Profile for quartex

Field	Value
Displayed name	quartex
Member number	3846
Title	Apprentice
Postcount	27
Homepage
Registered	Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00

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Recent posts

Author	Recent posts
Elevation in Spiderweb's games in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Wednesday, October 19 2005 05:01 Profile #13 Seraphim, I don't quit understand you post. I played Nethergate from start to finish with both the Celts and the Romans. I didn't find every secret, but have played the game thoroughly. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Elevation in Spiderweb's games in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, October 18 2005 10:00 Profile #3 Elevation was an inspiration for Nethergate or for Avernum? I remember the huge cliff in Nethergate that led to a secret area, if you could survive the terrible fall. The use of cliffs was cool. I also remember that the outdoor made a large use of hills, so that you really felt you were climbing upwards when you enter the mountains. Likewise in Avernum when you are trying to escape, having some tunnels that keep leading upwards is a cool way of showing you getting closer and closer to the surface. I think the elevation just adds another layer to the atmosphere of the game. But I guess people may have had trouble fighting on the sides of hills. I've heard people complain that it is hard to figure out the battle grid when you are fighting on a hill. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Elevation in Spiderweb's games in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, October 18 2005 07:49 Profile #0 I was going back recently and reading some reviews of the Exile and Avernum games, and was I surprised to notice that the caves in Avernum had elevation. I'm not referring to the cliffs and stairs, but the slopeing hills and valleys you often saw outdoors. I remember Nethergate using hills and valleys outdoors as well. I'd forgotten about this, becuase I don't remember any of the Geneforge games having sloped terrain. I vaguely remember them having cliff walls, but I don't remember the slopeing hills that you found in the Avernum games. Is this a change in the engine, that the Geneforge engine couldn't support hills and valleys? Is everything flat in Geneforge? Anyone know why this change was made to the engine? After seeing the 3-D landscape of Avernum it seems a bit odd to go go back to a flat landscape in Geneforge. If Avernum 4 uses the Geneforge engine, does that mean the outdoors will be flat too? Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Avernum 4 Mac Beta Testers needed! in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Monday, October 3 2005 19:32 Profile #42 If you don't hear from Jeff in the next few days, probably the best thing to do is replay Avernum1,2,3 and wait three months until Avernum 4 is released for the mac. I know it's frusterating, but it's the way beta tests work. Personally, I try to distract myself with other games. Also I think that because of the NDA, the beta-testers won't be revealing any information. No one wants legal action taken against them. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Non-violent solutions in the Geneforge Series in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, October 5 2004 15:17 Profile #4 You're referring to the original Fallout? What about when you get jumped by wandering monsters while travelling outdoors? But it is a good example of another game that tries to have non-violent solutions. RPGCodex compared the Geneforge series to Fallout in their review, I thought that was very interesting and high praise for Geneforge. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Non-violent solutions in the Geneforge Series in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, October 5 2004 14:55 Profile #2 I think it would be very challenging to try to sleathly avoid all the monsters roaming around Geneforge. On a side note, it would also be rather slow, becuase many areas are only turned green when a majority of monsters are killed, so if you had to trek back and forth through lots of red areas to get to town, avoids roaming monsters each way, it could take a lot longer to play the game. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Economics of Aladdin's "Ten for OS X: Games" in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, October 5 2004 14:52 Profile #2 In terms of what's the better deal gaming wise, I've found it for $40, and while several of the games are lower-quality shareware I think Freeverse's Wingnuts, Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab and Classic Cribbage are all good, so is Budgom 2 and Cro-Mag Rally. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Non-violent solutions in the Geneforge Series in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, October 5 2004 14:42 Profile #0 I have not played through either Geneforge game, although I plan to eventually. When Jeff was developing Geneforge he mentioned how every mission should be able to be completed without combat. You should be able to win the game using diplomacy and stealth. Is this really possible. It seems that there are some missions, especially in Geneforge 1, that require combat. For example destroying the creature spawner in Watchhill, I don't see how you could sneak into the lair. I've heard that Geneforge 2 has more non-violent options than Geneforge 1. How well do you think non-violent options are enabled in the Geneforge series so far? Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Economics of Aladdin's "Ten for OS X: Games" in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, October 5 2004 14:32 Profile #0 I've been pondering registering Geneforge after all this time. But I also noticed that Aladdin software (the makers of the stuffit expander utilities) released a collection of Ten (actually 13) Mac games for $50. These are all complete versions of shareware games, including Spiderweb's Geneforge. Aladdin claims that these games are worth a total of $250, making it "a great bargain". Several of the games are pretty bad, but a few link Geneforge are gems. However I was curious about the economics of the deal. Aladdin required that each game creator treat owners of this product as if they had registered the induvidual game, that is people who buy these games should be able to get updates and support for free, as if they were normal registerered users. This product retails for $50. Presumably Aladdin sells it to the retailers for a lower price, perhaps $40. Of those $40, Aladdin probably pays a share out to the the shareware creators. I'm assuming that each game owner got some sort of royalty for each product sold, not just a flat payment. But if Jeff gets a royalty for each copy of Aladdin's software bundle sold, it's probably only a few dollars. So why did he submit his game? Probably becuase Aladdin's products have a much wider distribution and more people are familiar with the software brand. And I suppose that it is great adverising, if someone like Geneforge, they have a much higher chance of registering his other products. Has Jeff sent his games to any other software bundle? I'm not sure. But the point of this post is that I was curious that if I want to reward Jeff by registering Geneforge, am I gyping him by buying this bundle instead? I'm tempted by the other games (such as WingNuts and Bugdon 2), but I'm wondering if the aladdin copy of the game would give Jeff only a few dollars, as opposed to the $25 he's get if I registered it through Spiderweb Software. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Jeff's rep and the Perils of Creating a Scenario Editor in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Tuesday, September 28 2004 09:52 Profile #0 I'm not much of a forum reader and I know that arguements over Jeff Vogel has been beaten to death already but I after reading the topic on Jeff's Reputation, i wanted to add my 2 cents: I've always been a fan of Spiderweb's games. This is partially historical, back in the 90's, before Baldu'rs Gate, the only RPGs I could find for the mac were Realmz and Exile. I loved Jeff and his games becuase the Exile series filled a gap, and they were quality games. Lets not forget the greatness of the first Exile games at the time they were released. I think his mistake was creating blades of exile, because thaty spawned a huge communty of developers who wanted to use his scenario editor to create games that went in different directions than he had originally intended. I'm not saying that the developers were wrong, but all of a sudden he had to not only compete with other developers who were using his product to make better/different games, but also there was a lot of contention between him and developers who wanted him to expand the capabilities of the editor to do more and more. And that's where the trouble begins. When he's the game maker and we're the players, we enjoy his games or we don't. And there may be features in the games that we miss, but we don't attack him as a community for not implementing these features. But when we're making games and he's making games, we start comparing our scenarios to his games, and when we released Blades of Avernum, a lot of developers were mad that he didn't add the functionality that they had been asking for for many years. It seems people thought of this as a betrayal of the community. My point is that as game players we may feel disappointed by a bad sequel, but I think that community relations get a lot more difficult when you have to deal with supporting an scenario editor. How do you balance what you think your scenario editor should do, as opposed to functionality people in the community want? Jeff said he wanted to limit how much you can customize some features, so that all BOE/BOA scenarios will be similar for the players, but thats an example where trying to improve the experience for the players constrains the options for the developers. For example: having an official site where you host scenarios adds a lot of headaches becuase you have to constantly update other people's scenarios. It would probably be easier to have a scenario repository on a fan site and thus not have the community get mad at you if you fall behind in maintaining the scenario listings. I think Jeff makes great games. But it gets very difficult when he creates a tool for developers and then finds himself stuck when the community's scenarios evolve beyond his original games, or go in different directions, and then they expect him to support the new features they have created in their scenarios. Or what happens when you create a scenario editor and the free scenarios created by community members are considered better than your own games? From a business perspective you've just shot yourself in the foot by giving the competition a great scenario editor they can use to make an even better product. The Best of the community's BOE scenarios definitely strech what you can do with the editor and are sometimes considered better than Jeff's games. I understand why those developers can be mad by the limitations of BOA. In conclusion, I think Jeff's reputations would have been better if he had never released a scenario editor and had just stuck to making games. He's definitely hd some screwups in dealing with the BOE/BOA community, but I think this just shows people how hard it can be for an indie developer to meet the needs of scenario developers. Personally I cut jeff some slack becuase he's such a small operation, that between a baby and developing new games, he might not have the time or energy to respond to all the scenario developer's needs. P.S. I haven't been reading the forums much, so I apoligize in advance if I have misrepresented the positions or opinions of facts of community members and scenario developers. I'm just saying how the situation seems to me. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
GIFTs- How to Pass? in Blades of Avernum
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Wednesday, March 24 2004 14:57 Profile #4 "Too late- I already slew the guard." I think he means he slew the spider guard who was keeping him from the Chitrachs. But even if you do that, you won't find the opening stone, becuase you'll need to complete the spider chief's quest in order to actually find the stone. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
VoDT: Major Waste Depository in Blades of Avernum
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Wednesday, March 24 2004 14:48 Profile #7 I still remeber the island Island of lethe mushrooms in Exile 2, in the northern islands by the empire portal. I agree, lethe anything is not something you want to mess with in Exile/Avernum. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
New Scenarios in Blades of Avernum
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Monday, March 22 2004 21:27 Profile #3 Pardon my ignorance, but what is "RiB" ? Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
The economy in VoDT in Blades of Avernum
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Monday, March 22 2004 12:42 Profile #3 I was annoyed by the drake's reward as well. I had bought the cleric and mage spell, and then found them in the school of magic and then was given them by the drake. By that point I was sick of getting the same 2 spells over and over. ;-) Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
Bosses in VotDT? in Blades of Avernum
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Monday, March 22 2004 07:59 Profile #11 Drakefyre, is it not common to us a 4 person party? I'd hope that senario designers would balance their scenarios so that it would be challenging for a 4 person party, I think for the majority of players that is the default. Of course playing with less is more difficult, and it sounds like a lot of veterens like to do this, but I assume casual Avernum players will play with 4. i don't like being called a wuss when playing with 4 guys. Sure combat was easy by the end, but 2-3 altered beast still posed a problem. And there have certainly been many combats in the avernum series that were quite a challenge, even with 4 chacters (ie killing emporer garzhad) Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
The economy in VoDT in Blades of Avernum
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Sunday, March 21 2004 22:44 Profile #0 I enjoyed VoDT both in BoE and BoA, but having just finished it I thought certain aspects of the economy of the scenario were funny. See after about half-way through the scenario started to become a cakewak for my 4 member party. I was delving into the school and coming out with hoards of gems, and armor and weapons from the many monsters i killed (Iron studded armor and longswords). But as wealthy as the treasures of the school were, I was limited by a provincial rural economy. The best buyer I could find was the blacksmith in the capital city, who bought items at about 1/3 price, meaning I was getting pennies for my rubies, emralds and the like. Even so, midway through the scenario i had several thousand gold, and nothing to spend it on. Again you're limited by the rural economy, there aren't any huge markets. The blacksmiths item's quickly paled in comparison to the loot I was finding in the school. And the most irksome part was that i couldn't get any spells, often I spend money on upgrading spells, but of course you can't get any more than the basic 7 level 1 spells in VoDT. (an aside, I was impressed how well I did with basic spells like ice lances, slow, and repel undead) So here I was raking in the cash, but it wasn't any good to me, it was just money. I thought that was pretty funny. It's a bit of a strange economic situtation, but actually rather realistic. In a provincial part of the Empire, what are you going to spend your money on? I suppose real estate would be cheap during the scenario, and you could certainly make a profit selling it back once you end the curse. It would have been the perfect profit-making enterprise. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00
New Programmer in General
quartex Apprentice Member # 3846	written Thursday, January 1 2004 11:17 Profile #26 I'd like to throw in my two cents, since I am a mac user who has tried to program C++ for a long time on a mac. I did a lot of programming on linux machines at college, but for a long time didn't understand how to get a compiler to work on my mac. First, after years of searching there is no easy to use mac C++ compiler out there that I could find. C++ compiler are hard enough to make that people aren't just handing them out for free. The good news is that apple is, mac OS 10.2 and 10.3 come bundled with Project Builder a pretty good C++ and Java Compiler. If you just want to start with simple C++ "hello world" type programs, choose the "C++ Tool" project, it lets you make a program that will default to printing it's output in a console window. Other more complex project types will give you all kinds of error if you don't know how to use them right. CodeWarrior is the granddaddy of mac C++ compilers, I bought v3.0 7 years ago and it works well too. I think that especially for a casual programmer, Project Builder is just as good and cheaper. A good C++ book will help you a lot, as you learn the language. RealBasic may be easy to learn and let you make all kinds of good mac apps, but C++ is my favorite language, and if you start with a good book and project builder you should be well off to making basic mac applications. You won't be making a game like exile in a month or even a year, but keep at it, and you'll be surprised by what you can do. Posts: 27 | Registered: Thursday, January 1 2004 08:00