alhoon

I would agree with Hyena. If I had to sit through a "go fetch the regents from the table" kind of tutorial, I would have liked the start less.

And knowing shapers as we do... meeting the professors we would probably like them less.

About Thands on the bridge: I did convince them to leave. But that was probably anti-shaper and I wanted the rep. So... I loaded and killed them. It was something like 50XP if I convinced them to leave.

Save\load before each crystal? That would be... long. I don't mind missing some money.

If I go that way, I could just ... open the script and add more money to the reward.

As for boosting mechanics\leadership: I... had to buy up strength. I found a girdle that gives me strength, but I am AGAIN heading towards the "Time to increase strength so I can have more than 20lbs available".

I am a hoarder. I have like 40 pods etc. I remember from GF4-5 that in the beginning, you make your "Stash" of spores and pods and later on you just replenish it. Living tools, that I have 22 or so now, weight 1lb each! The Crystals are 2lbs each (so I ignored the flawed)

As for repairing the school and wounded novices: There's a healing pool and essence pools. All characters start with healing. In less than an hour and the player character would have healed everyone non-maimed or seriously injured.

Well, truth be told, after the STRONG start in the academy, the game became a bit bland. Not boring, but not "spicy" either.

I mean, 3 mine zones to get to the creator was a bit overkill. Especially since the second map was basically a big tunnel with outlying rooms.

Haven't been in the testing grounds yet though, or through a hatch I found in a zone.

Eh? I actually find GF3 beginning to be the best from GF3-5.

I have people talking to me with respect. Bowing before my majestic hooded figure.

I'm not anymore a freak. A crime to exist. A rogue creation that happened to be borned before it was ... changed. People don't teach me because they don't know shaping, not because it would be against anything they believe in!

I... usually go for unlock spell. How much XP locks give? It can't be too much. In the mines, there were tons of doors. If I used living tools, I would have burned through all of mine.

I am lvl 9 with 6 mechanics, 6 leadership and I am clearing out stuff that Litalia couldn't be bothered to clear from her lair. Her shade dropped by and told me as much.

She literally showed up, said "Hi. In there, there is a creation that served its purpose. Clear it out, OK? By the way, think on join me. We're awesome. Seriously. I have grand plan that I won't tell you about."

Without ANY word of what they fight for. If I hadn't spoken with a servile and random people in the island, I wouldn't have even an inkling that they fight for the freedom of creations.

And it's so mild that if I hadn't played GF4-5 I wouldn't actually be sure that this was the reason.

So, GF3-wise, my character has no idea why this mass murderer asks him to join.

By the way, I forgot to share this with you:

www.gamefront.com/files/25288646/Servile.rar

Servile sprites from GF4-5 reworked in order to work in GF3. It's for the non-sword carrying servile. I don't mind different sprite for serviles with weapons.

Unzip it in your GF3 folder and over-write.

Thanks Hyena.

I'm midway in the inner mines of the first island (yes, I'm just 8 hours into the game with frequent loads to explore more dialogues).

At which point should I make the "fall-back" save? I'm very pro-shaper so far, thinking that in order to walk the fence I'll rack-up Shep-rep now in order to be able to go more pro-reb later.

You know, in cases you can't in good conscience go pro-Shaper and let servilles be slaughtered just because one of them raised the possibility that perhaps life for them should be more than happily sweeping shaper floors.

I am still chewing on Ghaldring missing from GF3.

I will keep my hopes that if you go Shaper or rebel you may meet him \ fight him.

I shouldn't have read the spoiler.

Anyway, he told me in both GF4 and GF5 that he was around in the capture of Ashen islands (GF3) and that he was a buddy with a rebel shaper back in the colony where they were created.

I guess he wasn't lying but I was looking forward to meeting him in GF3.

Ghaldring is in 4 games

Well, I never intended to play GF1-3.

I just couldn't stop playing after GF5. I wanted to play more.

I am trapped!

But...GF3?

How the not-yet-existing rebels managed to organize a widespread wave of violence to begin all in about the same time? How did they manage to keep under the radar for so long as to gather the requisite resources? Do we get answers to that?

Oookaaay, we DO get an answer to that. And it was NOT what I expected. It's similar but not exactly what Triumph said.

The Commander in Fort Kentia told me:

Monsters appeared in mines. Shapers were informed, and ignored it.

Later, orders came for a Quarantine from the Shapers. Shapers in the island didn't bother inform anyone else aside of the Shapers. That's not unreasonable, to inform just the teachers and commander and not the novices and civilians.

The reactions to the news of monsters and the quarantine:

- The Commander, having seen the signs from the monster attacks seemed to have stepped up her game, bolstered defenses and waited for orders from the Shapers.

She's still waiting for orders from the Shapers.

- The teachers did nothing, absolutely convinced of their invulnerability. They didn't make new turrets. They didn't ask for more guards. They didn't shape more battle creations. They didn't step up the training of novices to help. They didn't stock up on potions, bandages, food.

Then, Litalia came and killed them.

And Alwan, the ashes of his school still on his soles (I am at day 2) considers the whole thing a nuissance bred out of bad discipline.

So, the verdict is: Shapers were informed that something is happening. They were further informed that it was probably big, that it involved rogues. A few (at least the Ashen Island boss) tried to contain the rogues till someone could bother to clear them up.

And left it at that. After all, what could go wrong, by ignoring sights of rogues or at most saying "OK, we quarantine this place to clean it up after the Shaperball! It's the finals and Burnwood team will challege the Citadel's finest for the cup! We can't bother with armies of monsters right now", right?

:(

Thanks.

Anyway: I found a guy that is diseased by a fatal disease a shaper made a century ago and that the shapers haven't eradicated. The Shaper was executed, but the damage was already done.

Greta pounced at the opportunity to bash the order.

Thanks. I probably do give them too much credit since even in GF5, with Unbound kicking Shapers left, right and center, there are shapers that still think all is an exaggeration by weaklings and that is just a matter of time till the rebellion is crushed.

And everywhere in GF4 and GF5 the narrative was saying how complacent Shapers were and how even AFTER the attacks, in their arrogance they kept underestimating the Drakons.

Again, we have an infiltrator Guardian in GF4 that wants to head to the Drakon Capital and sabotage it from inside. And when my char told him "Dude, seriously? You think you can penetrate a whole CITY of Drakons?" the shaper scoffed at me and said "It's creations, I'm doing an easy job"

On another thing:

My game must be bugged? My creation (and Alwan, Greta) are LOWER level than me! They seem to earn XP at a different rate or not getting XP from quests or something.

They are definetelly not catching up to me at XP.

Did anyone else had this bug? Perhaps it's a bug of the "Saga-version" of steam that gives all the games in one package?

How could I fix it?

In the first island (yes, I am still in the first one, haven't played for more that 5 hours) I found a lot of people (including Litalia and a mage that thinks he can put mines to woods and call them his) that say "attacks are happening everywhere in the islands and the mainland"

Ahem... is that a follow-up from GF2 or something? Or we learn about how they prepared and all, in bits and pieces through GF3-5?

GF4 starts with the rebellion well under way, burned cities and all. GF5 with half the Shaper lands ruined by Unbound and 10 years of war.

But...GF3?

How the not-yet-existing rebels managed to organize a widespread wave of violence to begin all in about the same time? How did they manage to keep under the radar for so long as to gather the requisite resources? Do we get answers to that?

Alwan doesn't believe the attacks are so widespread, and I don't blame him. To suddenly have up rebels and insurgents raise up and cause havoc everywhere without anyone noticing? That's really hard to pull.

Finally able to play a bit GF3 again.

I see now why Litalia tried to work with the Monarch in the beginning of the rebellion. She had filled the wood with rogues!

Rogues that don't differate between shaper and civilian or servile. Good going Litalia.

And as I recall, in GF4 Rebels also made spawners to bog down shapers.

Good thing you put the translation.

I have no idea how long that would take. Where are the in the remakes?

I would agree. At last we had more than one model for people.

And more stuff.

Now, if only GForge could be re-released using GF5 graphics and system...

For GF1, I have already taken the graphics mod. I am also slowly working to change some creations (Battle Alphas) to something prettier.

Guardians ... seem the same to me from GF3 to GF5.

Meh... if I play the fence, as I usually do, will both of them leave? Or will one of those ungrateful novices stick with me to the end?

TO RETURN BACK TO GF3 IF POSSIBLE:

As said earlier, I miss the "?" marks of GF4-5 where they were telling me where is whom.

Now I have to wander all over the map to find who I am looking for.

Also, the graphics seem a bit... clunkier.

But I like the "Mysterious Shaper" (Litalia) that wanders around all powerful and fills the place with rogues.

I hear whispers about her, I find reports about her etc. Nobody knows anything...

I am still very early in the game as I didn't have much time to play because of social obligations. It takes me a couple of months to finish GF games (if we go by GF4 and GF5 standards).

Question:

How far can I go with BOTH Alwan and Greta in the party? I like their contribution to discussions.

The safeguarding of Shaping is bigger – it's a philosophically murky, eternal problem. And I think the Shaper Council is, as Blxz said, basically right. ...

and a triumphant Awakened/human Rebellion would need to construct something Shaper Council-like to re-establish that safeguarding.

They did.

But they didn't enslave anyone. That was the one victory of the rebellion that validates them morally to a degree in my eyes.

Both sides did atrocities, both sides had a few good people, many bad people and countless opportunists.

But in the end, the rebellion victorious takes the "good parts" of shaping law (limits to power) and leaves behind the "barred creations should be killed on sight" and breaks the slavery of the serviles. In the end, even the Drakons realize that geneforges give too much power, too fast with very little control. And even Drakons agree to them being destroyed.

 

True, in the US slavery ended by a war but was it necessary? Other countries did not have to go to war to do this. The UK did it without a war,and did it even before the US, and I'm certain hosts of other countries did the same.

They did so during the enlightment and industrial age though. A time when not everyone was executed for having different ideas. And still in many cases, abolition did take a war, decades of bloody unrest, revolution or a coup to come into effect.

3. The first two Shapers back on the island (Goettsch and the PC) also failed to destroy it.

There's ANOTHER Shaper in Sucia island in GF1?

Meh... I didn't know that.

of course, as it turns out in g5, genocidal reptilian overlords aren't on the cards in the long run either, even in the most pro-rebel ending. arguably that's a bit of a cop-out on jeff's part but it's still the ending that he wrote for that path

We see signs of that from GF4. The Cryodrayks have rebelled. And the PC is tasked with defending them from any Drakon retaliation. Perhaps you can attack them for the Drakons, not sure.

In the finalle, the Cryodrayks, in a "show of goodwill" allow Akari Blaze and several Drakon Shapers lead the 100+ Unbound to Western Morass.

As if they could stop 100 Unbound...

Anyway, I find it perefectly logical and expected that the human\servile side of the Rebellion would turn on Drakons as they were weakened. They haven't been very shy about their plans for the new order.

And the way they have alienated the Drayks (and nobody takes Gazers for granted) they were actually alone.

With the war ravaging mainly the Shaper provinces instead of the rebel provinces since the creation of the Unbound 4 years pre GF5, the humans of the rebellion (left kinda aside and alone in the east) won't suffer much for war fatigue.

So it's entirelly plausible the humans, still with many veterans in their ranks but rested from little fighting, would take action against Drakons.

As for the Trakovites: I could wholly and whole-heartedly back a "no more sentient creations" rule. Shaping plants, thands, Fyoras, Kashiiks, etc seems fine to me. Even Battle Alphas seem semi-sentient and they could be allowed.

The Feminists and the Civil Rights movement happened in democracies. In Terrestia, if you claim that shaping is bad and should be stopped, you're executed. You are not allowed to have such thoughts. ANY shaper that showed sympathy pre-rebellion for the creations was expelled. Like Greta was in the start of GF3. Any shaper that showed sympathy for the creations during the rebellion was considered rebel.

There was not a peaceful solution possible that would allow the creations to have rights and individuality.

And the Rebels under Litalia were not better in that regard in GF4. (Please don't tell me about how they are treated in GF3!) Litalia was hunting down and executing Trakovites in GF4. Greta didn't go out of her way to hunt them, but the rebels were also killing people for their ideas.

Again, not saying that the Rebellion is wrong just that it could be and it would've been nice if they at least tried for something less destructive.

Rebels were bad too, don't get me wrong.

If Ghaldring is about to win, it takes 2nd 2-year-long rebellion to break the drakons.

One thing I find annoying in GF3 after playing 4-5 is that there seems to be no "?" that give me descriptions inside a map. I have to either remember where everyone is, or wander around them map trying to locate them again.

I can also say that I don't like the servile and batte alpha graphics, being used to GF4 sprites.

I managed to get Serviles like GF4-5 back, but it took time. Now, I have to do it for the Alphas.