Backwards impaired.

Quote: Originally written by Thuryl: Please explain to me how spending half an hour walking from town to town or bashing your head into every available wall is "challenging". By not walking, you miss alot of other things besides random monsters. Many people just skim through the easiest route to get to places in new areas and miss out on interesting events that they may otherwise not see unless they pass over the area a few times. It is more challenging and rewarding because it takes time. Not for everyone, evidently not for you, but i'm just stating a personal opinion here. Finding secret passages is challenging because you don't know where they are. The means of finding them is unfortunate, but finding them is enjoyable and it adds a sense of mystery as to where they will lead or what you will find in them. Quote: Save your game. Try the unidentified item on. If it's cursed, reload your saved game. If it's not cursed, wear it. Again, I don't see how this is exciting or challenging, and it's only "mysterious" for the few minutes before you take it back to town or cast a spell to get it identified. And I don't see how finding a rare and valuable item is any less special just because you know what it is as soon as you find it. It builds suspense. If you can't identify it on your own instantly you have to take it somewhere, and those few minutes are exciting. Sometimes you have no way of reaching a town and you have to make a choice to use an unidentified item or not and just see what happens. This makes items in my opinion more interesting and more challenging (when you have to take them to be identified.) Quote: See, my definition of "dull" includes having to fight endless random monster encounters, whereas yours apparently includes not having to fight endless random monster encounters. I'm not sure what's so fun about horses either. It seems we are at an impasse here. If you really don't like the portals, you don't have to use them. Sounds pretty reasonable to me, i won't. But it seems to me in this game you need all the experience you can get from battles to improve your party. The portals do have their advantages though once you've passed places a billion times. Quote: I'm not at all sure that things to which the solution is almost invariably "reload your saved game" significantly add to the game in any way. (Mind you, I usually tend to reload if a character dies even in A4. It's just no longer completely unreasonable to choose not to in some cases.) It often forces you to try a different option or take a smarter tactic. Part of the challenge i beleive is in trial and error. Besides, what importance is placed on death if they never die? Frustration of one of them dying is great. If they just go unconcious, it's like 'sure, who cares.' Quote: So you end up bashing your head against every single wall in every single room by force of habit. Again, I do not see how this is fun. But hey, maybe I'm just jaded after headbanging my way through literally hundreds of BoE scenarios full of secret doors for the sake of having secret doors. Maybe after a while it becomes dull, but i'm sure i'm not the only one who found them at least a little interesting once upon a time. It's just a part of discovering a new place. Quote: The combat is of a much, much higher quality than in previous Avernum games. TM will probably gut me for making this comparison, but let's put it this way. Do you play BoE or BoA? If you liked TM's BoE/BoA scenarios, you'll probably like A4. If you didn't, well, you might not. The combat is probably better, but at what expense? According to people's responses in this thread it seems it has replaced all else. Couldn't the extra challenge in battle have been placed in with difficulty settings instead? Unfortunately i haven't played TM's scenarios so i can't really judge it by that. I'm not stubburn enough not to try A4, it could have much more going for it as far as i know, but it's taken out some of the elements that i personally loved such as identification, puzzles and secret doors and just repaced it with more combat. It's all about progress, moving onwards, but never stopping to smell the roses.

Quote: Originally written by Kelandon: Quote: Originally written by Jeff in "About Avernum 4": I have ruthlessly pared away all of the stuff that caused busywork and confusion without adding fun. Needing cash to train and only being able to train in a few places. Gone. Identifying items. Gone. Expensive, difficult resurrection. Gone. First Aid and Alchemy skills that were perpetually worthless. Redesigned to actually work. And there are portals to travel instantly from town to town, though it takes a little time to find them. No money needed for training, no identification, no puzzles, portals instead of walking, no secret doors? It seems Jeff has dumbed down this game to its maximum. The whole reason for these things i thought was to bring in a bit of mysetry and provide a challenge. 1. It was great to charge for training because not only was it more realistic, but it gave you more of a reason to take rewards and jobs. 2. Identification of items gave you an extra choice. Something that is unidentified is a mystery, and whorth the excitement of finding out what it actually is. Without it how are you ever going to acidentally curse yourself, or be surprised to find you have a rare item? It's a part of the unexpected that comes out to surprise and interest you. 3. If you can just transport yourself everywhere by portals, you don't get half the fun of encounters, horses and battles etc. It's just too damn easy, and dull. They better be expensive to use once you find them. 4. Ressurection is something that should stay difficult. Sure it was annoying when someone in your party dies, but once again it provides a challenge. It makes you re-load or move on, but it brings variety into your game or alows you to do something in a smarter or better way. 5. Secret doors, i love them. They surprise you when you find them, sometimes they're obvious, but most people always go back to find them. How often have you gone back to a dungeon to find all the secret doors? Granted, i haven't yet played the game. However the impression that i'm getting doesn't sound very good. It's as though Jeff's dumbed this one down and removed part of the mystery, and if all this game is just hacking down monster after monster, i'm probably better off chopping up some carrots for dinner instead.

At first i wasn't really sure, i just figured i'd find out in due time. But when i kept finding suspicious little vahnatai items everywhere i eventually put two and two together. I guess those guys just don't know how to clear up evidence properly.

1. The answer is 'fangs' although it's kind of funny when you type teeth in. 2. I don't know about that one yet, i'm getting the rest of the game in a week! (happy dance)

I remember i used to have a wizard, vampire and ur-basilisk, i think. Didn't use it much but that just makes it more exciting when you do use it.