New Geneforge avatars

[Dikiyoba]

There are now about a dozen character graphics from the Geneforge series in the stock avatar list. If you're looking for a new avatar, you should go check it out.

 

If you're not looking for a new avatar, you should go look at them anyway, because Dikiyoba spent a long time getting them to look right.

[Ephesos]

Yay! Now we just need the Avernum and Geneforge avatars to fight.

[Dantius]

As is to be expected, the old unmodified Shaper graphic is the coolest of all the stock avatars. I liked the War Trall and the Wingbolts, too.

[Enraged Slith]

Still no Exile

 

You're just not cool until your retro avatar is legit.

[Toby-Linn]

Very nice avatars Diki!

 

I like them a lot, but am still on my X-Files/Scully kick for the moment.

[Sudanna]

Oooh, pretty.

[Triumph]

Cool!

 

Yeah, the old-school Shaper is pretty impressive-looking.

[lampshade]

I remember when the ikonboards had stock avatars from Yoshi's Story; was pretty neat.

[Aoslare]

Hmm. Perhaps I should make a set of Exile avatars after all.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

Hmm. Perhaps I should make a set of Exile avatars after all.

I made these a while back.

[Aoslare]

No, no, proper Exile avatars from the older graphics set. Hunchback girl with halberd FTW!

[Monroe]

Yeah, by Exile 3, the graphics actually looked pretty snazzy compared to the even older ones.

[Enraged Slith]

 

Exile 1 and 2 was never the same after the "upgrade."

[Acky]

Ouch, what an eyesore >.<

 

*gets shoved in a crate and burned to death*

[Aoslare]

 

Proof! I found it. Although I don't have a copy of the oldest Exile graphics set, here is PICT resource 810 from the Exile 2.0 application. Its 'Name' is "The graphics sure were crude, huh?" These six PC images are from the original 1.0 graphics file. Several of them, you will note, are neither in the Exile 2.0 PC graphics above nor in the (very similar) Exile 1.0.1 graphics, if somebody wants to dig those out.

[The Mystic]

@Enraged Slith: In a word, eeeww. I for one am glad for the graphics overhaul, and gladder still for not having discovered the Exile Trilogy until BoE was a year or two old, otherwise I probably wouldn't be here today.

[Enraged Slith]

Exile 1 and 2 don't feel right modernized. They're old school games, and the old school graphics really help cement that feel. Also, afro monk.

[Rowen]

I spy Robin Hood in those graphics.

[Ephesos]

So... if someone wants to send me the Exile bits and pieces they want uploaded as avatars, I can do that.

[nikki.]

Thanks to both Diki and Eph for doing this, but I get the feeling that using dialogue pictures (or cropped splash screens/loading screens) would get more people using the avatars.

 

Just a thought.

[Dikiyoba]

Eh, I don't mind if the avatars see lots of use or not. Most people seem to prefer to use one of their own creation or find an avatar from elsewhere, and there's not a whole lot the stock avatar selection can do to compete with that. Mostly it's just aimed at the few people who will use a stock avatar so they have more choices.

 

(And so they'll be less likely to chose one of the lame default ones, if Dikiyoba is allowed to say that.)

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Also, afro monk.

Too bad the Exile graphic doesn't have nunchaku instead of a staff.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

<img src="http://minmax.ermarian.net/oldexile.gif">

Proof! I found it. Although I don't have a copy of the oldest Exile graphics set, here is PICT resource 810 from the Exile 2.0 application. Its 'Name' is "The graphics sure were crude, huh?" These six PC images are from the original 1.0 graphics file. Several of them, you will note, are neither in the Exile 2.0 PC graphics above nor in the (very similar) Exile 1.0.1 graphics, if somebody wants to dig those out.

this owns

seriously look at these and try to tell me they aren't 1,000,000 times more awesome than the current generation's graphics

[Aoslare]

Incidentally, something that occured to me recently while realizing how much of the code may have been unchanged since the original 1 AP 1.0 -- that explains archery. Jeff goes on and on about how archery and throwing weapons are really great in the in-game help. Well, under the 1 AP system they were because you basically got a bunch of free turns to lob missiles and spells while the enemies closed, that would be useless for anyone who only knew melee. In particular this explains the insistence that poison arrows are the way to kill enemy spellcasters, who would get several rounds of spells in before coming into melee range -- possibly more, if other enemies ended up in front. Poison arrows WERE deadly if they hit several rounds before your enemies were able to attack you!

[Alorael at Large]

Incidentally, the E1/E2 graphics are still how I picture sliths and nephils, mostly.

 

—Alorael, who isn't sure why the old graphics stuck so well. They definitely did, though. Probably Jenneke's fault somehow.

[cfgauss]

I think the old graphics stick better because they're more stylized and cartoony, instead of the pretending to be realistic style we see in the new games.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

this owns

seriously look at these and try to tell me they aren't 1,000,000 times more awesome than the current generation's graphics

Okay. They aren't 1 million times more awesome than the current generation's graphics.

Happy now?

[Aoslare]

Originally Posted By: cfgauss

I think the old graphics stick better because they're more stylized and cartoony, instead of the pretending to be realistic style we see in the new games.

QFT

[Monroe]

Stylized and cartoony FTW.

 

Edit: Though the BoE era graphics are still better than the originals. Saying the originals are the very best is just wrong.

[Dantius]

Pshaw. All you yong kids, with actual graphics! What noobs. Back in the day, our games looked like this:

 

Code:

---------|.......||....]..|                   -----  |.......+##############     |...|  |...Z...|             ######+..<||..@....|                   |...| ------+--                   -----THE ZOMBIE HITS!THE ZOMBIE HITS!YOU HIT THE ZOMBIE!THE ZOMBIE DIES! THE ZOMBIE HITS! -more-

[Alorael at Large]

Back in the day? You mean today. Except only sissies play games where pound signs are floors, not walls.

 

—Alorael, who considers E3's graphics still cartoony, just more detailed in their cartoonishness. He prefers E3's graphics to E1's or E2's (and A1-3's monsters and PCs, actually), but the older ones stuck. Maybe it's the simplicity that lets the brain hold on.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Post hoc ergo post hoc

Except only sissies play games where pound signs are floors, not walls.

...

In a thread complaining about how the original graphics are better then the new ones, I would think you would come out guns blazing in support of the original Rogue. Besides, old Rogue is, by definition, the best of all Roguelikes. That's why they're called Roguelike, instead of Morialikes (Moria did come first, IIRC), or NetHacklikes, or Angbandlikes.

[Aoslare]

The original Exile graphics aren't better because they are original. They are better, and they are also original, but those two things are not related.

 

And Dantdringison, Rogue *definitely* predates Moria. I think there was a different unix game called 'moria' (not sure if it actually predates rogue or not) but the roguelike called Moria descended from Rogue and not vice versa. Rogue was in fact that first roguelike and that is in fact why they are called roguelikes.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES

And Dantdringison, Rogue *definitely* predates Moria. I think there was a different unix game called 'moria' (not sure if it actually predates rogue or not) but the roguelike called Moria descended from Rogue and not vice versa.

Yeah, I just Wiki'd it and Moria postdates rogue. There was, however, a roguelike called "Beneath Apple Manor" that predated Rogue by two years. On the other hand, Beneathapplemanorlike definitely does not have the same ring.

[Monroe]

I remember games like that. I'm not that old, though. Games like Angband were behind their times, I suppose.

 

Edit: Didn't you claim to be really old one time, Dantius? Shouldn't you be telling us how cool it was when television came out in color?

[Alorael at Large]

I was mostly mocking the roguelike wars. I don't actually enjoy Rogue very much, though. I can see why Angband and its derivatives and NetHack are the more popular successors. (And ADOM, but ADOM never really had the same penetration even into the tiny roguelike niche.)

 

—Alorael, who had never heard of Beneath Apple Manor. It looks like a legitimate contender for first roguelike, although Rogue is the game whose memetic code ended up in all the games that came afterwards.

[Student of Trinity]

I have a faint memory of playing Beneath Apple Manor at a friend's place or at a computer club or something. Could have been something else, though. Colored blocks and big fat text doesn't really narrow it down much among games of that era. But "90% AAARG!" rings a faint bell.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Post hoc ergo post hoc

I was mostly mocking the roguelike wars. I don't actually enjoy Rogue very much, though. I can see why Angband and its derivatives and NetHack are the more popular successors. (And ADOM, but ADOM never really had the same penetration even into the tiny roguelike niche.)

As newer roguelikes go, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is pretty good. It has more reasonable learning and difficulty curves than Nethack, but without the grinding-heavy gameplay of Angband.

[Milla]

...I like Stone Soup but I've never gotten past the 6th/7th dungeon level...screw spontaneously appearing ghosts of the past.

[Alorael at Large]

NetHack always seems to me like a mostly solved game. I haven't played enough to know all the necessary pieces of information, and I don't feel like looking them up constantly, so I don't play, so I don't improve my knowledge base. Angband has no such problem, but it also has essentially no depth. It's just a bloodier mental equivalent of Tetris.

 

—Alorael, who will give Stone Soup a try. If he gets eaten by a grue he'll hold you accountable.

[lampshade]

Crawl has its own server @ crawl.akrasiac.org

If you play there I might watch sometime