Avadon: The Black Fortress Interview
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2. Another aspect of the screenshots that's hard to miss is the skill/spell tree. What's the rundown? How do Specializations fit into this?Jeff also reveals that his team is working on upgraded versions of Avernum 1, 2, and 3. I really need to go back and try some of his earlier titles, so this reworking might be the push I need.
Each level, you can put more points into the skill tree. As you go higher in the tree, you get new abilities. As you put more points into specific skills, you get other abilities. Thus, you can gain potent powers by putting lots of points in down low or higher up.
Different parts of the tree give skills that work in different ways (melee vs missile, nukes vs blessings) and specializations help with specific areas.
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7. You've mentioned that tactical combat in the new game will be "more elaborate". In what ways? How do the changes square with your previously stated belief that "if you want lots of tactical choices, single-player RPGs, any of them, are really not where you should be going"?
Like all of our previous games, you will find yourself in a wide variety of tactical situations and fight through scripted encounters with lots of phases, tricks, and so on. In addition, because of the occasional shifts in the characters in your group and the distinctive ways the different character classes play, there will be a lot of opportunities to evaluate your strategies and develop new ones.
As for the quote given, what I was saying there (and what I still believe) is that computer RPGs will never reach the level of tactical sophistication of Go or Chess or large-scale wargaming, simply due to the smaller number of units involved. But RPG battles can still make you think, and that's what I'm going for.
