Slawbug

I only see one thread with any mention of a Formello boat issue in A2CS here, and none on Steam. So I think "infamous" may not apply 🙂 (I assume you mean A2:CS, not A2.) Notes/questions: 1. "resetboats" is one word, no space. 2. are you on a mac? 3. did you ever download an A2CS demo? 4. have you tried opening the A2CS application manually, rather than letting Steam launch it?

Ah, here we see where the point of confusion is. Joining factions in Geneforge is completely separate from the reputation system. This is to say, although very extreme reputations might lock you out of extreme factions -- with a few exceptions, joining factions, and completing quests for factions you had already joined, had no impact on reputation whatsoever. This is to say, QW really does have the same reputation system as Geneforge -- what it doesn't have (or has a very different version of) is "Geneforge factions." Anyway: the reality is that reputation-changing questions, in dialogue, are almost always extremely obvious. It's true that you don't know the exact values in play -- is this a +3/+0, a +2/-2, a +0/+1, or does it actually not shift anything? But I'm also not sure what difference that makes, as a player; there's so many of them and they're all additive. (Unless you have a very specific powergaming goal that involves minmaxing through rewards that require both low and high reputations, but is there really anything that's worth the bother in this game?)

Yeah, if the issue affects other games too, then it's pretty clearly not a Geneforge issue. I'd go through your steam settings, especially the controller settings, very thoroughly. Probably something in their is interacting weirdly with your mouse.

This is flatly not true. Ironically, it may be that it was less obvious what impact your words were having than it is in this game

That's exceptionally weird! The fullscreen vs window thing suggests there could be a strange interaction happening with some background process. Things to try: 1. Try launching the game directly from Windows (i.e., not from Steam) with no Steam Overlay or anything else. If that fixes it, you know it's a Steam issue (potentially with their newish controller mapping options). 2. If you have multiple input devices connected (e.g., a controller on top of keyboard and mouse) see if disconnecting the extra ones helps. 3. If you have any kind of input modifier running (JoyToKey, AutoHotKey, built-in keymapping software on laptops, fancy mouse software, etc) try disabling that.

This reputation system has existed in every almost every Spiderweb game since 2001. I wouldn't expect a change.

Yes, although "created" could easily mean "by modifying another type of fungus" rather than "from scratch" -- so I don't think this conflicts with your interpretation. The clearest statement comes from Patrick in X2: "It is their magic that created the glowing fungus that gives us light, and thus life." While it's always possible he's wrong, nobody ever contradicts him, and I can't think of any character in the series better positioned to assess their origin, anyway.

Shaila definitely was not as powerful as the PC/Trajkov/Goettsch become in the G1 endings where they use the Geneforge.

Surprisingly enough, there are a few references in the early games -- even a sign in Formello (in E/A1) that reads "Sermons daily at sunrise" and lots of references to "morning" and "night," especially at inns. This doesn't seem to be ironic. Maybe the glowing fungus has a cycle? The vahnatai were the original creators the glowing fungus per se, but it seems likely that Erika modified it -- and there doesn't seem to be any dispute that Erika was responsible for creating cavewood trees (based on surface trees they teleported down), cave plants, and the new strains of mushrooms that kept Exile/Avernum fed up until A6. So she certainly was capable of modifying species. We only ever see one Vahnatai capable of that, so there's no real reason to think fungus shenanigans would require Vahnatai skills more than a once-in-a-generation talent for magery. I looked and it turns out this actually has come up on the forums previously (for example, here) -- "glowing fungus cycle" seems to be the most common place people end up.

Deep runestones are a different case from regular items, since they are an augment rather than a regular stat effect. IIRC the evasion value for the augment effect is always the same and it shows a static description for each augment, rather than generating text based on the evasion stat strength for the item. Assuming equipment itself (i.e., armor, not augments) shows the same evasion chances as in the FAQ linked above, it's probably a safe bet that the game still applies those chances as stated.

Using different creations, spells, or items is definitely one big chunk of your strategic options. Another big chunk, though, is controlling when and how you're going to be in battle in the first place. Ambushing vlish before they can call for help: that is a strategy! Picking off enemies one at a time: strategy. Positioning your characters so the vulnerable ones don't die immediately: strategy. It sounds like you don't enjoy those, which is fine, but that's a limitation you're placing on the game, not the other way around. (Kind of like how not playing G1 was a limitation you used to place on your ability to discuss Geneforge ) As for the G4 geneforge, this is covered extensively in-game: it's not the same version of a geneforge, and the associated augmenting is different. Also, the fact that a bunch of Augmented Sholai were hard for your low-levelled Shaper trainee (isolated and alone) doesn't really say much about how tough they'd be for experienced Shapers, with newer technology (hi wingbolts) and full support, to take down.

It was only a matter of time until some Barzite started turning vlish into handbags! For shame.

When I said most of the beta testers aren't pros, that's exactly what I meant, too. Most of them do not do solo runs in nightmare difficulty. You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that, if you struggle with an area, it must mean that either you are a terrible player, or the area is poorly balanced. That's ridiculous! There are other possibilities too. For example, maybe you're a perfectly good player who simply hasn't figured out a good strategy for that area. Sometimes, changing up your approach can really help.

Most of the beta testers aren't pros either. I do sometimes wish the feedback Jeff gets from testers was a little more balanced, but c'est la vie.

Hi Splorky, There should be a preferences option somewhere (can't remember if it is a menu item on its own, or just part of a settings window) where you can check a box to save your automaps with your save file. (This was left off by default because it took a lot of disk space by 1994 standards.)

"That can be arranged."

Next to zero chance the third game is set primarily in Haven. It would be hard to portray that effectively, and it's something Jeff avoids. I don't think that's what he'd do for likely his last original game. My money's on Delia in spite of all the observations above.

I haven't looked at this for Mutagen, but in original Geneforge 1 all actual NPC dialogue text is stored in text files, not dat files, and you can do a mass search. I'd also be pretty surprised if such a specific detail of vlish anatomy ever comes up in conversation. I guess it's possible, but I wouldn't expect it. What I might look at are the creation "blueprint" loading screens that showed up in later games from the original Geneforge series. There was one for vlish. Again might not have addressed this, but that seems a better place to look.

I'm not sure what you were expecting here. Notepad literally just reads everything as if it is in plain text format, which doesn't work for things that aren't. .DAT files are not text files, but there also isn't a standard format. .DAT is a generic file extension that just implies "data" -- it's not normally in a human-readable format, but because there's no standard format at all, it's also not in a generic-application-readable format.

Moving to the Avadon forum.

The whole _point_ of BoE, the whole thing that distinguished it from other 90's scenario creation engines, and the reason it drew such a large userbase compared to BoA, is the special nodes system. Special nodes are what really stood out, because they offered a moderate level of power and flexibility at an extreme minimum of a learning curve. I don't mean to be negative about your project. It's certainly interesting! But I do think it's a mistake to prioritize the new format over the old one. All it takes is one edge case error in how you translate between special nodes and your scripting, and _every_ currently existing scenario breaks for you. There's much, much less chance for edge case error if you translate from scripts to nodes, instead. (Also, if somebody creates a scenario with your editor's new format, it won't be playable with any other version of BoE, which is a pretty big restriction.)

For 99% of the graphics you should be able to take the original graphics file and just use that with a more recent version of Exile II, like the one on the SW website. This will change all the terrain and character graphics, and I think item graphics as well. It won't affect certain interface graphics, like the buttons at the bottom of the main view.

These are good questions. We mostly don't have exact answers, because the game just isn't very specific about the timeline prior to your arrival. Presumably Exile did know Valorim was the least-settled continent, already, since most exiles had previously lived on the surface. New exiles had stopped arriving 16 years prior to E3, so they probably at least knew that Kriszan province existed, but possibly not many specifics about it. In E3, it's very clear that you are the first to be officially allowed to emerge: among other things, Anaximander says "Don't forget ... The sooner you go out onto the surface and see what's going on, the better. All Exile waits to see whether it is safe to emerge or not." In A3 this is retconned, and there is a previous party of failed surface explorers. However, even in E3, as Gypsy says: "Volunteered to help build Fort Emergence. Slipped out onto the surface soon as I got the chance and never looked back. And I'm not the only one!" As far as scrying: long-distance scrying was really, really hard in Exile. The only folks who seem to be capable of it are (1) Erika, (2) the dragons, specifically Athron, and (3) a handful of specialist mage-sages like Aimee, Patrick, Thompson, etc. -- and even for them it seems challenging. In E3 you get handed a crude map that's the result of Exile's best scrying operation: it basically amounts to "we think there's some mountains, a river, and a city in the southeast." Teleporation was also really, really hard in Exile. Long-distance teleportation (especially through solid rock) is consistently shown to require (1) a portal or beacon at one or both ends, (2) seriously involved augmenters, like crystals, and (3) laborious research to set up. There was also a serious danger that ambitious teleportation projects could injure the fabric of space (as in E2) or allow demons in (as in all the games, especially E3). It's very plausible that the Vahnatai had more skill here, particularly given the relevance of crystals. But teleporting huge quantities of equipment from their own extra-deep caves, to all corners of Valorim, seems like a stretch. E3 states that the earliest of the plagues appeared a little over a year before the game, while the Tower of Magi was first able to boost their teleporter's power enough to come near the surface about 2 years prior. We don't really know the timeline for Fort Emergence, though. If I had to guess, I'd say they developed the plagues in Egli or other magical laboraties; used Ghikra as a base for scouting other near-surface caves; and then recreated the plagues there.

I agree with CM. Having two separate interpretation engines is asking for trouble. Compiling scripts down into nodes is going to be much more sustainable.

Exile didn't tunnel to the surface, though, nor did they "choose" Valorim. They teleported to another set of caves that already existed. They didn't get to pick a continent -- they didn't even realize just how fortuitously unsettled Fort Emergence's surroundings were until they finally sent explorers to the surface. It does seem plausible that all or most of Exile was (very deeply) below Valorim, specifically, given that that's also where the dragons ended up -- though the dragons do settle on the opposite end of the continent from Upper Exile. I'm not sure if this is ever explicitly confirmed. The fact that the Vahnatai also ended up there (and started the plagues there) might say less, given that they quite openly followed the exiles to Upper Exile and for some time Rentar-Ihrno resided there. Hehehe. Yes, if you haven't played them I suppose they can't really be helpful, can they!