Owenmoz

I wpuld sugest ensnaring turret, frost turret, healing turret and something else. Use the summon aid wands. And when the horrors arive try to take them out as fast as possible while remembering to have something/someone taking the dragon. This might take a few turns but try also to place the turrets far away from eachother. He has about 3 turns for every turn you have so when you get a turn its key you use as many items to compensate before using a skill. But if you intend to fight redbeard, the god and other boss fights, dont use up rare items(ie circle of fire, ressurection, speed burst etc) like use them, you'll need it but use responsibly. Thats the best advice i can give

I didn't want to wake up but this made it worth it. The whole comment was one of the best things i read the whole week. Thanks man xD EDIT: you're competing with possible peace in syria here.

Yeah reduced companion crew options would solve that. Also im thinking. Thats the thing prequels are constrained due to cannon ends. Sequels are constrained due to cannon beginings. To be honest i'd enjoy any. Its not likelly to happen though.

Miranda was by far my favorite character in all the games. So down tp earth. While she didnt treat you like an equal in the begining man did she not have the self righteous atitude about her. And later on she has even more chill. If there was one thing that pulled me to side with the shapers was miranda. And killing her as a rebel sided player was more hard than killing alwan(although noteworthy very hard to do too) Talking about sprites has anyone pulled out the green one? I usually do default and/or blue. On shaper robes i think at one point it is said that they are given to you once you become a full shaper. A mark of honor more than anything else. I'd understand the uncerimonial simple one from the first two. But i also understand the embroided type fancy one from the last three. I had to agree with idontexist over the new guardians seeming slightly obese and less imposing than the first ones. But the first were just plain. And showed little to no distinction to the rest of the military units.

You can add one or two. Along the game you'll get items, quests and canisters that will increase endurance for you. And you cant unspend the skill points. So and this is just according to me, just spend the skill points when you need to. But your build is good. Ignore battle shapping mostly besides plated bug nothing is usefull.

Ok, i think i have to call on both of you not to get too territorial with the ideas. Just try to get where one and the other is coming from ok? This was going much better when we were contributing and cooperating. I think the concept has room for both ideas to merge at the cost of some compromise i guess cause you both have good ideas. Now I want to say i agree with i dont exist when it comes to your own place, tbh i got the idea first after getting done with cratoa-kel(or how you pronounce it? At the end of mera tev in geneforge 5) And i figured, it would be pretty neat to get your own fortress to protect/upgrade and organise, like the warden's keep in awakening except where you get new traders to sell in, they give you better prices, you upgrade your units, organise your creations and the like, get an anvil at some point etc. I'd like it to be raided with some frequence for like extra fun extra strategy and experience. In an arcade-ish way. But im guessing that could be the ship. But its slightly more complicated to map a ship and naval battles and so on. But i like the ship idea. Like one place where you're the boss and you control what happens. Second while i agree that bringing too much outside forces and kingdoms and factions would make it a little bit like avadon and very not centric to the main story. But i also think they should be there. If you start as a sholai and its a seafaring game it would make sense that terrestria wont be the only place you explore. Maybe not too many other kingdoms. But im thinking at least two. And a bunch of minor civilisations that would act as servile cultist regions. Just for lore sake. I'd love it if the was a place made of ruins from another place. Like in geneforge 1. So just sholai and shapers seems a bit empty unless you're flying solo. I.e. my idea on top. But as part of a nation and capitain of a ship or what its best to have a bigger world. Maybe not engage all of it at the same time. Or like avernum and mass effect. I would also like a conceptually scary main antagonist but i feel like there must be a build up to it. Maybe its only slightly mentioned in the first, introduced in the second and fought in the third. It has to be ancient and powerfull. The rest can be figured out over time. I have to stress that i like the refugee crisis idea. Gives for more realism when it comes to the sholai people. And i want to insist on the avernum style mainmap. On shaping. I love shaping one main reason i loved the geneforge series. But if you want a dragon age/mass effect/avadon style rooster where you pick people. Specially if they have back stories or contribute/react differently to your actions it would be unlikelly you choose your creations over them. It g3 it was easy because they were just 2 and in g2 you'd favour your own creations due to the fact that you can control them. So unless you have limited recruits it would be complicated. I suppose maybe creations could only be used in the ship? Or idk. It doesnt matter much. It can be figured out. I'd rather have shaping but on this line due to setting and mechanisms its not necessary. I just had an idea for a minor boss fight. A proto shaper. That could twist you and your party into different creations at any point temporarilly. So during the fight you could fight him as a fiora and as a gazer etc.. Of course each time he shifts you you lose health and you can only access your inventory in human form. So only the still humans in the party could heal you. That would be neat. Im thinking i agree with hyena of ice's timeline for the game but. Maybe first game during g3, second slightly after/during g5 and the last later. Otherwise no refuge crisis. On the usurper, the thing about trajkov even if he was a very fair leader on his ending, going for him wasnt the natural course if anything the game sorta tried to position you against him. Same with barzhal(he wasnt fair though), and the rebels in g3, i guess g4 was the only really balanced game in that aspect. You didnt want to betray the rebels and you didnt really want to release the unbound so people ended up opting for the powergame. What im trying to say is i dont want one faction to be obviously more favored than another. I want people to have a really hard time choosing and the choices to be fairly distributed. And deff yeah. Blades of geneforge would be awesome. Its so unfortunate jeff won't do it And back to what i said first. In all likellyhood there wont be any geneforge 6 or a spin off. So there is no need to be overly assertive on your positions. They are just ideas and i think blend them in and you have a solid and diverse interesting plot/concept. Feel me? Not that i never do it, i think even in this thread i have been a little here and there. But colaboration in better than antagonism.

Wouldn't it be neat if the main character from avadon3 was a farlander? Like on geneforge 4. Im not sure how and if they gain access to the fortress but it would be cool to have farlander options.

I made the thread on buying the rights. Unlikelly to happen. But this all seems like such a good idea just to throw away. And yeah. Using modern day institutions as base adds for realism of the game. I like the subfactions idea. I dont likw the stereotypical power crazed usurper idea. I strongly believe in morally ambiguous factions. I also liked how you included shapping into it. But i'd find it complicated in terms of mechanics since ifyou have an avernum style party with mass effect/avadon recruitment build creations couldnt fit. At most they would be non permanent summoning style things. And i agree with geneforge 3 style mapping for internal ones. So much potential... *cries*. also yah got the deleted scripts but i liked how alwan developed. I was happy to see both of them in the later games. They really change over time become somehow alike. And despise for eachother got molded into mutual respect

So inspired by nercis omega's thread and a short conversation with hyena of ice where they sugested a spinoff of geneforge rather than a continuation if were it to happen. I went to thinking about the future of the company. As most people seem to think Jeff will stop at Avadon with a very possible remake of geneforge and then retirement. Of course he hasnt said anything officially. But in case it does happens, reading a lot of posts, comments, topics and talking to some people. I realise there is a lot of potential in these forums and a number of great ideas. My point is, I dont know the first thing on game design or coding or computer science. But if there are enough people who do know, maybe they could try to buy the rights for the games here and continue the legacy of high quality indie rpg. Create new games, continue old ones etc... I mean around here not only do i read great things in terms of imagination, but also smart and logical things making the fantasy genre more realistic. As well as very well made cricticisms on gameplay balancing etc... I think creating games from a player perspective tends to help for better games. I guess in the end i would trust the fans of the franchises to keep the legacy than a big company. And if you think it cant work just remember that the person who finished the dune series was a fan of the writer. I am missing a point so this will probably be edited soon.

That way it gets the best from both avernum and geneforge(cept creations). I could actually see that. Its just plain awesome. Sorta like mass effect but better. Cept cannon endings . Im having some trouble coming up with the storyline. But its too good. And yah the world map avernum style would work. Specially since it would need little improvement over time. And yes to that too. I always wish i got the chance to really express myself to those two in g3. Its like get a room already folks. It would bring on a huge wave of nostalgia though. And yep you do grasp Alwan well xD This has to happen. Im thinking if jeff decides to retire the lot of us buy the rights and codes? Hypothetically that is. Let me make a post on that to see how people would feel about it.

Yah that would explain why they use them. But knowing how shapers tend to erase all illegal research(eg, purity officer from dhonal's keep, all minds in sucia etc...) they also rarelly keep written copies of their research among others its sorta weird that they figured how to create rothgoths. It seems that least 3 different times shaper reached the conclusion that improvement over the battle alpha would be a rotting acidic zombie. All of those being separate isolated instances. Great minds think alike? Also why would rothgoths be ilegal. I figure they smell bad and the acid might damage things around them. But minimum rogue tendencies. And even if they had they have a very short lifespan. Admitably not the best creation for defence. Nor particularly low mantainance but i see no grounds to make it illegal. Also ya. Completelly forgot about infernal beings. On thing however that i dont understand is on the reshaping. Not that i favour it, canisters just arent worth it. But healing craft technically is reshaping.

Fair point triumph. Still, i think sucia had a greater potential for creating stuff. They didnt necessarilly play safe or were responsibly. Also they were very well funded and about extraordinarily talented. Also what Nim said. Also ahloon, the shapers during the war showed a comendable ammount of restraint. It was honestly the rebels that did all the stupid crap. There was rawal with likelly more skeletons in his closet than what we know of. But on the whole the two instances of laxer atitude was the creation of charged animals and taygen's research. Both of which were not wreckless as the unbound and shredbugs and diseases etc... Of things created and barred by shapers, we have self shaping, necromancy, some Golem augmentation research( again why keep repeating it), and finally drayks which are the only instance in which i severelly disagree with their actions. It wasnt fair to bar them. They should have maybe dumbed the next generation down and quietly execute the drayks that were being too problematic. But going on a full blown genocide isnt fair.

Ok, since from sucia to the rebelion i dont see shapers making any revolutionary discoveries so a lot has not changed i would assume they were in technological stagnation period as such i dont think sucia shapers were that far behind. Besides rothgots, drakons and gazers were the natural course after the third tier creation. Such that they were created independently in gull's and geneforge 2. And later on too because rothgots became common in shaper armies by geneforge 4 and 5 and assuming that all the research team in gulls died and their knowledge with them. So in theory i would agree with the gap in technology thing and dwarves in the shoulders of giants. Just not much points to it. (I dont remember, where there golems on geneforge 1? Cause if not then Blxz may be completelly right, if not evidence sorta points to what lilith said. Cept that a lot of what we saw in geneforge 2 is said to be based on the sucia research. Even if on geneforge 1 i didnt see much pointing to it. Also, anyone noticed how most bared places involves research with golems? You would think shapers would learn from their mistakes... Edit: I just remembered sucia shapers did do creation research. They were the first to create shades right?

You had me sold at naval battles! Do you get to upgrade ships? Hire new crews? Who will you fight? Will you secure aliances to fight a bigger enemy(as the sholai generally are very diplomatic and do their best not to antagonise the natives, and according to the real world experience thats unrealistic so maybe they need those aliances for something.) Do you get sholai classes? So many possibilities. This has to be one of the better ideas i've seen in this site. But i wanted geneforge 6 because i like the ability to create stuff. But yes sholai spinoff is great! Only big problem i see is that the map would have to be huge! And if we go with creating aliances the endings cant be cannon. Also you should have to make hard choices. Such as to gain support of one you'd have to destroy another. Etc... Can we put this to vote and send it to jeff? If he is open to sugestions that is. Hyena of Ice i salute you!

Sometimes your sorcerers or weaker charachters argo redbeard. And he might try to attack them. Sometimes you're able to knock him back. And then there are the constructs he summons. Ensnaring turrets will prevent free movement. And a lot of the fight there is meelee so basically it gives you a high chance to hit without being hit back. As such you can use the extra turn to heal or buff yourself. Edit: Its good because it cannot be countered. In other fights slowing turret is much better but in this one he constantly gets a speed bonus which can counter the slowing effect.

Sucia was a highly advanced research island with very powerfull and innovative shapers. They created the *arguably* most powerfull geneforge. And dabbled in a lot of ilegal research. So, ignoring the technicall aspects such as the game is old etc... wouldnt it make sense to have very advanced creations in the game? Because rothgoths, drakons, gazers and the such were first created by somewhat underfunded rebels with relative lack of materials and experience in shaping among other handicaps. I would think, if the sucia island shapers worked with self shaping and reshaping they would have created some powerfull and bizare creations. Probably different from any we know. Thoughts?

By the time you can create a glaahk? It is much better to look at facts. And i agree with the facts.But i still would rather get more xp. Means i get more skill points to spend on blessing healing etc... Still my point is for instance guardians are very powerfull in g2. Yet a lot of people will choose choose classes based on how comfortable they are with them. Same with creations. Until the 4th geneforge the vlish is absurdly powerfull, but i cant play with it(or any second tier creation for that matter) i know people who prefer using battle creations when shapers in a misguided atempt to make up for the shaper weaknesses. They don't tend to listen to all the arguments against it. Why? Because in the end it is a personal experience and they feel more comfortable with their admitably wrong choices. Also tbh i actually wanted to create a post on the spelling but figured i'd be wasting everyone's time. But now that its here it does make me feel better about how my head spells it. I guess same holds for most? So... bear with us for a bit if you will.

But then comes the question why create 7 creations to have less often the same effect as one alone. As a shaper essence isnt that big of an issue(even if it was 7 high damage lower tier creations with high damage would prolly cost the same) so the cost doesnt matter much plus you get more xp. To be honest i prefer cryodrayks better than glaahks. And gazers. Drakons are a bit overpowered so not that much. But they all come in later in the game. Creations that get any benefit from levelling up have to be created at least by the middle of dohnal's. From those cryoas, vlishes, artilas(since roamers when available are comparable to the artila you have with you. If you have one) i guess maybe clawbugs? They arent my thing. Never actually created one. I like searing artilas. But probably not the best choice. Anyways my point is. Glaahks are from my point of view the last usefull creation that can benefit from leveling up. Only other worthwhile was poor wording i realise. But its not too far from the truth. Its not a sure thing again though. In the end it is based on the player's own experience.

You got what i meant about the essence. They dont need it as much as the rest since they dont really go for creations. And the stunning ability is very usefull specially if you're a shaper. And in long battles. Now if you disagree on that. Its cool. Im not gonna force you to like them Also i figured it would be the same. But i remember i couldnt cast mass energise and that was a bummer.

Ok. Touché. Didnt think about it that way. Also as Triumph said shaping stats only boots when creating. Other than that its completelly useless. So dont wear it all the time.

Exactly. Which is why i think agents deserve the best spot there. The health isnt handicapped. And they dont need essence. Granted its not very fun playing with an agent and 7 vlish. Also i just realised the huge ammounts of money you'd end up saving. But shapers have low health and honestly the vlish is theoretically better than the drayk. So the only other worthwhile creation is the glahk in g3. Its fun and games to get a rothizon, drakon and gazer as pets. But its not necessarilly worth it. I'd give at least an 8 to agents and would drop the shapers to an 8 too. With guardians i agree. I finished the game with one. Not enough essence for a decent team and ablosutelly worthless with spells. Am i wrong or did they lowered even further the energy scaling for them?

On this one i have to say i think agents have it better since top tier creations arent nearly as usefull as the dont gain many levels. So an agent might create one or two mid tier ones and not feel a lot of pain. The spells cost a lot of energy which some shapers might end up not having. They are sorta versatile with the rest. And experience scales for lower party size rather than higher. Plus with greta or alwan its sorta like a free creation. I mean i tend to choose shapers because im more comfortable. But Geneforge 3 was made for agents imo. I can sorta agree with the rest or stay neutral to what you said. But on this one i dont think you're right.

The favorites tend to be agents and shapers. Until 4 warrior type characters had a huge disadvantage early on the game. Later on it gets better but its preferable to get agents. Shapers as noted are weak. Any dificulty from normal upwards will mean a hit from the most basic enemy will likelly kill you unless you buy some endurace points. But they are decent with magic and great at shaping(around which the story revolves). You can use spells to deal with weak locks but not on traps. However if diplomacy and mechanics arent your forte. All geneforge games allow for alternative routes. If you like clearing everything its worth investing. They continue throughout the series. But the there are cannon endings. But as is pointed out almost everywhere. You dont need to play earlier games to enjoy the later one. It is pretty satisfying to do so though. Specially from 3 to 4 or from 1 to 2. There are references to the previous games and such. Also idk i always pronounce it sorta like jennaforge. But i think its cause english isnt the first language? Should be gene forge. But my head wont process it Enjoy man.

Honestly i took a whole week trying to kill the first redbeard. Im not joking, i went for classes with the battle still on. Wasnt anywhere near rewarding either but i cant remember. With dheless's and protus's help redbeard was fairly easy. Just had to have someone to tank him. As a fighter Yoshira died easilly so had to be placed away. Speed burst,circle of fire,ressurection scrolls(if you dont mind the abscence of the medal) and ensnaring turrets were particularly usefull. And yah betraying odil was really hard to do. He seemed like a good person. I actually stopped playing for a while when it came down to that choice. Siding with dheless didnt feel very good. I dont like betraying people as a whole. But i got where he was comming from. And with the council trying to take over avadon i felt slightly more justified. Siding with redbeard was pointless really. Better having him die there. At least he will be remembered still slightly strong/powerfull.

After playing corruption i thought it was a hard choice on weather to stay loyal to the pact or not. Actualy even on the first game it was complicated(ok not so much as its impossible to kill redbeard unless you cheat) but much less so. So im just trying to figure out what you people chose and why. I ended up choosing to get behind dheless at first. And just overthrowing redbeard at the second try. I chose dheless because of patriotism sorta. Long story. And because he was smart and not greedy. I also sided with the wildrim rebels(even though i dont support their cause. It is foolish, untimelly, radical and shortsided. As alwan said in g3, there is a time to change constitution. Thats not when at war) because i'd rather not kill silke. And no matter what i knew i had to kick redbeard out. I dont like him. And he wasnt being usefull at that point. Also anyone else got annoyed at the complete lack of hints on what drinking water from the corruption would do? I was expecting something imediate or so like scribane and canisters that affect you in game and lets you keep track on how far gone you are. Didnt seem fair to waste the whole gamethrough over that. Anyways im actually interested. On what you people chose.