madrigan

Is there a complete list of cheat codes somewhere? I can't find it searching the forum, or in Strategy Central. I'm getting bogged down, could use some PC's Little Helper.

Originally Posted By: A**ra*l There are some quests that require pretty solidly chosen reputation, in the vicinity of 70+ or 30- on the 100-point scale. Is there some place I can actually see my character's reputation? Or are you using the 100 point scale just to illustrate?

Originally Posted By: Serene Tempest I'm also not sure that Warrior was the best choice for a singleton. I think you want to be playing an Agent or a Servile for that. I think that is probably true, but this wasn't my plan initially. I found that all my creations were getting beat up and it was hard to keep them alive in battle. However, In order to kill these ghosts, I shaped a Battle Alpha and spent most of my essence on it. He is tough enough for now. Originally Posted By: Six-String Heart Having a middling reputation doesn't really help you. All factions are either rebel or Shaper, and having an extreme reputation doesn't hurt you. You can stay in between for a while, but it just makes neither side particularly happy about you. I have been doing all the pro-rebel things, and lying to Shapers about my intentions, which appears to have given me a good reputation with the Rebels and a mediocre reputation with the Shapers. I think Shaper loyalists are starting to talk to me differently. Originally Posted By: Randomizer Travald's Bride can be dealt with if you look around to find out what the servile's were doing before they died. I didn't realize they were doing anything in particular! But I suppose that, in life, they did not march back and forth, over and over, in the exact same pattern every time, until they died.

Well, I'm trying to play without creations because so far I spend more time healing creations than they do helping me fight. I might have to change tactics for the crypt, though. If my character is especially bad, though, it's probably because he's a Warrior who is better at diplomacy and mechanics than he is at fighting. I'll figure out a way to win, though.

Originally Posted By: Serene Tempest http://www.ironycentral.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=119407#Post119407 As far as finding the crypt, follow your nose. Thanks. Those ghosts are tough! I survived the first group, but got mobbed by the rest of them. It is possible to sneak past them, but then Mrs. Spirit or whatever her name is whups on me anyway. I think this is a tough game. Or maybe my character is really bad.

Originally Posted By: Blurb Madrigan, if you have a good reputation with the rebels, I think you can join Astoria's faction after you complete her second quest, which is to speak to Tholosss, the exiled drakon. Thanks. Where the heck is Tholoss, by the way? I have been looking for days. I finally figured out where Ghaldring's tunnel is, anyway. If I try to join up with Astoria after telling Ghaldring I want to join the rebellion, is either of them going to come after me? Or can I do both their quests and have sort of a dual citizenship?

Is this question ok for this thread? I can't figure out how to ally with a faction. Is this something I have to do "formally"? I would like to work for Astoria, but so far I've had to tell everyone I work for Rawal and I told Ghaldring I wanted to be a rebel, because he was the only leader who asked me. Do I have to find Tholoss in order to have Astoria "hire" me? Or is there no formal process? Anyway, I can't find Tholoss anywhere. I'm at a bit of a standstill.

Originally Posted By: The Lurker I've been reading bits of text from the GF games (again, except for GF5), and really, this thread deserves nothing but an immense facepalm. It's quite obvious that the creations you make are sentient. This thread is like Vahnatai creationism - it might have some potential for fanfictions, but it's literally obvious that it's not the way Jeff sees the Geneforge world. Apparently, the fact that some Essence goes away permanently when you make a creation is due to the fact that 1)you need to maintain a bond between you and your creation; and 2)you need to control it. My guess is that this thread was started because fighting against the Shapers' beliefs while being as horrible as they are is odd. And, in fact, it is. In order to sincerely fight the Shapers, you've got to make sure you never absorb any creations (I believe the GF4 tutorial forces you to make a creation, but you can finish the game without ever absorbing it). So, yes, some Trakovites are hypocrites. Even Drewry. Usually, people who want to have an actual discussion refrain from stating that their beliefs are "obvious," and provide actual evidence and/or logic to support their assertions, instead of just dismissing what other people are saying. I started the thread because I thought it was an unanswered question that would be interesting to discuss.

Originally Posted By: feo takahari In regard to the original topic, I direct you all to a book I've mentioned previously, Unwind by Neal Shusterman. "Retroactive abortion" is one of those phrases that just begs to be repeated and popularized, like "widorcs and orcphans" or "SAN check." I haven't read Unwind, but based on the amazon summary, you might also like Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer The back door to Gladwell's Keep is from the north part of the Honeycomb Barren part of the Azure Gallery. Go past the undead near the entrance to Soultaker's Pit and you will find a secret door. Shafrir's Tower is where you go for a failed attempt to remove Gladwell's geas. Oh yeah, that's right.

Originally Posted By: Clawbugs of the Conciliator You can lose control of your limbs and they can go into spasms. Does that make them no longer a part of you? Agreed here. I was thinking of "roguery" as a malfunction analogous to disease. I think that, properly speaking, clawbugs go rogue, but serviles rebel.

The back door to Gladwell's pad is in the Azure Gallery. You have to go through the lower level of Shafir's tower. It's worth backtracking -- it's a cool map, a good fight, and there's some nifty loot.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer It can't hurt to have one creation, but you should pick a high level one that will have the health to last through a fight. Would anyone like to recommend a creation for this purpose? I'll probably never be able to shape the highest level ones, but I've spent almost no points on shaping so far, so I can spend some now if necessary.

Originally Posted By: Mythrael A child is born the from the combined genetical material of a mother and a father, and then the child grows with nutrients from his/her's mother.Is it right to kill/absorb your own child. I think that the process of creation shaping is sufficiently different from the process of mammalian reproduction that the comparison is not useful.

Or maybe it's a biological question. In your view, when a player character absorbs a creation, is the creation being killed or merely converted back into essence? There's that scene early in the game where the agent and the soldier are arguing about whether a rogue can be rehabilitated, and when she eliminates that creation it seems like she's killing it -- but, she probably did not shape that creation, so maybe she can't absorb it. It seems to me that if a PC shapes a creation, the creation is formed from the PC's energy and is, in a way, part of the PC. So I think that reabsorbing your own creation is not killing it.

I'm up to Alwan's territory, and so far the only creation I've used is that fyora. In fact, the only creations I can make are the fyora and the roamer. I had not intended to do much with creations, which is why I decided to play a warrior. I've put most points into strength, endurance, intelligence, the melee-relevant combat skills, healing craft, mechanics and diplomacy. My warrior is pretty tough, unless he gets stunned in which case I'm in trouble. Ok, so my question is, can I, for example, absorb my fyora (I'll miss him, but he'll always be a part of me), and go solo? Or is this just asking to get killed?

I'm a warrior with a fyora. I'm spending very little on shaping, but I needed an extra attacker at one point and now he's around twentieth level. I have all his stats maxed out now. He's useful in some fights, but fighting the podlings and cryoa on the way to Alwan's territory, for example, I had to hide him and kill nearly everything myself. Am I going to be able to keep him around to the end, or will I reach a point where he will just be killed instantly and I may as well absorb him? And also, if I decide to let the fyora think for himself instead of controlling him in combat, will he fight smarter with more points in intelligence? Whatever "fight smarter" means in this case.

Darn. I should probably raise it above zero, then.

Does Spellcraft affect Healing Craft? Spellcraft is under magic and Healing is under shaping on the "character sheet," but when you use it, healing works just like the other kinds of spells.

Thanks. Wow, I misunderstood two of the three columns in the chart. So my next question is, I'm fifth level or so and I'm right at the end of the demo, playing a Warrior. I wasn't planning on doing a whole lot of shaping, I was planning to just stab everything to death and put points into healing craft. But I decided I needed more help killing the Presence so I shaped a fyora. Let me see if I can state this correctly: Will there be a difference, in terms of creation abilities/power, between 1) a creation shaped right now and then advanced through five levels and 2) the same creation shaped when I am five levels higher? Assuming my other stats are unchanged.

Wow, this is very useful. To make sure I understand, if I shape a fyora, it's always second level at first, and it can't progress past tenth. Is that right? Or does the starting level change based on the relevant shaping skill? Maybe there is a formula for creation starting level? Later: Ok, I see that creations do not always start at their base level. But, still.

I didn't think of it, but the story of Icarus is way older than that, of course. Perhaps this depends on what you think the lesson of Tranquility is. Is the lesson that utopias fail, or that smart people are never as smart as they think they are, or that there are no pure technical solutions, or...? I'd say that the idea of building a utopia, and the idea that some sort of dishonesty or corruption must lie at the heart of such a society, goes back at least as far as Plato.

Quote: The Vahnatai are environmentalists that believe there are finite resources that must be allowed to renew by their going through periodic sleep periods so they can share without destroying the ecosystem. See? Communists! I think the Australia comparison is very good.

Originally Posted By: Institution Dystopian fiction seems to be a relatively recent invention. Utopian fiction can reasonably said to begin with Utopia, the genre-namer, in the 16th century, but dystopia didn't really appear until the early 20th century, and even what we think of as standard science fiction, superhero fiction, or fantasy fiction (as opposed to mythology and legend) are also only around a hundred years old. Avernum, as a society somewhere between the middle ages and the late renaissance, isn't likely to have the kind of dystopian fiction that shows the dark side of Solberg's utopian aspirations. —Alorael, who finds it interesting that the Empire itself, despite its long-standing status as something of a general antagonist, isn't too far off from some visions of utopia. Valorim minus the plagues would make a decent land of libertarians. Actually, Avernum might be even better, except for the whole living in caves and getting eaten by cave bugs problem. According to Erich Fromm's essay on Brave New World, the first dystopian novel was We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin. According to Goodenoughpedia, that book dates from 1921. So, yes, early 20th century. We is an excellent book, depicting a society that Orwell's Oceania might have become if it lasted for a few centuries. But what I was going to say was, the development of literature could have gone quite differently in any alternative universe. I am not terribly familiar with Goethe's Faust, but I think it includes some Solberg-esque themes, and that's from the early 19th century. I think that some libertarians might interpret Avernum as a parable for the modern welfare state, with brave and independent Avernites having their resources and their bodies consumed by greedy monsters and communistic Vahnatai.

My favorite is the Azure Gallery, because of the difficult moral dilemmas presented there. I almost voted for the Howling Depths, because the running battle is the most exciting part of the game, but the area is pretty small so I went with the Azure Gallery. My least favorite is Tranquility, because you're kept there performing Solberg's errands just because he doesn't feel like solving the problem himself. That and the whole enterprise is so shady -- no one who has ever read any sci-fi, superhero comics, or dystopian fiction would be surprised that Solberg's scheme is failing. This is assuming that Avernum has any kind of speculative fiction or oral tradition. Here, I almost voted for the Vahnatai Lands, because they're just an obstacle that doesn't add much to the plot or to your understanding of the game world. Ok, resources are scarce, the Vahnatai have adapted, they were here first, great. Can I go now? I do like the Pit of Abominations, though.