Agnessa

I always thought of it as turquoise (which, oh so helpfully puts it on the blue-to-green continuum). Don't think I can make a screenshot of it, but: turquoise for 12 seasons .. "True Spring" seems about right.

Thank you. I haven't tried Spy Quest, but I know Emulations was one of my favorites (right up there with the Spheres trilogy and A Gathering Storm, which probably says a lot about the scenarios I like).

As I recall, there was another non-violent experience gaining action in "A Gathering Storm" wherein one member of the party participated in a fashion show and there was a fairly hefty xp bonus for completing that (along with learning some plot-relevant info and managing to swipe a necessary key).

Yeah, I talked to him and then I've started investigating, but when I go back at this point, he's still saying "investigate these four disappearances".

The guy with the tablets, yes I did talk to him and he's analyzed the tablets (although I can't get those back yet, either), but he is finished with them. I don't especially recall an efreet when I went back (to get the tablets in the first place). The problem I've run into is that there are four that I was supposed to look into--the tablet wizard's apprentices (found them), someone in Malachite (found that), someone in the first city (found that), and the professor who disappeared during lunch in the school in Rune (there's my troubles).

I seem to have hit a wall here. I'm in the chapter investigating the disappearing mages and there is one that I don't seem to be able to trigger the event that will let me move on--the professor in Rune. In one walkthrough, it mentions talking to someone named Colbin, searching, then going back to Colbin ... well, I've talked to everyone in town, and no one is named Colbin, no one responds to questions about the school, Seth (name gotten from walkthrough), or disappearances. And apparently, unless I find something there, I'm going to be unable to move on. Otherwise, I've been hugely enjoying myself since I found the modernized Blades of Exile.

I'll play ... GF1: Shaper. He wasn't from any special background, but once his plans are disrupted by landing on Sucia, he starts out trying to find a way off w/o anyone finding out he was on the island, then he gets mad about being used by Trajkov & Goettsch, so he strikes out and ends up using and destroying the Geneforge, then pretty much forgetting all about the rest of the island, heads straight for the mainland. He turns into the Monarch. GF2: Agent. (Mouawad) Nothing special in the background, but she becomes so horrified by the things that she saw in Drypeak that she becomes *very* hardline. Uses only one canister in the game, unaligned. Doesn't have the patience to sit back and be on the Council, wants to be in the field. GF3: Shaper (just because I liked the whole triad of having a Shaper, Guardian, and Agent traveling together while trying to keep both Alwan and Greta in the group). Starts out idealistic/Shaper, but after that first canister, just can't quite help himself. Turns into a rebel (because that's obviously the canon ending), but ends up meeting a Sucia-servile and hearing the mutated story of Trajkov. Escapes the Shaper camp with the help of the servile, they flee together. Founds the Trakovites (thus the reason why, in GF4, neither Alwan nor Greta want to acknowledge having known him or having traveled together). GF4: Lifecrafter (but I swapped out graphics because it was too masculine, and I wanted a female character). She was a farmer's daughter before the rebellion began, a refugee from childhood, fell in love with Alwan but when she found out that he and Miranda were an item, comes back to full rebel, but splits soon after because she doesn't like/trust the drakons and is more concerned with helping serviles and refugees. GF5: Sorceress. She was Shaila, but when the Shapers tried to help her, things went horribly wrong.

I recently moved and changed my internet service provider, and like the previous ISP, they offer a free internet security suite which works well except for one huge problem. For some reason that I cannot fathom, this security scanner is identifying my avernum 6.exe file as some sort of virus (Gen: Variant.FakeAlert.43) and deleting the file (and all attempts to repair by using the CD are failing because it just immediately tags it as that 'fakealert' and deletes it again). I'm trying to get them to whitelist the file so it will leave it alone, but so far no joy there. Are there any other things that can be done to help with this?

I said it in the other (Geneforge 5 forum--the real identity thread), but I think the evidence best supports Monarch is the GF1 character who used (then destroyed) the Geneforge. Points in favor of this: Ending text has character stomping off to the wilderness to use an army of creations to keep him safe Character "rules" The use of a control baton to control otherwise unruly creations (where else do we see those besides GF1?) At least, that's what makes sense to me.

Originally Posted By: FnordCola I don't see what the "by those following Shaper law" has to do with anything. Drayks exist, Shaper law says they all have to die. The fact that Shapers don't make more drayks doesn't change the fact that they would gladly murder all existing drayks. I suppose it's better than making more drayks, then murdering them for the hell of it, but "damning with faint praise" doesn't quite do that comparison justice. Drayks, drakons, and eyebeasts are sentient species capable of reproducing themselves, and also barred, i.e. to be killed on sight. Well, the reason I say "by those following Shaper law" is that drayks (made according to Shaper law) should basically die out without having to be killed simply because they were supposed to be created sterile (i.e. *NOT* capable of reproducing themselves). Drakons and eyebeasts I'll leave out just because they're already outside Shaper law. So again, a drayk is not, technically speaking, a species.

Not to mention the fact that many of the creations (at least as made by those following Shaper law) are not species, technically speaking (given that they are made infertile at creation, therefore they are *not* capable of interbreeding/producing fertile offspring). Serviles are a species (and quite likely ornks as well, though I don't recall anything specific in canon on that point), but I don't recall anyone (other than one madman in 5) who thought they should be eliminated as an entire species.

Well, the Avernum 4 Honeycomb seemed hardly deserving of the name, too easy to map. Exile's Honeycomb seemed to have a lot more maddening turns and dead ends that you *thought* were the path you wanted (and then there was the whole bit about walls to walk through that weren't necessarily apparent when you came back). But the Avernum 6 Honeycomb definitely had me feeling like "yeah, someone could get lost in here until he ran out of food and died". It just seemed like the Avernum Honeycomb was *much* easier to travel through than the Exile variant, until Avernum 6.

Well, for theories--here's a few of mine: Monarch = GF1 PC (via the 'used the Geneforge then destroyed it' ending where the PC is last seen stalking off into the wilderness being a target of Shapers and raising armies of creations). GF3 PC goes on to be horrified by everything that happened during the days since the attack on the school, and in a "pox on everyone's house" starts the Trakovites, but being a purist (unlike Litalia) dies an anonymous death somewhere a couple years before GF4 starts. This would also explain both Alwan and Greta being loathe to admit to having traveled with the GF3 PC. As far as Shaila as GF5 PC, I think it's not impossible that she could've been brought through briefly encountering Alwan (who hardly would've deigned to mention anything of that nature to a lowly freak like the GF4 PC especially if Shaila's tenuous hold on sanity had snapped in the interim after she was last seen in GF4). While Shaila's definitely a minor character in GF4 (and quickly spirited off), she was a person of enough interest to get the rebels *and* the Shapers targeting her for different purposes. To me, this suggests that she had been up to a great deal more than simply living in the Boiling Cavern and being a bit unglued from her experience of being Geneforged, and we don't know too much about her career prior to running through the Geneforge. She might've been much more significant (therefore they were expecting great things from her and really disappointed when she went mad). In any case, I like Shaila as an option much better than the GF3 PC, although war is a big enough thing that some other character might have been involved but never encountered during the GF4 PC's wanderings.

Originally Posted By: FnordCola If G5 starts exactly 3 years after G4, then Vener encountered the G5 protagonist as an animalistic amnesiac at around the same time the G4 protagonist arrived at Southforge Citadel. Even if we assume that G4 starts in early year 7 and G5 in late year 10, the G4 protagonist would still have to go through all the events of G4, then go insane somehow, then get to the Drypeak area (while insane, and thus probably tending to meander), get captured by some shaper, and taken to the Mera-Tev where Vener sees him/her, all in less than a year. I submit that if we take the timeline laid out in G4 and G5 as canonical, it is extremely unlikely that the G5 PC is the G4 PC. How does Shaila sound as a candidate for G5 PC? It's a bit tight, but I could see an attempt to help her by the Shapers going horribly wrong, resulting in the condition that the G5 PC is in when Vener saw her. And since her destination is unknown when we see her sailing off in early G4, it does seem possible.

But at least now in Avernum 6, the Honeycomb has returned to the incredible maze that one might really get lost in that it was back in the Exile days. But the incredible-shrinking-world of Avernum 4&6 annoyed me (it did feel less noticeable in 5, but I think that might just be because so much was previously unknown territory). Good thing the storyline makes up for it.

I think I flubbed up this time by not taking the ring to What's-His-Name (Derenten Freehold) before talking to Litalia after going to Quessa. So, I've got the ring of puresteel in special items but can't get the drakon to take it (he says he needs it, but the dialog point about 'here, I've got one' won't come up. (I have, though, already delivered the other one to him.) What do I need to do to get that dialog point so I can clear the quest? Thanks!

Well, I don't think it'd be *too* burdensome to have a little pop-up thing every time you touch a canister--not much different than every time you look into a container of whatever sort to see if there's anything good in there. So instead of the auto-touch=use, it'd be a little window with three choices: use, smash, change mind. Change mind would allow you to back out of touching it without either effect. Use would be just like it is now, while smash would result in the changed image (broken canister) and a little 'you gained experience' message. But yeah, I think if you wanted your character to be a Trakovite or even a very pro-Shaper (orthodox) character, smashing canisters instead of using them should be a choice. And it would underscore the whole canister=easy way vs. 'gain skills the hard way' ethos, even if the reward for canister smashing was not xp (which is probably easiest to code--and I'd make it a flat number so that it's still worthwhile at high levels) but say 2 skill points (not enough necessarily to improve a skill, but add enough of them, and you're getting somewhere).

One interesting thing for me--if you could do something other than use canisters... for example, destroy them for xp (and maybe even something of a minor quest, like 'destroy # canisters for [insert item]').

Hurrah! Now--for a plot that doesn't squeeze you along like toothpaste in a tube? I didn't mind the limits on where to go/what to do in Exile/Avernum 2's first chapters, but from the return to the ToM on, it was very open. The first game was completely open (except for the whole 'go here too soon, you get whomped' aspect), and there was a sense of wide-openness in game three, even if there were certain lines that had to be drawn straight. A4, OTOH, felt so constrained 'do not deviate from plot, straight lines only'. Being more free to wander around in squiggly lines w/o getting one's nose whacked with a paper for being a bad puppy (so to speak) ... that's probably my top wish.

Quote: Originally written by Croikle: Yeah, really. Maybe there should be some other title for those of us who were around on the IkonBoard. Olderbie? You know, I think I could have registered here a couple days earlier..it's too bad I didn't. A 2-digit member number would be pretty cool to have these days. Well, I'm almost as old as my member number ... Any chance that AV4 (Win) will be out in time for my birthday (March 3)?

Grah-Hoth isn't in that shattered fort--he's in a bottle (until you let him go) beyond Skarragoth (in the Abyss, in the general vicinity of Erika's). As far as the things that Sulfras wants--one is in Spire, the other is in the Tower of Magi.

I think that, speaking for myself, I enjoy those BoE scenarios that I do like because of the story, not the graphics. Plus I like the 6 person party (more places to carry stuff). In addition, I'm a semi-Luddite at heart.

If you're really strapped for cash, the best thing to do is run over to eastern Valorim & keep running merchant runs over there (clothes and herbs).

The subject was brought up before, and I still have to stand by my original opinion: The obvious casting choice for Erika Redmark would be Anjelica Huston.