About Avadon: The Black Fortress

[Virtual Vice]

So...about Avadon: The Black Fortress ....

Having played and enjoyed Avernum 6 and Geneforge 5 when I read some posts around the codex regarding Avadon, I was a bit concerned. I got the game and been playing around for a while, going on my third mission so to speak and so far I got a pretty positive impression of it.

Sure, you need to play it on the “hard” difficulty to enjoy it, and the proper difficulty balance doesn’t really kick in until the very end of the first mission and a bit into the second, but if the balance, the game’s pace and all other aspects keep evolving the way I I expect from my playing experience so far this is a very good game. In terms of features, design and even writing its very solid, and is the most polished of Vogel’s offerings so far.

I was worried about the stamina ( vitality) regeneration aspect from what I read here in the codex, but it isn’t badly implemented. Return to the entry Pylon to regain it, or find a basin or use a potion (relatively rare but not very expensive in shops), I have yet to need to use one while making some decent use of the abilities outside of special encounters, its not really very limited in terms of points to begin with.

Sure you will end up saving vitality on most “trash” encounters as a precaution, but like in the other Vogel games mentioned there is always a chance of a surprise or special encounter around the corner, and some apparently accessible encounters might not be so. Back to “trash” encounters there aren’t anywhere near as many as in Avernum 6 for example, and the game has a very good pace in terms of exploration, combat and interaction. I have to admit the health regeneration and the resurrection after battle is a bit much, but from I have played and expect this game can provide an interesting challenge.

The character development system does seem designed to avoid any serious error from the player but its adequate, and there really is a large range of abilities for each class, overall more than in any of Vogel’s previous games, plus the fatigue restrictions add another tactical element, I don’t believe cool downs necessarily mean dumbing down the combat gameplay. Scarabs ( items that provide many sorts of special enhancements and even special abilities) are a nice touch, and together with the enchanting system and the variety of items make character customization more interesting.

Seriously, if you play this on “hard” from the start, and have a little patience till you get to the end of the first area, this is a pretty good game. Arguably Avernum 6 can be seen as superior for the exploration and freedom and game length, but Avadon has strengths and a level of overall polish Avernum 6 does not have.

Finally the graphics, each improvement by itself might not look like very much compared to the previous titles, but when you add the variety and better objects and textures there is a real qualitative leap in terms of presentation from the last games. And little recycling and no repeating of art assets in term’s of game models and objects.

I read Vogel said his game is selling well and I am not surprised, besides the fact that the “normal” difficulty setting now reads as “hard”, I don’t see what is wrong with it. It’s lacking the openness or sandbox element of Avernum 6, and it has nothing like the C&C and branching in Geneforge 5, but its also a game with great pacing and focus, good narrative, character interaction and setting, lots of content and is very enjoyable in terms of combat and exploration and character development.

So I suppose my question would be….where is the love?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I read Vogel said his game is selling well and I am not surprised, besides the fact that the “normal” difficulty setting now reads as “hard”, I don’t see what is wrong with it. It’s lacking the openness or sandbox element of Avernum 6, and it has nothing like the C&C and branching in Geneforge 5, but its also a game with great pacing and focus, good narrative, character interaction and setting, lots of content and is very enjoyable in terms of combat and exploration and character development.

So I suppose my question would be….where is the love?

It lacks the redeeming qualities of the older Vogel's games (and reediming qualities of the cRPG genre in general), so it doesn't get love.

 

[Excidium]

I'm sure there's some love to be found somewhere, I read that it sold pretty well. Doesn't Vogel have his own forums?

But anyway , I don't know what you found so enjoyable about the combat or character development, it was all so bland and simplistic in the demo I've played.

 

[Mortmal]

It isnt bad,its still have nice hand made encounters , altough most of stuff is really too easy, but jeff made the choice of dumbing down multiple features.

First by replacing the previous character system by a diablo skill tree . the tree doesnt allow you much flexibility and you end up spending a bit everywhere to access the higher skills, i prefered the previous sytem way more. It doesnt even tells you wich stats affect wich skill, for example some of the ninja dude physical abilities relly on dexterity , but you have no way to knows it, the tooltip saus its strengh.
Second the biowarian narration,with a very linear game with no choices whatsoever:
A few examples,in one mission you encounter the wretch leader ,an ogre wich seems to be open to diplomacy but no matter what you answer you end up fighting him in the end, another misison in the game send you to assist an emissary cleaning out the contested woods from bandits, at some points he ask you to get rid of your companions to infiltrate with. That makes absolutely no sense to get rid of them and no matter what you answer you end up going in the dungeon with the guy alone.No choices at all and it even fails to give you the illusion you have some...

Theres absolutely no freedom, you proceed from hub to hub , unlike the last geneforge wich gave you faction choices.The area are finely crafted and the graphic revamp is appreciable but i dont like the way its going. I prefer a more complex game to a cosmetic revamp.Id appreciate more interaction and less narration and avadon clealry shows he wants to go bioware way full throttle, i am sure if he could afford it it would be full of 3D movies.

Thats why the lack of love although its still a decent game.

 

[ElectricOtter]

I'm sure there's some love to be found somewhere, I read that it sold pretty well. Doesn't Vogel have his own forums?

http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php

As Awor pointed out, Avadon was lacking all the qualities of other beloved Jeff Vogel games that the Codex liked. The writing and typeface were really shitty, I was taken aback at the quality drop between the writing in Geneforge 5 and Avadon. The game has some pretty nice encounter design, but it's hampered by the shitty skill system and it can't really hold the game up on it's own. I dropped the turd after I got to the first mission in the Wyldrylm (god that name is retarded).





Also, the setting was fucking lame. I don't know who mentioned that it's a bog standard circle fantasy land, but you are goddamn right. Why can't we have cool fantasy settings like Earthsea?

 

[Angelo85]

Posted this in one of the other several threads about Avadon:

Indeed I am at the moment.
And because I just aquired a shoelace of nerdrage +1, I'll add some additional bitching: This was the first game I bought blindly from Spiderweb Software and well... I wasn't really impressed, to say the least, with this title.
Mainly because of the even further - compared to their other two game series - dumbing down, hand holding and railroad-like linearity.
I was expecting the same old stuff he provided us gamers with through his previous 15 games. Guess I can't into innovation after all.
But you probably have read the Avadon threads and I don't really have to explain the , sell-out that happened.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Yeah, I agree. It's definitely more limited than Geneforge and more Biowarian, but it's still a quality game and there's plenty of fun to be had. I didn't mind the skill tree all that much, although I prefer boosting the skills I want with total freedom. I come from a GURPS background, so that preference comes naturally.

Definitely worth at least 10 bucks for anyone with a passing interest in his games.

The font does suck though, I definitely agree. It shows that it was picked because Jeff had the Ipad in mind.

I must admit I didn't know that any dialogue options picked when encountering the ogre leader ultimately just lead to a fight with him. So there's really no other option? Eh. It was a well-designed fight, at least. It was a nice dungeon as well. Jeff is good at such set pieces/encounters.

Disagree with the complaint about the lame fantasy name. What was the last fantasy games with good names? At some point developpers are going to run out of names which sound vaguely germanic/celt.

I should get back to this.

 

[Disconnected]

So I suppose my question would be….where is the love?

It's not really a lack of love, I think. It's just that compared to Vogel's Geneforge series, Avadon is disappointing in pretty much every way imaginable. Your team is smaller. Combat is easier. Character development is downright primitive (and honestly, dull). The setting isn't nearly as interesting. And where the Geneforges had some of the best C&C in CRPGdom, Avadon basically doesn't have any.

- I still liked Avadon a lot. I think I finished it in a week, and that's not something that happens unless I really-really like a game. But man, I'd sooo much rather have another Geneforge series.

 

[Virtual Vice]

I read Vogel said his game is selling well and I am not surprised, besides the fact that the “normal” difficulty setting now reads as “hard”, I don’t see what is wrong with it. It’s lacking the openness or sandbox element of Avernum 6, and it has nothing like the C&C and branching in Geneforge 5, but its also a game with great pacing and focus, good narrative, character interaction and setting, lots of content and is very enjoyable in terms of combat and exploration and character development.

So I suppose my question would be….where is the love?

It lacks the redeeming qualities of the older Vogel's games (and reediming qualities of the cRPG genre in general), so it doesn't get love.

I really dont know what you mean about the redeeming qualities of the older games...


I only played and finished geneforge 1 and 5, so I dont know much about that series, but 5 was a considerable improvement from what little I recall from geneforge 1.


But the first avernum trilogy for example, it had mostly world map size and that charm of overmap exploration and travel, a bit more open in terms of how you approach things early on, but if you consider the real options avaible not really that open. Mainly the combat was way too simplistic and repetitive for games in which it was the main focus, theres was a ton of it, and to top it off the games were very grind focused. The exploration and interaction aspects, despite the size are very inferior to his game's after Avernum 4.

I say this as someone who, among his first or older titles, only finished Exile 1 way back ( and really enjoyed it for what it was then), ...but I did put in a good deal of hours on Avernum 1, 2, and even 3 some time back without finding anything to compel me to finish any of them, avernum 3 had an interesting twist of course but not enough to make me disregard the game's flaws. I am not talking about presentation or anything, just design, features and gameplay.

So I dont see many redeeming qualities in his older games, if those include the first avernum trilogy at least.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I read Vogel said his game is selling well and I am not surprised, besides the fact that the “normal” difficulty setting now reads as “hard”, I don’t see what is wrong with it. It’s lacking the openness or sandbox element of Avernum 6, and it has nothing like the C&C and branching in Geneforge 5, but its also a game with great pacing and focus, good narrative, character interaction and setting, lots of content and is very enjoyable in terms of combat and exploration and character development.

So I suppose my question would be….where is the love?

It lacks the redeeming qualities of the older Vogel's games (and reediming qualities of the cRPG genre in general), so it doesn't get love.

I really dont know what you mean about the redeeming qualities of the older games...


I only played and finished geneforge 1 and 5, so I dont know much about that series, but 5 was a considerable improvement from what little I recall from geneforge 1.


But the first avernum trilogy for example, it had mostly world map size and that charm of overmap exploration and travel, a bit more open in terms of how you approach things early on, but if you consider the real options avaible not really that open. Mainly the combat was way too simplistic and repetitive for games in which it was the main focus, theres was a ton of it, and to top it off the games were very grind focused. The exploration and interaction aspects, despite the size are very inferior to his game's after Avernum 4.

I say this as someone who, among his first or older titles, only finished Exile 1 way back ( and really enjoyed it for what it was then), ...but I did put in a good deal of hours on Avernum 1, 2, and even 3 some time back without finding anything to compel me to finish any of them, avernum 3 had an interesting twist of course but not enough to make me disregard the game's flaws. I am not talking about presentation or anything, just design, features and gameplay.

So I dont see many redeeming qualities in his older games, if those include the first avernum trilogy at least.

I have never finished any Spiderweb game, so these redeeming qualities obviously wasn't enough for me (though in case of the last Geneforge it was only because I was playing it Iron Man - though in contrast, in case of Fallout 1 and 2 I never had problems with restarting them again and again. On the other hand a thought of going through the tutorial part of Geneforge 5 once again makes me nauseous.)

Still, C&C in Geneforge series and open world in Exile are a prime example of the redeeming qualities of the cRPG genre (the other is character development and it's interaction with gameplay) and they are absent in Avadon. That's why it doesn't get much love.