Dryhad

So I've finally decided to replay GeneForge 1 and go through the effort of touching all the stone pillars. And I found the lore behind the Shapers and Sucia to be incredibly fascinating. How the Shapers went from shooting magic radiation at their enemies to give them cancer to discovering Genes and self-sealing (although not many people know either fact) I love the irony when the Shapers denounce the natives as backwards savage, only to not only be their descendants but some have also repeated the Sucians' mistakes (attempting to transcend death via necromancy). I'm sad that there wasn't more lore. Are there any more explorations of Shapers' history in later games? I hope I was missing something.

So I just heard that Jeff is considering remaking GeneForge and retiring. I'm wondering how this will go down in terms of game mechanics. Avadon introduced a skill tree for each character class, which was inherited by the Avernum remakes in the form of generic character skill trees. This sounds like it would be great in GeneForge, which I will argue has the least amount of depth in character creation of any Spiderweb Software game. I'd love to see more diversification between each of the character classes. For example, a Shaper might prefer to let his creations to do the work, so he focuses on mental magic and blessing magic. He might prefer to use many disposable creations, so creation costs for him are lower. In contrast, a Lifecrafter is more involved and works alongside his creations, so his skill tree gives bonuses for battle magic and blessing magic. He might prefer a small group of powerful creations that he would not risk losing, so his creations might be naturally more powerful but have greater cost. But I'm 30% sure that this situation will happen. Mostly because if Jeff decides to remake the entire series with the class trees, he'd have to make 9 different skill trees for each of the classes to diversify them. What do you guys think, would it be worth adding unique skill trees to GeneForge like Avadon? What about Avernum's method, where every class will share a common generic skill tree? Would you rather scrap the skill tree for something else? What features from the new games should GeneForge adapt?

It occurred to me that I usually end up with a surplus of gold at the end of every Spiderweb game, except on torment and hard I suppose. The house buying in Avadon 2 could have been expanded on. I feel like Jeff missed an opportunity to try something a bit...experimental (not good, but a little different). Since Avadon is a wreck in the second game, the PC could invest cash that he earns in purchasing repairs for the fortress. Since there is, I believe, a limited amount of gold, the player will have to make choices on what rooms to reopen. A room can give extra quests, opens shops stocked with artifacts, improve the morale of the people in Avadon, or offer more training opportunities for the player. The rooms could even affect the ending that you get (like purchasing military rooms restores Avadon's ability to fight against the Farlanders). A few examples of rooms would be -WAR HALL (2000 Gold) - The War Hall is used by Redbeard and the commanding officers of Avadon to plan and coordinate operations across Lynaeus. This room improves Avadon's influence on Lynaeus. Effects for the PC: Hand Callan is relocated here and gives you more quests. Her rewards are mainly scarabs and rune stones. -RUNIC FURNACE (3000 Gold) - The Runic Furnace is a massive structure that serves as Avadon's source of enchanted items and arcane items. This improves Avadon's military power, espionage and magic capabilities by providing its agents with suitable equipment. Effects for the PC: Craftmaster Nicodemius wanders here and offers to combine the items he's crafted for you into more potent items.

I kind of like these suggestions, in a perfect world, maybe Jeff could implement these and other suggestions and GeneForge would be world famous. Yeah, melee sucks, everyone knows that. The first three GeneForge games were made roughly around the time of the first three Avernum games, and borrowed on the combat. So it's to be expected that the melee is kind of boring. I would say the laziest solution is to implement the melee abilities from Avernum and call it a day. I like where your going by making multi-attack dependent on melee and improving crit on missiles. Melee builds are usually durable and they can survive long enough for multi-attack procs to whittle enemies down. Whereas Ranged builds tend to be fragile and the crit will help them burst enemies before they can touch them. The idea of a third "perfected" tier is kind of interesting, though it doesn't really follow with GeneForge's story, I can see it being implemented in the game. It's been explained that new creation models are found by bombarding pre-existing organisms with magical radiation, in hopes of finding something useful. Even the rebels do this, despite knowing how genes work. So finding a "perfect" model of a creation is really unlikely. The Bad, Good, and Golden were pretty cool to read. The strongest point of each ending, is that they feel like sub-factions within the factions themselves. The rebel endings are the most obvious examples, where the rebels have broken into three different branches: Drakons, Humans and Serviles, but each have their own take on the rebel ideology. Some of the endings sound weak or completely boring. Take for example, Alwan's bad ending, where you have this massive melee fight that... With GeneForge's combat engine, that would be unbearable. I suspect that you're familiar with the area south of Perikalia in GeneForge 5, where rogues invade the city. That was the WORST area for me. I'd rather grind through the entire game on Torment with nothing but ornks, because there were so many NPCs and enemies on that map that I had to wait 1 minute between each turn. I got so bored that I just hid from the rogues, until the guards or rogues were slaughtered. Nevertheless, if GeneForge had this elaborate of a story, I would have no doubt that it would be compared to something like PlaneScape: Torment.

I recently finish GeneForge 3 (lovely game, I liked it), by finishing as a rebel. While I was playing GeneForge 4, I asked Greta about her past and she mentioned a "Shaper" she was travelling with (which is almost certainly the PC in GF3). She said she left the "Shaper" and Alwan, which gives me the impression that the canonical path was to be pro-shaper. So I'm curious, what are the canonical endings for the GeneForge series? -GeneForge 1 - I think you're either the Awakened or Obeyers, because I believe at some point in GeneForge 2, the Takers mention a Shaper who murdered their leader in Kazg. The ending where you use the GeneForge and become a powerhungry bastard probably isn't canon, because you would have been infamous. -GeneForge 2 - GF2 is probably not Taker, because in GF3, someone says that a Shaper snuck in and murdered Easss. -GeneForge 3 - GF3 is pro-shaper ending. -GeneForge 4 - GF4 is pro-rebel I think, because you unleash the Unbound, but then the Trakovites have a similar ending.