mauvebutterfly

Minor unexpected result in Mekhlan Quarry: Telling the owen on the surface level that you're going to kill them turns them hostile, as expected. However, it also turns the mascha troops on the surface level hostile, which it shouldn't. It turns the owen in their building hostile as expected, while not turning the mascha inside their building hostile, so it's still possible to side with the mascha and complete this quest. It's just weird that you have to kill a few friendly guards to complete it.

Thanks for the responses. If planning and routing ends up being the main issues with high difficulty I think I'll do fine. That appeals to my puzzle-gaming skills. Going to have to brush off Avadon 1 again some time too. From what I remember from browsing the forums, part of my issue there was with playing as a Shaman, although I'd imagine that it's still possible on Torment with any class.

Hi. Long time Spiderweb fan who doesn't post here much, but I always loved reading your resources on the other games and enjoyed the theory crafting and philosophical discussions. I've recently started Queen's Wish and was wondering how other Spiderweb veterans would rate the difficulty compared to other Spiderweb games. I played most of the previous ones on torment and found Geneforge to be the easiest and Avadon the hardest, with Avernum somewhere in the middle. Does this match up with other people's experiences? How difficult is Queen's Wish on torment in comparison?

I also find the 2D graphics to genereally age better than their 3D counterparts. WarCraft 2 is still a beautiful game, for example, while WarCraft 3 only looked good right after release. Now that 3D graphics have greatly improved, WarCraft 3 doesn't hold up as well. Same issue with Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (2D) and Heroes 4 (3D). I've never understood the obsession with 3D graphics to be honest. I find that 2D graphics not only look better most of the time, but that they also provide the same information in a much clearer and cleaner way. Also, game designers have a tendency to think that they're being clever by hiding things behind walls in a 3D environment, which can get annoying. If anyone here has played Eador: Genesis and seen the 3D remake Eador: Masters of the Broken World, you'll see how they've taken these beautiful handdrawn sprites, and swapped them out for models that have a more generic feel to them. They've then put everything into a 3D space that can make it difficult to see important details on the battlefield (such as corpses being difficult to see in tall grass) while concerns over aesthetics can make it difficult to see where one terrain type ends and another begins. Spiderweb's gradual evolution over the years has been interesting to see. As much as I love the old Exile graphics, I must admit that my initial reservations regarding the transition to Avernum ended up being unfounded. I also couldn't really imagine playing Geneforge in a 2D space, although a part of that might be that the real-time aspects of it would feel somewhat out of place in a 2D presentation. Then again, I don't think I'd want a 2D Nethergate either. One thing that Spiderweb has done very well is avoiding the trap of making things pretty at the expense of clarity. There are very few instances that I can think of where the graphics of a Spiderweb game actively interfere with my gameplay, and the few issues I have had are easily dealt with with experience (e.g. knowing what you can pick up in Avadon and what is random trash or dungeon dressing.)

Not to confuse the issue further, but wasn't it the case in some Avernum games that some of the basic mage spells (like bolt of fire and light) could be cast even when wearing encumbring armor, and that it didn't become an issue until somewhere around the slow and haste spells?

There really is a difference between the two types of gamers. I should know, because I tend to go back and forth between the two. When I was beta-testing this game, I played through with a sub-optimal party on normal difficulty for the most part. This party was sub-optimal because I didn't know or plan out any builds for my characters. Basically, I was just playing the game and assigning points to whatever looked interesting at the time. This is haphazard character creation and progression. This is generally how I've played through most of the Avernum games. To be clear, I make poor choices because I don't spend the time or effort to learn how to build the characters optimally. I do not feel insulted because some people play the game 'better' than I do. Geneforge and Nethergate, for some reason, I play through on torment and optimize a lot harder. I don't know why this is, but I guess I'm more interested in challenging myself with those games. Does this make me an elitist player of those games? I'd say not. I could definitely tell you that your builds for those games are sub-optimal, but I'd only do so if you were asking for help or advice. I'd also accept that you might play these games the way I play the Avernums, in which case I'd probably give you the annoying advice of "play on a lower difficulty if you're having problems, or use the character editor to 'fix' your characters." I'd do this because, as a torment player on those games, I recognize that I can't take my Avernum approach and avoid frustration on the harder difficulties. Planning characters can seem like work to some people, so I understand why not everybody does it. In short: players don't always plan their builds in advance or think about their progression. This doesn't mean that they are stupid. It just means that they aren't interested in playing the game in that way.

It's funny. I play the game using the old movement style, so I didn't even notice this. So… maybe having everything teleport between grid locations would make this less jarring for you I'm honestly surprised to hear this though. Since the character walking animations were done, having a ship slide (possibly without even using animated graphics) seems pretty easy to do. It was probably just an oversight.

Originally Posted By: Rent-an-Ihrno Originally Posted By: Structualise THIS! Maybe they just counted, adding 'elephant' between numbers? And yes, I guess candles would work. But where does all the wax come from? Maybe chitrachs will finally be good for something…

Originally Posted By: Death Knight Jeff's going to be busy when he's done with the first one though as balancing the second avernum will be much harder due to the already imbalanced race system. Humans will have to have certain perks that are really good that neph's and sliths dont get and vice versa. Not necessarily. Humans have been worse than Nephils and Sliths for quite a while now. There isn't necessarily any need to change that, and I doubt that Jeff will spend a bunch of time trying to "fix" this.

I'm pretty sure Avadon did this. It's one of the few reasons I played it on the hardest difficulty the first time through.

Originally Posted By: left shift implies what velocity Non-disclosure agreements forbid of from releasing details. I can, however, say that the beta is fun. —Alorael, who can only pray that he will not be sacked for saying that. He needs this gig to pay the bills. Wait, we can say that? Several of my friends have asked me what I thought of the game, and I told them that I really enjoyed the old Avernum and that Spiderweb has been slowly improving many aspects of their game engines over time ><

Originally Posted By: Alorophiliael Avernum has crossbows in the first trilogy. The most notable, of course, is the Fury Crossbow, but there are others. —Alorael, who can't remember any appearing before A3 either. It's possible that they're a one-game wonder. I remember using a crossbow in BoA as well. Possibly not the best weapon for a solo slith to specialize in, but I had some fun with it.

The first time I played through Avernum 3, I defeated the fifth monster plague before the fourth. I didn't even realize I was doing them out of order until something weird in the dialogue at the end of the fifth plague got triggered. Although wandering into areas that are too difficult can appeal to some players, an issue for me is the convenience of going elsewhere once I've realized my mistake. It isn't much fun to run half-way across the world because you got as far as you could in one direction. The new teleporting systems of the new Avernum games are a good way to deal with this. The zones of Geneforge were also great this way. In fact, this is probably why Geneforge is my favourite Spiderweb series. If an area was too strong, it was so easy to leave the zone and explore elsewhere. Removing linearity barriers on higher difficulties is an interesting idea too. I think that I'd find that frustrating though. If I'm not wanting to spend time carefully buffing and saving before battles, but still want to have the freedom to explore, I'd probably resent the restrictions being present on an easier difficulty. Perhaps a better solution would be to have a checkbox in the options menu, with the default set to active barriers?

I would prefer ambient noise to music, and think that Spiderweb usually does a pretty good job of this. I never found the towns in Geneforge to be annoying, actually. I liked the contrast from the wilderness zones.

It's been a while since I've played Avernum I, but I seem to recall finding some razordisks lying around somewhere while playing through it. At the time I thought is was weird because the Vahnatai hadn't been introduced yet, but eventually assumed it was a kind of foreshadowing. That was quite a while ago though, so I have no idea where it was, unfortunately.