Quiconque

OK. Your edit above definitely makes this clearer. Let me run an example to make sure I understand. I use a 2nd-level slot to cast summon cryoa and expend a 3rd-level slot to make it permanent with the shaping feat. Then, I use a 1st-level slot to cast some other spell. If the cryoa dies, nothing happens immediately, but both slots used to create it will recover after a long rest. If I instead absorb the cryoa, I immediately regain the expended 1st-level slot, and the other two will recover after a long rest, just as if it had died. If I take a long rest with the cryoa still around, the 3rd-level slot will not recover, but the 2nd-level slot will? Not sure if I'm interpreting that correctly. It seems like the mechanics in Geneforge would use up both slots for the duration of the creature's existence... a cheap price given the big difference between a summon and a permanent creation. I think this is also necessary for balance -- otherwise, there's not much reason to ever use temporary creations, since permanent creations don't use up any more spell slots (once you've had a long rest).

The logic here is confusing. If you create a creation, and later reabsorb it, you... PERMANENTLY lose a higher level spell slot, even after it's absorbed?

The old ways are still alive. ❤️

The Mac has fewer compatibility gaps, but the few that it does have (especially 680x0/PowerPC/Intel, and Classic/X) are big enough that they can't be crossed without actual third-party emulation of an older environment. The good news is that while emulation takes more work to set up, it is almost always going to make the old app work. (Of course, this is also an option on Windows machines, too, if compatibility mode doesn't do the trick.)

Jeff has definitely talked explicitly about his idea to do a prequel about the First Expedition. I don't remember when he first mentioned that, but I think at least 10 years ago? The last time he mentioned it (that I know of anyway) it sounded like he hadn't totally discounted the idea, but it was an "if it even happens, it'd be years and years down the line" sort of thing.

This is an excellent question. It's possible the special encounter automatically closes the gate, and there is something later in the sequence (presumably when you kill Adze-Haakai) that opens it again. So I was trying to figure out if there's any way you could skip that (for example, if you used a cheat code to erase him instead of actually killing him), or if it's just something you haven't seen -- a hidden button, some piece of furniture you have to examine, whatever. I know you described this as a "glitch" but it's not something that's been reported before, from what I can see, so it would be good to rule out the possibility that there is no glitch and you simply haven't done whatever is needed to open the gate again. Do you have the quest to kill Adze-Haakai, or did you somehow stumble into his room way before the game expected you to?

Can you retrace exactly what happened, starting from the time you entered the room?

I thought fake anama rings weren't supposed to work everywhere?

No, unused skill points do not disappear permanently.

The last one has a nice rhythmic anchor running through it with the repetition of phrases.

The map in one of the previous updates strongly suggests it'll be area-based with no walkabout on the overworld, like Geneforge or Avadon.

It depends what you mean by "something worth while." No Spiderweb games have tremendously branching plot arcs depending on player actions or conversation at any point prior to the very final missions and the epilogues. Geneforge 1-5 & Avernum 5: You can align with different factions at some point, resulting in slightly to moderately different experiences in certain areas of the game, and fairly different ending sequences. There is also an ideological "reputation" system where the answers you give random people about moral dilemmas all nudge an invisible, global "reputation" counter, which affects which factions will let you join them, and sometimes affects shops, quests, and general hostility in a few places -- though not the bulk of them. Avadon 1-3: You can align with a faction, generally late in the game, resulting in a few changes during the game and a fairly different ending sequence. There is a much smaller-scale reputation system with generally less concrete impact outside of faction choice. Additionally, how you handle things with each PC companion's sidequest affects whether they will stick around with you. Avernum 6: You can align with different factions at some point, resulting in slightly to moderately different experiences in certain areas of the game, and fairly different ending sequences. Nethergate: You pick a faction before the game begins. This has a significant impact on the story and your experience in a number of areas, though you visit all the same areas either way. Player choice during the game does not affect this, however. Avernum 1-4: Conversation and player actions don't affect these sorts of things.

Most conversation choices do not have any effect on the game. Game-spanning effects pretty much only come from major NPCs (Redbeard, Miranda) or companion PCs. Usually (but not always) it's pretty obvious when those come up, because you are presented with diametrically opposed responses about blatantly ideological topics. Sometimes there are minor divergences when e.g. talking to a minor NPC about their minor sidequest. These differences are minor and 90% of the time when you see a choice like this, it's for flavor only.

Cool! Is it online?

I may be nitpicking, but for clarity: "fiction" is definitely not just being used to mean "writing" in many of the above posts. Video games can certainly be fiction: they tell stories, they have artistic elements, they describe things that are fictional -- and the suggestion that movies aren't "usually" classified as fiction is even stranger to me. Let's turn to Wikipedia: "Fiction broadly refers to any narrative that is derived from the imagination—in other words, not based strictly on history or fact. It can also refer, more narrowly, to narratives written only in prose (the novel and short story), and is often used as a synonym for the novel." The narrower sense is by far the less common one, IMO. tl;dr -- How many layers did the bodice have before you tore it?

There's not a very clean separation, though. On the one hand, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms and other settings have plenty of rules themselves, which are sometimes quite different from vanilla AD&D. They aren't just fiction inspired by rules, they are also rules. And on the flip side, vanilla AD&D has some core fiction content that is integral to it, even though it's not a complete setting in and of itself. The way dragons work in (A)D&D is some pretty specific fiction content, right down to the 10 primary chromatic and metallic types, and that's fiction that is preserved in most settings, even dragon-centric Dragonlance. At the same time, both the rules and fictional content of specific settings have clearly influenced each new edition of AD&D.

Dude. While "Zifnab" is quite obviously an anagram and take-off of Fizban, calling that joke appearance a crossover for the actual Fizban is a real stretch. And as you note, it's not another D&D franchise at all.

D&D encompasses a whole bunch of different, essentially unconnected settings. Greyhawk was influential in the development of D&D but it is no way the setting of most D&D fiction. The other settings are more likely to be branded than Greyhawk is (e.g., the Drizzt stuff is set in Forgotten Realms; then there's Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, etc. etc.). But most stuff labelled D&D isn't set in any of those worlds in particular. Randomizer -- what did Fizban cross over into? I didn't think he did -- given his status as (spoiler) that would be pretty weird...

Try out some compatibility modes. This is windows 101 for running older applications.

Whoa, 18 seconds? No idea. That's nuts. Definitely shouldn't be happening. Are you running in compatibility mode?

Some cursory googling suggests that (1) many people have had audio problems with this particular laptop, not volume so much as clarity (2) there are some pre-installed Lenovo settings that affect audio output of the speakers across all apps (3) several people have specifically identified Lenovo's Dolby presets as causing audio quality problems for certain apps One comment says: "Type in "change sound card settings" in the search bar and open it up. Double click on your speakers to open the Speaker Properties window. In that, go to the tab called Dolby, and hit the power button in the upper left hand corner to shut it off." And some more general suggestions here: https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/static-sound-from-speakers-and-headphones-solved/ tl;dr -- I realize you are only having problems with these apps, but googling does seem to suggest the problems are more general. I suggest investigating every sound option you can find, installing fresh audio drivers, etc.

Ah, you didn't mention that you were just using laptop speakers before... those are notoriously bad for sound quality. But I guess that's not the issue if it sounds worse on headphones. If you haven't updated your audio drivers recently, that could potentially make a difference. I can't find anyone else mentioning this issue. Given that these games have been around forever, and have a user base that pretty frequently uses old and/or low end computers, it seems like a reasonable guess that whatever is happening here is specific to your machine. Out of curiosity, what's your actual laptop model?

Have you tried playing the audio on a different output device and seeing if that makes a difference? I ask because the AMD HD AD driver you mention typically sends sound through a monitor. If you hook up some headphones directly to the CPU box, do you get the same sound issue?

Static is not normal. Steam shouldn't have anything to do with that, either. I'm not quite sure what you mean by static though -- it sounds like it's not so loud that you can't hear the actual intended background sounds. How loud is the static? If it's quieter than everything else... is it possible that you just have multiple volume settings turned up really loud, and the not-perfectly-pristine audio samples end up with some magnified fuzz? Alternately, if you're worried about your computer's specs or sound processing, you might want to share what those specs are. Finally, I believe there is an option, in the options menu, to turn off (or turn down) background sounds.

There's a very clear lineage from the D&D system Edgwyn describes down to Geneforge. The Ultima series initially copied the six AD&D stats, but by its most influential game, Ultima IV, had dropped down to just three: Strength, Dex, Int. Jeff has specifically cited Ultima as one of his main influences. The game mechanics influence is particularly clear in Exile, but the Str/Dex/Int triad has persisted through every version of every Spiderweb game. I love Edgwyn's idea that the scores represent skill in using an attribute more than the attribute itself. Haven't heard it before. It makes a ton of sense, given that the attribute scores start out at a base of 1 or 2 (depending on the Spiderweb game) but are easy to raise -- most dramatically for creations and NPCs, where they all rise on their own every other level. If I had to guess, though, I'd put 2/3 odds on Int in the Geneforge remakes working like it does in Avadon and the Avernum remakes, where its most obvious effect is increasing spell power. It will be interesting to see if Jeff uses skill trees there, too. Could make the different classes significantly more distinct from each other than they were in the originals.