Jawaj

Well the biggest thing is just that creations don’t gain XP. Which was a cool idea on paper, but was fiddly and annoying in practice, like letting a creation die without reloading meant you’d lost a bunch of XP permanently. And more expendable creations fit better with the themes of the series than the Pokémon long-term style.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n3_4L4F4_Gs He’s a reviewer who specializes in CRPGs and Mutagen was his first Spidweb game. He really likes it and calls it one of his favorite stories in gaming.

Don't the Queen's Wish games have some soft level scaling, where the enemies will increase in level somewhat as you do but you'll still outpace them in growth?

How does melee's damage output compare to magic in the mod?

Sounds more like he means a free update to the reremakes haha.

Jeff has said he's remastering six games, which presumably includes A6. It's definitely the least dated of the original Avernums, but the engine and art and UI could still be updated to modern Spiderweb standards and various things polished and filled out. And after doing the rest of the second trilogy it makes financial sense if nothing else. More details on updating old games from the AMA, Avadon and Avernum 1-3 will likely get a final balance pass one day:

Some information from his latest blog post: https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/we-released-geneforge-2-infestation From the recent stream Queen's Wish 3 might not be happening due to finances, perhaps some short "DLC" story (but likely free) for QW2 to wrap things up instead. The part about "polish treatment (like art and rebalancing)" for some games is interesting.

It is quite an odd UI quirk, because in some other cases the spell lists (not even including skills) are split between different dialog options.

Try scrolling down on the spell list in your copy and see what you find.

I've actually just been playing through EFtP and Erika definitely has skills in her dialog tree. IIRC there is some precondition - it might have been joining the Scimitar. I just checked and I have v1.01. It's direct download instead of Steam, if that matters. I'll get a couple screencaps later. EDIT: ok I just looked in-game and the skills are listed in the same place as spells and you have to scroll down. This is probably the source of confusion. Couldn't get embedding to work but: https://i.imgur.com/b4nxH9R.png

It's an interesting idea, though for spells a more permanent or semi-permanent (provide a respec option for a cost or other limitations) upgrade system might work better than creation-style customiazation because you cast them so often.

And GF3 in particular needs story improvement much more than extra creations (Jeff does seem aware that the game needs work).

I don’t think a new creation class makes sense. You’d have to add a bunch of new ones or split the existing ones, unless you make the one-per-game new creatures a “special” school but that has its own problems (you don’t have access to them early game for one). Also the game already rewards specializing in one school. Only proper Shapers can really go multischool and it’s still arguably suboptimal. Giving access to a smaller percentage of the creations each play through doesn’t seem fun. Jeff is very unlikely to just add 4 or 5 more creations and double that for variants, so what would a new creation school add to the game?

It’s a good idea to get at least two characters (at the minimum) with the 6 in priest spells for Unshackle Mind. Also you can sometimes hide a priest behind a corner to unshackle safely. Unfortunately neither helps for a singleton. Priest shade summons are immune to mind effects for whatever that’s worth. Divine Host might help with tanking them a bit.

The Steam demo was part of nextfest, which are limited-time demos to promote upcoming games. There will be a demo on Spiderweb’s site after the game releases as always.

You can still buy a bundle of the original games (plus 4-6 and Blades) on GOG for cheap. It's on sale even, so right now it's super cheap. https://www.gog.com/en/game/avernum_the_complete_saga

I know this probably isn't going to happen, but if you ever did want to finish this I would be happy to help with testing.

Demos generally aren't as popular as they used to be in the age of Steam/GOG sales, convenient digital downloads even at full price, and an overload of games. I would also guess a good number of these are new customers or casual fans - sure some Spiderweb loyalists will play through the demo to get an initial taste, but a lot are already sold on buying the game anyway and will wait (I did download it myself but only to mess around for 45 minutes, barely did anything). Also this was released at the same time as hundreds of other demos for upcoming games. And if 2000 is high by small indie standards nowadays it probably translates to Steam's algorithm promoting the game more.

Jeff sounded in the stream like he was aware of A4 (and G3's) issues and seemed passionate about improving the games a lot. So I'm hopeful for them. As for the continuous world...taken on its own merits setting continuity aside I don't think it's necessarily a worse (or better) design just different. A certain measure of claustrophobia isn't unfitting for caves and it does allow for more detailed up-close overworld content that the zoomed-out outdoors can't really do. That said the aforementioned scale crunch with a pre-existing world is an issue. Hopefully that can be smoothed out and improved.

It also seemed on that stream unclear whether Qw3 or A4/G3 comes first. QW3 fits the general pattern of course, but I could also see Jeff wanting to save presumably his last all-new game for a little later.

"Don't drop hints or advance opinions, even positive ones, on the message boards" is pretty clear-cut.

I was also thinking that the concept sounds pretty similar to Avadon - important person in a morally questionable empire navigating ambiguous political complexities with various nations (though in this case you're nobility, not just a high-ranking official). But I'll give Jeff the benefit of the doubt that he's found a way to meaningfully differentiate it and avoid past mistakes.

Werewolves Vampires Ghosts Zombies Mummies Frankenstein (either his monster or the story in general - you choose) Your favorite muppet Geneforge series (collectively or your single fave - you choose) Super Mario (series, don't count spinoffs) Curling (sport) Gargoyles Choosing between lightbulb types at the store

I mean, it's not that hard... Avernum - First syllable could rhyme with either "have" or "love." Geneforge - Could be pronounced either as "jeanforge" or similar to "Genesis/genetics." Interestingly, both fit the series.

https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024944/Failing-to-Fail-The-Spiderweb