Undecided
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Apprentice
Member # 4708
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written Tuesday, July 13 2004 23:12
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I've been playing Blades of Avernum demo and I'm enjoying it very much. I always liked Spiderweb games and I have been watching for developments since Exile III. I never bought a game (ducks) but I couldn't at the time. Now I can but I'm too undecided. :) What would be a good first choice? There should be more package discounts I think. :) Posts: 16 | Registered: Wednesday, July 14 2004 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 154
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 01:58
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BoA. I expect right now there's a huge flow of water building up against a blockage. When BoA scenarios start to get released, the blockage will get shifted and the scenario community will somewhat explode. Essentially, In the long run, you're going to be able to play a looot of scenarios in BoA. -------------------- Inconsistently backward. SWOH. IM, PATF, ND. Posts: 612 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 618
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 02:02
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Hrmm... The general consensus of people who actually know what they're talking about is that Nethergate followed closely by E2 (A2 if you prefer that graphics set). Now, this is not to say that these are the games you would enjoy most. In fact, BoE (which I believe comes in about third) has the most playability of any of them (at least until BoA scens really start). Play the unregistered versions of each game and see what you like best. It all runs down to personal taste I s'pose. -------------------- Aut Tace Aut Loquere Meliora Silencio Posts: 1487 | Registered: Sunday, February 10 2002 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4623
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 07:51
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You're wrong there, actually. BoE is ranked #1 by majority of the more mature members of the community. -------------------- The Great Mister kommari@gmail.com[/url] Posts: 417 | Registered: Sunday, June 27 2004 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 4592
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 08:04
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With BoE you have tons and tons of awesome scenarios, and people are still making stuff for that editor. It's true that BoA may explode and we may see some amazing things in the near future, maybe by December of this year we might have a neat tasty chunk of stuff. With the Nethergate demo you get to play it twice, and since it's only the demo, you won't get to visit places again (I think), so you get to play two for one. It's a very nice game. But a bit on the short side. A3 (or E3) as far as single games go, is the longest, so if you like to just wonder around and do a lot of unconnected stuff, that's fine. However, many frown down on it. You may wanna try the demos for Genforge 1 and 2. They are shorter than the Exile/Avernum but you may enjoy them. I'd personally recommend BoE. There probably more than 100 scenarios for it, and at least 30 or 50 of them are solid. Salud! -------------------- quote:Random Jack Vance Quote Manual Generator Apparatus (Cugel's Saga) Posts: 604 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4506
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 08:48
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I'd go for Blades of Avernum (BoA) if I were you. It's the latest game, so you'll be on the same play level as everyone else, not always being overshadowed by someone else. And it's also just a great game!!! - Archimage Micael P.S. If you don't go for BoA, go for A3 -------------------- "You dare Trifle with Exile?" - Erika the Archmage -------------------- My Scenarios: Undead Valley : A small Undead problem, what could possibly go wrong? -------------------- Proof of Richard Black's existance: Richard Black - PROOF of his existance (the Infernal one's website). Posts: 1370 | Registered: Thursday, June 10 2004 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 09:57
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BSC's pretty dead on. A couple of things to add: if you care about plot, you may wish to get A1 or A2 before A3. A2 has probably the best plot of the series, and A1 establishes the overall plot so that you can follow the whole thing better. The GF's are pretty cool. Try the demos. They're a bit different from the A's and the E's. BoE has around 250 scenarios, about 50 of which are really good, including a number that are longer than E1 or E2, so that's your best bet if you want to play for ever and ever from one purchase. And BoA has a LOT of promise, but not much has been done yet. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 4715
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 17:10
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That's the great thing about demos...try em out yourself! :) Myself, I would go for Blades of Avernum. Will get you up to speed on everything, and have the latest refinements in it. But BoE is a good choice too. -------------------- Derek Stormcloud Creations www.stormcloudcreations.com Posts: 3 | Registered: Wednesday, July 14 2004 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Wednesday, July 14 2004 19:39
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BoE, no questions asked. But do yourself a favor and DON'T associate JV's "masterpieces" with the potential of third-party scenarios- let me attest that the work of the designing community puts JV to shame. -------------------- 人 た ち を 燃 え る た め に 俺 は か れ ら に 火 を 上 げ る か ら 死 ん だ Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 4248
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written Thursday, July 15 2004 07:41
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If you want to play now and (propably) forever, BOE is your choice. However, thinking about the future BOA could be the best choice. -------------------- Somebody PLEASE turn the heat on. Posts: 617 | Registered: Tuesday, April 13 2004 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4154
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written Thursday, July 15 2004 10:37
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You should take into account your OS. If you use a Mac, and you use Mac OS 9, you should get BoE. If you have Mac OS X, I recommend BoA because BoE doesn't run native in X (from what I know.) If you use a Windows, get whatever. But I personally recommend BoA -- it seems to have a promising future. -------------------- You're a moron if you think I'm not. Posts: 213 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Thursday, July 15 2004 16:33
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"A Promising Future?" Yeah, in 2-3 years from now. Don't you bloody get it? For the first few years of BoE, there were only a handful of decent scenarios to play. Now, there are 7 years worth of hard work there. You are not only a masochist but an ignoramus if you choose to ignore the monstrous effort put forth for nearly a decade which has served to raise RPGs out of the FF hacking-and-dungeons paradigm into the role of an actual storytelling device. BoA, on the other hand, has Diplomacy with the Dead as its spokesman for elegantly-portrayed storytelling devices. The choice is obvious. -------------------- 人 た ち を 燃 え る た め に 俺 は か れ ら に 火 を 上 げ る か ら 死 ん だ Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4154
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written Thursday, July 15 2004 17:04
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I recommend BoA because BoE is outdated and unsupported, and I prefer BoA because my system does not run BoE well. BoE is still an excellent game, but I expect the flow of new scenarios will soon drain down to a trickle rather than the strong stream it once was. If you want immediate entertainment, get BoE, and if you want entertainment 5 years from now get BoA. -------------------- You're a moron if you think I'm not. Posts: 213 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 4708
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written Thursday, July 15 2004 21:07
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Thanks everyone. I did try all the demos already, but wanted to know people's experience with the full games. Posts: 16 | Registered: Wednesday, July 14 2004 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 4716
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written Thursday, July 15 2004 21:25
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whichever game u like the most, i would recomend the BoA though mainly for its editor :D -------------------- Down with Erika, ->All Hail My Powerfull party<- Posts: 14 | Registered: Wednesday, July 14 2004 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Friday, July 16 2004 10:09
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I have the full versions of Exile 3 and Avernum 1. Exile 3 was really fun (and big) and there is some stuff in there that BoE can't do (like the moving walls and exploding ores in the Vahnatai Factory). BoE has many more scenarios than BoA, but the scenario explosion hasn't occurred yet with BoA. Avernum 1 has some really annoying control issues with it, and that alone makes me rather have gotten Avernum 2. Avernum 2 also is a little more refined with a few new abilities and spells. AVernum 3 has the same system as BoA, which I think is way to easy for an experienced player. But it does have lots of special features, and is even larger than Exile 3. At the moment, Blades of Avernum doesn't have a lot of scenarios to extend your playing pleasure, but you can always make a scenario, too! -------------------- What do I put here? -Garrison Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Friday, July 16 2004 12:19
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quote:Wait, you mean you have the gall to say that BoE needs support? I take personal offense (and sure as hell would Alcritas, were he here). The community has generated its OWN support, and has far outshone what JV could have done on his own. Expansive reviews, comprehensive reviews, a searchable database, hundreds of quality graphics, articles, competitions... And lord, not to mention the scenarios themselves! (What did Jeff ever give us- Bandit Busywork? A joke.) No, BoE is quite well-supported, even while (and dare I say in spite of) not having JV's singet stamped on every piece of it. BoE is out-dated? What, and Blades of Avernum uses the latest in 4d Mega-Vision Sound-Blaster video technology? BoE is 10 years behind the times, but Blades of Avernum is a good 7-9 years old itself. If you play a Spiderweb game, it is not for mind-blowing graphics that you need a new computer for, it is for superior gameplay and a story beyond Diablo's "Kill All Demons" (although admittedly, Exile/Avernum does sink to this level on occasion). BoE is outdated- so what? Unless you're some psychopathic fourth-grader desperate to kill 30x40 sprites in iso-3d fifty times over again without regard for story, then buy BoE for sure. -------------------- 人 た ち を 燃 え る た め に 俺 は か れ ら に 火 を 上 げ る か ら 死 ん だ Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Friday, July 16 2004 12:36
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Uh, TM, I think he meant with regard to bugs, which is the exact lack of support that infuriated His Alcritas-ness so much. As for outdated, well, the graphics are, but not much more so than anything else that Spiderweb produces. Gameplay is king in the Spiderweb universe -- except possibly in Blades, where plot and coding may very well be oligarchs. EDIT: And with regard to an earlier post, A3 does not quite have the same system as BoA, namely with regard to scripts. BoA can do much more elaborately complicated things -- which means that A3's interface is much more consistently the same than BoA's. [ Friday, July 16, 2004 12:39: Message edited by: Just Call Me Kel ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 4389
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written Friday, July 16 2004 15:48
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BoE is sexy and BoA is not. Can you expand upon that a bit, Rosy? Well, jesus, I really agree with TM. O_o BoE already has a dedicated group of people supporting it, it already has great scenarios (twenty or thirty of which are stunners), it has lots of work to draw from if you're creating something new. Yes, damn, it is so still alive, mostly thanks to the Lyceum: the DFTS contest just happened, and Hunted! an entirely new kind of 'scenario', won. Tomorrow, Emulations, and Nebulous Times Hence, three scenarios ranked in the all-time top ten by BoE players at CSR, were all released fairly recently. More proof? Look at the CSR for BoE. WOW. I really think the CSR is the best indicator of BoE designing/playing history (i.e. not community history), because you can see all those discussions about all those scenarios. The personalities of the biggest Blades, uh, personalities, really come through in all those monologues, and you can see people who feel passionate about the medium talking about why they hated/loved such and such a scenario. You can read how and why everybody loves Alcritas: Redemption, An Apology, Falling Stars, and Tomorrow are the top-rated scenarios, and all have paragraphs about why. I'm a newbie: I've been playing SW games for three years, been on these boards for two years, and owned a copy of BoE for just about a year and a bit. I've designed only hidden promises. I've written one article for the Lyceum, and two lost reviews. I've ranked fifty scenarios or so, managing to get into a nasty argument with TM in the process (in which he thoroughly pointed out just what a n00b I was). So I'm not getting nostalgic or anything. It's just that most of what I know about BoE (outside of playing/tinkering on my own) comes from the archives of its CSR. Go here for the actual rankings, and also, oh here for more of what I've been gabbing about. Note that there are 224 scenarios on BoE's CSR, 224 threads about BoE, why we love/hate them. Now guys, swing over to BoA's CSR. Same thing, same discussions, but only 7 scenarios. Weight, peeps. CONTENT. Closing remarks? Buy BoE. Buy BoA, too. But buy BoA in seven years. -------------------- fame fame fatal fame it can play hideous tricks on the brain Posts: 407 | Registered: Friday, May 14 2004 07:00 |