Avernum 3: Ruined World - Released

Originally Posted by Kordanor
As I mentioned before, I think that he will profit from kickstarter massively due to how he works. He is independent and uses lots of recycling.

So every $ he is able to spend, he can re-use over and over with future projects.
Also he is more dynamic than most other companies.
So he could just use kickstarter with a goal of 3000$ for example and invest that additional money to buy some music, sound effects or sprites which he can use for all future products.

If he wants to start up with a new engine though it would become much more complicated as he'd basically need to repurchase most of the graphic on top of needing the engine itself.

He's already said his next game will most definitely be a new engine. He mentioned Unity once, but it might have been in jest.

He also once said that the new series will be interspersed with Geneforge remakes.

I would love to see him reach Infinity level in terms of game engine and stop there. With zoom of course. I do really miss tactical positioning prior to battle. When I first tried Avadon after playing Geneforge I was pretty tiffed about the non-combat movement system. I liked to send in a scout and pull mobs to a tactical choke point where possible. I've gotten over it but if I could get it back I would.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: He'd make some serious wampum if he ever goes the kickstarter route. One day it might actually happen.

Waiting for the usual 1.0.1 patch.

Really surprises me how extremely active Spiderweb is on the steam forums. Not sure if this is Jeff himself, someone else from Spiderweb, or a guy from indie bros who seem to do marketing for spiderweb.

In any case I am quite positively surprised.

Just received the newsletter. I made the new part bold

After Avernum 3 is completely out, we will get to work on our all-new game series. New world, new engine, a lot of cool new ideas. As it starts to come together, we'll start dropping hints on our Spiderweb Software Twitter feed.

That's what I'd like to see. Good news.

I am kinda afraid though. While the sprite graphics have some charme (granted, in this case, not a lot) cheap unity 3d graphics would look much, much worse.

If it were me, I would move to using 3D, but mainly because it would be much easier to implement an improved look. The trouble with true isometric 2d is that you actually need some very talented artists to paint every environment in a way that looks good.

For Spiderweb games, I would lock the 3D camera so that it would still look like old-school isometric, but it would then become a lot easier to give a more modern look using some decent tilesets and effects.

I trust the guys at Spiderweb to make the right call as far as a new game engine is concerned. They've earned my belief that they can accomplish great things.

I agree and disagree at the same time. It really depends on how much money you want to take in your hands.

It's still much easier and cheaper to create a game with 2D as you need to put far less effort into each model.

If you want 3D you either need to buy stock models or have to limit yourself to very few custom created 3d models for the game.

Once you take a medium or high amount of money it changes a bit.
But that's because some features like custom armor or weapons on character models are much easier to do on 3D models than they are on 2D sprites. So only once you want to go these steps 3D becomes more "valid" than 2D.

But in order to make a halfway decent looking game in 3D Jeff would basically need one or more full time employed model and world designers, in addition to buying some stock models from the unity library for example. Or he limits himself to a setting where this isn't necessary. Let's say a "realistic" medieval setting with only humans which pretty much all look the same, and only the skin and hair color is adjusted or something like this.

Therefore I think and hope he is going for a limited 2D engine instead, where armor and weapons might not be updated on the character dependent on what it wears, where animations are not prestine, but which offers a much easier way to add on top of it as a single developer which basically purchases everything externally.

Yea. I think what he has is a lot easier/simpler. When I think about making a game the most daunting thing is dealing with the graphics. Lots of work.
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Was much easier on muds (diku) where everything is text wall

He was not open to new game ideas when I asked him before, was very rude about it and pretty dismissive. I'm not going to hold my breathe here.

Temple of Elemental Evil was 3D over static renders. That would be a nice compromise to just focus on interactive objects and 3D sprites while another team handles renders. And iOS could still handle it which I’m sure is a major consideration. But I agree Vogel will do as Vogel pleases which is fine by me I trust him completely

Originally Posted by ToddMcF2002
Temple of Elemental Evil was 3D over static renders. That would be a nice compromise to just focus on interactive objects and 3D sprites while another team handles renders. And iOS could still handle it which I’m sure is a major consideration. But I agree Vogel will do as Vogel pleases which is fine by me I trust him completely

That's pretty much the most costly option, which was also done by torment and pillars. Definitely not something spiderweb could do with their limited budget.
Also all backgrounds would have one use only. Very unlikely.

Originally Posted by rune_74
He was not open to new game ideas when I asked him before, was very rude about it and pretty dismissive. I'm not going to hold my breathe here.

Well, he's like that about most things. He was pretty anti Steam when people were suggesting it, until he came around and suddenly it's the best thing ever and he's glad he had the idea. (okay, over simplifying things there, but whatever)

A lot of the time he's a dismissive grumpy dick, but I like his games so I'll give him a pass. I.e. he's our dismissive grumpy dick.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
That's pretty much the most costly option, which was also done by torment and pillars. Definitely not something spiderweb could do with their limited budget.
Also all backgrounds would have one use only. Very unlikely.

Yeah, that wouldn't work, but he could continue using 2D tiles for the backgrounds while using 3D objects for anything that needs to be animated, for example the characters and NPCs etc. Presumably buying stock models in all those cases. That would be pretty easy. Although I'm not sure he gains a ton in the end going that route, over what we've got now. The games would probably end up looking the same as what we've got now, but with better animations…

I wouldn't really want another Pillars-style or Divinity-looking game now. I personally didn't care for that style much from the start and still think the Infinity Engine stands alone in terms of capturing that certain RPG "something" with the visuals. And that's not nostalgia talking as I first played BG in 2015-ish.

I'd like to see something closer to the Infinity Engine. An updated, more detailed then what he has now 2D isometric look would be awesome, IMO.

“That wouldn’t work” is a bit presumptive. He clearly knows what he is doing and could ramp and staff with funding from a larger kick starter. But that is extremely unlikely given his mom and pop dev shop preferences.

I would like the new series to have full party generation, but whatever he does I'll be interested.