Icshi

Quote: Originally written by Mr.knowitall: I like GF1 because I can use the geneforge. Amen to that, brother! I was rather irked in GF2 when I discovered the new Geneforge was racially segregated and was "For Drakons Only." That made me doubly inclined to join Barzahl and blast the living heck out of the whole filthy reptile den of iniquity. Anyway, I have trouble separating the two games in my mind — they've become rather enmeshed together. For instance, I often think about a certain area in GF2 thinking it was in 1, and vice versa. I have to actually look at the maps in the hint books sometimes to figure out which area goes with which game. In other words, I really like both. I think their similarities was a strength in many ways, showing variations on a theme. As I've mentioned elsewhere the corruption of power is a topic that never grows old with me; I find it endlessly fascinating. I did enjoy how the stakes got bigger in GF2, and hopefully we'll see things get even more so in GF3.

Quote: Originally written by archangel_14: they are just so darn entertaining> i think its because there is a philosophical approach in these games that the others dont seem to possess> I feel the same way. A few months after I played the first Geneforge game, I woke up in the middle of the night trying to remember which book I read that involved people augmenting themselves and being driven insane as a result. I thought about all the SF/fantasy books I'd read recently, with no results, then thought about which TV shows or movies I'd seen, with no results, then out of the blue it suddenly hit me that it was Geneforge! I felt really silly, but since it was the middle of the night I readily excused my silliness because that's the kind of thing that spins through your mind at 2:30 am. But I soon realized that I still consider Jeff's games more like interactive fantasy literature rather than a game per se, which speaks very highly of his story-telling skills and the overall quality of his games.

The mental image I've built up from the screenshot is that it's a creature that smells like cabbage, boasts of its exploits and mighty powers in words of 2 syllables or less, has a tendency to nod off every few minutes like a narcoleptic octogenarian, and in the middle of its ravings asks you politely if you could scratch that itchy spot on its back. I really hope the creature in that screenshot is not the enigmatic creature that required "locked and warded" doors to restrain it, buried in the depths of a monster-infested laboratory complex. That would be, to say the very least, disappointing. EDIT: In other words, I expect that thing in the screenshot to be rather like a malnourished Servant Mind with delusions of grandeur. Except that unlike Kantre (from the first game) it won't even have the ability to keep nearby doors locked.

I think you're probably right. I was however hoping Jeff would produce something a little more mobile (as opposed to being affixed to the floor as it appears to be) and, well, impressive. Still, having not met the creature in question yet, I can't jump to conclusions. It may have retractable tentacles that leap about and sting people, or the telepathic ability to make your head explode, or teleport itself at will to any destination it chooses while regurgitating killer death-beams from its empty and swollen eye-sockets...

I would really like the return of a human-usable Geneforge machine. In the first game I without hesistation tricked Trajkov and used the gloves myself. I really missed that extreme powerjolt in the second game. "I's got to have me mandies, boyos!" <hands shaking with magical augmentaiton-goo withdrawl as he types> EDIT: Ever since seeing that Monty Python episode with Chris Quid and his pet tiger who's fixing, I've assumed that the slang term "mandies" referred to any kind of drug. I just now finally got around to looking it up on the internet, and learned that it refers to a specific depressive drug called Methaqualone that decreases anxiety and tension, which is wholly out of keeping with my intended meaning. So those of you more knowledgeable of such things can freely substitute the current slang word (preferably British) denoting any drug that gives you extreme stimulation, an accellerated conscious state, and a feeling of great strength and limitless power and you'll have my intended expression in a nutshell. Except that with the Sucia Island technology it's all not just an illusion, so perhaps the phrase "I's got to have me Geneforges" would do just as well, or even better.

To quote the insightful Derek Zoolander "If we loose our cool, then we're no better than the machine!" Wise words.

I'm really enjoying reading this discussion. Internal logic in fiction, and the reasons for it from the author's perspective and determined to a great extent by the limitations of the medium the story is presented in, has alwasy intrigued me. I can't add much to it myself, though, because all the most perceptive points have already been mentioned.

Granted, it's only been a day since this forum was launched, but my itchy pants continue to get itchier. When do people think the game will be released? Consider this another poll without the polling apparatus. 1. In a few hours 2. Tomorrow 3. Friday 4. Saturday 5. Next week 6. False alarm — the game won't actually be out until Labor Day 7. It's all a hideous practical joke. There is no Geneforge 3. I personally cast my vote for Friday.

All very good points there. Yes, I was teasing Trajkov and Barzahl, poor fellows. One of the risks of being a leader is that you immediately become the target for satirists, jesters, and software board frequentees, who distort the facts to suit their own derisive aims.

I gather from your deeply seated lament that you're a Windows user? You have my deepest sympathy, sir — I'm barely hanging on at the moment as it is, even with the knowledge that it'll be out for Mac in just a few days...

I hope we encounter Trajkov's ghost, scouring the moors howling like a banshee with a belly-ache. It would be neat if more of the Sholai show up. I put no preference on their life state: dead, undead, it'll still be fun! EDIT: Oops. None of these people were in Geneforge 2. Ah well, I won't hold that against them and would still let 'em into 3.

It's all very well to discuss recycled tactical situations, but what about story situations? A drayk in a valley will offer to trade with you at outrageous prices: GF1: Ol' what's-his-name; GF2: That other drayk/drakon Mysterious loner out in the middle of nowhere who gives you cryptic advice, pretends to be sitting on the fence while actually encouraging you (in a roundabout way) to join a certain faction and/or is willing to help you change your political affiliations once and only once by whispering in the right ears, offers to make you a special item if you can scrounge up the right materials, and refuses to let you to ransack their locked bedroom: GF1: That servile hermit, GF2: Sharon Meet a desperate, isolated band of warriors out in the middle of nowhere who are surrounded by enemies who have been launching random attacks on them at random during the past few months, and who will rely on your incredible fighting abilities to destroy a swarm of their enemies single-handedly before you've even had your breakfast: GF1: The Obeyers out in the woods; GF2: That fort out in the swamp A raving, glowing, powerhungry, borderline lunatic will offer you supreme power like that which he himself possess if you will do some trifling errand for him which he apparently can't be bothered to complete and whose reluctance to do it himself does not at all reflect his cowardice despite his extremely competent abilities. It's really just to prove you're trustworthy, yeah that's it!: GF1: Trajkov; GF2: Barzahl And so on. Still, I can't wait to see how the names have changed yet again for Geneforge 3! But honestly, I do love these games. History does repeat, you know, especially when power is involved.

Holy crepe suzette in a handbag, Batman! We've finally got a Geneforge 3 forum! Yipee skipee! The game must be approaching at last! <Icshi then resumes his thin facade of aloof dignity.>

Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: Amid the fascinating but vaguely discouraging discussion which my arcane rune topic has generated, concerning fantasy series that are way too long for me to start reading these days, one response from Toenail about runes cheers me up again. My apologies for getting us off topic. The runes just led me from one flow of thought to the next, and I never intended it all to get out of hand like this. Still, that's no excuse. Sorry!

I'm familiar with the existence of the Dragonlance series, but having read (correction: tried to read) a couple of SF books by Weis & Hickman I wasn't sure if I was willing to risk it. Besides, I haven't a clue where to start. There are so many Dragonlance books out there now, I'm not sure where it actually began (and, of course, I don't think they're all written by Weis & Hickman). Then again, like with Salvatore's books about Drizzt, it's better to read the Dark Elf trilogy (which he wrote second) before the Icewind Dale one (which he wrote first). Any recommendations as to which Dragonlance book / series to read first?

Valuable advice there, thanks for sharing the warning. A lot of series that become too popular tend to go rapidly downhill and becomes naught but fodder for the desperate and uncritical reading masses. What distresses me is that such series continue to sell well enough to warrant future vacuous volumes. I saw a part of an interview with Jordan several years ago, and one of the questions was "If you had to write the last scene in the series now, could you do it?" And he said "Absolutely. I know exactly where this series is headed, and I have the grand conclusion all worked out." (Or words to that effect.) It would seem that during the intervening years the money-grubbing hack beast in him has risen to the surface to spew forth reams of paper waste upon the Face of the Earth. I don't know if I'm willing to get all excited by the first six books only to have my hopes crushed. A series without a conclusion is like a mouth with no teeth or tongue, or a refrigerator with no shelves. Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson have gone on a similar spewfest with their series of Dune books. Their first prequel trilogy was interesting but seriously lacked the thoughtfulness and depth of Frank's books. (Although, come to think of it, Frank's last two books in the series were unbelievably bad, so I guess his own lycanthropic tendencies rose to the fore as well in later years.) Then Brian & Kevin wrote the Jihad trilogy... and now they're going to write a two-book conclusion to the whole series... then they're going to write yet another prequel trilogy about Paul's childhood. And to fill in the cracks they're publishing chapbooks and fat short-story collections with tokenistic amounts of Frank's deleted chapters and grocery lists to lend their endeavours a veneer of legitimacy. Asimov and Heinlein became similarly copious and self-indulgent. Interestingly, van Vogt somehow escaped doing this himself. I guess he never achieved the enormous level of popularity that the others did, which in a way I guess was a good thing.

I've read Salvatore's Dark Elf trilogy, and am just about done with the Icewind Dale trilogy. After that, I'm going to start in on his Cleric Quintet which sounds very interesting indeed. After that, I'll probably read some of the non-Salvatore books in the Forgotten Realms setting. Funnily enough, I first became aware of Drizzt and his world through the Museum Replicas, Ltd. catalogue which I pour over every time it comes in the mail. I'm mostly interested in the historical pieces, but glance at the fantasy stuff from time to time. In one catalogue there was a Todd Lockwood painting (from the cover of Salvatore's The Lone Drow) and some exquisite sabres named Twinkle and Icingdeath. The description of these items really caught my imagination, coupled with Lockwood's wonderful artwork. So I did some reserach on the internet about Forgotten Realms, Salvatore, and Drizzt Do'Urden in particular. Homeland seemed to be the best place to start, so I bought a copy of it as a sampler to see if I liked it. Even halfway through I realized I just had to read the entire trilogy, and now I'm seriously hooked! I had a roommate in college who started reading Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and would stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning reading it in bed with his night-light on. Since he and I shared a lot of tastes in literature, I think the first book would certainly be worth at least trying. But for a while I'll be fully occupied with Drizzt and Cadderly... And by the way, nobody needs to apologize for getting off topic other than myself! I started it!

I think in most of the laboratories around the valley there are people who will buy these research notes from you for a tidy sum. I can't remember any specifics, so if you see a room with gadgetry about talk to the people there and see if they're interested.

Good show! I saw those same runes in the screenshots, but figured they were purely decorative so never even considered deciphering them. I'm glad somebody is out there with the good sense and skills to do this sort of public service. On a similar note, I never would've known that the runes on the Forgotten Realms logo spelt "Here Lie the Lost Lands" if I had not read a FAQ about the book series that I came upon on the internet. I just recently started reading some of these and they're quite good. Incidentally, I have Jeff Vogel to thank for introducing me to the world of fantasy fiction by hooking me four years ago with Nethergate. I had read Tolkien years and years ago but he seemed rather turgid and too detailed to make for easy, enjoyable reading. (I really like the movies, though.) So, due to the historical content and intriguing storyline of Nethergate, here I am four years later devouring R.A. Salvatore novels and spending an appreciable amount of the daylight hours skulking around software bulletin boards chomping at the bit to play the third game in an SF/Fantasy RPG series... Life's sure a rummy thing, ain't it? You never know what's going to send you off in a new direction of exploration.

Or, hopefully, the ability to create Korvonians that you can pull around on leashes and have them build monstrous planet-eating machinery for you. <Ahem>... On second thought, since I'm the only Galactic Core "fan" out there, perhaps this particular idea will not go over so well.

Quote: Originally written by Bone Machine: Uh, guys, I think Khoth was joking... Well, that's a relief! Though people should use the different faces for their post, and sprinkle it with little graemlins, to make "just jesting" clear for those of us who are perhaps a tad too touchy with Geneforge 3 issues... Maybe once the game comes out we'll calm down a bit.

Unless it's actually Richard White, and not Jeff Vogel, who's creating Geneforge 3 (a possibility which I know to be false) there will be a separate forum for it. It would be ridiculous and misleading to stick it in with Lost Souls and Chromite's other games. With the exception of Blades of Avernum, in the past each game's forum appeared one to two days before the game's release. So I've been keeping my eyes peeled for the appearance of the Geneforge 3 forum to presage its arrival.

Quote: Originally written by zippy_zaboo: Perhaps spiderweb could offer a mailable CD for a nominal fee. Hell--buy the CD and get demo (unlockable) versions of EVERY spiderweb game, there's plenty of room on a CD. That's what I've started doing with Ambrosia's newer games like EV Nova. The compressed file is so big I would never try to download it, and it's also nice to get demos of all their other games without bothering with individual downloads. Their demo CDs are more like $10 altogether with the shipping, but that's an acceptable amount of money, all things considered. Of course, it would be even nicer if Dr. McKay's new compression algorithm (which was demonstrated so well with the Atlantis team's recent message-bundle back home to Earth sent via Stargate from the Pegasus galaxy) became commercially available. Download a compressed file containing the whole internet, at a mere 4.2 MB... Just watch out when you try to decompress it!

Quote: Originally written by zippy_zaboo: Perhaps spiderweb could offer a mailable CD for a nominal fee. Hell--buy the CD and get demo (unlockable) versions of EVERY spiderweb game, there's plenty of room on a CD. That's what I've started doing with Ambrosia's newer games like EV Nova. The compressed file is so big I would never try to download it, and it's also nice to get demos of all their other games without bothering with individual downloads. Their demo CDs are more like $10 altogether with the shipping, but that's an acceptable amount of money, all things considered. Of course, it would be even nicer if Dr. McKay's new compression algorithm (which was demonstrated so well with the Atlantis team's recent message-bundle back home to Earth sent via Stargate from the Pegasus galaxy) became commercially available. Download a compressed file containing the whole internet, at a mere 4.2 MB... Just watch out when you try to decompress it!

Oh. Phooey. Yes, it's with things like wanting to move a whole building to the left a few spaces that I'm wanting to do, along with the floors and terrains beneath the structure. As it is, I had to redraw the entire buidling one bit at a time to move it at all.