Game News Avernum 6 is Here

[phanboy_iv]

let me guess you start in a fort, there's a goblin lair nearby that you've got to clear out, and a local authority figure is looking for someone to solve an affliction that's been afflicting the countryside

SPOILERS.

 

[ElectricOtter]

Avernum One had better portraits / paperdolls which were downgraded in order to fit in the furry races.

Remember this guy?

The portrait thing may sound trivial, but it's really irritating, especially since furry races are *much* stronger than humans for nearly every build.

I literally have to design my party around the few portraits which I can tolerate: Only one cat and one lizard party member are allowed, because each race only has one decent portrait, which appears to have been drawn by a different artist from the rest.

And by decent I mean: bad but not 8th grade bad.

What do you mean? The Avernum games all use the same portraits. If you mean that there were less portraits to choose from, that's because they upgraded the graphics to Geneforge quality.

 

[PorkaMorka]

What do you mean? The Avernum games all use the same portraits. If you mean that there were less portraits to choose from, that's because they upgraded the graphics to Geneforge quality.

Sorry, I could have been clearer there.

I was just annoyed they got rid of one of the only Avernum portraits I could tolerate and replaced it with a bunch of furry portraits which are even worse quality than the human ones.

 

[obediah]

Hmm, I spent a good 5 minutes anguishing over whether even trying to get it running under wine, when I remembered that I have a macbookpro that work gave me when I requested a netbook to play with. Vogel swings that way, so I can finally put it to use.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Problem my problem, but still no walking animations and this kills the game for me, makes it feel so stiff.

6 games and still no walking animations? He has already done it in Geneforge so it cant be that much of a leap.

wouldn't walking animations outside of combat slow things down substantially?

I hate walking my dudes sloooowly walk across the screen in other games.

 

[Sitra Achara]

let me guess you start in a fort, there's a goblin lair nearby that you've got to clear out, and a local authority figure is looking for someone to solve an affliction that's been afflicting the countryside

Never gets old. I still name all my parties John, Ariel, Erica and Samantha.

 

[ElectricOtter]

What do you mean? The Avernum games all use the same portraits. If you mean that there were less portraits to choose from, that's because they upgraded the graphics to Geneforge quality.

Sorry, I could have been clearer there.

I was just annoyed they got rid of one of the only Avernum portraits I could tolerate and replaced it with a bunch of furry portraits which are even worse quality than the human ones.

Oh. Well, that ninja guy is in A6...

 

[Monocause]

Screw the portraits, Jeff delivered. Game feels less linear than A5 and more areas are open to you. Example:

Spoiler

You get a quest to retrieve the Blessed Athame, which is above Fort Saffron. Once you get there you meet a bunch of Darkside Loyalists, who are keen on getting their old base back. You talk with them for a bit and then a bunch of creatures appears (worms and pit crawlers) and attacks everyone. I finished the quest much earlier than I think I should since I retreated and let the two groups to hack away at each other, returning only to kill a couple of leftovers. Really fun and the loot was much better than anything I could have at this point.

Also, it seems that Jeff has finally got rid of the extremely long and boring fights with +9999 HP enemies which were the trademark of A5 and which always made me drop the game when I reached the Anama lands. Still afraid of how were the Chitrachs handled. In A2 they were fun, in A4 they were the most tedious part of the game.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

How does it compare with Geneforge 5?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Avernum 6 is a superbly designed game, one of Jeff's best. He really got the sandbox gameplay down to a science and it shows. I'm tempted to write a review because I'm sure that many people look at the screens and go "Money for THAT? You've gotta be kidding. An autistic 8 year old can draw better doodles".

To put it simply, the game is fucking awesome. If you like sandbox games, download the demo, because it's THE best sandbox game ever. It's better than my beloved Daggerfall, it's better than Gothic 2, it's better than Morrowind, it's better than Risen. The graphics are one step above ASCII, but the gameplay (fucking everything, from loot distribution and battles to dungeon and quest design) is top notch. 10/10.

How does it compare with Geneforge 5?

Different sub-genres. GF5 is more story- and faction-focused. It's a stronger choces-and-consequences game and it's a lot closer to Fallout than to Daggerfall or Morrowind. Avernum 6 is a pure sandbox game. You get choices and you get consequences, but they are not the focus of the game. The focus is on exploring a HUGE gameworld and looking for adventures in every dungeon, cave, mine, abandoned temple, hole in the ground.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Avernum 6 is a superbly designed game, one of Jeff's best. He really got the sandbox gameplay down to a science and it shows. I'm tempted to write a review because I'm sure that many people look at the screens and go "Money for THAT? You've gotta be kidding. An autistic 8 year old can draw better doodles".

To put it simply, the game is fucking awesome. If you like sandbox games, download the demo, because it's THE best sandbox game ever. It's better than my beloved Daggerfall, it's better than Gothic 2, it's better than Morrowind, it's better than Risen. The graphics are one step above ASCII, but the gameplay (fucking everything, from loot distribution and battles to dungeon and quest design) is top notch. 10/10.

I hope that's not a troll post, because you just sold another game, mister. I'm going to buy Avernum 6 after I finish the Dark Savant trilogy.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Nope, not a troll post. Get the demo, it's only 35MB and it gives you 20% of the game to play with - more than enough to form an opinion. I was planning to play the demo a bit and move on, but I couldn't stop playing and had to buy the game.

 

[Micmu]

Does it have dual wielding?

It's been made in 2009/10 so yes, it does. Unfortunately, it also has those idiotic quest markers.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah, the freedom that A6 gives you does look promising. I mean, after the initial tutorial quest, which literally takes 5 minutes, you are free to go anywhere. Even though I followed the main quest line, I met people who wanted to burden me with quests and saw villages and dungeons to explore.

Few moments later, I had cleared two abandoned mines and a swamp full of undead plus their necromancer overlord "NOOO MY PETS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PETS!" before I realized that I'm not on the main-quest anymore :D

Plus it's pretty enough. I'm seriously thinking of buying this.

 

[Elwro]

VD, I finished Avernums 1-3. Should I play 4 and 5 (many people say they aren't exactly top notch) or jump straight to 6? Will I lose anything important lore-wise?

 

[Monocause]

VD, I finished Avernums 1-3. Should I play 4 and 5 (many people say they aren't exactly top notch) or jump straight to 6? Will I lose anything important lore-wise?

I'll drop my two cents here - go straight to A6. Jeff stopped expanding the lore much, while there was a lot of stuff in Exile games (later reused in A1-3) A4-A6 rarely added anything new. A5 had all-new lands to explore, but from what I've seen in A6 it doesn't make too much impact. Besides, Jeff has a philosophy of taking great care to make sure that new players don't miss out on anything, so whatever details you might've missed by skipping the two games, you'll learn about them anyway in A6.

 

[Elwro]

Thanks, Monocause! I'm still considering buying the second Avernum trilogy for completeness sake :D But, I guess I wouldn't be in the mood to play the 4th part after having finished the 6th...

 

[Droog White Smile]

It's better than my beloved Daggerfall, it's better than Gothic 2, it's better than Morrowind, it's better than Risen.

You're so fuckin' dumb.

FFS

 

[Luzur]

It's better than my beloved Daggerfall

you are above such consoletard worthy comments, VD.

you know that and so do i.

 

[Vault Dweller]

VD, I finished Avernums 1-3. Should I play 4 and 5 (many people say they aren't exactly top notch) or jump straight to 6? Will I lose anything important lore-wise?

Jump to 6.

You're so fuckin' dumb.

Still hatin'?

you are above such consoletard worthy comments, VD.

I'm a resident Daggerfall fan. It's on my top 10 list.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Avernum 6 is pretty good buuut...

It really shows the problems with free roaming RPGs without some sort of level scaling.

Two problems arise constantly

a) I encounter an enemy which I am too low level to fight. He insta gibs my party, I reload, note it's location in a text file and move on. Note that in Avernum 6 these guys will often be placed in lower level areas, although you can avoid them easily once you know about them (after a reload).

b) I come upon an area which I am too high level for. This also happens quite a bit, for example there were three main quests at one part of the plot, which you could do in any order. The first one was challenging, but by the third, the enemies were too weak for me so it was a boring cakewalk. That was because the quest was designed to be do-able if you chose to do it first.

Essentially, due to it's sandbox nature, the game has to get lucky to provide me with a well balanced challenge, and often ends up too hard (and by too hard I mean unwinnable, I'm playing on torment, so I'm fine with very, very hard fights, but sometimes you just need more levels) or too easy to be fun.

Contrast with a free roaming games with level scaling like Darklands, or one where enemies start weak and get stronger over time, like JA2.

Contrast with more linear games: a bunch.

Encounters are on average going to be much more well balanced if you either have some sort of mechanic for enemy power to scale with yours, or have a more linear game.

Ultimately Avernum 6 rarely provides a satisfying fight, and as a combat focused RPG, this makes playing it rather unsatisfying, despite the fact that it is really rather well done in most aspects.

 

[Thrasher]

Good points. In the older games you could hover over the monster and run away if it looks bad. I don't mind that mechanic, it being part of the fun of exploration. Picking and choosing my own fights to me is fun, rather than being presented a series of linear do or die level scaled encounters.

 

[Morkar Left]

Essentially, due to it's sandbox nature, the game has to get lucky to provide me with a well balanced challenge, and often ends up too hard (and by too hard I mean unwinnable, I'm playing on torment, so I'm fine with very, very hard fights, but sometimes you just need more levels) or too easy to be fun.

You are playing on the hardest difficulty and complain that it is too hard most of the time?

And that some fights are easy to win is part of the gameplay. It shows you that your party is getting better.

 

[PorkaMorka]

You are playing on the hardest difficulty and complain that it is too hard most of the time?

No, it's fine most of the time, however certain fights are designed to be above the difficulty curve for the area, for example the memorial grounds has two fights you're better off doing much later. Many areas have a fight of this nature, such as the cackling demon.

In theory that's fine but it does cause reloads.

Main plot quests have been no problem at this difficulty.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

You know, there used to be games that were designed with the fact in mind that 95% of the players won't be taking the ironman route anyway, so ... the developers thought to themselves, "if they are going to abuse the save-load feature anyway, let us give them some reason to do so, heh heh heh." They weren't think "what would be realistic", they were thinking "how could we best fuck with those gamers." Because it was fun. So there were games where you HAD TO abuse the save-load feature to get through the game. The game was made so difficult that you not only had to abuse the feature, you also had to learn when to abuse it (i.e., in Wizardry VI you will want to load an earlier save every time a character dies, until you are far in the game). There might also be some penalties for loading too often, such as encounters getting tougher for a while.

Of course, A6 may just have some small design flaw (not being able to run away from encounters?), although if you do go for realism, I'd expect there to be tough and easy encounters mixed up everywhere in a dangerous underground dungeon, and trying to run away from most tigers and monsters the worst option in any case (you don't run away if you meet a tiger in a jungle).