Danny the Fool

Originally Posted By: corallus I dont see how steam makes it easier...Hardrives are now of a asize where you can have many games installed on your system at once True, but what happens when you change your system? That's the main advantage I see in Steam in my specific case. I have my Steam install on a USB disk; migrating all my Steam games to a new computer is no more work than plugging it in and running Steam. It will fix Steam's installation the first time I run Steam, and it will fix any of the games the first time I run them. This is an advantage precisely because you can have so many games installed at the same time. I just built a new PC a few weeks ago and within minutes, I was running games again that would have taken hours to install the old-fashioned way. Yes I can hypothetically lose my account and therefore access to my games, but it's not like there are no risks associated with traditional media or other download stores. In fact I've re-purchased several games on Steam because the old installation media either didn't work anymore, or were lost (it happens...) BTT: I've previously said I'd buy Spiderweb games on Steam if I could for these exact reasons, and although I was more hoping for the older ones, it's a start. I only have copies for the other two platforms so far anyway.

There is a menu option in the main menu.

Originally Posted By: AdrianWerner If I would own iPad I would buy Avadon, but I see nothing about pc version that would be worth such extra price tag, so I will just pass. So you just don't like the game enough - which is okay, but has nothing to do with the price on a different platform. This isn't about supporting the developer. Nobody is talking about supporting an indie developer for the sake of supporting an indie developer. Besides better performance, larger screen, keyboard shortcuts, moddability and so on, those $25 buy you the possibility of playing Avadon on the PC. If that's not important to you that's fine, but you can't expect the developer to support your chosen platform at a loss. Quote: Didn't it occur to you that it might be selling more on iOS becaue of how cheap it is? It's not actually cheap in iOS terms. It is at the upper end for games and very expensive for an indie title. In this price segment, it's competing with games like GTA:CTW, Lego HP, Sim City, and so on, that are $40 and above on their respective other platforms. Quote: Maybe the extremely high price of Spidersoft games (compared to other indie games) is the reason why they can't break though to bigger market. After all..I don't see many pc gamers doing 25$ impulse buys. Such money is spent mostly by people who already know what they want. The games it competes with, like the Eschalon series, all are at the same price point. I don't know how likely PC gamers in general are to buy $25 titles on impulse, but Spiderweb has been selling at this price point forever, so arguably, it's proven to be the price point that makes their games viable. Quote: Plus let's be honest..Mac gaming is pretty petite part of the market and much less popular than iOS gaming. PC is bigger and has more popular distribution channels. The bigger PC market also means a lot more competition. On the Mac you pretty much have Spiderweb and a very low number of other similar indie titles, and that's it, if this is the niche you're interested in.

Originally Posted By: AdrianWerner You're right about one thing..it all boils to how much one is willing to pay. And I'm just not willing to pay almost three times as much as iPad owners do. The question is, why? Does the lower price on the iPad version somehow make the game worse than it was before the iPad version was released? If you don't have an iPad, then the iPad version doesn't take anything away from your game experience, or does it? Spiderweb Software has been releasing games at this price point for almost 20 years now. How does the arrival of a cheaper title on a different platform change anything with regard to how PC customers are treated? They are still being treated in the same way as they've always been and opening up a market that is not willing to pay $25 for a game due to different gaming habits does not change that. Quote: I see no reason to let the developer make almost four times as much money from me as he does from iOS gamers. One problem with that is that it's only true when you compare an individual PC gamer to an individual iPad gamer. Yes, that one PC gamer will pay more. The question is whether the PC market would be a viable target at all if people were not willing to pay $25. The alternative may well be skipping development for PC entirely, instead of lowering the price point, because the developer may not be able to make enough money from the PC market in total. For this same reason, I've been paying higher prices for games on Mac OS for 15 or so years now - for a PC user it'll be a fairly new experience of course since the PC used to be the cheap platform. As an example, the US Mac App Store lists 35 ratings and one review for Avadon since it was released on the Mac several months ago. The US iOS App Store lists 52 ratings and three reviews for Avadon just from the last few days. I don't have sales numbers of course, but it looks like the iOS market seems to be much more willing to impulse buy Avadon, rate it and leave reviews in exchange for the affordable price. (I know that Mac users can technically buy it outside MAS, but the MAS version is cheaper due to similarly limited functionality as the iPad version.) I can understand that you want to pay the lowest amount of money you possibly could, but I think it's unfair to blame Spiderweb for the different market situations that they had no part in creating. There is no way to be profitable on the PC with niche titles at $10 or less, and there is no way to be profitable on the iPad at $25, so what else is there to do than stick to established price points that are likely to make the entire project viable?

When you close Avadon, it autosaves, and when you start it again, it immediately loads that save and continues the session. Maybe there is something wrong with that autosave, but I don't know how to circumvent it. My only idea is using iPhone Explorer to make a backup of your save games, then deleting the ones in the high slot numbers that don't look like they are your manually created save games. I don't actually know if the autosave that is created when you close the game is one of those but maybe it's worth to try.

Originally Posted By: Onoper Thanks leelu, i will search for something like diskaid. The tech support page mentions iPhone Explorer.

Originally Posted By: PhysWiz I absolutely HATE the business of searching for hidden switches (or even worse, bumping into walls in the early Avernum games). Heh, I remember playing games on Atari ST that had one pixel difference on a black/white screen to mark secret doors. ;-) They seem to be easier to see on the iPad for me, but I hold the iPad closer to my eyes than a computer monitor would be. Still, they're hard to see in some cases, even when the game is very obvious about the fact that there has to be a secret switch somewhere nearby. Maybe an opportunity for a future cheat code?

Originally Posted By: Onoper Also, my game works slow on the ipad 1, anyone have the same problem? Yes. I initially didn't notice it so much, but it has been brought up several times in the toucharcade thread now and now that I've read this, I see it everywhere... dammit ;-) On the other hand I almost wonder if all the beta testers had iPad 2s, because it is really something that is very apparent if you are testing the game experience. There is a very noticeable slowdown in areas with a large number of moving NPCs. Dhorl Stead can be particularly hard to get through since your character position will only ever update every few tiles. Dhorl Stead is also the main reason why I think this is related to the number of moving NPCs, since there is a huge difference between when the patrol is running around and when it isn't. I wonder if this is tied to NPC pathfinding being slow, since the usual approach to pathfinding in this type of game (tiled map etc.) can be very memory and compute power intensive. It is not really gamebreaking but it can be very hard to talk to NPCs because it's hard to predict the part of the screen you have to touch when everything is moving and the screen is updating at most once per second. (Workaround: Move through these areas in combat mode.) In combat, and this is why I didn't notice it earlier than I did, you get large delays between combat rounds fairly regularly. I am used to waiting from the older desktop games, especially back when I played them on equally old computers, but if you're not used to waiting until your character becomes active, you're looking at up to several seconds between turns where the game visually appears to freeze, with floating text stuck in the middle of its animation and so on. I don't think the wait is any problem at all, but the absence of a visual hint that the game is processing something creates apparent lag with windows popping up seconds after you touch the respective buttons and so on. There's also intermittent, very short freezes that appear like Avadon is loading more data or graphics occasionally. This does not happen very often and is different from the above slowdown in populated areas that is always there. This is not an issue at all. There is an option to turn on (or off) some unspecified graphical effects. I can't see a difference between these, especially not in performance. What does this setting actually change? Another thing I've noticed is that I get the low memory warning a lot. Even after a reboot of my iPad, Avadon will display it within a few minutes of playing. The warning is almost more annoying than the slowness because I can see no real difference in how fast the game feels before and after the warning but I have to confirm the warning. Not a big deal either, but it is strange that I get a warning when there is nothing at all I can do to improve the situation. This makes the game look like it was designed for iPad 2 exclusively, which could be a bad thing. Oh and last not least, something completely unrelated to performance, it would be nice if we could touch the expanded map to scroll the view to that point. This is somewhat related to performance actually, since it would help a lot with getting through Dhorl Stead and similarly slow areas. Scrolling via minimap or the terrain view can be very choppy and imprecise.

Originally Posted By: goblindolf I am wondering how porting future games to iphone and ipad will affect the design I don't know about the iPhone, but so far, Avadon on iPad is almost the same as on a desktop and my opinion is that the desktop experience benefits from the changes from previous titles even more than the iPad version. In other words, if there is something particular to the iPad that influenced the UI design of Avadon, it's something that has to apply to the desktop too, at least to some extent. E.g. the larger terrain view is more or less necessary on the small iPad screen (even though older titles with smaller views were sort of playable), but on the desktop, you get even more out of it. Things that work better on the iPad exist, like being able to use touch controls, but previous Spiderweb games didn't have better mouse/keyboard controls than Avadon, so this is not something that happened because of the iPad port.

Originally Posted By: AdrianWerner And I just can't get myself to support developer who discriminates one group of customers so much solely because they dare to play on different platform than iPad. So basically you don't think Avadon is worth $25. There's a money back policy for that, but I wonder why you bought it in the first place, since that should have been apparent from playing the demo. Prices are always decided only based on one factor: How much the target market is willing to pay. Anyone with half a brain (maybe depending on which half is missing) could have predicted that this means a lower price point on the iPad with that market's particular sense of entitlement and its habit of playing every new game for only half an hour and then getting the next iteration of Angry Birds and playing that for half an hour. It's a shame really if the PC/Mac market is moving in that direction as well now. I remember when desktop players were proud of being serious gamers with quite higher standards than random console junk food, but whatever floats your boat I guess. It's unrealistic anyway to expect prices to be the same across platforms. You could only have that expectation with a very one-sided view of the video gaming market. There have always been premium priced platforms and discount platforms, with Windows somewhere in the middle. I find it reasonable to expect customers to do their market research before committing to a platform; nobody can do that for you.

Originally Posted By: Agnates As for the differences of the ipad version, err, they're ridiculous and circumstancial to say the least. Of course owners can't play it on higher than 1024x768 since that's the native resolution of the ipad. The iPad 2 can drive a 1920x1080 display over HDMI. Quote: And it has no keyboard. I actually use a bluetooth keyboard with my iPad. I have to admit though that it hardly matters for games, since the touch interface is so much better. You also really notice the lack of hardware power in some of the more populated areas, at least on the original iPad. Very choppy movement in some places.

Originally Posted By: Agnates Why does my choice of an OS require me to pay you so much more? You act like that is something new or unexpected. I have been buying games at premium prices for many years due to my choice of OS - many Mac OS X ports of games are more expensive, and stay more expensive for longer, than their PC counterparts. Different markets work in different ways and require different pricing.

Originally Posted By: macdude22 I also like the home button on the right side, I couldn't explain a legitimate reason why though. I can. It's the side that the power cable goes into, and if I want to charge my iPad while playing in bed, it has to point to my right, as the other side will be occupied by my wife. Luckily, Avadon doesn't seem to be a battery waster though. :-)

Originally Posted By: Mivo iDevices users are used to paying $0.99 to $1.99 for the vast majority of games, so anything that costs more is seen as "wow, that's expensive!". It's peculiar to observe if you game on other platforms, too. Yeah, it's really strange sometimes. I regularly pay EUR 50 for desktop games, I pay EUR 15 or so per month for an MMO subscription, etc. Then I look at the App Store and see one star reviews because a game supposedly is too expensive because it's more than EUR 2,99 or something. The flipside is that the iOS market is apparently more willing to pay for games in general. Desktop game developers are happy when they sell one million, but some iOS vendors have announced hundreds of millions of units sold. Quite a difference. I hope it'll work out for Spiderweb, I want more of these games on my iPad

Originally Posted By: Xoanon It's certainly better than $25.00. How come the iSheep get it for less than half price? It's a different market with different rules. Call iPad users sheep all you want, but some of them may have made the decision to get one because software is so cheap in the first place. Solid economic decision making, nothing sheepish about it. (Although in my case, I also bought the Mac version anyway because I happen to like Spiderweb.)

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES You get FEWER PC-building choices than in previous games. However, the choices you do get are MORE meaningful. We old school RPG players like being able to customize everything. But when I look at what my decisions actually do then I'm not quite sure I need to be able to decide where every single stat point goes. I can get the same kind of choices from skills, except those choices where my character becomes super powerful because I pumped 99% of my points into one stat... which I don't think enhances the game a lot. On another note, OP is a bit opportunistic with his use of the terms "dumbed down" and "casual gamers", what with the complaints about the sorceress not being an instant super powerful battle mage in the same post...

Originally Posted By: Left for Dead to Rights Generally you need to provide the address at which you registered before, and you get a new code. Quick and easy. While that is quick and easy, the MAS version does not require me to ask anyone for a new code, ever. The only thing that's not possible is switching to Windows, but if that were an option I probably wouldn't be using MAS at all.

Originally Posted By: iollmann I was going to do it, but a nagging doubt suggested that the spiderweb.com electronic ordering might take a day or two to clear, whereas MAS is instant. I don't know if that's true or not, but it was enough in my case to push me to MAS. Yes it does take a bit to clear, especially when you're in the wrong time zone. It's not normally a problem since you get the demo instantly anyway, unless you wait until the end of the demo before you decide to buy. Of course, in that case you would want to continue playing immediately and waiting a day just wouldn't do I bought the MAS version for two main reasons. One is that I don't want to give my credit card numbers out to more third parties than necessary. The other is that it's less work for me. I would have paid more, especially considering that Apple keeps a 30% share that's probably more than what credit card processing and involved manual work would cost, but like when I'm giving a tip at a restaurant, I will not go to very great lengths to pay more than I am asked. It's also somewhat impolite, following people around and trying to hand them money that they don't want. On the other hand, buying the MAS version enables you to write reviews. I wrote the first review on the German MAS and it was the only review for over a week. So far, seven customers said it was helpful, so maybe there was an extra sale in there somewhere. Unfortunately it still hasn't been rated often enough for an average (to get stars in the category overview). Maybe it's worth to note that both the German and US app store entries only have three reviews (all of them five stars of course) and not many users bothered to rate the game (18 on the US store, less than the minimum on the German store). This is comparable to similar games in the same niche, e.g. the Eschalon series, but worse than the average featured title. I'm almost thinking that with the wider potential audience and the game being featured in one of those places where games can get featured on MAS, buying Avadon on MAS and rating it or giving it a good review (good in the sense that it's not just "Great game!" but actually helpful for potential customers) could be worth much more than $5. Especially in the long run when those customers can be converted to Spiderweb fans and will buy future games as well. If you buy on the spiderweb online store or with that weird "e-mail me and state what you just sent a payment for" thing, you don't get that chance to promote the game. You're just an invisible customer.

Originally Posted By: Master1 Can't you play all ipod/iphone games on the ipad? Yes, but they look like crap if they don't support the iPad's native resolution. Retina apps also run in the lower old iPhone resolution (unless you jailbreak your iPad and use retinapad).

I'm just hoping that also means iPad versions of those games.

Originally Posted By: Dantius Then again, from what I heard from my woman on the inside, the next generation will fix most of those issues except for the 3D graphs, which aren't really that useful anyways, and it even comes with a color screen. Color! On a handheld calculator! I can't believe we've have to wait until 2012 to even get color or our calculators! Don't need no woman on the inside for that, they've already announced the Nspire CX a month ago and you can read about it on Ti's web site. It won't be the first calculator with a colour screen though, Casio has made them for ages, possibly others too. I wonder if they thought of colouring formulas according to evaluation order...

Originally Posted By: Vent I'm not sure it will be that cool for me even if I'm curious too about this version. The point is there are texts, and little details, and range of view. Because of that I don't think I'll feel as comfortable than on my computer with a quite wide monitor. I don't know what the iPad version of Avadon looks like, but the Mac version is quite fine at 1024x768. Also, if there is anyone with any experience with creating UIs for games like Avadon that work at 1024x768 and below... just look at the history of Spiderweb games ;-)

Interestingly, the Mac version is quite playable (slow, but bearably so) via Splashtop on iPad and I'm having much more success with it than when playing it directly on my MBP. One thing is that the battery doesn't run out as quickly, the other is that the text is really a bit hard to read for me on the MBP.

Beta testing -> grammar -> poverty -> physics, heh.

Originally Posted By: Master1 Here's the catch: I'm a high-school student. My phone is payed for by my parents, and my computer is my dad's old work computer. Sounds like my situation in the 90ies (except nobody had mobile phones). I don't really see your point. Quote: In order to pay a similar amount on a monthly basis from Apple, I'd end up paying for my computer multiple times thanks to interest (or at least, I expect that to be the case). You're not supposed to pay Apple. You save money and then pay in full. (Apple actually does have a deferred interest promotion for some credit card though. If I read that right, no interest in the first year if you buy a computer at $999 or more. I'm not so sure that a credit card promotion is something a high school student should be encouraged to use, or if you're old enough to qualify, but maybe your parents would agree to give you an interest-free loan instead to prevent you from asking for a credit card all the time )