Learned Noremac

Title says it all. When the series is eventually remade, what sort of things do you want to see?

For me, it's basically two things:

1) I want a Junk Bag.

2) I don't want to have to guess what my "true" max essence is. For example, if I have 150 max essence and spend 100 of it on creations, I want to see on the stat screen that my "free" essence is only 50. I.E. instead of saying 50/150, have it say something like 50(50)/150

Yeah, I think G1 is the only one that you don't gain EXP for. The upshot is that G1 is also the only one where skill point costs don't increase as you level up your skills, so it is easier to GET higher Mechanics.

Alright, I'm obviously just making some nonsense up, but here goes. I don't remember all the plot details so some of these may be impossble. In reality I just imagine that the PC shows up out of nowhere and quietly goes away and dies before the next game.

G1: Just some Shaper student, as it states. Destroys the Geneforge and gets the loyalist ending. However, this Shaper is a huge canister addict--this is the one game where they aren't optional. (I recall on some forum someone did beat the game without them, but the ending still treats you as one. It never occurs to anyone that you'd get to the end without using loads of them) Thus, a desire for more canisters slowly drives this PC to drastic measures, eventually leading him to attempt to recreate the original Geneforge. He leaves the Shapers and moves to a secluded location to perform his research. He dies in a Shaping accident before completing the research.

G2: The PC is Litalia. Goes through unaligned, doing the loyalist ending, killing the major problematic characters that can't stick around for the next game. Doesn't use canisters, but is disturbed by what she sees and her loyalist faith starts to break. Hence her appearance as a Rebel in later games, and eventually a Trakovite.

G3: A shaping student with no background of any particular importance. Unlike the other PCs, this one actually dies before the end of the game, and before the "party" splits up. Without the neutral 3rd party to keep them together, Alwan and Greta fight constantly and split up almost immediately. The division comes not largely from rebel/shaper sympathies, but from the fact that each blame the other for the PC's death.

G4: No particular background, but becomes rebel aligned(as is necessary--after all, Alwan is "dead" and the Unbound are running around in the canonical ending). Here's where things get interesting. This particular PC is a canister addict, of course. Both Greta and the PC become particularly concerned with the way the Drakons are running things. While Greta believes diplomacy is the best way to turn the Drakons around, the PC believes that the rebellion simply needs a human at its forefront that is more powerful than the Drakons. Our PC does some research into the canisters and Geneforges, and after many years finds out about the G1 protagonist's Geneforge lab. The PC comes much closer than the G1 protagonist, and believes he has finally rediscovered the genetic code for the "ultimate being". The attempt to use this creation, however, goes horribly awry, and...

G5: The explosion in the labratory attracts the attention of the Shaper Council. Rawal is sent to personally determine what exactly has been going on in the lab. He discovers the G4 protagonist, collapsed in the lab. Most of the research notes have been destroyed, as has the Geneforge prototype. However, Rawal has seen the Geneforges used by the rebels to create Lifecrafters, so he is able to piece together that the PC was following the same principle of shaping himself, but going much, much further than even the rebels would be comfortable with. Greedy for the power himself, he takes the PC with him in chains, hoping to learn as much as possible by examining him. He further hopes to replicate the research, which is why he experiments with his own Geneforges.

That was fun, if a bit nonsensical. I was trying to work in some way that the G1 protagonist could use the Geneforge, be defeated, and then be the G5 protagonist, but I couldn't figure out how exactly Alwan and Greta would recognize him, or how the world would forget that for a brief period it was crushed under the heel of a glowing colossus.

Wait. Doesn't the instruction booklet say undead and plant creations are supposed to be immune to mental effects since they don't have brains?

Bizarre. On every other file on that game, Battle Shaping gives the bonus. (It's not hard to tell which bonus is which since you can only get a +1 for the canister.) But, on this one particular file, I get a +13 even though my Battle Shaping is like 16 or 17. 13 is my spellcraft. It must be some weird glitch with that one file.

As for their effectiveness, I have enough essence to make them outdamage Torment Rogue Drayks. They still have like, no durability. And they're very slow of course.

So, I was fiddling around with an old G1 file where the Geneforge had been used, and I made myself an army of Ornks. What I noticed was that the Ornks got a boost to their level that matched, bizarrely, my Spellcraft stat. It did not match any of my shaping stats. Is this what their levels are always based on?

Problem solved. I did not realize there was a 1.0.4 version of the game. I had 1.0.3.

Incidentally, much of the website still refers to 1.0.3 as the latest version.

EDIT: Lol posting at the same time.

I have been having a strange problem with Geneforge 5. A "square" of weird "static"(for lack of a better word) is visible behind every creation and person in the game. This is noticeable right from the intro screen, with the creations walking around on the stone tablet.

I am using a Mac OS X, Version 10.6.8. I previously used a "lesser" Mac OS(I think it was 10.5). I am not sure if switching to the new OS coincided with the problem, as I cannot remember precisely when I switched and I had not played the game in quite some time when retrying it and noticing this problem. However, I can be fairly sure that I never experienced the problem on the old OS(keeping in mind that there was a very long period when I did not play the game) and I have never not experienced the problem on the new OS.

I did not previously have this problem, so I assumed the file had become corrupted. So I have uninstalled and reinstalled Geneforge 5(from the Geneforge Series CD). This did not fix the problem. For the uninstall, I deleted the Geneforge 5 Folder, the Geneforge 5 Saved Games folder, and the Geneforge 5 Prefs file in the (hidden) Preferences folder.

I have tried restarting the computer after installing. I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times. I have tried playing in different resolutions. I have tried playing both in window and out of window. I have tried changing the various options in Settings, including the one about "Draw All" and "Don't Draw". Nothing has helped.

I do not know if this is related, but I should also say that I, like many others, experienced the problem with the Geneforge 5 Installer from the CD wherein the Installer will not open because it claims that I need admin privileges, even though I am absolutely the admin. I fixed this problem by copying the Installer onto my computer and changing the file such that "Require Admin" or whatever is set to "FALSE" instead of "TRUE", as proscribed in the Tech Support forum. I don't know if this makes any difference.

Please help. I really do want to play through the game again--I only beat it with one of the factions.

I hate to revive this old thread, but I am having the same problem plus another. The issue is that the file that I am supposed to change the "TRUE" to "FALSE" in is read-only, and it won't let me save it. What do I do?''

EDIT: Disregard. I fixed the problem by copying the installer from the disk first. I was trying to edit the one on the CD itself.

I suspect that if I were good at mechanics I'd have some way of disabling the creation control in the arena, but who needs mechanics when you have a flood of cannon-fodder, right?

Yeah, I think if you just follow where the "wires" go from the arena you'll find a little room where you can sabotage it.

I did some testing on G1...the damage seems fixed. I tried maxing out each of the stats individually, and the explosion damage did not change. Not sure if this changes in later games but I doubt it does.

One of the biggest new feature requests is the ability to take notes and/or annotate the maps so you don't have to waste time leaving the game to do it.

Definitely this. Anyone play the Nintendo DS Zelda games? Being able to write on the map was HUGE for remembering to come back to a chest when you got the item that'd let you reach it.

The nice thing about the ending is that it makes you go back. That whole "you never found out who you were" text smacks of "there's a hidden quest you didn't complete", so players will go nuts looking for it. Which is a good thing--who hasn't tried to beat the running man in Ocarina of Time?

Only buy the levels if you are trying a spell-less playthrough. If you've got spells, health is very easy to recover and it doesn't recover enough MP to be worth it.

I read somewhere that indiscriminate murder is counterproductive.

Except when you're a loyalist Shaper in G1 & G2. Nothing is more loyal than a guy with a bunch of heads in his freezer.

Offer to "train" someone to be "more lucky", and watch as every adventurer rolls on up and buys 30 levels worth from you.

I don't know if it's really a spoiler. I mean, it's like if I was playing one of the Geneforge games and someone mentions a boss fight with a character that is currently on my team. You KNOW that going for the other faction is an option, so presumably other playthroughs involve killing a character rather than helping them.

But yeah, not really a spoiler when the loading screen tells you about it.

What's up with that is that Jeff didn't really expect you to be able to kill the Wayfarer before he gets away at that point, and kinda halfassed the game's response to doing so.

...he gets away? I thought he just goes into super death mode at the end with all the stat boosts. Huh.

 

 

The problem isn't that Redbeard is hard, though. (Well, it kind of is, since for every instance of the game telling you that Redbeard is godly and invincible there are two that sucker you into thinking that rebelling is just as viable a plot path as staying loyal.) The problem is that Redbeard is a boring fight. It would be one thing if Redbeard could wipe the floor with you in a couple turns unless you had prepared just right; at least that would be over quickly. Instead, if you haven't made exactly the right preparations, the battle bogs down and can take literal hours on each attempt. Even if you do get everything right, chances are the fight will take more than half an hour, and not a very exciting or suspenseful half hour at that. You're basically repeating the same actions over and over, killing numerous soul jars, gradually chipping away at his health and hoping he runs out before you run out of items. It's a terrible example of final boss design, which is a shame given that otherwise Avadon had some of the most fun boss fights in a Spiderweb game to date.

Very much this. I actually did kill Redbeard on my first playthrough, but it took a LOOOONG time. But on my second playthrough, I attempted the Beloch and Zephyrine battles. Those were harder, but more fun. The issue is essentially this: the Zephyrine fight is long because it's hard. The Redbeard fight is only hard because it's long.

I did try to cheese the Redbeard fight by occupying the spawn points of the Soul Jars with pets, hoping that it would prevent them from spawning. It doesn't. and I thought I was so clever.

Incidentally, on this second playthrough I killed The Wayfarer during the Vebeaux sequence. What, exactly, is going on at the end there? On the one hand, the name shows it isn't The Wayfarer fighting him, just some random assassin, and the dialogue is a bit different. But when Redbeard asks you about him, all of your possible responses are about the Wayfarer. What's up with that?

Well, I was able to beat the dragon anyway. I don't think I have enough money left to try and buy out a store, and I'm in the endgame now anwyay, so whatever.

Though I do know that the Scarab Store in Avadon never restocks.

Is there any way to make merchants restock? I am nearing the end game on hard mode and I want to fight Zephyrine (just beat Beloch) and I am running out of useful supplies, particularly Resurrection Scrolls, Group Heal Scrolls, and Speed Burst Scrolls. And of course, the merchants don't restock, so I've got a huge surplus of cash but nothing to buy. Is it like Avernum where if I buy EVERYTHING they restock?

Incidentally, this is one aspect of Spidweb games I hate. A merchant that never restocks is LESS realistic AND less fun than the standard "full stock forever" RPG merchant of other games.

Is the explosion damage based on any particular stat of the Roamer (or of you?) or is it just fixed?

You can play as a servile in 5, right? Does that change anything about your "identity"? It seems difficult for it to be someone who may or may not have been a servile. Although there is someone in G1 who is convinced that the base material for serviles is human beings, so I suppose it is conceivable that some sort of weird shaping mishap turned you into a servile...

Some players use pyroroamers to loot by moving them next to an NPC and then absorbing their essence so they explode. This keeps the area from going hostile so you can now gather loot that the NPC was guarding.

 

Swarms of roamers can be sent to take out a target early in the game when creations don't have much health.

Interesting...so you could kill essentially anyone without them fighting back. I could see this having some non-screw-up-the-game applications. Let you get away with not fighting some key bosses.

But I guess the damage is not increased in later versions of Geneforge? I kinda wish Jeff would have looked at them as a spell you're essentially spending 15 essence on--that's would let you rethink how much that explosion should really do.

 

 

Interesting... the canon endings never bothered me until Geneforge 4; since I did a loyalist playthrough I felt all my effort was in vain ^_^u

 

The canon endings for G1 and G2... If I've understood the dialogues during those months of gameplay, those basically are loyalist outcomes. I'm not sure if I'll be playing the Geneforge saga again after beating the last chapter, but I would definitely play them differently if that's the event Not sure if I would experiment killing everyone, though... there are tons of residents in both G1 and G2! I still have goosebumps with the true-loyalist playthough I did! I had to kill lots and lots of NPCs!

Of course, you don't have to kill EVERYONE. The only people who the ending checks to see if they lived or died, if I remember right, is Trajkov, Goettsch, and the leaders of each of the servile factions. So as long as you kill Traj and Go, you don't need to destroy the Geneforge.