Greetings Watchers,
As a kind of sister thread a year onwards now after my completing Avernum: Escape from the Pit (http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18136&highlight=Avernum)
I thought I'd post some reflections upon my recent completion of Avadon.
This is just my second Spiderweb Software game, the discovery of which I certainly have this forum and some its veteran members to thank for. My total playtime for Avadon was 79 Steam hours which was considerably shorter when compared with the 119 for Avernum. However, this does not detract by any means away from the immense fun I've had with this title.
Avadon is more linear in style and less open-world, but delivers a tighter narrative with more role-playing oriented choices available in dialogue and more fleshed out joinable npcs. Whereas Avernum: Escape from the Pit shows the influence of older classics like Ultima IV+V (the boat driven exploration especially) Avadon evokes more of the Baldur's Gate style of party-interaction and Icewind Dale's mission to mission (A to B to C) approach in the main quest. After a few missions, the structure of returning to each location in a cyclical fashion becomes apparent. There's almost a Neverwinter Nights II vibe at times, with each of the npcs having their own personal quest-lines which are optional to the main story.
The story was reasonably engaging and I appreciated the flavour text within each different location and the way each of your npcs would occasionally interject with thoughts or experiences of their own of a location. The lore is interesting as well - though I never recorded information/codex lore as much as I did in Avernum.
The character system in Avadon was overall a little less interesting for me, with seemingly less variation in build possibly due to the slightly more rigid structure of the skill trees. A nice addition though was the concept of the "scarab" slot which gives additional stat/spell boosts to characters, making them interesting to find throughout the game.
My preferred party:
Vastlaar (Main Blademaster/fighter)
Sevilin (Blademaster) (I experimented with Shima the Shadow walker a lot too, but found I preferred Sevilin as a character.)
Nathalie (Mage) (She reminded me a great deal of Qara from NWN2; at times reckless, always power-hungry and eager to test her mettle.)
Jenell is the other npc option; a Shaman. Whilst I did her quest, I rarely otherwise used her - wanting to concentrate for the most part on melee/mage power.
The Blademaster healing ability "second wind" easily accommodates this choice and the world is full of vendors for potion supplies.
I found the combat encounters overall slightly less challenging than in Avernum and thus the absence of the open-world feeling of needing to return later was noticeable with some exceptions. The Zephyrine dragon side-quest for example, was one I had to try at a much later point in time.
There's definitely some incentive to replay other choices; which was something I really liked ending wise about Avernum. Role-playing wise I chose to interpret my character as a very loyal servant to the point of sycophancy (something I rarely do if given a choice…) and admittedly the opposing path to being servile and going against the Pact and Avadon, is given ample focus in the game by the regular visitation of a certain character. I liked the fact that it felt ambivalent to go that way; I was never convinced that it was the right thing to do, something which I think Jeff Vogel and Spiderweb have done with Avadon quite skillfully.
Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing others thoughts on the game given that the sequel isn't too far off, so feel free to post your own impressions.
Whilst I enjoyed Avernum more, Avadon has a stronger narrative focus and is probably a little more accessible in some ways.
Indie gaming wise, I think I'll try Eschalon Book 2 next…at least until the holidays where I'll hopefully fit in one or two bigger games from my backlog.
Cheers
As a kind of sister thread a year onwards now after my completing Avernum: Escape from the Pit (http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18136&highlight=Avernum)
I thought I'd post some reflections upon my recent completion of Avadon.
This is just my second Spiderweb Software game, the discovery of which I certainly have this forum and some its veteran members to thank for. My total playtime for Avadon was 79 Steam hours which was considerably shorter when compared with the 119 for Avernum. However, this does not detract by any means away from the immense fun I've had with this title.
Avadon is more linear in style and less open-world, but delivers a tighter narrative with more role-playing oriented choices available in dialogue and more fleshed out joinable npcs. Whereas Avernum: Escape from the Pit shows the influence of older classics like Ultima IV+V (the boat driven exploration especially) Avadon evokes more of the Baldur's Gate style of party-interaction and Icewind Dale's mission to mission (A to B to C) approach in the main quest. After a few missions, the structure of returning to each location in a cyclical fashion becomes apparent. There's almost a Neverwinter Nights II vibe at times, with each of the npcs having their own personal quest-lines which are optional to the main story.
The story was reasonably engaging and I appreciated the flavour text within each different location and the way each of your npcs would occasionally interject with thoughts or experiences of their own of a location. The lore is interesting as well - though I never recorded information/codex lore as much as I did in Avernum.
The character system in Avadon was overall a little less interesting for me, with seemingly less variation in build possibly due to the slightly more rigid structure of the skill trees. A nice addition though was the concept of the "scarab" slot which gives additional stat/spell boosts to characters, making them interesting to find throughout the game.
My preferred party:
Vastlaar (Main Blademaster/fighter)
Sevilin (Blademaster) (I experimented with Shima the Shadow walker a lot too, but found I preferred Sevilin as a character.)
Nathalie (Mage) (She reminded me a great deal of Qara from NWN2; at times reckless, always power-hungry and eager to test her mettle.)
Jenell is the other npc option; a Shaman. Whilst I did her quest, I rarely otherwise used her - wanting to concentrate for the most part on melee/mage power.
The Blademaster healing ability "second wind" easily accommodates this choice and the world is full of vendors for potion supplies.
I found the combat encounters overall slightly less challenging than in Avernum and thus the absence of the open-world feeling of needing to return later was noticeable with some exceptions. The Zephyrine dragon side-quest for example, was one I had to try at a much later point in time.
There's definitely some incentive to replay other choices; which was something I really liked ending wise about Avernum. Role-playing wise I chose to interpret my character as a very loyal servant to the point of sycophancy (something I rarely do if given a choice…) and admittedly the opposing path to being servile and going against the Pact and Avadon, is given ample focus in the game by the regular visitation of a certain character. I liked the fact that it felt ambivalent to go that way; I was never convinced that it was the right thing to do, something which I think Jeff Vogel and Spiderweb have done with Avadon quite skillfully.
Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing others thoughts on the game given that the sequel isn't too far off, so feel free to post your own impressions.
Whilst I enjoyed Avernum more, Avadon has a stronger narrative focus and is probably a little more accessible in some ways.
Indie gaming wise, I think I'll try Eschalon Book 2 next…at least until the holidays where I'll hopefully fit in one or two bigger games from my backlog.
Cheers
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