A-EftP - A couple of hours in, lots of compliments & a couple gripes

[TriRodent]

First of all, this looks & plays great. Thanks Jeff, even if people complain that it is recycled it is a very playable & enjoyable game.

 

Minor gripes though.

1). Having to spin in circles to recharge upon leaving town. If I do a quest in town that eats up health or energy I have to leave town, turn right around & come back in & then turn around again & leave once more to be able to hit the road fully ready to go. Recharging people entering or leaving makes play much smoother.

 

2). What's with people taking off running to get to a shooting position? Here I am in one of the early battles. I set up the fighter in a decent blocking position to protect the other three behind him. On the archers turn, he's back a bit so I click on the bad guy to see if he's in range yet (wanting to keep him back as far as possible) & this goofball vaults over the top of the fighter, races into no-man's land & takes a shot at the bad guy (who promptly storms up & smashes the underarmored sniper wannabe). Same with the magic users. If you think that their line of sight is ok for a fireball & they don't, they'll charge off into the middle of everything to cast the spell. Yikes. Suddenly my ambush has turned into a rescue mission. Things need to go back to the point where, if a shot doesn't work, it's up to me to decide what the next action is.

 

Overall things are great & I'm enjoying my self considerably. Those two (so far) little things though do rip me out of the mental cave system where I'm young & strong and out to save the world right back to being an old, broken down goof in front of a computer scratching my head in confusion.

[Sprinkles29]

The only reason I haven't bought Avernum is because even though I'm sure it's a much different game, the graphics look very similiar to Avadon.

 

The truth of the matter is, if Spiderweb made their games in polygons instead of sprites, it would be easier for them to add new graphics.

 

But yeah I love Avadon but I still don't want to buy Avenum yet, and it's just becasue of the fact that the graphics look so similiar to Avadon.

 

The other reason I don't want to buy Avernum, yet, is because, of the thread of made about Dexterity Shaman Attack Power Quite Low. Where after 40 hours of playing Avadon I realized that the character sheet gives misleading quotes on the attack damage on sometimes because the armors of the enemies is never quite explained. Which sort of makes developing strategy difficult. And I was concerned about how would I be able to make my own strategy in Avernum if the same damage forumlas that I still don't understand are going be used.

[TriRodent]

Originally Posted By: Sprinkles29

The only reason I haven't bought Avernum is because even though I'm sure it's a much different game, the graphics look very similiar to Avadon.

I understand completely, why when I was dating I had a horrible date with a blonde woman. Because of that one experience I crossed all blondes off of my list of potential mates...

[Acky]

Quote:

1). Having to spin in circles to recharge upon leaving town. If I do a quest in town that eats up health or energy I have to leave town, turn right around & come back in & then turn around again & leave once more to be able to hit the road fully ready to go. Recharging people entering or leaving makes play much smoother.

Yeah, I can see why that's annoying . It hasn't been bothering me because I'm playing with the house rule of "Once you enter X zone to do a quest, you cannot leave until quest is finished," but it's pretty understandable.

Quote:

2). What's with people taking off running to get to a shooting position? Here I am in one of the early battles. I set up the fighter in a decent blocking position to protect the other three behind him. On the archers turn, he's back a bit so I click on the bad guy to see if he's in range yet (wanting to keep him back as far as possible) & this goofball vaults over the top of the fighter, races into no-man's land & takes a shot at the bad guy (who promptly storms up & smashes the underarmored sniper wannabe). Same with the magic users. If you think that their line of sight is ok for a fireball & they don't, they'll charge off into the middle of everything to cast the spell. Yikes. Suddenly my ambush has turned into a rescue mission. Things need to go back to the point where, if a shot doesn't work, it's up to me to decide what the next action is.

This has been a problem all the way back since Geneforge 1. It's gotten better but unfortunately there's physical limits to how intelligent Jeff can make the path finding. You can move a party member into another member's square by clicking on him, this will usually avoid them going around in big circles when in a tight corridor.

[Randomizer]

This is why Strategy Central has topics that list what stats and abilities do that were tested by players. We know there are mistakes in the manual and tool tips so we try to find the correct information.

[Sprinkles29]

Originally Posted By: TriRodent

Originally Posted By: Sprinkles29

The only reason I haven't bought Avernum is because even though I'm sure it's a much different game, the graphics look very similiar to Avadon.

I understand completely, why when I was dating I had a horrible date with a blonde woman. Because of that one experience I crossed all blondes off of my list of potential mates...

that doesn't even make sense, becuase I love Avadon and am having a great time with it. Re-work that analogy.

But if I'm going to spend 60 hours in Avadon. I'm not so eager to spend another 60 making a new game in Avernum where much of the graphics are identical. Avernum is essentially a mod, which is fine. But that is the reason why I haven't bought it yet. Because I was satisfied by Avadon. And I think Redbeard is one of the most interesting characters in any RPG I've ever played.

Well anyway to list one more gripe I have with Avadon and probably Avernum too, even though I haven't played it. Is the fact that the party only moves when you released the mouse click. I think it would be user friendlier if they party moved on mouse button down.

Those are my main issues with Avadon and possibly Avernum as well, by extension.

[Alorael at Large]

The game isn't the graphics. The Avernum remake and Avadon are more similar than the original Avernum and Avadon, but they're also different enough, both in tone and in mechanics, that I think you should at the least give the demo a whirl. If it's still too similar, you can stop any time, but you might find that Avernum scratches a slightly different RPG itch.

 

—Alorael, who finds the idea of rejecting a game for similar graphics even stranger considering how often a series will share graphics. In Spiderweb's case especially. Would you refuse to play Avadon 2 if it's not sufficiently different looking?

[Aoslare]

The graphics in towns are relatively similar. Once you start spending most of your time on the overworld and in dungeons, you will find the graphics a bit more varied. In particular, the most common enemies in A:EFTP are Nephils and Sliths, which look nothing like anything in Avadon.