Spiderweb games

Okay, i am tired of seeing those games in GOG installers, how were they? What they are about?

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Geneforge very good. Each one gets better Geneforge 5 has all the features of a full RPG.

For CPG fans only.

But what's it like? Is it like Ultima or Baldur's Gate?

BG but you make the characters yourself.

Cool, i'l try it.

Its nothing like BG
For one your character builds and dialogue choices actually matter.

Dropped.

So where do i exactly start playing the series?

from the first game in the series
where else?

Alright, thanks. How Avernum compares to Geneforge? What's up with "new" releases of avernum on new engine?

Avernum should have stayed tile based, moving to GFs engine killed its identity for me.

Wish me luck i suppose.

i know that feel, OP

Here's the infamous art of smug captive bitch.

but why?

i think they are just better version of the old stuff.

never ending backlog, but at least i will never be forced to play shitty current year plus two vidya

2017 was alright on rpg department though. Can't say it was perfect. Its funny, i completed Elex and DOS2 both in a week. But i can never complete Might and Magic 6 in same time. Old games tend to be far longer, and new games feel like potato chips.

that is why im playing the newer games in my backlog, it gets reduced a bit faster that way.

Avernum 3 is the best, prove me wrong

>you will never hug the evil dragon

Literally my thoughts. Played Gothic 2 back in my days and it felt like forever. But Risen was nothing but a two-three days worth of a game.
Its kinda an amazingly obvious, but hard to realize discovery, that new shit even with 60 hours mark on the back of the box usually consists of empty linear worlds that can be rushed through in no time, and obvious quests with no exploration needed to get to the objective. When someone writes that an old game is 60 hours long, he writes it from a perspective of a man who already completed it at least twice, but when a pleb writes 60 hours mark on a new game its usually his first try. Therefore in reality all new vidya is actually significantly shorter during the first run.

>you will never fug the evil dragon
What did he mean by this?

that's a good problem to have

It's because games nowadays are so formulaic. Even the long ones can be beaten really quickly because you're just going through the motions.

Indeed, they are all the same and made for mentally retarded people in mind, so the logistic and concepts never change, and most quests are the same. Games never surprise player or face him with a challenge to his intelligence nowadays.

Avernum a shit. I still replay the Exile games regularly. It's really depressing reading Vogel's blog where he assumes the only reason people play his games is his writing ability. I wish he would make another meaty highly open world RPG like the original Exile games some day.

Which do you prefer? I mean obviously Exile, but I've always wanted to make my own clone of Blades in the distant future.

A 4 person party feels like it puts more importance on the characters, but it makes roles feel more forced and needing optimization. Personally, I liked the fact that it cares about height

On the other hand, classic has more interesting, but ultimately "useless" effects, such as blade barrier or Sticks to Snakes. I am not sure which conversation style I prefer.

Ultimately for myself, I think Exile would be easier to clone and height could be cheesed in, in some manner. Lot easier to make graphics for than isometric, too.

III is easily the tightest game of the trilogy, but there's just something about the first game's progression that makes me restart it significantly more than the other two. I've always wished someone would remake Escape from the Pit in the Blades of Exile engine.

What's that faggot vendor's name in Fort Emergence? The one by Anaximander's office by the Orb of Thralni?

Anyways, in Avernum 3 in particular, he'll have an infinite stock of whatever item you sell him. Early game, this could be unicorn horns for money turn-ins at Krizan, or Books of Knowledge for XP turn-ins at the Portal Fortress… also good is rare herbs and knowledge brews (that you can easily buy because of unicorn horn sales)

Levy?

Yeah that guy, the quartermaster

I played the shit out of geneforge back in the day and this thread made me remember.Whats a good modern soundtrack for geneforge. I remember it being fairly silent overall. except for a good intro track that really set the mood.

Now that you mention it, the lack of soundtrack and having more ambient noises instead really helped with the immersion

after they changed avernum into this pseudo 3d style at avernum 4 it kind of threw me off for a bit, but theyre still awesome adventures.

He's wrong, it plays nothing like BG.
BG can go get fucked, but I liked the Geneforge games.

Tried most of Vogel's shit.

His best series, in my opinion. Faction system and solid writing is in every one of them and the mechanics get better and better as you go.

It was okay, but lacked the charm of Geneforge. Less novel with mechanics and with worse combat, but still quite solid and the setting is pretty nice.

Can't really tell you why, but it always felt incredibly undewhelming to me. The setting wasn't really as interesting, the faction system was less pronounced (mostly betray/don't betray, IIRC) and it overall just make me want to play Geneforge or Avernum.

Supposedly Vogel's Opus Magnum, but I found it to be one of his worse pieces. Only two factions, with the story clearly being tailored for only one of them (if you play Romans, prepare to get cucked again and again by deus ex machinas as the story tries to write itself out of the corner you put it in), and there was no innovation I could notice in the mechanics.

Geneforge is a must play and Vogel should just make more of them, or something in the same vein, rather than endlessly remaking Avernum over and over and over. If you want moar after playing it all, try Avernum, but you can probably leave out the others

Thanks user for writing that out, i guess starting with Geneforge 1 is a good idea.

xDD

Geneforge is easily the best series out of all of the Spiderweb games. You only directly control one person. Combat is balanced around this assumption so it isn't as tedious as Avernum. Each game gives you a bunch of factions to choose from but there's no importing so the game just assumes which ending the previous character made, which can get a little jarring if it doesn't match your choice. Geneforge 3 is the most linear in the series but it kind of sucked.

The Avernum series is really fucking long and kind of tedious, the animations take a while, though it gets improved as the series goes on. If you intend to go through the entire series expect to take hundreds of hours to beat unless you cheat. Avernum 1 and 2 are a huge fucking scavenger hunt that have you running back and forth around the world over and over again. Avernum 3 is probably the best in the series. It has quality of life improvements (teleportors), the main quest design is linear but the world is open and there's a lot of areas you don't actually have to enter to complete the main quest. Avernum 5 is easily the most linear game in the series (sail to a new area, complete the local quests in the area, move onto the next area with no relation to the previous area). Also unlike Geneforge, there aren't really any storyline choices you can make.

I wonder if either of you have played through the original Exile games.

Didn't Vogel remake them as part of Avernum?

Yes, but it's a mistake to assume that remake = better.

fuck you Holla Forums for making play videogames!

I enjoyed the original Exile games they're a remake of more - though probably on nostalgia grounds. The originals had a certain charm that the remakes lack.

what are you gonna do about it?

How much of a fucking casual are you?

Does DOSbox actually work with the Exile games? They aren't DOS games, they're genuine Windows applications. Just use WinXP or Wine.

I wanted to play the remakes of avernum on steam, but the art is weird and shitty (the animated statue on Cotra is a different sprite and you can see which one is it plain as day, among other fuck ups) and worst of all YOU CANNOT CLOSE DOORS ANYMORE HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ROB EVERYONE OF EVERYTHING AND WORSE OF ALL THEY CHANGED THIS BECAUSE THE GAME WAS HEADING FOR TOUCH SCREEN PLATFORMS AND DOORS DIDNT WORK
YOU FUCKED UP SPIDERWEB SOFTWARE

That being said, slitzerikai > Everything

One of the remakes was on sale for a couple bucks. It's decent nostalgia fuel but it feels like a lot of what made the games great back in the day was removed. You can still see the skeletons picked free of meat; inns you can't sleep in, doors that don't work, food that is mostly useless, etc. I got bored about 5 or 6 hours in.

I bought Escape From The Pit and the Geneforge saga from GOG on a whim a few weeks ago. Tried EftP and it was sorta fun, but it slammed my CPU usage at 100%, and the ambient audio effects were clearly looped, made me want to just put on my own music. I only got out of the starting dungeon, so I haven't really gotten into the game yet.
Should I drop Avernum and skip to Geneforge, or should I go back and play Exile or the first remake of Avernum? I'm willing to stick with EftP, but if the older games are better, then I might as well play those first

if you're having issues, I'd say go Exile if you want to continue on the Avernum train, though Geneforge is a very fun series so you can play them first if you want.

I bought the Geneforge series on Steam but it's still in my backlog.

Well, I had to run it on Win 3.1 and I emulate that on DosBox.

id say go to exile or avernum, then if you really want to revisit it, give escape from the pit another whirl.

Damn, so far as i play through first geneforge its actually nice. Has a little bit of ultima in there, a little bit of SSI's Forgotten Realms games, a little own touch with interface and writing. I wonder why the series is heavily underrated. I guess advertisement and publishing really affect how people rate the vidya. And i guess the fact that series haven't really evolved even in modern years makes people look away from it or something. Despite the fact some indie garbage tend to look just like this, but pretentious or even worse.
No wonder GOG tries to push the series with ads, its worth it.

twitter.com/spiderwebsoft/status/930916367041101824

I don't want to spoil anything, but have you been taking advantage of those skill canisters or no?

...

meant to write:

Damn, why have I not heard of this before?
Oh, that's why!

You could at least put a minimum amount of effort into your bait.

Pic 1 is baldurs gate, it was released 1998.
Pic 2 is Geneforge, it was released 2001.
The artwork looks nice, but really, 16 bit sprites would look better than those wierd 3d abomination graphics, and I'm willing to bet that's what turned people off from playing it, and in turn, why I've not heard of it being mentioned before when anyone brings up great RPGs.
Seriously lad.

Turns out that was geneforge 2.Graphics somehow look worse than in >>13804004

Now compare the amount of money and size of the development team behind each.

2nd pic looks better though
1st one is a cluttered mess

True. I'd heard that geneforge was made by one guy, and even though what he did was impressive, the visual style he went with is still fucking ugly.

Very intuitive!

Okay, It may not seem like it but I'm actually not trying to deliberately shit up the thread, I'm just kinda disappointed that a game described as having the same depth as baldur's gate just looks as ugly as that

10/10 comparison man, you can go work at pc gamer. I bet you was shitting on Grimoire too.

because you're a retarded graphics whore,that's why

He even made a whiny blog post about it one time. It's really not that complicated, Jeff.

I was one of the first people to mention this game, because I was excited over my discovery after I dared to take a bite out of the strange apple. Figuring out that it is by the same guy who has made Exile, a game that kept my Dad's and my Brother's ass in front of our 3/86 mad it even more awesome. Concerning the graphics: Its spiderweb, therefor it looks like it has been foot painted by triggered retards.

This is some interesting twitter that isn't filled with anti-trump comments.

The reason Rick and Morty sucks now is because the writing team tried to unionize and Harmon and Roiland fired them all. They then replaced them with an all-women team to try and pretend they care about diversity.

At least we're getting a live action :^)

OLDFAG ALERT!
Who here remembers the earlier Realmz (think Gold Box FRUA), by Spiderweb's old publisher? Who remembers the gloriously fugly original Exile I/II graphics by Vogel's ex-wife?


Ultima. The old Exile games are an almost note-for-note copy of Ultima VI, to be specific, and the rest of his games all share similar elements. Geneforge adds a focus on disposable magically summoned party-members.

Yep, the whole idea of Vogel's games is surrounded in combining Forgotten Realms Gold Box style game with Ultima style exploration mechanics. Can't say its pure ultima and shit. But it was like that since the beginning, discounting avernum, which has different control style but still similar.

I tried to play Avadon at some point and Nethergate at some point. Avadon seemed bad a few hours in like, big ass corridors with lots of barrels and stuff but nothing actually in them a lot of items that didn't seem to do much. Did the team lose their mojo as time went on or did I go in with the wrong expectations for it?

...

He lost his mojo. As time has progressed, Vogel has become more and more obsessed with story-telling rather than creating fun and engaging mechanics and worlds to explore. It's frankly what happened to the entire Western PC RPG genre in a nutshell, but he's a good case study. If you read his blog he occasionally talks about how he thinks that the only reason people buy his games is due to his writing ability. That's certainly not why I replay the Exile games yearly.

If you try to play Nethergate again sometime, you might consider making sure you're playing the original Nethergate rather than Nethergate Resurrection. The remake of sorts basically gimped the original in a bunch of ways.

why is the name censored?

But atleast he is a fucking man of great taste.

My main gripe was the comparison of how it looked. Single person teams have made good looking games before, and probably with less effort than attempting to make the jump to 3d like this. It was probably ambitious, but let's be honest, he would have been better using RPGmaker style sprites or something like that because this just looks horrendous. Stop being a faggot.
Yea, I was. In development for decades and the dev acted like a complete faggot. On top of that it's a Meme game.

do you like the graphics for my new game user? :^)

No one has told him otherwise?

Well, the graphics have significantly improved over the years

I don't share that opinion. IMHO he is a man of good taste, but he is also a businessman. As a result, while he personally favors Nethergate and Geneforge (with their oddball settings and unusual mechanics), he has found that the blander Exile remakes/sequels and (intentionally Dragon Age-esque) Avadon sell better. Likewise, while many of the interface changes introduced in his remakes and newer games are elegant net positives, a lot of others are questionable or definitely dumbing down, and he's pretty honest that he does this to keep sales rolling in. In spite of this, his newer games remain pretty good at their heart, and if it's the sort of game you like, there aren't many people other than him to choose from nowadays.

He's only about as pragmatic as he has to be, and I can't really say I'd do different if I'd chosen to make a full-time living off game development.

Which Geneforge game has the best story and why is it 2?

Im starting a geneforce game, any recommendations on making a wizard? or should i just go blind and have fun?

i dont really want to use twitter!

I think going blind is the best idea unless you want to get spoiled on what you're not supposed to do the entire game.

Infiltrator is the wizard not the shaper.

Technically all classes are kind of wizards to some extend.

Go blind, it's more fun that way.

I've played some of Geneforge 4, I keep getting sidetracked by real life shit and restarting. The game has a a shit tonne of choice and consequence, I remember getting my leadership up and getting a free Artila minion from the starting base and I won't spoil the rest of that. Game actually has a functional stealth system, enemies have a vision radius and you do a have a bit of time before combat begins to run away if they have a "?" over their heads. Having skills in mechanics and lock picking will enable you access different parts of the levels enabling you to bypass enemies located in choke points. There's also your standard skill checks in conversations and the world is actually unique and interesting.

Won't you go more lockpicks and combat skils as the infiltrator? Given your weak lifecrafting, preventing you from having a bunch of minions while you sling spells from the back?

Lifecrafting and spellcrafting are seperate things.
As a shaper most of your mana pool would be spent creating minions and then casting buffs.
Lockpicking is something every class needs.

Spell training is also easier as an infiltrator.

That I knew. I got confused because they have separate bars for spell energy and essence, but spells use essence. It's a trade off, you're right.

With a name like Geneforce, is it about genetic manipulation and making your own abominations?

...

Sorry, I read it wrong. But still, it should be obvious is about genetic manipulation if you forge genes, right?

Or is a shitty rpg with just gene in the name and nothing to do with mutations nor genetic manipulation except for a few stats?

Without spoiling top much, the name and theme are important to the plot

Bump

How would you improve Avernum's gameplay?

i dont know, ive been satisfied with it. aside from how the animations tend to slow down the newer games.
i guess if i had to make some changes then positioning and displacement being more of a factor. such as flanking, and abilities that pull, push or otherwise move allies and enemies.
basically, some more "tactics" to exploit.

Get rid of the isometric perspective or at the very least get rid of that 45 degree rotation on the minimap. Bring back some spell depth from Exile.

Height feels like an important element. Grid makes it impossible to show that well

But is it, really? I'm sure there's ways to do it with top-down.

Well sure, that's how the original Exile games played. At no point do you have bridges over lower terrain, either, it's all strictly cosmetic

You know what would have made Spiderweb games much better? Actual in-game music. I know these games are made by a very small team, but come on, they really couldn't afford a handfull of MIDI tracks?

i have never thought of that, youre right

can someone just add their own tracks?

i mean, you can just play your music over it sure. but music gives a game character. then again a lack of music can too in some situations. and maybe a giant cave is such a situation.

The early versions of Exile: Escape to the Pit came with a single audio track actually.

But that won't change the music depending on occasion, such as having combat music or town music or dungeon music.


For certain stand-out moments? Yes. For the entire fucking game? No.

Ever since Vogel made a vague comment about possibly trying a tactics game after completing Exile III, I always wanted an Exile-style game that had you playing as an army (20-100 characters) instead of a 6-man party. Maybe you could still have RPG segments when you go into a town your army's encamped outside of with an honorguard, or some sort of dungeon where you've dispatched a special forces squad, for instance. But most of the game would involve marching across the map, doing big RPG things, huge battles against other armies or swarms of monsters, mountains of loot to distribute amongst your troops, and tons of character slots to customize, all with about the same amount of depth as Exile (though with a more powerful interface, to do RPG bookkeeping en-masse).

It could work with a variety of premises, but the backstory of the doomed 1st Imperial expedition to Exile would be perfect.


Mechanics aside, none of these sorts of games, even non-RPGs that are entirely tactical like X-Com or Jagged Alliance, have good AI. Compared to relatively simple trickery seen in realtime action games like Half-Life, Halo, or FEAR. I'd love a turn-based RPG where the AI does fakeouts, unscripted ambushes, encirclements, tactical retreats, running for reenforcements, area denial, ganks, stealthy foes patrolling and stalking you, using chokes effectively, and attempts to wait strongly defensive PCs out instead of kamikazeing.

Geneforge is generally great. One of the best examples of having an open world with no level scaling where you have to find your own path and its all entirely dependent on your build and choices where the best way to go is. Lots of interaction with a non-generic fantasy world, some good C&C, an evil path is always available to fuck over someone you don't like and the game doesn't pidgeonhole you into a light/dark path or anything, just choose who you want to help and who to screw.

Great place to start, has everything good about the series. Mechanically its a bit weak, lacks a lot of the spells and creation variety of later games.
Improves on almost everything from 1, except possibly the sense of exploration and discovering a place that mystifies the main character. Most of the spells/abilities/creations/mechanics are finished here and 2-4 add/change only a few things in each game.
Big dive in quality because the game is segmented into different islands that only unlock linearly with the story. Obvious Bioware influences.
A lot less of the story-locked stuff from 3, but still more linear with obvious progression lines. Has 5 classes rather than the 3 of the first 3 games
Never played that far, changes a lot of stuff. Nothing bad about it just didn't have the time and I should probably revisit it. I've heard lots of good about it.

One thing I will say is that they are all complete games with only minimal tie-in between games other than certain story characters in 3 returning in 4. Also they are all quite long. I feel burned out just finishing one of them, don't plan to complete the whole series in a few weeks or anything.

I never finished Geneforge, I need to go back and complete it. When I was young and didn't have my own money to spend on games, I played the demos of these games exhaustively. It's time I got around to finishing some of them.