Corylea

I was so very eager to get rid of Governor Yvette!  I wanted to get rid of her the instant I met her, but Miranda wouldn't let me get rid of her until I'd been further north.  So, okay, I finally fought my way far enough north, found Abelin, then returned to Miranda to tell her to get rid of Yvette and put Abelin in her place.  I went back to the governor's hall, and not only was Yvette still there, but she told me smugly that she wasn't leaving, and I couldn't make her.

I waited to work on the sick forest until I'd gotten rid of the rapacious governor, thinking that might make the forest feel better.  But when I make a decision, nothing actually changes!  Why am I even here?

I thought this game was supposed to be one where I made choices, and those choices mattered.  Hrmph.

1 hour ago, Mechalibur said:

Unlike QW1, Resources aren't gained over time. There's no longer any upkeep or resource accumulation every 2 days. The fort report is just a summary of how many total Resources you've earned and spent.

 

So, for example, if you get 2 quicksilver from taking a claim, that's just 2 quicksilver added to your total. Not 2 every day. If you build an alchemist, you spend that 2 quicksilver and that's it. No continual upkeep.

Ohhh!  That's an enormous change from QW1.  Thanks so much for clarifying that.

Thanks so much for all the time and effort you put into helping others, Randomizer!

Thanks, Randomizer and TriRodent!  I love RPG's, but that doesn't mean that I'm actually any good at them, so your advice helps lots. :-)

Backed!  Looking forward to it!

2 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

Corylea, what you're describing is a literary device known as the "unreliable narrator" and it's one of my favorites. It's differentiated from the "omniscient narrator" who knows everything about the situation and describes it accurately, or at least accurate to what the author wants to instill in the audience. With the unreliable narrator, either the story's narrator, or a character narrating their own perspective within the story, has a flaw in their telling, which should give the audience pause as to whether to rely on them. They may be crazy, they may be a liar, they may be brainwashed, or they may even just be misinformed. I love this story mechanism because it's true to life. Believing everything people tell you - gullibility - will lead a person to disaster.

I'm familiar with the term but didn't use it because I wasn't sure if everyone else was. :-)  And yes, that can provide a compelling story.  There's an Agatha Christie novel where the story is told from the point of view of the murderer, but he doesn't tell you until the very end that he IS the murderer.  Since the sort of old-school classic mysteries that Christie told were usually narrated in a straightforward way, it was a surprising plot twist to have her suddenly giving us an unreliable narrator.

We've learned in the real world -- to our sorrow -- that people tend to interpret new events so that those events will fit into their existing worldview.  When game characters do that, it makes the world a richer and more conflictual place.  Having the real world be conflictual is kind of a drag, but drama thrives on conflict, so story-heavy games only benefit from it.

I tried to get the Obeyer spy who was in Taker custody to escape, but his worldview was unshakable, and he seemed happy to die for his beliefs.  Do I chalk his death up to the Takers, to the Shapers, or to the Obeyers?  It seems as if there's enough culpability to go around for everyone to have some. 😞

4 hours ago, alhoon said:

No spoilers clarification: 
Some of the assumptions I have been discussing under in this thread, have just been proven (Mine Core zone) to be partially wrong. 

No problem!  One of the great things about a well-written game -- which it looks as if this is -- is that everyone speaks from their own point of view, but that point of view may be based on faulty or incomplete information.

Have you played Planescape: Torment?  The main character has amnesia at the start of the game, and he gathers information about who he has been in the past slowly, over the course of the entire game.  The slowly dawning realization of just who you have been in the past is chilling.  Even after more than twenty years, P:T is widely considered to have one of the best stories, ever, in gaming.  It's one of my favorite games, specifically for that gradual realization of what the truth is.

So I'm happy to see the truth gradually revealed. :-)

5 minutes ago, alhoon said:

 

 

Do you want spoilers from the other games (that may well be changed in the remakes) or not? There are some not-right assumptions in your post. 

No, I don't.  I think most people assume that anyone who cares enough about the Spiderweb games to post here has played them all.  I guess I should stop reading this thread, but it's a shame, because I find the issues interesting.

Or I could trust that my old-lady mind will have forgotten all the spoilers by the time I get to the other games. 😏

13 hours ago, stilltim said:

Thanks. Honestly, all I see when I look at it now are TYPOS 🤪

*laugh*  I hear you!  I write Star Trek fan fiction (see avatar ) under another name, and I'm very critical when I read my stories, but my readers keep telling me that I write wonderfully in-character stories with really interesting ideas.

I went to the Eastern Docks last night, and if it hadn't been for your map showing me where the power spirals are, I probably would have given up on Geneforge and gone to play something else.  So you really, really ARE helping!  Take another helping of effusive thanks!  👏  😊 

Jeff was prescient when he originally created this story, because CRISPR wasn't invented until 2012, and it was just this year that it was announced that a scientist had used CRISPR to gene-edit a human embryo.  That particular scientist thought the world was ready for a CRISPR-edited human, but the rest of the scientific community disagreed.

Given what's happening in the real world, I'm not surprised that there are some Shapers who want research to be controlled and safe and others who want to push the envelope.  That's how people ARE.

Good job, Jeff!

41 minutes ago, Sudanna said:

Geneforge 1 is unique in that canisters, in great enough numbers to cause significant unintended alterations, are simply mechanically essential for most playthroughs. There's not really any other way to get spells or creations. Later games rely on canisters much less completely.

Interesting.  Well, I'll look forward to being more moderate in future games. :-)

4 minutes ago, Ess-Eschas said:

I don’t think it’s necessarily that Shaping laws were any more lax, but merely because the canisters and all associated technologies were new inventions, and so not well understood at first.

[...]

Of course, this is based on my fairly rudimentary knowledge of the Geneforge series – so please do correct me if I’m mistaken on some points!

All of that makes sense to me, but then, this is my first Geneforge game, so the lore is all new to me.

1 minute ago, Iguana-on-a-stick said:

Self-shaping via canisters or the gene-forge or any other method is strictly forbidden according to Shaper law. 

*blinks*  Wait, what?  Using canisters is forbidden?  But then why are there so MANY canisters?  There are one or two in nearly every area, which adds up to a heck of a lot of canisters!  There are 82 zones in the game, so even if it averages out to one per zone -- though I think it's actually more -- why would the previous Shapers have made 82 items that should never be used?

5 minutes ago, Iguana-on-a-stick said:

There's a reason Sukia island was Barred, after all.

I'm only maybe a third of the way through the game, and my character is still hoping to find out why the island was barred.  People keep whispering about a powerful machine they call the Geneforge, and I'm guessing the existence of that machine might be why, though why the previous Shapers didn't just destroy the thing -- rather than barring an entire island -- I don't know yet.

6 minutes ago, TriRodent said:

Sure there is:

 

Menu

Main Menu

Start new game...

Heh. 😏

5 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

This game doesn't affect too much with excessive canister use. There isn't an in game way to reverse the canister effects.

 

Now in later games it becomes a significant problem in limiting your actions. 

Thanks for the information.  Well, I'm glad I played this game first, then, so that I know to be careful in subsequent Geneforge games!

This is incredibly useful and extremely well organized.  Thank you so very much!!

I'd been cruising along, thinking like a typical gamer, assuming that the canisters were good because they made me more effective in battle.  Then I talked to someone and got inappropriately angry at her because the canisters had given me the typical Shaper arrogance, and that OVERRODE MY NATURAL PERSONALITY.  (Not all the way; I managed to wrestle it under control, just barely.)

Holy moly!  I had no idea the canisters could do that!  I mean, I know I got a message saying that the canister had changed me, but I just thought that was talking about adding the new skill.

Now I see that the Shapers are arrogant not necessarily because they choose to be but because using the Shaper biotech has arrogance as a freaking side effect.  Or maybe it's a planned and intended effect on the part of whoever made the canisters; I dunno.  It certainly wasn't intentional on MY part.

Jeff, you brilliant man, you!  What an interesting and clever plot twist!

Now take it away. :-)  Is there any way to get my own personality back?

25 minutes ago, TriRodent said:

 

Probably tied into the isometric viewpoint of the player

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here.  I usually play isometric RPG's, since the viewpoint where you see out of the character's eyes (not sure what the name for that is, since I never use it) generally gives me motion sickness.  But the maps for those other isometric games are usually oriented in the conventional way.

On 2/24/2021 at 11:28 AM, Randomizer said:

Geneforge 1 - Mutagen

Thank you so much for this phenomenally useful guide!  I know you're the Grand Old Man of the forum here, so people expect you to know everything, but writing this out must have been a LOT of work, and you deserve MASSIVE thanks.

W     WNW  NW   NNW   N

WSW  CW   CNW  CN     NNE

SW   CSW   C   CNE   NE

SSW  CS   CSE   CE   ENE

S    SSE   SE   ESE  E

Any idea WHY Jeff chose to make the map in a non-standard way?  I have to remind myself a dozen times an hour that East is in what I would think of as the South, and West is what I would think of as the North.  The Tab key gives a handy reminder, but really ... why do it this way?

8 minutes ago, Iguana-on-a-stick said:

I also started with Geneforge 4, and it's actually what turned me against the rebellion.

 

Won't go into detail why because spoilers, but the first time playing as a rebel (as the default) I just got more and more uncomfortable with it all and ultimately just stopped playing. Later restarted with a character who started listening to the Shapers instead and had a lot less of a problem. I still remember with great fondness how we crushed the rebellion at the end.

Interesting!  You know Jeff has done a good job when people's real emotions and real ethical values are engaged when they play.

4 hours ago, alhoon said:

[...]

My opinion, without spoilers is: The Rebellion at its worst was better than the Shapers at their Worst. The Rebellion on its best was much better than the Shapers on their best.  True, the Rebellion at its worst was worse than the Shapers at their best. But that is not a fair comparison. 

[...]

Yours sounds like an observant and nuanced view, and I appreciate your sharing it.  It also sounds so much like the sort of thing I say about other games. :-)  Well, you've already heard me on the Scoia'tael vs. the Order...

4 hours ago, alhoon said:

[...]

I honestly suggest you play GF3-GF5 as they won't be ready for several years. And that's where the Rebellion actually starts. Again, in my opinion, GF1-2 are "prequels" to the story, GF3-5 are the main story. GF3-5 form a closer narrative with many major NPCs from GF3 staying around through GF5. 

[...]

I'm still working my way through the current game.  I have a chronic illness that steals many of my days, so I can't do anything quickly, unfortunately.  But when I'm done with this one, I'll certainly check those out.  Or perhaps Jeff will have published Queen's Wish 2 by the time I manage to finish Mutagens. 😄

1 minute ago, ultra112 said:

Sadly the Rebellion end up being just as bad if not worse than the Shapers later on. At least one of the most admirable quality the shapers have as a whole is that they understand the concept of when great power comes great responsibility.

I haven't played the later games in this series and am hoping not to have spoilers for them!  And since Jeff is re-working this series, the Rebellion could be different, this time around.

15 minutes ago, alhoon said:

The time I ended up in Pentil's gates, out of essence and literally in my last breath, wounded and with my creations hovering on death's door because of all those $%#$%$@# Vlish was memorable. 

I'm playing on Easy or Casual or whatever it's called.  I adore RPG's, but that doesn't mean that I'm good at them. :-)  I have too much of a tendency to charge in head-on, when I should be sneaking up. :-)

17 minutes ago, alhoon said:

I didn't finish the Witcher, but went pretty far. Far enough to have the discussion with my knight Friend from the Order about him thinking I betrayed him and his precious Order by aligning with the "$$$$" (as they were calling the non-humans). It was clear to me that there would be people that supporting the Order although I didn't get in any forums about it, but I was with the Freedom fighters all the way... and I personally I remember some of their choices being ... questionable, but not enough for me to consider them NOT the good guys. 

I was into The Witcher enough that I played it all the way through five times AND made two new adventures for it.  Given that I'm a clinical psychologist in real life -- not any kind of computer expert -- learning to use the toolkit for the first Witcher game was hard, but I was so passionate about the game that I just HAD to.

35 minutes ago, alhoon said:

I am from a country that had to fight for its freedom several times, overthrowing conquerors and liberating compatriots. Our flag's colors symbolize "Freedom or Death". In the 'enlightment' era of my country, late 18th century, we had songs like "Better live free for one hour, than forty years as a slave".  

Long live Greece! 😉

5 minutes ago, TriRodent said:

 

As an aside... if one way is 'really' hard for you, look around.  There tends to be both a combat way to 'x' & a stealth way to 'x'.  In your case (after the fact) it may have been easier to go north & then east & enter Pentil  from the west.

 

(and of course nothing is preventing you from going that way now & gathering a little more gold & experience...)

Thanks, that's good to know!

@alhoon, I haven't fought my way to the Takers yet; I had enough trouble getting past all those %$#@& vlishes to get to Pentil.  But no matter how courageous the Takers are, killing people is not something I want to support.  The Awakened want to be equal, and that resonates with me.  There's no subservience in equality, so I find their point of view quite enlightened.

I'm not very far along yet, so I haven't been asked to do anything evil by the Awakened; if I am, of course I'll decline.

Back when I was really into The Witcher (the first one), we used to have long discussion about whether to support the Order (a group that oppressed non-human people, such as elves and dwarves but who kept the peace) or the Scoia'tael (a group that fought for the freedom of the oppressed non-human people but who often used unsavory methods in their fight for freedom).  When I played the game for the first time, I thought it was completely obvious that the Scoia'tael were the good guys, and I was shocked when I got to the forum and discovered that about half of the other players were supporting the Order.  I found the discussions interesting, because divorcing the issues from their usual real-world context made it possible to discuss those issues without as much of a personal axe to grind.  Science fiction and fantasy are great for that.

I'm amazed at the way computer games can make us ponder moral issues.  Roger Ebert famously declared that computer games were not and could not be art, but I think he was wrong about that.