earanhart

There are probably a few people in here who will enjoy this. If that's you, enjoy a link below. If not, meh. Doing this mostly for my own entertainment. Warning: language use (cussing) is worse than in the games, and I've made a few sexual innuendos and allusions. "Locker room talk" type stuff. I'm keeping it at the lower rung of the MPAA equivalent of an R rating. This is why I'm not directly posting the fic into the forums, as it does violate the family friendly guidelines. The entire John Wick series of movies is more gratuitus and explicit than anything I have, even disregarding the nudity in those films. But I feel it appropriate to inform anyone coming from here that the 'age-appropriateness' of the content in my fanfic is set a category older than anything in official Spiderweb Software works. Lets not surprise anyone with an F-bomb or references to sticks in places they don't belong. Spoilers for everything, you have been warned. Setup: Player character never escaped the basement of Greenwood Academy. Alwan and Greta are filling in that role and won't be separating as the plot progresses. I've changed some points of the world already, and will continue to diverge from the core progression a bit further as keeping those two together into the halfway mark will necessitate a shift in the narrative. So far I have only finished Greenwood Isle, and I'm going to be taking a short break to map out some of the smaller bits of Harmony before writing the first chapter there. If fanfics are your thing, I hope you enjoy my take on the Ashen Isles. More will be coming. I won't be posting here with each chapter going up, but if I see interest here then after each major plot point in the game I'll make a comment. Link to the work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55600273 And if you do read, please let me know what you think. Every creator thrives off people talking about their stuff. I've made some changes that some fans will hate. I've made some that hopefully others will think "Yeah, that's actually better." And others that are simply "this works better in this medium than the version for a video game medium."

So it is a high initiative Str/Melee build that you made, using extra damage directly from QA to offset the additional damage taken from approaching enemies vice having them approach you, and likely taking most of the QA points from Strength. I still believe high initiative is a suboptimal move for melee singletons. If this is the only change to support that style, it might be enough extra damage output. I'm not sure. And of course you can simulate low initiative by simply taking a few steps back and popping a pod. That's all I was asking for.

I mean, have you tried answering the question even once? Vice merely attacking me as a person. It might work.

You wouldn't need to ask me to shut up if you would defend this statement which I have now asked you to clarify thrice. Sword attacks as a melee Guardian were already viable on Torment, and far easier for me than was missile. So I am asking you what you mean when you say What is this specialized build option? Is it going Dex/QA/Melee to push initiative higher? Because melee solo benefits from lower initiative as it draws enemies closer to them between prebuffing and their first turn. Is it a no-blessing melee Guardian? If so I am very curious as to how you are managing that. Is it a QA Guardian who forgoes crystals/pods to maximize number of swings? I am asking you to advertise the playstyle that you have created/enabled to me, because I would like to try it out. But if all I can get from you is "lay off", then I am very likely to mever touch this content again. I gave Overrun a shot, I dislike the movespeed bonus. It caused me numerous wasted turns as my character got stuck on a wall or a bush and simply lost AP to the void, and I never thought it needed to begin with, but I was willing to deal with that to see the new content you made (the roamer and thahd quests were entertaining, I didn't find where to complete the thorn quests, but also didn't hunt for that). As melee has ALWAYS been my preferred way to play Geneforge, from 1 through 5, M and now I, when a mod maker claims that they have created a new specialized melee build, I am excited to try. All I'm asking is for you to tell me what the thing you made is, because the snippet you gave doesn't make sense to me as a melee enthusiast. The first time I asked this, I recognized that you have repeated made it very clear in other threads here that you think ranged is by far the superior weapon option. I disagree. I suspect there is a different between our understandings of how the two builds interact with our styles of play. But that's fine. Every player will be better at different playstyles, and everyone will have slightly different preferences for builds. I'm sure there's someone out there who uses exclusively Volatile Thahds. That's fine. Enjoy the game. You think my playstyle is inferior and needs to be buffed. You claim to have enabled a new playstyle in my wheelhouse. Please explain the new melee build you have created inside Overrun v1.02. I would like to play it.

The matter there is not in the content of the mod. It is in the documentation. SpidWeb has stated that the 6AP rot attack was a bug, a single value entered incorrectly, which he corrected. Your documentation here does not acknowledge that the modded behavior was not as designed by Jeff, and further introduces a new and mostly undocumented behavior of a capstone ability. Changing your documentation to be "Rot basic attack now uses only 6 AP" would be an accurate description of your mods changes while also informing future users of what this "reverted nerf" was. As for if you have reverted a bug fix or not, you yourself have claimed to have done nothing other than to undo Jeff's work with regard to what he calls a bug. That's reintroduction of a bug, even if it only a single integer. The more important part of this entire portion is providing your users with an accurate description of your mod. "Reverted base game nerf" doesn't tell a user what you've done, especially if multiple later patches come out. "Reduced AP cost of Rot attack" does. As for taking my question seriously. Fine. Don't. But please stop asserting that playstyles you don't enjoy are not viable. Future new users will see your words, and will make inaccurate assumptions of the game based on what anyone on the forum says, much moreso one with the that little shield on their profile. When you make a claim that a mod is needed to enable a specialized playstyle, and someone asks what that playstyle is, you the mod maker should be able to easily and quickly explain that playstyle. Because the post I quoted seems to imply that without your new edits a melee build is not viable. Which is false. I am confused, and so asked a global moderator and the mod maker for clarification.

Not a nerf, a bug fix. You reintroduced a bug to raise their power. You've lost me here. You made missile far easier and somewhat more powerful than it was. And now you are buffing melee to "create a specialized build option"? I recognize that you think melee wastes too many turns, but having just completed a ranged run to see the differences melee needs no assistance. Beyond the inventory stress that ranged had (QoL removes that, included in Overrun), I found my ranged Guardian backed into a corner far more often than I found my melee Guardian out of range. If these two changes are in order to bring weapon skills up to match the Shaping buffs you've made by de-focusing them, say that. But melee specialized builds, even solo-melee, were already quite easy in Torment (barring the very few enemies with boils). What "specialized build option" are you talking about here?

Barzhite Creations are abused worse than anyone else in this game, possibly worse than anyone else in the saga. They're not cared for, not properly controlled, and Shaped nearly or completely Rogue (see the Clawbug guy). They are kept passive by the magitech pillars, but as we see from the Serviles even this isn't perfect. So as soon as those control pillars stop working, they freak out. And if we ignore Stennis and Barzahl, how many Barzhites do you think have ANY experience with controlling Creations the traditional way or preventing them from going Rogue? Those two are years out of practice, amd the Creations around them are now more powerful, more wilfull, and less sane than the ones they were used to.

None of the alterations in this game have mechanical effects. They just allow people other than Phariton to train you in the "new super spells/creations". How Phariton manages to bypass the "your body can't handle these energies" barrier, I'm not sure.

No, there is not. In the Taker ending, you find out what is behind that door, though.

You realize there's a fundamental difference between remasters, remakes (what this forum is for, regardless of what the title bar says), and squishing one game into another? What I'm talking about is trying to run Doom in the Mass Effect engine, or original Geneforge in the Avernum6 engine. Start is talking about what are sometimes called demakes or downscales, which would be running Mass Effect in Doom (which would actually be pretty cool) or A6 in BoE.

IIRC, it was just a few months before the Steam and GoG versions of Morrowind were released. The project did find a way to continue. I don't know if that was by ignoring the C&D or by changing something specific in how they operated. I barely pay attention to the entire genre of mods that are "old game in newer games engine". Not saying those are bad mods, they're really ambitious projects and impressive, just not what I personally want. I just remember this one because it started a few flame wars in the TES wiki. Nintendo sending the D&C to the guy who was making a series of grayscale mods for the Mario games was more stupid. But that might have been about emulation and/or ROMhacking than modding. But even these forums have had some issues. People "accidentally" registering their copies of Exile . . . That would already be covered in the main 3 categories though.

The project I'm thinking of was one of the earlier iterations of the whole Morroblivion project. Yeah, that one wasn't a "We hate mods" thing so much as it was "this particular project".

Bethesda. Bioware. Hasbro. Nintendo. Sony. Google. Amazon. All have stomped on different mod projects.

Based in where Spiderweb Software is legally registered, the three big rules for nodding are 1) you cannot make money off of the mod 2) you mod cannot risk allowing unpaid access to game content (don't steal from Jeff Vogel) And 3) your mod must require access to a legally obtained copy of the base program Keep inside those, and any disagreements will be VERY in the weeds. Some major companies will send C&Ds and harass modmakers with lawyers based on particular phrasing in the EULAs, but assuming you stop after that C&D you aren't in trouble for anything if you followed the first 3 rules. Now, that's the LEGAL, side, and this is not legal advice. The moral and ethical side of this debate, as well as staying in Jeff's good graces, are an entirely different matter and a whole different set of arguments.

I'll agree, but all of those reasons are kind of "Wanted, Dead or Alive, Reward" signs posted up in the tavern (or every building) type situations. Ajax going hostile always makes sense, barring some argument like "non-combatants should flee" which would require more behavior scripts in the game code.

How is that a problem? Let me translate this. Let's say Hector takes a new job with better benefits in the next town over. Then some guy from his former bosses company comes around asking a few questions and is initially friendly enough. But this new guy then begins to kill everyone in the town Hector just moved to. Of course Hector is going to be a fair bit hostile towards this guy. If he walks into Hectors new job site after doing all this, do you really think Hector is gonna be like "Hey Patroclus, long day?" No, he's gonna do his best to kill the guy who has given every indication of wanting him dead and being willing to do that himself. How do have an issue with that? If you don't want Ajax hostile to you, maybe don't be a psychopathic murder hobo?

Oh really? Where are their agents? One managed to slip through contested and largely unwatched lands to spy on the other side of Taker lands. One was captured spying on Taker lands. One is BARELY outside Loyalist territory in an area where she could pass as a member to casual observation. None are near Freegate. Bekka of Rising is probably a Taker, not a Barzhite, but either way she isn't an Awakened. How do you get through a tunnel watched by all four factions when everyone there knows you leaving means a new faction in the war comes, and one larger than anyone is yet ready to face? And clearly the Takers are able to pass through the secret tunnel, or there wouldn't be Spawners in the unimproved lands. I'll grant that it's possible one of these Agents, alone, could escape. But we've seen two Agents captured when on guard. And it would weaken the Loyalist Camp to send one away in the hope that they escape. If the Barzhites decided to attack in force, do you really think the Loyalists will survive? Right now their defensive positioning allows them to be too expensive to clear out, so long as they don't push too hard and become worth the attention. So long as they can keep Barzhite attention on the Takers. If one of their Agents leaves, they lose access to information and some ability to defend their base. As for them "ignoring" the progress Barzahl was making, these are experienced Shapers. If they went back to the Council with "Hey, there's some illegal Shaping going on, maybe y'all want to take a look at that?" The Council would end their careers. What ending state do you get if you meet Zackary, Pinner, and Barzahl and know about the Takers? In the eyes of the Shaper Council, that's a failure for an APPRENTICE, what would they say to a full Shaper? And remember, Barzahl and Zackary are in charge of this entire project. Not putting their skills at the service of those two withiut specific orders to do something else here is mutiny. They need evidence before they can go the Council and say "yeah, we disobeyed orders because those orders were illegal." By the time they knew things were bad enough that MAYBE they wouldn't be branded cowards or traitors themselves for leaving, it was too late. Again, look at Shanti. If simply evidence of illegal Shaping was sufficient to report to the Council, then as soon as you report the Spawner to her she would send you back to the Council and continue her investigation, so she could have more information to give to the force the Council sent. But it's not. Loyalty to the Shapers means more than simply being a whistle-blower. It means bringing back the entire investigation that the internal review following that whistle-blowing would cause. Is that ideal? No, it's really not. At least not as American or European cultures understand it. But that's what the Loyalists are stuck working with. Remember, with the sabotage of the Loyalists and them pitting two factions against each other, the power balance here is so fragile that an apprentice is sufficiently powerful that EVERYONE knows the PC is the pawn that can win them the game. For the Loyalists, losing a single Shaper to go report is tantamount to forfeit.

That's an incredibly negative view of the Loyalists. Maybe not incorrect, but is unfairly ignores their actual conditions. They are 4 Shapers and a handful of warriors. That's it. And one of their number was captured. Also look at what happened to Shanti, a trained Agent presumably comparable to any of the Loyalists here. Two AGENTS captured. A Guardian and a Shaper have no hope of sneaking out unnoticed, which means they would need to fight their way out. Considering the difficulty and risk of even leaving Drypeak, the time delay to get to the Council (even assuming an immediate response of record scale), and the rate at which threats are growing and advancing here, they aren't being insubordinate. They are doing what they determine to be the best course of action to support the Shapers while trapped behind enemy lines. And note that they aren't hiding, their camp has SIGNPOSTS outside it warning Barzhites away. They are doing everything they can to follow the teachings of the Shapers as long as they can. Without canister modifications, we don't see Shapers wandering around making armies. Shapers establish power bases and Shape from there. They could possibly hide for a month or two and make an army that could see one of them safely outside these mountains. If they are strong enough to control that many Creations. But how many potentially innocent Commons would die in that march? And in the time they are Shaping their army the Geneforge might be completed. Even without that, they know that both the Barzhites and the Takers are advancing their self-Shaping skills at exponential rates. And while the Awakened might not be directly hostile to the Loyalists, they absolutely are not helpful. Want to bet that they wouldn't get in the way somehow if they knew one of the Loyalists were trying to escape Drypeak? If one of their humans walked into Drypeak Warrens, would anyone stop them? Zackary wants the mess cleaned up before the Council is alerted. He has a vested interest in keeping the Loyalists trapped. And what's "a few more Rogues" on their way out? No, the Loyalists options are really "stay and try to slow this down, hoping for rescue somehow," "betray everything we believe in" or "join the insane Barzhites." Even if they joined Zackary, he wouldn't let them leave until the situation is entirely under his control, so he can spin the story to try and save his own hide. The Loyalists are anything but insubordinate. They're doing everything in their power to follow the laws of the Shaper Order and the expectations placed onto them. Look at how the Council reacts to Shanti's fate at its various states in the ending slides. Every Shaper in the Loyalist Camp knows what is expected of them, and it ain't "run away and tell the Council."

There are a few more enemies with exploding boils. Yeah, they tend to stop melee builds hard. But it's the only thing in GF2 that makes me (with my unpopular opinion) not see melee as the end-all be-all of strategies for GF2-I. Everything else has some more frequent problem. (barring the challenge zones, but those are challenge zones, so)

most of it is fairly simply text editing. For your first couple attempts, I'd stick with just doing dialog changes so you can get a feel for the process before trying to change other stuff. In the data folders of the game, nearly everything that isn't the engine itself is handled by unencrypted, unprotected text, in one of the simplest coding languages I've ever seen. Spiderweb Software games are probably one of the best games to learn modding on in general, honestly. the files you will likely want to start with are the zone files (names start with the letter z), and specifically the dialog files (such as z4cragsdlg.txt, the file for dialog in zone 4: crags). As always, back up before you mess with things. And typically it's inadvisable to change a zone your save is in or the very first zone of a game. Have fun, and don't forget your rubber duck.

Ah, so I somehow failed to let it leave the first time. Subsequent visits I'd been in and out before it has a chance to make it to the exit, and might have been even without the walkspeed change. Letting it fully leave has 'corrected' it's behavior, so your assumption appears to be accurate. Thanks for taking a look though.

Bug report: Lost Fyora respawns (and runs away) each time the zone is loaded. Really makes Emily's grey skinned Fyoras obvious and raises the question of what it's doing around her.

Yeah, but if you join the Barzhites, do you really care what the Council thinks? You have evolved beyond those pathetic traditionalists.

I suggest changing the phrasing of "acts faster in combat" to "acts sooner in combat". Mostly to protect new players from thinking 15+ Agility might get then extra turns.

I had to go back through and re-trigger the cockatrice fights (because somehow that was reenabled) for Zosima to take the turn in on one of my playthroughs. Maybe this is a bug worth reporting if others are seeing it. Given it didn't happen on my first playthrough, I assumed it was a random glitch vice a proper bug.