*i

Why? Well, one thing is for environment and realism. To show you there is more to the world than you can access. Same reason there are paintings on the wall or worthless items scattered about. Of course, not everything needs a why or a reason for existing. Insisting upon it will only lead to frustration.

EE - I guess I've never had that experience with Avadon (playing on Hard). Certainly, there are some fights that require a bit of finesse and thought, and I do end up reloading a decent amount; however, I don't think there is anything unreasonable there, even with the AI cheating -- it would be trivially easy without. I'm also hardly the most skilled player here by far. Perhaps you should post your builds here on the forums, and we can help you out there to make your party stronger. Otherwise, I'm sure you can get some help on battle tactics on specific fights. EDIT: Also, thanks for adding punctuations and paragraphing. It makes your post a lot easier to read, which is very good for everyone!

Quote: Honestly, I don't really mind limited buffs so long as my enemies are generally subject to the same restrictions. Running into sequential enemies that just constantly and endlessly dump mass hastes on everything and their dog when I still have to haste buff one party member at a time really, really grinds on my nerves. I used to agree, then I came to the realizations on how difficult it is to program an AI that can beat a human without "cheating". No one, even any company with huge budgets, has been able to figure that one out. Not the ideal solution, but a fact of gaming if you want to be challenged.

Jeff tried this twice actually. Once with Blades of Exile, and again with Blades of Avernum. I recommend them both; however, the former was much more successful than the latter. Blades of Avernum caused a huge sink in money for Jeff, and it almost bankrupted the company. You are very unlikely to ever see something like that again, given the high cost and poor sales.

One of the fundamental aspects of civilized states, especially democratic ones, is that governments hold a monopoly on the use of force (the notable exception is self defense, where the state does not have time to act). While it is easy to see where this can easily go wrong, this is generally viewed by sociologists as a net positive. Prior to civilization, if you angered someone, if you had the misfortune of having something another covets, or simply not being liked by someone, you had no real protection or redress against that person should they act aggressively toward you. Even if we have a series of codes of honor detailing what acts of aggression are permissible, there still comes the fundamental question of who is the final arbiter of the code. Having cycles of violent feuds between groups of family and friends are usually destructive for localities. Nonetheless, there are undeniable needs for violence to protect members of society. For example, serial killers must be stopped before they harm others, thieves must be apprehended to protect property. This authority must be had somewhere for the general welfare, and the most logical entity for this is the state. As I said, it can be abused, but there are means, albeit often messy, to address that as well.

Quote: Sorceresses and Shamans can use bows and javelins respectively...

You lose action points each round in combat. The amount depends on how encumbered you are.

I think financial limitations leading to graphical limitations are to be blamed. Hopefully, all this will be straightened out in Avadon 2, where money should (hopefully) be available for these graphics.

I agree with Dikiyoba; it's all in relative terms. Avadon seems to be of a different style than previous titles. As I've said, this is fine, but it could use a little more consistency in how the storyline unfolds.

1) All characters, I believe. It shows up as a special item. 2) I think it is just bows. Sorceresses and Shamans can use bows and javelins respectively, and this is useful when dealing with abundant fire and magic immune creatures that become more common as the game progresses. I think I've seen analysis claiming the javelin was actually the best weapon for a shaman if you invest in very high dexterity.

In the Kva Lands, just by the Zhethron's Aeire exit.

Quote: Not all Avernum was just a global open world but I won't focus on the comparison. So to stick with Avadon, before the long very linear hunt, the world is opened by area, but each area is opening some freedom of exploration and secondary quests, that what's make a huge difference with the very linear final hunt. I do not think you are correct in your assertion. I can't think of a single, non-trivial instance (exception may be land outside the town) where it was something other than the main plot-line trigger that opens a new zone. Yes, you had to get to the edge of the Dhorla Woods to reveal the Beast Woods, but they would not reveal before you talked to Runner Faiga on the main quest, even if you had side quests that needed to be done in that area. Same with the Beraza Woods and Beraza Pits, and I suspect Kva Lands and Zhethron's Aeire. We just had a post explicitly complaining about this a week ago, that you got side quests that you could not visit because the main plot has not yet revealed the zone. Please give me a counterexample. The only difference between the endgame and the rest of the story is you didn't have the freedom to leave. This, I feel, is another issue entirely, and, yes, I still favor the flexibility to leave. I never said I wasn't, and wanted the whole game to be like the Avadon endgame. Quote: It's a point and a possible solution. But that has in mind to reinforce a linear story building and in my opinion going there will be too much. Now, all I'm saying, to be more clear, is to connect the arcs better. You as a player would not lose anything in the way of flexibility. The only change is purely psychological on the player, in that the reassignments are not as jerky, and the player feels they are still working in the same story, even if it opens up new, unrelated parts of the arc. For example, make it Khermeria the natural next destination from the Kva because of something that happens there.

Quote: Also, what good are weapons/armor with ability+ bonuses? From what I understand, from level 7 upwards it will only give the same amount of bonus (e.g. My shaman's lower left ability is at level 7 with +4 bonus). Actually, the boosts you get for having a skill be 7 or higher are typically quite significant and more than normal. It really is useful in many cases to boost your skills above the maximum training level of 8. There is a post that gives some specifics. As an aside, the consensus view is that it is optimal to use your specializations on the center skills, regardless of class.

Quote: Open or closed world has very little to do with it. Go back to the major quests of Avernum 1 or 2, and you'll see that big things like killing Hawthorne or Garzahd start with fairly minor quests. By doing one thing, you open up new opportunities that eventually grow bigger. Maybe my point was not clear. In Avernum, you the player largely got to pick where you went and what portion of the game you tackled next. Certainly, there were restrictions, but you didn't have essentially one quest giver handing out missions the entire game. Because of this choice, I contend that the story flowed more naturally keeping engagement up, since the player had quite a bit of control. In Avernum, the player controls, or at least has the illusion of controlling, the plot, creating the sense of flow in the story. In Avadon, the player has no real control at all over how the story proceeds. Since the three arcs are assigned, the designer has assumed full control over how the plot advances. Because of the lack of connectedness and arbitrary nature that the arc segments are given to the player, there is no natural flow in the story. Further, the player, having not even the illusion of choice, does not create a sense of flow here. Quote: The key is making your reassignments seem natural rather than jerky. I disagree. The problem I see is that it is not natural to visit the places in the order I have to visit them. If we do not allow the player to pick the order somewhat, I think the key is to connect the arcs better. Something in the Kva should lead you to Khemeria, perhaps ogre attacks force you to return, there you find a plot point leading you to the Beraza Woods, and so on.

Quote: For me a weakness of Avadon is that long final part, for sure it's very well done. But it transforms a RPG into a linear thriller. It reinforce too much the story building at the price of the world building. So I'm looking with a very suspicious eye your "string plot arcs together more tightly" I'm worry to reading it as a request for less world building and more story building. The Avadon title appears to be more of already more of the linear type. You had very little control about where you went and when you did what in this game. The main quests have to be done in order -- no variation allowed. This feature makes it a very different game than the Avernum or even the Geneforge titles, which are more of the open-ended type. In the Avernum series, we had more of an open-ended format, where the goal(s) were fairly clear early on. You knew where you were going and it was largely your job to figure out how to get there. In Avadon, it was not clear what was going to happen, and you had no control over the course of your journey. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it must be handled differently. The rising action is constantly being reset to zero after each plot segment, so that when we do hit the story climax and finally figure out where the endpoint is, it inevitably feels "too short". One way to address this, without going back to the open-ended style, is to employ classic storytelling techniques of maintaining flow and employing suspense when shifts do occur. Done this way, the game will feel longer as the player is being pulled along with the story that is gradually becoming more exciting leading to the climax near the end.

I don't think making a game simpler is necessarily a bad thing, so long as he provides ways such as torment difficulty that still challenge the experienced players. Chess, for instance, has fairly simple mechanics and is not too difficult to learn, but very difficult to master all the nuances of what makes an "optimal" game. In this case, you aren't playing against other humans, but solely Jeff's AI; however, the basic question of what makes for good strategic choices of character builds and tactical combat decisions is analogous. Against a weak AI, making these choices should not be terribly important, but against the strong one, making good ones is crucial to success. I do think Avadon strikes a good balance here.

Yes. You are correct.

Here's what I posted on Jeff's blog. Summary is I thought the length of Avadon was about right, but ended too abruptly because the plot did not flow as well as it could have. Quote: Hi Jeff, Agree with you that it's difficult to find time for longer games these days. Part of that is a demographic shift of what defines gamers today: I used to be able to play nearly every evening after school as a kid, but now with a job, it's difficult. Avadon is a very good game, but I do think there is one aspect that made it feel too short. You have three independent quest arcs that do not really feed off each other. The linear nature of the plot bounced you between them in relatively suspense-free ways. Each segment, more or less, ended with too much closure and too little flow to the next to keep the excitement going. As such, the endgame section (awesome in its own right) occurred very abruptly. There was no steady rising action that kept the player in anticipation of the inevitable crescendo. Rather, the game felt like a series of disjointed quests, and "BOOM!" the endgame occurs. For this reason, I think it felt too short to many players. My advice for future titles is to keep the same length, string plot arcs together more tightly, and add suspense when the player has to leave one to do another. During this process, the player should clearly see the problems grow throughout the story until the final and most exciting parts occur.

Not every side quest should help with the main storyline; it's a big world with a lot going on, after all. Side quests should, however, make sense within the world they're in and be interesting in their own right.

Generally speaking, that area is pretty tough if you encounter it on your first trip to the Kva. This is a lot easier if you skip this until your next mission in this section. Jeff seems to put in an area/fight that is pretty challenging at your current level.

If memory serves, you can tell the quest giver to destroy the sample. You get no reward, however.

Aeden, that's a good point. Something that would be helpful is if the quest log were made a little more sophisticated including who the quest giver is, where s/he is located, and information about what has been accomplished. Perhaps even color coding and ordering for quests that are not completed, complete but reward not collected, and then those that are entirely complete.

Originally Posted By: goblindolf This problem sounds like 1-2 token people getting more attention than is warranted One rule of game design is that no matter what you do, someone will be unhappy. I agree that the Dhorla Woods plot segment was bad in this sense, but not because monsters would have been too tough. I do think the design here could have been improved; by making the area reveal the way to control plot flow, it messed up a lot of the side quests. Better would have been some mechanism that prevented you from accessing the Beast's lair too soon, although that would have required reworking the zone.

I agree with the substance of what you are saying. The only issue I had was with the tone of the second two paragraphs. I meant no offense to be taken. Just a simple reminder to everyone as a lot of the criticism on these forums has been getting a bit more hostile as of late.

Agreed. Thank you very much for porting all this over!