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avadon 2


adrenas

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Well yeah, this a new series for Spiderweb. Over the next 2-3 years we'll see the following (assuming Jeff follows his current stated plans):

 

Avadon (just released)

Avernum 1 remake using latest engine

Avernum 2 remake using latest engine*

Avadon 2*

Avernum 3 remake using latest engine

Avadon 3

 

*these middle 2 could easily be swapped

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Avernum 1 with companions or mostly the same Avernum with just the new engine?

 

For me one great point in Avernum 1 is to have multiple scale of exploration and exploit it well. It's not the approach of the new engine so I wonder what the remake could be.

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Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Originally Posted By: Vent
Avernum 1 with companions or mostly the same Avernum with just the new engine?
If it's like when Exile was rewritten into Avernum, it'll be basically the same game with a new engine, plus a new dungeon or two to explore.

Yes but, if I remember well the main technical was kept, ie the multi scale approach. With the new engine I don't see how this could be mimic.

Multi scale is missing in modern games, but I don't know there's perhaps a reason, cost or sells for example. That said the Baldur's Gate approach is my second favorite and it's the one used in Avadon.
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No, the Baldur's Gate approach is used in Geneforge. Avadon uses something much closer to the Baldur's Gate 2's version of areas and outdoors. Realistically, Jeff wants to put as little effort as possible into modernizing his games. Keeping the outdoors and recycling heavily seems like a good idea, but it might lose to modernization. The A6 and Avadon engines don't support outdoors. So really it's a question of whether Jeff will put in the engine work or the mapping work.

 

—Alorael, who also hopes for outdoors. And wall-bashing for secret doors, honestly, but that's probably going to go. And serious consequences of death, difficult healing, item identification, and everything else that Jeff has deliberately jettisoned in order to enrage a tiny but vocal portion of his "fan"base.

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I, for one, welcome our pre-identified overlords. I'm ambivalent between wall-bashing and secret switches...they're both a bit annoying, but not terrible. Aside from that, I'm quite fond of the interface changes, and I say that as someone who's been playing SW games since the late '90s.

 

Also, since it's been thrown around various places on the forums: where did Jeff say he was going to remake A2 and A3 in the near future? It seems like a logical step after remaking A1, but I can't recall him specifically saying anything on his blog, website or newsletter.

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Anyhow, I guess Avernum, Geneforge and Avadon all has its own versions of freedom.

 

In Avernum it was a wide world of freedom where you directly walk into the next area and explore.

 

In Geneforge it was automatically unlocking a new area when you exit a zone.

 

In Avadon it just feels like the decisions you make has a bigger impact and all that.

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I didn't phrase that question particularly well (I was, and am, a bit illness-delirious). I figured that he would release new versions of the older Avernum games at some point, but I hadn't seen any indication of when for games other than A1. This doesn't exactly answer that question, though it does at least remind me that since the games are likely subject to the same technical problems, what with having the same engines, it would make sense for the redux versions to come out at similar times.

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Originally Posted By: Marak
Well yeah, this a new series for Spiderweb. Over the next 2-3 years we'll see the following (assuming Jeff follows his current stated plans):

Avadon (just released)
Avernum 1 remake using latest engine
Avernum 2 remake using latest engine*
Avadon 2*
Avernum 3 remake using latest engine
Avadon 3

*these middle 2 could easily be swapped
Originally Posted By: FnordCola
I didn't phrase that question particularly well (I was, and am, a bit illness-delirious). I figured that he would release new versions of the older Avernum games at some point, but I hadn't seen any indication of when for games other than A1. This doesn't exactly answer that question, though it does at least remind me that since the games are likely subject to the same technical problems, what with having the same engines, it would make sense for the redux versions to come out at similar times.


I haven't seen this plan mentioned anywhere else, but it does seem reasonable. Jeff stated that Exile 1'' (aka Avernum 1') will be coming out in 2011, although that may be a touch delayed due to iPad porting of Avadon. After that, he'll either continue with Exile 2'' or Avadon 2, followed by E3'' and Av3.
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Why? I mean, I'd love to get a completely new game and play Avernum as Avernum, or Exile as Exile, but I prefer Avernum to Exile, so it's not a necessarily losing proposition. And Jeff says it like it is: he wants money, and these remakes apparently produce it.

 

—Alorael, who really doesn't need a new version of Avernum right now. Let the last entry in the series cool down a little bit before redoing the beginning, maybe?

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Jeff's started the remake of Avernum 1. He's using the Avernum 6 game engine as a starting point so I guess we'll have that type of seamless world.

 

The iPad port has been in testing and I doubt it will take too much of his time unless there are problems with the size on a smaller screen.

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I dunno, A1 is the only Avernum I never actually bought. I got started with A2 and then went right into A3 and after playing those 2, it's too difficult to shell out the cash for A1, especially since you know how it ends, who the Big Bads are, etc. from talking to people in A2.

 

So, to be able to play A1, with a tweaked A6 or Avadon engine, with a few extra dungeons or quests, refined dialogue, and so on, sounds good to me.

 

I'm sure those that have played A1 extensively are less enthusiastic about a remake. Sort of like how I think about a remade A2 and sort of mentally shrug my shoulders.

 

Lastly, that "timetable" I made is pure speculation based and what I've read (and heard in Podcasts) from Jeff. Putting out remade early Avernums with all the engine enhancements and lessons learned from making A4-6 and G4-5 and Avadon in order to generate some extra cash to fund Avadon 2-3 sounds reasonable to me.

 

On the other hand, I can hear the naysayers griping about remade Avernum 1 being the 3rd incarnation of said game.

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Originally Posted By: Marak
Well yeah, this a new series for Spiderweb. Over the next 2-3 years we'll see the following (assuming Jeff follows his current stated plans):

Avadon (just released)
Avernum 1 remake using latest engine
Avernum 2 remake using latest engine*
Avadon 2*
Avernum 3 remake using latest engine
Avadon 3

*these middle 2 could easily be swapped


Is that information correct? Jeff is going to remake the avernum series? If so, that's probably the best information ive heard in a while. If so, what besides the excellent new look (imo) will be implemented to the game. Will skills like used in avadon be there?
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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
No word on how he's going to handle the dungeons.


I remember he said he was keeping outdoors for the remakes. I don't remember him saying he was using the avernum 6 engine though. So I guess dungeons will be handeled the same way unless he has changed his mind since he said that.

Hopefully he remembers that outdoors makes the world feel like an actual world, instead of a set of zones that only exist if someone tells you they exist, and considers it again for future games.
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Since Avadon is clearly based on the same engine that ran the later Geneforge titles, it also kept the "move from zone to zone via a region map with squares on it" type of World Map that Geneforge used. I admit to being confused as to why you had to initiate certain dialogues to "open up" Key Zones, as I seem to recall that you could explore Geneforge more or less as you pleased, with new zones appearing adjacent to the area you just exited, based on which direction you exited a zone from. Key Zones were normally (but not always) found by going from Zone A South to Zone B and then West to Zone C, instead of opening up via dialogue trees.

 

I guess it sort of makes sense in the context of Avadon's plot, you're being sent to specific areas to do specific things, not wander around at your leisure. However, it's sometimes too easy to miss the one dialogue tree from that one out-of-the-way NPC that opens up the area you need to go to to complete the next 5 quests in your log.

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