Avernum 3: Ruined World

[Sizzle]

Is the combat good in this game, like fallout 2/underrail tier?

Nope. It's bearable, but not much more.

 

[Cael]

All this talk made me to install Win 3.10 and play Exile. Already cleaned out Nepharim Fort, bandit tower and dipped my toes into several dungeons. Remote Temple was especially brutal due to unlucky respawn.

Just use DosBox. That is what I do.

 

[Fowyr]

All this talk made me to install Win 3.10 and play Exile. Already cleaned out Nepharim Fort, bandit tower and dipped my toes into several dungeons. Remote Temple was especially brutal due to unlucky respawn.

Just use DosBox. That is what I do.

You can't use just DosBox.
Exiles are Win 3.10 applications and thus need old computer with Win 3.11/Win95/Win98 or DosBox with Win 3.11 installed.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Is the combat good in this game, like fallout 2/underrail tier?

Since it's party based TB combat, it's far better.

 

[Cael]

All this talk made me to install Win 3.10 and play Exile. Already cleaned out Nepharim Fort, bandit tower and dipped my toes into several dungeons. Remote Temple was especially brutal due to unlucky respawn.

Just use DosBox. That is what I do.

You can't use just DosBox.
Exiles are Win 3.10 applications and thus need old computer with Win 3.11/Win95/Win98 or DosBox with Win 3.11 installed.

I use it for my Exile. Weird.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Of course, you're special, you can make Windows games run in DOS.

Either that, or you're just making up bullshit because you're completely clueless.

 

[Haba]

He has probably downloaded a ready bundle of Dosbox config with Windows 98. Which you know, can be done*.

You can play Exiles on Windows 7, but NOT if you have 64-bit version of the OS.


*) For any uneducated moderators, Exile games are freeware.

 

[Cael]

He has probably downloaded a ready bundle of Dosbox config with Windows 98. Which you know, can be done*.

You can play Exiles on Windows 7, but NOT if you have 64-bit version of the OS.


*) For any uneducated moderators, Exile games are freeware.

Isn't it hilarious that those who go around calling others retarded are usually those who are most clueless and most dogmatic about things in the first place?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Even if that was the case, clueless retard, you should have seen that it was indeed running in Windows and not straight into DOS.

Fowyr clearly mentioned that you need Windows in DOSBox, and yet you still found it useful to say that "lol weird i use dosbox for muh exile lolol"

Plus, if you used a ready made pack, you shouldn't give others instructions on what to use. You should hide your shame instead of pretending to be knowledgeable.

Therefore: clueless. Go back to whining how 3D printed "bitcoins" will cause inflation in the cryptocurrency market and other similar retardations.

 

[Cael]

Even if that was the case, clueless retard, you should have seen that it was indeed running in Windows and not straight into DOS.

Fowyr clearly mentioned that you need Windows in DOSBox, and yet you still found it useful to say that "lol weird i use dosbox for muh exile lolol"

Plus, if you used a ready made pack, you shouldn't give others instructions on what to use. You should hide your shame instead of pretending to be knowledgeable.

Therefore: clueless. Go back to whining how 3D printed "bitcoins" will cause inflation in the cryptocurrency market and other similar retardations.

Or you were expertly trolled into showing the arrogant dickhead jerk that you are.

But whatever that makes you feel better about yourself, my dear stalker. It warms my heart to see you rage time and again over the most inconsequential of things. I'd say break a leg, but it is more likely you'd bust a blood vessel first.

 

[Lilura]

Damn, I thought you had died, but here you are, still shitposting. Oh, well. Life is filled with l'il disappointments.

 

[fantadomat]

Damn, I thought you had died, but here you are, still shitposting. Oh, well. Life is filled with l'il disappointments.

Hahahaha you still have hurt feelings from that friendly banter...hahahahaha. You two will make nice couple,hate sex is great thing you know.

 

[Kruno]

All I did was install Windows 3.11 in Dosbox, and then ran the game under Win. 3.11. Easy!

 

[fantadomat]

Does anyone know if it is possible to kill the empress? I am near the end,have finished most side quests.

 

[V_K]

I seriously doubt that. Her assassination is a major plot point further in the series, and Avernums were never big on branching plots.

 

[fantadomat]

I just finished the game and feel pretty happy,money well spend in my opinion. Only shitty thing is the timer....oh and the laser puzzles. In the beginning you have to rush to save the towns and in the end you have to spend half an hour wait for the tower disaster if you want to finish it 100% . At least it is not painful as the pylons from avernum 4.

 

[Belegarsson]

I just finished the game and feel pretty happy,money well spend in my opinion. Only shitty thing is the timer....oh and the laser puzzles. In the beginning you have to rush to save the towns and in the end you have to spend half an hour wait for the tower disaster if you want to finish it 100% . At least it is not painful as the pylons from avernum 4.

How long did it take you to finish the game?

 

[fantadomat]

Hmmm maybe around 40 hours,could be even 50.

 

[Sizzle]

Apparently, sales for this have been good:

 

[vazha]

One thing I could never get about Avernums (never played Exiles) is what grudge does Vogel have against melee weaponry? The game has what, swords, spears and halberds and that's it. No battleaxes, warhammers, flails, picks etc... why? Would that be so hard to implement?

 

[Kalarion]

One thing I could never get about Avernums (never played Exiles) is what grudge does Vogel have against melee weaponry? The game has what, swords, spears and halberds and that's it. No battleaxes, warhammers, flails, picks etc... why? Would that be so hard to implement?

You'd be scratching your head hard enough to go bald if you'd played the Exiles. They had:
Daggers
Axes
Greataxes (?? I might be wrong about this one)
Hammers
Greathammers
Maces
Clubs
ARROWS (who remembers Arrows of Life/Light?!)
Shortswords
Broadswords
Greatswords
Waveblades (Exile 2+)
Bows
Crossbows (Exile 3)
Javelins
Razordisks (Exile 2+)

All with varying base stats and weights.

I'm busy mopping up the final enemies in the last area. This game is a somewhat positive mixed bag for me. TLDR: I generally enjoyed it, but I continue to be angry with several of Jeff's inexplicable design decisions for the remakes.

THE GOOD
-Tons of meaningful exploration.

-Big variety of enemies with a bunch of different attacks.

-Spell levels done right. Level 2 is always a decent upgrade, and level 3 is usually, but not always, a significant improvement... occasionally game-changing. Continued props for Dispel Barrier/Move Mountains lv3, it's one of my favorite changes from the Exiles. I adore coming back to some tantalizing barrier and getting some nice goodies after getting level 3.

-God bless Jeff for finally figuring out that status-driven spells aren't any fucking fun if they're resisted 90% of the time due to scaling resistance mechanics. He changed this in 1.01 and it makes several spells much more satisfying to use. Gives me hope for his future games.

-Solid character leveling progression throughout the game. I don't necessarily endorse it - in fact for the most part I despise the direction he took for progression in the Avernums - but what he chose to do, he did well. More on this in THE BAD/UGLY.

-Difficulty tuning. On Hard+, enemies actually have a shot at wiping you out. Granted some of that is due to his scaling mechanics, but at least it's somewhat of a challenge.

-Character death has a meaningful, annoying, but not game-stopping effect. I hated dying, but generally never enough to automatically reload. I feel like he hit a good sweet spot on this.

-The combat/exploration log. I may be in the minority here, but I appreciate knowing exactly what my goals should be for non-combat skills (Nature Lore, Arcane Lore, Tool Use). It fits perfectly with my munchkin habits. Same for combat. I appreciate being able to see that all those levels of Melee/Bows made a difference in to-hit and damage.

-Special mention for the Capture Soul/Simulacrum spell duo. These two spells were fucking awesome in the Exiles, and in Avernum 3 they're just as sweet. Generally, if a monster doesn't have a specific name, it can be captured (I think Doomguards are one exception). That includes Haakai, Hraithes, and (my personal favorite) Eyebeasts among other things. The only limiting factors are having a high enough level character, and of Capture Soul, to trap the monster in question.

-Disciplines are a rare exception to my disdain for Avernum's design decisions. They are varied, and most, but not all, of them are useful enough that you'll use them as you get them. Interestingly, in my opinion the most difficult to obtain Discipline (Battle Frenzy), is not nearly as useful as the far easier to obtain Adrenaline Rush, especially since (1) using Battle Frenzy will generally end that turn, whereas Adrenaline Rush allows you to instantly take more actions, and (2) Battle Frenzy is available from a multitude of sources, whereas there are exactly zero other ways to gain 20-24 Action Points. Adrenaline Rush for Mages/Priests in particular is incredibly powerful.

THE BAD/MEDIOCRE
-Character leveling progression. I don't deny that Exile's leveling and trait mechanics could have used some tweaking, but they were miles ahead of Avernum's. What on earth possessed Jeff to decide that the key to fun, meaningful progression was incremental scaling bonuses? Yes, truly, there is nothing more exciting than taking the same trait three times for a 9% increase in damage! WHEEEEEEEE! Or spending ten fucking levels to get Blademaster maxed out for 30% more damage! Truly, I am in heaven.

-Race implementations. I have zero reason to use a Slith or Neph, their racial bonuses are terrible compared to Humans. There were so many ways he could have made this work. I can't figure out why Jeff has stuck so doggedly to Avernum 4-6 and AEFTP+'s method. Honorable mention to there being some gameplay opportunities only available if Slith/Neph are in your party, but they are small and completely forgettable.

-Monster AI. It's bad, especially for summoned monsters. I can't count the number of times my Eyebeast used Lightning/Charm/Terrify on enemies that were immune to them, even after having it fail repeatedly. Or, even worse, bathed my entire party in monster-level lightning while attempting to blast enemies.

-Crafting implementation. Long story short, you don't craft. You collect materials to give to NPCs, and they craft for you. Having gone through the whole game, I can say that there are plenty of materials to use them throughout the game without worry that you'll be shit out of luck when you finally find some mythical ultimate crafting NPC. I didn't realize that while playing however, so I've got about 10,000,000,000 of each herb in my inventory because I wanted to use them all for Invulnerability and Speed Elixirs... then decided I didn't need them. Not being able to see what you are crafting doesn't help with the hoarding mentality either, especially since the costs start high and only go up as the game progresses. This ties into a general problem with itemization that I'll get into in THE UGLY.

-Spell variety. This is a mediocre, not a bad, issue. On the one hand there is plenty to choose from, each with a variety of effects. On the other hand, many spells are drastically toned down from their effect in Exile (Haste, I'm looking at you), and the list in general has been cut considerably. Anyone remember Ice Bolt? Kill? The various Field spells? Field Spray?! Death Arrows? Dispel Undead/Demons? QUICKFIRE?! MAJOR BLESSING?! In a vacuum the spell selection is fine, but it suffers brutally in comparison to the Exiles.

THE UGLY
-The grid UI. I think this is a side effect of Jeff's abortion of a choice for an engine (more on this later). I can't count the number of times I accidentally one-shot one of my own characters because I couldn't tell what fucking squares my cone spells were going to hit and decided to take a gamble. This is a huge step backwards from Exile 3, where spell areas of effect were clearly shown during targeting.

-Level scaling. All of it. Horrifically bad. If I had to see one more Sword of Doom with +5% melee damage I was going to scream. I was already screaming watching my fully-kitted Blademaster dualwielder hitting for 500+ damage per sword, and having 75% of it resisted by everything of my level, because reasons. Or my fully maxed Spellcraft Mage with 35 Intelligence shooting out a level 3 Arcane Blow/Fireblast that also gets 75% resisted by all high level monsters because fuck making magic awesome man, BANALCE. There are so many better ways to do escalating combat difficulty. This design decision was truly infuriating. Ironically the completely transparent combat log, that I praised just a few paragraphs back, enables a great deal of this rage by showing exactly how much of your damage even trash mobs are shrugging off, simply by virtue of being high enough level. It is perhaps most upsetting because it renduces a couple of spells that would otherwise seem really fun, such as level 3 Acid Spray, to gutter tier, simply because almost all of that extra damage from ongoing damage effects is mostly resisted even by trash mobs. The reverse is of course, not true for your characters. Lightning, Frozen, Flaming, Shocked, Acid, Poison are all potentially deadly unless you specifically level and gear for them, or Ward them. As they should be! But it is maddening to gain access to the same tools being used to destroy you, and seeing it rendered worthless against everything you're fighting.

-4 man party. I am pretty sure this dumpster-fire of a decision (and its inbred cousin from the earlier Avernums, 3-man parties) is in some way responsible for a lot of the game's problems. A 4 person party means a good 75% of the weapons and armor you find are rendered useless due to lack of a character slot to specialize in. The big loser here is, as usual, thrown weapons, but it applies to everything. In my playthrough I immediately made the decision to skip polearms since I wanted a dual-wielder and I thought (at first) that I would enjoy having a sword-and-shield user as well (I was wrong and quickly edited that character to be a slightly different variety of dual-wielder, but whatever). That made all but one specific spear, including an artifact-level weapon, instantly trash to me. Same with archers, I didn't have a character slot to spend on specializing in bows, so most bows and all archery-related armor were instantly rendered junk, to be sold when I needed cash. Ironically, even though I had two dual-wielding sword users, and my Priest was using a sword and shield, I still ended up ditching 90% of the swords I got, even those with interesting effects, simply because I didn't have anyone to use them. A 4 person party also means highly constricted character design during a playthrough. Gone are the days of experimenting with having a sword-and-shield user, a dual-wielding melee specialist, a polearm specialist, an archer who could dual-wield daggers and maces if need be, a specialized mage who could craft anything he wanted with Alchemy, a jack-of-all trades Mage and Priest caster who could instantly identify all items, and a Priest who could come back from being blasted to bits by a Haakai thanks to his outstanding Luck and, ironically, could coat weapons with the nastiest poisons on request. Coming from Exile's 6 man parties, this has been incredibly frustrating right since the days of Avernum 1.

-The engine. This is the worst sin in my eyes. I mean for fuck's sake, compare Exile's PC sprites to Avernum's. Or even more damning, look at how Avernum's monsters look compared to Exile's. Avernum dragons look like insane cats with mosquito wings attached to their backs. I cannot into uploading screenshots etc, there are a couple examples several pages into the Avernum 3 pre-release thread though until I figure it out. It's just unbelievable how awful Jeff's graphics look compared to over 2 decades ago. The silliest part is that Jeff honestly believes his engine is an improvement! You can't make this shit up.

-Itemization. There are far fewer items, and types of items, than in the Exiles. Items also have a much more constricted variety of effects. 95% of the equipment in this game has boring, unexciting effects (+3% to melee damage! +2% Hostile Effect Resistance! +8% armor! WOOO!). The other 5% give a boring, unexciting small bonus to skills (+1 Melee Weapons! +2 Blademaster!!). There are a handful of items that have significant or wildly different effects (the Artifacts, Flaming/Oozing Blade, Ever-Rotting/Lightning Bow). Compare to Exile 3: Alien Blade, Bolt Blade, Ravager Knife, Shield Mace... the list goes on. It's a massive letdown.

In conclusion, if you like old-school CRPGs with plenty to do and find, buy this game. I just hope you've never played the Exiles, or you'll be in for some heartache.

 

[vazha]

So what happened to the weaponry you mentioned? Surely even a german would realize deleting them would make the game less fun? He left cave lore in, but removed maces & warhammers? lol. Your post makes me want to play Exiles but the graphics are just too grainy (And this is coming from a guy who recently beat Dark Sun)

P.s. Sadly, I'm already bald :D

 

[Haba]

Just play Exiles, they are really good.

Take some whiskey or something to blur the image if necessary.

 

[Fowyr]

So what happened to the weaponry you mentioned? Surely even a german would realize deleting them would make the game less fun?

He removed most of magic spells too.
http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/jeff-vogel-soapbox-thread.91814/page-20#post-5015828
Play Exile. I just recently played first Exile and it was just awesome as it was many years ago.

 

[vazha]

I honestly tried, but I think I'm getting older and have reduced mental capacity for new, complex systems. And dem graphics are a factor too as much as I hate to admit that.