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Avernum 3: Ruined World

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
The final game of the remaked trilogy.

linkfilter






On Steam it's January 31, but in the trailer's description it's Q1 2018.

The conclusion to our hit indie fantasy trilogy! Avernum 3: Ruined World is an epic, indie fantasy role-playing adventure with many hours of gameplay. Explore an enormous world that evolves as time passes. Towns are destroyed. Refugees flee. Disasters happen.

Your people long to escape from their underworld prison, but the surface world is being destroyed. Fight plagues of bizarre monsters and win your freedom. Enjoy an intricate tactical battle system with multitudes of abilities, character traits, and unique magical artifacts.

Avernum 3: Ruined World features:
  • Epic fantasy adventure with over 60 hours of gameplay. Explore an enormous underworld and a huge surface continent.
  • Rich game system with over 60 spells and battle disciplines and a multitude of beneficial character traits to choose from.
  • Well over 100 towns and dungeons, which change as time passes. Cities crumble as the monster plagues advance.
  • Fight to save the world. Or don’t! Do odd jobs. Be a bounty hunter or merchant. Buy a house.
  • Unique races and settings make Avernum different from any adventure out there.
  • Over 100 side quests and hundreds of magical artifacts.

The story of Avernum 3 is self-contained, and previous experience with Avernum games isn't required.
 
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Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Jeff reflects on his career of remaking remakes: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2017/10/avernum-3-remasters-and-joy-of-owning.html

Avernum 3, Remasters, and the Joy of Owning Your Work.


It's weird to see over four years of my life just sitting there in a lump.

I've been making my little indie games for a living for 23 years. Being a greybeard in such a weird and young industry comes with special privileges.

For example, while some of my peers are getting around to remastering their old games, I am remastering our most popular game, Avernum 3: Ruined World, for the SECOND time. It is only when you rewrite the same material twice that you really test your discipline and integrity.

Writing indie games has become miserably competitive lately. Most new games, even promising ones with a lot of work in them, are sinking without a trace. Yet, thanks to the grinding tedium of rewriting the same game again and again, I have a fighting chance of my business surviving enough to write cool new stuff.

So I'll tell the story or Exile 3: Ruined World/Avernum 3/Avernum 3: Ruined World. (Also on Steam.) There are things to learn here for any young person who thinks, "I wanna' make cool things (not just video games), and make a living doing it."


Don't laugh. It sold like crazy.

In A Previous Millenium, I Wrote A Hit

In 1997, I'd been making games full-time for a couple years. I wrote (and still write) retro, turn-based, low-budget indie RPGs with fun systems, interesting stories, and mediocre graphics.

Happily, I got started at a time when there were very few good RPGs out in the market. I got a nice computer, wanted to play a good RPG, and couldn't find one. So I wrote one. It sold, because no competition. This is a key example of my most important business strategy: Get Very Lucky.

My first games, Exile: Escape From the Pit and Exile 2: Crystal Souls, were designed on a simple principle: I would go back to all the RPGs Iloved as a kid and steal the best idea from each one. I then carefully combined all my quality stolen ideas into a coherent whole. This is called being a game designer.

For our third game, I had a better idea. I spent months playing all the new RPGs that had come out over the previous 2-3 years. Then I stole the best idea from each one of those. Thus, I transitioned from stealing ideas from old games to stealing ideas from new games. This is how you evolve as a game designer.

I ended up with Exile 3: Ruined World, which has been our biggest success. It features a gigantic world, that is easy to get lost in. As time passed, the game world evolved. If you didn't fight the monsters off, they would ruin towns and kill the townsfolk. (Though, no matter how slow you play, you can always still win the game.) If you didn't want to follow the story, you could be a bounty hunter or merchant. You could buy a house.

(If you want to try it out, it's available as freeware here. Warning: It probably won't run on your computer. That's one of the reasons we had to remaster it.)


Exile 3 came out so long ago that most new computers then looked exactly like this.

It Was The Right Title At The Right Time

In 1997, it was what people wanted. It was a legit shareware hit. Now, having a hit indie game in 1997 (when the world wide web was basically nothing and most of my sales came from AOL) was different from having one in 2017.

These days, the sales of a hit indie game will buy you a mansion made of yachts. Back then, it bought me a modest house and made my parents slightly less ashamed to say what I did for a living.

I won awards, to the extent there were game awards back then. I got attention from the traditional games media, which was really worth something then. And it established me in the business for good.

But even then, I knew that the real prize was not the praise (which I don't care about) or the money (which is nice, but then you spend it and it's gone). What was really valuable was that I owned the game. It was mine. I could do with it whatever I wanted. Forever.


BEHOLD MY MIGHTY 800x600 PIXELS!

Five Years Later, I Rewrote It For the First Time

We rewrote Exile 3 as Avernum 3 in 2002. Five years is a really short time to wait before rewriting a game, but I have a good excuse. When I started Exile 3, I'd only been making games for money for two years, and I wasn't very good. There were a ton of ways in which the story, interface and graphics should have been improved, and I didn't know to do it.

I spent well over a year writing Exile 3, and my wife and I spent another year turning it into Avernum 3. We went over every single location, line of dialogue, and bit of code, improving and expanding it to the best of our improved abilities. The revised version didn't sell as well as the original, but it still made a lot of money. (Again, by early indie game standards. It was a lot of money for lone artists, but not big-shot money.)

(If you want to try it out, you can buy it super-cheap here. Warning: It probably won't run well on your computer. That's one of the reasons we had to remaster it.)


The new game. I am constantly accused by cranks of never improving my games. Look. I'm not saying this is super-fancy. But I don't think you can say there's been no improvement.

Now, Fifteen Years Later, We're Doing It Again

Fifteen years is a long time in the tech industry. Our most popular game is now woefully out of date in every way, largely forgotten, and doesn't even run on new Macs anymore. Now I can rewrite it so it actually works, and an iPad port will fall out of the process in the bargain.

Interfaces and game design have evolved in a million ways. I'm spending 18 months going over every tiny bit of the game again, redoing every single thing from scratch. I'll release it in January or so, and it will hopefully sell. I think it will. I've spent over 20 years building up a loyal fan base.

A Lesson For Young Creators

Never underestimate the value of owning your work. There hasn't been a day since 1997 that I haven't made money off of Exile 3. The reason is that I own it. It's mine, to alter, remaster, and distribute. All according to my whims, with all the earnings going to me.

It's a tough market out there. But suppose you release a new game and nobody ever even hears of it. Wait five years, remaster it and it really will be, as far an anyone is concerned, a new game. You can try selling it again!

And ten years from now, people will be using new consoles, new devices, new sorts of computers. Port your game to them! Each new port is an all new release. A new chance for your game to get noticed and catch on and become a hit!


Nature provides us with a perfect metaphor for any internet discussion.

"But Your Games Are All The Same And Look Like Crap"

I have a follow-up post about the reactions when I announced Avernum 3: Ruined World. It's pretty funny, but this is already long so I broke it out into its own post.

When Avernum 3: Ruined World comes out (hopefully in January for Windows/Mac and March for iPad), I'll have spent over four years of my life on it. It's not a game for everyone. It's mostly the product of one person, and it'll show.

Even if you don't like my work, I hope you take some satisfaction in this: Vidya games are still a place where one weirdo can make weird things for other weirdos and make a living at it. As long as this is possible, there's hope. Maybe the next weird thing for weirdos will be YOUR perfect game, the Best Game Ever, and it never would have existed in a purely big-budget world.

###

If you're intrigued by the retro-RPG goodness of Avernum 3, you can wishlist it on Steam. News about our work and random musings can be found on our Twitter.
 
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Self-Ejected

IncendiaryDevice

Self-Ejected
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Messages
7,407
If it finally gets rid of all the needless random encounters/respawns and the pointlessly wasteful Cave Lore skill then I'd call that a worthwhile improvement! (The Avadon games at least learnt to stop doing this).
 

Morkar Left

Guest
If the game isn't out on that day, someone please drop me an email? That means I forgot to press the Release button.
I suspect there is a lot of truth in this joke...
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
Developer
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
2,052
I have a pre-release press copy, I've launched it for, like, 5 minutes and that was that. The RPG system has 0 changes. From first remake to second to third it just has nothing. Compared to, say, 4 > 5 > 6 progress, that's absolutely insulting. And whatever, fuck the feelings, fuck the hate, but there's just nothing for me that I want to experience, nothing that I haven't seen. I just don't really know who cares at this point apart from the core-st of his core audience.
 
Self-Ejected

IncendiaryDevice

Self-Ejected
Village Idiot
Joined
Nov 3, 2014
Messages
7,407
I have a pre-release press copy, I've launched it for, like, 5 minutes and that was that. The RPG system has 0 changes. From first remake to second to third it just has nothing. Compared to, say, 4 > 5 > 6 progress, that's absolutely insulting. And whatever, fuck the feelings, fuck the hate, but there's just nothing for me that I want to experience, nothing that I haven't seen. I just don't really know who cares at this point apart from the core-st of his core audience.

Or people who've never played any of his games before...
 

Kalarion

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong BattleTech Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
I have a pre-release press copy, I've launched it for, like, 5 minutes and that was that. The RPG system has 0 changes. From first remake to second to third it just has nothing. Compared to, say, 4 > 5 > 6 progress, that's absolutely insulting. And whatever, fuck the feelings, fuck the hate, but there's just nothing for me that I want to experience, nothing that I haven't seen. I just don't really know who cares at this point apart from the core-st of his core audience.

Or people who've never played any of his games before...

They should really just setup DosBox with Win 3.1x and play Exile III in that case. It's even free!
 

Mustawd

Guest
I The RPG system has 0 changes. From first remake to second to third it just has nothing. Compared to, say, 4 > 5 > 6 progress, that's absolutely insulting. And whatever, fuck the feelings, fuck the hate, but there's just nothing for me that I want to experience, nothing that I haven't seen. I just don't really know who cares at this point apart from the core-st of his core audience.


I always find this a weird position. It's like reading an ebook or a paperback , buying a fancy hardcover of the same book with zero changes and then complaining the content "has 0 changes"

I personally don't find it insulting at all. As someone who has played both Avernum 1 and Avernum EFTP, I find the remKes exactly what I want: A total graphical remake that's easier on the eyes than the previous version with minimal changes.

The changes between the original first 3 Avernum games and the remakes are a good time apart. This living in an era where PS3 games are being remastered for PS4 on a regular basis.

And like IncendiaryDevice said, there are a lot of us who havent played through all 6 games and appreciate the remasters, along with minimal changes to the systems when possible (personally I did notice small changes here and there from Avernum 1 and Avernum EFTP that made a difference without ruining the original experience).

Vogel bitches about pirates and being "40ish" as ild, but overall I think his fans welcome the remasters. I personally can't wait till the Geneforge series gets remade (with zero changes if possible as i heard it's a great series).
 

Sceptic

Arcane
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Messages
10,871
Divinity: Original Sin
I'll give it to Vogel, at least he releases his remakes in complete transparency and without ever trying to make them seem they're something else. He doesn't hold a new game that everyone wants hostage on the promise that you have to buy the remake of the remake first, like so many have done - here's the remake, you want to buy it go for it, you don't, don't. As someone who owns all the original Avernums and Exiles I have no interest in the new remakes, but at least he's not trying to guilt-trip me into giving him money.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
I wish he will use a newer engine + newer rpggamedesign philosophy (late 90's/early 2000's rpggamedesign philosophy).
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
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Messages
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Bulgaria
His games are great for what they are,we have enough 90s/00s games. No need to change,the same way BG2 doesn't have to change.
 

Mustawd

Guest
He's been pretty vague aobut it. I think there was a lot of speculation that'd it be a new engine. Ppl were clamoring for it to be rekleased a la Blades of Avernum/Exile.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
His next game is supposed to be using a new engine, which I assume will also be used for the Geneforge remakes. The new IP is supposed to be coming first, though.

He did say he was going to Kickstart the new engine this year, we'll see what happens with that: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10433
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
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Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
What the fuck happened?! I just revisit their site and not they won't released it on gog only on steam. Last day i checked it and it was saying that it will be on both gog and steam. Does anyone know what the fuck happened?
 

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