ymoc

Haha I think we honestly can't take you as a valid benchmark concerning game length... Let's be realistic for a moment. Anyone who plays games for a hobby and entertainment doesn't and CAN'T spend anywhere near triple digit number of hours playing games. You must realize you've spent at least 125 DAYS playing just the Elder Scrolls titles. Usually people do have other things in their lives besides games and therefore I think the concept of what constitutes a long game can't be made by extremists on either side. The same way I can't claim that an hour long song is a short one, just because I normally listen to atmospheric songs that stretch into hours. It just doesn't work like that. Going to the next issue: I F**** LOVE Crusader too hahaha. One of the best classics for me. I don't think voice acting is destroying games. Look at the adventure games: Curse of the Monkey Island is probably the best in the series and in my opinion the best adventure game ever made. It's not the voice acting, it's the game design that ruins games. Though I agree that RPGs can do well and sometimes even better without it, but I wouldn't go as far as calling it a game destroyer. And about the graphics....I don't think we can honestly compare Spiderweb games to titles such as Fallout 1 and Fallout 2....The thing that Avadons is really missing in this department IMHO is not so much the shiny graphics, but the character design and level design. It is way too bland and artistically lacking to be able to compare to the mentioned classics. That is my biggest complaint. Not FX, not hi-res textures, not 3D\2D... Spiderweb would benefit so much from a character designer or artist...not necessarily even a full timer, maybe even a senior undergraduate student who'd be willing to make some designs for dirt cheap. You say graphics are not important. I can agree to a point, but I would say that games are primarily a visual media. You perceive it with your eyes first. If you are only interested in stories you can read a book and I'm not even joking. Books are wonderful ! When you're reading a book you are the master of the illusion. You create the images in your mind. When you play a game that is no longer in your command. You only get what the developer was able to create. It is much more limiting and therefore subject to harsher standards. It just comes with the territory. PS: I wonder if you've played STALKER yet...it's a FPS\RPG mix with atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Mmmhm I can understand where you're coming from. Basically the niche market that his games have established is on one side a means of survival but on the other hand a cage. I want to explain my criticisms again a bit more. When I say I dislike the graphics I was mostly trying to convey that from a casual gamer's perspective (honestly, I never cared too much about it and even so they werent that bad) and the fact that way too many gamers will de facto not touch a game because of the mentioned reasons. Clearly I've demonstrated to be a newcomer to the spiderweb scene and I've made no illusion I was not. My intention from the very start has be rather naive it seems, that is try to be a little piece in the puzzle to make these games more popular by giving a tiny bit of "casual" (I actually hate this term) imput into the debate (Changes that I mentioned ideally wouldn't necessarily mean a simplified or changed game in any significat way that would completely alienate the fanbase). I made no claim I'm anywhere near the established Spiderweb fanbase, but your argument is rather shortsighted. I might just as well call myself a fan of the game(s), just not an oldschool fan like yourself. I see no need to dismiss any fan based on their points of view or the time they've been a "true" fan. About the length surely you cannot say that Avadon is a short title. The fact that other Spiderweb games are much greater in length doesn't change the fact that a 50 hour game is still a long game, but in the context that you mentioned I can completely understand where you're coming from. I can understand how for someone as yourself the game can seem rather short and there is nothing wrong with that. It just shows how people with different background see things completely differently. Without this the gaming world would truly be empty and dry. Cheers to you! Perhaps yes, perhaps not... I still believe that a more focused game would have a much better chance of expanding its market. If that meant that the core of the game was kept (turn based, character system, quality of writing) I don't see how a fan of the games would feel alienated so much that he\she would abandon it (but im sure you guys will crush my naive assumptions:P). Of course I could be completely wrong, so the more people discuss, the better the opinions can get! Please free to criticise my ideas as much as you can : ) PS: When I play a really good game, I also want it to be as long as possible too But the thing I can never forgive is content fillers, no matter how great the game is in general. I had the same gripe with Risen a few months ago when I played it. An excellent game with unfortunate content fillers towards the end. In those moments I really wonder if those extra few hours of gameplay are really worth it....

Oh that's really commendable, I did not know that. It is a monumental task for a single (!) person to create a game as complex and huge as Avadon. Maybe I should've been more precise about graphics in correlation to the game. Now that I know it's basically a one man team making the game this stands even more: why focus on making a HUGE game with poorer assets instead of making a shorter game with better assets? Please try to understand the point I'm trying to make with the graphics. Gamers are many times what we call "graphic-whores". We normally judge the books by its covers (unfortunaly). This is more a curse than a blessing for small developers, but I don't think it is the ruin. I don't know if it's actually possible for a small time developer to greatly increase the quality of sound and image, but thinking of this strictly from an economic point of view of production factors, I imagine it would be possible (?) to divert resources from the quantity over to quality. Even a short but exceptional game would probably attract a wider audience. What do you think ? Edit: glad to hear about the improvement of tablet support! I think there is a really great potential market for TurnBased RPGs !

Let me first bid everyone a big hello! This is my first time posting here so please excuse any mistakes (English is my second laguage) or misunderstandings I might have about the game and everything surrounding it. "Coincidentally", Avadon is also the first game from Spiderweb that I have played. To be fair, I probably never would have played the game were it not for the Humble Bundle which featured Avadon The Black Fortress as one of its titles. The reason why I joined this forum was to express my opinion about this game and (mostly) give some hopefully constructive criticism and review. Next thing important thing to consider is: I played the game (on normal) on my tablet so my impressions are a reflection of that version and not the PC. I am not a gaming journalist so my reviewing skills aren't particularly great, but I will try my best to give a good opinion from a perspective of a somewhat casual gamer that loves turn based and rpg games. Graphics: To me, the first thing I see in a rpg are the graphics. This is one of the biggest factors by which I decide whether I want to play (but not necessarily like) a game or not. I grew up to love the Diablo 2 and Divine Divinity-kind-of look the most over the years, with its beautiful 2d environments and characters so that kind of games always have a soft spot in my heart. That being said, I have to be frank about Avadon. I immediately felt the game to be rather unpleasant to my eyes. Apart from the character portraits the game looked pretty bleak and monotone and the locations almost all the time seemed too similar to each other. The character design also deserves criticism. There is little diversity and imagination that was put into the look and feel of the humanoids and monsters. Particularly disappointing were the dragons (which were described as monstrous and incredibly strong creatures) which looked nothing more than big lions with wings. The same can be said of the titans. The rest of the monsters were usually smaller wolves, spiders and lizards, which to me were all pretty unimpressive and gave me (especially the lizards and spiders) very little satisfaction when I was slaughtering them on by one. Maybe Spiderweb Soft wants you to start loathing killing all those poor spiders since they feel sorry for them on a deeper ontological level Enough with the bad jokes! Considering the game is predominantly a hack and slash experince (admit it!) all the graphical shortcomings make it even less satisfying. Funny fact: Once I even encountered a female character that was used for a male speaker of the text, which made me chuckle a bit he he he. The character animation is barely existent so I cannot comment a lot here, but I did not get an impression that the game lacked something fundamental with poor animation. It really wasn't such an important factor, but it would've been nicer to have more fluid animation, especially the way of walking, but I'm nitpicking here. Score: 4\10 Gameplay: This is the core of the game and unlike the graphics is actually important when deciding wether this is a good, mediocre or bad game. The first thing that really deserves criticism is the movement. Playing on a tablet can sometimes be a pain in the ass. Moving through the map is basically moving screen to screen. This means when you move to the edge of a screen, the view "jumps" to the next visible area. Moving forward is therefore achieved through constant tapping the edge of the screen. The whole thing is very jagged and annoying. You cannot hold your finger at the edge of the screen and let your main character keep running in that direction. Nope, you gotta keep tapping, keep tapping it. I think the easiest way to solve this problem would be to implement autoscrolling. Yeah, there is no autoscrolling in Avadon (as far as I noticed). The most effective way to move forward that I managed to find was to make (oxymoron) a manual autoscroll by tapping on the destination I wanted my party to go and then quickly pressing my finger on the screen and pulling the view in the said direction before the main character reached the edge of the screen (to prevent the extremely annoying screen jump). When I did this fast enough it made the moving was actually relatively smooth. Of course this routine gets tiring since you're working your fingers way too much just to get from one side of the map to the other. When you've actually explored the map you are able to tap the destination on your minimap and your party finds the way automatically, so at least this makes backtracing a little less discomforting (your fingers and wrist will thank you). Another thing that would need a better solution would also be the minimap. The button to expand the mini map into the complete map is too small and it is actually put on top of the mini map. Half the time I wanted to expand the mini map by tapping the "Expand" button, but I ended up failing, because I would miss it by a hair and the screen would move to the minimap's location I tapped by accident (that would be to the lower left corner). The whole problem could be handled better by either moving the expand button next to the minimap or making the button a bit bigger. Also I wouldn't mind if the map had a few extra functions, like similar with minimap to be able to move to the the tapped location on the map. Another thing that would've been nice is having the option of making notes on the map, which would help a lot with those numerous FedEx quests. Another thing I ended up being annoyed with was switching from melee to ranged during and after combat. The buttons are small and put in the lower left corner which makes it discomforting to keep pressing. (I'm stretching this a bit, but I think there could've been a more dynamic solution for tablet users) Abot the character system, while not being a fan of D&D, I found it to be ok. You have the basic classes with their own specialities which I think I don't need to point out. Although I would say that the level cap could've been pointed out eariler in the game, so that as a casual gamer I would be able to invest into the skill tree with a bit more tact. Because I was spending points liberally, since I didn't expect a level 30 cap, I ended up not getting the top skill I was striving for since the middle of the game. And another thing that was a bit unclear were the bonus points to skills that you receive through special items. It took me a while to figure out that the bonus wasn't calculated into the number on the skill tree, but there was a little +1 on top of the number (that was me being silly). Another thing I missed was the ability to save points for later. The game forced you to spend all your upgrade points immediately when you leveled up. This was a bit problematic for me at the start, because I was completely unfamiliar with the game's design and I couldn't wait upgrading until I learned more about it (like most other rgps allow). Another thing that could've been introduced a bit more were the basic stats. I still don't how exactly does +1 of, let's say, Dexterity affect my character. I did not feel it to be rather significant (or maybe it makes more difference on Hard and Torment) on Normal. This meant that the items I received usually didn't feel much different with one another. Be it +5% resistance, or +1 strength, etc. Even in the last parts of the game the items didn't become much stronger or unique. More than half the game I "struggled" with mediocre equipment which I ended up using almost to the end since there were really few items that topped them. Most of the time the item would just have a different "buff". Why did I use " " there? Because I really don't consider "-10% to ability respawn" something worthy of a top item. What does this even do? That instead in 8 turns my ability would return in 7.5 or 7 if I'm lucky? By that time the fight would've either been long over or I would've used one of the (quite numerous) items to recharge my abilities. This made items like these useless to me (maybe I'm playing it wrong, but this was my experience). The same goes for many other blessings and curses. Never in the game did I feel like I obtained any extraordinary item (im wondering if this is a D&D thing, since I remember feeling similarly when I played the Baldur's Gate series.... nope, Chronicles of Aethra did it perfectly and the game is a closer relative to Avadon than BG, so maybe not!). The thing that was annoying to me as a casual gamer was that I had no idea how resistant my character was against mind effects or magical, melee or other attacks. I could equip an armor that gave me let's say 5% resistance to hostile effects and then I would cross my fingers and hope that nothing hit me. I still have no idea what "hostile effects" even are and how much those 5% would even matter in the end (the game chronically needs better descriptions). I believe that these things should've been made much clearer in the character window (with a comulative statistics for each character, e.g. 20% resistance to melee, 30 % resistance to magic attack, etc.). I also felt that the Shaman and partly the Wizard had much less dedicated weapons compared to the Blademaster. Blademaster could effectivly use swords, bows, spears (+ armor) and also have a similar number of attack abilities and chants as the other classes. I think the balance here could've been a bit better (strictly speaking about items, not the total damage dealt by each class). I'm glad I chose the Blademaster The combat is mostly done well, though I wonder about the choice to make a character "stopped" after moving around enemies. This on one hand is a logical thing and helps to keep your casters on a safe distance and force you to make use of special abilities and strategy more, but on the other hand it makes fights slower and less dynamic. In the end it is a design desicion that I don't want to mark as good or bad. Score: 6\10 Story and quests A good point for Avadon is that it is never afraid to show you a wall of text. This is good since it is able to tell a lot more than your avarage hack&slash rpg. Personally, I quite liked the basic concepts: e.g. Avadon, the great keeper of peace, then the outer provinces, dragons, treason, etc. There is however something I did not like. As much as I would like to love all the shades of morality in this game, it just didn't convince me entirely. No matter what you did in this game, it was (almost) never truly good or truly evil. You could never go out to do something heroic just for the sake of it and ask nothing in return (ok, a few quests gave you that option, but they were few and insignificant), or on the other hand even when you chose to kill someone it did not really qualify strictly as evil when you look at it from the geopolitical point of view that the game is trying to show. Who is actually the bad guy here? Who is the good guy ? I didn't find that answer and to be honest, nobody was particularly positive. Not the farlanders with their deceptions, murders, trickery, but also not Avadon led by Redbeard, who is nothing more than a power-hungry megalomaniac, who kills everyone who oppose him, tortures and enslaves his enemies, sentences whole villages to death because of the errors their leaders have made, supports murder when it suits his needs all in the name of peace. The quality of writing was fluctuating during the whole game. The game starts quite strong but soon runs out of breath, especially with side quests. The main quests were usually solid, but many times stretched out a bit. As mentioned, the side quests are the one I have the biggest gripe with. There are some of the souless and most boring quests I've ever played. Quests such as "Kill the Rats in the cellar", "Find the recipies of the wizard", "Find the Titan's Club", "Kill the wolves", "Kill the dire wolves", "Kill the xy", "Find the xy" are nothing more than a content filler, full of fetch and carry tasks and mob bashing. A real borefest for me. The saddest thing of all was that there are simply too many quests like this in the game. I would dare to say the game would've been better off if these quests were cut, or if they at least differed from each other. As it stands you've got the same maze style map with the same set of monsters in these quests, and the only thing that changes are the statistics and a "scarier" name of the creature. Instead of wolves you've now got dire wolves. Instead of spiders you've now got forest spiders... The companion stories were sometimes interesting, but lots of times they ended up being redundant (especially Shima's was particularly weak, since after a quite long and rather interesting prelude to his great journey for revenge we ended up with the most generic and anticlimax map and conclusion possible. I quite liked Natalie's hunt though, apart from the completely unnecessary puzzle elements). Even the main quests had the same illness. "Go kill the Wretches that are bothering the dragon", and then the biggest faux pas "Go kill the Titans that are bothering the dragon" just to reuse the same assets of the game and provide an extra few hours of playtime. At that point I was about to give up on this game, but my stubbornes to finish a game that I've started was just strong enough to not give up. I have to say I'm glad I finished it, because the last part of the game was actually great! The story finally moved somewhere and things got really interesting. I enjoyed everything after the castle chase and return to Avadon and I'm actually thinking of buying the sequel when it gets out! Moving on. One thing that bothers me the more I think of it: I never felt like a "hero" of Avadon, in terms of the legendary soldier I was supposed to be by the Avadon folklore. Let me explain more before you call me some rude names In the beginning I was lucky to kill little beasties like rats and spiders, but as the game progressed and I leveled up I never noticed any change. I was still killing the same beasties.The fights were pretty much on the same difficulty level as before, because the game always anticipates your level and strength and puts a matching opponent on your path. Even the little spiders get ridiculus stats later on and there is never really a point where you feel like one of the strongest people in the land. This feeling is increased even more with the few insane fights in the game, where you barely get away with your life, not to mention the absurdity of fighting Redbeard or the second dragon (forgot the name, something on Z). Even the stone guardians are stronger than Avadon's top soldier, with its constant double heal ability and stuns. Im not saying the game should get easier as you progress, on the contrary it must be even more challenging, but it would've been nice to once in a while kick some major ass and claim the rank of Avadon's top dog between the common folk. As it stands, you never stop feeling like a little piece of [censored], since everywhere you go there's gonna be a spidey or a rat that's will be on par with Avadon's finest. You know what, I wouldn't even mind feeling like a little piece of [censored] had all the people not crapped their pants when they noticed that I'M FROM AVADOOOON. All the time. Everyone was saying how awesome I was...If they only knew the little peace of [censored] I really was... :sigh: And speaking of the general game balance, I don't know if this is on purpose, but I see no reason why a dragon with it's stone guardians could not take over or at least kill nearly all of Avadon's soldiers. On top of that, there's just no way Avadon could ever fight 2 dragons combined. The game balance is sometimes a bit ridiculous and it really destroys the image of the world and its "superpowers". If I were a dragon I wouldn't take this [censored] from Avadon, I'd just team up with a dragon mate and burned down all the puny little pieces of [censored] As much as I quite enjoyed the combat, coupled with the bad quest structure and writing, the substandard graphics and level design, the game felt boring way too often. I'm not criticizing that it's linear. I love linear games. I don't however love tedious quests with no purpose other than stretching the game time. I really wish the developer decided to rather make a 10 hour game instead of 50, but packed it with more quality! Improved character models, textures, quests (especially considering that there is clearly talent for writing, which is sadly wasted on absurd side quests) and added transparency to the character build would go A LONG WAY in making this a really great game. Score: 5.5\10 Sound: The game featured no music besides the title music. I feel the developer made a mistake here. Over the years I've come to realize just how much music affects games and how much atmosphere it can bestow. This was really a missed opportunity IMHO that should be acknowledged. Had the game feature and exceptional sound design I might have changed my opinion, but the sound design was dry and minimalistic at best. I decided to give no score in this category. Score: N\A Conclusion: What is there left to say about this game. Here comes some final criticism: I didn't like the essence of this game. When trying to play as a positive (or pure evil) character in Avadon that has been thrown between two moderate evils, the only possible way would've been to not join either side, but the game doesn't give you that option. The game tries to show you that a lesser evil must be made for the greater good, but it tackles it in a bit awkward way which ultimately left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I hope that this interesting concept will be further developed and upgraded in the future title! What do I see when I look at Avadon. With many flaws I can still see a rough gem in the center. Turn based rpgs today are rare. Very rare. It is most encouraging to see the genre being supported by indie developers and I must admit that Avadon has many positive qualities that should be expanded and built upon. I see a great potential in the world of Avadon. The game has set up an interesting stage for many more tales and adventures. I sincerely wish that some of my points from this rather ruthless review will be taken into consideration with the future titles. My only wish when writing this review was to do my part as a gamer to help the developer see some of the things that bothered a casual gamer like me. Despite the harsh score, Avadon The Black Fortress is a solid piece of the classic rpg genre and I am looking forward to the sequel. I hope the developer can find even greater inspiration in the future and tries on improving the overall quality of the game and not focuses solely on the length. I think this was the cruical design decision that in my opinion damaged the game more than it benefitied it. Final score: 5\10