Same Graphics?

[Yank]

I've played an avernum or two, and I have to say, I was well entertained.

 

However, as I switched from avernum to avernum I noticed the characters, enemies, and general looks of the game don't change much at all!

 

Why do you refuse to change things? Watching the same people run around killing stuff has a short-lived entertainment factor.

[Lilith]

Well, Jeff Vogel has to hire an artist whenever he wants new graphics made, and that's expensive. If you're playing the Avernum series at all, you're presumably playing for plot and/or gameplay, not fancy new graphics.

 

Avernum 4 does have completely reworked graphics, though.

[Aran]

Whether that is a curse or a blessing is another matter, however.

[*i]

Quote:

Why do you refuse to change things?

Because graphics are expensive and difficult to develop. Spiderweb software is a company of three on a low budget. Square is a company of hundreds with a budget of millions so they can make each Final Fantasy game have a whole new set of graphics.

Quote:

Watching the same people run around killing stuff has a short-lived entertainment factor.

I was reading the Lord of the Rings the other day and I noticed the Tolkein kept reusing the same words over and over again in each of the books. Yeah, the sentences were different, but the words themselves kept popping up.

[Tyranicus]

I've found that, in many cases where the graphics do change, I prefer the old ones. I'll take the yellow goblins over the red ones any day, and the coins in BoA just look like metallic lumps. I also preferred the wolves from Nethergate and the old chairs. The few new graphics added later just don't seem to fit.

[Tool]

Quote:

Originally written by Tyranicus:
I've found that, in many cases where the graphics do change, I prefer the old ones. I'll take the yellow goblins over the red ones any day, and the coins in BoA just look like metallic lumps. I also preferred the wolves from Nethergate and the old chairs. The few new graphics added later just don't seem to fit.

I agree. I liked Exile's tileset the most, and the Avernum Trilogy's character art was awesome.

[Yank]

Quote:

Yeah, the sentences were different, but the words themselves kept popping up.

The same words keep popping up in Avernum too, but what does that have to do with anything? If these simple sprites had prefixed names and storylines I would be ok with them being the same, but since they don't, it just doesn't fit to have some guy look exactly the same as the last guy, but with (possibly) a different name, less power, and no recollection of what happened before.

Don't get me wrong, I love Spidey-games, but I'm tired of seeing the same graphics gain the same levels, get the same skills, then kill the same monsters... again.

So in short I think it's a good game, but with little to nil replayability, and little variance between sequels/prequels.

By the way, considering it is made by a three-man team, the game is very well made.

[Alorael at Large]

If you're playing for the graphics, you're playing the wrong company's games.

 

If you're playing for variable mechanics, you're not living in the world of most RPG developers. A frequent scheme is to develop a system and then use it until the graphics are too dated. I think Spiderweb's skill point system is my favorite character advancement system and I wouldn't want it to be mucked with unnecessarily anyway.

 

The point of the games has always been the plot (or the ambience, to be more specific, but that's another argument), and those aren't the same. Usually. Actually, they are in many ways the same, but they're good ways. Sometimes. More often than not.

 

—Alorael, who thinks you missed a metaphor.

[Thralni]

I always see people reapeating exactly the same things. If I'm not mistaken, I've seen "You're playing the wrong game" now for three times.

 

Anyhow, you are playing the wrong game.

[Semodius]

All I ask for is as many Nephilim and Slithzerikai graphics as appeared in BoA. Honestly, it's tough to play an all-Nephilim party when each pair of Nephils seem to be clones of each other! (Their portraits anyhow.)

[Avernumist]

Well, I have played Avernum 1-3 few times trough and tried BoA, and as I now tried A4 I was, well, disappointed. Not only were the graphics like the Geneforce, but the game engine too. I liked the clickety-click Avernum movement system, this point and click just is not Avernum! And when I made my party I couldn't find my favorite characters I had played in the A1-3, what a misery.

 

Geneforce is good game at itself, but mix of Avernum and Geneforce... oh no no! I probably play A4 just to see how story continues, but new interface and graphics sure make it painful.

 

I hope that if there ever will be A5 Spiderweb changes back to good old Avernum engine. Well, they're probably hardly going to use quaint Avernum engine. The masses want something new! Heck with all those old-fashioned people who can't change their habits and fondnesses!

[Randomizer]

Jeff already said that there would be more character graphics for Avernum 5. If you want more choices then someone is going to have to donate the art work. The chitrach only really got fixed in the Mac version because a better one was sent while Jeff fixed problems with the games.

[Avernumist]

I don't know much about game-making, but why couldn't he use character graphics from earlier Avernums? I meant I don't want anything new, just those I have played with before.

[Lilith]

The character graphics from the old Avernums are too small and don't have the right poses and animations to work in the new engine.

[Suspicious Vlish]

Mispost.

[Dikiyoba]

Dikiyoba would have liked to see all the old portrait graphics, even if they shared the same in-game graphics. The lack of in-game graphics is understandable. The lack of portraits is a little less so.

[VCH]

Oui, portraits where a nice feature of the previous games. At the very least it helped to remind me what my character's names where.

[Firecage]

if you ask me.....keep geneforge stuff with geneforge game and avernum stuff with avernum games and i dont like these goblins in a4....they loook like undead and then i use my repel spirit up only to notice there goblins .AND WHY DONT THEY MAKE A SEQEUL TO NETHER GATE.

[Lilith]

Because there's nothing for a sequel to Nethergate to be about. Nethergate's ending was pretty final.

[Dikiyoba]

lordofdc, use the tab key to see what you are attacking before you attack. That should help distinguish the goblins and the undead.

 

Dikiyoba.