Game News Avadon 2: The Corruption announced

[Micmu]

Avadon was total shit, by far the worst game of his. Absolute vomit inducing junk.
Which is a shame, because Geneforges and Avernums were awesome.
And they were pretty noob-friendly already and by no means hard-core. Why he had to make a bazillion times shittier and more dumbed down game I don't know.... i guess iFuckholes must be that dumb then.
Of course this will be the same - a pathetic "indie" imitation of AAA excrements for iFaggots, no doubt, so I won't even bother downloading a demo.

 

[Severian Silk]

Avernum > Geneforge

 

[SCO]

No

 

[villain of the story]

It's sad that he thinks he will reach a wider audience by dumbing down his already simplistic games but without upping the ante on the graphics front. That's not how it works, Jeff. To have that sweet consoltard cake, you need to invest in a deeper comittment to the graphics. Nobody in that demographics give a shit about your shit looking games.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Jeff Vogel is great. More power to him.

 

[shihonage]

It's sad that he thinks he will reach a wider audience by dumbing down his already simplistic games but without upping the ante on the graphics front. That's not how it works, Jeff. To have that sweet consoltard cake, you need to invest in a deeper comittment to the graphics. Nobody in that demographics give a shit about your shit looking games.

The passable-graphics + overstreamlining combo could be finding its audience in hipsters/wannabe "geeks" subculture.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's sad that he thinks he will reach a wider audience by dumbing down his already simplistic games but without upping the ante on the graphics front. That's not how it works, Jeff. To have that sweet consoltard cake, you need to invest in a deeper comittment to the graphics. Nobody in that demographics give a shit about your shit looking games.

The passable-graphics + overstreamlining combo could be finding its audience in hipsters/wannabe "geeks" subculture.

Especially combined with a release on any cr-apple hardware.

 

[OSK]

As a fan of his Exile and Geneforge games, I found Avadon to be pretty disappointing. I'm willing to bet Avadon 2 will be pretty similar.

I will say, though, I'm honestly surprised he announced Avadon 2 before churning out Avernum 2 and 3 remakes.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Exile>Geneforge>Nethergate>Avernum>Avadon, with Avadon just being 'blah', Avernum being somewhat interesting rehash of the old Exile series and the rest ranging from good to great depending on their number in the series. The companions of Avadon were boring except the pyro sorceress. Psychotic chicks who can toss fireballs never really gets old with me.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

He didn't release any game last year and just sat on his Steam royalties.

 

[quasimodo]

Avernum: escape from the pit had a PC and IPAD release date in 2012.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

It was a port of the Mac release from 2011.

He always made a new release at the end of the year on Mac, and he broke the mold for the first time last year.

 

[sea]

I like Vogel's pre-Avadon games. Avadon itself had some good stuff here and there but was very repetitive and drawn out, with too much filler combat. So in that respect I guess he takes rather well from BioWare. Hopefully he will take fan feedback into account, as even his most die-hard loyalists knew Avadon had issues.

 

[Infinitron]

I like Vogel's pre-Avadon games. Avadon itself had some good stuff here and there but was very repetitive and drawn out, with too much filler combat. So in that respect I guess he takes rather well from BioWare. Hopefully he will take fan feedback into account, as even his most die-hard loyalists knew Avadon had issues.

Did they? Got any examples?

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I like Vogel's pre-Avadon games. Avadon itself had some good stuff here and there but was very repetitive and drawn out, with too much filler combat. So in that respect I guess he takes rather well from BioWare. Hopefully he will take fan feedback into account, as even his most die-hard loyalists knew Avadon had issues.

Did they? Got any examples?

Me.

 

[Micmu]

I don't think he'll give shit, as avaturd was his best selling crap and he was talking a long time about doing a "paper mario" game for ultra casuals and first time gamers. Looks like he finally made it, finding iShit audience, so he'll stick to that formula.
He even started dumbing down his old games (remakes of remakes of remakes...) with his new shit "mechanics".
All things have an end and Jeff's gone for good.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I don't think he'll give shit, as avaturd was his best selling crap and he was talking a long time about doing a "paper mario" game for ultra casuals and first time gamers. Looks like he finally made it, finding iShit audience, so he'll stick to that formula.
He even started dumbing down his old games (remakes of remakes of remakes...) with his new shit "mechanics".
All things have an end and Jeff's gone for good.

I can't dispute this and it makes me sad.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I don't think he'll give shit, as avaturd was his best selling crap and he was talking a long time about doing a "paper mario" game for ultra casuals and first time gamers. Looks like he finally made it, finding iShit audience, so he'll stick to that formula.
He even started dumbing down his old games (remakes of remakes of remakes...) with his new shit "mechanics".
All things have an end and Jeff's gone for good.

Yes Avadon is not as good as the Exiles or Nethergate (far from it) and yes, it could be the beginning of the end. But at the same time the guy offered me many hours of solid entertainment so kudos to him and thanks for everything. If he can make decent money now, cool for him: the guy deserves a break (even if the direction he's taking now doesn't interest me). He's in such a tiny niche that whatever he does he won't ever break the industry like Bioware or Bethesda can and did. By the way even Avadon's writing, as bland and soulless as it is, is less cringe-inducing than the "ambitious" writing in DA:O or Skyrim.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Well, I guess that's how his games are going to look for the next twelve years, now.
Why to strive for improvements when mediocrity can give you so much in return?

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

For me it's the same as with Warren Spector (well, Warren Spector's games were much more groundbreaking than Vogel's, obviously, I'm not talking about that). Now he does Epic Mickey for which I don't give a fuck at all. He's getting old, wants to pay for his divorce or whatever (I suspect that he hasn't got a clue anymore). I still respect him. Of course he'll never do a Ultima Underworld again. Well he's not doing a DA2 neither. Live and let live if the guy doesn't clearly thrust his dick in your face. Vogel or Spector are not Todd Howard.

For me such was also the case for Brian Fargo, I became ultra-weary when he announced Wasteland 2: stick to your Choplifter HD and Bard's Tale ARPG, thanks for Dragon Wars, Wasteland & Borrowed Time, you deserve it but don't mess with the past. After seeing the ingame video it seems that I was wrong. It's good to be wrong in this case.

 

[Misconnected]

Avernum > Geneforge

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

In Avernum you basically defend the good guys. In Geneforge you choose who the good guys are. In terms of pure gameplay, the series are pretty much identical.

 

[Mother Russia]

Didn't his sales go up, once he dumbed Avadon down?

His sales went up due to steam. He actually made a presentation where he presented graphs and percentages showcasing the difference of only a couple of months on steam, or something like that. We don't know yet if porting to ipad has made a difference.

This is a great thing about Vogel, the shit nature of his games after the Exile series non withstanding: He is open and willing to help out other indie devs. He used to have entire sections of his website devoted to detailing how to get started as an indie dev, what programming books to read to self teach, etc et.

 

[Mother Russia]

Avernum > Geneforge

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that.

In Avernum you basically defend the good guys. In Geneforge you choose who the good guys are. In terms of pure gameplay, the series are pretty much identical.

In Avernum, you make a party and slay some critters. There is plenty of flavor text.

In Geneforge you make a single loser, and spend most of the game talking and making choices.

The first is like the crpgs from the golden era of the 90's. Geneforge OTOH is the Biowarianism of those crpgs. Sure, by itself Geneforge is a nice change of pace, like Baldurs Gate was...but eventually that line of thinking is what led to Ass Erect and Gay Elf Buttsecks.

 

[Zeriel]

Didn't his sales go up, once he dumbed Avadon down?

His sales went up due to steam. He actually made a presentation where he presented graphs and percentages showcasing the difference of only a couple of months on steam, or something like that. We don't know yet if porting to ipad has made a difference.

This is a great thing about Vogel, the shit nature of his games after the Exile series non withstanding: He is open and willing to help out other indie devs. He used to have entire sections of his website devoted to detailing how to get started as an indie dev, what programming books to read to self teach, etc et.

I don't think anyone hates him as a person, just the path he's taken as a developer. His non-game writing (ironycentral.com, or at least it was years ago) is hilarious. It's just a pity that Avernum is such a pile of shit compared to Exile, and the opinions he espouses about gaming in general (Bioware is the best!) are pretty damn alarming.

 

[Misconnected]

In Avernum, you make a party and slay some critters. There is plenty of flavor text.

In Geneforge you make a single loser, and spend most of the game talking and making choices.

The first is like the crpgs from the golden era of the 90's. Geneforge OTOH is the Biowarianism of those crpgs. Sure, by itself Geneforge is a nice change of pace, like Baldurs Gate was...but eventually that line of thinking is what led to Ass Erect and Gay Elf Buttsecks.

Bollocks.

Geneforge lets you shape the same sort of parties Avernum lets you generate. Like I said, on the gameplay side they're practically identical.

If anything the Avernums are the Bioware-style games; you get the occasional choice, but they're all cosmetic. You might argue that the worlds change around you, but they certainly don't change based on your choices. They change based on how far you progress.
That's where the Geneforges are different; those games don't just change based on how far you progress into the storylines. They also change based on how you relate to the storylines.

The Avernums are fairly pure dungeon crawls (which I don't fault them for, mind. Crawlers are cool). But the Geneforges are actual RPGs. You don't just play the protagonists in the Geneforges, how you play the protagonists actually matters. Which basically makes them anti-Bio-RPGs.

Then again, I come from TTRPGs. And as much as I hate elves, I do lub me some buttsecks