devilkingx

Originally Posted By: Babster30 No good guys? The Shapers keep their secrets to themselves because if the secrets leaked there would utter chaos. The rebels fight for good too just with a somewhat corrupted way. I meant in the sense that, the shapers were bad guys any way you put it, but the rebels were terrorists, they loosed their weapons of war on innocent people to win it, like several IRL terrorist organizations, and the shapers are so authoritarian and selfish with their power that they remind me of several IRL dictatorships as well as the movie 1984

it's the difference between, an epic poem(like beowulf) or an epic novel(a song of ice and fire, conan the barbarian, the da vinci code, the lord of the rings trilogy, etc.) and a book that a 4th grader would do a book report on i guess... but some of the things that don't change with difficulty show my point games should require you to think and punish you for not, it's just like in oblivion when they complained about level-scaling, if you're too stupid to realise that ignoring combat in a combat focused game that cannot be beaten without it is a bad idea, then it isn't the game developer's fault you need to restart I agree that a game needs good documentation, it sucks to have to resort to forums and wiki's because half the info you'll need to play the game isn't there(*looks at mount and blade but moslty minecraft*) you should only be forced to start over, if you make an obvious mistake(like having a full party of mages or picking a class/character build that clashes with your playstyle(which could be picking the archer class in avernum when you hate archery or picking a shaper in geneforge when you want to focus on melee or an agent when you want to summon lots of creations)) if you don't make an obvious mistake then you shouldn't have to(nothing like, a dialog choice you made 10 hours ago that seems unimportant screws you over, that'd be unfair) I'd love to add that I love this game(hate the new stat system though) and think it is a great improvement over the awesomeness of A6(although i think A1 is better than A6, but I can't play it because I can't tolerate the horrible graphics, since this is basically a graphic update for a1 with some added avadon poison I love this too.)

Originally Posted By: BMA Still, I'd always have played as an agent if only there was an option to choose a male graphic. I just find it hard to associate myself with a female character. I felt the same way until I discovered the wonderful world of geneforge script editing, it's as simple as changing a number in the right file and you can play as anything you want(that exists in the game), although it doesn't really work with things that aren't meant to hold weapons(in my G4/G5 experiences)soo your sprite will change when you equip a weapon(gazer -> golem, drakon -> gazer in G5, i dont know about the rest )

isn't it possible that the original versions of certain creations were stronger, but for various reasons they toned down the power of the creation, for whatever reason(maybe so they'd be less dangerous as rogues, maybe to make them easier to control or a trade-off of some kind like decreasing raw power to increase their magical abilities or their defense or intelligence) and when you make the ur- version you're making the more powerful original, but since you'll likely be stronger when you can make an ur-glaahk than when you can make a regular glaahk, it can be presumed that you're making the ur- version because at the time you acquire the ability you are strong/wise/powerful/skilled enough to handle it, or it could be a "desperate times calls for desperate messures" scenario and you're using it despite the risks because you have to. maybe ur- represents the wild undomesticated version of the creature and the regular is easier to control and docile(for example, it's safer and more reliable to have a dog, but if you raise it from birth and know what you're doing you could have a pet wolf) and when you create ur- it's the equivalent of an exotic pet, and you have to hope it won't decide to tear your face off or something, a worry that wouldn't be present with regular glaahks or drakons

Introduction: Chances are, none of you remember when I posted my avadon review on this very forum(in retrospect I should have posted it on gamefaqs too, oh! and maybe this one too!) like a year ago, well I’m doing another review but this time it’s for geneforge 3(Only while typing this did I realize the futility of a review of a several year old game, but I’m already too committed to stop), in case you’re wondering, I might post more reviews but don’t count on it(I may review avernum 6 and A:EFTP),the only way to guarantee a review would be if I didn’t like the game in question , positive reviews always seemed a little pointless to me, mostly because finding out the bad parts of the game is why you read reviews(because that’s the only way you’ll actually find them, the creators\site won’t mention them(because it’s like business 101 to not show the flaws of your product and the gameplay vids and demos won’t show you enough for you to see them so reviews are all you got). Pros: as with the last review, I’m going to start with the pros, of the game New Engine – let’s start with the biggest one, G3 had a brand new engine with much better graphics and spires and brand new possibilities, and that in most other games would single handedly make this better than the previous entries, the new and much better graphics, plus several additions to gameplay (the ability to have a trapdoor or something lead to a mini level instead of a whole new area, for example) make this one worth playing. Lack of Aimlessness\Sense of Urgency – In the first two geneforges a lot of the game felt like aimless wandering, less so in the second game, for me the story felt slow because of the distance between the developments which made so much if it seem like you were just wandering around until you stumble onto a clue, in G1 after you reach pentil, every other development takes FOREVER it takes like a dozen maps to get to kaz then a dozen more to get to trajkov, and when you want to reach goettsch? A dozen map trek into the desert. In the second one, after the awakened city it takes forever to reach either the taker or the barzite cities, however, one of the strong points of G3 is that there are no massive gaps in the story, for the most part the story was more concise with less gaps and such. Crafting – technically it was there a little bit in G2 but its nice and fleshed out in this game, there are items to collect and artifacts to craft a huge improvement over collecting items for a ring in the 2nd or nothing in the first. Unlimited Gold Merchants – it’s nice that traders have unlimited money this time around, this made selling the useless crap you collect while you’re out hunting much easier, although I guess it made sense in the first two(because they were remote areas) it still sucked. Creation\Companion stealing – I guess technically this is probably a glitch but it was still pretty cool that the items that were put in towns and such weren’t just to taunt you anymore (I always wondered what the point of the completely unstealable yet awesome loot in every town was.) Companions themselves – It was a nice addition to have some permanent companions to help you out in the game, even if they weren’t really necessary nor needed, they added interesting alternate opinions and such to every conversation, kind of like the angel and devil on your shoulder thing in cartoons and movies. Cons: Now it’s time for the dreaded cons list, where I’ll list the many huge flaws of this game. Linearity – this complaint is pretty minor, but it did kind of such that you could only explore the island you were on without finishing the story for that island, but I guess that is pretty normal for games, but not for a geneforge game. No good guys – the rebels were terrorists, the shapers were fascists, it was be like choosing between al-Qaida and the Nazi’s, except it was a video game, I really hated being unable to feel like a good guy in the game (the shapers were and always were bad guys, but the rebels basically sent hordes of monsters to slaughter and pillage innocent civilians. Although if you are ok with being the bad guy (I’m not), then this complaint doesn’t really apply to you) Only two factions – another uncharacteristic trait of the series, gone is the open-ness of the first two games, having many factions which lead you down many roads to the end of the game, now you have to pick, do you want to be a despicable terrorist or a fascist? Fence sitting isn’t an option this time, because you’re forced to pick a faction. Forced to pick a faction – this part really sucks, it would’ve worked in 1, 2,4 and 5 but it doesn’t work in this one unless you’re ok with playing the bad guy, (if you are then more power to you.) but if you’re not then you’re stuck between a rock and a terrorist place. Lack of new creations – creations are so important to the series, I can’t believe they made a game where they didn’t add new ones (although G5 didn’t add new ones, G5 was great so we can give it a pass.) Verdict: 7\10 you may be wondering why I scored it so high if I didn’t like it, this is a general score(as in compared to all games) but the comments were based on the spiderweb software standard, G3 is a failure as a spiderweb software game but a success as a general game, another factor that raised the score was the fact that I always imagined this game being so bad, and yet now that I list out the flaws it doesn’t seem so bad as a game, just as a spiderweb software gam. TL;DR: Pros: better engine, innovation and useful albeit miniscule additions Cons: lack of choices and freedom in general Verdict: 7\10 a decent game but a bad spiderweb software game.

Personally I think that it's bad to remove "wrong" or "bad" options from the game, I've always thought the difference between casual and hardcore games was the chance of failure, casual games are like the NYC public school system, you need to put effort into failing to have even the smallest chance at failing and hardcore games would be like the original avernums, where you could actually mess up and have to start over, hopefully learning from your mistakes by removing bad choices, the game inches toward the casual end of the scale

Originally Posted By: Bushwhacker2k Originally Posted By: devilkingx why is it that all the hands but you are either dead or twiddling their thumbs until your beckoned call for a mission? why cant your 4 allies take you out on missions? why do you always have to go? why is it that convieniantly all other hands are either busy, dead or incompetent? You might have missed out in your rage against Avadon (not judging, just saying) but it's actually explained later on that Click to reveal.. Miranda only paired you up with the rebellious hands and didn't let them actually command anything because she was trying to turn you against Avadon (or at least Redbeard) in a convoluted plot, i.e. she's a traitor!! > true... but it would atleast make more sense if occassionally you had optional missions to go on.... or the ability to say no screw you to a mission Originally Posted By: devilkingx whats with that leader guy of khemeria? why is he not the least bit concerned that his most trusted wizzard was really an evil psycho mastermind that almost got him and the rest of khemeria screwed by avadon? I guess you missed this too, but Click to reveal.. The king was in on the whole thing, it was really his fault hmmmm i probably should take that part out since i knew that now.... Originally Posted By: devilkingx if ima have to go risk my ass because nathalie is retarded and wants to get herself killed by a big scary dragon then i should atleast be able to bang romance her >glad to see, that we agree Originally Posted By: devilkingx SKILLS, every last one of them sucks, the CD's are a million and 1 turns long without that cheat code I kind of agree, some skills were more useful than others but I think they didn't want to risk making anything too powerful and the focus was more on teamwork anyway. Not excusing meh skills, just explaining why I figure it happened. the explanation i heard for the skills is that the damage was arbitrarily based on a stat that they didnt tell you(so the reason some did crap damage is because you were pumping the wrong stat for that skill particularly and they didnt tell you that) Originally Posted By: devilkingx SCARABS I also feel like Scarabs were kinda like tiny bonuses, I liked the teleport one (though I never ended up using it) and I was kinda interested in the earthquake and summon ones from Redbeard but I never ended up using those either... (meaning I tried them but they weren't that necessary). On the other hand, the scarab that lets me self-heal for free once every 4 turns was GREAT, in addition to simply giving an additional free heal it lets me heal Nathalie when she is in danger because she lacks a normal self-heal. those sound awesome.... why did i never see them Originally Posted By: devilkingx LINEARITY I felt like it was pretty good about it overall but it certainly doesn't even hold a flame to Geneforge's exploration possibilities. exactly my point, minus the "pretty good about it overall" part, because the whole game was like playing a rail shooter, you couldnt go anywhere until someone or something gave you the greenlight... while in geneforge you could go anywhere just be prepared to be owned hard if you go too far Originally Posted By: devilkingx you cant go anywhere unless someone explicitly tells you somewhere, because your character apparantly isnt intelligent enough to explore places and go somewhere himself, it really killed exploration for me, because i didnt feel like going back(TEDIOUSLY! as mentioned above) Well you can't travel to new lands without permission from your boss(es) and you couldn't really wander aimlessly in said lands because there is a lot of implied empty space. (I believe so, anyway) but still you'd think you'd be allowed to travel and see cities and landscapes and kill monsters and loot caves or something Originally Posted By: devilkingx you've gotta clear out the woods with 4 soldiers and the kings right hand dude, they bicker like 5 year olds Lol, I agree, I wanted to kill them all right there... every land is so self-absorbed they practically need the Tawon Empire to come in and kill them all just so people will stop pointlessly feuding. reminds me of dragon age... ferelden is so self absorbed in their stupid problems they'd let their whole country burn before they just let it go(except for the arl, and the elves they have good excuses) and redcliffe itself really Originally Posted By: devilkingx whats with the lack of living tools lockpicks Lockpicks were actually VERY limited, I think I ended up not unlocking some places because I didn't want to take the time to visit every merchant in the game and pick up the picks they have. I assume this was actually done so you have to give what you unlock some thought, but on the other hand you wouldn't really know what's behind/in something until after you open it so I dunno... exactly my point whats the point of locked stuff if you'll never get to open it? --- Okay, I agree with some of what you say and understand some other stuff but I probably wouldn't call Avadon crap. It's the first Spiderweb game I really played (I think I played like 5 minutes of Avernum demo like 7 years ago) and overall I thought it was pretty good. Do I have complaints? Yes, but I still think it was done well overall. play G1-5 to understand my problems with avadon... once you've played those for a while you'll understand I do think the perspective of someone with a lot of experience with Spiderware's (semi)older games explaining why he thinks Avadon was poorly done in comparison is something worth reading and I haven't read any posts past this (so far) but I hope we're all taking what is said into account without just getting offended. i thank you for taking my criticism into account instead of complaining about me posting it here, or making a one sentence "your entire criticism is false" or outright trolling(the first guy)

Originally Posted By: Rentar vs. Redbeard Some of these are just baffling. There are a lot of very powerful scarabs, and there are enough skills that you can use them almost every turn if you want to burn through vitality. —Alorael, who still finds this painful to read. Tip: you get a better audience if your writing involves capitalization and punctuation. like?...... for example?...... Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S Why are you surprised that an Avadon forum is populated mostly by people who like Avadon? People who don't like Avadon are not likely to hang around here. now that you point it out... i feel stupid, very very stupid... but i mean these are the same guys that made GENEFORGE you would thing SOMEONE else would notice the changes and wonder how they could go from G5 to..... THIS(well technically its from A6 to this, but ive never played a6 so....) Anyway, people took you seriously the first time and had quite a lively discussion incorporating your ideas. You're not going to get a new audience by posting it a second time. I'm locking this thread; add something new to the old thread if you have more to say about Avadon, but I was going to lock this thread, until I noticed that the old one was locked. Say something NEW here if you have something new to say, please; copy and paste is a waste of everyone's time. new new new..... this may take some thought

i live in one of the biggest cities in the world(NYC) and i love it

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S I'm confused. Why are you reposting this review? Did you add something to it? well it is SLIGHTLY different but no, im reposting it because i wanted more people to see it, because it seems im the only person who actually dislikes avadon, so i want to try and get some of the horrid changes fixed for avadon 2

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)

this game needs random events.... of various kinds it'd be a innovative way to add fun and variety EX: your sword breaks so you need to go to a blacksmith and do a mini quest to have it repaired and end up making it better in the process or, your wandering in some caves and you come upon a nest of monsters full of loot and have to kill the babies and steal the loot before the mama and papa come back to destroy you or you cast a teleport spell, and it doesnt work like you want it to so it either teleports you to a random place or teleports a random party member somewhere else so you need to find them or, you use a fireball spell but unbeknownst to you the cave your in is full of gases, so it causes a huge explosion dealing lots of damage to you and your enemies or while running or chasing you or a monster trips and falls allowing you to get away or be eaten, or allowing them to get away or be killed etc. it'd make every playthrough and every use of every item and every party more unique

before anyone wonders this is a repost of a long dead and locked thread i made a long long time ago in this very forum, after playing avadon still havent finished it though... although soon i'll give it another chance and hope it doesnt suck this time around, so without further adue my review (WARNING: gratuitous amounts of funny below, you have been warned) TL;DR at the bottom folks! this game in a way is much worse than jeffs other games in this completely objective review i shall compare avadon to geneforge because ive played that extensively but i never could get into avernum because of mechanics i didnt like things i liked(so that people dont think that i 100% hate the game, its only 99.98%) - improved graphics geneforge 5/avernum 6 quality or maybe even above i like them - graphics that represent the game, when they said that red dragon wasnt that big they meant that he wasnt that big unlike how in geneforge 1 they say that one drayk you meet was like 20 feet long yet the sprite was barely bigger than the PC this goes for later ones too - SKILL TREES! because it makes no sense to cast spell of ultimate doom III without learning spell of regular doom I first - actual story progression, in every geneforge game except 3(which sucked in most other regards but not this one) there was little story progression the game played more like a sandbox with stats(which was still awesomesauce extraordinaire) enter G3 ruining almost everything great about the series but ateast it actually bothered to imply you were doing something other than exploring until you stumble upon something you care about - demons, they're awesome but they werent in any geneforge but G2 and then they were mysteriously removed, probably to quell the "magic and demons in video games is the equivalent of devil worshiping and satanism in real life" crowd but whatever the reason its nice to see them back in the series, they are mythology staples - different cultures and customs and such, it made no sense in geneforge how all of terrestria was basically the same i mean i know the shapers conquered the place, but most COUNTRIES are all ruled by their government but kansas looks different from florida which is a start contrast to chicago which pails in comparison to new york etc. its nice to see that the many lands of avadon atleast acted different - leveling chekhov's gunman(if you dont know, things that are useless upon acquiring but become useful later are refered to by TV tropes as chekov's for some reason EX: chekhov's skill, chekhov's gun, etc.) avadon avoids the final fantasy style "this character is useless as hell now but when you inevitably leave them low level and weak because of not using them you'll be screwed when we force you later" problem by leveling those you do not use for you - decent leveling scaling, leveling in geneforge becomes near impossible because at some point not even the strongest of the strong monsters can give you enough EXP to level reliably unless you run around "dbugkill"ing entire areas for EXP grinding purposes, i remember getting 40 EXP for killing an unbound in G5, one of the hardest beasts of teh game and it cant even give decent EXP like 400 or something? but in this game leveling is actually possible without heavy grinding or gaining a free level 2 secs from the end of the game because of what you do with the geneforge - junk bag, the junk bag alone has to be the single greatest thing in this game, FIANLLY! no more clogging all my glorious inventory space with useless crap i'll never bother to use and now for the incredibly large amount of bad - SKILL TREEES!!!, I HATE THE SKILL TREES OF THIS GAME SOOOO MUCH!!! every damn skill worked like this, to get skill C you need to raise A and B BUT YOU CAN ONLY RAISE C TO THE LEVEL OF A OR B(whichever is lowest), its like saying you need to know how to grill sasuges and fry burgers to brew beer or that you need to master shotokan karate and aikido to learn boxing - geneforge 3's avadon's tedious boat system teleporters, why do i need to run back to goldcrag then touch the pylon then run across avadon then touch another pylon to go to khemeria? thats so tedious, in G4-5 you just go to a map and run across it then you can fast travel the rest of your journey as long as you've been there before. but i guess it isnt nearly as bad as - characters and plot, why is it that all the hands but you are either dead or twiddling their thumbs until your beckoned call for a mission? why cant your 4 allies take you out on missions? why do you always have to go? why is it that convieniantly all other hands are either busy, dead or incompetent? the only one that makes sense is the dragon one because he asks for you by name because of your competence, and whats with that leader guy of khemeria? why is he not the least bit concerned that his most trusted wizzard was really an evil psycho mastermind that almost got him and the rest of khemeria screwed by avadon? and whats with the personal quests? what is this dragon age? if ima have to go risk my ass because nathalie is retarded and wants to get herself killed by a big scary dragon then i should atleast be able to bang romance her - SKILLS, every last one of them sucks, the CD's are a million and 1 turns long without that cheat code, and all of the skills for the blademaster are "hit really hard and have a status effect" or the other type of skill he shares with everybody else "hit real soft but be of actual use" beserker leap and that thing the ninja guy has that attacks everything around him in a circle would be useful if not for the crappy damage - SCARABS the only useful one i found in my travels was the one that allowed for teleporting, too bad that this isnt X-men legends 2 where when you get a skill you can actually use it to its logic limits(there are places you can only go by teleporting, and some places that require either teleporting or flying) teleporting was almost useless because you could only go places you could walk(making it useless outside of battle) and it was useless in battle unless you had more than 7/8 AP's worth of walking space directly in front of you and then it gets stricken with a like 15 turn cooldown - the big kahuna LINEARITY the game was so linear its not even funny, you cant go anywhere unless someone explicitly tells you somewhere, because your character apparantly isnt intelligent enough to explore places and go somewhere himself, it really killed exploration for me, because i didnt feel like going back(TEDIOUSLY! as mentioned above) - yet somehow i still didnt know what to do, i remember that mission where you need to make the 2 kingdoms get along and clear out the contested woods, holkanda and that other place nathalie is from i think, anyway you've gotta clear out the woods with 4 soldiers and the kings right hand dude, they bicker like 5 year olds(reminded me of me when i was younger, and evidently reminded me of me now) you go down and the soldiers get themselves owned by the the huge ass dragon, when you kill them all you'd expect something to happen right? something saying "quest completed" or some kind of story progression or something right? wrong, the only way you know that your done is you eventually thinking that you should leave and go talk to that other guy, who ran off(the coward) then you must take it upon yourself to check with that king if your done, AND THEN YOUR DONE you think they could've had a character go "we're done here lets go back?" or maybe i dont know put "quest complete" in the quest log, OR SOMETHING!?!? - whats with the lack of living tools lockpicks, in geneforge 1 there were WAAAAAY too many living tools there were just so damn many that i had to frequently sell some by the end of the game to keep from being encumbered constantly, i had to sell over 60 living tools in that game, but maybe thats because i screwed up and my guardian had like 15 or 17 mechanics and 15 or 17 leadership, BUT I RATHER THAT THAN NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND ANY!!! what the hell? why were there so little lockpicks or maybe they were just ultra hard to find, regardless you'd need a wizard(nathalie) and a ninja(that awesome guy who's clan got decimated) in your party to maximize your efficiency, even with the guide i had a whole lot of trouble finding any lockpicks in this game, probably because they look like a generic useless item like a paperclip rather than the quite unique purple hands that i found in living tools - why wasnt the chat log on by default? seriously, i turned it on by accident, it should've been on, the only downside is the chatlog spam if you do something wrong repeatedly but even that is worth dealing with for the benefits in the end avadon is a terrible game with good/decent trends/concepts mixed in with crappy tinkering of great mechanics, i know that this isnt geneforge and so he had to change things, mechanics, names, concepts, etc. but why was/were most if not all changes for the worse? 3/10 5 or 6/10 its possibly the worst spidereweb game(making it worse than G3, making it a acheivement, no a bad achievement, like a downcheivement) that ive played(which means excluding all of them except the geneforge series, because i didnt even get past the tutorial in avernum because the graphics of the first 3, and UI turned me off and then the movement graphics of all 7 of them) TL;DR avadon is a terrible game with some good stuff, but in 99% of ways a step down from geneforge and presumably a step down from avernum 3/10 5 or 6/10

Originally Posted By: Micawber What kind of guardian is going to have 31 intelligence? In any case the numbers in the first post don't take account (because it wasn't known then) of the extra resistances enjoyed by the shaper, guardian and agent, so all the analysis is somewhat misleading. i would.... dex is useless because quick action does the same thing but also allows double attack... so there is no point in ever raising it unless you use ranged(i dont) and shapers have OP base resistances.... its SO rediculous