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I have to say, having Solberg go crazy and attack Avernum would be a properly ironic end for the series. Especially if he summoned demons to help him do it.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl You can pretty much blame DV for that. Well, his response was "I told you so", though I certainly remember his (quite popular) heavy-Battle Magic Agent build.

Maybe it's been done both ways. I'm pretty sure the old Nethergate CDs and Exile Trilogy CDs did not require registration codes.

Yeah. The funny thing is, the minmax discussion on the forums virtually ignored shapers and repeatedly proclaimed the Agent as finally being the best class in G3 (after the Shaper in G1 and the broken Guardian in G2) for a year or so after the game came out.

Really? What's better about magic in G4? My impression was always that magic got the biggest boosts between G1 and G2 (>9 spells) and G2 and G3 (AoE Daze among other improvements). The real difference in G4 is that the creation-level-gain mechanic was diminished in several dimensions, effectively preventing the broken G3 build from existing in any meaningful way.

The beauty of the broken vlish build is that it doesn't actually require any skill points beyond level 10 or 12, so you end up with a huge pool that you can put in whatever you fancy. So actually, we could very easily combine the two builds we're talking about. I'm not really sure why you, personally acting every turn is less boring than your creations acting every turn. But that's me.

We're coming closer to agreement, but I still disagree with "uniquely" (or even "most") -- the broken vlish build has even more modest essence needs and uses no early investment in attacking skills. Artilla are available very early, so nothing up to San Ru is a pain at all. As for the later game becoming boring, any truly overpowered build will make any game boring.

Originally Posted By: Paladin95 Long story short, this build is broken in G3... My conclusion is that this build is not better than a Mental Magic and Battle Magic heavy shaper, just more practical. No, the build isn't broken. Shaping, if managed properly, is overpowered. In G3, if you make the right creations early enough, pretty much any smart build will feel broken. So if you want to call something broken, call the shaping mechanics broken; it is neither missile weapons nor the build as a whole that give it that capability.

Cordelia's unlikely, same as Miranda: Jeff just likes the name. Pinner, Darian, and Jaffee are all the names of college football players from 2001 or so -- not sure if this is a coincidence or not.

Um, no. Then there would be no challenge.

Email Jeff at spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com -- he'll gladly get you a registered copy.

Denna doesn't show up there until you complete all parts of her quest from when she is in Mera.

I'm glad the book is better. Although there were some really wonderful things about the HMC film, it was a colossal disappointment for me; it was so talked up, but in the end it really couldn't compare to Spirited Away.

I think it involved completing the absolute minimum set of quests necessary and making good use of teleportation and horses. The horses are very important as they reduce travel time drastically in E3. If you knew where to look, it was possible to get some pretty strong equipment and consumable items without doing much fighting.

This reminds me of Drakey and his repeatedly finishing Exile 3 in less than a week. Pffft. An interesting challenge though. I wonder what the absolute lowest elapsed time you could possibly achieve would be? On casual I have to imagine it is very doable. It's probably even doable on torment, but that would be a secondary challenge. Onan the Barbarian's Quickie Challenge? And what would be the fastest faction? Astoria's the fastest to start but she's a bit out of the way from the action. Given that all factions visit mostly the same places, and Gazaki-Uss is one of them, I wonder if Ghaldring wouldn't be the fastest. No -- that Four Shapers quest (or whatever it's called) would slow that down quite a bit. Maybe Alwan?

I recommend Basilisk ][. That's what I have my copies of Exile running on. Also, I can confirm that CrossOver for Mac will run the Windows port of the original Nethergate. Yay happy skill point system!

Turn the difficulty to Casual. There's no point putting yourself through the wringer.

Wait, what, whoa.

Same time is probably correct. Esp as the G3 ending makes it clear that war has already hit Terrestia. I guess the quarantine was set when there had only been isolated attacks, such as on the school. It's kind of funny how many things had to happen for the drakons to get the geneforge. First Danette and Corata had to make the geneforge, as apparently nobody else wanted it. Defniel had to abandon, but not absorb, Rhakkus. Trajkov had to come and shoot down Goettsch. Goettsch had to cheat Trajkov and steal the Geneforge notes. Rhakkus had to read Goettsch's notes. A shaper had to report Sucia Isle to the council so that Zakary and Barzahl could be sent. Barzahl had to transport Rhakkus away and augment him so that he could shape. Of course other things were necessary as well, such as the help of other drayks and the takers, but all the items above were pretty much non-negotiable links in this chain of events. What an unlikely course of events...

*nod* Agreed, the Trakovite Agent idea is a good one.

More info: Geneforge 1 - Dillame is 50 miles from Sucia Island - "There are a dozen Shapers there, working to tame this wild coast, populate it with friendly fauna, and make it safe for settlement." - When transporting you from Dillame to the Shaper Council, they use a boat. - Time between G1 and force sent to Sucia Island = time to get to Dillame by boat, time to get to Shaper Council by boat, "a few weeks" before being interrogated, then they send Agents to Sucia and word comes back after "a few weeks" = likely about 2 months between G1 and force being sent Trajkov likes serviles - "Trajkov is true to his word to the serviles. Surprisingly enough, he took a liking to the loyal and intelligent creatures. They are given full freedom and rights, elevated to the status of full humans." - "Ellhrah, as always, insisted on independence and on his people being treated as equals. He need not have worried. Though the Takers hated the Awakened, Trajkov admired their spirit." - "Trajkov was a man of his word. After he conquered the lands of the Shapers, he rewarded the Takers for their assistance." Geneforge 2 - Both G1 and G2 state the PC is about to begin his "apprenticeship" - but in G1 it's a five year post at a remote colony while in G2 it appears to be just one mission with Shanti. - Travel time from Drypeak to Shaper Council on foot is several weeks - 9 people on council Geneforge 3 - "And then, finally, you can see the mainland and Poryphra, the city you have been aiming for. And you see, instantly, that when the rebels spoke of destruction on the mainland, they were not just boasting. Terrestia is the less settled of the two Shaper continents. Poryphra was one of the larger cities there. Over fifty thousand humans lived there, with many serviles and other creations. And it has been destroyed." - "Diwaniya was allowed to continue to rule this remote island. While he would normally be punished for his ineptitude by being sent to an even more miserable place, it turned out that none existed." (hah!) - Greta on Gull Island: "At first, it didn’t seem like things would be that way. But an outsider, a trainee who had failed to become an Agent, came there unbidden and befriended the serviles. Since she was not actually a Shaper, they took her in, and eventually found her counsel to be useful. It was her calm words that helped the serviles and drayks work together and settle their growing differences." Geneforge 4 - "The rebellion has been going for seven years. Three years ago, you left your village to receive training." - "Your band is led by Greta, an officer in the rebellion. You have heard tales of her, how she has fought the Shapers since the beginning of the war" The last two are important, as they address the time between G3 and G4. The time is 7 years at most, and probably not less; if the war had started someplace other than the Ashen Isles, the Ashen Isles would not likely have been quarantined, right?

I finally pulled all the intro and ending texts from G1-4 and put them in a file. The second continent is referenced twice, in the beginning and end of G3, but only in G3. I think the real issue is the G4-5 were unable to represent the gigantic world described in the earlier games. According to the G3 ending, Poryphra housed 50,000 people! That hardly seems possible in G4. The Geneforge map system, like Ultima's before it, was just not designed to represent entire civilizations and continents.

Where does this infamous "second continent" reference occur? Is it in one of the endings? Batch find of the scripts for all five games turned up nothing.

That's an excellent point. It opens up the possibility that the years given in the creation info sheets represent actual years since some date near the beginning of the Shaper empire. Wow, that's a long time.

No. We know exactly where Sucia Island is because the G1 ending mentions that it is actually not too far from a city by the name of Dillame. So it's east of Terrestia.