Development Info Avadon - Less Healing, Less Walking, & Lower Difficulty

[Castanova]

In spite of the "superb gameplay" of vogel's games, according to Vault Dweller, he really sucks at making an kind of interesting combat.

That's not surprising considering he repeatedly talks in interviews about how he creates games primarily for the purpose of telling stories. Still, even people who WANT to create interesting combat frequently fail so...

 

[betamin]

Having a hard combat and walking alllll the wayyy to the edge of the screen was boring so this can be very good.

There should be some points where you can't regenerate so there are hard battles with no rest, but other than that I can't see whats the big deal.

 

[PorkaMorka]

The thing is in every Avernum I played there was only very rarely anything stopping you from just walking all the way back to town and healing to full/get mana and coming back.

In fact it on higher difficulties was a good habit to get into, that or just use the cheat code to heal to full and get mana and pretend you walked to town.

So he is popamolifying his game in order to solve his failure at other aspects of game design.

 

[Fowyr]

Goodbye, Spiderweb. I loved you.

 

[Azrael the cat]

so that means 'huge sprawling C+C-fest'

Does it? I only played the first one, but I fail to see the fest. There are different endings, but apart from that?
\

It expands exponentially each game. I'm not exaggerating. By the last couple it's almost absurd. And awesome. Not different endings - different factions with different goals, that take you to different parts of the world map to do different things, as well as different subfactions wtihin each faction (by G5 there's sympathetic and eviillll!!! folks on all sides, jostling within each faction for influence - hell, you start off as a tool being used by one 'loyalist' subfaction against another). The relevance of different parts of the map (quest hub/kill-the guarded-leader/dungeon crawl/stealth-item-grab/etc) can vary depending on who you're supporting and why you're there.

I've never encountered a game that has C+C on the scale of the last couple of Geneforge series games (unfortunately they do assume a little bit of prior game experience - not so much for knowledge of how to play, but more in terms of recurring characters. Folks who were minor soldiers that you met in G1/2 have become generals, switched sides, become reformists/hardliners etc, and it does make a big difference playing the games knowing who helped you and who screwed you over a couple of games back (though it does imply some retconning if you killed the guy).

That isn't going to sell it to someone who just flat out hates the playstyle, the graphics or the combat, though. I'm not knocking those who don't get into the Vogel stuff.

 

[FeelTheRads]

It expands exponentially each game. I'm not exaggerating. By the last couple it's almost absurd.

Interesting... and noted. I've just started playing the second one.

 

[Mangoose]

So would you recommend playing the Geneforge games end to end or just playing the latest and greatest if I don't have a Vogel-hardon and am just mildly interested?

 

[betamin]

The first Geneforge is kinda hard to get into, the second takes a while, but once you reach the middle of the game you are hooked. Avoid the third like the plague and the last two are amazing games but are a little bit different (graphics are much improved and they are kinda linear but in a good way). So I would start by the second, and if its too "old", give the last two a chance.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What's wrong with the third? I had already started the second one and it seems to be better than the first.

 

[Fowyr]

G3 very linear and too many trash mobs immune to all, except one type of attack.