Thanks for the info. The demo download is finished, and I intend to check it later.

In Cold Blood (see my current avatar) is less than 10 hours and it is on GOG :-)

Currently playing Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (mine is not the GOG version, but it is still available on GOG), and even with the frustration I am hoping to finish it tonight, which in total should not exceed 12 or 13 hours.

It's not that I hate long games. I took almost 70 hours with Septerra Core, probably about 60 hours with Two Worlds, etc.. But as I said above, there is always a chance that I get bored with long games. If that happens, with GOG price it is more or less still forgivable for me. With USD25, well, not so much.

Yes I intend to check the demo later. And I hope if I happen to like the game to buy it, I can continue playing it with the demo save game files :-)

I gave it a go for an hour or so - works rather well except for some obvious design flaws. The writing being given on a scroll is a bit straining for my eyes though - easier to code I'm sure since you don't have to deal with timing and such, but the scroll breaks immersion. It feels as if you're not part of the game - I never felt as if that character I was controlling was me.

The graphics .... whoever said that it has poor graphics, I agree. People often make the mistake of not being able to distinguish OLD from POOR graphics. Back in the early 90s, you had limited means and low resolutions, but you could make beautiful art. Look at Ultima VIII! When you then see a game like this, with animations barely existing and the world itself feeling rather cold and bare, I'm not surprised some are put off. It's not a dealbreaker persé but if the game lasts 50 hours, surely it's more pleasant to be staring at something a little more attractive?

Not really - not everything about design is open to subjectivity. The question is, do you forgive it or not. I mean, you can't deny the locations look unrealistic and are basically a bunch of item tiles thrown about and the animation is pretty poor as well. It doesn't mean no-one can like it despite that, but to say it's not true ... well you're kidding yourself really. For me, the game suffers in that respect because the game feels too much like a game and that might make 50 hours too much for me.

To see how you can have budget-friendly graphics that work almost exactly the same but look a lot more pleasant and realistic:

http://review.mrheggart.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/eschalon2.jpg

Played the demo, bought the game. Now level 8, just fought an Undead Wizard boss for the past 40 mins, continuously wiping the floor. Then finally managed to win through pot buffs and summons. I love it :D

The political situation in Avadon seems particularly interesting, I can't wait to see how the story unfolds. I got it from Gamersgate for US$19.

I think the graphics are fine. My only problems with the game so far is that it doesn't have music (along with the rest of his games I assume, I have Geneforge 5 as well, doesn't matter since I have BG and IWD's soundtracks on Shuffle), quest journals don't update every step you advance and irritating minor stuff like not being able to close the inventory with the shortcut key after opening the inv with it.

Wow, this game is really hardcore. The start of it, the encounters seem easy. But once you're in the middle of the game, the fights seem really crazy. I had to dumb down from hard to normal to get through it and I don't really like doing that. Call it ego or whatever, but I played BG2 on core rules, both Dragon Ages, ME2 on Nightmare so I thought to play through on hard. HUGE difference between normal and hard, I don't wanna imagine Torment.

******* SPOILERS ******


The demon before Zhossa Mindtaker dragon. That was the first hard to normal encounter, neverending spawning Imps, by the time I actually managed to clear all 3 that spawned on Hard, another 3 spawned, sometimes I don't get to clear them all so eventually I get overwhelmed. On Normal though the encounter seemed like a laugh.

Then Zhossa's encounter itself. I could get to the fight with the 3 soldiers to the 2nd phase but eventually my pots and CDs ran out and got owned by them easily. Again on Normal, the fight became cheese.



******* SPOILERS ******

Don't seem to have the patience like I did last time in BG2, 2 days to defeat Demogorgon in TOB. I took the whole afternoon with both fights, gave up and dumbed it down to Normal.

Hah, even Jeff Vogel posted this on the forums:
[i]All of our games are very easy early on, but they also all get more difficult. I designed Hard difficulty to be Hard, and Torment difficulty is much worse.

If you run into problems on Hard, I would suggest playing on Normal for much of this run-through.

I hope the people who always accuse me of making my games too easy remember threads like this one.

- Jeff Vogel[/i]

Apparently it is now available on iPad... for you iPad lovers:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/avadon-the-black-fortress-hd/id429761869?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=2

I tried getting into Avadon, and I'll probably try again since I'm such a fan of Jeff's games, but the writing and the combat just didn't engage me the way it did in A5 and A6. I admit that fault may be mine in that I went into Avadon expecting it to be "Avernum 7".

Jeff prides himself on balancing his games in such a way that the latter fights are hard, but not insurmountable. I think the boss fight at the end of Solberg's Workshop in A5 is a good example of this. The wild running chase and battle through the Howling Depths also comes to mind as well. They were not easy, but they certainly pushed me hard enough for my level of play.

I like it so far. There's political intrigue in the game. And I'm a Hand of Avadon and I simply love pushing that rank for the greater good, somewhat trying to roleplay a chaotic good character. I like how even some of the high ranking nobles in the lands of the Pact have to fear and or respect the Hand of Avadon. But in a way I don't trust Avadon and Blackbeard, I'm seeing what they're up to.

Never played Avernum though I have Geneforge. How's Avernum compared to Avadon and Geneforge?

Avernum focuses more on the dungeon crawling aspect of Vogel's RPGs. You create a party of 4 characters then go around killing things in a huge underground complex named Avernum. This is the surface world's prison and dark underbelly. Classes are somewhat customizable but you wouldn't want to try and make a fighter into a high level magic user although you can give them some caster abilities.

I also noticed that the Avernums don't have respawns so there might not be too much room for experimenting, experience point-wise, with the variety of skills available.

Compared to Avadon and Geneforge, Avernum is the most "traditional" of Vogel's RPGs in that you assemble a party, specialize each one for a specific skill, and let them loose in the sort of vast open-ended worlds that he's known for. I liked being able to have a party of independent PCs as opposed to one character; it just suited my play style better. I just couldn't get into Geneforge all that much because I wasn't used to playing a lone-wolf style RPG (yes, I know you can effectively "create" a party through Shaping, though it's not the same as having actual PCs in your party). Avadon struck a reasonable balance between the two, I think.

Also, and this was surprisingly important to me - Avernum was emotionally easy for me to play. There was one generally good side, and one generally bad side (though things did get muddier in A5 and A6). Minor quibbles aside, I felt good playing a completely Avernum-loyal party. Geneforge was just way too morally ambiguous for me. Whether you were a Shaper or a Rebel, you were still working for a bunch of dicks who had equally reasonable claims for assuming the moral high ground, and were just as culpable for the war and its consequences (and yes, I know that this adds a lot of depth to the writing).

Back in May I said I checked out the demo, but I did not actually play it until yesterday for a few hours.

First random impressions:

(*). This game is extremely mean for my get-all-loot OCD. I collected wine bottles, bricks, broken swords, ink and pens, rocks, and lots of other junks only to find out that for some of them I cannot sell, and for some other I can sell but get no money. Still, with my OCD it is hard not to pick up those junks. That is mean.

(*). The four NPCs that can join my party so far (not sure how many there are) all level up faster than my PC, even when I am not taking them on a quest. That is ridiculous and annoying.

(*). Save game file size is *huge*, although it compresses very nicely with .7z. However, the save game system is save anytime anywhere, so that is excellent in my opinion.

(*). I do not really like the premise. I mean, here I am just like a regular office worker in a despicable company. I dislike Redbeard straight away. Here there is no sense of being a hero out to save a world.

(*). Lockpicks are rare. This is annoying.

Conclusion: I will play the demo to the end, but at this point it is highly unlikely that I will buy and finish the game.

Completed the game mostly on Hard, some encounters on Normal. But didn't get the ending I want.


**************** SPOILERS *****************




I don't want to serve Avadon, I want the Tawon Empire to take over. So I fought Blackbeard first on Hard, who is equivalent to fighting Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Megatron together, but I had only 3 party members, coz I let the guy Shima was hunting live since he helped me on an earlier quest and so Shima left at the last moment.
I had to tone it down to Normal, and managed to get him to the 3rd phase and that's where he started spamming the damn soul jars every freaking 3 turns.
Gonna try reloading an earlier save, complete Shima's quest, get him to join me, buy more consumables and try, this time, with a 5 man party.



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Can someone who purchased this game from a DRM free source send me the exe file? I purchased it on amazon today and for some ungodly reason it has some pretty heavy DRM on the exe. A fixed exe is not on any of my normal sites (I assume since it is DRM free usually anyway).

Just PM me if you are willing to email me the file. It's 3MB on my machine, so no big deal. I can forward you my purchase receipt if you want.

Is there such an animal? I got it from GG, but it has SecuROM. Otherwise, I'd gladly help you out.