seith

@So Much Killing: Thanks for the explanation. I see what you mean about "g" interfering with the items letters, but then, as you said, numbers should have been used instead. And F1 to F4 should have been reserved for switching between characters. I mean... All those things seem rather basic to me. To see someone go through the lengths of programming a huge game with good writing and an engrossing story, only to fumble those very basic elements, which simply happen to be the first things the potential player is going to interact with... Well, it's a bit sad. Because those little inconsistencies, those tiny illogical choices will very subtly contribute to annoy and deter potential new players. And I don't think it would have cost much to iron those out. I wish they would have been caught by the beta testers... (Oh, and I added points 4 and 5 to my first post)

Hello everyone. I'm a newbie around here, and I just started playing the demo of Avernum 6, which looks really nice so far. I'm only at the very beginning, but I thought I would post a few early remarks. I understand the game is no longer in beta testing and as such those remarks might be readily discarded, but still... 1) I clicked on "Quit" by mistake while looking around the menus and was very surprised not to be able to "undo" that action. Something like "Are you sure you want to quit?" would be only normal, I think. "Do you want to save?" is simply not enough; there are cases (like this one) where you don't mean to leave the game but you don't want to save either. 2) I understand you click on "g" to get a list of available items laying around your characters. But when you want to close this list, you have to look for another key (like the "ESC" key). Why can't I close the items menu by simply pressing "g" again? I mean my finger's still on it, so it would seem like a logical thing to do. 3) It would be nice to be able to just double-click on a saved game to load it, instead of having to first click on the game, and then click again on the validation icon. 4) It would be very useful to be able to see the saved games sorted out by chronological order. Right now, to find the most recent save, you have to compare the date and time of each file. This is not practical. At all. 5) It is currently impossible to switch between inventory view and character view by clicking on the appropriate icons. An error message says "Finish what you're doing first". This feels artificially restrictive and makes the procedure of equipping armor/weapons and checking their effects on the characters rather aggravating. I'll keep on updating this post if I come across situations that seem strange to me from a usability point of view. Again, my goal is only to provide feedback from someone who's old enough to have played all those vintage games when they were released, but who's also kept up with "ergonomic improvements" heralded by new RPG games. I truly respect and appreciate the work and energy spent by the people who worked on Avernum 6, and I hope those remarks will be taken for what they are; constructive criticism. And if they stem from me just being too dumb to figure out the proper shortcuts, please let me know!