GF3 teased

[alhoon]

From the kickstarter page: 

 

" Thanks for Ben Resnick for his terrific color art. Someday, we'll all rediscover what's on the other side of this door. "

 

Most of us are aware... now, (potential spoiler for GF3 / GF4)

 

Do you think Ghaldring will be in GF3? Not mentioned, being there. 

 

 

Also, I think there will be a final bug-fixing 1.03 for GF2. 

 

So, what do you think the next game will be? I hope GF3. 

Edited May 24 by alhoon

[TriRodent]

49 minutes ago, alhoon said:

 

So, what do you think the next game will be? I hope GF3. 

I'm reasonably sure he said that it will be A4 & then GF3 (with something to wrap up Queen's Wish somewhere along the line but probably not a full game).  That alternating sequence works out too for closing out his career - A5, GF4, A6, GF5.  Doing two GF in a row would mess up the logical progression.

 

(not that I have any knowledge beyond what I've read in the Bottom Feeder/his interviews here & there)

[alhoon]

Going A4, GF3, A5, GF4, A6, GF5 is easily 12-15 years. I will be an old man by the time I bring glory to the rebellion in GF4 and then end the Shaper reign for good in GF5. 😢

I think the reasonable solution here is to make a couple of million $ so I can donate 200-300K$ for Jeff to hire additional people to help him chunk out the games faster. 

Edited May 25 by alhoon

[Hyperion703]

11 hours ago, TriRodent said:

(with something to wrap up Queen's Wish somewhere along the line but probably not a full game)

Really? That's a bummer. I really enjoy the Queen's Wish series and was hoping for a full QW3 release sometime in the next few years. The multiple reputation scales and the 'legacy' implementation of carrying character data over to future sequels makes it second only to Avernum in my opinion. 

 

Oh well. 

 

Edited May 25 by Hyperion703

[Men are from Slars]

3 hours ago, alhoon said:

Going A4, GF3, A5, GF4, A6, GF5 is easily 12-15 years.

No way.

 

In the last decade or so, Spiderweb has spent closer to 2 years on brand new games, and closer to 1 year on remakes, especially when not the first game in a series.

 

A4, G3, A5, G4, A6, G5 could well be 6 years, and I wouldn't expect it to be more than 8 or 9.

[TriRodent]

3 hours ago, Hyperion703 said:

Really? That's a bummer. I really enjoy the Queen's Wish series and was hoping for a full QW3 release sometime in the next few years. The multiple reputation scales and the 'legacy' implementation of carrying character data over to future sequels makes it second only to Avernum in my opinion. 

 

 

 

Yeah, I liked it too.  Being forced to consider strategic implications for what you do (rather than tactical, which dungeon to kill everything in first) is a nice change from 'normal' RPGs.

 

Jeff said though (again, going from what I've gleaned here & there) that it just didn't sell well enough to risk a full release (as a couple of suboptimal releases in a row could doom Spiderweb).  He did say though that he wanted to make 'some' sort of QW3 for closure purposes, but that it probably wouldn't be a full game.  My pure guess is that it probably comes along after the A4 & maybe the GF3 remake (to give him time to really streamline what he wants to say).

 

1 hour ago, Drayk Armitage said:

A4, G3, A5, G4, A6, G5 could well be 6 years, and I wouldn't expect it to be more than 8 or 9.

 

I'd think 18 months per would fit his timeline just about right (12-15 on the game itself, vacation/recovery time, gearing up for/figuring out the next kickstarter, pregame release promotion, etc).  A yearish on the aforementioned QW3 somewhere in there & that brings things to the decade that he was planning on.

[Jawaj]

Avernum 4 remake should be interesting. The game has a lot to improve and Jeff has gotten more ambitious with how he does remasters (Geneforges add more content than Avernum/Nethergate did).

Edited May 25 by Jawaj

[Men are from Slars]

This isn't something we have to guess at.  Wikipedia helpfully gives us this:

 

 

From 2010 through 2024, there have been 10 games released in roughly 15 years of work.  So that's an average of 1.5 years per game -- however, half of those games were brand new (Avadon 1-3 and QW 1-2), and four were new engines (Avadon, AEFTP, QW, Mutagen), which is all extra work.

 

Work on different games isn't completely separated, and the timeline doesn't show seasons, so you can't specifically see which games took more work here, but Jeff has stated in the past that remakes take less work.  (The most extreme example is Nethergate: Resurrection, which Jeff said took about 3 months of work.  However, that was also a remake in the same engine as the original one, just a much more mature version of it.)

 

If the new games are 2 years, and the remakes are 1 year, that adds up to 15 years.  Or you could interpret it as 20 months for new games and 16 months for remakes and get the same total.  (Note that this doesn't account for the new-engine time, while the list of 6 remakes we're looking at only includes 1 of those.)

 

Anyway, my money's on 6-9 years depending.

[Genernumlover]

17 minutes ago, TriRodent said:

 

Yeah, I liked it too.  Being forced to consider strategic implications for what you do (rather than tactical, which dungeon to kill everything in first) is a nice change from 'normal' RPGs.

 

Jeff said though (again, going from what I've gleaned here & there) that it just didn't sell well enough to risk a full release (as a couple of suboptimal releases in a row could doom Spiderweb).  He did say though that he wanted to make 'some' sort of QW3 for closure purposes, but that it probably wouldn't be a full game.  My pure guess is that it probably comes along after the A4 & maybe the GF3 remake (to give him time to really streamline what he wants to say).

 

 

So he might be making a smaller game for QW3. Or, worst case scenario, a patch for QW2 that we have to pay to access. That's unfortunate. I liked that series and I was really hoping that a third one would have the protagonist finally earning a title of their own, one besides the hereditary title of prince or princess, and carving out a fiefdom for him or herself.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Drayk Armitage said:

No way.

 

In the last decade or so, Spiderweb has spent closer to 2 years on brand new games, and closer to 1 year on remakes, especially when not the first game in a series.

 

A4, G3, A5, G4, A6, G5 could well be 6 years, and I wouldn't expect it to be more than 8 or 9.

 

That sounds right. That, and I don't want to wait 15 years to see the remake of Geneforge 5.

 

For the remake of GF3, we've already received the Battle and Magic Shaping special creations in Cockatrices and Stalkthorns, and I am eager to see what next one could be. It seems like it should be another Shaper creation in Fire Shaping. The Shaper version of Fire Shaping is Fyoras and Roamers unless there is a critical emergency, so you'd think they would be researching a new creation design to replace Drayks. Lord Rahul leading the efforts to Shape such a creation would fit what the Ashen Isles are described as being in the Shaper ending of the original GF3.

[Jawaj]

Jeff has also hinted at smaller updates for some other games, like fixing Nethergate for modern systems or a free improvement patch to A1-3. We’ll see how much of it actually happens.

[Men are from Slars]

Wait, did he actually talk about a Nethergate update?  That's amazing.  I hope so!

[Jawaj]

He’s talked about wanting to do it over the years, though it would be mostly a technical pass. How serious he is about it idk.

[alhoon]

53 minutes ago, Drayk Armitage said:

This isn't something we have to guess at.  Wikipedia helpfully gives us this:

 

 

From 2010 through 2024, there have been 10 games released in roughly 15 years of work.  So that's an average of 1.5 years per game -- however, half of those games were brand new (Avadon 1-3 and QW 1-2), and four were new engines (Avadon, AEFTP, QW, Mutagen), which is all extra work.

 

Work on different games isn't completely separated, and the timeline doesn't show seasons, so you can't specifically see which games took more work here, but Jeff has stated in the past that remakes take less work.  (The most extreme example is Nethergate: Resurrection, which Jeff said took about 3 months of work.  However, that was also a remake in the same engine as the original one, just a much more mature version of it.)

 

If the new games are 2 years, and the remakes are 1 year, that adds up to 15 years.  Or you could interpret it as 20 months for new games and 16 months for remakes and get the same total.  (Note that this doesn't account for the new-engine time, while the list of 6 remakes we're looking at only includes 1 of those.)

 

Anyway, my money's on 6-9 years depending.

 

1.5 years is awesome! 

[Men are from Slars]

Just to be clear, the conclusion of my quoted post was not "1.5 years"...

[mikeprichard]

Is there any definite statement from Jeff that he won't be doing a full Queen's Wish 3 to complete the trilogy as originally planned? I'm 99% sure (but of course, now I can't find the reference...) that in the past couple months he confirmed on a stream or elsewhere that a full QW3 is happening, and I'm unsure of the exact basis for suggestions to the contrary.

[Men are from Slars]

https://bottomfeeder.substack.com/p/indie-postmortem-1-geneforge-2-infestation

 

 

"Eighteen months ago, we released Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor. This was an all-new title, the second game in what I had planned as the Queen's Wish trilogy. This game sold very poorly.

 

This was a shame. I'm really proud of the game. It's the sort of game I want to play, and I really liked playing it. However, in my advanced age, I may have fallen out of touch with what people want.

 

When I was younger, I always said, "I write the sort of games I want to play. If people don't want what I like to play, I'll quit this business and sell shoes." Luckily, since this didn't happen until I'm old, I'll do remasters instead.

 

(I WILL finish the Queen's Wish story somehow. I'm still figuring out a way to make it viable.)"

 

[Randomizer]

Jeff said he wants to complete the Queen's Wish trilogy, but with poor sales, it might be longer until we see it. He probably will go with the better selling remakes to build up a cash cushion.

1 hour ago, Jawaj said:

Jeff has also hinted at smaller updates for some other games, like fixing Nethergate for modern systems or a free improvement patch to A1-3. We’ll see how much of it actually happens.

When Jeff was doing the last Nethergate remake he told me he never wanted to work with that game engine again. So maybe it will be a modified Avernum remake engine with the Netherfate spell system?

[mikeprichard]

Ah, OK - that's more recent than his comment I was thinking of from maybe 2-3 months ago. QW was my least favorite Spidweb series, though still significantly better than the average CRPGs out there IMO - but I'm personally glad he's going to focus on the A4-A6/G3-G5 remasters and maybe a surprise or two along the way, and hope he makes good cash doing so. (I'm still disappointed he's not going to "fix" the A4-A6 map perspective to match most of his other games, with a more immersively scaled "zoomed out" world map vs. local area maps - but I'll try to get over it, lol.)

[Men are from Slars]

37 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

When Jeff was doing the last Nethergate remake he told me he never wanted to work with that game engine again.

He also said he never wanted to design the Tower of Magi again.  Famous last words...

[Jawaj]

3 hours ago, mikeprichard said:

Is there any definite statement from Jeff that he won't be doing a full Queen's Wish 3 to complete the trilogy as originally planned? I'm 99% sure (but of course, now I can't find the reference...) that in the past couple months he confirmed on a stream or elsewhere that a full QW3 is happening, and I'm unsure of the exact basis for suggestions to the contrary.

He said in a stream around GF2M’s release he might not make a full QW3 because of $, a “DLC” for 2 but free was one thing he mentioned. That said it didn’t sound super definitive and it’s possible he still hasn’t decided if or when QW3 will happen. The blog post quoted above looks carefully phrased to not commit to anything specific for how the story will be finished.

Edited May 25 by Jawaj

[Hyperion703]

On 5/25/2024 at 9:17 AM, Drayk Armitage said:

Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor...  This game sold very poorly.

😮‍💨😠

 

Not sure why this bothers me so much. I guess it's because I'm a fan of the QW games. The Tormentor was one of the best SW games I've played. That people can't, or won't see that just irks me. 

 

I want a full QW3 dammit. Lemme go gather the coins from my couch for the kickstarter... 

 

Edited May 26 by Hyperion703

[l33tmaan]

I know to expect a fairly faithful remaster of GF3, but I hope Jeff isn't afraid to take more... creative liberties with this story than GF1 and 2. I like the overall arc from GF3-5, but from what I recall 3's plot was a little flat after the frankly amazing GF2. A bit of extra worldbuilding is always nice and I'm not expecting crazy new endings, but I think there's an opportunity to really jazz up the game by strengthening the opening and Litalia's character, plus making Greta and Alwan into actual followers instead of semi-silent golems. I don't need (or want) Bioware amounts of companion backstory and sidequesting, but more commentary could be used to flesh out their characters, the world, and their views on it. They were alright companions but with the hindsight of later games there's a lot more that could be done with them.

[ultra112]

On 5/25/2024 at 11:19 PM, Randomizer said:

Jeff said he wants to complete the Queen's Wish trilogy, but with poor sales, it might be longer until we see it. He probably will go with the better selling remakes to build up a cash cushion.

When Jeff was doing the last Nethergate remake he told me he never wanted to work with that game engine again. So maybe it will be a modified Avernum remake engine with the Netherfate spell system?

I agree, having more cash cushion is the best choice in this case as there will lots of doubt whether QW3 will perform better than QW2.

[ultra112]

On 5/25/2024 at 10:02 PM, Genernumlover said:

For the remake of GF3, we've already received the Battle and Magic Shaping special creations in Cockatrices and Stalkthorns, and I am eager to see what next one could be. It seems like it should be another Shaper creation in Fire Shaping. The Shaper version of Fire Shaping is Fyoras and Roamers unless there is a critical emergency, so you'd think they would be researching a new creation design to replace Drayks. Lord Rahul leading the efforts to Shape such a creation would fit what the Ashen Isles are described as being in the Shaper ending of the original GF3.

I mean if Jeff decided to go for the split faction creation line, we just might see the replacement for the Drayk, but I don't think that role will be filled by the Kickstarter creation though.

[ultra112]

On 5/25/2024 at 10:13 PM, Jawaj said:

Jeff has also hinted at smaller updates for some other games, like fixing Nethergate for modern systems or a free improvement patch to A1-3. We’ll see how much of it actually happens.

You know I do hope that it wouldn't be just a small update but a full blown remastered and turning it into a series.

[Genernumlover]

On 5/27/2024 at 4:35 AM, ultra112 said:

I mean if Jeff decided to go for the split faction creation line, we just might see the replacement for the Drayk, but I don't think that role will be filled by the Kickstarter creation though.

 

Hopefully we see it. I've always wondered why the Shapers were content to let legal Fire Shaping consist of two weaker creations while Battle and Magic Shaping got stronger ones.

[ultra112]

not exactly as the Kyshakk exist, but I do think that they would looking for a replacement for the Drayk soon as it might be unwise to leave your arsenal empty, perhaps this replacement could be shaped from roamers.

Edited May 28 by ultra112

[Men are from Slars]

do any characters in any geneforge game actually refer to Fire, Magic, or Battle shaping in dialogue?  I'm not sure, but I can't think of any.  it's certainly not a distinction many shapers appear to be at all concerned with.

[alhoon]

2 hours ago, Drayk Armitage said:

do any characters in any geneforge game actually refer to Fire, Magic, or Battle shaping in dialogue?  I'm not sure, but I can't think of any.  it's certainly not a distinction many shapers appear to be at all concerned with.

Not at all. 

And they consider "healing" as magic, not shaping. 

 

Kyshaaks were started to be developed during the Great Rebellion, when we broke the chains and burned the accursed oppressors in their ivory towers. Their new slaves were just tragic victims that didn't fare much better than their usual slaves. 
(Yes, I have been talking with Takers in GF2-I at the time) 

Edited May 28 by alhoon

[Genernumlover]

On 5/28/2024 at 11:39 AM, Drayk Armitage said:

do any characters in any geneforge game actually refer to Fire, Magic, or Battle shaping in dialogue?  I'm not sure, but I can't think of any.  it's certainly not a distinction many shapers appear to be at all concerned with.

 

The main character notes there are some differences between creatures created by Shaping, like the journal in the Drypeak Warrens is a journal about fiery creatures, but I don't think the different fields of Shaping are specified in dialogue. You're thinking that the lore regards Shaping as one field with the only distinction being what a creature does? If that is so, I'd still think there would be a Shaper that would try and invent a creation to replace Drayks for the accolades of making a viable fiery alternative to the turbulent creation.

Edited May 29 by Genernumlover

[alhoon]

2 hours ago, Genernumlover said:

 

The main character notes there are some differences between creatures created by Shaping, like the journal in the Drypeak Warrens is a journal about fiery creatures, but I don't think the different fields of Shaping are specified in dialogue. You're thinking that the lore regards Shaping as one field with the only distinction being what a creature does? If that is so, I'd still think there would be a Shaper that would try and invent a creation to replace Drayks for the accolades of making a viable fiery alternative to the turbulent creation.

Considering they are slow-moving, and very resistant and slow to change, I don't think they see the need. They have Ghaalks and Alphas and occasionally a Rotgroth. They probably don't see the need for a replacement to the Drayk. For large area attacks, they have the Inferno Wyrms. 

[Genernumlover]

8 minutes ago, alhoon said:

Considering they are slow-moving, and very resistant and slow to change, I don't think they see the need. They have Ghaalks and Alphas and occasionally a Rotgroth. They probably don't see the need for a replacement to the Drayk. For large area attacks, they have the Inferno Wyrms. 

 

Possibly, the Shapers are noted to be arrogant and slow, but they are also supposed to be clever. I'm thinking that a Shaper, greedy for gold or fame, would try and make a subservient creature that could replace the willful Drayks.

 

Do the Shapers have Inferno Worms at this point in the series? If memory serves, at this time the worms only show up in areas where illegal Shaping is occuring.

[alhoon]

33 minutes ago, Genernumlover said:

 

Possibly, the Shapers are noted to be arrogant and slow, but they are also supposed to be clever. I'm thinking that a Shaper, greedy for gold or fame, would try and make a subservient creature that could replace the willful Drayks.

 

Do the Shapers have Inferno Worms at this point in the series? If memory serves, at this time the worms only show up in areas where illegal Shaping is occuring.

 

They do have inferno worms in GF2-I. 

The Greedy for fame Shaper would be smacked down by a bunch of slow-moving bureaucrats that consider him a dangerous upstart and would go "no, no... that could end up like the Drayks. Let's try that slooower and perhaps in 40 years we will consider it. If it is independently studied and verified by 12 different Shapers. And gets the Seal of Approval of a Lord of course. Then, it would go to the council. If it is approved by the council in two different times, no less than 8 years apart, then we will move it to major testing. To start this 40 years process, please fill forms 8 to 15, all of which require the signature of three to five different Shapers." 

 

And things like that is why rogue Shapers go into bunkers and do crazy things - to bypass the sssslllllooooowww procedures and avoid constant surveilance - and then Guardians have to clean up. 

 

Shaping a new banana that is tastier, is easier-ish. A different version of baton more difficult. 

A completely new class of Creation like the Drayk or the Stalkthorn? No. That would take decades. 

Edited May 29 by alhoon

[Genernumlover]

2 minutes ago, alhoon said:

 

They do have inferno worms in GF2-I. 

The Greedy for fame Shaper would be smacked down by a bunch of slow-moving bureaucrats that consider him a dangerous upstart and would go "no, no... that could end up like the Drayks. Let's try that slooower and perhaps in 40 years we will consider it. If it is independently studied and verified by 12 different Shapers. And gets the Seal of Approval of a Lord of course. Then, it would go to the council. If it is approved by the council in two different times, no less than 8 years apart, then we will move it to major testing. To start this 40 years process, please fill forms 8 to 15, all of which require the signature of three to five different Shapers." 

 

And things like that is why rogue Shapers go into bunkers and do crazy things - to bypass the sssslllllooooowww procedures and avoid constant surveilance - and then Guardians have to clean up. 

 

Shaping a new banana that is tastier, is easier-ish. A different version of baton more difficult. 

A completely new class of Creation like the Drayk or the Stalkthorn? No. That would take decades. 

 

Is it a in boss battle? I don't remember seeing a Shaper using them.

 

Bureaucracy is the bane of civilization. Yet every civilized country seems to develop a bureaucracy that bogs down the government and the population.

 

Well, to be fair to the generally lethargic Shapers, they did manage to churn out several lethal designs to combat the Rebels, so they can move quickly during wartime. Of course, the lore is changing so that Wingbolts already exist in some form. Still, they'd mean that they rushed out War Tralls and Kyshakks to relative success on the battlefield.

 

Stalkthorns are probably one of a handful of creation designs that got through the peacetime system easily due to them being a turret variant. Turrets generally don't go rogue, and these ones would die even if they turned on their Shapers.

[alhoon]

"Move quickly" is "7 years to get traals" 

[ultra112]

7 hours ago, Genernumlover said:

 

Is it a in boss battle? I don't remember seeing a Shaper using them.

 

Bureaucracy is the bane of civilization. Yet every civilized country seems to develop a bureaucracy that bogs down the government and the population.

 

Well, to be fair to the generally lethargic Shapers, they did manage to churn out several lethal designs to combat the Rebels, so they can move quickly during wartime. Of course, the lore is changing so that Wingbolts already exist in some form. Still, they'd mean that they rushed out War Tralls and Kyshakks to relative success on the battlefield.

 

Stalkthorns are probably one of a handful of creation designs that got through the peacetime system easily due to them being a turret variant. Turrets generally don't go rogue, and these ones would die even if they turned on their Shapers.

Come to think of it, I don't think that the Stalkthorn was mentioned anywhere in the dialogues of infestation.

[Men are from Slars]

All we truly know about Stalkthorns is that they weren't on Sucia.  Maybe they aren't actually a brand new creation type, just one that didn't exist when Sucia was shut down.  That would explain why they aren't news and even the various plant-focused shapers in the Drypeak area don't have anything to say about them.

[alhoon]

6 hours ago, Drayk Armitage said:

All we truly know about Stalkthorns is that they weren't on Sucia.  Maybe they aren't actually a brand new creation type, just one that didn't exist when Sucia was shut down.  That would explain why they aren't news and even the various plant-focused shapers in the Drypeak area don't have anything to say about them.

Does Eli-something, Sharon or the quirky Drayk even have Stalkthorns around? 

[Genernumlover]

7 hours ago, Drayk Armitage said:

All we truly know about Stalkthorns is that they weren't on Sucia.  Maybe they aren't actually a brand new creation type, just one that didn't exist when Sucia was shut down.  That would explain why they aren't news and even the various plant-focused shapers in the Drypeak area don't have anything to say about them.

Their codex entry refers to Stalkthorns as being a "recently designed creation" that has problems that the Shapers have "as yet, been unable to solve." So it is a newer creation type, likely designed in the last 11 or 20 years, and the codex states that the Shapers haven't been able to fix its issues yet. To me that means that Stalkthorns are still experimental. That fits why it is the it mainly Shapers in Shaping Labs that teach it, and not ones that are in cities or in the field.

 

 

1 hour ago, alhoon said:

Does Eli-something, Sharon or the quirky Drayk even have Stalkthorns around? 

 

They don't, but Elissia can teach you to make them. I believe that is only an option if you join the Shapers.

Edited May 30 by Genernumlover

[Men are from Slars]

Ah, good call on the codex entry.  Given the hundreds-of-years timeframe that most creation types have existed, "recently" could really mean anything, but yeah.

[alhoon]

Going by the later pattern of Game, Game, no game, Game, Game, no year, I think we will see another remake in 2025, and GF3 in early 2027. 

[Men are from Slars]

You're completely ignoring the difference between a remake and a fresh game created from scratch.

[alhoon]

2 minutes ago, Drayk Armitage said:

You're completely ignoring the difference between a remake and a fresh game created from scratch.

Yes, I do. And I have my reasons for it: The remake of GF2 took more than 18 months. Remake of GF1 also required over 2 years. 

Meanwhile QW1 and QW2 were released within 15-18 or so months from the previous games. 

 

Thus, there is little difference between a game or a remake as far as the data show. You can make arguments that this will change and that there were other reasons that new games got out faster than remakes. But so far, the numbers show that remakes for the past 10-12 years take as much as new games. If things change so much the better. 

[Men are from Slars]

The data doesn't show that.  See my post above that you already incorrectly summarized.  I'm not arguing with shadows anymore.

[alhoon]

41 minutes ago, Drayk Armitage said:

The data doesn't show that.  See my post above that you already incorrectly summarized.  I'm not arguing with shadows anymore.

The data absolutely show what I said: 

October 2013: Avadon 2, new game

April 2015: Avernum 2 remake. September 2016: Avadon 3, new game.  

April 2018: Avernum 3 remake. December 2019: QW, new game.   

February 2021: GF1 Mutagen, remake. June 2022: QW 2, new game 

February 2024: GF2 Infestation, remake. 

 

What shadows are you talking about? Yes, there are things in your post I didn't repeat nor summarized. Things that are incorrect assumptions. 

New games: Avadon 3: 18 months. QW 1: 19 months. QW 2: 14 months 

Remakes: Avernum 2: 18 months. Avernum 3: 17 months. GF1-M: 14 months.  GF2-I: 20 months. 

 

Both remakes and new games take from 14 to 20 months. Average: 17 months for new games, 17.25 for remakes. 

Those are the numbers for the past 10 years. 

Edited May 31 by alhoon

[Men are from Slars]

On 5/25/2024 at 9:58 AM, Drayk Armitage said:

Work on different games isn't completely separated, and the timeline doesn't show seasons, so you can't specifically see which games took more work here, but Jeff has stated in the past that remakes take less work.

 

[alhoon]

Ohhhhhhhhhh... THAT part. 

Yeah, that part is relevant. Touche. But I still disagree. 

 

What I mean is that while remakes take less work, they don't necessarily take less time to develop. Kickstarters should IMO continue, beta-testing is still there etc.

 

And the reason I said it would be "2024 GF2-I, 2025 Av Remake, - , 2027 GF3" is because work is not completely separated. 

Furthermore, I found out the season and month of each release. 

Edited May 31 by alhoon

[Men are from Slars]

Jeff has said they take less time.  See, again, N:R for an extreme example.

 

Most of the steps take the same amount of time, but there are extra steps -- creating the scenario, drawing all the maps, and writing all the dialogue -- which are a large amount of work.  Touching up and updating these things simply does not take as long as creating them out of whole cloth.

[Randomizer]

23 minutes ago, Drayk Armitage said:

Jeff has said they take less time.  See, again, N:R for an extreme example.

 

Most of the steps take the same amount of time, but there are extra steps -- creating the scenario, drawing all the maps, and writing all the dialogue -- which are a large amount of work.  Touching up and updating these things simply does not take as long as creating them out of whole cloth.

That occurred during his most productive time in game releases with an update to Blades of Avernum and another game  in about a year. Jeff is now spending more time with the additional text, getting new monsters, and additional quests. He's said it now takes two to three years to finish a game. There is some overlap in working on the next game with remakes being easier with an established game engine and most of the text already done.

 

While Jeff still took 5 months for beta testing, he released more of the game faster to beta testers, taking only about two months to reach the fulll game. Then he started making major changes to items, tweaking creations and adjusting the boss fights. after the third month, every new beta was different experience that required new tactics as he removed exploits by changing resistances.

[alhoon]

1 hour ago, Drayk Armitage said:

Jeff has said they take less time. 

 

I hope you are right, don't get me wrong. I just ... don't see it (so far) from the release schedules. As Randomizer said, less time could mean "more time for beta testing" although, in my opinion, 5 months is a bit excessive. 

@Randomizer do you feel that 5 months for beta testing Infestation was excessive or do you think it was time well spent? 

I Do enjoy the boss battles, mind you.  

 

If memory serves (and it could well not be serving well as I rushed through GF2 and took looong gaps in GF3), GF3 had more boss fights and mini-boss fights than GF2.  I hope GF3 is picked up before Avernum 4 remake, right after Infestation. I don't think that will be the case, but I hope it will. 
I.e. I hope it will be GF3, A4, GF4, A5, GF5, A6.

 

I expect actually expect GF3 to take as long as GF2, if not longer as there are story decisions to be made; it should in my opinion require more effort story-wise than GF2-I that had a good solid story and just needed additions and change to the text. 

 

Do you guys think we will see the boats return? I expect we will, but we will be able to hop from island to island, "automatically" if we have cleared  the docks. Just how we move from say the Magus Complex to Rising with a click if we have cleared the other things inside. 

 

 

Edited June 1 by alhoon