Dumbing down?? Rofl. I mean REALLY?
The exile's only strength was the party member count. It also had a certain fun factor to the way combat went due to the simple engine but that was all. It was good at the time. Avernum did indeed constitute an instance of dumbing down, but it did so mostly by reducing the party member count, reducing the combat options had to do with removing redundant spells ( in a combat system that was already extremely tedious to say the least, even at high levels and also keeping in mind it had zero melee options). The obvious lack of quality, depth and the utter boredom of the combat system taken overall ( also in the case of the exiles, but much more noticeable in the first a Avernum series 1-3) associated with the kind of scale Avernum 1-3 had was a major flaw to say the least, everything else to like about it came up indeed as a “redeeming quality”, a funny expression.
Secondly only a retard or someone who didn’t actually put any time into any of Vogel’s games they like to talk about would not see the major qualitative increase in area design, quest design and encounter design, not to mention writing, plot and character interaction from Avernum 4 onward. How they were better RPG’s.
Avernum 6 ( and Avernum 5 although in a less well implemented fashion) was a breakthrough in terms of game quality in every respect, also much due to the introduction of actually good combat mechanics (or decent but if you call them only decent I wonder what you base yourself in for comparison in terms of Rpg’s with turn based combat, there are not many otherwise good Rpg games with a stellar record when it comes to combat to compare with), plus Avernum 6 maintained largely the best features of Vogel's character development, the freedom of saving and assigning skill points.
Avadon was indeed a case of “dumbing down”, a catering to retards both in its difficulty level naming, and the way the skilltrees were structured to avoid major party weakness by poor point distribution, but how relevant is this?
Anyways that is the one single point that is worth mentioning (although not as strongly from what I understand) against Avernum : Escape from the Pit. In short you will likely lose the old ( rather poor) traits, and get a more organic and varied system that prevents you from saving points to spend in the medium term, a negative sure, and what about the rest? Also a useful friendly tip, If you actually wish to even try Avernum: Escape from the pit and play it on normal difficulty ( for the elite---that is people with normal brain functioning) you need to pick “Hard” ( this is assuming the standard is equal to Avadon, which in hard is perfectly adequate….at least if you play it a bit longer than 6 hours). Give it a try sometime.
The thing is with Avadon there was a significant refinement of the Avernum 6 combat system in terms of design and mechanics, oh sure it’s arguable if it is overall better as a combat system, but the obvious point is that Vogel is going to use those new resources to rework the combat system according to Avernum 6 standards.
So now Vogel will return with all the resources available from that last project and Avernum 6 in terms of combat mechanics, encounter design, area design, all the special situations his later games included, his news standards in terms of writing and character interaction etc to remake Avernum 1, this while keeping the scale of the original titles, the overland map, the sandbox structure, and ( almost certainly) adding not only a couple of sidequests but also a crapload of new content, including the reworking of the content already in the original title , a reworking, which should be obvious for those who actually played his games and saw their evolution, that will amount to much more than a copy paste or replication of that content.
But of course there is no interest at all in this cheap dumbed down remake, in this gaming universe so lacking in the eerrrr… “redeeming qualities” of the good old days of rpg gaming, like those outstanding qualities of say Ultima 7. Seriously ?
What makes me laugh out loud as a person who appreciates “old school” rpg’s is posts by “Noobs” ( pardon couldn’t resist) with some kind of oldschool poseur syndrome saying things like: “oh noes. It’s going to be dumbed down from exile 1, or the original avernum 1, I won’t touch it!” or “ The MECHANICS WILL BE WORSE! It will lose whatever that was actually decent about them” ( usually without specifying what was so decent)… I can’t help but to wonder if most who talk shit ever touched any Vogel game or any good oldschool title long enough to even begin to appreciate any of them, even the more fashionable ones.
In short typical codex fashionable oldschool poseur bullshit (which would be far less pathetic if it wasn’t taken so seriously) with the also usual touch of severe cognitive dissonance, sometimes a selective one at that… in one post is “sorry those graphics aren’t just acceptable anymore”, on the other “gawd why doesn’t he make decent graphics this time”, while on the other “ fuck that I will go back to playing Avernum 1 or exile 1”….the mental disturbance pattern goes on when it comes to evil AAA titles in a similar fashion but in another direction, same pattern for just about game feature or aspect. When arguments or clearness of reasoning fail, circle jerking and massive ad hominem sets in for the lulz and ego points.
For fuck’s sake kids if you didn’t really like the “oldschool” or oldschool like games, and never managed to play them long enough to have an opinion just stfu, you aren’t going to the kill the indie industry ( that you obviously care so much about) and you can still credibly talk shit about the poorer sides of the evil big name developers, you will still be part of the “elite” with the taste you actually have, because there is no elite. And most of all you would avoid making yourselves look like hypocritical clueless clowns over and over again. And some fantasize about people relevant in the gaming industry, either indie or not, following the “discussions” and opinions on these forums and think they are sticking it to the man for the sake of better games in the future….for fucks sake wake the fuck up.
