alhoon

3 hours ago, Triumph said:

Your persistent unwillingness to play original Geneforge never ceases to amuse, Alhoon. Your dedication is impressive.  😂

The remake is on the plans. I have resisted for 3+ years, I can resist for 1 1/2 more. I had trouble reconciling with GF2 bizarre inventory and mechanics despite the nice story. I don't want to spoil GF1.

35 minutes ago, TheKian said:

 I'm just saying that there was a literal FREAKING ORNK GOD in Geneforge 1, so there is probably something about Ornks the Shapers don't realize.

There was what?! Damn... that remake can't come fast enough!

If it was not intentional, or at the very least, desirable by the Shaper that made it, they would have absorbed the Ornk immediately, not sent it to the foundry for evaluation.

Well, the Ornk escaped. The ornk. So I guess not.

2 hours ago, TheKian said:

If I recall correctly, the soldier who gives you the quest says that the Shaper was experimenting with different types of brains and found the Ornk to simply be a useful creation to use to test them. It makes sense, in a way - why would you want an extremely intelligent creation that can burn your face or crush your spine or (very practically) run away?

 

Ahem... let's take a moment to recall that Drayks, the exact definition of what you said, have been created centuries before the sentient ornk and they were far smarter from what I see of them. It indeed makes sense to start with Ornks.

But... when you want to impress your superiors, you go for the smart deathmachine and laugh at the guys over the other side working on smart ornks, rubbing your hands in glee that you will get the promotion and the funding. Well, we all saw how that turned out for the wiped-from-history guys that created the Drayks.

And then we had the Barzites that said "You know what? Let's go for EVEN MORE intelligence and power for our creations and make Drakons! We will totally make it if we have a stick that keeps them in pain." 

I think it's a big taboo for Shapes to create wannabe rogues. Of course, it's not impossible that they would do something like that.

But if someone created this to see how loyal sentient ornks would be in the face of death he was asking for trouble.

I also remember the Shapers that make Drayks to study them in GF4 and GF5... they are creating sentient things with the very purpose to kill them shortly, often in a violent way. Or the Shapers that made a disease by accident in GF3.

17 hours ago, Affable said:

Playing G5 again after a few months, looking out for quests or events I missed my last playthrough. One thing I was certain I missed was the true staple of the Geneforge series: the Ornk Boss. Surprisingly, I found out that it was the basis of an actual quest in Haria-Kel, to recover a modified Ornk so it can be evaluated at the Foundry. ALSO surprisingly, this Ornk was modified by its Shaper to be-- I'm sorry, can you run that by me again? More... intelligent? An Ornk? The food animal? Okay, how intelligent is it? ...Smart enough to get a sense of its ultimate fate (getting cut up at the Foundry), decide that its story didn't end there, and undo its bonds and escape when its handler was asleep? Okay then, just one question:

What is the benefit to that?

So I go out to the Okavano, and what do I find? A bunch of Ornks... rather strong, feral Ornks. They seem friendly enough, though. I look through the herd, checking for the white patch to identify my quarry. Finally I come across an Ornk that seems... Ornkier than the others. I check for the patch, but THIS Ornk is unusually filthy... I dive for it, but it's too fast for me (what)! It's definitely my target. I make for it, but then it starts screaming. Not mooing, not squealing. Screaming. Words. "Help me! Help me!" The Ornk can think. Now, I ask everyone here today: why this? Why would someone Create this?

That's a very Trakovite-like question... *squints eyes suspiciously*

16 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Shapers are strange and not in a good way. Making an intelligent Ornk shows that being powerful doesn't mean also intelligent. It might not have been a rational reason why it was made. It might have been to settle a drunken bar bet.

Well, it potentially took months of work, perhaps years. I doubt a Shaper just boosted the Ornk's "intelligence" to the max.

And then, it would have been sent to the foundry to be evaluated.

Regardless I would agree that the Shapers are strange and not in a good way and take it a step further:

Shapers are EVIL and need to be replaced.

A suffering sentient Ornk is by far not the only thing. New servile variants the ones supposedly built with loyalty boosts probably had a couple of ancestors cut up in the Foundry. Battle Alphas and Thands can occasionally talk and may decide to rebel. There was one rebellious sentient Thahd you send to the Rebellion in GF4 or GF5 I think. (You know, to the non-auto-enslaving creations side).

I never sent that Ornk away to die.

@Affable: There's only one thing you can do for the poor creature and only one answer to your questions:

GF3 should also see some polishing and love.

Good!
Could you perhaps link the other scripting thread we had a couple of years ago when I was making the Warrior Mod? There was good stuff there.

Something that one should keep in mind about the states: There can be only 8 visible answers. You can have as many "state 180" as you like, but they should either show up with different conditions (like a flag from a quest being at a value etc) or only the first 8 will show up.

Another hidden limit, aside of the 256 letters per paragraph, is the number of texts. Again, you can't have more than 8 text paragraphs in the same state. If you use a picture, like the tutorial pictures use, these may take up some of your possible text paragraphs.

A third and important limit, is the size of the file. You can't have a text file that is more than a certain number of kb. About 117-118 kb. So if you start adding new creations and items in the "gf5itemschars.txt" keep in mind that the game may crush quite soon.  

The Ur Drakon has a different attack IIRC. For Drakon, just give them more levels in the attack. Use the GF4 files to see how they were.

Yeap. Copy-paste. And remember the size should be the same!

Use the drakon from the GF4 one, since there are different number of sprites between GF2 and GF5.

39 minutes ago, Adrian11 said:

Could you make a mod to replace G5 the drakon/ur-drakon with the model and abilities of the G2/G3 drakon and ur-drakon? Because IDK what Jeff was smoking when he nerfed them and replaced the model with what looks like a McDonalds toy that survived a factory fire.

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is yes, but they won't be as big.

Same here...

I tested it and it works. 

Geneforge 3 player didn't go to Sucia though and the Monarch is very old. Geneforge 3 to Geneforge 4 is just 7 years. Monarch would be 23-26 years old in that case.

Seems true, but I didn't have a problem stopping anything. Perhaps if I go to that hidden boss you said.

You got Ur-drakons? I didn't manage to get even the 2nd canister I think, let along the 3rd. If it was at the finale, I didn't see the reason anyway as my trusty Drakon had leveled significantly and would probably be better than a brand new Ur-Drakon. And cheaper, allowing me to use more spells.

Well, it's not like I played it recently either...  I could be wrong too.

12 hours ago, Randomizer said:

Jeff replaces named characters with equivalents if you kill them earlier in the game. He does it in other games.

 

The hidden Shaper camp before Northforge is harder, but Delicious Vlish mentioned wiping it out.

Are you sure? I didn't see an agent in the group the Shapers sent in Northforge after killing Miranda.

Frankly, their invasion was a joke while in the Warrens they were harder. I could just sit back and the NPCs would butcher everyone. Akhari Blaze and Greta killed Alwan, so I probably haven't killed him in the Warrens though. I remember that cause I tried hard to make sure that Greta would be the one to kill Alwan.

Oh, you mean when they're in the machinery place? Yes, I did that and killed Miranda there. I thought you meant when they were in their secret camp, all together, before they leave for Northforge.

Well, the developer doesn't know what happened to every player's character so the canon path is that he's not mentioned aside of the references to the "3rd Shaper".

I also think that the canonical approach lends from the finale of the previous games but doesn't choose one of them completely. So, what happened in GF3 Rebel ending is not necessarily what happened canonically.

GF4 storyline as far as GF3 goes is what they tell you: The Rebellion started and won in the Ashen Isles, there was an attack at Greenwood Academy by Litalia and Greta, Alwan and a 3rd Shaper escaped. Greta joined the nice mass murderer lady that killed her friends, colleagues and teachers and filled the island with monsters.

The who and what and how are considered "details".

8 hours ago, Lilith said:

Another challenge you could try to take on if you're on the Rebel path is clearing out Alwan's assault group when you first encounter them in Northforge Warrens, instead of scouting the area and retreating as the game tells you to do.

I tried that.

They wiped the floor with me.

Never really did that one. Is it worth it to play this zone enjoyment-wise in your opinion? I don't care about loot and stuff since I will go there using my end-game save.

Ehh... it's not exactly as you think. Also you get on the other side of that gate 3 years later. It is not necessary to defeat the force guarding that side.

Actually... TheKian, could you make a mod to add another 1-2 areas beyond that gate?

Since GF4 and GF5 use the same mapping for terrain etc, I could map them if you want and give you the hex files to add there, but I cannot do a full mod about those areas, adding items, NPCs, stories, scripts etc.