Gabriel

Avadon 1 has an open movement system. It is basically a carry over from the Geneforge engine: you click somewhere, in any direction, and your character moves there in a straight line to the destination at any angle. I don't know, but perhaps the larger size helps the program deal with the problems of navigating an open movement system. The Geneforge system, Which is a zoom in on your character, allows for open locations that make areas more mysterious and memorable -- you never know what's around the next curve on your path a treasure, or an ambush, or a super monster. In Avadon each terrain tile is actually made from 2 map grid tiles -- you can see this in combat if you have the combat grid enabled in the settings. In the new Avernum Escape from the pit game, the maps are basically pulled from the old Avernum 1 game. It uses the square grid movement system, which also allows the instant movement jumps from one tile to the next, and each square of terrain is only 1 grid tile in size: 1-to-1. This gives you a better, farther out, overview of where you are and what is around you. The new graphics were shrunk down from the Avadon system to fit into the existing, smaller Avernum 1 maps.

This might be a case for adding multi-threading to the game, but I don't know how to recommend doing this in c++, as I'm a Java programmer. Actually I could be wrong, This game might actually use threads, I don't know if it does or not. In which case, these freezes would be an example of deadlock or resource starvation.

As a programmer myself, I assume that a freeze on every turn of combat would be the result of a long-running calculation in the same script, or on the same thread, that picks up user input and updates the GUI. Maybe the game is reading the creature script files and deciding what the AI will do for that turn for all of the creatures visible on the screen if not the whole map. The problem is how to avoid the inevitable end-of-turn calculation of a turn-based combat system? In order to do that the AI would need to think ahead and get started guessing its next moves before it knows where everything ended up. Programing AI isn't easy. In the worst case, creatures would be running to where you were during the last turn instead of where you are now, and also targeting already killed dead things or empty spaces.

Forget the end. Let's talk about the beginning. The opening scene is very long. Let's step back for a moment. Years ago, I told Bioware on their forums that the ME3 preview trailers looked too much like Halo. So, I feel personally responsible for the casual difficulty level. Of course I was going to start the game with this low difficulty level because of my involvement. So, I began to play my first game on casual but then I decided to turn on dialog captioning so as to play with sound at low volume levels. I button mashed hoping to get to the menu, but the cut scenes one after another continued to play on. Once I saw reapers attacking, I started to think that casual difficulty mode was really a 20 hours long cut scene with dialog options in between. I became suspicious that the "choose dialog options for me" setting was really there to activate the secret "free movie night" mode. It turns out that casual difficulty isn't one long cut scene. Too bad, it would have been the most awesome first ever done feature that I would never use. The opening cut-scene is very long.

Okay, I just found Levy and the dialog option that opens his shop. I also found out that he identifies items which is useful. Selling to Levy will be sufficient to remove my extra items and to pay for my team's training until I'm strong enough to head for the surface and find some specialty stores.

I just started out in Avernum 3 with a new party in Fort Emergence, and I can't find any shops nearby where to sell my old equipment. I have done some missions in the underworld and I have to leave stuff behind in caves and litter the floors of Fort Emergence because I can't carry it all. Where is the closest shop where I can sell my stuff?

I thought Halberds attacked twice because the item descriptions gave my warriors two rows of attack numbers instead of one unlike swords and spears which only gave my warriors one row of attack numbers in their descriptions.

I know is there anything more boring than watching people, er ponies, do everyday things? I thought the ponies did go on adventures sometimes though. But I mean waaay back in the eighties. Back to the original, I guess generation 1, ponies cartoon. My Little Pony (TV series) This was before they moved to the suburbs and became boring. It has been 2, almost 3, decades since I've seen it however so I don't remember how mature they were or how much attitude they had. There was also a movie "My Little Pony: The Movie" where their magical land was being destroyed by a sludge monster. I never finished watching the movie though so I don't know if the shmoze or whatever it was ate everyone or not. I assume not because it took place before and was an intro to the first cartoon series.

Yes I think Jeff reads the forums and the topics that come up affects his brain. I'm thinking of a certain other thread: "Who's your favorite pony?" created 04/08/12. --(Aka you'll be punished with a rainbow beam if you question the ponies). http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubb...pony#Post262947 P.S. all of these ponies and colors and rainbows are giving me 1980s nostalgia since these things were still on cartoons way back then. What's next? Care Bears make a come back?

I ran though most of the game with two wariors, in a party of 4, holding Bronze Halberds. They're awesome. I feel like Halberds are overpowered, when combined with haste and blessings, and that's why we didn't get legendary ones. I only upgraded to Steel halberds late in the game because I thought my warriors might be jealous about continued swinging of over-sized pennies while my mage and priest were flinging top-tier spells. I think I also found a fey or fen? spear somewhere. It was weak though. No match for a standard Halberd. P.S. (Don't tell Jeff halberds are overpowered he might take pole arms out of his games and replace them with pixy stix, um, walking sticks.)

Re: Lilith It's good to know that I didn't miss anything major that I would regret and possibly have to replay the game to uncover.

You can do that? I was afraid to do that. Partly because I like the idea of diplomatic immunity... Well seeing as how Avernum's mayors and officials, in this new version, have a secret alliance with the Empire I was afraid that Formello, at the least, would suddenly become hostile against me if I went back to the empire agent and made her unleash her golems on me. I think I'll just avoid bothering her. Although earlier in the game I was contemplating whether or not I should invade her bedroom as a shortcut to the quest to get an Empire seal. I decided against it and didn't actually try to go in, so for all I know she really does have an empire seal right there in her room out in the open not guarded by hoards of demons. In my earlier gaming days I would love to save the game, min-max, and try any stupid thing (even jumping down random holes in Avernum 1 and hope I wouldn't die) and hope for the best. Now I just try and avoid things that might end badly unless I have no where else to go because I don't want to waste time in a long save-reload cycle any more.

I have been playing into the late game of Avernum EftP and I think that I have finally realized that the new Avernum has some factions in it (I don't know if these were in the old Avernum or Exile games), though I realized this a bit too late to actually explore the different options during my run of the game, these are the three that I noticed: 1. Kingdom of Avernum. 2. The Empire. 3. Kyass of the Freehold. 1. Avernum This is the side that you'd expect to play. You get your introduction at the start of the game, and it isn't until like 3/4 of the way into the game that you can actually encounter other Humans, not of Avernum, who are not an enemy who'll attack you on sight (the abyss). There are actually quests to fetch papers and stuff given out from various wizards in towers and libraries throughout Avernum who hint that other people are looking for their quest items, but they don't actually tell you who the other people are who are also giving quests for the same stuff. 2. The Empire This is like, I think, a totally new angle to this version of Avernum, and the part that I didn't know about until much later in the game (I had already defeated the Demon lord and was finishing up with Erika's planned attack of the surface). I didn't poke around in the basements of Formello until way late in the game because when I passed through the first time there was a very strong Lizard guarding the place. I planned to come back when I was stronger but I never did. It's only now at the end of the game that I realize that all those times people asked me whether I wanted to get revenge on the Empire or not weren't just passing things where I would refuse to harm the empire, perhaps out of kindness or for not wanting to be bothered, only to end up crawling back to those same people later to get missions to advance the plot. 3. The Freehold I like these people in a somewhat twisted way. They remind me of early "manifest destiny" America, if it had a part-Hoover, part-Nixon president, maybe Lyndon Johnson, with some sprinkling of earlier US Presidents that no one has ever heard of --because of their hit-list quest, and before the days of civil rights and human rights -- thus the twisted part of my like for them. -- Or if they were present day Arizona (sorry people of Arizona if you're insulted but that torturer in Freehold, the one who loves his work too much, is just shades of Sheriff Joe Arpaio for me.) They are all endearing in their own way: caricatures of America past and present (and perhaps partly also a nod to the current freedom movements rising around the world at the moment). Also, expansionism is how I choose to play my games of Civilization so I approve of their strategy (Though they will probably end up having many unhappy, cramped neighbors if they keep up with their plans of expansion through the caves though... Possibly underdeveloped cities as well if they end up in a conflict with Avernum or the Empire (or whatever unknown dangers await them in the lower caves)). So, anyway, for most of the game I was helping Avernum only, except for the part where I met the Freehold so I helped them rather than Avernum for all their quests, except for the quests that I had already surrendered stuff to the wizards of Avernum, (I also didn't want to hear any part of the warnings from the general in Avernum's Castle) -- I think he wanted me to squash the Freehold. As far as the Empire goes I might have been nicer to the Empire if I hadn't missed them until I was about to leave for the surface for Erika's assassination quest. Though I probably couldn't have finished the game had I been Empire-friendly. I have no idea if the Empire path is actually workable if you want to finish the game or not. However, I'd not tell them about where to find their forgotten exit to the surface even if they asked (which they did and I don't think I'll go back there (under Formello at least in this game)). Has anyone else realized that there are other factions in the game sooner than I did? Perhaps uncovered the other factions story lines?

Also, you said that you downloaded the game twice, at least, you should check your download folder for extra copies of the first Avernum file that you downloaded to install the game.

Isn't there a type of malware that replicates itself and fills up all available disk space? You should check out malwarebytes or some other program that deals with such things.

1. Yes party order matters -- Unlike in other Spiderweb games where your Dexterity stat decides who moves first in combat. The first party member in your group moves first, and so on in order, no matter how fast or slow they are (maybe allowing enemies to get in extra attacks if a slow character of yours moves before a fast character, thus triggering a new round of combat? I don't actually know...), at least that is how the game plays by default. You can decide whether to use this new system or not in the game's Settings screen under "Gameplay Settings" using the option: "Party always acts in roster order." 2. I think you need a certain level of reputation to get past areas, like the toll-gate city, Almaria, leading into the great cave -- low reputation means you have to pay a toll (at least in the original Avernum game), and high reputation gets you into the city for free.

The other game, Avadon, uses thin metal trim around its GUI. Avernum uses rough stone. They're variations of the same basic layout -- as example, the main buttons on the bottom of the screen are the same distance apart in both games, but the overall size of Avernum's GUI is slightly wider to make the stone theme work. Avernum also added a text console area to the main GUI panel, so Avernum's GUI is taller than in the other game's (Avadon's) GUI -- (you can still make text appear in Avadon with the 't' key, if you really want it -- I don't usually use it).

1. 1920x1080 - game 2. No problems, I can more or less see everything that isn't obscured behind a wall/pillar/object. 3. 1920x1080 - native 4. Yes I'm running at native resolution, but no my monitor doesn't support half-resolution (960x540). 5. PC, and yes I can change the resolution.

I'm curious about some topics that have appeared recently regarding the difficulty of playing Avernum at high resolutions, so I thought I could ask those of you players on this forum some questions about your resolution settings while playing Avernum to make a general guess-estimate of what size starts causing visibility problems for players. Specifically: 1. What resolution do you play Avernum at? 2. Do you have visibility problems while playing Avernum? If so, what are they (Can you read text, see characters, are you color-blind, any color-blind contrast issues to report, ect...)? 3. What is your native screen resolution, if you know? 4. Do you play Avernum at your monitor's native screen resolution? If no, does your monitor support running at exactly half of your native screen size? 5. From the platform you are playing Avernum on: Mac, PC, iPad... Can you change the resolution on your platform or is the resolution hard-coded?

If the game is playing inside a small box surrounded by blackness at your native screen resolution, that usually means it's time for a trip to the game's settings screen. Try this: 1. Go into Avernum Settings from the Main Menu screen of the game. 2. Find the setting labeled: "Game Area Size," under the heading "Graphics and Game Window Size." 3. Cycle through the options until you reach the "Whole Window" option. This should allow Avernum to draw itself onto the maximum area of your screen. It's not set to "whole window" at first because it might cause performance issues on older hardware. In addition to the whole window and normal options, you can also try an even smaller drawing screen, "small," if the normal setting is too slow.

After further testing, I have narrowed down Windows 7 high dpi scaling to a single checkbox inside the Custom DPI settings window: "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling." This mode isn't triggered in the standard choices (100%, 125%) until you reach a high enough number which is 150%. When Windows XP style scaling is used (box is checked) then only text is enlarged. When Windows 7 style scaling mode is used (box is unchecked) everything is scaled up using Windows 7 high-dpi scaling feature.

When Jeff says that the text is redone perhaps he means that he looks through the text and pulls every line of the text out of hard-code and puts them into the text library files in the scripts folder of the game (wow, what a job, I'm impressed! This could lead to some non-english language translations of the game text, but at this moment the text is still limited to the ascii letters represented in the Font image G290). I'm in the early game. The text in this game seems okay so far. There was one dialog that seemed bland or perhaps there was a joke in the air when it was written and I missed it. I forgot what is was already. Mostly, the text so far has just been variations of the original text from the first Avernium game. Though, I liked the dialog going from the tutorial cave and up into Avernum: going from "claustrophobic" to "vertigo" really sets the mood, I think. I hope Jeff doesn't overkill on character development. I rather like leaving some stories up to the imagination. I'd like to think that it's still possible for a game to let's say have the character do through a large road-block (fights/traps?), thinking about the hoards of treasure the block must be guarding, only to discover that behind it all is just a little old woman and her cat. Why she was hiding like that and where she got the resources to put up such a facade isn't answered and left to the player's imagination. And, the player never finds out the whos, whats, and the life story of anyone involved. Okay that's a little extraordinary (And I suspect many players would just kill everyone (the lady and cat) in that case out of frustration). So, let's just say a random house you find in the wilderness has just a few words of dialog and the rest is a mystery. Sort of like what has appeared in other spiderweb games(old Avernum, Nethergate...) the obscure herb shack or witches hut.

When Jeff says that the text is redone perhaps he means that he looks through the text and pulls every line out of hard-code and puts them into the new text library files in the scripts folder of the game (wow, what a job, I'm impressed! This could lead to some non-English language translations of the game text, but at this moment the text is still limited to the ASCII letters represented in the Font image G290).

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so, I put some screenshots up on Flickr: Windows 7 High DPI scaling.

Ask yourself which mode of attack is your favorite and which takes you the least amount of time and effort to use -- your most natural form of attack. You'll have more fun that way. (I'd also note that, usually, the 4th type of character that appears in these games of fantasy is a rogue type character to handle locks.)