What do you think of A4
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Friday, July 28 2006 16:21
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quote:Anything but "oh no! more monsters!". The Shades were good, I agree, but the hoards of chitraches, etc. just became more of the same. I would have personally picked something far more subtle, something where the player would not know for sure who was responsible by 1/5 of the way through the game. Rentar's exit was rather disappointing. Had she done something a little more ingenious, I'd give it a lot more credit. There's also no crime in letting Rentar rest for a game just to keep the player somewhat surprised. I agree, the matter needed to be resolved, but the way it was resolved was too utterly predictable. You can call it disdain as it mimics a lot of newbish attempts at early Blades of Exile scenarios that were never released. Personally I would have liked to see the whole Vahnatai thing played out over several games. That being said, A4 was never about story and was never meant to be. It was, as planned, pretty much a hack and slash game -- a good hack and slash, but disappointing because it took a decent world down an anticlimactic path. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Triad Mage
Member # 7
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written Friday, July 28 2006 17:24
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It would have been nice to see the water monsters dealt with in a more involved fashion, considering they were cutting off parts of Avernum. Also, I liked the surface after two games of underworld - getting there really seemed like an accomplishment and it seemed so huge compared to the caves. -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy Encyclopedia Ermariana - Trapped in the Closet ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 7335
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written Saturday, July 29 2006 16:40
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I never actually thought about the redundant plot until someone said something. That's very true. After awhile, hacking isn't so much fun. It's nice to play a variation of a game with in the same 'world', so to speak, years later in the plot, but there needs to be something new. I'd support Jeff making something unique about it. It's not like it's very difficult, the possibilities are endless. Perhaps a disease has caused the humans to turn on each other, vampires are taking over, stuff like that. I guess more plagues is the problem? I briefly looked at some posts. At least make a new villain, with some special capabilities, or soldiers. Maybe a fortress you have to really fight to get into? Posts: 7 | Registered: Friday, July 28 2006 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Saturday, July 29 2006 18:21
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I regret the forced story linearity. The Eastern Gallery and the Great Cave were the only real areas where you could chose what you wanted to do until you reached the next choke point. You could go after the interesting areas where it was a challenge for your party to fight instead of blindly following a single path. I would like to see a return to the A1 and A2 style where there are a few major quests that can be completed in any order. No sea monsters and barriers that keep you trapped in an area until the game thinks you have done enough to go on to the next part. Maybe for something different in the next game you could play either a Darkside Loyalist or a loyal supporter of Avernum. you could have two parallel games like in Nethergate with different reactions and quests depending upon the side you pick. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, July 29 2006 18:26
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quote:That would be a very interesting game if done well. What would make it even better is if it didn't have the same linearity as Nethergate. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, July 29 2006 18:31
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There wasn't really any reason for Nethergate's enforced order of major quests, but it never bothered me. It also helps to keep the Celt and Roman party rivalry reasonable. Once you can head west of the Ruined Hall you can travel all of Shadowvale anyway so it isn't such a restriction. —Alorael, who actually thinks games usually benefit from being linear. Very few games can pull off E1/A1's mostly aimless wandering without becoming so unfocused that they aren't fun. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Saturday, July 29 2006 21:04
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quote:Naturally, it didn't help that the caves shrunk so much in A4. I'd like to see a bit more of the role-playing element, honestly, so I agree with the Darkside/Avernum Nethergate-ness. Either that, or have items to help you get through the game that aren't pointy (don't say shields). Like, say... torches. Or rope. Heck, even a shovel (who else wants to kill a zombie with a shovel?). -------------------- 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 |
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Apprentice
Member # 7333
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written Sunday, July 30 2006 00:48
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I had an idea for the sequel where anything (and I mean ANYTHING, including objects in the scenery) could be picked up and thrown at enemies in a moment of desperation or just for fun if you had an adequate corresponding strength level. Like you could throw obvious "get" items like the bucket, shovels, pick axes (which I think should have been useable weapons anyway, with low damage and penalties to hit, but useable regardless) and books, as well as tables, cauldrons, bookshelves, or anything else a character had enough strength to lift and throw. Strength would determine the heaviest object liftable as well as the distance it could be chucked. You could also pick up and throw most enemies using a new battle skill called "Grapple" that would allow characters with a high enough level to either put an enemy in a painful submission hold, effectively reducing its AP for an increasing number of turns or retaliate against a missed attack by stunning the attacker, moving them back a few squares, and causing them increasing damage, the odds of occuring increasing with skill level. Bring back dual sword wielding, but add a new combat skill called martial arts that greatly improves a units ability to fight and defend barehanded, but is seperate from melee or pole weapons. Grapple would be to martial arts what quick strike is to quick action or magery is to spell craft. That, and bring back maces and flails. It just feels like something is missing without them. Storywise, I thought it might be fun to actually see the actual formation and rise of the Empire, where you could fight either as forces on behalf of the burgeoning dictatorship or as a nation opposing it's rule. Posts: 49 | Registered: Thursday, July 27 2006 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 2883
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written Thursday, September 7 2006 20:15
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I've been a paying player of Jeff's games since the first Exile. The games get better all the time, while retaining the best qualities of the earliest, and are quite addictive. Since I rarely play commercial computer games of any kind, it's hard for me to compare. I liked Avernum V, but at times I found it tiresome and frustrating. (Chitratchs...worms...slimes...ugh. Is this Peter Jackson's King Kong?) In particular, the Basalt Fortress assault seemed like an enormous amount of effort for surprisingly little reward. All right, I'll admit I was stupid: I actually killed every single pylon in the place. I know I could have gotten past them without doing so, but if you *do* get to the far ends of the rooms these plyons are in, there's always some treat (spells and such) waiting. But I think I did it out of spite. I would kill two, maybe three, retreat to Fort Remote to re-energize, then go back again. It took ages. When it was all done, I checked my stats, expecting to see that I had rung up two or three new levels of experience, and was shocked to see they had barely moved. Even though they are harder to kill than just about anything else in the game, apparently they are worth few experience points. What's up with that? And what do you have to do to get your mage or priest up to level 17 in order to use the most powerful spells, Divine Host and Arcane Blow? Maybe if I had dedicated *all* of their skill points to Mage Spells/Priest Spells and Intelligence, I could have done it but the characters would have been so weak as to be a major burden on the group. I agree, though, with those who praised the fact that different monsters require very different approaches, and can't all be destroyed with brute force. You are forced to experiment and think, and this adds to the pleasure of the game. As for the plot, it did seem a bit like a retread, and I couldn't help feeling there were quite a few, shall we say "homages" to plenty of well-known fantasy stories, inclduing Harry Potter, Star Wars, and of course Lord of the Rings. But what bothered me most was the recycling of monsters and items from Geneforge. The first Geneforge for me was so refreshingly different. I really wish he would keep them completely separate. Unlike an earlier poster, I would be seriously disappointed if in a future game it turned out that they were in the same world, unless Jeff did something really clever and convincing with the setting and story. (Perhaps those vaguely Russian-esque "foreigners" in one of the Geneforge games are from the Exile/Avernum series' "Empire.") But Jeff has shown himself again and again to be not just a great programmer, but also an articulate and clever writer. I played some of the Blades of Exile games created by others, and most were horribly written crap. I haven't bothered buying Blades of Avernum, because I expect the same will be true of the scenarios available for that one, too. If I had loads of free time, I'd be tempted to make one myself, but it would certainly turn out to be as tedious and long as this post. I suspect I'll keep buying and playing Jeff's games as long as he keeps pumping them out. I can just see myself in a retirement home, sitting in diapers in a wheelchair, a bit of drool dripping from my mouth and long hairs protuding from my ears. Laptop on knee, I'll be playing Geneforge XXI. -------------------- Matt Thorn School of Manga Production Kyoto Seika University Japan Posts: 10 | Registered: Wednesday, April 16 2003 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Thursday, September 7 2006 20:37
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quote:You obviously haven't played many Blades of Exile scenarios, have you? I agree, most are not that great, but there are plenty of great ones out there. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5132
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written Tuesday, September 12 2006 02:39
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The reason that you found most BoE scenarios to be horrible is probably because you trusted SW's tables, which (for BoE) are pretty much defunct. This is a much better place to decide what scenarios to play. Many people (including myself) would say the best surpass Jeff's games. There's also an archive with almost every BoE scenario out there, but it's down. -------------------- "Let us see what the new day brings." - Temas, Areni. Visit my realm! Rate My Scenarios! Fort Emerald Robbery The Nephils' Defense The Final Spire The Fifth Tower of Magi The Portal Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, October 25 2004 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Tuesday, September 12 2006 06:10
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quote:Er, no longer. It has been back up for a while now. EDIT: Wtf. It is in fact down. I have no idea what Comcast is trying to pull. I can only assume that it will come back, because everything is still there on the FTP end of things. [ Tuesday, September 12, 2006 06:12: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. 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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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Tuesday, September 12 2006 13:43
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You might want to consider moving to a host that doesn't suck. I'm not sure how much space and bandwidth Aran has to spare, but he's apparently making ermarian.net available for all and sundry to stick files on, so you might want to talk to him about that. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Tuesday, September 12 2006 18:45
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It's part of Aran's new strategy of domination. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. With everyone using his site he can monitor the situation until the time is right. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 2638
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written Thursday, September 14 2006 16:06
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Alright, I've been outta the loop for a while, and didn't even realize there was an AV4 until about a week ago. So I've got the demo, about to order the full game,and granted my opinion will carry little weight as I've only seen a small portion of the game. Anyway, Avernum 4 has been exciting and a disappointment for me at the same time. I'm enjoying the story so far. Seem a bit of rehashing, similar a bit to the plagues of Avernum 3, but different enough to keep me interested so far. NPCs are as good as ever, and a few of the gameplay tweaks I've enjoyed. However, a lot of the gameplay tweaks I haven't enjoyed. As I believe someone has already pointed out, it's basically dependent on a combination of mouse and keyboard, which I'm not fond of. I'm not a big fan of the map either. The first time I played I was confused as hell by the transition form dungeon or city to outside. I left that little goblin dungeon to arrive on the outside in that swamp. I thought I was just in a really big, open area of the dungeon until I stumbled on Fort Monastery. Me, personally, I enjoyed having a transition between overworld map and city/dungeon map. That's pretty much all the input I have, though. Posts: 287 | Registered: Thursday, February 13 2003 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 5483
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written Friday, October 6 2006 13:03
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I quite like Avernum 4, but something very irritating is how enemies declare combat mode so early that you often can't even walk up to them in that turn, much less melee attack. :mad: I can just sit there and let them come to me, but I would MUCH rather not have the problem to begin with. -------------------- Ignorance Is bliss -Cypher (Matrix) Don't think you can; know you can -Morpheus (Matrix) sanity is overrated :) Posts: 130 | Registered: Monday, February 7 2005 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Friday, October 6 2006 19:35
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quote:Yeah, as I recall, this led to an interesting bug-that-wasn't... being forced into combat mode by a fungus and then running away to end combat made it so that every step you took (with the offending fungus out of sight) forced you into combat mode. -------------------- 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 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Friday, October 6 2006 20:29
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I think I've come across that a few times in the Geneforge series. Running away for several rounds before ending combat mode as opposed to only one helps a lot. Dikiyoba. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |