Vicheron

Originally Posted By: *i Agreed. This argument has gone on long enough. One final point to tie up a loose end... Quote: It'll just be a trade off between developing a story that we sort of already know is going on vs. creating a new story branch or something to add to the atmosphere of the game. I think we're in a agreement here, at least somewhat. I don't need additional side quests, I would just like to see a little more involvement in the parts we already have. For instance, make it feel like the characters really care when Grah-Hoth gets released by having them be active in this part. I do think this would add a lot to the dimension of the characters in an already rich world and be an improvement on a good game. All right; I'm done here. Jeff definitely didn't have the time for that in Exile/Avernum 1 and 2. However, in Exile/Avernum 3, the cities get worn down by the plagues as time passes.

We know that the mages are doing stuff behind the scenes. It would certainly be nice to get some quests related to it but it'll just come at the expense of other quests. For example, there could have been a scripted event in Solberg's tower where we see Solberg blow up a couple of demons that breached his defenses followed by a few fetch quests where he asks you to get him some supplies to repair and reinforce his magical wards. However, that's just going to end up forcing Jeff to take another quest out of the game. It'll just be a trade off between developing a story that we sort of already know is going on vs. creating a new story branch or something to add to the atmosphere of the game.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl Originally Posted By: Vicheron I don't lack imagination at all. I simply recognize the limitations of an indie game developer that doesn't have the resources to do all the things I would want in a game. In the end, there is going to have to be a trade off between gameplay and story simply because Jeff can't put everything we want into the games and still release them at the current rate. Heck, even big budget games suffer from these problems. Just look at games like Mass Effect and Batman: Arkham Asylum, the developers clearly spent more time on the story, art, atmosphere, and characters than the gameplay. It's not up to me to choose how to spend those limited resources, though. I just throw out ideas on how the games could be improved given infinite time and money and leave it to Jeff to decide which ideas are practical. Unlike you, I trust Jeff to decide for himself which suggestions are worth implementing rather than censor myself so that he doesn't waste resources. Is that what you were doing? I thought you were complaining about old games since the majority of this topic has been about the lack of exposition and story elements in Avernum/Exile 1 - 3, games that have already been published by an indie developer that lack the resources to put many of the things you want in.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl Originally Posted By: Vicheron There's already hints of that. Solberg has a scrying pool in his little tower. X has his anvil spell research. Erika's tower is full of experiments and weird stuff. Not to mention the fact that we know the Five created the cave trees and mushrooms they need to live in Avernum and they're constantly working on things to improve things. Yes! These are all good things, and they already exist in the game. So why can't there be more of them? Is there some kind of limitation in the laws of physics where having 99 bits of atmospheric detail in a game is possible but having 100 would cause the universe to collapse into a black hole? Originally Posted By: Vicheron What you want is more than hints. What you want is beyond the scope of these kinds of games. You want a Magic the Gathering type game where you get to play as wizards summoning and binding spirits to do battle with other wizards. You want a Civilization type game where you play as a mayor of a major town, building up his city. You want a Command and Conquer type game where you're a general commanding an army to fight the Empire invasion. oh okay sure just tell me exactly what i want because obviously i don't know If what you want isn't beyond the scope of these games, you must be lacking in imagination. If everyone were like you, gaming wouldn't have progressed beyond the Atari 2600. Someone has to be pushing to expand the scope of games. Besides, there are RPGs already out there that model active characters and a living, atmospheric world better than SW's games do. It's not as if I'm asking Jeff to part the Red Sea here. I don't lack imagination at all. I simply recognize the limitations of an indie game developer that doesn't have the resources to do all the things I would want in a game. In the end, there is going to have to be a trade off between gameplay and story simply because Jeff can't put everything we want into the games and still release them at the current rate. Heck, even big budget games suffer from these problems. Just look at games like Mass Effect and Batman: Arkham Asylum, the developers clearly spent more time on the story, art, atmosphere, and characters than the gameplay.

There's already hints of that. Solberg has a scrying pool in his little tower. X has his anvil spell research. Erika's tower is full of experiments and weird stuff. Not to mention the fact that we know the Five created the cave trees and mushrooms they need to live in Avernum and they're constantly working on things to improve things. What you want is more than hints. What you want is beyond the scope of these kinds of games. You want a Magic the Gathering type game where you get to play as wizards summoning and binding spirits to do battle with other wizards. You want a Civilization type game where you play as a mayor of a major town, building up his city. You want a Command and Conquer type game where you're a general commanding an army to fight the Empire invasion.

Originally Posted By: jlsgaladriel Quote: The simple fact is that this is a hack n' slash game series where combat is the core of the gameplay. If you want to see what the major powers are doing, then you should play a different kind of game. As folks have pointed out, though, this is a standard feature of most rpg campaigns, both tabletop and computer-mediated. At the end of one of the very early sets of D&D campaigns, after fighting increasingly more powerful giants and drow, one kills the avatar of a Goddess. What the heck is left to do, if one is as strong as the gods? Unless you're playing a power gaming campaign, it takes at least a year for you to go from fighting goblins and orcs to fighting gods. By the time you get to the power of gods, there isn't anything left to do. That's the whole point. That's when you retire your characters and start new ones. The mechanics of a game may allow it to continue indefinitely but there's no story reason to do so.

We don't see much of what goes behind the scenes because it's not fun. The simple fact is that this is a hack n' slash game series where combat is the core of the gameplay. If you want to see what the major powers are doing, then you should play a different kind of game. The big players acquire their power through things other than fighting. Mages like Erika and Garzahd spend their time researching spells, binding spirits, creating artifacts, and studying monsters. Powerful non-magic wielding beings like Dukes and Generals spend their time training armies, creating new strategies, managing their economy, and recruiting workers. Do you really care about some esoteric spell that Erika cast to send her mind into other dimensions to glean cryptic information from spirits? Do you really care about how Dorikas had to launder his money through various sources to fund his secret operations and hire skilled architects to build his forts?

Originally Posted By: Thuryl Originally Posted By: Vicheron You have to remember that these games are all pretty much based on Dungeons and Dragons. In D&D, already established gods and godlike beings are always working behind the scenes. They aren't doing nothing, they're too busy try to scry their rivals to look for signs of weakness and plotting ways to destroy them while at the same time protecting themselves from their enemies, who are pretty much doing the same thing. Those powerful beings are always in some kind of stalemate where they can never really get a permanent advantage over the other. The players are new powers there to tip the balance. Maybe if you're talking about Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. There are other settings, like Eberron, where it's quite possible for the PCs to actually be among the biggest badasses in the world by the time they achieve a reasonably high experience level. Which is as it should be: most people have already had their fill of working for someone bigger and more important than themselves in real life. Plus, Jeff wasn't trying to recreate D&D: far from it. If you read the release notes for Exile 1, they include his design philosophy, which starts out with "Rule 1: NO ELVES." That doesn't change the fact that Exile, Avernum, and even Geneforge took a lot from D&D. Originally Posted By: *i There are two separate points here. Quote: These major powers are working behind the scenes...You have to remember that these games are all pretty much based on Dungeons and Dragons... That's all well and good when your party is asked to do minor deeds. I fully understand why Erika is not off cleaning out Chitrach infestations. I also am willing to accept such gambits as doing a stealthy mission to kill some high-up general in the Empire army. There should be an answer to the question as to why your party is important even though they do not have the raw power of the superiors who hire them. Further, you need to give a rational why the higher power does not simply do the task him or herself. You provide the stock issue reason, which is good enough for most cases so long as it is not used all the time. Where it stretches credibility is where the act you are being asked to perform is so important and decisive that it defies logic that your high powered employer would just sit back. If the person is willing to go all-in by sending you on a high-risk mission, that person should behave accordingly. Using the stock reason for non-involvement is a dodge to get around telling a coherent story. Which leads into the second point... If you are going to have all powerful heroes and villains, it strains credibility to be on par with them and still receive virtually no recognition of your incredible prowess. This is not to say the party should be incapable of incredible acts of heroism; indeed, they should! What they should not be capable of is fighting their way through legions of minions and then taking on the almighty villain in a brute force, frontal attack without any real outside assistance or additional cleverness on their part. I do think A6 gets this right. You have the fall of the triad, the Shadow, the Impaler, and the Manburner, at the climax of the game. In no case does the party do what I just said. The Shadow is a capable warrior, but is not considered to be particularly powerful. His strength lies in his trickery. The party outwits him (by destroying his teleportation crystals) and forces him to fight fair, something where he is at a disadvantage. The Impaler is a superior opponent, but is weaker than he once was because of age. There is the bust into his lair to fight him meme, but here we get something good. Again, the party uses trickery to force his hand to fight them one-on-four (or one-on-however many) in a situation where the odds are far less favorable than if you attacked Formello outright. The Manburner was probably the best storywise in that she was the most powerful. Finally, Solberg does an all-or-nothing act of heroism with you at his side. With your help, he takes on the most powerful of the horde's warriors, goads the Manburner into attacking directly, and, with your help, brings her down. This felt satisfying to me because I did not have to strain credibility. Much more so than my party taking on Grah-Hoth, a supposed all powerful being (but in a weakened state), alone and being victorious. Think of the major powers as roughly equally matched nations. They're always spying on each other and repositioning their forces to prepare for or defend against an attack. However they can't really risk a full scale assault or it's mutually assured destruction or at the very least, they'll suffer enough losses for someone else to take them down. Your party on the other hand is like mercenary army. You're certainly not as powerful as a nation, you don't have infrastructure, you don't have an economy, you don't have much resources, and your numbers aren't too great. However, these deficits also gives you an advantage since you aren't weighted down by too many things and you don't have much to lose so you can sweep into enemy territory and destroy them before they can react. That's pretty much the way it is in all these games. If the major powers get too involved, it'll likely end in mutually assured destruction. That's why your party gets sent in.

Originally Posted By: *i Quote: However, the Vahnatai are clearly extremely powerful since they were able to build several massive complexes in Valorim without anyone noticing in less than 10 years. And you pretty much take on those Vahnatai by yourself. And this has consistently been my biggest complaint about the Avernum games pre-Avernum 5. There is not much of a story there beyond the history and exposition, which are pretty impressive. It is not credible to believe, in a world of supposed all-powerful archwizards and heroes, that you are (somehow almost totally unnoticed and clearly way under appreciated) demigods and all of these others are total morons, clueless boffins, or highly overrated in their actual abilities. Okay, we occasionally get to see somebody do something, but it is rare. Rentar-Ihrno got us into Garzahd's fortress. Erika fought Rentar-Ihrno in A3. This is nice, but...that's pretty much it. Why is it that these supposed heroes sit in their pristine towers and let you do everything for them? Yes, the party should play a decisive role in the games; however, it does not always have to be a full-out party, by themselves, versus the supposedly impossible in a straight slugfest. This stretches the limits of credibility. Can Solberg be some heroic wizard if he cowers spinelessly in his tower? I think not. I'm just glad he redeemed himself in A6. What happens in the story is not a reflection of the relative strength of the PCs, in my mind. Rather, it is a reflection on Jeff's more primitive storytelling ability at the time (which, for A1-3 goes back to the mid-1990s because of Exile 1-3). Certainly Jeff could have made more about the assassination of Hawthorne or the other events, but he did not. Part of it was the engine was not as flexible (remember, much of this goes back to E1). Your enemies were seriously limited in what they could do. I mean, the Royal Mages in A1 just shot fireblast and arcane blow at you, spells that I could cast. If it were redone these days, you would see a lot more exotic spell work on their part. On the PCs side, the biggest thing is that it is a lot easier to die in these games. No more 0 HP saves, among other things that really biased things toward the party. However, the major thing was the storytelling was not there. That said, I think Jeff has matured a lot in that area and I look forward to what comes in his new world. These major powers are working behind the scenes. You have to remember that these games are all pretty much based on Dungeons and Dragons. In D&D, already established gods and godlike beings are always working behind the scenes. They aren't doing nothing, they're too busy try to scry their rivals to look for signs of weakness and plotting ways to destroy them while at the same time protecting themselves from their enemies, who are pretty much doing the same thing. Those powerful beings are always in some kind of stalemate where they can never really get a permanent advantage over the other. The players are new powers there to tip the balance. That's the way it is in the Avernum series. Erika isn't sitting in her tower doing nothing. She's scrying the Empire and the Vahnatai. She's also preventing mages from the Empire from scrying Avernum. It's the same thing with Solberg. He's there trying to find the weaknesses of the enemies and at the same time, he's taking time and resources away from the enemies who are trying to hinder his efforts.

Originally Posted By: Dantius But you don't manage to kill Rentar in A3, and not even Erika can manage it straight-up, you have to do it the long way. Rentar didn't create all the plagues by herself. She had quite a bit of help. However, the Vahnatai are clearly extremely powerful since they were able to build several massive complexes in Valorim without anyone noticing in less than 10 years. And you pretty much take on those Vahnatai by yourself.

Gladwell seems relatively young. Based on the descriptions, he hasn't artificially increased his lifespan. Erika and Garzahd are definitely much older than they look. Rentar is hundreds of years old.

The engine was capable of plenty of scripted events but it would be no fun if you trigger an instant death event the moment you see one of Hawthorne's court wizards. Not to mention the fact that Jeff could have easily had scripted events where Erika teleports in golems/demons/spirits to help you fight Hawthorne's guards. Heck, even without any major scripted events, Jeff could have included a text box about Erika teleporting an explosive device on the other side of Hawthorne's castle the moment your party was teleported in to distract the majority of Hawthorne's forces. And what about Grah Hoth? It took the five most powerful mages in Avernum to defeat him and they were only able to trap him. Your party has to kill him. How are you supposed to be able to do that if your party isn't at least close to the power of Erika, Patrick, Rone, Solberg, and Aimee/Linda? It's the same problem in A2 with Garzahd and A3 with the Vahnatai. I would say that at the very least, one of those high level adventurers has to be close in strength to a Haakai.

But the emperor is protected by the aforementioned mages who have the power to destroy small nations, not to mention the fact that he would be wearing the rarest and most magically infused artifacts that can protect against enemy mages with the power to destroy small nations.

I don't see why the game should be more realistic. Some fights should be tougher but your party in A1 - A3 are supposed to be legendary adventurers going on epic quests. They should at least close to the power of demon lords and wizards with the power to destroy small nations. In A1, you're supposed to kill a Haakai lord and the emperor of the known world.

I thought there's already an Avernum 1 remake on the way. The nerfing of buffs/debuffs, lack of anti-demon weapons, elimination of the Assassin skill, higher resistances on monsters, and major nerfing of repel spirit really changes things. Heck, even nerfing summoning skills makes it harder since you can do plenty of damage by summoning undead and demons in Exile and A1 - A3 due to their ability to negate armor. I miss the ability to summon Quickghasts, those things can easily rip apart the toughest monsters. I really don't see how Avernum 1 can be remade like A4 - A6 without really changing the story.

Does anyone else miss the good old days in Exile and Avernum 1 - 3 when your party could take on groups of three to four Haakais? I wonder why Jeff made the adventurers so weak after Avernum 4. Your characters in this game would get their butts kicked by Grah Hoth and the Empire.

Does anyone remember what Exile looked like?

Didn't Erika make those mushrooms? I guess she neglected to tell the Avernites their expiration date.

Battle Shaping Thahd and Battle Alpha - Ogre Clawbug - Scorpion Rotghroth - Mohrg War Trall - Giant or possibly Grey Render Fire Shaping Fyora - Velociraptor Roamer - Shadow Mastiff, or Slaad, or some combination of a dog and a frog Drayk - Drake Kyshaak - Stormlizard Drakon - Dragon Magic Shaping Artila - Worm Vlish - Flumph Glaahk - Ethereal Marauder Wingbolt - Mutalisk Gazer - Beholder

Originally Posted By: Sleeping Dragon Sounds like Realmz. Everybody disliked that game very much. Without Realmz, there might not be a Spiderweb Software. Exile was originally published by Fantasoft, the company that created Realmz. Heck, Exile and Realmz shared a lot of the same graphics and sound effects. The graphics for a lot of the items in the newest Geneforge and Avernum games are from those days. Also, Realmz was based on Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, TSR even threatened to sue Fantasoft.

The simple solution is to make it so that the repair skill also allows you to improve your equipment. So instead of just letting you fix broken or damaged weapons, you can also increase their damage or even add enchantments based on your skill and the quality of raw material you have. It's also possible to add the option to shape raw material into something more valuable so you can sell it for more money.

But the evil Sliths were pushed out of the best areas by the Avernites into the regions which were later occupied by the Empire. Unless the evil Sliths somehow found another resource rich region, they should have never been able to regain their strength to the point where they could threaten Avernum. Unless of course, they found another demon master.

It doesn't matter how many eggs the evil Sliths get to hatch. If they don't have the resources to support all their hatching, they'll all die.

If the Slith breed so fast then how come the Gnass Sliths never expanded at all? Sliths require two very important things, heat and water. The evil Slith got pushed out of the areas that had the most abundant amount of those two resources. How could that have resulted in them reproducing faster?

What's the deal with the evil Slith being so powerful? They get wiped out in every Avernum game. They were already crippled after the first game and the Empire killed them en mass in Avernum 2. Where did they get the resources to replenish their numbers? Also, I thought the portal was really big. The Empire was able to create a huge portal in Avernum 2.