Men are from Slars

I don't remember how E1 handles monster movement, but I don't think the gazer will sit there totally unmoving -- I imagine every so often it will move a square away. Moving to one of those other ledges should certainly get him to move. Maybe it's impossible, but I bet if you fool with it you can manage to escape.

"Geneforge, Episode 5: Attack of the Vlish." Oh, wait...

Neither was challoth. Go stuff yourself On a hot summer day, when you want to feel like you're safely in the shade -- drink Thahd Lemonade.

It's been stated that it doesn't apply to item use (missiles), but I would assume ranged attacks (Fyora breath, Firebolt) are treated the same way as melee attacks -- they always have been. I'm still excited about getting a Melee/Magic PC.

I've always liked Formello. In E1 it seemed less boring than all the other Six Cities, possibly because it wasn't just plunked down in the middle of a big cave. (Except Dharmon; Dharmon was interesting and had that great description.) All those little windy tunnels were fun to explore. It's the main city in Chapter one of E2, which remains one of the best-balanced and (imho) most fun parts of any Spiderweb game. It's also near Motrax, who appears to be very popular among people who took this poll, and Solberg's Tower as well. And it must get some cachet from being the first contact with Bon-Ihrno. In A4, Formello and Silvar seem to have way more sane residents than the other cities, though that could just be because they had a kinder Shade. Also, see Formello .

Four questions about favorite characters and places.

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.