First Impressions

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AuthorTopic: First Impressions
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #25
Hitting "f" toggles combat mode as usual.
Divinely touched gives you points in Blademaster and Magery, adding more points every few levels. It might do even more than this, but this is pretty good.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Shaper
Member # 6292
Profile #26
quote:
Originally written by midgetdeathtrain:

wow! my head was completely misplaced. sorry for posting that spoiler. i wasnt thinking.

MidgetDT...Why don't you edit that spoiler out? The longer you leave it there, the more people are going to see it whether they intend to or not. You don't want to be responsible for that kind of wrath directed at you, do you?

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A4 ItemsA4 SingletonG4 ItemsG4 ForgingG4 Infiltrator NR Items The Lonely Celt
Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00
Warrior
Member # 5268
Profile #27
quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

To start and stop combat, press F. Attacking has never had a shortcut key, has it? You just, um, walk into things or click on them.
There is a very good reason for this - attacking allies or neutral characters is very bad for your health. The attack button is used when you deliberately want to attack a neutral character. That you have to go through a slightly involved process is precisely the point.

I experienced the alternative with spells during beta testing - in a big fight (particularly with tall monsters) clicking on a particular monster can be tricky. If you accidentally attack allies you generally need to reload and start again. Hence, some extra steps to prevent you doing something inadvertent because you don't have pixel perfect control of your mouse are a Good Thing(TM) in my opinion.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Tuesday, December 7 2004 08:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 6068
Profile #28
Why don't we (who dislike the PC graphics) just copy over the character graphic pictures with old ones or edit them to our liking?

I did that in E3 so I could play with a "Dervish" graphic.

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"Sometimes I get all hungry!
And then I catch some flies!
They fly into my webs!
They are really yummy guys!"
-Spider
Posts: 209 | Registered: Monday, July 4 2005 07:00
Apprentice
Member # 5604
Profile #29
Why are the towns tiny? It says in the game that Fort Draco is the biggest battle town. It says Formello is the biggest trading/goods town. Yet there tiny. There's probaly like 12 people including guards in Fort Draco. Formello kind of has an exuse because of everyone dead from the shade thing. Where did Fort Ganrick go? it's not there!
Posts: 32 | Registered: Friday, March 18 2005 08:00
Warrior
Member # 5986
Profile #30
I like Avernum 4 so far; I expected a greater number of new sounds and graphics, but storylines have always been the defining aspect of Spiderweb games. As long as the yarn stays entertaining, I know I'll have purchased a fun RPG. I happen to like the Geneforge interface better than the Exile interface, so the visual change in A4 is welcome.

Avernum 4 is definitely not another Geneforge, at any rate.

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Wu wei... it's the only way
Posts: 154 | Registered: Monday, June 20 2005 07:00
His Mighty Tentacle
Member # 627
Profile #31
Copying over character graphics isn't going to work I don't think.

All of those character graphics were scaled for 800x600, and lack animation. You would have to animate them frame by frame for different movements, directions, holding different weapons, death animations, etc, etc, etc, and then scale them up for 1024x768 resolution, and all in all, I am betting it would be a lot of work.

[ Wednesday, December 14, 2005 17:30: Message edited by: Delicious Vlish ]

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If I could make just one wish, I would want a tasty vlish.

Geneforge IV. Still no tasty vlish.
Posts: 1104 | Registered: Tuesday, February 12 2002 08:00
Law Bringer
Member # 4153
Profile Homepage #32
quote:
Originally written by Nephil Archer:

Why are the towns tiny? It says in the game that Fort Draco is the biggest battle town. It says Formello is the biggest trading/goods town. Yet there tiny. There's probaly like 12 people including guards in Fort Draco. Formello kind of has an exuse because of everyone dead from the shade thing. Where did Fort Ganrick go? it's not there!
Well, you've got to take into account that the farms and mines which surround the cities. Formello in particular is pretty big when you count the farms and mines. I mean, they're pretty close to what they were in A2. At least, it kind of feels like it, particularly since most of them finally have an upstairs/downstairs.

And the citizens of Formello take insult at that remark about the shade.

And we don't know where Fort Ganrick went. Assume it was converted into a mining operation, 'cause that's what's there now.

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Thuryl: "Runescape: for people who are too stupid to save their games."

Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice.
Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00
Law Bringer
Member # 335
Profile Homepage #33
Since when have RPGs had towns of realistic size? No Spiderweb game has, and even most professional games tend to miniaturize or find convenient means of having only important areas.

—Alorael, who will reveal a small spoiler. Patrick's last act was a spell of some kind cast on Fort Ganrick. It was too much for his heart, though, and he died in the middle. The result of the half-cast spell picked up the fort and plopped it down far to the west, incidentally killing everyone inside. Avernum couldn't afford to waste a good fort but didn't want to have rumors of a cursed fort either, so they renamed the place and everyone was happy.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Apprentice
Member # 6278
Profile Homepage #34
I don't mind the graphics. And so far I like the rest of it too. Had to take a break pretty early on though, because my two archers are currently unable to travel, as they insisted to stop and build a shrine to Jeff, made entirely of arrows.

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I outnumbered them one to thirty!
Posts: 33 | Registered: Tuesday, September 6 2005 07:00
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #35
quote:
Originally written by Du tak:

Patrick's last act was a spell of some kind cast on Fort Ganrick. It was too much for his heart, though, and he died in the middle. The result of the half-cast spell picked up the fort and plopped it down far to the west
where it landed on the Wicked Slith and freed the goblins.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
...b10010b...
Member # 869
Profile Homepage #36
Wouldn't it have to land in the east to do that?

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Apprentice
Member # 6574
Profile #37
Here's my first impressions: I sent this in email as feedback.
I wonder if I'm the only one who cares about the mouse-heavy nature ot it?

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A couple of comments on the game so far (only half an hour, so not plot points yet) -

* I love the inventory window, the quick use slots, the larger viewing area, the organised save slots.

* I really super hate the loss of the keyboard shortcuts. I rarely touched the mouse in Avernum 3 or Blades - and as I'm prone to tennis elbow, this is more than just a little idiosyncracy of mine. In fact, it's so bad that my glee at getting Avernum 4 has turned to a bitter disappointment. Right now I'm sorta wishing I hadn't trusted you and registered without even trying it. I'm serious. It is BAD. It causes me physical pain.

Please, please, *please* bring back the Avernum 3 keyboard options - 'l' command to look, 't' for talk, target selection for distance attacks by letter not mouseclick. Likewise spell selection. And please do it soon! Do it in a 1.1 version and I will update immediately and love you for ever. And while you're at it, please let the arrow keys be useful in selecting save slots, 'escape' key choices etc.
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Posts: 3 | Registered: Monday, December 19 2005 08:00
Shaper
Member # 6292
Profile #38
I agree with you, though I found the game playable without any carpal-tunnel inducing keyboard shortcut deficits. Any good game or software these days should be designed so you can do just about anything possible through mouse control or keyboard shortcut. I get very annoyed at games which do not offer keyboard shortcuts for repetitive actions.

In the beta for A4, there was no keystroke for switching melee and missile weapons until I (and others I presume) asked for it, for instance. That one is very handy, and the lack of the option was very annoying until it was introduced. The target selection for spells is not bad, because there are area spells now, rather than "heat-seeking missle" selective spells. You get the circle of victims now, not the random target selector. Of course, target selection for spells which only strike individual targets would have been nice, and certainly so for missles.

Little things bug me—like the fact that to save a game now or create a PC's name you have to backspace all the way through whatever you are writing over instead of being able to select and delete the old and rename it. This is a step backwords in convenience and intuition, but it's a small gripe.

[ Monday, December 19, 2005 15:12: Message edited by: Synergy ]

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A4 ItemsA4 SingletonG4 ItemsG4 ForgingG4 Infiltrator NR Items The Lonely Celt
Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00
Law Bringer
Member # 4153
Profile Homepage #39
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

Wouldn't it have to land in the east to do that?
Think about it... goblins are everywhere. And if Fort Ganrick had landed further west, then it would've just killed some undead and cave worms.

Perhaps it was something ordered by the Triad, meant to test the method of flinging buildings at your enemies. I'd like to see some of the endgame villains try and survive having a fort fall on them.

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Thuryl: "Runescape: for people who are too stupid to save their games."

Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice.
Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #40
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

Wouldn't it have to land in the east to do that?
We did say "far" to the west.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #41
There are keyboard shortcuts for casting spells, just not for targeting them.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Shock Trooper
Member # 4239
Profile #42
quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:

There are keyboard shortcuts for casting spells, just not for targeting them.
Yeah, and we want shortcuts for targeting. If we had to choose to cast a spell and then select it with the mouse....*shudder*

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There are two kinds of game players...those who are newbies, and those who were.
Posts: 322 | Registered: Monday, April 12 2004 07:00

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