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Geneforge 3 remake speculation


Owenmoz

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Time to replay the series, just to hype myself up for the rewrite. I'm pretty sure he's gonna go through g1 and g2 first, and that it's mainly just going to be an interface/graphic update (to make it more similar to G5 gameplay-wise). I hope the spell/creation choices stay the same though - it reflects the evolving knowledge in war over time.

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I had no huge issue with the boat system because the island thing was cool. Made it seem big and exciting.

 

Though god forbid the implementation of skill trees. I liked being able to cast aura of flames even as a guardian. The balance was pretty good i think in terms of combat and such.

 

With the exception of Khyryk there was a noticeable lack of charming or interesting characters. So rewriting everyone would be cool.

Litalia being iconic however should still remain a heavy handed terrorist, staining her image otherwise would sorta ruin it. In g3 i think it was important that she showed no emotion. However; other rebels could profit of a serious rewrite of lankan(i personally think there should be a diplomatic option that solves everything but gives a pro rebel rep(real shapers smite them all for insolence) his unwillingness to compromise makes him the trademark rebel attitude, so caught up in the righteousness of their cause that they are completely blind to the consequences of their actions)

Gull's and Dohnal's islands should also have a better rebel presence and likewise a better shaper presence(add a few moderates in it)

They are both turning points on faction choice so put me in a position i have to choose two "equally" wprthy causes than just chosing between lawful evil and chaotic evil.

 

Spells and creations should be the same i agree(tbh prefer them to the purifying rain and shock rain kinda things.) Creatures should be the same but alhoon's idea of doing actual research could be a huge plus on the game. However i am a strong voter for implementing a completely different set of creatures in g1 in line with illegal, barred and experimental shaping present in it. As the first geneforge is the hallmark of shaping in all of history, i don't think tech plays a role. Its just a different line of research. I think only g1 could have a skill tree if that were the case

 

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Not everything in the real world has a nice diplomatic option that solves everything. Lankan frustrated me to no end and I love his character for that. I loathe him at the same time and it frustrates me that killing him brings such censure from the shapers too.

 

This is grey area done right. Sadly from about that point on the game loses more and more grey area until we end up with G5 which is a game in which everyone can win. I mean, I literally went in and caused a mass genocide at the end of that game and got a pretty bloody good game ending. G1 and G2 had a lot more grey area, at least in my misty memory they did (likely not that much in practice).

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I literally went in and caused a mass genocide at the end of that game and got a pretty bloody good game ending.

Well, that's opinion. Your ending seemed pretty bad to me. The afore-mentioned genocide, setting civilization back to the dark ages and causing a famine to boot (Ornks died) and the Shaper Tyranny restored.

That is for me a nightmarish ending...

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It should have been worse. What happened was monstrous but that the ending text allowed even something partially good to come out shows how the thing tried to cater to everyone. 'We can all be winners'.

 

I'm probably in a minority here but I think that there are occasions where a bad ending can be warranted. Maybe a you tell redbeard you don't care about his rules and will follow what you see fit (only to find out immediately why he is the single most dangerous man on the continent), or maybe you ensure mass destruction of 90% of the biomass of the continent via a plague. But then again, that is my idea of fun and I am very sure that not everyone thinks like that. Jeff has made a good business and storytelling decision by allowing different endings to be viable.

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The most frustrating thing about Lankan is that the game explicitly asks you, via Norrell, to look for a diplomatic solution, and thinking about Lankan's claims for half a second suggests an obvious one. There should at least be a dialogue option to propose that solution even if that only leads to him explicitly rejecting it. He doesn't even have to give a sympathetic reason (although not having one will still add to the game's overall problem of not generating sympathy for the rebels).

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Well, fixing the island-hopping issue with the boats would be a great start.

If that was the only change, it still would be a phenomenal improvement. Walking all the way across two (or more) zones every time you want to go back to a previous island is just nuts. The system as is would be fine if there was rarely or never a reason to backtrack, which in my experience is not the case here.

 

(Ornks died)
It should have been worse.

How could anything be worse than that?

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How could anything be worse than that?

If the living tools and batons and the doors and the machinery and loyal serviles also died!

Which happened.

 

Think Mega-EMPs all across earth, frying all electronics, everywhere. Except failing to destroying the tanks and cruise missiles of the enemy but still without electronics, they were not performing well. (Drakons and Unbound were weakened but not killed. Soldiers-without-batons had to kill them the normal way)

That's the equivalent of what happened.

 

Oh, and you still don't get rid of the oligarchy; the oligarchy retains power since they are the only ones that can make electronics. No Twitter for you pleb. No Ipad.

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I think you've misunderstood my comment. By 'should have been worse' I meant the ending was too soft. Some stuff died, Taygens wife died, a few humans, etc. Whoop de doo. I saved the world the same as every other ending saves the world. (don't debate this point - it would be intentionally missing my point further)

 

I think the ending should have been suitably abhorrent to match the disgusting actions the player had just done. Widespread destruction, and so on and so forth. I've said it a few times but I am all for leading the player down the garden path and then giving them something they deserve rather than something they want. Other threads in this forum have ripped into me for this view but I think not telling the player what is going to result from their actions is a good thing; let them think they are fighting for a good ending but give them a suitable response to their actions. This is how the real world works, not everything is cherries and icecream - actions have consequences and many of them are unforeseen.

 

 

If I have to be critical it is that Spiderweb games tend to be a little bit generous with responses to player actions (obviously for the sake of gameplay).

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Ohhh... I get you now. To avoid spoiling other endings for you, I'll go with a theoretical GF4 example: Say you complete the Unbound... and the Drakons are not able to control them for more than a few minutes, they break loose inside the Drakon Capital, the fail-safes don't work well enough and Ghaldring and half the rebellion dies by their own superweapon.

Something like that?

 

 

Well, I will not attack you, and apologies if I ever made you think I was ripping on you, but I disagree with your view. To do that, would just be cruel to the majority of players for no reason, since it was an unforeseen consequence that you had no way to stop.

To go back to your Taygen example, even the "few people" dying was an unforeseen event. Taygen's wife was killed for story reasons to show the folly of the man and how he lost his final grip with humanity.

As you said in you ending, Taygen won the war. In a horrible way, worse than I would imagine possible even for his plan, but he did. Why rob the player of a good feeling? Actions have consequences and more often than not these consequences are not random. To go down this path, the player would either agree with Taygen (as I suppose you did at the time, haven't finished your series) or stand there horrified about what happened.

Sure, there could be more text about the suffering. Something along the lines of "During the years of famine that followed, twice as many people died than the casualties caused by the rebellion. Widespread violence by desperate, famished people in the rural areas that suddenly became devoid from Alphas claimed more lives as the Shapers replied with brutality and efficiency. " would perhaps be appropriate.

 

There is another ending that gives the "and despite that, they all lived well". Two I would actually say. There is one ending, for one faction, that I agree with you: It's inexcusably good for what went down. IMO Taygen's ending is not in that category.

 

If I decide to jump from 5meters height, I'll break a leg. Action, consequence. Sure, I may meet the love of my life as a nurse in the hospital, marry and have kids. Unforeseen consequence.

But more often than not, I'll just be in pain for a month.

 

 

Unfortunatelly, I don't have time to give you a more detailed opinion. :(

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As for not giving spoilers, I find it amusing that you spoiled the only Geneforge game I haven't completed :D

Unintended consequence perhaps?

I... forgot that you haven't finished GF4. But still, that was a far fetched example. I won't tell you HOW each side reacts.

I'll just tell you that the Trakovite end is the only one that made me feel OK about my decisions and didn't make me feel cheated (rebels) or dirty (Shapers).

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I... forgot that you haven't finished GF4. But still, that was a far fetched example. I won't tell you HOW each side reacts.

I'll just tell you that the Trakovite end is the only one that made me feel OK about my decisions and didn't make me feel cheated (rebels) or dirty (Shapers).

 

Interesting. I've heard that the G4 Trakovite ending is very unsatisfying. It was actually a factor prodding me towards the Trakovites in G5 since I suspected the ending would be better and more complete. Obviously not enough of a factor to reign in my genocidal tendencies but definitely a factor worth brief consideration.

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Interesting. I've heard that the G4 Trakovite ending is very unsatisfying. It was actually a factor prodding me towards the Trakovites in G5 since I suspected the ending would be better and more complete. Obviously not enough of a factor to reign in my genocidal tendencies but definitely a factor worth brief consideration.

 

I actually felt almost the opposite way; the G4 Trakovite ending isn't especially happy (none of the G4 endings are, for various reasons), but it's a logical consequence of your actions, while the G5 Trakovite path feels to me like it pulls a happy ending out of thin air in a way that directly contradicts key themes of the series.

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I actually felt almost the opposite way; the G4 Trakovite ending isn't especially happy (none of the G4 endings are, for various reasons), but it's a logical consequence of your actions, while the G5 Trakovite path feels to me like it pulls a happy ending out of thin air in a way that directly contradicts key themes of the series.

 

I think the only problem on the g4 trajkovite ending is that there is not enough need for it, both shaper and revel sides are almost overpoweringly charming. To the point that dooming the rebelion or releasing mayhem into the world is easy to do. On g5 the whole thing gets old and trajkovites become more charming as sn option to deny both sides victory.

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I actually felt almost the opposite way; the G4 Trakovite ending isn't especially happy (none of the G4 endings are, for various reasons), but it's a logical consequence of your actions, while the G5 Trakovite path feels to me like it pulls a happy ending out of thin air in a way that directly contradicts key themes of the series.

 

My thoughts exactly, although I wouldn't spoil it more. Just saying Trako is an interesting path in GF5.

OK, I'll spoil a little more. You work for Litalia. You will need your genocidical tendencies.

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  • 2 months later...

Wish I'd seen this topic when it first started, but still, better late to the party than never, as I too have some thoughts on how I'd improve game 3. Not from a gameplay perspective, as I do think it's a well designed game, and wouldn't change much there, but from a plot one.

 

1) Change the Harmony Island plot to make Lankan more sympathetic. Alter the backstory so that instead of him hitting the Shaper who's name I can't spell, the Shaper hit him. Not in a malicious way, no, just in a way that makes sense. For instance, the Shaper is dealing with creations that he's just starting to have trouble controlling. The problem has only been going on a few days, but with so many people killed, Lankan wants to know what the Shaper is doing about it, being the self appointed leader. He walks up to the Shaper, who when he gets enraged after all the demands, yells at Lankan, who tries to grab him. In response to the 'threat, the battle beta that the Shaper was working on moves. Now, the Shaper admits, he could have stopped it with a thought, but instead he allows the Beta to hit Lankan, not hard enough to break bones, but enough to send him into a heap.

 

Lankan, recovering from the blow, is healed by the Shaper, who simply orders him away, telling him he's busy. Lankan, after seeing that he's healed, declares the Shaper tried to kill him for speaking up, and when the Shaper protests, Lankan decides to attack him in fact. The hit is fast enough that the Shaper and the creations can't react, but when they start to come after him, Lankan flees. Suddenly he's able to say the Shaper attacked him first, while everyone with loyalty to the Shapers says he brought it on himself on hearing the full story. He then marches off, bringing people with him into the swamp.

 

2) Allow for you to expose Lankan to his followers. Not just in telling the full story of what happened above, but actually able to talk to them about how the person Lankan wants help from, is in fact the same one who created the rogues. Then you can have a big conversation wherein everyone is yelling at him, and he protests that they need the power to protect themselves. About how the actions of the Rebels have only proved the Shapers don't care about them. You can then, with a high enough leadership, get the swamp dwellers to turn on him, either violently or peacefully. In the former, they tear him limb from limb, and go back to their homes, horrified by what they did. In the later, they leave him alone in the camp, with Norrell convincing the Shaper(I know his name starts with a D), to declare their living in the swamp like that punishment enough.

 

3) The Third Island needs more events. Or rather, it needs more connectivity between events, with the western half of the island actually controlled by the Rebellion. None of what it is now, wherein the Rebels are just disrupting things, but instead them trying to create more areas like on Gull Island. Free Cities, out of Shaper Control. Just a town or two, showing them tending to the serviles and humans they'd freed would be enough to garner sympathy from some people, maybe even have a servile hospital for those who had been left behind, front and center. Putting their best foot forward as it was, before Gull Island shows their darker side.

 

4) Give more characters screen time. There's people like Erika who is in the camp and needs your help dealing with the disruption, and then she herself comes to help deal with the creator. People like that fleshed out a bit more would work. Maybe she's one of the people in that Fort your arrive on Island Three that you get to talk to, a shaper coming to rest and resupply at one of the few safe havens, able to show their human side as she helps heal some of the more distressed creations, and even the people, but then shows her devotion to the shaper cause when you meet her on the road. She's cornered a servile, and you only get to watch as she dominates the rebelling creation, and then absorbs it after asking it questions.

 

5) Open up the Isle of Spears a bit more. Due to the way it works, if you're pro-rebel, you'll only see a small part of the island, as the rest is forbidden to you. Worse the parts you do see seem to paint the rebels in an awful light, showing how far down they're willing to go to win, and that what they're fighting for isn't even freedom, it's merely to change whose on top. Gull Island shows pretty much the same thing, but here it just confirms those suspicions, and it really takes all my sympathy for them away. Instead of showing them being jerks to each other, maybe show individual settlements you can visit, oh, and remember to include some normal humans in the mix too. As it is, the rebels in game 3 have only one or two humans in their ranks, with the rest being Shapers(Arguably not normal humans), and creations. Show us the people who are so fed up with the Shapers now, that they've thrown their lots in with these monster.

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