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Avadon 3: The Warborn

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,487
Location
casting coach
"Fewer trash fights and greater encounter variety" in that blog post is what mainly has me cautiously interested, though I haven't played the earlier Avadons. But the countless trash is what keeps me from Spidweb games mostly, can't motivate myself to start another Geneforge game which I haven't played through yet.
 

gaussgunner

Arcane
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
6,151
Location
ХУДШИЕ США
Can you give some examples of Avadon's lore that are so great? I want to get excited about the game.

Avadon.. yeah, that one has some decent lore though the game is shit. Fading empire held together by Redbeard's iron fist and some sinister magic. 5-6 member nations supplying Avadon with recruits. Racism runs rampant among them. Interpersonal rivalries. Alliances with dragons. Powerful wizards. Rival nations to the east. Basically standard medieval low fantasy RPG fare, more down to earth than Avernum/Exile and Geneforge, fewer high fantasy/scifi crutches, so potentially a better game.

On the other hand it could be a crappy allegory for the USA.

If there's less trash combat and fetch quests than Avadon 1-2 I'll give 3 a chance, not for $20 though, maybe on sale for under $5.
 

nimateb

Augur
Joined
Oct 19, 2013
Messages
123
"Fewer trash fights and greater encounter variety" in that blog post is what mainly has me cautiously interested, though I haven't played the earlier Avadons. But the countless trash is what keeps me from Spidweb games mostly, can't motivate myself to start another Geneforge game which I haven't played through yet.

Geneforge 5 has very little trash combat from what I recall, give it a shot.
 

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,487
Location
casting coach
"Fewer trash fights and greater encounter variety" in that blog post is what mainly has me cautiously interested, though I haven't played the earlier Avadons. But the countless trash is what keeps me from Spidweb games mostly, can't motivate myself to start another Geneforge game which I haven't played through yet.

Geneforge 5 has very little trash combat from what I recall, give it a shot.
I've already played that one. It might have less trash than other Geneforges, but "very little" still doesn't quite match my memories. Though playing on the highest difficulty has a clear effect of making the fights last longer and force some more reloads.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
i just finished geneforge 5 few months ago. it pretty much has the same amount of trash enemy, but some areas are better designed for stealth, still killing everything rewards you more XP and the only reward you dont get by fighting is you get to use less resources/possible fatalities.

i remember progression were really badly paced. we get the quest to kill an unbound early, where we had no chance of killing it, so i had to backtrack after i buffed up a bit. (did it with cyroas and alot of buffs)

anyway, i remember clearly geneforge 5 suffer from extreme HP bloat, even the regular mobs have quite high HP (like >1500) by the end of the game, while bosses have >2000 up to 3000 ish.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
2,052
I played through roughly 60-70% of the prerelease version and it was just preposterous. You see, the problem of Avadons is not even them being bad - in all his decades of RPG-making, Vogel has accumulated quite a bit of experience so he never goes below certain quality threshold. The problem of Avadons (as well as the new Avernums) is how recycled they are when compared to the rest of his games.

That was bad in the first part of the new trilogies - essentially, they featured nothing but watered down and somewhat casualised gameplay of Avernums 5-6 (which was really good but at the same time the system absolutely exhausted itself by the end of those games). So, while I can understand how someone who has zero experience with Vogel stuff can enjoy them, for any veteran of the series it's just dull repetition. There's nothing fresh at all. It's ridiculous - you have Avadon 1-3, Avernum 1-2 and they barely have a dozen of fresh gameplay hours between all of them.

And same goes for the story - not only Avadon's stuff is a shittier repetition of the Geneforge plot, but through the course of the trilogy no interesting developments happen at all. All the stuff we've been told in the Avadon 1, we've also been told in the Avadon 2 and we are being told in the Avadon 3. There are no payoffs, no twists, no revelations, no nothing. Just mechanical repetition. Which makes it all incredibly boring. Stale, even, there's no other word to describe it.

Wouldn't recommend to anyone.
 

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,487
Location
casting coach
i just finished geneforge 5 few months ago. it pretty much has the same amount of trash enemy, but some areas are better designed for stealth, still killing everything rewards you more XP and the only reward you dont get by fighting is you get to use less resources/possible fatalities.

i remember progression were really badly paced. we get the quest to kill an unbound early, where we had no chance of killing it, so i had to backtrack after i buffed up a bit. (did it with cyroas and alot of buffs)

anyway, i remember clearly geneforge 5 suffer from extreme HP bloat, even the regular mobs have quite high HP (like >1500) by the end of the game, while bosses have >2000 up to 3000 ish.
Agree with the HP bloat but there's nothing wrong with getting a quest to kill Unbound. It's obvious from everything they're really tough, so you know you're prob not gonna make it. But it's there waiting for you whenever you feel you're tough enough. Making everything you can reach, doable, would be really boring pacing.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
True enough. It actually give me reason to go back and re explore old place and open doors and locks and traps that were previously unreachable
 

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,487
Location
casting coach
Also IIRC you can do a lot of sneaking in that location even when you can't fight the Unbound. Which was p. cool though sneaking in the game is not very sophisticated, you gotta savescum a bit before you learn the enemy routes and succeed.
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
4,456
Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I completed Avadon 1, and it was okay. I gave up on number 2, though, and probably won't bother with number 3. The trashmobs... the trashmobs...

:negative:

I also strongly dislike the party mechanics and characters.
 

Sizzle

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,471
I completed Avadon 1, and it was okay. I gave up on number 2, though

Same here.

and probably won't bother with number 3. The trashmobs... the trashmobs...

:negative:

I also strongly dislike the party mechanics and characters.

He did promise something new for Avadon 3 (he said he was sorry he didn't tweak the formula more for 2), so I'll at least try it out a bit.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
Max 4 character parties automatically makes your game more boring IMO.

Also I don't recall if you could change party members in the Avernums. (I don't think so.)
 

Fever

Educated
Joined
Aug 14, 2016
Messages
46
Location
Italy
Never played Avadon. Coming from the Geneforge series, I'm in for a gigantic let-down playing this, ain't I?
Also, the price tag.
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
2,052
Eh, it's not really for the codex - I've been doing it for the more mainstream audience who may not know who the hell Vogel is and what's his story. For this place, it's probably too basic. Besides, I don't talk that much about the game itself there - simply because there's no new game to talk about, it's a carbon copy from avadon 2 (which, in place, was mostly copied from Avadon). If Vogel could've spent less than zero effort when releasing one of his new games, he'd totally do that.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
I'm excited for the release of Avadon 3 if only because it releases Vogel from this crap series. Now he can finally move on to something, hopefully, better.
 

Heretic

Cipher
Joined
Dec 1, 2015
Messages
844
Finally, I've stuck with this particular engine, graphics style, and world style for too long. After I remaster Avernum 3 (our most popular game over the years), I'm going to do something way different. It's well past time.
A new engine would be great. Something like Underrail's, where you have many options to prepare for a fight/circumvent/hack/mind control/lay down traps/start with a stealth kill, and then switch to a turn-based combat.
I don't mind developers reusing assets throughout their games (even though Spiderweb could have at least added new tiles and icons between new games), but the basic gameplay loop must be fun and it's not, at least for me.

The exploration is great and the world is huge, but conversations rarely branch, there's very few choices and they are usually very basic, and the skill and combat system is really rudimentary, not allowing for differing approaches.

Spiderweb's games are safe and they're - dare I say - lazy. (I'm not judging Jeff Vogel as a person, but Spiderweb's output. You can't even recognize the games by screenshots, not even if you're a huge fan.)
 

gaussgunner

Arcane
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
6,151
Location
ХУДШИЕ США
Spiderweb's games are safe and they're - dare I say - lazy. (I'm not judging Jeff Vogel as a person, but Spiderweb's output. You can't even recognize the games by screenshots, not even if you're a huge fan.)

Lazy, too busy posting on blogs, also not wanting to have an office and employees, which is becoming prohibitive in the USA (thanks to liberals like him).

The Vogel formula: play it safe, "reduce, reuse, recycle", rapid release, remakes and sequels... basically the hollywood studio mindset. Also, tell yourself you're not as creative because you're "getting old" (a little over 40). :lol: C'mon Jeff, man up...

I've recently "discovered" Swen Vincke.. man, what a contrast. Always ambitious, new engine for almost every game, new gameplay, original art and music... risk bankruptcy every time. Doesn't seem to have ruined him.
 

Fry

Arcane
Joined
Aug 29, 2013
Messages
1,922
I've recently "discovered" Swen Vincke.. man, what a contrast. Always ambitious, new engine for almost every game, new gameplay, original art and music... risk bankruptcy every time. Doesn't seem to have ruined him.

If you go bankrupt in Belgium, the government still pays for your family's health care.

Damn liberals. :lol:
 

gaussgunner

Arcane
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
6,151
Location
ХУДШИЕ США
In America, the government pays for your family's health care if you're poor. No hassle unless you make real money.

But point taken, apparently things are working better in Belgium.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Spiderweb games had the Geneforge series, which had some really cool ideas and Geneforge 5 was pretty great.
Other than that, they're mostly mediocre.
Nethergate was cool, Avernum was mostly solid but not great, Avadon is meh.

With the money he made he could actually afford someone to make better art. And an improved engine. The art has been marginally improved, but the overall production value is still "eh".
Seriously, if he got better art assets and hired a composer to make 10 ambient tracks for 100 bucks, the games would already seem a lot more professional. Last time I checked, none of Vogel's games even had a soundtrack at all.

I'm all for re-using engines and assets because it cuts down on production cost and lets devs focus on creating content.
The problem with Spiderweb games is that Vogel isn't using this to create interesting new settings and try out new stuff. He recycles everything, even storylines and gameplay.
 

Fry

Arcane
Joined
Aug 29, 2013
Messages
1,922
Vogel is creatively bankrupt.

The hilarious part is he more or less admits this. And people still buy his games.

If he ever gets around to remaking Geneforge, I'll check it out. Other than that, no thanks.
 

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