Fledgling Fyora Cinder Fall Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 After a harrowing search on the information superhighway, including the wayback machine, I can now conclusively say that the Spiderweb Software Forums have the earliest posts I ever made on the internet still available (all the way from 2004), and that's even including GameFAQs posts on game boards that otherwise needed the wayback machine. And unfortunately, all I have learnt is that I don't wish to re-read what young girl me wrote. I certainly recall not very well endearing myself to people. Anyway -- I haven't played Avernum since Blades of Avernum came out, but having just started playing Skyrim (yes, I am VERY late to the party there) I've been thinking about how long it has been since I played Avernum, and how much I enjoyed it in my childhood. So, regardless of how dumb I was in the past on these forums, I'll just say this -- Avernum was a wonderful experience. If I recall correctly a demo of the first game was on an old MacAddict CD, and my dad was hooked and got me into it. Since I owned an N64 and no other consoles at the time (the N64 being a console well known for not having any well known RPGs and yes I have played Quest 64), this meant Avernum was my first true RPG experience in my life. I feel very sad that because I was so young, I can only remember large story beats or certain areas, and I missed out on the memory of so many characters that I'd pick up and retain better if I played it again. Especially since young me didn't care as much about the story. I also don't think I even finished Avernum 3 :(, let alone even starting 4-6. Blades of Avernum was also my first attempt at any kind of programming. I'm a software engineer now, but back then the Avernum scripting language was the first time I wrote code of any form. I remember the first time I finally got to try and test a scenario I was trying to write, before my mum even got me the registered version. What I learnt was an important lesson that has carried me to this day... test early and often or it's going to be painful. Never did release a complete scenario. If I was a little more -- a lot more mature when I started maybe I could had eeked out at least something. But regardless of that, and the fact I played less than half of the Avernum series, I still want to say thank you to Spiderweb Software for giving me an enjoyable experience that left an imprint that hasn't gone away even after all these years and all these modern games and modern life and modern... everything. And thank you especially for the artwork on the character editor screens. Those are burnt into my brain and not leaving any time soon. Even if I cannot remember as many specific story bits or characters, Avernum had such a fun mood and tone to it that made it a joy to play through. Kiitos, thank you. Slawbug, Rowen, Sudanna and 4 others 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 That was lovely. Welcome back! Now, of course, you've gotten us all curious what we knew you as... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 An inspiring story and welcome back! Interesting to see another player go from writing a scenario here to a career in software. Let's see how long it takes Sarty to go through old posts trying to figure out your previous identity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora Cinder Fall Posted March 24, 2023 Author Share Posted March 24, 2023 (edited) Thank you, really cool to see this board and Spiderweb in general still trucking along. So others also ended up being software engineers? Although I should point out I am a business programmer not a game programmer. Did they go into game design or other software/computer science avenues? I don't even remember which scenarios in BoA I played, or really anyone from this board. I remember the scenario Cave of No Return and that's about it. As I recall, when I was doing scenario stuff, I was more interested in trying to pull off weird things with the engine instead of... putting together an actual scenario. I tried to make a TARDIS. From what I can remember, I had some item in the inventory have a special ability, and that would use Stuff Done Flags (I think they were called that, either that or I may be confusing it with Escape Velocity...) as coordinates to indicate where the, um, TARDIS was. That would be rendered as a locker when the map is loaded or when the item is used. As I recall, I couldn't make a dynamic position have the effect of moving the party to another 'town', but I could move them within the same town. So, every town map had a section of the map, the same section in position and dimensions exactly, be an enclosed space with empty void and walled in, that was effectively the 'foyer' area. And that would have a permanent town transfer section that always went to the 'TARDIS' map. Basically, I loaded up the foyer assets needed on every map so that every map could support going into the 'TARDIS'. I cannot remember what I did for leaving the TARDIS, but I do remember making some system for entering coordinates and exiting in at a different place in even a different town. It was fun to set that up, but making a scenario where such a thing is both A) not stepping on copyright and B ) actually fun without being overpowered was something that wasn't happening anytime soon. The only other thing of note I remember trying to do was make arenas for battles where the elevation of certain areas switched at certain intervals, trying to make combat a positional maze. I ... don't remember how well that worked out, if it worked out at all. Oh and Kamikaze Moose whose AI scripts I never got to work right. I don't know where that came from. I don't remember why I was trying to add it. In hindsight, it's a good thing I never actually released what I was working on or I'd have a whole other thing out there to be embarrassed about : ) .My work on the scenario building was more like a kid trying to find weird ways to play with her new toy to make it do crazy things, rather than to craft a proper scenario. Still, the act of trying to do all that, successful in some cases not so much in others, was incredibly helpful. Having a favourite game of mine be a sandbox for learning programming really helped to keep me focused on it, even if I wasn't so focused on the higher level concepts of scenario crafting itself. As for my old account, even if I wanted to (and trust me, I most certainly do not) I couldn't log into it. I've long since forgotten the password, and the email account associated with it has long since been deactivated. That account is very much dead in every way. Here's to hoping I didn't stand out too much. Now I'm morbidly curious and slightly terrified if you actually can figure out who I was before... Edited March 24, 2023 by Cinder Fall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 So when you're not trying to kill Ruby, you play RPGs, eh? How unexpected. 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Kelandon Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 17 hours ago, Cinder Fall said: Now I'm morbidly curious and slightly terrified if you actually can figure out who I was before... Lots and lots of clues in your original post.... No shame in having irritated a lot of people almost 20 years ago. I know I did, around the same time. Amira The Hot Potato 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Amira The Hot Potato Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 I'm sure it's ok. As my profile says I've been stalking the forums for years and I don't think I made an account until 3 or 4 years ago. Not happy with everything I said but I don't think it was too too terrible. We're all human and make mistakes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 hey stop waxing nostalgic you're gonna make me want to finish the scenario i started in early 2006 Callie 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fledgling Fyora Cinder Fall Posted April 13, 2023 Author Share Posted April 13, 2023 On 3/24/2023 at 11:18 AM, Triumph said: So when you're not trying to kill Ruby, you play RPGs, eh? How unexpected Yes, RPGs like Skyrim and Nioh, although I am not so sure reducing the second one down to RPG is really fair to it. Also of course I do more things than plotting nefarious plans -- I do have layers. Next party I make in Avernum, Little Red will be assisting me in my conquest of -- wait what were the main quests again? I do have a question probably, two actually, that probably belong in the Avernum trilogy section, but I do see the original Avernum series (I decided on that over the new editions) on GoG (called "Avernum The Complete Saga") but Steam only seems to have the new remastered versions -- is that correct? I want to make sure I get the correct version. Second question: I do want to play this series again, but I don't want to do the classic Fighter, Archer, Mage, Priest default combo and I only ever played with the default 'loadout' so the speak when I was young. I want to try something more imaginative. Having tried playing and not being able to get into things like Icewind Dale, I really appreciate how Avernum keeps things well explained and simple, all things considered. One thing I want to do more of is have a party where potion making matters a lot more, where oft-unused abilities matter more, where I might even cut out the entirety of mage/priest natural caster. Still four people, but something a bit more unique. If anyone had any crazy ideas I'd like to hear them, so when I get this game again I have some ideas to go forward. Sometimes I think back to how I played Avernum in the past and realise I don't think I truly 'played' it as much as I could have if I actually tried playing around with different character builds. Thanks everyone for the support regarding our collective pasts. On 3/25/2023 at 2:40 PM, Dintiradan said: hey stop waxing nostalgic you're gonna make me want to finish the scenario i started in early 2006 Don't worry, I'll do my best to avoid waxing too nostalgic. So anyway, what was this scenario about if you don't mind sharing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Edgwyn Posted April 13, 2023 Share Posted April 13, 2023 Several people have completed various no magic play throughs. One of the great things about these games is that you have a lot of different build options that you can explore and most of them will work well enough to let you complete the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan googoogjoob Posted April 13, 2023 Share Posted April 13, 2023 19 hours ago, Cinder Fall said: I do have a question probably, two actually, that probably belong in the Avernum trilogy section, but I do see the original Avernum series (I decided on that over the new editions) on GoG (called "Avernum The Complete Saga") but Steam only seems to have the new remastered versions -- is that correct? I want to make sure I get the correct version. You are correct. The "Complete Saga" on GOG includes Avernum 1-3 + Blades, as in the games that came out 2000-04. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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