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Avernum: Escape From the Pit Announced


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We have finally announced our next title, Avernum: Escape From the Pit. You can learn more about this game at the main page:

 

http://www.avernum.com/avernum/index.html

 

We have created a FAQ to address some of the many questions Avernum fans will have:

 

http://www.avernum.com/avernum/avernumFAQ.html

 

Feel free to use this forum to ask questions, engage in wild speculation, and get ready for the glorious resurrection of the Avernum trilogy!

 

- Jeff Vogel

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Wow!!! The screenshots look amazing! When I saw this announcement, I whipped out my credit card and headed over to buy it. I am sad that it's not available yet, but incredibly excited that it's coming out in the near future.

 

I am currently replaying Avernum right now, for the second time this year, and maybe the sixth time overall. It's such a great game.

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Originally Posted By: Handyman
Why are you remaking the same game for the third time, rather than doing something new? I mean, does it save time? (Can you salvage code from the first Avernum?) I would think that creating a new series (assuming the same engine) would be more rewarding.


One reason: $$$$$$$$$$$$. That's it, really. Avernum remakes are pretty much guaranteed cash cave cows.
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I'd say there are several reasons. One, all the dialogue can be reused, which saves a huge amount of time. Two, the plot and characters don't need to be created, which is itself a time-saver. Three, Avernum is known to sell well; it seems like a good idea for safe income.

 

Fourth, and probably most importantly, this is Jeff's first game. It's his flagship, his first big achievement, and it's showing its age. I imagine he wants it to be shiny and new and interesting in new hands because he genuinely likes it.

 

—Alorael, who also imagines that creating an entirely new game like Avadon 2 would be more interesting. Also more frustrating and nerve-wracking, and it has to happen eventually. The projected development time for this game is fairly short, after all.

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It's very welcome. Having spent the past decade getting used to the Geneforge-style engine, I've come to realise I now prefer it, and by comparison the old Nethergate/Avernum 1-3 engine seems clunky. I really like Jeff's games. I registered the Exile trilogy and the original Avernum trilogy, and I'm perfectly willing to pay for the remakes ten years later.

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Jeff wants to make games for the IPad and it's easier to start with a newer engine than to rewrite all the original Avernum 1 code to deal with iPad requirements, all the demands for larger monitor resolutions, etc. Most of this new code will work for Avernum 2 and 3 remakes so he can concentrate on Avadon 2 and hopefully 3.

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I think that the way the newer engine blends with the structure and writing style of the older games will make for a unique and engaging experience that we wouldn't have gotten from a completely new game.

 

I'm looking forward to the rest of the Avadon trilogy and Avernum Origins (if it ends up being made), but I feel this remake will be more than just retreading old grounds.

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I applaud Jeff for remaking his older games. I think some of us forget that there's a whole new generation of gamers that would pass his games over if he didn't update them.

 

I wish book publishers would do the same thing. I mean sure some books stay in print for ages, but others are extremely difficult to find.

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Considering how often his games get extremely poor reviews on the basis of the fact that the graphics aren't exactly as powerful as the latest Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls game(which is a bunch of horse droppings about as large as the Empire State Building--the reviews, I mean) a lot of gamers pass over his games anyway.

 

I mean if he solely developed for Windows he would not make anywhere near the amount of money he does.

 

And now I finally understand why his primary platform is Macintosh. I never did understand that before, but it's all so simple now.

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Originally Posted By: VCH
I wish book publishers would do the same thing. I mean sure some books stay in print for ages, but others are extremely difficult to find.
Hear hear!

The internet helps with this, but I can't help wishing we had more copies of old stuff and less of new stuff.
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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
Originally Posted By: VCH
I wish book publishers would do the same thing. I mean sure some books stay in print for ages, but others are extremely difficult to find.
Hear hear!

The internet helps with this, but I can't help wishing we had more copies of old stuff and less of new stuff.

Some authors get regular reprints of at least their more popular works. I got lucky and caught a few of those periods.

On demand printing of single copies might make it possible to get some of the older works. But you have to know what you want to ask for it. No just looking at a book shelf and picking up a book to see if it's interesting. About half the authors I really like were found just browsing and finding some hidden gems that way.
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I just saw the screenshots, and I must say I'm impressed. Jeff's certainly come a long way since the first Exile game.

 

Quote:
I wish book publishers would do the same thing. I mean sure some books stay in print for ages, but others are extremely difficult to find.
Tell me about it. I was looking for a copy of the original Wizard of Oz, but for years all I could find were stripped-down, sugar-coated, picture versions marketed for preschoolers.

 

Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Some authors get regular reprints of at least their more popular works. I got lucky and caught a few of those periods.
That's probably how I finally found a normal, readable version of The Wizard of Oz this past January.
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That presupposes that you know what you are looking for when you look. The first time I read Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin was when my roommate handed it to me after his friend gave it to him. I bought the Phil Foglio illustrated graphics novel version when I saw it by accident in a book store on my lunch break.

 

About half my favorite authors I found just going up and down bookshelves in stores until I found something interesting. Some of the more obscure ones only have a handful of published works and aren't that popular.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius
Or Google Books. For free, in many cases!

I tried Google Books a few times and only got a title page and the rest was blank. In those cases I was looking for out of print books by authors I had read.

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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
That presupposes that you know what you are looking for when you look. The first time I read Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin was when my roommate handed it to me after his friend gave it to him. I bought the Phil Foglio illustrated graphics novel version when I saw it by accident in a book store on my lunch break.

About half my favorite authors I found just going up and down bookshelves in stores until I found something interesting. Some of the more obscure ones only have a handful of published works and aren't that popular.
That's a good point, but in Mystic's case, he already knew the book for which he was looking.
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Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
You guys know that you can find pretty much any book used on Amazon, right?
I know, but I really don't care for ordering anything online, no matter how secure the site is--or claims to be--unless I have absolutely no choice. I prefer to get my books the old-fashioned way: drive to a bookstore, buy a book(s), and drive home. Having a handful of bookstores within a reasonable distance helps make things easier, as does a real person when I want to order a book that's not in stock.
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Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
You guys know that you can find pretty much any book used on Amazon, right?
I know, but I really don't care for ordering anything online, no matter how secure the site is--or claims to be--unless I have absolutely no choice. I prefer to get my books the old-fashioned way: drive to a bookstore, buy a book(s), and drive home. Having a handful of bookstores within a reasonable distance helps make things easier, as does a real person when I want to order a book that's not in stock.
That's an interesting mindset for a member of a forum about games that can be ordered only online. tongue
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Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
You guys know that you can find pretty much any book used on Amazon, right?
I know, but I really don't care for ordering anything online, no matter how secure the site is--or claims to be--unless I have absolutely no choice. I prefer to get my books the old-fashioned way: drive to a bookstore, buy a book(s), and drive home. Having a handful of bookstores within a reasonable distance helps make things easier, as does a real person when I want to order a book that's not in stock.

Open a second bank account at a different bank than your actual account, insure there is has no minimum balance requirements, keep $.01 in the account, and then simply add however much the item you want to purchase costs to that account and then use a debit card. No security issues whatsoever.
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Originally Posted By: Kyronea

And now I finally understand why his primary platform is Macintosh. I never did understand that before, but it's all so simple now.


It's not really a business decision as such: his primary platform is Macintosh because he likes Macs a whole lot. For a while, the Exile series was Mac-only.

(Having said that, Mac users do still make up close to half his customer base, so dropping Mac support entirely would be a bad business decision.)
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Originally Posted By: Rogue Walker
I'm looking forward to the rest of the Avadon trilogy and Avernum Origins (if it ends up being made), but I feel this remake will be more than just retreading old grounds.

If Avernum: Origins is ever made, I will buy it. But I would be much more interested in Avernum: After the Apocalypse, which would take place after the events of A6.

Also, I am very excited about this remake. I never got much more than 1/50th of the way into A1, because I don't like the interface. But there will be new content in the remake anyway.
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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
No just looking at a book shelf and picking up a book to see if it's interesting.
I'm sure you can still do this; you just need to browse the used book stores and the library instead.

Originally Posted By: Kyronea
I mean, poor Mac users don't get that many games to begin with.
I imagine you might be surprised at how many games are available for Mac. It's not such a large gap as you seem to think.

Originally Posted By: madrigan
If Avernum: Origins is ever made, I will buy it. But I would be much more interested in Avernum: After the Apocalypse, which would take place after the events of A6.
I think I want both of these, but I'd be more interested in Avernum Origins.
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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
Originally Posted By: Randomizer
No just looking at a book shelf and picking up a book to see if it's interesting.
I'm sure you can still do this; you just need to browse the used book stores and the library instead.

Libraries aren't the same thing, because they are organized. It's harder to be surprised. Used bookstores, on the other hand, have been going out of business like firecrackers over the last 15 years or so. Megastores like Borders and Barnes & Noble dealt the first blow by capturing a huge chunk of their more casual audience. Then companies like Amazon made it easier to find esoteric books online, which took away another slice of business. It's still possible for used bookstores to stay financially solvent, but they have to be a lot more aggressive to attract customers, and there just isn't room for as many in one city as there used to be.
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Libraries are also cutting back on new books that aren't best sellers. My local branch hasn't needed to expand shelf space as much as in the past.

 

My last trip to a used bookstore was disappointing in how many of the books I already own or had borrowed from friends and the library. With the decline in independent bookstores you are seeing a homogenizing of book choices to fewer and fewer titles and authors.

 

I'm spending more time going online to book publisher sites to see their author lists and what's going to be published. It's not the same because only a few have decent sample chapters so you can get an idea about the books.

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Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel
Originally Posted By: Kyronea
I mean, poor Mac users don't get that many games to begin with.
I imagine you might be surprised at how many games are available for Mac. It's not such a large gap as you seem to think.


It may be the case that there are many little games out for Mac that just don't get much publicity. However, we Mac users are often neglected in the big title releases. If and when those big developers do get around to porting or letting another company port, we end up paying significantly more.

And before you go and find counterexamples, companies that produce equally for both platforms, don't. We all know they exist. I'm not saying that Mac users never get the big releases equally, just that we don't often enough to feel it.
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Hi, i'm glad that you are rewriting Avernum, and i hope your going to rewrite the other two. And maybe some geneforge games? I Don't know. I'm all in for Avernum and Geneforge, because none of your games are too boring or over epic. They're just right. But i think you should be working on future games? I've gotten Avadon and it's a huge cliffhanger for me about what happens to Avadon next. And there are right now about three game types: Avadon, Geneforge, and Avernum. Are you still working on a new game? Or Avadon or something?

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I guess the question is, will Avadon be the classic trilogy in the long run, or will it just keep going like Geneforge?

 

The success, Jeff, and the ending (and general content) all screamed "SEQUEL!!!" at the top of their lungs and from the highest mountain tops into a microphone hooked up to amplifiers cranked to 11, so we'll at least get Avadon 2, but... beyond that, who can say?

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Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Libraries are also cutting back on new books that aren't best sellers. My local branch hasn't needed to expand shelf space as much as in the past.

More like libraries in general are getting cut back. A recession and general opposition to taxes are bad news for a public institution.

Dikiyoba.
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I have mixed feelings about this. Overall, I like the engine of Avernum 1-3 and Blades better than the engine used in 4-6. For a lot of reasons, I think. I actually like the older graphics far better, and the earlier games have something resembling a *real* character editor (though it is not as good as it was in Exile). Oh, and a world map. But I hear that the outdoor map will still be in the remake, so that makes me happy.

 

Will be trying demo before deciding to buy.

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Originally Posted By: Tyranicus
That's an interesting mindset for a member of a forum about games that can be ordered only online. tongue
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer interacting with real people (remember those? tongue ), not computers, when I buy stuff.

Also, as Randomizer pointed out, Spiderweb's games are still available via snail mail.
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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
Libraries aren't the same thing, because they are organized.
Um, aren't bookstores normally organized too?

Originally Posted By: Master1
It may be the case that there are many little games out for Mac that just don't get much publicity. However, we Mac users are often neglected in the big title releases.
I was under the impression that a plurality of the bigger title releases tended to come out for both platforms, while the smaller games (especially MMORPGs) tended to be Windows only. But, well, I haven't done any research to verify this impression, so my sample set could be rather skewed.

Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Also, as Randomizer pointed out, Spiderweb's games are still available via snail mail.
I've generally relied on snail mail for the Spiderweb games, mainly because I got CD anthologies only.
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I am no Luddite, but I do refuse to use all the latest technology. As someone who spends at least ten hours a day looking at its interface, I tend to agree that it is good to unplug. People are far more interesting to interact with than some idiot computer. And as a programmer, I have too much knowledge of their inner workings to fully trust them.

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Originally Posted By: Harehunter
I am no Luddite, but I do refuse to use all the latest technology. As someone who spends at least ten hours a day looking at its interface, I tend to agree that it is good to unplug. People are far more interesting to interact with than some idiot computer. And as a programmer, I have too much knowledge of their inner workings to fully trust them.


So you're a programmer who refuses to use computers?

(Also, the idiot computer is only doing what somebody has programmed it to do, but that's sort of a secondary point.)
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