Slawbug

Scratch that. You're right, Thuryl, it's in E3 as well. He is just so deranged there that he mangles his own name, so my quick search didn't find it.

Elohi in E/A2: "Vyvnas-Bok has told us how the foul Empire tormented him, trying to elicit secrets of Vahnatai magical powers. If you had not arrived, soon he may have had to dissolve himself to keep from aiding them" on the other hand, Vyvnas himself seems quite put together: You stand in the presence of a Crystal Soul you returned. "Welcome, humans! I am glad at your presence. I am Vyvnas-Bok." Its voice is very friendly. It soothes you. The Crystal Soul sits there, waiting patiently for you to speak. You feel the warmth of its gratitude. Jekknol on the other hand: Glantris: "We thank you for returning the Crystal Soul of Jekknol-Bok to us."I2{He quivers with anger. "They tormented our ancestor's spirit! They told stories of invasions of our lands, of the death of our people! They nearly drove Jekknol mad!" And this: "The book describes the experiments performed on the Crystal Soul Jekknol-Bok by the wizards here. They have been exploring its beliefs, its magical properties, and its ability to feel pain.They have also been trying to break the creature and bend it to their will, through a combination of magic and subterfuge. The journal writer is growing nervous, however. The Crystal Soul seems to be going mad" and: You replace Jekknol on its pedestal and wait for it to awaken. For a long while, nothing happens. Then you hear in your mind "Here? Where am I? What is this place?"L2"Home? ... Who says that? ... You say I'm home? ... No, home is gone. Crushed and scattered. That is what ... no, this is another trick, my people are gone ... this is a trick. Another trick. I will not listen anymore."2And with that, there is silence. Sadly, though you have returned Jekknol-Bok to its people, its suffering seems to have not yet ended." In A3, but *not* E3, Vyvnas seems to already have gone mad. The best comparison may be the item descriptions in A2. Caffren projects "angry whispering of this being" and Jekknol projects "angry, vicious muttering of this tormented creature" while Vyvnas projects "soft, gentle whisper of the being". Honestly, Vyvnas could have been tortured enough to make him go crazy, but I think it's more likely they got mixed up at some point.

Scout creations? Has the engine changed enough to make those -- well -- existant, let alone useful?

Nothing. To steal without being seen, you can't have anyone in your line of sight. Edit: You can obstruct lines of sight using the Fire Barrier spell, but you won't get that for a very long time. Alternately you can fool around with opening and closing doors and trying to get mobile characters out of the room, but if an immobile character is there, you're out of luck.

For the Shaper who has everything -- or at least servile taste-testers. -- Rotdhizon Calzone

On the other hand, some of the Vahnatai mages and Crystal Souls are among the most thoughtful, reasonable characters we see in the games. Eos-Bok and Aichael-Bok, then there's Bon-Ihrno and Bohen-Ihrno, Ublis-Ihrno, Bentis-Ka, and Prossis-Bok was a magic-user as well. What human magic-users of rank are so reasonable? Rone and Aimee, and maybe Patrick and Solberg. Mairwen. I can't think of many, yet we have encountered many more human magi!

There is some contradiction in the games about age. The approximate dates that exiling began and Avernum was founded are pretty consistently adhered to, but age is not handled well in A4. It takes place about 38 years (a conservative answer!) after A1 and about 80 years after the Kingdom of Avernum was founded. Some lines in the game suggest it's even longer after A1... yet people are alive who shouldn't be, and are younger than they should be. It's as if for much of the game's creation Jeff planned on a date only 25 years from A1...

Two good clarifying questions: Is base AP still 8? Is there still the very odd discrepancy that you can use an item and then attack, but can't attack and then use an item, because attacking ends your turn if you have less than 5 AP left afterwards?

A battle creation worthy of an iron chef warrior. -- Rotghroth Challoth

Hmm. Cool. I'm curious to see how that makes items more useful. The old system already let you use them in addition to a regular attack (8-3=5). I can think of various setups that preserve this advantage (like Exile's: 4-3>0) but none that increase it, unless the AP costs have changed significantly. Edit: Or not. So if I understand DV correctly, we'll have: Shaping/Combat - missile shaper Shaping/Magic - standard shaper Combat /Shaping - standard guardian Combat /Magic - magic guardian Magic /Combat - standard agent The magic guardian should trump the standard guardian and, depending on how melee has been balanced and how Haste interacts with the new AP system, might trump the standard agent as well. Missile shapers also get better, especially if crystals get better, and get less annoying thanks to the new encumbrance system.

What, you people don't trust me to come up with my own menu of creation creations? Pffft.

The creations have actually become more differentiated in each game. In G1, with high enough shaping skill, an Artila would not be easily distinguished from any other creature. The biggest jump was between G1 and G2. Since we have new creations again, it's probably a safe bet the old ones were tweaked as well. Yay!

I'm sending you a telepathic message as we speak, vlish.

There are two words in there, DV, that come close to TM's level of inappropriateness. Boo.

Quote: Originally written by YATT: —Alorael, who must reiterate that the missing sixth class is the one he thinks he'd actually like the most and quite possibly find the most abusable. Jeff thinks it would be too weak. Now stew in your lack of information! That's interesting. Hmm. Magic with Shaping, or Combat with Magic? Must be one of those -- though perhaps I'm still stuck in the old Geneforge paradigm.

Quote: Originally written by Transportion: ...or at least with novel and exciting engine abuse. That's the spirit. May the way of the Red Mage lead to the Triforce!

In honor of Geneforge 4, and to comfort Delicious Vlish in his hour of agentless need, my PDN will be cycling through candied creations until the game's release. If it takes too long to get released, I might run out of creations to use, and have to do something drastic. So, chop chop! -- Cake Glaahk

Well, the most maligned Agent trick was probably the Haste-Combat-Scoot-Firebolt-Flee-Endcombat-Repeat cycle. Given the changes that have been made to stealth, I'm guessing that's been nerfed somehow.

What about the problem of trying to get one of your characters to position themselves directly above an enemy? It can be extremely hard (sometimes it seems impossible) to click in the right place without having the enemy highlighted.

Interesting topic. Wikipedia says: "In the later years of the crossbow it had enough kinetic energy to penetrate any chainmail and most plate armor hit squarely: some reached a draw force of nearly 350 lbf (1600 N), compared to the 60-180lbf (300-900 N) draw force for a longbow. Moreover, crossbows could be kept cocked and ready to shoot for some time with little effort, allowing crossbowmen to aim better and lessen the reaction time to fire compared to a bowman. Because archers could not keep their powerful bows pulled for long periods of time they aimed by pulling their bows a bit to put the bow in a strung stance, and they pulled the bow to the full pull length just right before they wanted to release the arrow." "They almost completely superseded hand bows in many European armies in the twelfth century for a number of reasons. Although an expertly handled longbow had greater range, equal accuracy and faster rate of fire than an average crossbow, the value of the crossbow came in its simplicity: it could be used effectively after a week of training, while a comparable single-shot skill with a longbow could take years of practice. The invention of pushlever and ratchet drawing mechanisms enabled the use of crossbows on horseback." And this sounds neat: "Crossbowmen among the Flemish citizens in the army of Richard Lionheart, and others, had two servants, two crossbows and a pavise shield to protect the men. One of the servants had the task of reloading the weapons, while the second subordinate would carry and hold the pavise (the archer himself also wore protective armor). Such a three-man team could fire 8 shots per minute, compared to a single crossbowman's 3 shots per minute." This is also cool: Cho-Ko-Nu

I wonder if it involves being able to switch places with an ally, as you could do back in Exile? That would eliminate half the trouble involved with engine-assigned click-movement, and it would give the enemies new options as Randomizer said. I'm doubtful, but hey.

Crossbows aren't necessarily superior, they are just used in a different way, generally faster and easier in combat.

The real question is what's up with the Vlish. Are they still overpowered enough to warrant being called Vlishnu's avatara?

Remember that, because of the way registration is handled, Jeff has a fairly decent idea how many of the people who buy his games are returning customers, or new ones. I suspect that the commercial success of A4 really was due to higher numbers of new customers.

Quote: Originally written by Delicious Vlish: Who you calling old sonny? Back in my day, we stared at @ all day. And we liked it. I was going to say "what do you mean back in your day, don't you still stare at @ all day?" But it seems @ gets the respect it deserves around here. Very nice. It makes me feel very xyzzy.