Hello, I'm new here

[ladyonthemoon]

The very first time I discovered Spiderweb Software, I was looking for video games to play. It was, I think in 2004, I found this web-site, downloaded Avernum, the demo and started playing. It was enough for me to fall in love with video games and the Avernum games, that I bought. I bought them here, on this site, if I recall correctly I paid using international money orders, if that's how it's called (I'm French by the way).  At the time you just downloaded the demo and bought an activation key. I've lost all these keys a long time ago. Not long ago, I noticed that the three games had been remastered but I was not interested in remastered games, so I passed. Then, they were released on Steam, or so I thought; I bought Avernum: Escape from the pit but noticed very fast that it was the remastered version... Eventually, I found the very original first trilogy on GOG! I bought both the first and second trilogy on GOG and now I'm happy; that's all I wanted, replaying the first original trilogy.

 

How many hours had I sunk in these games back then? I don't know but I kept playing and replaying them.   Then I discovered Morrowind, and Oblivion, and Skyrim... Even played a bit of the Fallout games; spent a lot of time modding these games too and never found the time to even think about Spiderweb games; they were somewhere in my memory, imbued with nostalgia. I thought I would never play them again until I saw them on Steam. The weird thing, when I think of it, is that I could have come here and bought them again; I didn't, for some reason. Strangely enough, I haven't replayed Avernum since I bought the series on GOG.

 

Since I'm always late at everything, I discovered the conference Jeff Vogel gave at the GDC last year only a few days ago, which lead me here. I noticed that there was a forum and here I am!

 

I also bought the whole Geneforge Saga on Steam just after watching the video. I had bought Avadon: Black Fortress on Steam some time ago but never took to it, I bought Avadon 2: The corruption just to support Spiderweb Software. And I just notice that there is an Avadon 3 that I didn't buy... Correction: I just bought it.

 

Time to list the Spiderweb Software games I own.

 

On Steam:

• Avernum: Escape From the Pit (the remastered version of Avernum),
• the Avadon Trilogy,
• the Geneforge Saga.

 

On GOG:

• the two Avernum trilogies,
• Blades of Avernum.

 

So, who am I? There's not much to say about me; I love video games but I'm very discriminate, I wouldn't play any game just because it's a game. I'd also like very much to make at least one game of my own; one day, maybe? And I'm old, born in the mid fifties.

 

Thank you for your patience if your read this through! See you out there!

Edited March 8, 2019 by ladyonthemoon

[Vinlie]

Welcome aboard! 

[ladyonthemoon]

34 minutes ago, Vinlie said:

Welcome aboard! 

Thank you!

[Kelandon]

Welcome! Leave your sanity at the door, as the traditional greeting goes. For what it's worth, I started with the original Avernum Trilogy and like that much more than the remakes too. Have fun with Geneforge and Avadon; they're also excellent, although I felt that the third game in each series lagged a little compared to the others.

[ladyonthemoon]

1 hour ago, Kelandon said:

Welcome! Leave your sanity at the door, as the traditional greeting goes. For what it's worth, I started with the original Avernum Trilogy and like that much more than the remakes too. Have fun with Geneforge and Avadon; they're also excellent, although I felt that the third game in each series lagged a little compared to the others.

Thank you! I like Geneforge so far, although it lacks a "difficulty" setting in my opinion.

 

The third games in each series lagged?

[Kelandon]

3 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

The third games in each series lagged?

I mean in terms of the energy of the writing and the ideas. Avadon 1 is pretty exciting and new — lots of strange stuff happening, things to figure out. Avadon 3 is... not. It's a little perfunctory, in my opinion. I think I thought the same thing about Geneforge 3 at the time, but it's been a very long time, and it's one of the only Spiderweb games that I never re-played.

[ladyonthemoon]

7 hours ago, Kelandon said:

I mean in terms of the energy of the writing and the ideas.

Ah, all right. I'll see about that when I'm there I think.

[Firecage]

Welcome to pure insanity.

[ladyonthemoon]

52 minutes ago, lordofdc said:

Welcome to pure insanity.

LOL thank you!

[WolfSpider]

On ‎3‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 11:36 AM, ladyonthemoon said:

I'd also like very much to make at least one game of my own; one day, maybe?

 

Steam is having a sale on all it's RPG Makers at the present moment.  I have not bought any of them, but I had RPG Maker for the PS1 and tried RPG Maker XP back in the day.  Some are very reasonably priced when on sale, but obviously with the newer variations they become increasingly expensive.  The last in the series lets you make games for many platforms, including cell phones for a wider audience. 

 

Speaking of which Steam has quite a few free game makers.  Some have restrictions that are behind a pay wall, so you get the basics, but then to get the better stuff it comes out of your pocket.  Others wont charge unless you try to sell it or you try to sell it in mass quantities or make over a certain amount of money.  I do not know all their names, but Unity I believe is one and Construct another.  Granted some of these you need at least a small team or a lot of time on your hands and be a quick study to do anything remotely well with them.

 

Then there is Quest which I have made a game or the first chapter of a game about 90% complete.  It is all text based, but you can include pictures, sounds, etc.  A pretty neat system and the basics of it are easy to learn.  Most of it is easy point and click or drop down options to make things flagged in game so when an event happens if you have not achieved something, be it attaining a certain level or a key, an item of some sort you can not advance.  Then they even use weight and volume for puzzles.  But it can also use code if you know what you are doing, so you are not hampered by just the options (which are MANY) they give you.  And if you do not know how to code something there are people who will usually just find out how it works and tell you so you can add it to your own game.  And they even have a Choose Your Own Adventure game engine as well which is pretty self explanatory.  Try it out I can at least recommend that from personal experience and the people there are very helpful and friendly.

 

Of course you could go the route of a mapper for any number of PC games, (I am partial to Half Life 1 or Half Life 2. 😁 )  as modding it self takes coding, animators, modelers, etc.  But mapping just takes a general understanding of the tools and an eye for building things.  (Easier said then done mind you. 😅 )

 

I am not sure if Spiderweb Software provides their own assets to toy with and create things or not.  But I think Quest would be the easiest way to make a decent game without the need for coding or having to worry about good graphics and what not.  Just you and typing out a game.  If you can write a story, you can basically make a game.

[Thaluikhain]

I'd recommend checking out the BoE or BoA scenario creators.  Not having gotten into Avernum, I've always stuck with BoE myself, apparently it's more limited than BoA, but there's still been some great scenarios made.

[ladyonthemoon]

3 hours ago, WolfSpider said:

...  I do not know all their names, but Unity I believe is one ...

Thank your for your input. I'm using Unity; I don't like Unreal Engine much.

To tell the truth I don't have much confidence in software that offer you to make your game in five minutes (okay, I exaggerate) without coding. To me, the fun in making games is in coding more than in designing levels. In my current project, a 2D platformer, I'll have to draw the level(s); this is why I've begun making my own sprites (using a very famous image editor I shall not name). I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't make it but I really like making sprites; it's fun and quite easy; especially when you manage to make them look like what you want them to look like!

I know that I could find free stuff on the web but I'd rather make them myself; the only stuff I'll have to use that I won't be able to make are sounds and music. Fortunately, Unity Technologies allow use to use their assets in our games and they have a vast quantity of sound and music files I could use.

I'm sorry that I am not able to write my own engine but Unity is a very decent engine to use and it's constantly evolving. Furthermore they have excellent tutorials; the one I'm following to make my game is this one: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX2vGYjWbI0REfhDHPpdIBjjrzDHDP-xT

Making this game will take me a long time; the only thing I'm afraid of is that I could lose patience and give up. I hope it won't happen.

 

3 hours ago, Thaluikhain said:

I'd recommend checking out the BoE or BoA scenario creators.  Not having gotten into Avernum, I've always stuck with BoE myself, apparently it's more limited than BoA, but there's still been some great scenarios made.

Thank you! I have no idea what BoE and BoA are... Sorry!

Edited March 14, 2019 by ladyonthemoon

[Firecage]

Mmm, BoE and BoA refers to Blades of Exile and Blades to Avernum respectively. They have scenario creators for your own campaigns.

[WolfSpider]

13 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

To tell the truth I don't have much confidence in software that offer you to make your game in five minutes (okay, I exaggerate) without coding.

I've heard this before from both the Text Adventure and MUD communities both for and against.  And there are plenty of games that are subpar simply because someone hardly bothered to make a game and hit the publish button.  Flash Games of yore and on Steam presently have the same problems, awash with crap.  But there are a few diamonds in the rough and plenty of decent fun games.  On the other hand though I would argue there are plenty of writers out there with extraordinary worlds and writing talent, that could in theory, make worth while games if they had the time, the money and the resources to either learn a whole coding language or hire others to do it for them or had an easy system to work with.

 

Something should not be frustratingly hard, just to make something however.  A lot of people with good ideas don't make it past the strenuous code.  I've tried TADS.  I was lost...  😶  And yet if I had the knowledge to learn TADS I would make the exact same game on Quest anyway, simply because it was easier to use and would change nothing.  Why deal with the hassle?  I can not stress the huge assortment of options to use on Quest by the way.  It is not a generic "have only three options" kind of thing (The CYOA part of it is, but that are what CYOAs are anyway.), but something that you could potentially make as good as the best loved and widely acclaimed Interaction Fiction made with TADs or any other program.

 

But I do understand the joy of making your own sprites by hand...  If I knew how to post a picture I would.

 

[ladyonthemoon]

11 hours ago, Firecage said:

Mmm, BoE and BoA refers to Blades of Exile and Blades to Avernum respectively. They have scenario creators for your own campaigns.

Ah okay! Sorry for being dumb. I own Blades of Avernum, I'll take a look. Thank you.

 

5 hours ago, WolfSpider said:

But I do understand the joy of making your own sprites by hand...  If I knew how to post a picture I would.

To add a picture, you must upload it on a site like Imgur and then post the url in your post; the image will display as a link.

 

I personally upload my images on another site. Here is a picture I took of a mirror I made in Unity: https://pix.toile-libre.org/upload/original/1541249010.jpg

 

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by ladyonthemoon

[ladyonthemoon]

50 minutes ago, ladyonthemoon said:

Ah okay! Sorry for being dumb. I own Blades of Avernum, I'll take a look. Thank you.

I installed Blades of Avernum, the editor and then searched for a scenario editor. On the Blades of Avernum Scenario Workshop page, the link to Crimson Editor is broken. The new link is http://crimsoneditor.com/

 

Could a moderator, if there is any, update the page? 

[Ess-Eschas]

Hello ladyonthemoon,

 

Likewise, welcome. Enjoy your time on these boards!

 

On 3/14/2019 at 8:32 AM, Thaluikhain said:

I'd recommend checking out the BoE or BoA scenario creators.

 

I second this. There are a large number of scenarios available for both games, and it's definitely worth rooting through them. Since you already have Blades of Avernum, I'd suggest taking a look at the the following list of scenarios for that game, which I believe is pretty comprehensive. As you can see, there are a fair number, and there are some real gems in there!

 

https://blades.nethergate.net/

 

If you're looking for suggestions, take a look in the Scenario Reviews subforum of the Blades of Avernum forum.

 

Also, since you like the original Avernum trilogy, you should really try out Kelandon's scenarios, which are especially fine. You can have a look at them here:

 

https://kppp.webs.com/scenarios.html

[ladyonthemoon]

10 hours ago, Ess-Eschas said:

Likewise, welcome. Enjoy your time on these boards! I second this. There are a large number of scenarios available for both games, and it's definitely worth rooting through them. ...

Thank you!

 

I have already explored the existing scenarios; they contain a bunch of scripts in the txt format and images. They can be used with the game only so I don't see how I could use them for the game I have in plan.

Edited March 16, 2019 by ladyonthemoon