Spidweb

Press the disk button just to the left of the Start/End combat button. - Jeff Vogel

If you are having weird problems with Avadon (unable to talk to characters, script errors, unable to leave zones, general bad behavior), your copy of the software might have become corrupted. It is rare, but it does happen. Reinstalling the game can fix these problems. To do to, follow these steps. 1. If you want, back up your saved games. To learn how to do this, read the section on transferring saved games. Bear in mind that software corruptions can also damage the saved games. If, after reinstalling, problems continue, try starting a new game. 2. Power up your iPad and find the Avadon HD app icon. Rest your finger on it until it starts to vibrate and an 'X appears. Push the 'X' and choose to delete the application. 3. Run iTunes on your computer. Find Avadon HD and delete it. Make sure to choose to move it to the trash. 4. Download a fresh copy of Avadon HD from iTunes. If this does not fix your problems, contact us by e-mail. - Jeff Vogel

@Eddiemon: That is odd. An iPad 2 should have way more than enough memory to run Avadon with no trouble. And, of course, the app should launch. I would recommend deleting Avadon from the device and iTunes, syncing, and then, when you are sure Avadon is done, download a fresh copy. First, I suggest using iPhone Explorer to back up your saved games. @PhysWiz: A first gen iPad should have few problems when no other apps are running. The Wretch Warrens problem might be due to npc pathing eating up a lot of processor power. Try killing the wretch patrols that head east from the keep and see if that helps. If you keep having problems in other zones, consult the reinstallation advice above. - Jeff Vogel

I really, honestly made an effort with the iPad port. The problem is that I'm still new to the platform, and my inexperience shows. To do a lot of these interface improvements will require a bit of engine retooling. This WILL get done. The question is whether it will happen for Avadon or for our future iPad titles. If/when we patch Avadon, though, some of these things will be addressed. I'm looking at you, all tooltips that appear under the user's finger. - Jeff Vogel

Our current plan is to port all future games to iPad. The next game to get this treatment for sure is Avernum: Escape From the Pit, which should be out for the iPad in, say, April or so. Adapting Avernum 6 to Cocoa was something of a hassle. But, considering how Avadon HD is selling, porting Avernum 6 to the iPad did cross my mind. Probably not, though. - Jeff Vogel

That copy of the game may well be corrupted. Uninstall it, download a fresh copy, and reinstall. This won't affect your registration. Then go back to a saved game from before the Junk Bag was full of bad data. - Jeff Vogel

I would delete the entire thing from your iPad and computer and then download a fresh copy. When you delete it from iTunes, be sure the app is moved to the trash. Then, in the iPad, hold your finger on the app icon until the 'X' button appears, delete the app entirely. Then download an entirely fresh copy from iTunes. Also, have you done a hard reboot on your iPad? (Hold down the power and home buttons together until the iPad turns off.) If one of the processes running in the device is having a problem, this should fix it. - Jeff Vogel

First save the game in a slot besides the last two. Then try going into Documents/Spiderweb Software/Avadon Saved Games and deleting folders Save18 and Save19. Then try quicksaving. - Jeff Vogel

The iPad version is cheaper for a number of reasons. 1. It has fewer features, due to the limitations of the device. Most notably, it is stuck at a low (1024x768) resolution and there are no keyboard shortcuts. 2. Since it is being sold by Apple, it is subject to the rules of their system. Most notably, there is DRM, and we can't give refunds through iTunes. 3. There is no ability to modify the game. 4. There is no demo. 5. The iPad version will always come out several months after the Mac/PC version. Ever with the lower price, it is still one of the most expensive games for the iPad by a fair margin. We are charging pretty much the highest price for the game we reasonably can, in part to keep from annoying other users. We're sorry if anyone is angering by this. If you think about it, I think you'll see that the pricing is fair considering all the factors and that, more importantly, there really isn't much we can do about it and function as a business. Finally, I think that asking for a refund for a game that you purchased, played, and enjoyed and obtained at a fair price (and yes, $25 is a fair price for PC/Mac Avadon) is, well, it's pretty shady at best. We will honor the commitments we made, but I like to think that our fans, annoyed or not, would not take advantage of a small indie developer in such a way. - Jeff Vogel

Thanks for letting me know. When people with 64 bit Win 7 have problems, new drivers solves them 9 out of 10 times. - Jeff Vogel

EDIT: This problem seems to be solved. A new version of the beta is available above. I was going to release the update for real today, but I got a last minute bug report. Someone found that his party's single-target attack spells weren't having an effect. This continued until he restarted. A beta tester had a similar problem, where, very rarely, his party stopped being able to do any damage at all until restarting the game. These can just be weird file/memory corruptions, but they are similar enough to make me nervous. Has anyone else who tried the public beta had a similar problem? - Jeff Vogel

For some reason, the versions of Avadon being sold on some 3rd party sites for Windows seem to have a failure rate higher that for the version sold on our web site. Since the code for these two versions is essentially the same, we suspect that something is wrong with the software they have wrapped around our game. Should you purchase the game from a different site and find that it does not work correctly, take the following steps. 1. Download the demo from our site and run it. If it works, skip to step 3. 2. Download the Direct version of the game here: ftp://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/win/AvadonDX.zip Move it into Program Files/Spiderweb Software/Avadon and run it. If it works, go to step 3. If not, contact the company where you bought the game and ask for a refund. 3. Should our version of the game function, write us at support@spiderwebsoftware.com requesting an key. Give us the name and address you used to purchase the game from the other company. We will get you up and running. Finally, if possible, please answer these questions to help me troubleshoot the problem. 1. What version of Windows are you using? Vista? XP? 2. How are you trying to run the game? The icon on the desktop? Running it from the Start menu? Also, one thing to try, that might be very helpful. Try running the game by double-clicking on the icon on the desktop. If it doesn't work, right-click it and select properties. See what is entered in the Start In: field and let me know. That entry should _not_ be blank.

I just purchased the game on GamersGate and it works fine, so it's not a universal problem. I'm about to buy it on Direct2Drive, but I expect the same. If you have had this problem, please answer these questions to help me troubleshoot it. 1. What version of Windows are you using? Vista? XP? 2. How are you trying to run the game? The icon on the desktop? Running it from the Start menu? Also, one thing to try, that might be very helpful. Try running the game by double-clicking on the icon on the desktop. If it doesn't work, right-click it and select properties. See what is entered in the Start In: field and let me know. That entry should _not_ be blank. - Jeff Vogel

For the slow game problem, go to http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/avadon/techsupp.html and read the entry on what to do if your game is running slowly. As for the installer refusing to run, if you did indeed try redownloading with a different browser and it still doesn't work, the part of your OS dedicated to unpacking and installing msi files (Microsoft installer files) may be damaged. You need to have Windows Installer 5.0 properly installed on your machine. Running Windows Update might be a good start. - Jeff Vogel

Go to this page ... http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/avadon/techsupp.html and read the entry on what to do if the game is running slowly. - Jeff Vogel

We are about to put the following entry in Avadon support ... GamersGate Version of Avadon Not Working! For some reason, the version of Avadon being sold on GamersGate for Windows seems to have a failure rate higher that for the version sold on our web site. Since the code for these two versions is essentially the same, we suspect that something is wrong with the software they have wrapped around our game. Should you purchase the game from GamersGate and find that it does not work correctly, take the following steps. 1. Download the demo from our site and run it. If it works, skip to step 3. 2. Download the Direct version of the game here: ftp://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/win/AvadonDX.zip Move it into Program Files/Spiderweb Software/Avadon and run it. If it works, go to step 3. If not, contact GamersGate and ask for a refund. 3. Should our version of the game function, write us at support@spiderwebsoftware.com requesting an Avadon key. Give us the registration key GamersGate provided to you. We will get you up and running. We apologize for the difficulty and inconvenience, and we are going to contact GamersGate and see if we can get more information from them.

My games are, at the core, works of fiction. There are lots of sorts of fiction. The Avernum rewrites will be Avernum, with all of the good guys, bad guys, lack of moral ambiguity, and pure heroism. They are that kind of fiction. The Avadon games are dark fantasy, with muddy morality, ambiguity, good people who get punished, and bad people who prosper. They are that kind of fiction. No one person likes all sorts of fiction. If someone doesn't like Avadon and loves Avernum (or vise versa), that is entirely reasonable. I've been reading The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss to get myself in a light fantasy sort of mood before doing too much with Avernum. - Jeff Vogel

Hard is hard and casual is casual. If someone gets to this fight playing on Hard and finds it tough, I'm totally cool with that. (Also, people have been criticizing me for not making fights that require tactics or different approaches. And yet, when I put in such a fight, other people complain. Making an RPG means trying to balance between the needs of many factions.) Anyway. I intended for there to be several approaches to doing this fight. Remember, the game explicitly tells you there's a group of enemies ahead. You can haste, rush them, and hit them with all you got before they have time to buff and shield. Or you can split your group up before you attack them. They will, in turn, split up to rush you, and you can pick off the stray foes. Or you can use knockback abilities to knock foes away from the clump, lock them down by putting one of your party members or a pet by them, and burn them down then. I feel very comfortable with this fight as written. If nobody ever had trouble with it, it wouldn't be of an appropriate difficulty for this point in the game. (It is, I believe, the last rough fight that can't be avoided somehow.) - Jeff Vogel

"Fortunately, Jeff apparently screwed up (to hear him tell it, anyway) and characters ended up with way more Vitality than he intended, which is almost as good as regen. Now, we just need to convince him that this is a feature, not a bug." Actually, it's very close to what I wanted. What I wanted was a system that created the impression of fatigue and being worn down without ever forcing you to trot back to town. I foresee few changes in this system in Avadon 2. - Jeff Vogel

"Okay, bottom line: I liked it. I liked it a lot, enough to want to play it again immediately, which I haven't felt about a Spidweb game in a long time." Thank you. I truly appreciate it. - Jeff Vogel

For the first time, Avadon saved games are compatible between Mac, Windows, AND iPad. - Jeff Vogel

Doesn't look like it's going to happen. Steam only accepts a tiny fraction of the games submitted to it. - Jeff Vogel

Haven't heard any reports of this behavior yet. A good guess is a corrupted game file. Uninstall the game, download a fresh copy from our web site, and reinstall. - Jeff Vogel

It's your default attack. Simply click on a foe to use it. - Jeff Vogel

After you uninstalled, did you download a fresh copy before you reinstalled? Also, be sure to reinstall the newest versions of your video card drivers. Write us at support@spiderwebsoftware.com if these steps don't help. - Jeff Vogel