Mea Tulpa

GAH, no!! Nimble Fingers is worthless, the bonus is tiny, and First Aid has been HUGELY nerfed -- it has a cap on its healing now (both SP and HP) which is fairly low. If you are seriously considering such a switch, you might want to take some more time to review game mechanics before beginning such a serious challenge -- you are going to want to understand them better than that!

DT gives you +1 for every 4 experience levels (quite a few, as a singleton) to Blademaster, Magery, and Sharpshooter (and an additional +1 at level 1). It also gives you a flat 20% bonus to armor, which given the resist system, means you take 20% less damage from all physical attacks. The difference between unencumbering armor and encumbering armor is not really that significant for the most part, given the multiplicative armor system. You will get a higher bonus from DT Magery than from PS Priest Spells by level 12 or so, so PS is really only useful if you have some odd skill point plan, or really want the Magical Efficiency.

Natural Mage isn't actually a must, although it isn't a bad choice. I would recommend either DT/EW or DT/NM, though you could also try NM/PS purely for the Magical Efficiency. Personally, I think giving up the damage AND defensive bonuses from DT is foolish. EW gives you Blademaster (for fatigue reduction) and Parry and it also increases carrying capacity. NM of course gives you the Mage Spells bonus and gives you a little more flexibility with armor. Both are usable, neither is necessary.

While I agree with the general timbre and thrust of your analogy, I too question whether there's anything unique about the current moment. Isn't the world always at a crossroads of this nature? And I say that not to demean the crossroads label, but to make the point that people don't realize this because they don't examine things critically. We should always live as if we are at a critical crossroad.

Sleeping Dragon, I'm not sure how to keep arguing this with you. You seem dead set on your conclusion that G3 has a plot and G1-2 do not. However, your conclusion seems to be based on itself. You are twisting several pieces of information around to fit your conclusion -- in particular that the rebellion began on the Ashen Isles (it didn't) at the beginning of Geneforge 3 (it began earlier). This is unfortunate, as I don't recall seeing you make such an irrational argument in the past. Either way, I'm bowing out of the debate. Cheers.

I really don't understand how you can say G1 and G2 had no plot -- just as many important events happen during the game as in G3, and the backstory is a whole lot more substantive too.

depression

Most of us who played G1 and G2 found it "fine" also. I don't know of many people who gave up playing in disgust. Most of us finished and enjoyed the game overall. We just didn't enjoy it _as much_ as the previous installments, and certainly aspects, such as the plot, we found significantly less enjoyable.

Ugh Dintiradan, ugh. I'm so sorry.

What are the most interesting battles you can think of from a CRPG? I'm not looking for battles with eye candy, or battles of epic proportions; I'm looking for battles that are unusual, deeply dynamic, and that demand scintillating tactics. I'm not looking for battles with unusual twists or "tricks" -- minddueling Garzahd doesn't count, and neither does using Pray over and over until the holder of the SNES controller defeats Giygas. On the other hand, I'm sure there are some BoX scenarios that qualify here -- enlighten me, please! What AM I looking for? Here are some of the battles that came to mind for me. 1) Malroth -- Dragon Warrior II. The last battle. Malroth, unlike most final bosses, has about the same HP total as the most physically robust PC. However, he gets two attacks per turn and he can cast the Healall spell -- and he has unlimited MP. So the player has to survive his attacks while dealing 250 damage before he restores his HP, not an easy task. In fact, pretty much the only way to accomplish it is to lay down a thick cloud of buffs and debuffs. The player's healing resources are limited, so the choice of when to heal and when to progress with the buffs is a critical one. Unorthodox equipment choices (two Falcon Swords and two Water Flying Clothes) are an asset. Even at the maximum levels achievable, this fight is challenging. 2) Level 99 Slime -- Lufia II. The slime does nothing, but you only have 3 rounds to kill it, and its HP total is massive -- requiring nothing less than utmost efficiency in resource use. 3) Matala -- Geneforge 4. I think the number of threads concerning this fight speak for themselves. I'm not sure my examples are perfect examples. Certainly some of you may have different opinions. What CRPG battles did you find most interesting -- most dynamic and most tactically demanding?

Quick warning: Please make sure that this thread does not accidentally enter the territory of national slurs. I know nobody intends to do so; please just be thoughtful. Tempers flare quickly over this kind of thing.

No, they aren't. Thanks for posting the better one; it was a good read.

There is no problem with using passive voice, unless you overuse it or use it awkwardly. Like all speech forms, it exists to be used! The difference between that and which is essentially semantic -- most people use that for important or limiting descriptions, while which is used for incidentals. Word's grammar check has no real semantic component, so I'm surprised it attempts to judge that at all. Grammar checkers are difficult to develop for English, but Word's attempt seems to be atrocious by any standard.

I'm pretty sure I tested this in Geneforge 2 when it first appeared, and found that it applied to battle magic as well. I have no idea if this is still true in Geneforge 5, but I wouldn't expect it to have changed.

Check out this market share comparison. Perhaps games and other products would be developed for Linux specifically, if it had more than 1% of the market share. Worse than the 1%, though, is the fact that a large portion of that 1% -- most of it, I'd guess -- regularly uses either Windows or Mac as well. On the other hand, I suspect that the majority of Mac users do not own PCs, so there is orders of magnitude more profit to be mined out of that 5%, than Linux's 1%.

*scratches head* The story of the Geneforge saga, as told in the games, consists of the rediscovery of the Geneforge at Sucia Island, the elaboration of its principles in Drypeak Valley, of the sudden rebellion at the hands of the former Takers, the clash of Shaper and Rebel forces, and the war's final resolution. The problem is that the third item there is not what G3 describes. G3 does not tell you about the embers of rebellion -- that was G1, of course -- and while G3 is more or less concurrent with the beginning of the Rebellion capital R, it doesn't tell that story. The characters in G3 insist on this over and over, talking about how the real action is in Terrestia, the real leaders are in Terrestia, the important events are in Terrestia, and even the important things happening in the remote island chain where G3 takes place, like Akhari Blaze's geneforge, are in fact being done elsewhere simultaneously. G3 is at best a gaiden, a side-story, which tells you more about what shaped Alwan, Greta, Litalia, and Khyryk, but which has no direct relevance to the broad strokes of the storyline. Originally Posted By: Sleeping Dragon The plot was actually new at the time, while the plots for the previous two games the ones that were identical. 3 involved the beginning of an actual Rebellion in Shaper lands. 1 and 2 both involved lands that were cut off from the larger shaper forces and thus your effect on the plot was more meaningless. The rebellion began with the first Taker years and years ago, and in each game, it is shown amplified: G1 first presents it as a sect of serviles that doesn't specifically want to destroy all Shapers; in G2, it is a fierce and ambitious sect that includes drayks, drakons, and even some humans; in G3, they have actually declared war, but are otherwise identical to the Takers. I'm not sure how you can possibly argue that a tiny, remote island chain about which Jeff says the same things he said of Drypeak -- that it was a very inauspicious place for Shapers to be posted, etc. -- which is UNDER STRICT QUARANTINE is not "cut off form the larger shaper forces." Given that the outcome of G3 has no impact whatsoever on how the war goes, I fail to see how your effect on the plot can be more meaningless. Quote: in order to understand how the rebellion gained it's foothold in the first place, one must play 3, otherwise your just suddenly thrust into a war that is already halfway over. Again, 3 doesn't explain how the rebellion got its foothold. Characters in 3 repeatedly tell you that the rebellion is already in full swing in Terrestia, that "Terrestia is in flames." Quote: Litalia and Hodge moved around, they did stuff, they fought you, conversed with you, and above all they changed dramatically from beginning to end. It was a real treat to watch that story unfold as island after island fell. It really is something Jeff hasn't been able to replicate as well in other games. I agree that Litalia and Hoge were well done in 3. But there weren't dynamic in any way. There are 1 or 2 places where they have two possible dialogue spiels depending on what you chose, but that's about it. That's not dynamic. And they didn't change dramatically. Litalia changed dramatically between games, but not at all within 3. What is this dramatic change you're referring to?

An excellent and thought-provoking article, as usual, by Matt Taibbi: http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/10/13/on-the-nobel-prize-for-occasional-peace/

The major complaint about G3 was really that there was nothing new about it. It felt like a tired rehashing of the same old plot. Yes, Alwan and Greta turned out to be important people, but they weren't important at any point in G3 -- G3 is the one game which you could skip entirely without missing out on ANY of the overarching Geneforge saga story. The game engine was almost identical to G2 as well. There were some tweaks and item enhancements/crafting was new, but those were not significant additions. Some of the changes that were instituted were overwhelmingly unpopular too, in particular the boat system.

Kafkaesque.

The Nine-Headed Cave Cow smiles upon thee, Student of Trinity. Thou hast found the Torc.

What Dikiyoba said. The closure that G5 brings is only great if you actually feel it was great closure.

Maybe it's a shift in the indie RPG world (if not a terribly recent one). When Spiderweb started out, there were more than a handful of indie RPGs developed primarily for mac. Realmz in particular was very popular, and since Exile was distributed with Realmz for a time. Everything else I can think of these days is developed for PCs first, if Macs are even considered at all.

I largely agree. That said: Originally Posted By: Sleeping Dragon a deep plot like Geneforge 3 *facepalm*

Jeff has said it's 50-50 on several occasions. He develops for Macs first because he prefers to do it that way.

Word has gone mostly downhill since 5.1. Excel is still a good product, though I honestly prefer 4.0, which I continued to run up until I switched to an Intel chip in 2006. The copyright date on Excel 4.0 is 1992, of course.