Avernum 3:Ruined World - Announced

Uh ok. But thanks for the response! I guess I just fail to see the point of a remake of a game from 2002, when the remake looks like a game from 1992. But anyway, don't let me sour the mood. So carry on!

No problem. I can totally get why people think that way, and especially if they've already played an earlier incarnation (or multiple incarnations of it, for that matter).
 
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Just way too primitive in terms of graphics for my taste. Plus, I remember several small annoyances and irritations with the interface and overall rpg system when I played demos of a few of the games. I even bought at least one of the games too, that I can recall, and played it for awhile, but just lost interest, due to the small annoyances and other factors. (like the primitive engine)

Another thing not in his favor - I thought Basilisk games (Eschalon) put out a superior rpg in this old school style in just about every way, graphics, world, and game mechanics especially, and I played that game almost all the way until the end. It was that good, and that was too much competition, in my view, to put me off this particular series/games.

By the way, Eschalon Book 1 is now free. I just checked the Basilisk games website, and for anyone who might be interested, they can get a free rpg done in the classic old school style, but with graphics that are actually excellent considering it is a small indie --
http://basiliskgames.com/
 
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Personally I found Eschalon only mediocre. The graphics themselves were better, but the game only ran in a low resolution and therefore looked worse in other ways.
The writing was bad, and the game mechanics were quite bad. Lots of useless skills as far as I remember and the combat felt tedious at some point, but not challgenging (always playing games on highest difficulty)
Balrum which I just finished was similar in some ways. Full reslution though and mechanics which were a little better, but still bad.
So for me Spiderweb games are far superior to that.
 
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Just off the top of my head, in no particular order, vastly superior TB RPG/Strategy games:

XCOM (orginal and new ones); Wasteland 2; Eador; Tale of Wuxia (including the prequel); Torment; D:OS (classic, EE, 2); Underrail; Mordheim; Valkyria Chronicles; Transistor; Shadowrun (all three of them); King's Bounty (all four of them); Blackguards (1 and 2); Dead State; Krai Mira; Hard West; Warmachine Tactics...

I could go on for much, much longer. As good as Spiderweb has been in the past, it's time to innovate or GTFO.
 
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I said keep making them, and I'll keep buying them. I love a game where you know you can play it on day one with no patches or fuss. Will buy on release, play on release, and I'll be at the future kickstarter to throw some cash! Good ole Spiderweb!

Correction - ye olde Spiderweb.

Agreeing with SSIGuy here. I tried a couple of them and it's not the graphics that fails the series for me. They fail to pull me in like Ultima 3/4, etc...
 
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Just off the top of my head, in no particular order, vastly superior TB RPG/Strategy games:

XCOM (orginal and new ones) I enjoyed the old ones (Terror from the Deep and Apocalypse) but I completely despise the new one. I bought it and tried it a couple of times. But the removal of the action point system just cripples the game far too much for me (bad cover system, bad to hit calculation and so on). Combined with nice graphics, which make it extremely unclear.
This picture and this picture explain very well, why I dislike the game. This video is another perfect example.

Wasteland 2 Had a horrible, horrible character system with lots of useless skills, missing retroactivity and a horrible combat system. Game was still decent overall but man, it's mechanics were bad.
Here is my Review

Eador Played Eador. Masters of the Broken World for about 20 hours. Had some neat elements, but the combats were much longer than they should have, very tedious. One of the few games where I lost interest before finishing it.

Tale of Wuxia (including the prequel) Never played it, can't judge it.

Torment Very bad game mechanics and a character system which is 100% irrelevant. A good writing, but tons of text, not all of it really contributing a lot to the game. Good game, but to me far from being aweome.
Also got a Review for that.

D:OS Played the original version (not EE): Good game, but imho a bad story, and the combat was so trivially easy, that on hardest difficulty I chose not to use any items like arrows and not let anyone die at any point to make it somewhat challenging.
My Review

UnderrailGreat game, great mechanics. Only the last part of the game wasn't really polished. But this one was one of the best games I played during the last years. Got a Review as well.

Mordheim Never played it, but wasn't that a multiplayer game?

Valkyria Chronicles Never played it. Wasn't this the one where you play a bunch of school kids who drive tanks in some World War and where the Computer speed determines how fast the real time part of the combat goes?

Transistor Probably one of the biggest disappointments I had in the last years. I can't think of anything good about this game. The combat was especially bad. But also had a horrible interface. I stopped playing this game in frustration and my "Review" is acutally more of a rant.

Shadowrun (all three of them) First one was okish but had some problems with it's saving options and shortage (and find a place for a usw for all skills in the game).
Second one was quite good. (Review)
Third one was worse again. It lost itself in tons of dialogues which contributed nothing to the game besides of having more text. (Review)

King's Bounty (all four of them) Never played it seriously. Cannot judge.

Blackguards 1 What a horrible game. I love The Dark Eye, and I think the character system is great. Also Daedalic is a great company. But they adapted it horribly into a computer game. You go from battlefield to battlefield and basically have to solve puzzles. Puzzles with a huge luck factor (playing on hard difficulty) and in addition very bad mechanics. I even got the physical collectors edition which had completely overpowered items and could not be activated on steam so that you had to buy the digital only expansion on some unknown third party page.
My Rant-Review

Blackguards 2 After the desaster Blackguards 1 was I couldn't have cared less.

Dead State Lots and lots of great ideas. And all of them were implemented with the use of horrible mechanics and game systems of which not two of them worked well together in any way. Man, I would have loved to see a great game here. But it just wasn't. And even the latest version is horribly unpolished. Review

Krai Mira Haven't played. Only read that it was horrible. But cannot judge.

Hard West Unlike most of the media I actually liked this one quite a lot. Not a roleplaying game in traditional sense and not a "sandbox" tactics game like xcom either as you basically play a different person every chapter and start from zero.
Mechanics weren't really good, but worked. The story was something very unique and fun. Recommended. Review

Warmachine Tactics… Never played, cannot judge.

One other game which I want to add here as it never gets any attention is Halfway. Basically an X-Com-like game without basebuilding, tactical combat with "decent" mechanics, and a great mix of writing and combat. Great music and great artstyle.
 
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Just off the top of my head, in no particular order, vastly superior TB RPG/Strategy games:

XCOM (orginal and new ones); Wasteland 2; Eador; Tale of Wuxia (including the prequel); Torment; D:OS (classic, EE, 2); Underrail; Mordheim; Valkyria Chronicles; Transistor; Shadowrun (all three of them); King's Bounty (all four of them); Blackguards (1 and 2); Dead State; Krai Mira; Hard West; Warmachine Tactics…

I could go on for much, much longer. As good as Spiderweb has been in the past, it's time to innovate or GTFO.


I don't feel strongly on the subject but I don't see how many of these compare to Spiderweb games, some aren't turn based and/or not story RPGs at all. Shadowrun yes. Underrail, D:OS, Wastland all yes. Blackguards sort of. Mordheim is a tactical combat game. Eador is a fantasy 4X. Kings Bounty games don't fit. XCom's aren't the same type of game either, besides combat being turn based. Transistor? That's an iso, real time adventure game?? etc etc I don't think your comparisons are particularly valid.
 
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Personally I think Jeff's Avernum, Avadon, and Geneforge games are all great. But I hate that he takes no chances and just releases the same thing over and over again with limited changes. It's bad enough when he releases a sequel that barely feels different from the old version, but it drives me nuts when he decides to release the exact same game again for the third time. He should take a lesson from how incredibly well Avadon 1 sold, and how each sequel after that sold dramatically less then the one before.

But I still think Jeff has the potential for great stuff, and I'd grab any new IP from him in a second. I'm just not so excited by all his derivative sequels and remakes. I've still gotten them all, but each one I play for less time then the one before. Perhaps this one will be the one I finally don't bother with.
 
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Personally I think Jeff's Avernum, Avadon, and Geneforge games are all great. But I hate that he takes no chances and just releases the same thing over and over again with limited changes. It's bad enough when he releases a sequel that barely feels different from the old version, but it drives me nuts when he decides to release the exact same game again for the third time. He should take a lesson from how incredibly well Avadon 1 sold, and how each sequel after that sold dramatically less then the one before.

But I still think Jeff has the potential for great stuff, and I'd grab any new IP from him in a second. I'm just not so excited by all his derivative sequels and remakes. I've still gotten them all, but each one I play for less time then the one before. Perhaps this one will be the one I finally don't bother with.

I once asked him to branch out into scifi or a superhero rpg...he lashed out pretty good with a paragraph long answer on he thinks he knows what works for rpg's and what puts meals on the table. He will never do that he said.
 
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I once asked him to branch out into scifi or a superhero rpg…he lashed out pretty good with a paragraph long answer on he thinks he knows what works for rpg's and what puts meals on the table. He will never do that he said.

"Its not what you say, its how you say it."
:p
 
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I'm a latecomer to the Spiderweb party, so I haven't played the originals (or original remakes :)) of any of these games. I can see why those who have might not be excited about the release. I thought Escape from the Pit and Crystal Souls were brilliant though - satisfying combat, great exploration with plenty of secrets and things to find, and good crisp writing. I'm really looking forward to sinking some serious hours into Ruined World.
 
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It's strange to see that so many people mind the graphics.

I love Spiderweb games especially for dungeon and encounter design - I don't know any other game that comes even close in this regard.
Exploration is a very strong point too and all of the other aspects support the strengths in a way to best enjoy them.
I often do not complete computer games - except Spiderweb games, for me they are just perfect.
 
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Why is that strange?
Hardware moved forward enough to allow better graphics in games. Some developers somehow got stuck in previous century - and then a word "outdated" emerged.
 
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but it drives me nuts when he decides to release the exact same game again for the third time. He should take a lesson from how incredibly well Avadon 1 sold, and how each sequel after that sold dramatically less then the one before.

Avadon 1 was also sold during the "indie bubble". He made a lengthy article about it, that it was easy to sell games at that time, that he decreased his price in that context and visibility was high. And he wrote about that after that he had to increase the price again afterwards because of the market situation and he couldn't speculate on impulse buyers anymore and therefore had to increase prices again to focus on core audience again (who is also willing to pay more).
 
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Well, it's not that the games themselves are terrible or anything.

I just have a strong aversion to endless repetition within such a rigidly limited formula - and I think it speaks volumes that people are willing to play so many games with so little variety in them.

It's no wonder that game design evolution more or less stagnated during the 90s.

These days, people (ok, people around here) seem to be happiest every time we go back in time to something that could have been improved a million times over.

How about aiming a little higher?

Oh, I guess not. What would be the point if circular nostalgia will suffice.
 
Party based, turn based tactical combat RPGs are rare. What @Fluent; says is spot on. There is pretty much Divinity:OS(2) or a Spiderweb game.

What Jeff fails to understand is that the world is changing. Old institutions like RPG, FPS, RTS are considered archaic and outdated terms. The future of gaming is multigenreism. No longer shall we hold on to supremacist ideals about RPG purity! Is this RPG too 4x for your bigoted little mind? Or maybe you think Fallout3 is not a real Fallout just because it's an FPS/RPG?

While I'll personally be sorry when there are no oldschool RPGs left, I can see why some people can't tolerate Jeff keeping it real. Consistently releasing pure, oldschool, legit as fuck RPGS and refusing to follow industry trends like microtransactions, DLC, season pass, early access, win10 required, paid cosmetics, free2play, facebook integrated, ad bannered, subscription based, episodic, VR.... Shit I lost my train of thought.

Oh, hey! Avernum 3! Sweet!
 
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Yaay, same graphics elements, but at least a nicely reskinned UI. After finishing Avernum 2 Crystal Souls, I'm ready to begin 3, but only after the usual patch 1.0.1. :) Some good mods maybe.
 
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I would totally buy remakes of the entire Geneforge series just for modern screen-resolution options.
 
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Wow no one mentioned Battle Brothers, I thought many here enjoyed it. I'm still not understanding all the love for TB games.... Guess it's not really my cup of tea.
 
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