Corylea

I was so very eager to get rid of Governor Yvette! I wanted to get rid of her the instant I met her, but Miranda wouldn't let me get rid of her until I'd been further north. So, okay, I finally fought my way far enough north, found Abelin, then returned to Miranda to tell her to get rid of Yvette and put Abelin in her place. I went back to the governor's hall, and not only was Yvette still there, but she told me smugly that she wasn't leaving, and I couldn't make her. I waited to work on the sick forest until I'd gotten rid of the rapacious governor, thinking that might make the forest feel better. But when I make a decision, nothing actually changes! Why am I even here? I thought this game was supposed to be one where I made choices, and those choices mattered. Hrmph.

Ohhh! That's an enormous change from QW1. Thanks so much for clarifying that.

Thanks so much for all the time and effort you put into helping others, Randomizer!

Thanks, Randomizer and TriRodent! I love RPG's, but that doesn't mean that I'm actually any good at them, so your advice helps lots. :-)

Backed! Looking forward to it!

I'm familiar with the term but didn't use it because I wasn't sure if everyone else was. :-) And yes, that can provide a compelling story. There's an Agatha Christie novel where the story is told from the point of view of the murderer, but he doesn't tell you until the very end that he IS the murderer. Since the sort of old-school classic mysteries that Christie told were usually narrated in a straightforward way, it was a surprising plot twist to have her suddenly giving us an unreliable narrator. We've learned in the real world -- to our sorrow -- that people tend to interpret new events so that those events will fit into their existing worldview. When game characters do that, it makes the world a richer and more conflictual place. Having the real world be conflictual is kind of a drag, but drama thrives on conflict, so story-heavy games only benefit from it. I tried to get the Obeyer spy who was in Taker custody to escape, but his worldview was unshakable, and he seemed happy to die for his beliefs. Do I chalk his death up to the Takers, to the Shapers, or to the Obeyers? It seems as if there's enough culpability to go around for everyone to have some. 😞

No problem! One of the great things about a well-written game -- which it looks as if this is -- is that everyone speaks from their own point of view, but that point of view may be based on faulty or incomplete information. Have you played Planescape: Torment? The main character has amnesia at the start of the game, and he gathers information about who he has been in the past slowly, over the course of the entire game. The slowly dawning realization of just who you have been in the past is chilling. Even after more than twenty years, P:T is widely considered to have one of the best stories, ever, in gaming. It's one of my favorite games, specifically for that gradual realization of what the truth is. So I'm happy to see the truth gradually revealed. :-)

No, I don't. I think most people assume that anyone who cares enough about the Spiderweb games to post here has played them all. I guess I should stop reading this thread, but it's a shame, because I find the issues interesting. Or I could trust that my old-lady mind will have forgotten all the spoilers by the time I get to the other games. 😏

*laugh* I hear you! I write Star Trek fan fiction (see avatar ) under another name, and I'm very critical when I read my stories, but my readers keep telling me that I write wonderfully in-character stories with really interesting ideas. I went to the Eastern Docks last night, and if it hadn't been for your map showing me where the power spirals are, I probably would have given up on Geneforge and gone to play something else. So you really, really ARE helping! Take another helping of effusive thanks! 👏 😊

Jeff was prescient when he originally created this story, because CRISPR wasn't invented until 2012, and it was just this year that it was announced that a scientist had used CRISPR to gene-edit a human embryo. That particular scientist thought the world was ready for a CRISPR-edited human, but the rest of the scientific community disagreed. Given what's happening in the real world, I'm not surprised that there are some Shapers who want research to be controlled and safe and others who want to push the envelope. That's how people ARE. Good job, Jeff!

Interesting. Well, I'll look forward to being more moderate in future games. :-)

All of that makes sense to me, but then, this is my first Geneforge game, so the lore is all new to me.

*blinks* Wait, what? Using canisters is forbidden? But then why are there so MANY canisters? There are one or two in nearly every area, which adds up to a heck of a lot of canisters! There are 82 zones in the game, so even if it averages out to one per zone -- though I think it's actually more -- why would the previous Shapers have made 82 items that should never be used? I'm only maybe a third of the way through the game, and my character is still hoping to find out why the island was barred. People keep whispering about a powerful machine they call the Geneforge, and I'm guessing the existence of that machine might be why, though why the previous Shapers didn't just destroy the thing -- rather than barring an entire island -- I don't know yet.

Heh. 😏

Thanks for the information. Well, I'm glad I played this game first, then, so that I know to be careful in subsequent Geneforge games!