Howabout returning to the non-linearity of the original games?

[EvilEye]

My biggest gripe about avernum 4-6 is the overbearing linearity ( that and the level grinding )

 

This was not the case for exile 1-3 and avernum 1-3. You could go most places from the start. Especially exile 3 and avernum 3 ( which are my favorite ).

 

Rushing straight toward the high level areas for the goodies is my favorite part of RPG playing. Or do the quests way out of order.

 

 

My god, ever since avernum 4 it feels like I'm playing the game in a straight jacket. It doesn't let you go anywhere before you do this-or-that quest. This is no fun whatsoever. It also means you have to grind through the whole game until you get the high level spells and good stuff. What's the fun of that? Some twisted sense of balance? I don't give a damn about balance, I play to have fun. There is no replay value in a game that I can only play one way.

 

Please don't wall off the world with locked gates that require you to go beat the "slime king" or whatever first. Doing the game according to the official storyline should be optional.

[Jukai]

You really don't need to worry about this. The rewrite should hypothetically be an identical game with a changed battle/spell system, upgraded graphics, and a new town.

[Micawber]

I understand EvilEye's frustration, many of us feel the same way about A4-6. However Jeff is concerned that new/casual players of the games accidentally wander into areas too difficult for them, die, and dislike doing that.

 

It would be really cool if the 'linearity barriers' were switched off at higher difficulty levels.

[Lilith]

Jeff is basically driven by two things: what requires the least effort, and what gets him the least hate mail. (Oh yes, he gets hate mail.)

 

In this case, given that he's remaking a series of pre-existing games, it's probable that least-effort will win out and there won't be very much change to the basic structure of the game. Unfortunately for you, linear games win out when it comes to the hate-mail stakes; a lot of players can't deal with running into an area that's too difficult for them, to the point of swearing up and down never to buy another game from him again.

[Jukai]

What's kind of comical is that it was the non-linear world that got Jeff the small following from the beginning, and he's built up that following by starting to make non-linear games because he knows his original fans wont leave him.

 

And don't get me wrong, I loved Avadon's straight-forward, plot driven, open ended story telling. It was fantastic. But linear should stay in Avadon, and Avernum should always be an open world.

[*i]

Quote:

What's kind of comical is that it was the non-linear world that got Jeff the small following from the beginning, and he's built up that following by starting to make non-linear games because he knows his original fans wont leave him.

Comical, not in the least. The gaming community has changed quite a bit since 1994. Arguably, not for the better, but the basic law applies: you adapt or go out of business.

That said, the remakes will likely be the same open-ended types that we saw in the previous renditions.

[Jukai]

True enough, but Jeff's games have always been niche based. They weren't exactly following what the gaming community was doing in 1994, but he built up a small market of people who did like what he was doing. So the idea is, he has that crowd, now he can keep that crowd and expand on it by conforming with the gaming industry.

[Necris Omega]

Who knows? Maybe if the response to the "new" Avernum's are as positive as we all hope, it'll convince him to go back to the better non-linear model for future games.

[Callie]

As far as X3 goes, Valorim is far to expansive to block off effectively, so making the game linear would require too many changes.

[mauvebutterfly]

The first time I played through Avernum 3, I defeated the fifth monster plague before the fourth. I didn't even realize I was doing them out of order until something weird in the dialogue at the end of the fifth plague got triggered.

 

Although wandering into areas that are too difficult can appeal to some players, an issue for me is the convenience of going elsewhere once I've realized my mistake. It isn't much fun to run half-way across the world because you got as far as you could in one direction. The new teleporting systems of the new Avernum games are a good way to deal with this. The zones of Geneforge were also great this way. In fact, this is probably why Geneforge is my favourite Spiderweb series. If an area was too strong, it was so easy to leave the zone and explore elsewhere.

 

Removing linearity barriers on higher difficulties is an interesting idea too. I think that I'd find that frustrating though. If I'm not wanting to spend time carefully buffing and saving before battles, but still want to have the freedom to explore, I'd probably resent the restrictions being present on an easier difficulty. Perhaps a better solution would be to have a checkbox in the options menu, with the default set to active barriers?

[Ceiling Durkheim]

For my money, my favorite system is the semi-linear model from the later Geneforge games. G3-5 each had 4 or 5 major areas, which proceeded linearly, but the player could generally go where they wished within each area, including zones that were too high level, sometimes dramatically so (e.g. Okavano, Helft, and Lerman's Pass in G5, the west side of Sandros Mine in G4). This assured that the player didn't just wander into the final boss without interacting with the story, and allowed Jeff to balance encounters against at least an approximate player level. On the other hand, it also allowed for a lot of exploration at any given time (well, after the first 5-10% of the game), and felt less on rails than in A4 and 6, or even more so A5 and Avadon.

 

Also, it's interesting to note that E2/A2, while part of the (generally less linear) first trilogy, is actually one of Spiderweb's most linear games through the first third or so. One can explore a bit in chapters 1 and 3, but these are pretty small areas, and chapter 2 is almost entirely linear. It's not until the final chapter (which is, granted, longer than the other three combined) that one really gets to roam around.

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Micawber

I understand EvilEye's frustration, many of us feel the same way about A4-6. However Jeff is concerned that new/casual players of the games accidentally wander into areas too difficult for them, die, and dislike doing that.
It would be really cool if the 'linearity barriers' were switched off at higher difficulty levels.

I did that. Once. I learned, restored and played around it until it became time to go there. Lo simple.

[goblindolf]

Quote:

However Jeff is concerned that new/casual players of the games accidentally wander into areas too difficult for them

Even WoW allows players to run into high level areas and get killed by a level ?? monster in 2 hits, and more than half of the players in that game are the epitome of new/casual. After doing such a thing what do they do? Go somewhere else.

It is certainly not some huge problem that requires Jeff to gut the world or go out of business.

There are many non linear games that are very popular, from morrowind series, to wow, and it is sad to see that an incorrect belief has affected the design of some of his games, as if he thinks that anyone who is not a hardcore gamer will punch the wall, ragequit and sue jeff for his medical bills if they are not forced into a linear world. The "need" for linear gameplay has no basis in reality, and in fact that he makes design decisions around this belief detracts from his games.

[Necris Omega]

I don't know. I think recently Jeff's enjoyed a large amount of success, and I think he may be mistakenly attributing too much of that to putting his games on rails.

 

Like I said before, I hope this new take on Avernum does downright phenomenally well, and convinces Mr. Vogel that the future isn't in games with a one dimensional progression path, but in the open, free roaming style of the game that first gave rise to this little indie company.

[Death Knight]

Im not worrying about jeff doing anything too out of the ordinary for the remakes. Avadon is avadon and A4-A6 and there is nothing that you can change about that. Its more linear and you either like it or you dont.

 

But besides that, like many others have said in the above posts, jeff will probably get quite a bit of recognition when this remake is made. A lot of people didnt like the original avernum's because of the graphics. I found the graphics to be cool as the retroness was unique. Aside from that, while i like the geneforge series the most, the original avernums 1-3 are probably my 2nd favorite series of party based games(with baldurs gate 1 and 2 as 1st).

 

I think that with the new skills, the graphics, the battle disciplines and this interesting new perks system, jeff is going to gain much more of a following than he already has.

[devilkingx]

sooooo.... like geneforge? because in geneforge as long as you were strong enough you could go anywhere anytime(even in g3 except you were limited to your current island until you completed some quests, and in g5 even if you didnt complete the quests in the mera-tev as long as you could kill the lermans pass gazer there wasnt anything stopping you from going to the storm plains)

 

i hated the linearity of avadon and hope it wont be in this game, you should be able to go anywhere(your purpose and ability to go there should be limited by power and quests and stats though... you should be able to go anywhere as long as you can handle the monsters and the traps)

[Slawbug]

Geneforge 3 and 4 were both relatively linear. Yes, you'd gain access to a handful of areas at a time and could explore those in the order you chose, but there were numerous choke points you had to go through in order.

[Morgan M.]

In response to Jukai," You really don't need to worry about this. The rewrite should hypothetically be an identical game with a changed battle/spell system, upgraded graphics, and a new town."

 

 

Does this not bug anyone else? I have loved playing these games since 1997 (5th grade!). I enjoy each game but am disappointed that the story line hasn't changed since 5th grade. At least it's a great story.

[Actaeon]

The first two Geneforges seemed just about perfect to me. I, too, found A4-6 a bit constrictive, and was consequently pleasantly surprised by the change. Although I actually liked the sheer size of A4. It made the Honeycomb ridiculous.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Morgan M.

Does this not bug anyone else? I have loved playing these games since 1997 (5th grade!). I enjoy each game but am disappointed that the story line hasn't changed since 5th grade. At least it's a great story.

There is some new story line with the new town and how it marginally affects Avernum. It may return in later games.

There are hints about Lagran if you didn't kill him and talk to the right people.

[Alorael at Large]

This isn't supposed to be a new game. It's not supposed to have a new storyline. Doing so could be interesting, but it wouldn't be what Jeff wanted and it would mess up his intentions of making the same story playable with new mechanics and on new hardware.

 

—Alorael, who would be disappointed if Spiderweb had no new stories. Fortunately, that has never been the case. Every period of remakes has also had a new series to go with it, and that's still true now.