I found a recent interview by Jeff Vogel on his blog. He doesn't talk much about Geneforge ,but I thought it was interesting for the insight into the design philosophy of Spiderweb.

http://casualconnect.org/lectures/design/avadon-a-case-study-in-storytelling-jeff-vogel/

Thanks for the link. From reading his blog, Jeff seems like an insightful guy, so this'll probably be interesting. :)

I'm gonna have to find more lectures from Casual Connect. Between this and Nicholas Vinning's (Dungeons of Dredmor developer) talk on humor in video games, there's some good stuff there.

I saw the lecture as it was pretty informative. Avadon was and still is, the first game he made where ranged combat was more powerful than melee. Also unlike geneforge and avernum, the first game where you pretty much had much less options for builds. But still, Avadon's story was what made the game more replayable. Heck, thats why Im replaying it.

For as many action/rpg fans there are out there that only care about action (old me), you will find just as many that really care about the story.

I'm playing through Avadon right now :) it's pretty fun, although I don't think the Avadon world (not sure on the name of the continent) is quite as interesting or unique as Geneforge, the skilltree system is really limiting in terms of developing your character, the overworld map is severely restricting compared to geneforge, and the ability cooldown and vitality system is much more frustrating than the energy/essence system of geneforge. On the other hand, I really appreciate the way the game sends you back to areas you previously visited-it helps create the feeling that the plot is advancing by showing the player the how each region changes between visits (the effect of the plot on areas in geneforge by contrast bar 4 was rather minimal) I also liked the depth that companions in Avadon are given through dialogue and personal quests, another area in which I felt Geneforge companions have been lacking. The loyalty system was soemthing I greatly appreciated as well, and I think I would have liked to see something similar in geneforge 3 in particular, as I never really felt like I had any influence on Greta or Alwan.

Definately a great game. I hope Jeff Vogel carries over a lot of the companion stuff from Avadon such as companion inventories/equipment slots, loyalty system, and more in-depth dialogue interactions. I hope that the sequels to Avadon, and whatever geneforge remakes Jeff puts out don't use the ability mechanics or skill trees from Avadon however, because I found them very limiting.

Jeff Vogel should run a Kickstarter for his next game. I'd love to see what he could do with more money and a bigger team.

Anyway, excellent lecture. Thanks for the link. :)

You don't have to worry about the skill trees being limiting. I spoke with jeff and he is pretty sure that giving an extra skill point every level makes for more possibilities in avadon 2. This isn't final, but will allow an extra 30 skill points which more than makes up for specializing and gives more of a boost to trying new things.

The problem with avadon's first game is that you have to specialize your skill points and cannot be a jack of all trades. Very much like gene forge 1-5. You specialize you are powerful, otherwise your character is weak.

What I like to do when making my own character in avadon is do every level a point into dexterity and every 5th level a point in endurance. Ranged weapons are king and Shamans, Shadowwalkers and Blademasters are all 3 adept with ranged weapons. Im currently into 2nd play through this time with a shaman.