I hope my opinion is shared.

[Yawgmoth01]

I, personally, would very much like to see Avernum 4 out in the Avernum 3 style. This would include the classic solid frames instead of framerates. For example, when you move a character in Avernum 4 you see them make the movements to walk to that spot, as in Avernum 3 he blinks there. It may be a unique taste but one of the whole reasons I started Avernum is because of the pixelated gameplay.

[Alorael at Large]

You've got your wish. A4 doesn't use Geneforge's animated movement. In A3 you don't "blink" anywhere. You have to travel through the intervening spaces, and even holding down a direction key and waiting takes time. Avernum 4 works exactly the same way, except you can click instead of pressing a button if you'd like.

 

—Alorael, who likes actually passing through space anyway. You'd be surprised how often you can notice something only on the umpteenth time you travel through an area.

[Venom]

I'm not sure I follow what you guys are saying. Unless I'm mistaken, Spiderweb games have three movement types:

1. When destination is selected, character moves there without any animation. (Exile Series)

 

2. When destination is selected, character moves one space at a time in eight directions. (Avernum Series)

 

3. When destination is selected, character moves there in a fluid manner. (Geneforge Series)

 

Do correct me if I am wrong, for it has been some time since I have played either Avernum or Exile. Fromm what I understand it seems that Yawgmoth01 wants the movement one space at a time. Tuber vs. Tot's comments seem to indicate that A4 will have the Geneforge-like movement. This is what I gathered. Personally, I'd like to go back to Exile animations, or lack thereof. Things could be done a lot quicker and you could focus more on tactics, rather than watching your fluidly animated guy stabbing somebody again and again.

[Lilith]

Movement, from what I've gathered, is an unholy hybrid of Geneforge and Exile/Avernum. You click on a location and it automatically finds a path and moves you there along the path, but there's no walking animation to go with it, and movement is turn-based instead of real-time.

[Alorael at Large]

Exile and Avernums 1-3 have the same movement system. You click in a direction or press a button and your party moves in that direction. There's no animation, but there is a delay. It might just be processing time, but I think there's a programmed delay so that it takes a second or so to go across the screen.

 

In Geneforge, you click somewhere and your character moves there with animated steps.

 

A4 does not have animated movement. If you'd like, you can use the arrow keys or numeric keypad to move around and it works just like Avernum. There are no animations. (There are animations for attacking, but they're quick and you need some time to read damage numbers anyway).

 

The addition is that in A4 you can also click somewhere. There's no animation. It's just as though you pressed buttons to move north, north, northwest, north, northwest, west, west, southwest, west, northwest, except instead of 10 buttons you use one click.There is a very brief delay between "steps," but it's generally faster than moving by pressing the buttons.

 

—Alorael, who is quite sure that this is what everyone pining for the Avernum movement system wanted, himself included. On the other hand, those who prefer Geneforge mouse movement can have that too.

[Icshi]

Nifty. That sounds like a very nice blend of the two movement systems.

 

I prefer the classic Avernum system of movement, but always rather liked being able to click a destination and having the person move there without me baby-stepping him. I look forward to using it when Avernum 4 comes out.

[Kelandon]

There is a small exception, though: when you use the keyboard to move in A4, the screen only re-centers every now and then, which looks horribly awkward to me. I would never consider using anything but the keyboard to move in A1-3, but I can't bring myself to use the keyboard more than sporadically for movement in A4.

[Ephesos]

I have to agree with you there, Kel. Keyboard movement got powerfully awkward when auto-centering died. That, and it's annoying to accidentally skip text boxes when you're holding down a keyboard movement (particularly when moving south and pressing 1).

 

But I refuse to give up on it... I just have to wave the mouse around to shift the view and make sure I don't walk into something painful.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
There is a small exception, though: when you use the keyboard to move in A4, the screen only re-centers every now and then, which looks horribly awkward to me.

Keeping in mind, of course, that you're playing a beta version and Jeff may fix that if you whine enough about it before the final release...