A less presumptuous name.

Someone recently said that they talked with Jeff about Geneforge remakes. Apparently, they are a definite plan for the future, although the timeline is unlikely to be immediate. I wouldn't expect any plans for them until the first three Avernum remakes are out.

Control click, not function, gives you a right click.

How do you propose making barriers optional? Are you thinking of Avadon where you can't go places without a quest, or Geneforge, where the map is just divided into zones. I for one really like Geneforge's zone system, as it allows for blocking off of certain areas but never prohibits me from traveling somewhere.

I'm with Slarty on this one. I've played all games (but only the demo of 3) and enjoyed all of them. Going back recently to play the older games is hard with the older interface, but the story is great. I would try to play each game in order. If you can't get passed interface issues, that's fine; each game is great. You have the games, so you may as well try them, but don't feel obligated to play each one. You can pick up the series wherever you want (although I wouldn't recommend skipping 4 and going to 5). Just remember to enjoy the game. If you don't like 1, move on and try 2.

Probably nothing, but there may have been a last-minute switch. It wouldn't hurt to download officially just in case.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean. Are you asking why you can't just add another creation to the scripts that you can create? As far as my understanding goes, the engine (which you can't edit) controls which creations you can make. You can't add another one into there; you have to substitute.

Since Jeff only designed one level of "Shape Ornk" into the game, there is no level three bonus. There is no way to create an oozebeast other than replacing an already shape-able creation with the oozebeast.

Such a shame to see Alorael's 20,000th locked.

Just snipe. It's about time I posted in here. It's not fair for everyone to abuse this thread to increase their post count with out including me.

Speaking of preparing for the future to prevent past incidents, there was apparently another shooting at Virginia Tech earlier today. As more information becomes available, hopefully we can see that things were handled better this time and that this will be the last time.

Other posts on the forum indicate roughly a week till release. So I'd say by the end of next week, you should have your game.

That certainly sounds like a bug that Jeff would like to hear about. I recommend emailing him directly with your problem at support@spiderwebsoftware.com

Whether it's the most accurate description or not, most intro-level classes use endo- and exothermic to describe phase changes. If your professor is good, though, he or she will emphasize that such descriptions are true at constant pressure.

Who says that superior entities are running the Matrix? Look at Watson and the IBM challenge - we're making huge leaps and bounds in artificial intelligence. I'll tell you what really happened. In what we think of as our future, human beings finally had world war three. Now, by this point, all the books of the world had become digitized and the hard copies were all kept in a single location. So during the war, then the book museum was burned and the digital library hacked and erased, humans were left without history. So they programmed the universe into one of their fancy supercomputers and hit "run." By observing us, they are recopying their own history. The interesting question, then, is that if we are a perfect simulation running say, 5000 years behind them, will we someday create a virtual machine within our own program to find out our program's history? Inception of universes instead of dreams!

I think that, a long time ago, there was a discussion about types of creations - long-term shaped and quickie PC shaped. That distinction is key in how I explain the "something out of nothing" and "pool of energy goo" phenomenons. First, I assume that essence is a particular form of energy, given that it is found in all living creatures and can be drawn from them and transferred to them. Thus, for me, an essence pool/pod contains an alchemical mixture designed at storing essence energy for a long time, sort of like a battery. Second, I turn to the difference between how the PC and characters in battle shape compared to what we see in laboratories. The long-term lab-based creations presumably are formed using some sort of essence-goop stock, readily available from your friendly neighborhood conduit. The quick creations that you whip up in a few seconds or minutes don't have this physical component and are pure energy when they are first created. Have you noticed that the creations that Shapers make in battle tend to be much weaker than those formed well beforehand? I see this as due to the fact that the rapidly shaped creations are immaterial forms of energy held together by energy. It is far easier to disrupt those bonds than it is to hack through a tough piece of drakon steak. So now your PC has created a field of energy resembling a fyora. As time goes by (and if you're not in battle, you can presumably spend time right away on this), your "fyora" will eat and breath, amassing mass as it does so. Thus, while not having the solid framework that a vat-shaped creation does, it will eventually have a fully physical body. tl;dr - essence is energy and creations may not have mass right away. I spend way too much time thinking about this.

Then again, let's not forget the vanishing continent. Moral: Residents of Terrestia are more confused about the geography of the world than we are.

Originally Posted By: Goldenking While I am generally in agreement with Alorael on this matter, I find that the distinctions we are drawing are relatively difficult to apply to the Shapers' understanding of biology. Healing crafts have been around for some time, and I would say they've probably been around longer than Shaping, though that is utter conjecture. Shaper understanding of cells, or even 'tiny scrolls', however, seems to be much more recent, and much less widespread. Therefore, I find it difficult to say that the Shapers can be so aware of what their essence is doing as to say that the acceleration of cellular growth is healing and creation of new cells is Shaping - especially when both might appear to have the same effect. My argument is this: The Shapers are, unlike most other beings, sentient of their essence. They are thus able to manipulate it. When a Shaper uses a healing spell, they can feel their natural energy/essence drained, but they aren't bending it to their will to form whatever needs replacing. As for shaping cells and tissues, it's quite possible that what they do is more by feel and reflex than detailed understanding, at least for the most part. It's reasonable to believe that, if they are aware of their own essence, they are able to magically differentiate between various tissue types and mold their essence to model what they know through research and experimentation. Essentially, I think that when a Shaper is actively shaping new cells and tissues, they are consciously molding the essence to a form, whereas when healing they just allow their energy to be used by the recipient's body to accelerate natural processes.

You don't have to agree. You don't have to stay in the argument, either. I, for one, think that this discussion has opened some valuable questions about the nature of essence and shaping.

Yes. The general strategy involves spreading out your characters and having one or two smash Redbears with everything they have whenever the other characters get rid of the round of souljars.

The difference between healing and shaping is that of the difference between passive and active. When a Shaper, healer, or healing pool heals someone in Geneforge, it is providing energy that the body uses to accelerate it's natural healing process. Sort of a time lapse, if you will. You have a cut on your knee. It will heal on its own in 10 days or so, or you could have a Shaper speed things up. What the Shapers prohibit is the active process of supplementing the body's natural process with a synthetic production of organic material. Again you have your knee scraped. The friendly neighborhood Shaper will not use his powers to create new flesh and graft it on over your booboo. Again returning to Alwan, the origin of this conversation, we see a dilemma similar to that of stem cell research and genetic engineering in our world. Alwan's wounds go beyond what his body could naturally repair, so to become rehabilitated would require that active process of shaping new tissue for his body. The Shapers don't allow this sort of thing because it leads to what the Drakons did - shaping and reshaping oneself until the original is hardly left. And that's how the unbound came around.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S Originally Posted By: Master1 Nikki - A lot of us did that with Avadon, and I seem to remember a few mods scolding us for it. All the mods said was please don't post links to or addresses for the FTP site, since last-minute changes sometimes ARE made, and the download should not be linked on the web until Spiderweb puts it up. Snoop all you like, Jeff's apparently fine with that.

How does one go about getting their core to idle below room temperature?

Jeff has given many reasons why he does Mac first. As I recall, he prefers Mac and writing for it. Alos, the Windows users are hardly "esponsible for most if not all the sales both in future and past." If Jeff only made 10% of his sales on Mac, he probably wouldn't do Mac first. I don't know if the figures have ever been released, but a good chunk of Jeff's market is on Mac.

Alorael says the argument is non-shaping use of essence in healing. Pyrrhus sais the argument is healing: shaping or not. Really, two parts of the same thing. Clearly essence does (or at least can) play a role in shaping. However, given the very clear prohibition of self-shaping, it seems unlikely that healing would be considered shaping. Take a look at the Caretaker Vlish - the creation cannot shape but can heal its allies. Clearly some forms of healing do not require shaping. As for shaping new cells when healing - I'm not sure why you're so convinced of that. Yes, new cells are created when you heal. New cells are created constantly, otherwise you wouldn't live very long at all. What Alorael and I have said is that, rather than actively shaping new cells, the healing process in Geneforge simply supplies energy and guidance, accelerating the body's natural healing process. So you could say that healing indirectly creates new cells, but you could also say that about eating, since the energy you get from your food allows your cells to divide.

Tyran - Spiderweb's emoticons confuse me. Nikki - A lot of us did that with Avadon, and I seem to remember a few mods scolding us for it.