ThirdParty

I vaguely recall there being a fun battle in the basement if you visit it enough times, but I don't remember if anything special dropped from it. Maybe a relatively-powerful item enchantment?

Asking your friend out on a first date? Giving an important presentation in class? You need speech insurance. Here's how it works. Before your speech, you submit a planned script and pay a premium of $1.25 per planned minute. Then record your speech. If you flub your lines, forget to make eye contact, accidentally speak in a monotone, fall off the stage, or suffer other calamities during your speech, simply submit the recording for review by claims adjusters. They will compare what you actually said to what you had intended to say, and then pay you compensation of 80% of the estimated cost incurred by each error. Then you can buy a box of chocolates for your friend, slip a quiet bribe to your teacher, or at least feel like the day wasn't a total loss. For a modest additional fee, dependent upon the quality of your script, you can also buy insurance against unexpected audience reactions, such as if they fail to laugh at your jokes or if they do laugh at what was meant to be a serious proposal. If you make a mistake while cooking breakfast and accidentally burn down your house, you'll receive compensation from your fire insurance. If you make a mistake while driving to school and accidentally crash your car, you'll receive compensation from your auto insurance. But the most important part of your day isn't your breakfast or your commute; it's your interactions with other people. If you make a mistake during the important part of the day, and lose a friend or fail a class, won't you want to be compensated for that loss too? Buy speech insurance and enjoy peace of mind. (As a bonus, being insured against possible mistakes will make you more relaxed and less likely to make those mistakes in the first place. It's win-win!)

Shima on tactics: "A thousand lessons on how best to study a target. Living the dream of the perfect, quick, quiet, stealthy assassination. ... And here we are, blundering through the front entrance as usual." Redbeard on oaths: "I guess now you have no chance of being a spy or assassin. Not if you swore an oath!"

This particular decision probably isn't all that significant one way or the other (on the one hand, the Wayfarer isn't offering all that much reward for this particular favor, but on the other hand, if Ryozo is innocent then Avadon will probably figure that out before executing him). However, this type of decision is inevitably going to keep coming up. The Pact's interests will not always coincide with what best strengthens your personal position. And if taking out Redbeard is even possible, you'll need to be very strong in order to do it. If you think you're going to get everything you want without making any compromises whatsoever (has that ever happened in a Spiderweb game?), you're being unrealistic.

Originally Posted By: waterplant Did you save all the Knowledge Brews? Well, admittedly, I used some of the knowledge brews. Permanent stat boosts are more enticing than temporary battle advantages. But I did end up with a fair number of them. At one point I decided to do something that was going to anger the alchemist who made knowledge brews, so I went ahead and converted much of my ingredient stash. But that led to such an embarrassment of riches that I didn't know what to do with all the brews, so I just saved them. I think I ended the game with thirty-something knowledge brews. I also saved ten each of wisdom crystals and knowledge elixirs. I was afraid there might be a fetch quest at some point. You know, "I can make you a Sword of Awesomeness, but I need ten Wisdom Crystals to do it." or "I can teach you the Spell of Doom, but I need ten Knowledge Elixirs to bolster my memory."

Quote: —Alorael, who can see the reasons for it. He just doesn't like the idea very much. He also knows he'd end the game with entirely vacant scarab slots. Well, yes, so would I. Sort of like how I ended A6 with every potion in the game--even the weak ones that are practically useless late game--in my inventory, not having used any of them but having saved all of them for a rainy day.

Here's a random new idea. Scarabs could be stat boosters like other equipment, but unlike other equipment they're permanent: once equipped, they can't be unequipped. So the player would have to decide whether to equip weak scarabs early in the game or save space for stronger scarabs that will only be available later.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity Originally Posted By: Dantius I do have to suspend disbelief that "I can pay this guy 200 pieces of eight and he'll suddenly improve my skill at shooting a bow instantaneously". I always figure these guys are giving quick but very helpful tips. After all, I'm only gaining one skill point. I always figured it wasn't instantaneous, and the game just wasn't bothering to show the boring weeks you spent practicing with the guy.

Originally Posted By: Micawber Maybe if all the best items weren't available by searching pots/killing monsters... Wouldn't have to be the best items. Just have to be items that aren't substitutable by random loot. If there were a particular category of item--e.g. armbands--that enemies never dropped and that was never given as a mission reward, stores could sell items in that category and they'd be worth buying. Even if the items in question were fairly weak, overall.

I've gotten permission from Jeff to pass on this email exchange I had with him during the Avernum 6 beta: Originally Posted By: Jeff Vogel Originally Posted By: ThirdParty I find it annoying that unexplored space on the automap looks the same as ground--it makes it harder to tell where I've been and where I haven't. It is annoying, but drawing something for every spot gives an FPS hit. It's a lot of little draws. Right now I don't have a solution.

Well, okay, if not a zoom out, maybe a button that will make unexplored areas of the minimap flash briefly?

Jeff didn't make the current minimap the way he did out of laziness. Instead, I believe he had a number of desiderata in mind: 1. The current minimap looks professional and elegant, and avoids potentially-clashing graphics juxtapositions. 2. The current minimap stays out of the way. (Thanks to consuming minimal screen real estate, and being partially transparent.) 3. The current minimap presents the information the party needs for navigation in a minimally-confusing way. (For navigation, you need to know about obstacles and potential destinations. Anything else is noise.) 4. The current minimap avoids straining the graphics processors of older computers. (Given Jeff's engine, stacking a bunch of tiny partially-transparent graphics on top of a large, potentially-animated terrain graphic is not a good idea. So the fewer things the minimap shows, the better.) ----- My suggestion: keep the current minimap as it is, but add a new "zoom out" button that temporarily shows a bird's eye view of the zone. It could facilitate exploring by distinguishing floors from unexplored areas. It could be large and show lots of detail, so be very pretty. It could be full-screen and non-transparent, so avoid issues of clashing graphics and cpu strain.

Assuming the beetle-looking things at the top of the inventory window are the scarabs themselves, I note that they appear to be non-usable (which rules out the possibility that they cast spells) and non-stackable (which rules out the possibility that they are spell components consumed by player spells). As I understand Jeff's game design philosophy, he doesn't want the player to be able to make horrible mistakes, so I doubt that the scarabs are plot-related or increase character growth or anything like that (since losing such items would be a horrible mistake). So ... I'm guessing they're another kind of equipment, notwithstanding the placement. Maybe they'll differ from standard equipment in some way: e.g. by affecting skills instead of attributes, or by not contributing to encumbrance.

Hmm. I agree that it's bad to unexpectedly burden the player's memory or unexpectedly kill the party, but I'm not sure that linearity is the right solution. Originally Posted By: Jeff's blog People have enough to worry about in their lives as it is without remembering where they left behind some giant they need to go back and kill. The "Current Quests" list has largely eliminated this problem. All that's necessary is to make it a little bit more complete. Maybe have some quests auto-generate without being offered by NPCs: e.g. "You discovered a demon trapped under Patrick's Tower. Nobody's offered you anything for killing it, but you doubt that anyone would complain if you did." Originally Posted By: Jeff's blog I swear, I put in "OMG this room ahead is megahard guys srsly!!!" warnings all the time, and nobody ever listens to them. Nor should they. Characters in games tell them how lethal the territory ahead is all the time, and then they enter it and prevail. No reason to think things should be different here. One possible solution to this is to go ahead and offer explicit recommended levels: e.g. instead of "A reward has been offered for killing the Crypt Wight in the Memorial Grounds; caution, Crypt Wights are extremely dangerous." go ahead and say "A reward has been offered for killing the Crypt Wight in the Memorial Grounds; caution, Crypt Wights are extremely dangerous (recommended level: 20)."

Quote: Originally written by Dragonlorddrakon: tecnicly, the only way for the Geneforge series to really end is if there is only one ending, that the player gets from any sect. of counse, that would only to happen if jeff gets REALLY creative. It could happen. We saw in GF2 that there's a reform faction within the Shapers, who want to end many of the abuses. And we saw in GF3 that the humans in the Rebellion take a much more moderate stance than the drakons. So it's possible that the player's job from either side would be to try to forge a compromise, fight extremists on both sides, and end the mahem. Of course, knowing Jeff, there are bound to be other endings as well. Heck, remember how it was possible in GF1 to simply leave the island with everything unresolved? (Which, by the way, is what I thought happened in the official plot--not an Obeyer victory. But I haven't played GF2 recently, so I'm not sure--can someone confirm?) I bet there'll be a bunch of unpleasant endings where one side crushes the other with a "you'll always wonder whether you could have done better" hint, and a (relatively) happy compromise ending hidden somewhere.