Evnissyen

Oh, I'm sorry Niki... I didn't realize that factions were the very definition of narrative and game-play depth. Thanks for correcting me. Zev: Linearity is also known as a narrative thread. Ghaldring: We all know that you're no average idiot, so... point taken, I suppose.

Aran: This is part of why I think the writing is so interesting. This includes 'mistakenly' using the lesser-known word "masticate" when she really meant "masturbate". Anyhow... How many people here have read Samuel Delany? And how many people like his work? I've picked up Nova, although I don't quite remember why. I haven't started reading it yet.

Diki: Exactly. If Greta were an escort she would not be my type of girl. And... Madrigan: Don't listen to the G3 detractors. Among G1, G3 and G4: G1 is clearly the weakest. G3's plot and narrative are significantly superior to G1, and the linearity helps pull you into that narrative. It also has many more options, and as somebody else mentioned it has underground areas as well. Plus it has the best opening of any Spiderweb game.

Okay, I can't possibly beat that one.

How long is it? You could try posting it in a new thread and see if it doesn't get cut off. Then maybe one of the moderators can lock the thread and link it permanently for the Geneforge forum.

I don't know about killing Shanker, she's too useful. Though Lark is much more useful than her. As for me, I played the loyal soldier last time, so next time I play I'm joining the IRA... I mean the Darkside Loyalists. So while I'm not sure I plan to be evil, exactly, I do plan to be a traitor. And since I took Gladwell's Geas the last time, I have to not take it this time. I'll also have to join the Anama since, because of the geas, they wouldn't let me receive their own blessed geas. Oh... and I plan to play it this time with just two characters, not the three characters I usually play with.

Diki: No!... dammit, they took out her Author's Notes, which was half the fun. "STOP FLAMMING DA STORY PREPZ OK! odderwize fangs 2 da goffik ppl 4 da good reveiws!" I'll have to go back through it some more and actually pick out some of the extraordinary phrasings. Oh, wait, one comes to mind... something about two boys sitting on their broomsticks watching her through her window and one of them is "masticating" to her.

One thing... mind the triple posting? There's an edit button. That's all, and looking forward to the list.

I liked the story, actually. Her total distortion of language (not to mention how well it rips modern culture) is truly amazing at times. The vast majority of "professional" authors aren't nearly as interesting as this.... Were I a publisher I would want to put this work into print... except I fear she might not have actually meant it as a satire.

Alorael: is even better. "XXXXX".

You don't have to accept those companions (they're not escorts, dammit), if you don't want to. But they're useful, especially Greta. I liked Greta. She was my kind of girl. If you're a girl who likes manly guys, you might prefer Alwan. He's quite the manly type. But his uniform sucks. G1 - too nonlinear, weak plot, no narrative. I got bored and quit near the end after having to clear 8 or 9 or 10 areas that awarded me 0 XP. Plus it's rather primitive if you're used to G3 or G4... but if you've never played Geneforge then I suppose you might want to play G1 first... just make sure you play all the demos so you know what you're getting into. G2 - cannot comment; haven't played it. G3 - finally linear. An actual plot, this time, and a narrative which pushes you along. Takes the moral-play role. You need to choose between two factions and both of them are Wrong. Based on what I hear of G2: in G3 free item-creation (use of the magic forge) is now introduced and I think expanded. I do not know if G2 has charms, but G3 has them. The basement of the Monastery of Tears will drive you crazy and you'll love every minute of it. G4 - Everything G3 has, plus weather! That can't be overstated. It's an excellent atmospheric addition. I can only hope that G5 has more atmospheric animation... moving water would be nice. G4 is also a little more complicated. I think it's pretty strongly agreed that G4's the best of the series. Some will disagree. There's a new third faction in G4, but it has a very lightly written narrative thread: this is I think my biggest problem with the game. Movement and combat are the same in all of them.

And drink up their essence with a straw?

Love comes first and second, always. Everything else is tertiary. Otherwise, you'll end up like me. Nobody wants that.

Hmm... I think I know what you're saying, Feo, but... and this is coming ironically from the person who's been arguing so frequently for more involved narrative (generally with the NPC's, though)... I think you're asking for a little too much. Personally, I think the cannister madness is perfect. Maybe a "bad cannister" here or there might be interesting... but then again, one always saves the game before trying a new cannister, so a bad cannister wouldn't make any difference in gameplay, except, I suppose, for bringing in a little bit more 'realism'. ...Unless the negative effects of that cannister weren't noticed until a little while later... but then again that would just annoy the hell out of the player. EDIT: Hooray! I'm no longer an "Infiltrator"! No more of that "dirty" feeling.

Ahh, somebody who's familiar with B.S. Johnson. Christie Malry was a good book... personally my favorite was Albert Angelo. There're still a couple of his works I've been looking for. They're not easy to find. On Thomas Hardy... He really is duller than dull. I suppose he must be important, historically, for something; don't press me on that, though. The human mind generally does not grasp onto anything it does not find stimulating... so it's no wonder so little of his work remains memorable. While he might've had something important to say, I do remember it being fully obscured (no pun intended) by his incredibly tiresome writing style.

Locmaar: Which Johnson, again? That reminds me... I forgot to put Bryan Stanley Johnson on my list. (Better known as B.S. Johnson. If you've read his stuff you'll know why he used that abbreviation.) I also forgot the brilliant Eugene Ionesco... and I'm sure I've missed others, but I'm not gonna bother again trying to name them all. Anyhow, it's cool when your mother or father owns a library that you can go and discover things in... in my case it was my father. He introduced me to Kafka when I was 14, I think. Since then I've never been the same. As for King Arthur... The Mabinogion seems to connect him with the Welsh (since the Mabinogion are Welsh tales)... but if I remember correctly there's some confusion about just how involved the Britons were in Wales at that time. I think that, at that time, it was Briton territory. (I really have to go back into that book, again. I suppose I should also look into the history of those islands.) The names are all Welsh. Arthur is also apparently a Welsh name. These old tales are really, really violent and bloody. Both the Welsh tales and Ulster cycle now known as the Táin Bó Cuailnge (pronounced TOIN bo KOOLinga).... Apparently the Celts really, really loved warfare.

Fauna turn into Mineral.

Yes, magic really does seem a great deal much more useful, in Geneforge, than weapons do. In Geneforge, I rarely use weapons.. so: armor it is. One of the interesting points in G3 was when Lord Rahul stuck me in the dungeon with all my armor stripped away and locked in a closet... so that all my stats had declined dramatically, and I had to fight the pylons outside only with the ability and training I'd come to possess naturally (or by cannister), at that point. Good armor should never be taken for granted.

Anarhl: I answered "No", of course, and I always use cannisters. I try to limit my usage to the truly important ones, so my diplomatic capabilities aren't affected too much... but still it's amusing to watch my character slowly dissolve into a strange combination of emotional detachment and an inability to control his/her anger. Was there a character in G4 who helped you control the "cannister madness"? There should be some way to increase your ability to maintain mental control, so the anger doesn't overcome you. The game does mention, whenever you run into "situations", that you are able, with some effort, to control your anger... but from what I've been able to see, this seems to be only a skill that you can manage before you reach a certain point of cannister usage. There's no real indication in the game that your character seeks, at any point, to increase his or her ability to control the anger that the cannisters instill.

Alorael: While a good sense of my taste can be assumed through the top link at the bottom of my posts... here are some of my more favorite authors (in no special order) : Living: Ben Marcus, Gary Lutz, Shelley Jackson, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Peter Handke, Laird Hunt, Jane Unrue, Brian Evenson, Mark Z Danielewski... Dead: Witold Gombrowicz, Andrei Bely, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Kathy Acker, Walfgang Borchert, Italo Calvino, Donald Barthelme... As for mythology: Irish (folktales, faerie lore, the Táin), Welsh/British (the Mabinogian), Greek, Native American (which is all folktales), Norse (what's left of it, and so far only a couple of the sagas, well, three sagas)... I've stayed away from the Arthurian Tales so far because I want to find "the collection" that's the least maligned by Christianity... although that's probably impossible if not a contradiction. Actually, what I want is to read the original "tales", and so far I've only found a scrap that features Merlin's distaste for the invading Saxons and their Christian monks (I'm sure these tales were updated frequently... word of mouth, of course), and a typically very bloody story in The Mabinogian. I'm not sure how far back the tales of King Arthur extend, but at some point the invading Christians seem to have gotten a hold of those stories and... well... Christianized them.

The cannister-madness, I think, is one of Jeff's more clever bits of writing. The addictiveness predicts the negative effects... and the negative effects add depth and realism to the cannister-use and help explain one of the reasons why they are so disliked by the Shapers (besides, of course, the main reason that they don't want the Shapers' power to become so easily accessible by just anybody). At any rate: everything should have its price. If you want power and want to stay sane: you sacrifice time and money. If you want power and don't want to spend the time and money: you use the cannisters, and your mind and body disintegrate. If cannisters had no side effects but were given sparingly, they'd be just another treasure. There wouldn't be anything special about them. We wouldn't be devoting quite so much time discussing, as we do again and again, the science behind them.

I really think I'm a hell of an odd fish, here. How many people here are not into fantasy or sci-fi? I mean... I love mythology and folktales of all sorts (whence my name)... but I've never been able to get very much into fantasy. Nor sci-fi. I loved watching those old re-runs of Dr. Who when I was a kid... and Douglas Adams (which doesn't really qualify)... that's about it. I liked Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan, but that doesn't exactly qualify either, I don't think. Dune definitely qualifies... i think I mentioned reading that one when I was a kid, after I saw David Lynch's Dune (which I still think was unfairly panned).

I got bored pretty quickly, myself, so all I found was Harold Bloom's list, but it really doesn't look that bad at all. In fact: Two of the people I mentioned are on that list. He also lists Italo Calvino, and Calvino's a definite for Italian literature. Cortázar is also happily mentioned. To Bloom's credit: He does mention the difficulty that more modern literature poses to such cataloging. (Although I think it should be noted that older works are less difficult because more of the 'competition' has been forgotten.) Of course, I'd personally have some additions I'd like to make... perhaps starting with the French. After all: To begin with, he's completely ignored the Surrealists. The German list is also painfully short. There're also a couple of Polish writers I'd add in there; Poland is ignored. But I suppose it really is sort of pointless to try to find a comprehensive list of books and authors that are deemed important by some confirmed majority of "respected" critics. Besides all of the variables involved there: I'm not confident there can really be any near-global agreement on any specific list, so it would be hard to use it as a definitive source to lay all of one's canon-judgments upon. For so many years I've been saying "the Canon needs to be changed." But... now I really am starting to think not only that the Canon should be eliminated entirely but that it can be eliminated.

I didn't realize you were on a schedule. Well, I'll wait. Then again, I've got plenty of opinions, myself, that people aren't too happy with... so maybe we'll end up disagreeing sooner. On subject of the Literary Canon, I've just been thinking... perhaps I can find some sort of 'unofficial' general list that describes said canon? I suppose it's true that there really isn't any sort of agreement on what books really compose "The Canon", and to what extent that canon is divided in regard to domestic, English-language and world literature... although anybody can point out at least a few which 'belong' to it. If I find anything I'll get back to you all.

All in due time. I'm sure you'll come out with something outrageous, eventually.