SpiderFan

Hello Jeff and (present) Company, I recently completed Avadon on Normal difficulty, and now feel qualified to share my gaming experience after lurking in this forum for the last 5 days. First, some disclaimers: (1) Until Avadon's release, none of Spiderweb Software's existing game catalog appealed to me. (2) Because I travel a lot, 90% of my RPG gaming is on my Nintendo DS Lite. Fortunately, Avadon played well on my Macbook. Second, some constructive criticism: The interface was intuitive and self-explanatory with the exception of the keyboard shortcuts not being able to close the same menus they opened! Having to constantly grab loot with "get item" and then having to press either "enter" or "esc" to close menu screens was extremely annoying. I remapped "inventory" to "/" just so my left index finger was close to the "enter" key. The use of dialog tress is commendable, but their implementation was another source of frustration. Except when dialog choices resulted in actual, immediate consequences, every conversation reset to its root menu. The illusion of choice is easily broken by restarting conversations and selecting the other options. Why must I click-through dialog tress when simply displaying the entire conversation topic would achieve the same result with less hassle? The semi-transparency of the way stat increases were calculated as percentages is also commendable, as such math is often hidden from the player, but in this case the system is broken. Such calculations negatively affected the effectiveness of equipment, such as armor that granted 20% protection against poison. That 20% didn't apply against all poison attacks, thereby reducing your chance of being poisoned to 8 out of 10 times, but rather stacked upon a character's existing poison resistance percentage. When it came to equipping this armor, the character with the highest poison resistance further benefited the most from the armor's poison protection! Statistically, I would be negligent not to equip such armor on a character with the highest base poison resistance, as 20% of 50% will result in a higher combined total than 20% of 30%. Third, why I chose Avadon vs. Avernum or Geneforge: The argument can be made that from a presentation standpoint, Avadon simply looks "more modern", and I would also argue that Avadon almost plays as well as it looks. But most importantly . . . When I play through a RPG, I want to play as predefined characters with their own unique motivations, strengths and flaws. My favorite examples of this genre being Chrono Trigger, Skies of Arcadia, Dragon Quest 5, Knights of the Old Republic, and most recently, Radiant Historia. In this regard, Avadon's four companions were a welcome surprise in a CRPG. Wanting to maximize the character interactions, I made sure to take the Blademaster with me on Kva missions, while the Shaman accompanied me to Khemeria, and the Sorceress and ShadowWalker fought with me through the lands of the third and final portal. Knowing Jeff's admiration for Knights of the Old Republic, (and Bioware in general) which featured playable characters who all originated from different planets and cultures; I suspected that the lands of the Pact would be equally represented amongst the 4 playable characters. This highly narrative dynamic would not have been possible if your companions lacked any and all personality like those of Avernum or Geneforge. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the ultimate of characters, Avadon the Black Fortress. Exploring its darkest depths and various heights was a game unto itself. The collective secrets of Avadon, and thus Redbeard, were a joy to discover and I was truly disappointed when my explorations were complete. During my entire play through on Normal difficulty, I used only one save file until the very end, and I am confident that I completed every side quest (including all character loyalty missions) and otherwise did everything I could possibly accomplish as a rebellious Hand. In fact, all characters achieved level 30 before the final 2 portal missions were assigned. As for "the very end", I did witness "both" endings and consequently will probably not replay Avadon anytime soon. For those who have read this far, my Thanks for allowing me to share a moment of your time. And to Jeff: I am now a SpiderFan, and look forward with eager anticipation to Avadon 2. Your master plan to streamline the playability of your games is indeed working. Any comparisons I made to KotOR are meant as the sincerest compliments.