Avernum 2 Crystal Confusion

[WLDD]

So I am kinda confused... Is A2 going to be outdoor-indoor style or something else? I do not really like that outdoor-indoor style xd

[Kelandon]

There's every reason to believe it will look like A:EFTP. That means having indoors and outdoors.

[Earth]

same engine with some improvements so ...........

[mikeprichard]

I actually like that Jeff brought this style back from the old Exiles/Avernums - the world in A4-6 seemed much, much smaller when everything was considered "indoors" (or "outdoors," depending on how you look at it).

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

I agree. The placement of towns in A4 made it seem like an incredibly small area. I love the outdoors/indoors thing!

 

Post #700 ????

[Almny]

I created this account for the express purpose of replying to this thread.

 

Separate maps for outdoor exploration, battles, towns, and dungeons is one of my favorite features of Avernum. It gives the world a sense of scale that is difficult to achieve with a unified dungeon-world map. In theory one could make a *vast* single world map, but that would require a lot of work, and much of the travel over that map would probably be boring. A fun unified map is almost by necessity going to be smaller. It loses the sense of scale that I personally find essential to the feeling of exploration.

[Vexivero]

I created this account for the express purpose of replying to this thread.

 

Lol, I don't know what anybody else thinks of this, but I found it hilarious

 

But yeah I agree, I didn't like the feel of the second Avernum trilogy. It worked for Geneforge, but I think that's because there wasn't a "you move, I move" system like Avernum and Exile. I'm sure it's got a technical name, but I have no idea what that is. I found myself beating A4, and it was really fun, but the replay value just isn't there for me.

[WLDD]

I agree. The placement of towns in A4 made it seem like an incredibly small area. I love the outdoors/indoors thing!

 

Post #700

Yes you are right about that, but everybody has their own taste , I guess that Jeff have to make much bigger world then for my taste And as for outdoor/indoor it reminds me of Harry Potter 4 badly...

[Earth]

But yeah I agree, I didn't like the feel of the second Avernum trilogy. It worked for Geneforge, but I think that's because there wasn't a "you move, I move" system like Avernum and Exile. I'm sure it's got a technical name, but I have no idea what that is.

 

turn by turn combat.

[Kelandon]

turn by turn combat.

Also (probably more frequently) known as turn-based combat.

[Tyranicus]

And as for outdoor/indoor it reminds me of Harry Potter 4 badly...

...what?

[Actaeon]

I created this account for the express purpose of replying to this thread.

 

Lol, I don't know what anybody else thinks of this, but I found it hilarious

 

I don't know, it strikes me a pretty standard way of getting started. I think I created mine to ask a question about G2.

 

As someone who made the mistake of starting the Avernum series with A4, I found the indoor/outdoor approach a nice balance between Geneforge/Avadon's more controlled, linear world and A4-6's all in one map.

[Enkidu]

I actually like that Jeff brought this style back from the old Exiles/Avernums - the world in A4-6 seemed much, much smaller when everything was considered "indoors" (or "outdoors," depending on how you look at it).

Actually I was somewhat annoyed by how the world in the new Avernum actually looks smaller than in original Exile/Avernum. The distances in tiles between things are pretty much the same, but things in the world are much bigger - Fort Avernum for example, being 5x5 tiles instead of 3x3 like it was before. That together with the simplifications to the food/rest/etc systems, and also the absence of a day counter, kinda diminished the "adventuring" feel of the game.

[stilltim]

I agree. The placement of towns in A4 made it seem like an incredibly small area. I love the outdoors/indoors thing!

 

Totally agree with this as well. I haven't played A4. But, just looking at the posted maps, the towns seem ridiculously close together. The later Ultimas largely had the same problem. It suddenly seemed like you could REALLY walk from one end of the world to another in about an hour. And frankly, I didn't think that being able to just stumble onto a town while wandering (which was Origin's explanation for why the Ultimas did this) really added as much to the game as the loss of the sense of scale took away.

 

I do, however, think that creating a much larger world map (say 4 or 8 times the number of tiles in each direction) does alleviate this somewhat... and can be pretty cool. I can see how creating such a map might involve a huge amount of effort , though. I don't think the issue of longer travel times creates as big a problem as it might at first seem.... as long as you don't take the Ultima route and artificially slow your character's movement down to the apparent pace of his animated walking (aaaargghhhh!). Jeff has a neat solution to travel times with his telportation pylons anyway. Maybe if the mages have just been a little bit busier creating more of these than we were aware of in previous Avernum's....