idonotexist42

I've named several of my Vlish Squiggles lol. I love the weird floaty guys. One of the more interesting creations. And so useful. Probably the best mid-tier creation. I found Glaaks more off-putting for some reason. probably because I'm cool with octopi and squids but certain bugs are still a little unpleasant. They remind me of the american house centipede a little bit. Plus getting stun-locked is not fun. Artillas look so cobra-ish I often forget they're really worms. Clawbugs are cool cuz scorpions are just badass instead of creepy. if we were to encounter any of these in reality, I imagine the rots would probably be the most unsettling. being a giant rotting acidic corpse traipsing about. I suspect that they would smell truly awful. Other powerful creations would be scary because of the awe factor, but rots have the "ick" factor that's honestly worse imo. Much like how some people feel about Vlish. Poddlings, now I hate those. they both look disconcerting and are irritating foes. Am I the only one who is surprised there weren't more creations that were intended specifically as pets. Especially as until the stuff in the games starts to go down the world had been at peace for so long. You'd think they'd have at least a few creatures that were soft and fluffy instead of death machines. Or something that's a soft and fluffy death machine, dual purpose.

I think both the Awakened and the Barzites do a thing where they "modify" you to unlock training for higher level skills. On a platform thingy.

thankfully I do have an earlier save. I save compulsively when playing Geneforge.

I went to the spire and he wasn't there. I switched teams to Ghaldring after handing in Astoria's quest to flush the agent and then she wanted me to go to the citadel, could that have screwed it up?

I fought all the guards outside and then got a message about reinforcements coming in from outside the city before making it into his throne room, at which point he was gone. Thanks though, I'll see if that's where he's run off to.

So I'm playing through G5 as a rebel, and I'm killing all the council members. I'd already assassinated Alwan, I stroll into the Zephyr Oasis and merrily begin slaughtering everything in site, get to the palace, and Sage Taygen is nowhere to be found. I went through the whole zone killing everything and he didn't appear to be anywhere. I already flushed the purity agent in Kayar's spire, could that have affected it? I just need to know where this dude went so I can kill him like I'm supposed to.

I've taken it upon myself to create a tabletop Pen&Paper RPG version of Geneforge; initially just the rule framework and mechanical stuff and then just as with D&D people could all do pretty much whatever the hell they wanted story and content wise in their own little groups and not have to code anything. I wouldn't sell it or anything, and idk if I'd even be able to distribute it for free but I want to make it anyway even if I only end up playing it with my friends. And maybe if it turns out well it could get approval from Jeff. I'm aiming to transpose as many of the mechanics and math stuff from the games as possible with minimal alterations into the tabletop system, anything that wouldn't be murderous to calculate by hand or require too many dice. Then borrow ideas from D&D to fill in the gaps like frog DNA in Jurassic Park's dinosaurs. And I plan to create a very elaborate shaping system with more depth and customization than the games have. Probably differentiate the classes a little more with exclusive bonuses and abilities besides the variance in health/energy/essence pools and which skills are cheaper. add some stuff to make melee more interesting. Crafting will work similarly to how it does in the games The time consuming thing is going to be the "monster manual" and doing spells and items, because of the sheer volume. And typing up background and lore stuff for reference. And a lot will probably be vague since there's only so much we can extrapolate from the existing games.

if you get them early enough they're an upgrade over the artilla. But yeah, I never used them much. The improved versions I made held their own. Made a cryoroamer (since that seems to be standard for upgraded fire creations) with ice breath and the icy touch attack (cold damage+slow, cool looking blue impact effect). Made one pattered after the guardian roamer that was just tougher and had the acid bite. And a "disruption roamer" that used a spell I made that hit three targets and did disruption damage, looked like the icy breath projectile and did the reaper lightning explosion effect when they hit. The disruption damage tears through most creations but doesn't even effect a lot of enemy types so that sort of balanced it out, and I gave them lower health to further compensate so they wouldn't be OP. glass cannons essentially. Also they were turquoise and glowed. Essence costs are hardcoded, so these upgraded versions ended up being only 15 base essence cost which made them very cost effective and worth making. There are unused values for spells in the scripts, so while you can't add creations, you can add spells, and I had fun with that.

I usually go for the pink/purple one, just because it stands out most from the other in-game NPC sprites. I also modded my scripts so that the shapers of different factions had different colored robes, to differentiate them from the blue of the loyalists. This was most important in G2, and then for the rest of them it was pretty much just Litalia.

yeah. Prequels for non-interactive media work well because you get to see how things came to be without feeling like your actions are irrelevant, the forgone conclusion becomes a positive rather than a negative. Star Wars is probably the best example, or any superhero origin story. For games, especially RPGs where player choice shaping the story is a big deal, that predestination becomes a negative since it makes your choices irrelevant. Sequels are constrained by cannon beginnings, but from there it's a blank canvas to paint on so I feel they're more suitable for a RPG unless it's a distant prequel where there's more wiggle room. The thing I like about having 3 slots for crew companions when out and about on land while having a larger pool to choose from is that it creates its own interesting gameplay choice; who's best to bring with you for this mission? who works best together, what role do they fill that a creation can't, or what creations might I need to fill a role my party members can't. It's a mechanic that works very well in Bioware's games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Also I would like to see the shaping system expanded somewhat, not adding more power creep with a 6th Tier, but more lateral expansion; give us maybe a third variant of each creation, possibly give us poddlings, which provide an array of de-buffs depending on which one you choose but have their damage reduced to compensate and make them fill a support role. Add a healing Vlish. Let us make those cryoroamers and guardian roamers, let us make searing AND plated artillas, Stinging AND plated clawbugs, maybe the redshell ones. Battle Gammas (I've always wanted to be able to make those) The thadh shade and the corrupted version; I thought the charged creations in G4&5 were great and added an interesting new mechanic but I disliked how they displaced other creations I'd grown attached to. Might be a bit odd if you're a Sholai to gain access to so many different types, but that's what Canisters are for, right???

That's why I did propose a limit on crew members you could take with you on land, leaving room for creations. I don't really see any need to merge our ideas since none of this will happen anyways. He has his vision, I have mine, and we're both independently explaining what they are. It's not antagonistic, and there's no reason to collaborate to create…. nothing? an imaginary game? it's not like we actually are trying to create a real product where we have to compromise and work together. If the two of us were actually employees for some game company tasked with making a GF6, then yeah we'd have to find a middle ground but this is just hypothetical. It make sense that other cultures might have token mentions and representation, much as there were always a couple random Sholai in each GF, there could be people from other places visiting the Sholai lands without really being part of the larger story. Both of my game ideas are set firmly after G5 because they hinge upon the events of that game. Distant prequels are easier to do because the past is shrouded in mystery than it is to do games set between the existing ones where you're more tightly constrained by existing lore and story lines.

I'm ok with the new shaper robes, they're not better or worse than the originals imo, just different. I agree with you that the lifecrafter robes are god awful and that's why I've never played one. such an ugly sprite.

The only PC made creations that don't share definitions (as in they actually have a separate entry) with NPCs of the same creature in the game world are the PC created unstable roamer and the PC created Plated Bug (in G5 at least, it might just be the roamer in the others) if you changed say, a glaakh into a mage, it'd change all the glaakhs into mages and that'd be a bit odd. I think some of the charged creations in G4&5 never appear as NPCs so you can screw with those without messing too much up, the Corrupted Thahd and Charged Vlish are fair game. I always replace the PC created unstable roamer because those things are useless.

And this is why I wish Blades of Geneforge was a thing. So many possibilities. I really do want to make up a tabletop version so I can enact my ideas somehow, and anyone else who wants to can enact theirs.

I sort of ran with the Sholai idea separately from yours. I'd rather this be considered a proper Geneforge game than a spin-off, as interesting as that might be. And involving more people than the terrestrians and the Sholai would be broadening the scope too much imo, I'd rather the coalitions be between clans within the sholai rather than new nations we hadn't heard of. Almost like ancient greece with loosely affiliated city states but they're still all greeks. I don't want to dilute the iconic Geneforge feel too much, or decentralize the narrative too much and I think my idea already has a lot going on. Besides, if I wanted a game that didn't feel like Geneforge, I'd go play some other game that wasn't Geneforge rather than a tangentially related one in the same world. No offense, this is all just our personal visions for something that more than likely will never actually happen. I just wanted to clarify that I was diverging from your concept and my reasons for doing so. the over world thing isn't how I was picturing the ship, at least not entirely. I viewed it more as a hub and home base, almost the way your ship is in Mass Effect. it could zoom out into an over world type thing from there, or perhaps merely during naval battles that interrupt your standard geneforge fast travel (like what happens in DragonAge). That's one thing I always felt Geneforge lacked, place that was YOURS where you could stash stuff, and potentially have to defend rather than just jacking someone's house and dumping all your stuff there. Like in G5 the anvil in the whitespires I just have all my crafting ingredients dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

It'd be interesting to see where existing characters like Greta, Alwan, and the other councilors, Litalia (especially Litalia) fit in. And does Alwan's dedication to the law and order make him side with the moderates to uphold their treaties even though he disagrees with them? or does he back the radicals who can't stomach dealing with the Rebels at all even though they're seditious against the establishment? And if we assume an Astoria-ish ending to G5 where Ghaldring dies, who will fill his shoes amongst the Drakons? And whatever the equivalent of the G5 PC is up to? All the Geneforges have been rather vague about what happens to the previous protagonists. G1 guy is dead or something probably as is G2 (if I understand correctly Litalia is part of the cleanup crew sent after whatever the G2 PC did canonically, not the G2 protagonist) The G3 protagonist presumably took the rebel path, as did the G4, where did they vanish to? did they die? is the G4 protagonist just some rebel general in the east where we don't see him? you'd think that people who so drastically tipped the balances of power and directly steered the course of fate would get more mention than just vanishing into obscurity and vague references. God only knows who the G5 protagonist used to be anyways? (I suspect G1 protagonist, actually)

The grey can come in as a question as to how crazed or not crazed this Usurper really is. I'd like him to have a better ideological motive than Barzal's world domination for its own sake to avoid cartoonish mustache-twirling villainy. I just hadn't really gotten that far when I typed my previous post. Perhaps he feels the current government is too weak and indecisive to handle what's going on with the refugee crisis and arrival of shaping and feels they need to consolidate into a more typical nation-state and bulk up their military via shaping to survive in the global conflicts occurring instead of being preyed upon in their disunity. That's part of where helping him pick whether to back the shapers or Drakons comes in, if it were about power alone the Drakons would be an easy choice. He has to balance expedience with his purported ideology. Does he favor absolute order, or freedom at the risk of anarchy? does he truly support either side or is he using them to further his own end and plans to turn on them later? The Trakov ending of G1 shows trakov to be a remarkably enlightened ruler, perhaps he looks at whats going on and wants to similarly remake the world, feeling that it will be more prosperous under his rule. Very few real-world conquerors were cartoon villains, and even those that were (hitler) had an ideology they believed in and viewed themselves in a heroic light. I was thinking that if you've got a 4 person party, then you simply have less creation slots available than you would otherwise, not all that different than how companions like Alwan and Greta, or Brodus Blade, or Mekhen and such work already. It's the shapers and rebels who are most mercenary here, particularly the radical subsets; to them the Sholai are just a tool to further their ends be it the current government or the Usurper (sort of how like the US and Russia mucked around in the middle east and we both picked dictators to back and essentially used the place as a sandbox for proxy wars- and still do). You, as a Sholai character have to decide what you feel is ultimately best for your people. The moderate shapers and moderate rebels are sort of on the same team, and just want to root out their own radical splinter groups. They throw in their lot with the current government by default because they don't really want to rock the boat while the radicals court the one who wants to overturn the status quo rather than maintain it. Cold war vs. hot war. The Xenophobes aren't totally unjustified either, they see that their country is being drawn into a conflict they want no part of and don't know how to stop that from happening except to drive them all out by force. The Usurper by contrast sees that it's inevitable and isolationism will only hamstring them in the long run.

Ah, I didn't know that's where the artwork came from, I just assumed they were hand done individually, at least for items. The sprites you can tell are 3d renders but the flat pictures for items I didn't suspect. I must have missed the lines about her injuries, I'll take your word for it. I had always assumed that the changes in sprites were just changes in art style on Jeff's part, deciding the more closely fitted jacket type robe was better than the flowing open one of G1-2 (which I sorta miss) and that the newer guardian sprite was a supposed graphical upgrade from the original more simplistic one that was eventually phased out totally. We do seem to see an assortment of different robes in the artwork beyond the sprites and I'll take a look at those again to see if I can find any pattern to it other than just personal variation. Barzal, a guardian, used the shaper sprite which I didn't find too odd since he presumably just put the robe on over his armor, but it made me wonder if full shapers of any class wore the robes or if he just felt like it and broke from tradition. I'm not all that fond of the newer guardian model, the pecs look like "moobs" and I think the round open faced helmet is less impressive than the crusader type pot helmet of the old one. Would have rather seen a larger more detailed rendition of the old look but hey, I'm not the one who made the games and the games are awesome overall so it's a moot point.

I suppose to simplify it's implementation, the multiple sub-factions within each main grouping, or who share common enemies, will have to kill roughly the same sets of people and do similar stuff but with different dialogue.

We know in G5 Alwan has a drinking problem, to deal with the pain of his injuries. We don't really know what sort of intoxicants they have besides alcohol in the Geneforge world, based on the way the pipes look I would assume they've got something akin to tobacco. Opium and hash pipes look quite different, and we don't know if they have any equivalent psychoactive plants to opium and pot, it's never mentioned. The canisters seem to make you pretty cracked out if you take too many but I don't think they qualify as a drug in the conventional sense. While she may well have a pipe and smoke, there's never any mention that she has chronic pain and she doesn't seem to act as if she does. If she were on anything along the lines of Opium, I think it'd be more obvious. Also if they have something like Opium, I would think Alwan would use that over alcohol which is pretty inferior as a painkiller. Again my guess is that it's like tobacco which is calming under stress but viewed as a normal pastime, as well as not being too heavily intoxicating (generally). It's not like Avernum which had that herb, Skrima or something, can't remember what it was called.

I have an idea for the plot of the Sholai idea: Takes place shortly after G5, shaping has been introduced to the Sholai lands and of course, chaos ensues. There's some rogue Sholai captain like Trakov has started trying to use shaping to take over and subjugate the rest of the Sholai, and whichever ending of G5 turns out to be cannon (I know it never exactly follows any of the endings but one of them's usually close, I think Astoria's is best to use because it leaves the most pieces on the chessboard so to speak) there's remnants of the more radical factions of the Rebels and Loyalists trying to regroup in the Sholai's territory, and a flood of refugees from Terrestria. Whatever sort of centralized government the Sholai have is trying to figure out how to deal with it all, whether to stay neutral, or back/ally with the moderate or radical shaper factions, and fend off the man who would be king (the aforementioned rogue captain). If the Sholai have a clan/tribal structure then perhaps they have a kind of parliament where the heads of the clans meet and there's a sort of prime minister/arch-chancelor who isn't true head of state but just sort of presides over the legislature even though they have the real power. There'd be factions within the sholai paired with all of the different outsider (funny how the shapers become the outsiders here) vying for control, and a sort of Xenophobic faction that wants to kick out all the refugees and stop letting people in. The Trakovites of course will be present, not directly allied to the xenophobes but sort of working with them to keep shaping from spreading even though they want to help the civilian refugees. The radical parts of each outsider and corresponding sholai faction will be treating with the man who would be king, promising to aid his coup if he then backs their cause once in power. His goal is simple conquest so he'll side with whoever he feels is most expedient and can offer the most power (and thus probably leaning towards the Drakons). He's the guy who's trying to build a Geneforge this time, since there's got to be at least one in every game. Your character would start as a relatively low ranking captain, who as with all the Geneforge games somehow becomes the deciding force to tip the balance of power. Somehow you have to have gotten the ability to shape (wouldn't properly be a Geneforge game otherwise). Perhaps you unwittingly sail into a naval battle between some of the factions and come across a canister. You get captured by the man who would be king's forces and then have to fight your way out, rescue your crew and ship. During this escape you first encounter members of the other [moderate] factions who are also prisoner, and envoys from the Radical ones, just to introduce the whole cast. You could rescue either the [moderate] shaper or [moderate] rebel ambassador who was on their way to meet with the Sholai's real government. I suppose with high enough leadership you could help both since they're diplomats from factions that are theoretically at peace who just want to get on with their mission. If this is to be a seafaring game, then having an upgradable ship that serves as your home base would be nice. You could get an anvil eventually, more crew members, etc. On land it'd behave similarly to normal gene forge zones like with G3 (or have Avernum's open world, why not?) except when you leave via boat it doesn't just teleport you, it puts you on your ship and you consult that world map to sail around. Sometimes you'll be interrupted by a naval battle, some of which will be key plot point that always happen, others just random pirates and sea monsters. I would love it if your companions that aren't creations (like alwan and greta in G3) actually had full inventories, and you had a little more control over their development as they level up. Part of why I want this is because I enjoyed the party dynamic from Avernum, but also because I hated how in Geneforge you'd get all this shiny loot and you'd just sell it all because what you had was better. This way it doesn't all go to waste, you can give it to your companions. You wouldn't have this degree of control over your whole crew, but over the core group. Probably limit this core party to 4; you+3 companions, you can change who comes with you each time you leave your ship (a la dragon age and mass effect) out of a pool of maybe 5 or 6 tops. Some companions will be more powerful than others by default and some will be associated with factions, some could be mutually exclusive even aside from faction divides. For you, in terms of faction choice, there's two main branches; first you decide whether to join the man who would be king, or become an agent of the Sholai's legitimate government. From there, you determine which of the outsider factions your chosen side ultimately aligns with. The usurper side (shorter than having to keep typing "the man who would be king") is excluded from the Xenophobes or Trakovites because he's enthusiastically embracing shaping, and also excluded from the moderate factions who want peace. Their ultimate goal regardless of which sub-faction you pick is to (with your chosen sub-faction's help) overthrow the legitimate government. Loyal Sholai who want to side with the outsider radicals start by joining the Sholai faction that sympathizes with them and must first convince either the Drakons or Alwanites (as I called the radical shapers in my other G6 idea) that it's better to help them gain control of the Sholai government and work with them than it is to side with the Usurper and overthrow the legitimate government, and then after securing that alliance help their sub faction take control of the legitimate government and then together crush the Usurper. Moderates skip that first bit but have to suppress the radical-sympathizing sholai factions and then proceed to crushing the Usurper. Xenophobes help their faction gain dominance and then proceed to merrily slaughter everyone not Sholai. complicated. But it'd be mad cool.

It's difficult to successfully argue a point if you're missing some of the background information that the other side is basing their opinion on. It'd be like if I tried to argue with someone who'd seen the whole star wars trilogy about whether vader could be redeemed or not but I hadn't seen episode VI. They KNOW Vader gets redeemed because it's cannon, I would only be speculating. You won't lose anything by playing G5. It's a great game, well worth the money. Plus I think I got the whole Geneforge saga off GOG for like $10 last year (I owned one and two back when they first came out but not the rest of the series) I'm replaying G5 now, and while my conscience is telling me to side with Astoria, my emotions are telling me to side with Ghaldring so I can gut Rawal like the rat bastard he is. I'll feel bad killing Astoria, but I'll take great joy in crushing Alwan and Taygen underfoot as well. Not quite as much as I'll enjoy killing Rawal, but I'll certainly take pleasure in it. The shapers in G4 were much friendlier trying to recruit you. In G5 they're so goddamn arrogant and I'd be pissed at them for their disrespect even without having binged on every single canister I could find. The shapers just piss me off even though ideologically I sort of side with them and Astoria being the closest thing to my old buddies the Awakened since G2. In a way it reminds me of the time I played the Barzites in G2. Every other faction treats you like their errand boy, Barzal treats you as his right hand man and you actually get respect. They're dicks to the serviles but unlike the shapers who are also dicks to me, the Barzites stroke my ego like a particularly enthusiastic hand job. And in their ending you take over the world and essentially become a god. Don't have the moral high ground but it's indulgent and satisfying in its own way.

I always assumed that when shapers started using rotgroths they'd been reverse engineered from the rebel ones. On Gull Island all the evidence points to the shapers there somehow having been influenced by the rebels somehow, what with all the canisters and such; it was sketchy business. Also yeah, Rotgroths were adopted no-problem by the shapers because mentally, they were a normal creation, not independent like Drayks, Drakons, or Gazers/Eyebeasts. And I don't recall Drakons or Gazers being made by the shapers on Gull Island either. One of the reasons stronger creations weren't made on Sucia is because it was shut down just as it was hitting its stride and they didn't have the opportunity to progress farther. Presumably if they'd been allowed to continue their research we would have seen increasingly powerful creations invented there. Perhaps not the same ones but definitely mighty ones. If Drayks hadn't been Barred while Sucia was operating (not clear on when they were barred relative to the island being barred) Drakons might have been invented because "Bigger more powerful dragons" is the logical progression from "small quadruped dragons" Who knows if Rots would have been made but "harder to kill, faster, and yeah, it also covers its foes in acid" seems like a reasonably expected improvement on the Battle Alpha. Gazers as we know them I doubt would exist but presumably the template of Vlish would have been innovated upon somehow. Worms and crawlers were only used by the shapers out of desperation and because assumably they're easy to make a ton of. I don't recall seeing as many in G4, but in G5 when they're desperately trying to fend off the Unbound they seem to have thrown much of their restraint out of the window.

I'll point out that the creations added in G2 were based on the discoveries from Sucia island, it was the secrets Barzal and Zakary took back from the island that allowed them to create those new creations. They just picked up where Sucia left off and they were the logical progression. It's not as if they were created in a vacuum.

the Drakons were planning on starting the war anyways, if you play the Taker faction in G2 you see that. yeah they'd probably be fine without servile slave labor and the Drayk genocide was both morally wrong and horribly impractical imo. can't blame the drayks for being pissed about being genocided. Of course, the Drakons might never have come to exist in that case. Except it was Barzal who made the first one, and he wanted to take over the world just for the sake of it, so who really knows.