jcdenton

Seems this issue is still unresolved so I'll offer up some tips that worked for me, running every game (demo) that SpiderWeb Software has made on a Win7 box with a non-integrated video card. If you have integrated graphics than you can try this but it might not work for you. Such chipsets always seem to be made with cheap components that get stressed really easily, so stick to browser games. Laptops were never meant for gaming, get over it.

 

-Before updating video drivers, be they Nvidia or ATI, you must uninstall the old ones, then you need to boot into Windows Safe Mode and run a software called 'Driver Cleaner' to clean the remnants.

 

-Otherwise, you run the risk of random errors and incompatibilities.

 

-Nvidia drivers do make an effort to give you the option of 'clean install' but it is always a good idea not to risk issues.

 

-Once you've confirmed everything is completely uninstalled (Win7 just installs a 'VGA driver' by default in my case, leave that alone if that happens to you) then just install the new ones (make sure you aren't in Safe Mode when installing and be sure you RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR even if you had UAC disabled. Good idea do to this with every trusted program that you install so they get proper write permissions.

 

-Update your DirectX from Microsoft's website, both DX9 and DX10/11 or whatever.

 

-If the issue persists, you need further tech support to figure out your motherboard and get updated drivers for those as well. Ask your local computer geek to do it, as it can screw you up badly if a non-professional attempts to do so and messes it up.

Jerakeen, you're a mad genius!

I didn't see the tooltip that comes up because I'm usually moving so many items at once that I don't bother reading it, especially with it being off to the side a bit.

 

On Windows, to send an item directly to junk, you control-click it.

 

*facepalm*

 

You know Jeff is awesome and all but they ignored the fact that PC mice have 2 buttons. Right clicking would be a lot faster/easier. Wish it was an option.

 

The MMORPG thing was a pipe dream. Someday perhaps, but with kickstarter funding it might be possible for Spiderweb Software to do something like that. Remember how primitive Ultima Online used to be? You realize how many utterly crappy F2P MMOs come out and yet tons of people still play and pay for those? Imagine a GOOD isometric-style MMO coming out! Just dreams and all, of course.

 

Lilith, thanks for that heads up. I've done the initial dungeon quests and can now sell stuff to the blacksmith, finally!

 

I'm kinda still hoping someone would have the patience to go through and make everything worth at least one coin, unless that already isn't an issue.

 

Still would love a 'rest' feature to regen vitality like previous Spiderweb games have had.

Here's a mail I sent to Jeff with some thoughts and some pointers. I'm copypasta'ing so pardons if it is badly formatted.

 

Insert tons of gushing here

Just playing the fantastic and generous demo here, me being a broke

college student, but it is still enough gameplay that rivals most

other FULL releases like damn Call of Duty Modern Warfare or other

games with 4 or 5 hour campaigns

Different audiences, but still. Four or five hours at $60?

Multiplayer hasn't always been enough of a reason to drop that kind of

dough for me.

 

Mini-review and random requests here, feel free to use whatever.

Besides, my best ideas I keep to myself

 

- (Request) Junk bag ease-of-use addition

BEST FEATURE EVER PUT INTO AN RPG!

Drag and dropping each and every single item to the junk bag gets

really tiring and may be more difficult for those with arthritis or

other issues who want to limit repetitive mouse movements.

Why not have 'right click' be the 'send to junk bag' option?

If I open inventory and something is either on the ground or in the

pack, right click to send it straight to junk, no fuss no muss!

Currently, right click doesn't even equip weapons/armor, just does the

same thing as the left click.

Another option is to have a keybinding to change the cursor into a

'send to junk' mode and then click on whatever to immediately send it

to the junk bag rather than having to drag/drop everything.

 

- (Request) Vendor in the town of Avadon

Still haven't found one yet. If it wasn't for the junk bag being

equivalent to a weightless portable-hole-of-storage, I'd have been

forced to make tons of trips back and forth to leave piles of loot

everywhere on the ground and hoping it would be there later. So why

not make a vendor available at the start, even if they only buy your

items and don't sell much, or only sell a limited quantity of certain

things?

For those who are kleptomaniac wh0res like myself, might not hurt to

have *every* item in the game be worth at least one coin, please?

Even could have it be a separate copypasta thing posted in the forums

(similar to the one for glowing lockpicks or revealing secret

passages).

 

-Graphics/Aesthetics

Both the actual graphics and the art style aesthetics are fantastic.

Everything is very clean, has no visible borders/lines, and while

staying square you do have some rooms with roundish centerpieces that

draw attention away from the blocky hallways to be a truely wonderful

and eye-pleasing choice! Easily the best looking game you've made

yet! Animations are top-notch and great attention to detail =D

Kudos to the artwork person/people who made the various loading screen pieces!

 

- (Request) Object pickups and range

Having 'worthless' objects able to be picked up seems an odd design

choice; not really needing 'realistic' in a world where you can

conjure up fire and ice at will.

Not being able to pick up something unless you are within a certain

distance of it or looking at it even if you can see it on the table

near you but it won't let you pick it up until you're almost right

next to it. This seems to vary by location and not really 100% sure

how it works. Again somewhat 'realistic' but odd. Might not hurt at

times to sacrifice 'realism' for game enjoyment.

Running around hitting 'g' each time just to see what's on the ground

might break the flow of the game. Objects aren't easily visible and

have no sparkly or glowy effects without modifying files. Diablo 2

let you press the ALT key (on Windows) in order to view the object

names and find loot easier. Perhaps having a similar feature or

implementation of such might be beneficial. In some of your older

games, you could hit the 'pickup' button and have letters appear over

objects so you could pick up whatever you wanted without pulling up a

separate screen every time. Even further, perhaps an 'auto pickup and

sort' feature for those who don't want to miss a thing.

Work on this however you feel you need to do so. Just thoughts, that's all.

 

- (Request) Zooming the game in/out

Environmental objects can be really tiny and changing the text to

'larger' doesn't seem to have a noticeable effect to me. Any way to

add in a 'zoom' feature? Going back to Diablo again, in that game you

hit the 'Z' key to zoom in really far and detailed/pixelated in order

to closely examine your character or the environment. That was in

1996/1997. So why no zooming available here? >_> You already have

unviewed areas darkened so zooming out a bit for a more tactical view

wouldn't be cheating.

 

-Using potions and regaining health

Fantastic way to make things much more fluid and fun! No longer

having to sacrifice your turn just because you ate some food or drank

a potion

 

- (Request) Combat planning mode

Have a 'planning mode' available for combat where you plan out where

your characters move and who they attack, and what they do in what

order, then you confirm the actions and they all play out. Slows down

combat a bit but would greatly help certain fights where you might

easily click in the wrong spot for moving a character or might not

realize they were close enough to be stopped by an enemy (Zone of

Control), etc. Would also let players 'undo' the last move as long as

they didn't confirm the actions.

 

- (Request) Sounds

I'd love to hear the 'battle yell' sound (or a better-version of it)

from Nethergate be used for the 'Battle Frenzy' ability. It would

seem to work well for that purpose and always elicited a chuckle from

me whenever I heard it.

Standard sound effects that I've heard so far, nothing super special

but they work.

 

- (Request) Music

Would love to have the option of background tracks playing. You

already have SOME music in the game, let us loop it please without

having to use a separate program for that.

 

-3 party members instead of 4

A design choice, but stronger for it. Makes battles that much faster

 

-Good difficulty scaling that matches the stated difficulty

Normal that is what it says instead of being too easy or hard, and

hard/torment for those who want challenge

 

-Medals/Achievements

Nice for completionists, much appreciated that these were added in

 

-Skill Trees

Need a bit of work in designing them a bit more intuitively but a

great effort nonetheless. Having people start at the bottom and go

upward is an interesting design choice.

 

- (Request) Stat Point Allocation Balancing

Yeah it breaks things, but THANK YOU for having this in. So sick of

so-called 'RPGs' out there that don't even let us stat-allocate! It

has been in there since D&D first edition! Please don't remove it in

the next game, just make it so that maxing the stat has to be done

with a significant penalty, gimping yourself in another way. You

could max DEX and be nearly impossible to hit, but your damage output

would be severely gimped instead. Max STR and ignore DEX but you'd

have a hard time hitting anything. Or start having a stated penalty

if the difference between both stats is off by more than X amount. Be

creative with it, you can figure it out without having to take away

stat allocation O_O

Or just put a hard cap that keeps a person from maxing it too high.

 

- (Possible Bug/Confusing UI Stuff) Resistances

Armor resistance? WTF? Shouldn't this be 'physical' resistance?

That would make more sense. A bit confusing >_>

Perhaps modify the armor resistance levels so that they can easily

'stack' and we wouldn't need to do tons of math just to figure out how

much physical defense we have. There was the 'THAC0' system which

seems a bit confusing at first but was intuitive when you understood

it. Lower numbers = better defense. It could be reversed and have

higher numbers = better defense instead, with a hard cap put into

place to prevent 'unhittable' characters.

 

- (Request) Vitality and 'Resting'

I understand why this system exists (perhaps to encourage players to

take breaks during long gaming sessions?) but why doesn't it slowly

recharge outside of battle? WHY IS THERE NO 'REST' FUNCTION!? We

could rest in D&D and many of your earlier games (at the risk of being

ambushed by mobs if it was a dungeon) but that was our risk to take.

Perhaps the two mages could use 'mana' instead of vitality, but that's

your design choice to name it w/e you want as something universal

instead of different names. I always imagined vitality to be yellow

or orange or something, not blue like mana. Players who have played

games before see certain colors in certain ways. Red is health, Blue

is mana, Yellow/Orange are vitality/rage/whatever. Purple could be

for warlocks/necromancers and dark magic.

 

-Scarabs duplicating class skills

Honestly, this may be convenient but also upsets people who invested

the skill points to get those coveted skills. Scarabs are an

awesome-enough idea that would really benefit from allowing unique

game mechanics rather than duplication. I still understand why they

are like that but it is just a thought. Making certain classes

obsolete by scarabs sorta undermines part of your well-done class

design.

 

- (Request) Resizing of UI objects

Not sure if this is an engine limitation or a design choice to not let

anything be resized. While I greatly enjoy being able to hide and

move around certain elements of the UI, I'd love to be able to resize

the minimap (and zoom in/out), change the transparancy of it, or do

the same with any of the other game windows, including the roster and

the interface at the bottom. Maybe even an 'auto hide when not in

combat' feature? I'd love to be able to resize certain game windows

for easier and cleaner reading, especially since one of them overflows

the text out of the box (the one that lists the credits and special

thanks to so and so).

 

- (Request) Augmentations/Runestones being more useful

Fantastic implementation of this feature =D

Runestones are a bit too rare to be used by many players until

end-game, for fear of using up a runestone on a piece of gear they'll

later replace anyways. One way to handle this would be a fixed coin

cost to remove a runestone and possibly lose either the gear or the

runestone itself as a tradeoff. Up to you how you wanna do it, though

you could just be kind and let us keep both

I think about the 'Materia' system from Final Fantasy 7 as one of the

most flexible ways that the whole 'gem socketing' has been done while

making it very easy and effective to experiment with different

combinations at any time.

 

- (Request) Crafting?

I remember Temple of Elemental Evil having a (broken at release)

feature of being able to gather certain materials and craft your own

gear while paying a cost in XP and gold. This was later fixed by fans

but the idea was fantastic and has worked fairly well (once it was

fixed). Would love to see your take on this either in an update patch

or a future game.

 

- (Request) MMORPG?

Ever considered making a multiplayer isometric RPG, perhaps MMORPG?

If you could bring over your attention to detail and storytelling

abilities, it may be quite the hit, especially if it were Free-to-Play

with an 'ethical' cash shop that didn't sell power.

 

By

Mistah JC Denton, En Da Fresh!