Tenderfoot Thahd garo Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 Uhm, hi! Brace yourselves, a long post is coming. I just recently finished Avernum and I wanted to share with you my conclusions about the game. Please don't think that I'm some kind of megalomaniac for this selfish attempt to force you to read my opinions. The thing is, I'm quite sure that no one in about 500 miles around knows or cares about this game, so I'm writing here because you are the only one that would care anyway... English is not my native tongue, so please excuse me if I end up murdering all rules of gramatic and/or redaction. You see, I consider myself a veteran in the spiderweb games universe. Though I don't have an encyclopdical knowledge of every technical aspect of the games I do have played them since the times of exile 1, and I have completed every game released ever since. (I must confess that I've never actually bought any game. I always have got the registered versions through dark and forbidden methods that will send my soul to hell, and probably my body to jail) Also, some years ago I used to post on this forums. I was young and foolish at that time -adolescence...- but I always liked the order that this threads have. It's nice to see that so many new people have joined the forums. Well, about the game: The first thing that I liked about this second remake of avernum is the fact that outdoors returned. Yes, it almost breaked my heart the sight of avernum 4 with that strange map system. Good that Jeff didn't made this new avernum with that format. I hope that the outdoors/indoors system prevails and be implemented in the next remakes of the series. Please mind that I haven't discovered everything about the game, so maybe many thing that I'm complaining about are just me being stupid. I must admit that I favor nostalgia over this kind of "modernism" that has been flooding jeff games during the last years. I think that the graphics for this last game are highly satisfiying. Maybe it is the fact that things look smaller now due to bigger resolution, but I no longer feel a strong urge to punch my pc screen when I look at the characters, unlike I did with avernum 4. Sound is good I think. You don't expect an indie game to sound like real life anyway, though I would like that Jeff would use new sfx's. Those childish gibberish in the city areas have been the same since geneforge 2 -I believe- and I just know everyone of them. I really appreciate that the grid system have been mantained. I must say that I never really understood how the action points worked in the other games. This constrained and strictly turn-based movement makes the game much more "classic" in some way. Something that I don't like too much is the battle system. Warriors suck, and I don't think that I gave them a wrong build. My main soldier-pole warrior-like-character only renders about 50 damage with each blow to the tougher monsters; the archer only 20. They DO hit fast, with adrenalin rush and stuff, but this is just not enough. Sure, now the game focuses mainly in enemies with tougher armor and not so many HP, but I think this makes the game a little less exciting, after all, is quite more satisfiying to hit a badass haakai 10 times for 200 damage that only hitting it for 20 damage... It makes you think that you have a stronger warrior or whatever... The battle disciplines are in fact interesting, but I found myself to rely almost solely on battle frenzy and adrenalin rush, ignoring all the very interesting kinds of blows for prefering the useful ones. I want better warriors in Avernum 2: Crystal souls, not only some mindless met tanks to protect mages. i liked arrows too, I miss arrows in fact. Just another nice features sacrificed in the sake of comfort (please make arrows of light return in A2, otherwise how would we kill garzahd? O:) Magic spells are almost the same that before. I liked them. It surprised me to see magical barriers (where there any of them in the second trilogy? I can't remember). Almost all of the magic spells were quite funny and useful, except for blink, I think it's there only for saving room for the future capture soul and simulacrum. The only bad part is that enemies have a high resistance to curses, so SLOW, the spell that made life half less difficult in exile now is condemned to only cause "war curse" in the enemies that you really need to slow down. Priest spells are nice too. I notices that repel undead dissapeared but smite seemed to take its place, as now it causes energy damage, not frost. Oh I long to fry demons with repel undead lvl 3. I guess that's a thing of the past now... What's the point with return life levels? Really, I never noticed, does level 2 resurrects all the dead characters? I mean, considering that now there's only one way to die... Divine retribution is funny. Divine restoration isn't. It doesn't seem completely "restorative". Now that poison and acid are a minor concern Heal Group is always enough for healing. Poison and acid... that makes me remember swamps and giant slugs... And diseases... All lost... Good that all of avernum is available for exploring. Anyone here was angry when you discovered that A6 ended with a whatnot battle outside the portal? I was. I wanted to travel to the wild wilderness of north and west avernum in A6, but that's another point. Secret doors are quite annoying but I think that the cave lore skill finally has an actual use, even if it's somewhat forced. On the other hand, I see that item identification is gone too, oh well... Do the new guys here know that light was a somewhat important matter before? Alchemy too. This last thing is added to the long list of stuff that jeff seemingly decided to remove using lame excuses, like the ever-full inns and the frankly dumb "sea monsters" in A4. Is it so hard to put a button to boil your own potions and to recharge health and mana AGAIN when inside an inn? I didn't risked my life in a (now not)swampy area to find the recipe for graymold salve just to discover that my priest, the one that can melt demons with divine fire, doens't know how to make a single potion. Food now also is mostly a furniture. I wonder what will the brave party of adventurers lose in the waterfalls of dark waters in the next game. Fatigue? The previous rest system was just fine. Food dependance feels more real if you ask me. Monsters seem OK to me. I'm not fond to those new "named" kind of monsters, though. I preferred to kill a bunch of soldiers and then killing a captain instead of some hero kind of guy who had a different name and more armor. Also, the Efreet, Naga and Rakshasi were quite good and creative Jeff ideas, why are they gone? Sorry if I sound too harsh, but pointing these little details of the game is actually really funny. I still think it's a great game. Also I like writing. Maybe I'm some kind of avernum-old-school-fascist, who knows... The new additions to the game fit nicely. Kyass and Thantria as example. I killed Thantria, I don't want imperial spies in formello, but that's just me... The final quests are funny and challenging as always, though as I already knew what to do in final gauntlet it was really easy compared to that first time. But I can't be so ungrateful. I really appreciate that most of the things of the original still remains, like the training rooms, the sages, the lamps, the food sellers, the healing monks monastery, lost bassikhava, aimee aleeping in her tower... Much of the same old exile magic still lingers on. I really long to see the next release of this new remake of avernum. Seeing the vahnatai lands remade again will be very interesting. Avernum 2 is my favourite game after all. That's everything I had to say I think. I could write a lot more about the avernum series but that would be boring. Well, now I believe that I just wrote a bunch of disperse ideas... Maybe I did, but it's late and I'm sleepy. It'll do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Aoslare Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 Welcome (back) to the forums! I agree with many of your comments. You may be interested in the Remix Modifications I have come up with for Avernum. Also, I'm curious who you were in your previous incarnation, if you don't mind the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd garo Posted April 29, 2012 Author Share Posted April 29, 2012 Well I'd rather keep myself unknown xD but i think my nick was chicho1102 the name i used for almost everything back then... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curious Artila Gon Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 Originally Posted By: garo The new additions to the game fit nicely. Kyass and Thantria as example. I killed Thantria, I don't want imperial spies in formello, but that's just me... I only killed Thantria after through with her. I did all her missions and got all her rewards and then she was only good for the missionary cloak she will drop. I liked Kyass and respected him so I let him off, some time in the future, I will probably divvy up Avernum with him. I killed Micah and the castle didn't get mad, only gets mad does autokill if you kill Houghton. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 I liked telling Thantria that her boss was dead after getting all the rewards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Acky Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 Speaking of killing Micah, you can also kill Erika without her doing anything. Jeff must of forgot to make some characters essential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgeoning Battle Gamma Parakeet Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 How advanced were you when you took out Thantria? I'm not exactly charmed that the Empire is using diplomatic immunity to engage in assassinations etc. She deserves a little extermination. ::glares:: I suspect it will take more time & levels for me to do it. I'm beginnning to think that it isn't possible for me Not to "suck" as one graceless phrase has hit in the new Avernum 1 (I wasn't early enough for Exiles original) game system. Parakeet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd garo Posted April 29, 2012 Author Share Posted April 29, 2012 Actually I discovered the lair of thantria well in the late game. At first I was stopped by the magical barriers, and then I just forgot that she was there. I found that place when my party was about level 25 so I just completed the "kill mandvi mission", then I got bored and killed her. It was quite easy. I feared for some scolding from the Castle, but nothing happened. I guess Micah is not such a coward after all This game really does become increasingly easier in the late levels. After lvl 20 it's all about mashing monsters with arcane blow and divine retribution, continuously until they die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk ShieTar Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 The game does become easier in the third quater, but that is usually due to the fact that nobody manages to do quest exactly in their supposed order of difficulty. So after lvl 20 you spend some time running around and cleaning up stuff that you could have, and sometimes should have, done earlier on. At the same time you have probably powered through some quests that were more difficult earlier on, and defined that experience as the difficulty of the game. (There are a lot of posts in these forums here from guys who would rather spend several hours to try and figure out how exactly to beat this one boss than just go away for now and just train in other regions. I mostly love the resolve of this approach, and always manage to stifle any "Just go level up" response that I am shortly tempted to post.) Nevertheless, going for the dragons (or some of them), and two of the final three quests will step up the difficulty up again just nicely. Just you wait ;-) BTW: Congratulations to Jeff for actually managing to make the final quest feel like the toughest one in the whole game. In many games you go and over-prepare, and then your end up disappointed about the final job being too easy. No risk of this happening with the way the Emperor-Quest plays through I think, I loved it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenderfoot Thahd garo Posted April 29, 2012 Author Share Posted April 29, 2012 And of course, changing the difficulty settings is always possible... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora Obscure Mythological Character Posted May 5, 2012 Share Posted May 5, 2012 Quote: (I must confess that I've never actually bought any game. I always have got the registered versions through dark and forbidden methods that will send my soul to hell, and probably my body to jail) You lost all right to comment with that statement you gimp. Buy the damn game and maybe your worth listening to. The gall of you to couch your theft of Spiderweb's games as some amusing raffish quirk rather than the squalid parasitic act it actually is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Nioca Posted May 5, 2012 Share Posted May 5, 2012 Originally Posted By: Obscure Mythological Character Quote: (I must confess that I've never actually bought any game. I always have got the registered versions through dark and forbidden methods that will send my soul to hell, and probably my body to jail) You lost all right to comment with that statement you gimp. Buy the damn game and maybe your worth listening to. The gall of you to couch your theft of Spiderweb's games as some amusing raffish quirk rather than the squalid parasitic act it actually is. OMC, please read the Code of Conduct. Then once you've done that, read it again. At no point is there a clause that states you can flame someone just because they've pirated SW games. And regardless of your (or anyone's) feelings on software piracy, the only thing your post accomplishes is to make you look like a jerk. If you want to voice your opinion, go right ahead. That doesn't entitle you to take potshots and hurl abuse at another poster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Aoslare Posted May 5, 2012 Share Posted May 5, 2012 ...aaaaaand we're done here. This thread had died down, we're not reviving it for this argument. No pirating. No flaming. Got it? Good. Let's move on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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