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No Aenra, I'm not disagreeing with your last point, and I never was. You have a point and are incapable of seeing other points people make. I wish you the best in your future arguments and would urge you to reconsider how you react to people, because I don't plan on wasting time with you again.
With a single exception (and that's debatable), you've played one Vogel game, you've played them all. Not to mean it negatively, not necessarily; there is a market for his games, and all is fine.
But said market isn't there for the graphics, now is it? Inversely, an expanded market will not be made possible -merely- because of better visuals, not today, not with all these other RPG-focused studios out there doing party RPGs with isometric and RTwP/TB combat; or rather, the percentage of increase a mere visual polish may achieve will hardly be worth the endeavour.
So lacking some other form of a (significant) upgrade, to systems, depth, gameplay or whatever.. this does not bode well to me. Even before i consider his rather pessimistic a nature and i must. It does affect things, his view; and said view in turn has often, and immensely, being affected by even the tiniest of disappointments/lapses.
If a plunge in the dark is what he's after (getting anxious perhaps? Diminishing income? Understandable), this really is not the way to go about it. Graphics are not what's keeping him "back". Or in a stasis, come to that. He is.
Then again, our resident fabulouzz mod already posted saying "cool, new graphikzz!!11", so who knows, maybe i'm wrong.
Regardless, if he makes a KS campaign where he has something -other- than visuals to show, i might consider it.
In fairness, single exception (I assume you mean the Rome v Celts game) aside there's TWO Spiderweb games. The dungeon crawler (Exile/Avernum) and the Fallout-like (Geneforge - fallout-like in that it's storyfaggy and promotes multi-approach in innovative setting, not that it's post-apocalypse....until about partway through the series, but let's not spoil too much).
Geneforge is a must-play for story-fags - not in the sense of 'I want good writing and an adventure game', but rather 'I want an amazing setting, lots of options other than combat, tons of reactivity and subfactions within subfactions within factions'. G1 doesn't have a lot of that, but it's short and fun. G2 is really good, but still far more simple in reactivity and subfactions-within-subfactions stuff. G3 is the low-point. G4 and especially G5 are classics of the genre. You don't have to play them all - each has their own story. But I think it does help, not only due to NPCs continuing, but the way in which factions who seem straight-evil due to 'normal RPG setting rules' start to seem 'holy shit, yeah, the fundies were fucking right, and the fundies on the other side would at least have gotten a quick victory' by the wasteland of the latter games. There's also non-joinable crazy cults in early games that actually start making sense as the history goes on, until they're joinable in later games. It's a massive over-statement, and I'm not making this comparison as one of quality by any means, but if you've ever seen either Shakespeare's Henry quartet, or any of the many modern stories based on it, where you've got a guy/side who just seems frustratingly idiotic, and then by the later stages you're going 'yeah...I get it now [to use the Henry version] these blind lunatics are just going to go round and round in circles killing each other no matter what he did, he's right', then there's an element of that in Geneforge
of course, he doesn't have the extra bit of spice that separates someone like Shakespeare from your modern hack: a character like Richard III to provide the counter-argument, mocking Henry in his cell for failing to see that someone like him was going to arise due to Henry's inaction
, and the great thing is, it's there on ALL sides (i.e. it isn't that there's some evil guy that later turns out to be RIGHT ALL ALONG - it's more that there's people on all sides of the conflict that fit that model).
I also have no problem with him remaking those games in new engines - he's explained it many times. He's running a business, if he makes a new engine for Avadon, then it's pretty cheap to update Geneforge/Avernum in that engine, he's not expecting people who played the old ones to repurchase it, rather, he's trying to get newer gamers who are just growing into that stuff to buy them, and it's what keeps him in business. I'd never spend money on it myself, but I'm not going to begrudge the guy for trying to sell Avernum or Geneforge in a form that current/new indie market will buy.
I wish you the best in your future arguments and would urge you to reconsider how you react to people, because I don't plan on wasting time with you again.
If you get exasperated/disappointed that easily, maybe you shouldn't begin your posts with "Aenra, you're being dumb"? You take what you give in life. Leave my urges to me and mine and if you never want to bother with me again, go ahead. But in the future, don't say it, not in advance. Sounds kinda childish.. leave the fancy wording aside and just do it.
I also have no problem with him remaking those games in new engines - he's explained it many times. He's running a business ... I'd never spend money on it myself, but I'm not going to begrudge the guy for trying to sell Avernum or Geneforge in a form that current/new indie market will buy.
Neither do i. I hope he does better in the future, i hope he becomes more relevant; have said it before that bitching aside, i hope they all do; the bigger the RPG market, the better for players and devs alike; competition is healthy and necessary.
But that doesn't mean i cannot strongly disagree with his thinking and/or planning. Most especially when it appears deriving from a loss of direction. Your comment may have merit, but cannot escape the reality of him doing nothing else BUT cloning and recloning for years now. Hardly healthy, hardly inspiring. There are steps to be taken, even should we say while re-selling?, that he seems reluctant if not incapable of.. taking.
edit: am on the fucking phone, lol, i can't multi :S
(as always, i try to condense my points in key phrases that should, emphasis on 'should', convey all the important points. As always, i end up needing to further elaborate for the resident monkeys)
So if i can add one final thing, as it seems to be escaping some.. easily offended and frivolous fellow posters:
I talked about competition and a healthy market. To have that, you need first understand what defines said market, ergo what defines AAAs and Indies;
- The big boys have the manpower, the time, the money, the PR (generated or voluntary) and most of all, the presence.
- Indie boys have their difference. Difference. One would argue that they additionally have their little fandom, but no, not anymore. If it hasn't escaped your notice, the majority of MMO players play RPGs play COD play Skyrim. Like it or not. The tiniest minority that does -not- fall under this rule is so small that effectively fails to be under ANYONE's radar. Too small to support, not in the long term. So one thing we can definitely say Indie devs have? Is Difference.
So, to get back to my previous postings here, when you see the tiny people emulating the big ones (failing to comprehend what said difference in scale amounts/results to, or perhaps uncaring as they simply want money), you no longer have a HEALTHY competition. Because the little people, all they can bet on? Is introducing something new, fresh; re-interpreting a well used concept; maybe even redefining expectations regarding a specific aspect, if they can pull that off.
This is the -only- thing that can both keep them on the radar (their benefit alone, they make their living) AND allow for a healthy competition (which is where [and only when] we the players get to benefit too). This is their -only- way of "antagonising" the big boys. Or perhaps their only chance.
So when i see a.. 40yr old?.. 50yr old? that whines like he's 109 yrs old since he's been thirty do nothing other than attempt to go for more re-sales? Or for a scale-appropriate AAA policies emulation? Yeah, i fucking object..
Sure money is good. You tell me i have to do the work i do now for free or for half my income, i'll probably eat you. But i am a player. I am not here to make randoms financially sustainable period. I am here to make SOME of these randoms financially sustainable because or if they contribute. Contribute. How do Indies contribute? That's right, difference. Ideas.
A man with Vogel's mentality has ceased to contribute. He merely regurgitates. Exactly like a 109yr old does. And i'm sad to witness this. There.
You wanna talk graphics? You wanna talk getting easily offended? On the internet of all places? Be a retard and go nuts.
His last "new engine" moment led to the graphics getting worse (just look at Exile 3 tilesets compared to even his most recent output), not better. I wouldn't expect anything but a lot of wasted money out of this.
Geneforge is a must-play for story-fags - not in the sense of 'I want good writing and an adventure game', but rather 'I want an amazing setting, lots of options other than combat, tons of reactivity and subfactions within subfactions within factions'. G1 doesn't have a lot of that, but it's short and fun. G2 is really good, but still far more simple in reactivity and subfactions-within-subfactions stuff. G3 is the low-point. G4 and especially G5 are classics of the genre. .
Nice to see more optimistic approach. I've only played Avernum 4 ages ago but looking at Geneforge as my next game - fifth one because it supports widescreen.
Say what you want about Spiderweb, but the try to make original settings. The engine is shit, character progression is boring, the world is filled with boring items and useless crap, characters are mostly not memorable - but the sum of those parts is better than all of them, and apart from engine there's nothing *bad* in those games unlike many glorified RPGs (e.g. Witcher 3 combat being so bad it makes the rest of the game tainted by the combat experience).
By the way, that thing about difficulty: do I understand correctly his games are not tested on higher difficulties and hard mode is done in usual lazy manner, i.e. give everybody double HP? That's my pet peeve with RPG gameplay as I hope to get complex tactical battles a la Wizardry (or even, god forbid, Final Fantasy) and all I get is learning how to optimize your party once and never to bother again. Avernum 4 was a decent challenge on Normal so I'm wondering if I should try Geneforge 5/Avadon/AvernumRemakeRemake on higher difficulties.
Guess Vogel wants to see what he can do in this brave new world of Unity and Unity-a-be homebrewed engines, although I think his games graphical limitations endow them with a unique aesthetic and feeling that sets them apart from anything else that exists in the market. A new engine that is just like the rest risks making Vogel-ware into something faceless.
).
