Next Spiderweb Game
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| Author | Topic: Next Spiderweb Game |
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Warrior
Member # 5091
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written Friday, October 22 2004 07:45
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I don't like Jeff's games either. The only one I've ever bought was Blades of Exile, and that was saved by the fact that he didn't do most of the work. Posts: 180 | Registered: Friday, October 15 2004 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 4256
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written Friday, October 22 2004 08:07
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Aye there are better plots out there than the official SW ones. It seems like starting a new series might be more profitable in the long run than returning to the same old series time after time. Jeff has two series that he sticks to. Is Homeland by spiderweb? Or is it one of the third party games? How long does it take Drakey to give Djur his custom title? [ Friday, October 22, 2004 08:07: Message edited by: m's chosen ] Posts: 564 | Registered: Wednesday, April 14 2004 07:00 |
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Shake Before Using
Member # 75
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written Friday, October 22 2004 09:34
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Homeland was made by Dragonlore and sucked immensely. I suppose the first time that Drakey takes note of the Avatar of (the Shadowlords') Virtue(s), Drakey will assign him his custom title. Posts: 3234 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Friday, October 22 2004 10:18
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Lousy programmer? Maybe, but I don't see anything horribly wrong with the games' engines. BoE is the only terribly buggy one that has never been fixed, and that's more a matter of won't than can't. Lousy storyteller? He's not the best, but he's not the worst either. BoE has amply demonstrated that. Lousy businessman? If he makes money, he's doing something right. His only huge mistake was BoE, and even that sells despite its flaws. —Alorael, who won't claim that Jeff Vogel is the acme of game designers and programmers. He also doesn't deserve the demonization he gets here. It's always possible that A4 will be another Nethergate and provide us with endless entertainment... Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4860
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written Friday, October 22 2004 10:25
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:P -------------------- The Great Mister kommari@gmail.com[/url] Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, August 15 2004 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 5091
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written Friday, October 22 2004 10:34
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Nethergate only sucked slightly less than all of his other games. Posts: 180 | Registered: Friday, October 15 2004 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Friday, October 22 2004 10:56
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I really enjoyed the Avernum Trilogy, Nethergate, and the two Geneforges so far. I have to admit that Nethergate has by far the most compelling plot — and best drama and mythic coolness, for that matter — but I didn't dislike even A3, which had a rather shabby overarching plotline. Something about his games is just fun for me. I could make handwaving gestures at terms like "gameplay" without really knowing what I was talking about, but there's just something fun there. Until Blades, I didn't have any problems with Spiderweb or Jeff whatsoever. Now, seeing what has happened with BoE, I understand the frustration, but I confine it (at least personally) to the realm of Blades. I do wonder about the desirability of an A4, but I suspect that in the end, I will buy it, just because I enjoy his games. I understand the viewpoint, however, of several members of this community that are still here because they have friends here but no longer play or care about Spiderweb's games. -------------------- 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 # 4064
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written Friday, October 22 2004 21:51
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hey actually i would like more on the avernum series. i really liked them. and nethergate had a bloody good plotline.but still... my fav would be a2 that had a damn neat plot. any hows i dont really mind jeff. he made or got made some neat stuff. and by the way when is the next role player on the forums commin on? i loved readin them but never played any. [ Friday, October 22, 2004 21:53: Message edited by: ayush_de_vahnatai ] -------------------- ayush Posts: 1 | Registered: Thursday, March 4 2004 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Friday, October 22 2004 23:45
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Unfortunately, Jeff's writing skills really haven't improved very much. Geneforge 2 started out very nice, I was hoping for an exciting and gripping plotline with well developed NPCs. It was good until you discovered the "illegal" areas, and *bam* we are back to the same old game as everything else. None of Jeff's games really had well developed characters. They were all pretty much 1-dimensional constructs of some repeated construct. Most annoying of these is the "quest dispenser" where it takes the model of, go on these three quests while I sit on my throne. Nothing rarely happens to this person as a consequence, they are merely the dispenser. Sure, Blades was frustrating. But at the same time, his games are getting very repetative and stale. He needs to add some spice. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 01:00
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I haven't got G2. I have got Nethergate and Geneforge. I will agree that his NPC's are often pretty stale, but Geneforge wasn't bad. It had plenty of 'spice'. I can't really speak for G2, but the original had, if not well-made characters, at least well-made points of view for the characters. I don't see any decline of quality - E1 doesn't have a lot of depth of character either. And I must be the only person who was terribly disappointed with Nethergate. I admire the intent, but the finished product seemed very lacking to me. -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 06:35
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quote:I never said there was any decline, just very little improvement. It all feels like games I played before. Geneforge did a better job at presenting viewpoints, and those were developed from some point, but the fact that I could not really empathize with anyone really made them feel quite shallow. I did care about any side; they could've all been slaughtered and it wouldn't have touched me in any way. Geneforge 2 essentially presented the same viewpoints with a few modifications. Likewise, I didn't care about any side. There was no character I could really emphasize with. Shanti was the closest to a real character in the game, but she gets killed unceremoniously. It destroyed any sense of feeling to avenge her. Killing Stanis just felt like an option. Yes, Nethergate was disappointing. Again, more of the same, do mission X, get reward X. Do mission Y, get reward Y, etc. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 08:15
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Maybe it was the completely new spellset that he never recycled for anything else, which made the gameplay interesting. Maybe it was the novelty of the iso-3D system that debuted with Nethergate. Maybe (most likely) it was the coolness of the missions: not just "kill this bandit fort that's causing us trouble," but "recover this treaty that will tell us about the alliance between our enemies," and "journey to the land of the dead to fetch an artifact of tremendous power." Those are awesome missions. Who knows, maybe Nethergate benefited from being Jeff's smallest (or at least one of the smaller, not sure) game and being the only one that's not part of a series. He didn't beat a dead horse. He used only cool ideas — an invisible faerie castle, the land of the dead, a spire on a hill filled with faerie warriors. While the Avernum Trilogy had some incredible moments (the raid on the Ziggurat in A2 comes to mind), it had some lackluster moments, too, and quite a lot of them, really (the random Bat Cave in the northeastern corner of the Eastern Province in A1, the entire town of Sharimik in A3 as far as I was concerned, etc). The Avernum Trilogy was just so large that it couldn't be amazing all the way through. It was basically the same engine, the same skillset, the same spellset, the same everything, all the way through. I don't know. I've replayed Nethergate more than I've replayed any other Spiderweb game. It just gets me excited. I think maybe the writing is better or something. Maybe I just like Roman and Celtic stuf. (Heck, I'm a Classics major, so that would make sense. :P ) But even though Nethergate followed the same general format as everything else, honestly, what even in Blades doesn't? Ultimately, what one does with the Exile, Avernum, and Geneforge engines is create games in which the player wanders around, talks to some people, and kills a lot of stuf. The structure of quests makes it more than mindless slaughter. I suppose one could structure it in other ways, and I imagine somewhere in the 250 or so BoE scenarios some do, but still. I guess the greatest merit and greatest flaw in Jeff's games is that they are all immersive-world games. He gives you a massive world to explore and kill stuf in. He could create a more linear plotline — imagine if he tried to follow the format of Emulations for the length of an entire SW game; it could be gorgeous, or it could be a disaster — but that would require doing something that he's never done before. I guess he's just playing it economically safe. He knows these games will sell, so he keeps making them, over and over and over. Bah. I don't know. I've blithered for long enough. -------------------- 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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Warrior
Member # 5091
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 09:06
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quote:Really? The former is a standard Eradication quest, and the latter two are both standard Fetch missions. Perhaps the scale is larger, but I'm afraid "journey to the land of the dead" and "fetch an artifact of tremendous power" are both so intensely hackneyed as to be laughable. Simple quest-driven gameplay is no longer interesting. It was ceasing to be fresh almost two decades ago. We've all done so damn many Fetch missions that they all start to bleed together. Missions themselves are rarely cool anymore. When it comes down to it, you'd be hard-pressed to find a mission type that hasn't been done to death -- and Vogel is not one to be pressed hard. I mean, I'd be pleased if he even showed the basic depth of, say, an Eradication mission where it turns out that the Pests are not necessarily so. Fallout did it, NWN did it -- it's nearly as cliched, but not quite. Beyond that -- what's the tension? Would you be rewarded better for eradication, but you feel it's wrong? Perhaps neither side seems to have truth on their side. What effect does your choice have, even on a local level? I see nothing but the most elementary, one-sided missions from Vogel, and that's been true since he started making games. (By the way, perhaps you should play Final Fantasy. You go into lands of the dead and recover artifacts of power three times before breakfast in those games.) Posts: 180 | Registered: Friday, October 15 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 09:20
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The difference in Nethergate is that the quests are from the mythology where slaying the great beast and retrieving the powerful talisman aren't tired old clichés. The world of Nethergate is the world where that's what heroes do. Yes, it's a modern remake of it, but I wouldn't want to read a rewrite of the Iliad with deep, introspective characters and heart-wrenching melodrama. Nethergate may use the same formula as Avernum, but in Nethergate the world is made for that kind of thing. —Alorael, who agrees with Kel. There's something fun about the Exile and Avernum games. Nethergate has that same spark, but it's even bigger. Yes, there are countless reasons why Jeff's games are bad, but they're fun, and that's the point of a game. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 5091
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 09:27
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Maybe they aren't in that world, but last time I checked, I live in this world, where they are. Posts: 180 | Registered: Friday, October 15 2004 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 55
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 09:29
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At the end of the day, despite the fact that the plotline can get pretty shallow, I'd still rather play an Avernum game than just about anything else I have. I couldn't analyze it, I couldn't write an essay on the subject, but I can say what I feel. (Geneforge and Geneforge 2, I never much cared for. Nethergate was cool, though) Posts: 236 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 09:42
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You know, come to think of it, it's the world itself that makes Jeff's games enjoyable. The "journey to the land of the dead to fetch an artifact of great power" thing is as cliche as one can get, but that land of the dead in Nethergate is pretty cool. I don't really care about the mission — it's fun in its traditional old way, but not innovative — but I do care that Annwn in Nethergate just looked cool and had a good atmosphere and an appropriate vision of a Celtic afterlife. -------------------- 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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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 18:44
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Since I apparently failed to communicate, I'll try again. I'll even make an attempt at brevity! Nethergate is a game about mythology. Retrieving artifacts from the land of the dead and slaying horrible monsters are both tasks that anyone familiar with myths and legends would recognize. —Alorael, who doesn't say that it makes the boring quests less boring. It justifies the existence of those quests, though, so that they're boring for the sake of atmosphere, which makes them less boring. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 4256
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written Saturday, October 23 2004 19:15
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Yeah- Really boring- I'm going on a stupid quest for no apparent reason- Semi boring- I'm going on a stupid quest for a good reason Semi interesting- I'm going on an interesting quest for no good reason Really interesting- I'm going on an interesting quest for a good reason Posts: 564 | Registered: Wednesday, April 14 2004 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 18
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written Sunday, October 24 2004 07:52
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I guess I was 9 when I first played Exile - more than 10 years ago. I can remember sitting around at school discussing with my friends what was going on and how we'd beat the next apex bad dude that inevitably popped up. I can remember my mum threatening to tear the power cord from the wall at 11PM. I can remember writing down the prices of all the shops and treating it like a sacred tome. God! I LIVED that game. I think the reason I still enjoy what are essentially pretty repetitive games is because they rekindle the youthful spark of adventure and detachment from our even more repetitive world. It's much easier to go there and kill that demon than it is to go there and kill that exam... Dammit. Md. Posts: 304 | Registered: Monday, October 1 2001 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 3521
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written Sunday, October 24 2004 11:37
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I've played through and enjoyed nearly every Vogel game I've given a try. I agree with Kel- although the games might not be so solid plotwise, there's still something there that I can't exactly explain that draws me in and keeps me interested. Granted, I prefer games like Fallout, but Jeff's shortcomings as a programmer don't really hurt my experience as a player. -------------------- Stughalf "Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed."- The Bhagavad Gita. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 5124
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written Sunday, October 24 2004 18:51
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I would like to see an Avernum-4, but most of all I believe a sequel to Nethergate would be a success, simply because many people like it, and its the only on of the rpg's that doesnt have a sequel, excluding Homeland, which is a bit different really... -------------------- -Please do not read this signature- Posts: 2 | Registered: Sunday, October 24 2004 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 2242
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written Monday, October 25 2004 15:01
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Avernum 4? When is this going to take place? Way in the future of Avernum? About 1000 years after A3? -------------------- "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes back into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche "There is no dodging the quad laser." -Ignignok Posts: 469 | Registered: Thursday, November 14 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Monday, October 25 2004 15:33
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I don't know, but I think that Jeff should tell us as the game progresses. Since we are making scenarios in the Avernum universe, it would be nice to know which areas of the world he is going to describe in greater detail so that if we are thinking about making a scenario about that aspect of the world, we would know that it could become un-canonical on the release of this next game. He doesn't have to say much, but just a very brief and general, "This game will take place on Vantanas fifty years after A3, and it will concern relations between the Empire and the native flora and fauna of the continent," would be nice. Not that I think he's going to, but still. -------------------- 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 # 4391
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written Wednesday, October 27 2004 02:47
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How about something that is NOT a persuado 3-D rpg game. Spidweb can't keep relying on the (judging by the previous posts) divided opinion of 'fans'. Perhaps something slightly more mainstream would be a good idea. If Jeff is willing to take the third-party games on, why can't he do something similarly difdferent himself? I'm getting kind of sick of "Avernum is a strange land filled with evil creatures, go kill them"-style games. Posts: 14 | Registered: Sunday, May 16 2004 07:00 |