Game News Nethergate Resurrection is announced

[GhanBuriGhan]

I do believe it's been mentioned before that he's already working on Avernum 5. It's not like he's putting a lot of time and effort into this, it would seem - he's remaking Nethergate on the side while focusing on A5. Possibly because he just likes money (although that begs the question: why the fuck is he an indy developer?), or possibly because he liked the game and wants to give it a second chance.

Probably because of the money, though.

Well what a moron. How dare he want to live of the games he makes. What a sellout.

 

[Fez]

Vogel does very well with game sales, I believe. He's a far cry from the kiddie coder living in mom's basement.

 

[aboyd]

Vogel does very well with game sales, I believe. He's a far cry from the kiddie coder living in mom's basement.

Huh. Odd. I had read the opposite. I had read that he does OK year-to-year, but if he were to have even a single bad year, he'd be in serious trouble financially. In other words, he can keep going, so long as he keeps going. One stumble and the whole party ends. I always thought this explained why he has some kind of release every year or more often, and why he cannot take a year+ to build up a new engine or learn a new system. He's got to build & deploy exactly as he is in order to keep income coming in as needed.

I almost want to wish that one of his lame rehashes (such as the one we're discussing) would take off and sell a massive amount, so that he had the financial luxury to stop recycling and start over from scratch with a better foundation.

Of course, maybe I misread whatever it was that I saw a while ago. Perhaps he's really doing quite well, and I got him confused with another indie developer. I don't think I did, but it's possible.

 

[Elwro]

He wrote once that Avernum 4 was "the game that saved the company".

 

[Lurkar]

It doesn't help that every time he makes a game, it takes all of two weeks for cracks to appear all over the damn place.

 

[Fez]

I thought he was selling well considering it was mostly a one man effort? I'd have thought he doesn't need huge sales to have a decent profit from it.

 

[almondblight]

I thought he was selling well considering it was mostly a one man effort? I'd have thought he doesn't need huge sales to have a decent profit from it.

Yeah, but he has to support him, his wife, and his child on the sales (also I think there's one person hired to help). Imagine trying to build a college fund by making shareware.

 

[Roqua]

Except the game its based upon. Oh the humor!

Yeah, but how many people have actually played it? I think it's amusing people bitch about the lack of quality RPGs but a good chunk of them couldn't even be bothered checking out Spiderweb's demos (Oh help me Codex! Is Geneforge 4 any good? I need someone else's opinion to validate me while I bitch about no RPGs to play) and then just whine about the graphics, anyway.

thats a great post and point. I noticed the hive mind mentality also. I really don't see how if someone played rpgs in the 80's, graphics can bother them now. Playing old games, what really gets me is the UI. I want to get through Buck rogers again so bad, but equiping my party makes me want to play minesweeper, practice twirling, or start a garden.

What is great about spiderweb is they are quick and a sure thing. They release the games they anounce in a timely manner. I like, but am not wowed by, the character creation and building, but the overabundance of combat is what gets to me. But that is what people like and I have the same complaint with just about every game.

I would be happy if spiderweb took this advice: keep the crap graphics, improve the UI over time (as they have been), but add more and more options to combat (as they have been), but focus more on tactical, strategic battles, instead of mindless hack n' slash. Also for the party games, I would like to see more of a trade off in party creation, and maybe a couple recruitable npcs you can bank on ala EoB or ToEE. With 4 people I have every base covered, with his last game I had to restart after i found out about the open lock spell and skill working together, but besides that there isn't very much of a pro con of missing that skill to get this skill.

I don't know if I'm explaining this right, but take for instance EoB or ToEE, not having this class that can do this, or having this class that can do that is a big deal and is a big part of character creation. In his 4-person games I have it all, besides of course the starting choices of like sickly, etc. People complained about this in DL. I would just like to be missing some sort of utility function that I just didn't have room for.

I wouldn't mind his games being shorter, I can only hack n' slash for so long.

And for the people that complain about the same old engine and game type: thats a plus. Am I the only one that would've loved to see Troika follow this model with the ToEE series? And Arcanum? How many goldbox games where there that were all the same game basially? What is the big hooplah about fallout 3? After most of you traitors now lament the fact that the fake fo3 ip was making wasn't made. ANy game that isn't 100% TB will never be a real FO. Or any game that makes your character ungimpable, or not as easily gimpable.

If you don't like the graphics or the engine, play a nwn module or Gothic, visit your gay porn sites, and renew your membership with NAMBLA you pussies. Just stick to your own kind and leave the normal folks alone. I'll never be the biggest spiderweb fan, but at least I get horny when looking at naked women.