I got bogged down in the middle of Avernum 1. It seemed like it wanted to be linear with the difficulty curve but was open so there was a lot of wandering around, trial and error. I lost interest. I liked the setting. The gameplay was decent but I didn't like the structure and pacing of the game. Is Avernum 2 better? Can I skip 1 and try 2? Or if I didn't like 1 is it worth trying 2?...

What am I missing?? I've cleared the place out, I have a phoenix egg, and I'm pretty sure I've talked to every major and a bunch of non-major mages in Avernum (Erika, Solberg, Thompson, Ostoth [I've already gotten his key and been to his room in the Tower of Magi], Elna, Linda, X, even the vanahtai, among others) multiple times, and I still don't have the option to use the phoenix egg to rescue the crystal soul. It's the only one I don't have. I'm completely stumped after a couple hours of wandering around...

I know Jeff has said he's getting close to retiring, won't release another new game series after Queen's Quest, and will only being doing remasters after Queen's Quest 3 (I think the plan is for three of those, but I don't know if that's actually confirmed anywhere) until he calls it a career. Since his attention seems to be only on Geneforge remakes and Queen's Quest at this point, and it would take him I guess 5-10 years to get Geneforge 2-5 done while also doing QQ3 at some point, is there any hope he'...

So due to my certain OCD of exploring everything, I cleared out the bandits below the fort. Went to the commander there and got the quest to do so only to find out I can't progress since it's registering as they haven't been dealt with. I'm having a small deja vu feeling this happened to me in the previous games. Are there any work arounds or fixes? :/...

Or are they not that related?