years of running a successful small business is pretty damn successful. His games remind me a little of the milkshake analysis in that McDonald's movie -- rather than trying to make the best milkshake, he's trying to find the cheapest inputs to make a milkshake that his loyal customers will still drink. A part of me envies the mindset that lets someone live that way -- it's what let him make 24 games in 26 years, and pursue his dream job rather than a desk job. As a consumer, of course, I prefer creators who pour all their love and energy into every project while treating their time as having no value, but you tend to only get to consume one or two games from such creators before they burn out.