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Indeed. I was mistaken. Ghaldring is the one I was referring to behind the [REDACTED]. It does get difficult to keep track of all these names sometimes and I don't think I am getting any younger.

Oh, yeah there was that I suppose. In a book where everyone has a name and a backstory and a unique way of smoothing their skirts I suppose the fact that some random has a sexual preference wasn't really at the forefront of my mind.

You've not finished Geneforge 2 but something in the ending alludes to Easss. You never meet him explicitly in G2 (that I am aware of) but his existence is hinted at in preparation for the future games. You'll need to play further before I risk any more potential spoilers of any substance.

Well I finished the final WoT book during all the flights I took this holiday season. Pretty decent ending. I still don't know what you meant by the "first two gay characters". Perhaps I missed something or perhaps I am just far to innocent to take subtle hints? As for the rest of it, I thought it was a bloody good closure. They were killing off characters pretty quickly in the last few chapters, I'm also pretty impressed with some of the characters finally being useful even if some of my predictions didn't come explicitly true (I was sure there would be an olver-birgitte romance there somewhere). Pretty solid series and the ending was satisfying, if somewhat rushed (700 pages of repeating battle followed by 60 or so pages of rapid resolution just doesn't feel natural). Any special tidbits to share owenmoz now that we can chat without minding spoilers?

Suboptimal is a fun way to play on the standard difficulties since all the min-maxing can take the charm out of the game unless that is naturally your playstyle. I like to theme my parties and make up a little bit of my own story. ie. a set of 4 slith just doing their thing (balanced classes of course - although an unbalanced melee heavy might be a fun roleplay I guess); 3 Nephil slaves and their human handler made for a fun bit of roleplay as well in my recent restart. The possibilities are pretty varied if you try to get some themes going.

I remember being as hyped as you are the first time I played a spiderweb game (Geneforge). Welcome aboard. The community is pretty good here.

If the Electoral College fails to represent their voting districts by a large enough margin to elect someone different then they have sealed their fate. it will bring about the biggest blowback and push for college reform due to the perception that democracy is dead. It is in their best interests to vote trump if their district chose trump.

Some advice; don't hire me as a beta tester. I almost never run into bugs. (is this a good thing?) On the flipside, if you expect that the various skills are going to be useful you will find they almost never become an issue. The only skillcheck that is mildly difficult is the 47 subterfuge check in the chorus camp at game start. Can be finished with careful planning before you even leave that screen. Can be finished with bad planning within the next two or three screens. If you can't pass checks from then on then you have some serious character design problems. Maybe Jeff sucks at playing games?

Oh wow. After doing some researching I think it fortunate that I cancelled that exe download.

I look at it the same way as stealing rocks from a national park or bits of the Colosseum when on holiday - essentially harmless provided you are the only one doing that. Once lots of people stop vaccinating then the proverbial [censored] hits the proverbial fan. EDIT: Just to be clear, I do not condone stealing bits of the Colosseum. You are NOT the only one doing it so you are participating in its destruction while simultaneously lowering the value of my stolen chunks.

What is this game? I tried to find out a bit about it but that link is straight to an exe download and that sure as hell isn't happening until I know more about it. Google didn't show me much that seemed relevant either. Anyone care to share some info with me?

I didn't notice any funky dialogue. Perhaps I'm not imaginative enough to break the story sequence enough? Although I was a little disappointed on my first playthrough where I had been loyal to the VoN the whole time and yet still wanted to eat me by games end. Perhaps I didn't handle that very well.

Chessrook does a youtube playthrough of all the avadons. Watch him stockpile those orbs in his bedroom. By the end of the game he hasn't used any of them (presumably because he is 'saving' them) and he has a room floor covered with orbs. You are better off just sticking an orb on any weapon you find yourself using. When you upgrade you will have enough spare orbs to re-equip the next weapon with them. Same goes with armour. The really good orbs you might want to save for magical equipment later in the game. But even then I don't think you ever need to worry about wasting them (unless you horde them in which case that is the ultimate waste).

Didn't the first vaccine involve rubbing the crushed up flakes from other people's smallpox sores on your skin? (or maybe it was cow pox?) Either way, I can imagine some pretty stiff opposition to that now even with all the public knowledge of how good vaccines are and how they work. Back then, ugh. I'm surprised they got anyone to try it.

I think it's name was annoying and silly sounding. If I didn't have to read it in my LP I would have just glossed over the text.

He was literally incompetent. Had no grasp of foreign issues, generally a poor communicator and was essentially a single issue person trying to masquerade as multi-issue (issues which he didn't demonstrate any understanding beyond a surface level). So yeah, pretty [censored] candidate. Still better than Jill 'Screw-dem-vaccines' Stein I suppose.

Yeah, I've heard a few people say it is too short. Some people said they did it in 8 hours. I find this hard to believe. I'm not a slow reader, I'm lazy to the point that I won't go back to old areas and revisit them and I dislike micromanaging battles so tend to waltz through on fast speed and hope the AI is smart enough to use its abilities; despite this I still took 44 hours (according to steam time) to finish one play through with every side quest I could find (and I know I missed one in the first region since I found it on my second playthrough). So yeah, I suppose if you power-played you could do the main story in 8 hours...maybe. But I don't think it is too short at all, Geneforge 5 took me almost the same length of time. And every second of this game was a joy.

Interesting. I've heard that the G4 Trakovite ending is very unsatisfying. It was actually a factor prodding me towards the Trakovites in G5 since I suspected the ending would be better and more complete. Obviously not enough of a factor to reign in my genocidal tendencies but definitely a factor worth brief consideration.

Anyone played Tyranny? Broadly similar to the genre Spiderweb writes for. Just finished it myself after a solid 44 hours (according to steam). One of the better games I've played in my life. The moral ambiguity is nice and the ending I got was very satisfying AND left me wanting more from a second playthrough and a different angle. I don't feel like I've touched the entire game yet. Anyone else given this game a shot?

Detailed enough. Walls of text bore me after a while. Yours was just long enough to hold me. As for not giving spoilers, I find it amusing that you spoiled the only Geneforge game I haven't completed Unintended consequence perhaps?

Obviously you'll have to go back and play through the game on torment. To not do so would be dishonest.

I think you've misunderstood my comment. By 'should have been worse' I meant the ending was too soft. Some stuff died, Taygens wife died, a few humans, etc. Whoop de doo. I saved the world the same as every other ending saves the world. (don't debate this point - it would be intentionally missing my point further) I think the ending should have been suitably abhorrent to match the disgusting actions the player had just done. Widespread destruction, and so on and so forth. I've said it a few times but I am all for leading the player down the garden path and then giving them something they deserve rather than something they want. Other threads in this forum have ripped into me for this view but I think not telling the player what is going to result from their actions is a good thing; let them think they are fighting for a good ending but give them a suitable response to their actions. This is how the real world works, not everything is cherries and icecream - actions have consequences and many of them are unforeseen. If I have to be critical it is that Spiderweb games tend to be a little bit generous with responses to player actions (obviously for the sake of gameplay).

It should have been worse. What happened was monstrous but that the ending text allowed even something partially good to come out shows how the thing tried to cater to everyone. 'We can all be winners'. I'm probably in a minority here but I think that there are occasions where a bad ending can be warranted. Maybe a you tell redbeard you don't care about his rules and will follow what you see fit (only to find out immediately why he is the single most dangerous man on the continent), or maybe you ensure mass destruction of 90% of the biomass of the continent via a plague. But then again, that is my idea of fun and I am very sure that not everyone thinks like that. Jeff has made a good business and storytelling decision by allowing different endings to be viable.

I've yet to finish Av3 but I'll throw my opinion in regardless and reiterate my thoughts. This has been the least interesting of the Spiderweb game series that I've played. Kinda fun, some good positive steps but the player feels too removed. Slarty made a good point above with regards to the fact that these are just different countries doing things a bit differently. I, as a player, have no connection to any of them so can't really empathise at all. This style might have worked a bit better if there had been a first game where I played entirely within one of the countries so I could actually feel a part of that 'tribe' rather than being an outsider the whole time pretending to care about their silly squabbles. I won't say I regret buying but I certainly would not have bought if I didn't feel some sort of emotional connection to the spiderweb community in some way. It feels a bit like drinking one of those micro-brew beers that tastes bad but deserves support for trying new things. (As opposed to the Geneforge series which genuinely felt to me like a new and wonderful take on things - that got me genuinely excited). TL;DR - the whole thing was too complicated and too distant for me to care about anything, at all.

It just seems relatively out of character for someone who is touted as ruthless and efficient. I guess that is the accommodation made so this can be a game with choices.