Avadon is here for windows (kinda)

[flushfire]

looting in avadon is indeed worse than previous spiderweb games. ive played most spiderweb games and the improved graphics of avadon did make identifying which loot is worthwhile without having to press G all the time harder. also, for someone who is used to their games, the devaluation of items made identifying which items to pick up and which ones not to a chore, at least in the beginning. what's baffling is it couldve been easy to lessen the aggravation by making zero value mundane items non-pickupable, esp now that there's just a couple collection quests.

as for feedback in combat, i personally don't see much need for it. it's easy enough to get used to the range of spells since there are only few. range of attacks since they reach quite far anyway. only gripe i have is the lack of range indicator for melee aoe. but that would mean an extra click after choosing an aoe melee ability so id rather have to do trial and error than that. one thing i noticed about movement in combat though, and this is extremely annoying, is that pathfinding is now much more quirky compared to previous games. if you choose a melee skill for example, then click on an enemy far away, sometimes your character will choose the worst possible path instead of just going straight to the enemy. easy to patch im sure.

weight management in equipment is IMO a good thing, but i dislike it coexisting with class restrictions, except in weapons ofc. its better to go all the way to either mechanic than to have both. which is how it was in previous spiderweb games, it is a puzzle to me why it had to be changed at all.

stats also suck now. playing on hard it's just like DA2, want to melee? pump str. want to use missiles? pump dex. spells? pump int. no need to add any to endurance since stats rise as you level anyway.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Biggest disappointment in the demo? The tiny dragon, after hearing all this in-game lore about dragons being giant, powerful, terrifying creatures.

Jeff, if you cannot put a proper-size dragon into your game, don't put one at all.

 

[neilsouth]

I want to be a dragon

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

From a free game, Dark Disciples 2. Now that is a monster.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

final fantasy games have a lot of big creatures to fight you guys might want to step outside your comfort zone and check those out

 

[Clockwork Knight]

final fantasy games have a lot of big creatures to fight you guys might want to step outside your comfort zone and check those out

http://youtu.be/fydVmMyWrsU

 

[Trannynota]

A Kva framer sleeping like a horse (standing):

Actually, I'm enjoying the game a lot.

 

[Cuntfish]

Must play now.

 

[Coriolanus]

Tried this game yesterday, half-expecting something truly horrid based on reviews here.

It turned out pretty good, actually.

Writing is decent, good enough to make the (very frequent) text blobs worth reading. These work quite well to compensate for the bland graphic environment (nothing jarring there, just plain and functional) - a couple of paragraphs for every place of interest create a very nice, P&P-like feel.

Combat is good - playing on Torment difficulty, many encounters are hard. Avadon's combat encourages good positioning, frequent use of consumables, smart usage of skills and punishes mistakes by wiping the party in a few mis-managed turns. I'm only halfway through (@ Bereza Woods), and it doesn't look like things get much easier. Trash mobs are a relief, actually. Wiping out big mobs with massive AoE spells feels very satisfying - like it should. Status effects aren't OP, they are situational like they should be - stunning is useless vs. boss types but very good vs. strong normal types, while, say, entangling works wonders vs. melee bosses.

The complaint about back-tracking is valid, but it's not a big deal - it's mostly a result of location design where you will often have quests and mob groups that are far stronger than your group (sort of like the Dragons in BG2, but here you get such stuff on every map - e.g. salamander caves in the red dragon's place, you'll come back later for the salamanders, and much later (?) for the demon and the undead guardian; Torment difficulty, of course).

Some NPCs will tell you to "come back later" for quests, but since there aren't many useful NPCs per location it's not that hard to remember to re-visit them.

This leads us to the exploration aspect - which gives me an RPG boner like no other - which is also very well done. You won't feel satisfied until you've crawled through every corner of the map for possible quests and treasure. Sort of like Divine Divinity feel but of course smaller-scale.

The flaws are there, the useless clutter of items you can't use or sell, the cheap visuals (functional, but no eye candy), the weak "roleplaying" part - better than the barebones KotC or some such, but nowhere near enough C&C and an utter lack of any diplomatic skills or skill-checks. Is it the other Spiderweb games are so damn good that it's the crushing disappointment of Avadon that make RPGcodexers hate it so? As a fan of turn-based combat I'm finding this game a delight, something like a bigger and less tightly-made KotC (though much more ambitious).

 

[Metro]

Is that you, Jeff?

 

[Cosmic Misogynerd]

Heh.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Nah, Avadon is only bad if you compare it to Spiderweb's previous games (most of which, especially the Geneforge series, are way better). Taken entirely on its own merits, though, I don't think Avadon is a bad game. It's kind of like "Spiderweb does Bioware" in that it plays like a Spiderweb game, but is structured like a Bioware game (what with companions being a huge part of the gameplay complete with their own personalities and quests and whatnot).

I definitely don't think it's Spiderweb's best game, but it's not as bad as its reputation on RPGCodex suggests, and there's alot that it does right. The writing, for example, is as good as any spiderweb game, even if the world itself isn't as interesting as, say, the Geneforge series. Also, the boss battles are some of the best of any Spiderweb game...they are creative, almost puzzle like at times, and generally break from the typical spiderweb boss formula of "Villain with 100,000 hitpoints slowly spawns hordes of trash mobs as you whittle his health down" (and, actually, I think the combat in the game is a step up from most Spiderweb games. Say what you want about Vogel's ability at general game design and C&C, but I think he's unquestionably gotten better at designing combat and battles as he's gotten older). Plus, it's actually hard as fuck if you play it on torment (one of the hardest Spderweb games ever, in fact), so while it might have been simplified in terms of stats and skills, it definitely wasn't dumbed down in terms of difficulty (seriously, any one bitching about how Avadon has been "dumbed down" should try playing it on torment....it's an entirely different game).

Its biggest problems are mainly that it has a pretty tiny world compared to most Spiderweb games (you will visit most areas twice), its stats are somewhat imbalanced (dexterity is so overpowered in both offense and defence that it's pointless to invest in anything else), your charcter hits the level cap waaaaaaay too early (which kind of makes the last few hours of the game a bit of a slog as there's nothing to work towards), and it doesn't have as much C&C as something like the Geneforge series. But C&C in Spiderweb games has pretty much always just been the Geneforge series. The Exile and Avernum games have next to no C&C (or at least as far as narative goes), yet no one gives them as much shit as they give Avadon, which is kind of odd.

So, yeah, by the standards of the Genforge series (which I see as one of the best RPG series ever), Avadon is a huge step down. But I still think it's a fun game and way better than most of the AAA RPG shit out there right now. Avadon has just unfortunately become one of those games that's cool to hate in the general culture of RPG Codex. So many people will talk shit about it without ever even having played it. But I think it's a really good game if you give it a chance.