Doesnt everyone think there should be an avara 2.

no.

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Life is a dream. When we are born, our dream begins. When a momentous event occurs, we have rolled. When we die, we mearly awaken. Do not fear death for it is only the begining of a pause till our next life.

Well now, that would depend how one defines "should". Yes, it would be great for all of the Avara community, past and present, for an Avara 2 to come out. Would it be a money-maker, though? That's harder. Perhaps if Ambrosia put a lot into the graphics and crippled the unregistered version more effectively, they could get more sales. Perhaps.

Just a reminder, Andrew, if you happen to read this: Very few members of the Avara community know about this board. There are hotline sites, webpages, chatrooms, and mailing lists, all filled with old players who would ALL come back if there were a real upgrade (as opposed to just a fix for one of Avara's bugs). Just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there.

I would enjoy such a product and would be commited to being addicted to it! If "Avara 2" means better than the original then it is sure to be a success.

I have mixed feelings about that...

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I come, I go; You'll never know...

-Admiral Dennis
(url="http://"mailto:admiraldennis@mac.com")mailto:admiraldennis@mac.com(/url)admiraldennis@mac.com

Hi,

I have given some thought to the matter and:

If an update had any radical new features (like enhanced collision detection) there would be a sort of rift between people who have registered Avara 1.0 and those with 2.0 because they couldn't play with each other because of the differences in their systems. This could be solved by giving 1.0 users a free (or discounted) registration code for 2.0.

Also, if you where going to make it so you can use textures, then level makers would make updates for their levels and their would be even more rifts because people who (like me) play alot, but don't check the ftp servers that often would be unable to play with those who do.

And, textures would slow down the game play. Yes, I know computers are getting faster and internet connections faster, but some people don't have cable connections and G290,000,000,001s.

In conclusion, although I think a all-out upgrade would be bad a little update (like a single button that snapshots the screen without you having to pause the game) that doesn't affect the other players would be nice.

This is Crimson Panther, signing out.

A few medium-sized upgrades shouldn't be the big problem. The thing that's important is that the system requirements don't go up. Avara runs on all moderately new machines (around 1994 and up), and with virtually any sort of internet connection. And that's important.

What I would like to see is to be able to download new levels from inside the game (ala Starcraft). Perhapse a feature to connect to ftp.avara.com built into the game? Just a thought.

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Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are cruchy and taste good with catsup.

yeah i think there should be an avara 2. but i think they should start from scratch and not try to tie it in with the first one.

yeah i think there should be an avara 2. but i think they should start from scratch and not try to tie it in with the first one.

However, I was talking about Avara 2.0, not 2. The difference is that while Avara 2 would be the successor to Avara, 2.0 would just be a major upgrade. It needn't be something that changed the gameplay, rather full PPC support and various other upgrades (like, say, the ability to download levels inside the game - that kinda stuff), but nothing that would prevent users of old versions to play with new versions.

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"Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein

According to Abrosia, the amount of work they put into Avara, was not worth the profit they made off it. Though it was a great game (quite ahead of it's time) I don't think Abrosia has the time nor the manpower at this point to create a sequel to a game that essentially failed to pay for itself. Don't get me wrong Avara was one of my favorite games for a long time, it could run on just about every old mac you could think of (almost), had incredible options, great gameplay. The piracy of the game, or whatever else caused the game to not return much profit, as it should have, makes the game not look advantageous to rework the game engine for new features, including textures and new gadgets. Perhaps instead of asking Ambrosia to make the source code for Avara open source. They have already done that with Maelstrom, and perhaps, if they did make it open to the community someone could add those features that many people would like. I don't know, they may have already made it open source, but I know a number of people have brought this up, so maybe if we took Ambrosia's view on making a sequel, and see that for a company that makes the best Mac shareware games (mind you Ambrosia is not a huge company like Sierra, with money to blow, and expendible resources up the wazoo) they probably aren;t going to make a sequel, mainly because they want to make the highest quality games they can and to make a game that might in effect fail again, plus the fact that to add most of the feautures would require the game engine to be nearly completely rewritten, is just not feasible. Ambrosia is dedicated to creating the high quality software we know and love, and I would rather them spend their time making a wonderful game like Farazel's Wand, then trying to make a game that might fail again. So perhaps if we stop annoying ambrosia for a sequel and look at ourselves in the Mac community, and ask for Ambrosia to release an Open-source Avara, for us to tinker and make better, and perhaps release, they probably will listen, considering they are far from money grubbing capitalists, and obviously enjoy giving us happiness by making games of the quality they do at the prices they do, and im sure everyone in the Mac gaming community thanks Ambrosia for there dedication and hard work, and for the fact they don't make us shell out $50 for a great game like Farazel's Wand. THANKS AMBROSIA!!!!

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I am not privvy to inside info about the econmic success or failure of Avara. So my observations lack the money angle. However, looking at the game market at large, no one has yet caught on to the ideas that Avara has at its heart. The Hectors in Avara give the user the chance to demonstrate quite a bit of virtuosity in manoveurs, yet it is a complicated mess like the mechwarrior series. Even better, it is a 'lite' game that concentrates on play rather than heavy textures and complex models.

There is so much potential in these themes, but it seems that there is the belief that it is not comercially viable. Very sad.

I have also heard that there is not going to be any more Cythera development, which is equally sad. It seems like Ambrosia is starting to leave a trail of great ideas behind. These games are top rate and very entertaining, I wonder if this is a problem has a solution from some kind of business angle.

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ouch! that bomb hurt.

I think that there SHOULD be an Avara 2, but I don't want it to be like the old avara. Don't get me wrong, I love avara! but if avara 2 is going to make it in this world now, it needs to have textures, better sounds, and smoother graphics.
I think that once we get the sorce code (or have we already?), we should make it with all those things, other wise it will not be popular and avara will die. And I am sorry to those wh do not agree with me, but most everyone now has a computer that can handle better graphics, and if you don't, get one for cryin' out loud! see ya on the battle field.

-Vader

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. I've been on a roll tonight posting replies to the world. Vader-you're crazy!

Avara should have "died about 3 years ago. Back in '97! But it didn't. How many people play Mech 1? huh? not many? Quake 1? Mech 1 was kinda sad. Quake 1 was equally sad (and Q2, Q3...) Avara brings a new element to the online game community. The "po" folk! How many 14.4 modems could connect and play in Avara? 6! that's a lot of po folk! Granted we never could play a game, we could only sit and talk, but it was still fun! And we could play 1v1 compared to you-vs-you of the rest of the games (starcraft, blah blah, they all NEED 28.8's to have someone willing to play you). Avara isn't like that. It's small, and nice, and polite. And you can type cruel things to your enemies when you blasted their pathetic heavy hull sky-high with three well-placed grenades. Oh yes, I remember those days. I could watch the grenades as they slowly flew towards my poor, poor battle-scarred HECTOR. Second by second, the data transfer told me of my HECTOR's demise. and I would try again. Soon, I used the lag against my enemies. You couldn't do that in a game like Starcraft. The lag is so bad, they'll disconnect you. In Avara, you disconnect when you lag with a 9800 baud modem playing some guy in Australia with a 14.4. anyways, g'night.

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Sometimes it strikes me that the writers of free verse got their idea from incorrect proof pages. -Robert Frost

i would surely like to have an Avara 2, with textures and better network programming.... but, IMHO ambrosia doesn't gives a **** about avara.... they are thinking in other things...
i think the only way we could have an Avara 2 is by releasing the original Avara's source code... i would be very happy to work with it.
btw, did you guys seen aftershock 1.0.1? no, i didn't like it's playability too (it helped me with non-locked missiles, tho), but it's sucessor, aftershock 1.5,
has plenty of things that most people think that couldn't be done with the source...
wait and see... i promiss that you won't regret it...

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although avara2 would be better than AS i still dont know if it would be any good judging by the success of AS. to make a long story short it would have to be hella good or no one will really play it.

Oh, you better believe it will be worth it.. not saying it's an Avara 2 or anything, although if, when it comes out, you want to make that conclusion, then you may do so.

To us, it isn't. Although, I must say, that Aftershock 1.5 is leaps and bounds better than Aftershock 1.0.1. I didn't realize just how "poor" 1.0.1's gameplay was until we got the missile compromise working with Aftershock, as well as lower grenade power..

And lets just say that Aftershock 1.5's coolness doesn't stop at gameplay.. As nightdog mentioned, there are things that we simply thought could not be done without the source.. true, GR had to do a little extra hacking.. you'll see.

All I'm going to tell you is that there are two features/things (on the top of my head) that we've hacked in. That's all you're going to get, for now.

- Ryan

Well if people want the code all we have to do is set up some server space, make a license for usage, and mail it off to Juri. He said that if we do all that, he thinks that he can find the time to fix up a package with all the avara code, as well as the modifications he has made to the engine for other products. If your interested in doing either of these things mail me at (url="http://"mailto:macaran@writeme.com")mailto:macaran@writeme.com(/url)macaran@writeme.com

We (the Avara community) have tried that once before... it failed miserably after what? 4 months of talk and 6 months of planning? something like that.

It's hopeless, we're all too lazy ;0)

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Sometimes it strikes me that the writers of free verse got their idea from incorrect proof pages. -Robert Frost