mauvebutterfly

Minor unexpected result in Mekhlan Quarry:

 

Telling the owen on the surface level that you're going to kill them turns them hostile, as expected. However, it also turns the mascha troops on the surface level hostile, which it shouldn't. It turns the owen in their building hostile as expected, while not turning the mascha inside their building hostile, so it's still possible to side with the mascha and complete this quest. It's just weird that you have to kill a few friendly guards to complete it.

Thanks for the responses.

 

If planning and routing ends up being the main issues with high difficulty I think I'll do fine. That appeals to my puzzle-gaming skills.

 

Going to have to brush off Avadon 1 again some time too. From what I remember from browsing the forums, part of my issue there was with playing as a Shaman, although I'd imagine that it's still possible on Torment with any class.

Hi. Long time Spiderweb fan who doesn't post here much, but I always loved reading your resources on the other games and enjoyed the theory crafting and philosophical discussions.

 

I've recently started Queen's Wish and was wondering how other Spiderweb veterans would rate the difficulty compared to other Spiderweb games. I played most of the previous ones on torment and found Geneforge to be the easiest and Avadon the hardest, with Avernum somewhere in the middle. Does this match up with other people's experiences? How difficult is Queen's Wish on torment in comparison?

I also find the 2D graphics to genereally age better than their 3D counterparts. WarCraft 2 is still a beautiful game, for example, while WarCraft 3 only looked good right after release. Now that 3D graphics have greatly improved, WarCraft 3 doesn't hold up as well. Same issue with Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (2D) and Heroes 4 (3D).

 

I've never understood the obsession with 3D graphics to be honest. I find that 2D graphics not only look better most of the time, but that they also provide the same information in a much clearer and cleaner way. Also, game designers have a tendency to think that they're being clever by hiding things behind walls in a 3D environment, which can get annoying.

 

If anyone here has played Eador: Genesis and seen the 3D remake Eador: Masters of the Broken World, you'll see how they've taken these beautiful handdrawn sprites, and swapped them out for models that have a more generic feel to them. They've then put everything into a 3D space that can make it difficult to see important details on the battlefield (such as corpses being difficult to see in tall grass) while concerns over aesthetics can make it difficult to see where one terrain type ends and another begins.

 

Spiderweb's gradual evolution over the years has been interesting to see. As much as I love the old Exile graphics, I must admit that my initial reservations regarding the transition to Avernum ended up being unfounded. I also couldn't really imagine playing Geneforge in a 2D space, although a part of that might be that the real-time aspects of it would feel somewhat out of place in a 2D presentation. Then again, I don't think I'd want a 2D Nethergate either. One thing that Spiderweb has done very well is avoiding the trap of making things pretty at the expense of clarity. There are very few instances that I can think of where the graphics of a Spiderweb game actively interfere with my gameplay, and the few issues I have had are easily dealt with with experience (e.g. knowing what you can pick up in Avadon and what is random trash or dungeon dressing.)

Not to confuse the issue further, but wasn't it the case in some Avernum games that some of the basic mage spells (like bolt of fire and light) could be cast even when wearing encumbring armor, and that it didn't become an issue until somewhere around the slow and haste spells?

There really is a difference between the two types of gamers. I should know, because I tend to go back and forth between the two.

 

When I was beta-testing this game, I played through with a sub-optimal party on normal difficulty for the most part. This party was sub-optimal because I didn't know or plan out any builds for my characters. Basically, I was just playing the game and assigning points to whatever looked interesting at the time. This is haphazard character creation and progression.

 

This is generally how I've played through most of the Avernum games. To be clear, I make poor choices because I don't spend the time or effort to learn how to build the characters optimally. I do not feel insulted because some people play the game 'better' than I do.

 

Geneforge and Nethergate, for some reason, I play through on torment and optimize a lot harder. I don't know why this is, but I guess I'm more interested in challenging myself with those games. Does this make me an elitist player of those games? I'd say not. I could definitely tell you that your builds for those games are sub-optimal, but I'd only do so if you were asking for help or advice. I'd also accept that you might play these games the way I play the Avernums, in which case I'd probably give you the annoying advice of "play on a lower difficulty if you're having problems, or use the character editor to 'fix' your characters." I'd do this because, as a torment player on those games, I recognize that I can't take my Avernum approach and avoid frustration on the harder difficulties. Planning characters can seem like work to some people, so I understand why not everybody does it.

 

In short: players don't always plan their builds in advance or think about their progression. This doesn't mean that they are stupid. It just means that they aren't interested in playing the game in that way.

It's funny. I play the game using the old movement style, so I didn't even notice this.

 

So… maybe having everything teleport between grid locations would make this less jarring for you

 

I'm honestly surprised to hear this though. Since the character walking animations were done, having a ship slide (possibly without even using animated graphics) seems pretty easy to do. It was probably just an oversight.

Maybe chitrachs will finally be good for something…

Not necessarily. Humans have been worse than Nephils and Sliths for quite a while now. There isn't necessarily any need to change that, and I doubt that Jeff will spend a bunch of time trying to "fix" this.

I'm pretty sure Avadon did this. It's one of the few reasons I played it on the hardest difficulty the first time through.

Wait, we can say that? Several of my friends have asked me what I thought of the game, and I told them that I really enjoyed the old Avernum and that Spiderweb has been slowly improving many aspects of their game engines over time ><

I remember using a crossbow in BoA as well. Possibly not the best weapon for a solo slith to specialize in, but I had some fun with it.

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?

I would prefer ambient noise to music, and think that Spiderweb usually does a pretty good job of this. I never found the towns in Geneforge to be annoying, actually. I liked the contrast from the wilderness zones.

It's been a while since I've played Avernum I, but I seem to recall finding some razordisks lying around somewhere while playing through it. At the time I thought is was weird because the Vahnatai hadn't been introduced yet, but eventually assumed it was a kind of foreshadowing.

 

That was quite a while ago though, so I have no idea where it was, unfortunately.

There is an unlimited amount of food in this game. If you want more, just tell the steward who works outside your bedchamber that you are hungry, and he'll give you bread. You can get unlimited candles and some useless objects as well.

I might just be blind, but I had no idea that there were arrow buttons that allowed switching between characters.

I've always used the numbers 1, 2, 3 to switch between inventories or skill trees.

Yes, but the default is command-click on mac I believe. It's very useful though. I remember in Avernum I would always set a rule for myself. Usually, if it was worth less than 20 coins I didn't bother picking it up. Now if it's worth anything I throw it into the junk bag and never have to think about it again ^^

The first Spiderweb game I played was Exile 2, and Avernum 2 is probably my second favourite Spiderweb title. I know that there are several diehard Exile fans here, but I personally preferred Avernum more overall (though I do miss some things unique to Exile).

The only game that was able to surpass X2 for me was Nethergate. I still haven't played through Nethergate: Resurrection (although I did buy it) since I really liked the level-less system of the original. My love of Nethergate is likely influenced by my interest in ancient cultures/mythology. I believe Jeff once stated that the perceived "educational" value of Nethergate is why failed to be successful, but that was a definite plus for me.

The way dialogue works in Avadon is almost reminiscent of the way the two stories interacted in Nethergate, although Avadon is a much more complicated system overall since player choice influences the dialogue much more in Avadon.


My advice to anyone having issues with the interface of Avernum or Nethergate (or any of the Exiles) is to get in the habit of using the journal any time someone gives you something resembling a quest. Really, the lack of a quest log is the biggest issue for me, since I'll sometimes take breaks from a game for months at a time. The other irritations I can live with.

If an enemy has a ? over them, it means that they suspect you are around. They become more alert over time, and eventually they will attack. This mechanic allows you to sometimes sneak past enemies you don't want to fight.

 

It sounds like they were getting suspicious in your game and then you saved right before they were going to switch from passive-mode to attack-mode. Unless I'm misunderstanding, I doubt this was a bug. You just saved at an unfortunate moment. Good thing you had a backup!

Funny, but I have the opposite problem. I'll occasionally change my blademaster to his bow, or my shadowwalker to his razordisks, and then forget to go back to the melee weapon later. Several times I've tried to get my blademaster in the way of some enemies, only to shoot an arrow at them.

 

In my experience, I've never had the game default on me to one weapon over the other. Every time I've made a mistake, it was because I forgot to switch the weapon a second time.

I've noticed that each time a character levels, they gain two points to divide among strength, dexterity, intelligence, and endurance. The first point is added automatically, and you then get to choose where the second point goes.

 

Is there any logic behind how the automatic point gets assigned? I noticed my blademaster get intelligence one level, while my sorceress got strength. I suspect that the system simply rotates through the stats for each character, but I haven't played enough to confirm if this is the pattern. It could very well be entirely random as well, but that doesn't seem to fit with Jeff's typical game design.

 

Can anyone confirm that the stats are levelled sequentially, or tell me what (if any) pattern governs how these stats increase?

I guess checking the scripts would have been a more definitive way of determining this.

 

I was confused by your reference to the Quiet Marshes, but I'd forgotten that there was a canister encounter there. I guess Jeff had the idea about canisters right off the bat, but didn't start implementing it consistently until G2.

 

I guess my memory regarding Learned Pinner was faulty. I was sure that I hadn't used canisters, but the scripts suggest that the dialogue requires canister use. Again, it's SDF (100,0) and 5 seems to be the threshold.

 

 

 

 

 

If someone would kindly tell me how to put spoiler tags on that to tidy up my post, I would greatly appreciate it.

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I noticed it when I returned to Vakkiri from The Tombs, but the dialogue may have been triggered from the Quiet Marshes or any intervening local.

I highly doubt this game keeps track of canister consumption. I tried doing a no-canister play-through and was still able to trigger canister-related dialogue options. The learned servile (Learned Pinner?) in Vakkiri for example eventually tells you that you have noticeably changed since your first arrival in Vakkiri. I suspect that once you've travelled to a certain area within the game, it simply sets a flag somewhere while making the assumption that you've used every canister along the way.

 

As mentioned earlier, using the geneforge itself will change the game. Canister usage probably won't affect anything, since the game assumes that you'd just use them all anyway.