Juan Carlo

Finished! Great game overall. I don't especially like the engine (I accidentally saved mid battle several times, forcing me to back track). Plus, monsters almost always attacked my first in line (as opposed to others), which made the game pretty easy. One of the easier spiderweb games on torment, I think. The very last battle with the Roman centeur was pretty hard, but I had saved all the invulnerability droughts until then, which made it easier. So now I'm done with all spiderweb games on torment (or the ones on steam, anyway). Kneel and worship me!

OK, what's the max? Or what should I aim for? EDIT: never mind, I'll follow advice from the party creation thread.

I've been using one priest as a healer and another for war magic (although both have enough heal and war to cast the basics), but I'm starting to get to the point where I need to expand into other circles. What's good? Should I have them each focus on only one or two circles? Or is it better just to aim for the same amount in all?

So I got distracted after like 5 hours. But I finished Dark Souls 1 and 2 and was searching my steam catalog for something to play next that would scratch the same, grindy, OCD, powergaming, itch and settled on finally finishing Nethergate. Started a new party, but once I got a sense of how the game works (another 5 hours in), I realized my mistakes and restarted for optimal effectiveness (which really worked, it took me like 5 hours to get through the goblin pits on torment the first try, but breezed through in no time after restarting). This is the only spiderweb game I've yet to finish on torment (apart from the exiles and the first avernum trilogy, as I'm waiting to play the remakes of those). So hopefully I can finish it this time.

Just finished first season of "Penny Dreadfull." It's OK, but I didn't love it. Kind of a "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" rip-off, but not as good (as the comics, anyway). Currently watching: Nathan For You (funniest show on TV, right now) Leftovers (pretty good so far) Rectified (second season isn't as great as season 1, but still worth watching) Outlander (just started watching. It has promise, although only the pilot has aired so far. I'm a big fan of Moore's BSG, so I will watch this by default) I don't watch a lot of TV, though, so the above shows are literally all I am watching right now.

Humanities degrees are no more or less worthless than most science/math degrees. These days the only way to be guaranteed a job out of college is professional degrees....nursing, teaching, some computer science degrees (depending on your skill set), etc.

I worked throughout highschool and college in a home for developmentally disabled people. I too was shy, but that job really helped bring me out of my shell. Plus, you get to pass meds and stuff like that, so it's (marginally) relevant to your degree (it's actually a great stepping stone to pharmacology, if that's something you might be interested in). Best part, though, is that most people shy away from working with the disabled so it's a job that's pretty much always hiring. You could get a position easy in most areas. Plus, it tends to pay better than most work you can get with no experience (i.e. fastfood). Seriously, though, I think people are being unrealistic when they suggest you look for positions directly related to biochemistry in some way (i.e. internships and what not). Jobs in biochemistry are hard to find even with a degree. You are still young. You don't need to find a career right now. You just need a job. If you aim too high and apply only to stuff relevant to your field, you probably aren't going to get anywhere. So just look for something, anything, you think you can do and do it. Then, once you have a real job and are working, you can focus on your career and start applying to other things that might be more relevant to your degree.

Witcher 2 has the best ambiance/city design of any RPG....graphically speaking. I wandered around that game for like an hour when I first started playing, just gawking at all the random behaviors of the townsfolk. Its cities feel like actual living cities.

Buying an SSD or more memory would be a waste. Most of the games you mentioned are video card heavy, so your video card will always bottleneck your performance. Baring buying a completely new PC, you have two options: 1. Play older games. There are tons of older games that will run on even the cheapest laptop. Plus, many indie games don't have great graphics. 2. Look into a cloud gaming service. They aren't popular, but if you have a fast internet connection you can stream games you own on steam through onlive (they made a partnership with Valve for that, although not sure if they've implemented it yet). Which means you can play "The Witcher 2" on max settings on a cheap laptop, provided you have fast internet, as the onlive servers handle all the graphical rendering of the game. The service probably has a monthly fee, though, I don't know as I've never used it.

I think Avadon is most popular purely by luck. It was the very first game Spiderweb released on steam, so it was the first exposure to Spiderweb people had (it was the first game of theirs I played). Plus, it was released at a time when steam released only 4-5 games a week, compared to the 6 or 7 they release a day nowdays. So it arrived at a time that was convenient for its selling well. Had Spiderweb waited just a year longer to go to steam, I doubt they would have been as successful. I've always thought it was kind of a shame, though, as Avadon is Spiderweb's worst game series by a mile. I suspect that if Spiderweb had released the Geneforge bundle on steam first that might be more popular, but I don't know. I think the problem with Spiderweb games is that to the general populace they all look exactly the same. So the casual buyer might buy one or two, but unless they play them to completion and really like them they probably won't think they need more than that.

Thanks for all the replies! I can use all the data I can get (it will make writing the assignment easier with more), so keep it coming if you haven't filled it out yet.

EDIT: The assignment is done so you no longer need to do the survey. Thanks to everyone who helped.

I made my own poll as well: Geneforge Players what profession do you work in? 1. Cobbler 2. Itinerant dock worker 3. Other 4. Unemployed

I initially liked the corruption, but the more I think about it, the less I like it. It really seems more like it should be in an Avernum game or something. The appeal of Avadon is suppose to be its politics, but since the politics of the game are all so dry and kind of boring (I have a hard time telling the factions apart and what they believe--or caring about them when I can tell them apart), inserting a "Great RPG Evil" into the center of this seems like a cheap way to add drama.

Vogel needs to pay attention to his first week sales numbers on steam. If they are fairly consistent from game to game, then I think it would be reasonable to raise his prices there to 15 dollars, as this probably means he has a dedicated following there that will pay more (I know I'd be willing to pay 15 dollars). Then, a few months later, he can target the impulse buyers in a sale. I actually kind of wonder if the success of the Spiderweb humble bundle might hurt the sales of Avadon 2, mainly because all the impulse buyers basically now own every game Spiderweb ever created for 3 dollars. Given this, I highly doubt many of them are going to buy a new Spiderweb game for full price day one, especially when that game looks so similar, graphically, to all the other Spiderweb games they already have yet haven't played yet.

Well, the virtue of Spiderweb games is that they end. Part of the reason I've deliberately avoided playing MMO's all these years is that I see them as being potentially life destroying time sucks as the grind is never ending. I don't mind being taken in by psychological manipulation provided that said manipulation has an end point (and RPGs, with their leveling up and rewards that keep you playing are very much a form of psychological manipulation, or, in the least, digital skinner boxes). At one of my former jobs there was a group of WOW fanatics who did nothing but talk about WOW at work and play WOW in their free time. Hanging out with them was almost like hanging out with a cult. It was kind of creepy and made them really tedious to be around by, enough so that it kind of put me off MMO's forever.

I'm severely uncool. I didn't know what Spiderweb was until they released Avadon 1 on steam back in 2011. I made up for lost time after that, though, as during the past two years I've beaten Avadon 1 and 2, Avernum 4-6, Escape From the Pit, and Geneforge 1-5 all on torment. There's just something about these games that's like crack to me. Even the one's I didn't particularly like (Avernum 4 and 5, mostly), kind of sucked me in via the OCD, insect-like, need to gather more loot and level up just one more time. That said. I am a bit Spiderwebbed out for the moment. Once I finally get around to beating Nethergate which is the last unfinished SW game in my steam catalog, playing at a rate of 1 new game per year will be a welcome change of pace.

So I finished and got all the achievements. I liked it overall. Here are my thoughts: Pros: -The writing and plot are improved, I think. The story gets underway right off the bat, unlike the first, which is nice. Plus I liked the corruption and the greater focus on the Pact as a seperate ruling body apart from Avadon. -Seemed to have fewer trash mobs. The game seemed way bigger than Avadon 1, but I finished it on torment in half the time, which was nice. -Most companion quests were well done. I miss Nathalie and the Shaman and Shadowwalker NPCs were kind of boring, but the others were pretty well done. -I liked the cliffhanger ending as I think it sets the story up in an interesting way for Avadon 3 (i.e. it shifts things around in way that I think will make the next game be very different in set up from 1 and 2). Cons: -TOO EASY! I beat almost all of the challenge bosses on torment my first try, without using resurrections scrolls. Same with the Redbeard fight. I even managed the Dragon on torment (although it took me a few tries and a good portion of my stache of usables). I don't mind the main game being on the easier side, but I wish there were a few insanely hard optional challenge fights like in the original. As it is, apart from the Dragon, the hardest fight in the game was probably that tinkermage hideout one. Of course, I kind of hate to complain about this as I think Avadon 1 was one of the hardest spiderweb games out there, but a happy medium between the easiness of 2 and the uber-hardness of 1 would be nice for Avadon 3. -The TInkermage is way too overpowered. I like the added level of strategy they add with the turrets, but they really need to be balanced in the next game. Either make turrets more fragile, or make their efficacy governed by a single main attribute (like str, dex, or int). My main character was a mage, so I only ever had 1 tinkermage in my party, but even then most fights were a cakewalk. I can't imagine how insanely easy it would be with a two tinkermage party. -Kind of anti-climactic. I wish there was a boss of some sort if you stay loyal. -I mentioned this earlier, but I think the politics of the game can be kind of dry. The Geneforge's political factions were immediately engaging because they all had very clear stances on various philosophical questions about personhood, eugenics, and slavery that were ethically/morally interesting in themselves. Avadon's factions are never that engaging, though, just because the moral and ethical stakes are never as clear. It's kind of a squabble over land/power, which is hard to get invested in and the various factions and their motivations can get confusing at times. Which honestly makes it hard to choose sides just because they all seem just as good as any other. It just doesn't have the moral/philosophical hook that Geneforge has (like, I felt passionately about which factions in Geneforge were right/wrong in a way that I don't with Avadon). I was never as involved in the game's plot as I was the GEneforges, which is a shame as I think the Avadon universe has potential. -I don't mind the romance being there, but it felt underdeveloped. It was an interesting Biowarian experiment, but I think it would have worked better had the romance been with one of your companions, which would have given it more stakes as you would have known them more (especially if said companion decides to go the route SIlke went). But it's not a big deal given how easy it was to ignore.

Thanks. How do you get into the deep cellars for the Counselor's quest, though? She wants you to investigate magic below her feet. But the gates are all down.

Never mind, I'd been hunting for ages and just realized she's in the middle of the basement, lol.

I want to kill Valera but can't seem to find her. I already did the quest that involves her temple.

How do you get into Foresight's basement? I can't figure this out either.

Yeah, it says as much in the paragraph when you first enter the room, but I must have missed it.

In the second section of the quest, how do you get past the area with the crystals spawning enemies on either end of the hall. You are supposed to open a wheel in the middle of the room, but it says you can't open it until the spawning stops. But the spawning never seems to stop. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

@Weird HEather: You really, really, need to the play the Geneforges if you haven't. I like the Avadons fine, but they don't do politics as well as the GEneforges. I think most of the problem involves the fact that Avadon's politics, at the end of the day, mostly boil down to disputes over land and political control. Which is all kind of boring and dry. Whereas all of Geneforge's political disputes are rooted in philosophical questions about freedom, consciousness, slavery, and eugenics, which makes its politics immediately engaging and interesting in a way that Avadon's politics never are. I've seen people have long interesting philosophical debates about the factions in the Geneforge games, yet people never seem to get all that passionate about Avadon's factions just because there's honestly not much there to get excited about.