Played through EFTP a couple more times after 10 years

[madrigan]

I read that we might get a remaster of A4, which was my first SW game, so I went to play it again but for the first time ever my computer is too new to run something rather than too old. So I played A1 again and it was so much fun I almost immediately played it through again. I played on Casual and just built up my characters however I liked it, which works fine at this difficulty level, but I read Slarty's minmax guide and what they say about a character being good at two things is true. I had an A4 character who was a sorcerer/archer and I tried to recreate them in this game, but without the Natural Mage and Deadeye traits it really didn't work. They ended up an ok sorcerer but a very marginal archer. 

 

I hadn't looked at this game in a decade but on my first replay I'm sure I found 2-3 maps I had never seen before, and on my second replay I found 2-3 more. The game world is really gigantic. If I recall, A4 still has the open world even though the plot is more linear, and I also recall than Jeff said he's not doing the open worlds anymore. I'm ok with that but it is cool being able to just jump ahead and then return to the Mertis spiral at a really high level and slaughter everything. 

 

One thing I did not like was the final gauntlet where the lights go out and you have to feel around with no clue where you're supposed to go while altered giants appear from nowhere and attack you. This gimmick is also used in Drath's crypt and personally I found it annoying. I tried carrying a lantern into the area thinking maybe that was the trick but it didn't do anything. 

 

I like the reputation system. In my first replay I got to 47 and in my second I got to 48, the difference being delivering a message to the barkeep in Silvar or maybe Cotra. I enjoyed the idea that after I had killed two demon lords, assassinated a tyrant, and found an escape route from a gigantic underground prison people still appreciated that I was willing to be a courier. Btw killing Kyass and Meena doesn't lower your rep, but if you kill Kyass and return to that map later, everyone including the merchants attacks you. Whereas if you kill Meena and her guards and come back later it's like nothing happened. 

 

I think the best thing about this game is that you're really a total nobody at the start, while in the other five Avernums you're already in the army. I'd like it if I could have opted to go into politics or opened a shop, but this isn't that kind of game. I've probably written this on this forum before, but I would like it if when I clear an area and return later, something has changed. The first Queen's Wish was good with this. I go to Fort Remote and it's peaceful, then I go back and it's destroyed, but after Grah Hoth is dead there's so sign of rebuilding. I kill every living thing in various Slith fortresses which are apparently impenetrable by the regular military, but later on the Avernite military hasn't taken them over. I do appreciate that if you're at a certain reputation and you go to some cities a message tells you there's a parade in your honor, and if you happen to return to the kitchen at the Castle after you're famous, the chef who ignored you earlier insists on feeding you. I love these little changes, it makes the game world seem more alive. 

 

Finally, I love the boats and they would have been really useful in A4 so I wonder if maybe the new version can have boats. If there is a newer version. Well I hope there's a new version.

[Slawbug]

A:EFTP really is great!

 

A4 isn't really open world -- it's separate areas with gates, where you can't progress until completing the main quest for the previous area.  But I think Jeff did suggest that a remake of A4 might involve more revisions than was the case for, e.g., A2.

[madrigan]

I didn't realize I could be stopped at of those gates, because it never happened to me, so I guess I had always completed the necessary quest. But it seems more open than A5, for example, where you're really locked into the single storyline and in a certain sequence. I think once you get to the Great Cave in EFTP you do have a lot of freedom to move. Plus the game never actually ends, which is a feature I don't think any of the other Avernums has. (The first QW has this, though -- you can just go back through the teleporter and walk around forever. QW1 is such a beautiful game -- the game world just makes sense and your decisions really make a difference.)

 

I seem to remember that A4 was developed during a difficult time for the company, so perhaps for that reason there's more that Jeff would do differently now. I was not familiar with A3 when I played, so the plot was new to me. The only thing I remember not liking in A4 was that it was a really long walk between the starting fort and the first quest area and it was a drag going back and forth. Well, that and getting through Rentar's fortress was really tedious if you did not realize that spending points on Tool Use was going to save you about an hour of fighting on that map. 

[Slawbug]

A4 truly is just as gated as A5.  Even the Great Cave, while a larger area than earlier ones, is still gated.  Personally A4 felt more gated than A5, because while in A5 the gates at least make sense geographically, in A4 they are blatantly obvious inserted progression limits.

 

We may be having different experiences here because A4 was your first game.  Since it took place in the same area as A1 and A2, but with a dramatically weirdly condensed map (this cannot be overstated), this made the gates really stick out -- since A1 and A2 were (with the obvious exception of Dark Waters) classic open world exploration games.

 

A1, A2, and A3 all have the "game never ends" feature.

 

The narrative around A4's development has shifted to be a bit less dramatic than it once was, but basically, Spiderweb had just sunk an unusual amount of time into an ambitious game (BoA) that, though it eventually did well enough, didn't receive as warm a reception, on release, as previous Spiderweb games.  So there was a deliberate lean towards "what will lots of players out there like."  This led to some very nice technical/mechanics improvements like quest boards and inventory windows (people forget this), but it also a loss of balance/variety (see also: G3) and a feeling that the existing game world was being ignored (especially because of the map, "the vahnatai did it", and the treatment of many NPCs, major and minor; the chitrach/clawbug fiasco didn't help).

 

Personally, I enjoyed A4 despite all of these things.  I probably do see it as a low point, but a low point for Spiderweb games is still better than a lot of what's out there.

[madrigan]

I appreciate all this detail. That chitrach thing was pretty bad but I suppose it did convey that the infestation was serious. I once stayed in  a house that had a flea infestation and you could barely take a step without then hopping onto you. I will always love A4. I even like the weird creepy music. 

[Slawbug]

Haha, the chitrach infestation was bad.  I was actually referring to the graphics, though: on original release, A4 used Geneforge's clawbug graphic for chitrachs.  This was a pretty wild shift from how chitrachs had been depicted in previous games.  There were some other borrowings -- hellhounds that used roamer graphics IIRC -- but that one was the most conspicuous.

 

This was fixed within a month or two (which may have been before the PC release altogether).  I remember somebody on the forums producing an improved graphic, but I don't remember if Spiderweb used that or something else.

[Randomizer]

I think the current chitrach graphic for A4 was a donation from a disgruntled player. There was a long discussion about it at the time.

 

I hadn't played Geneforge. yet, so I didn't realize how many graphics were borrowed from there including a Shaper for mage.

 

Topic started by Jeff on graphics