Desmarestia

It appears to be Futhorc for ALL CREATION IS OURS FOREVER.

Really? Glaahk and Gazer melee attacks both inflict magical damage, but spines hurt them too. Edit: I think ab_abil_type has something to do with it.

Wait, I though Vampiric Touch didn't work with batons. On a related note, spines deal damage in response to some ranged magical attacks (like the pacification vlish whammy, for lack of a better word). That doesn't make sense to me either.

Environmental damage affects everyone on the planet, including noncombatants. The question is whether indiscriminately poisoning the entire world is more immoral than destroying individuals, either spiritually or physically. Environmental damage, of course, does both on a massive scale. Just more slowly. I could take the reductio ad absurdum (one of them, anyway) of Shaper Erika's argument and state that the extinction of sentient life on Earth would be the best thing for the planet. I suspect that this is true. Humans are not the most prevalent species on the planet, and their elimination would greatly benefit those whose habitats are to be destroyed in the name of Progress.

If you asked the Shapers that question, they would excrete some gibberish about responsibility to one's children. And then they would kill you. Sleeping Dragon, are you saying Taygen is wrong because he would destroy biological diversity?

Originally Posted By: Danny the Fool If Taygen is a mass murderer, everybody in this forum who is not a vegan is one too. People who eat animals are not murderers. People who kill animals in cold blood or in anger are murderers. The Purity Agent is designed to wipe out all creations for the sole purpose of making them dead. Why isn't Taygen a mass murderer?

Who benefits by the manipulation of the weak-minded? Is it the individual, or the society? Historically, social "advances" consist of an increasing separation of the exploiters and the exploited. I reject the importance placed on society at the expense of its members. Society is not alive and its needs should not be fulfilled to the detriment of the human beings making it up.

True, pliability is a character trait. But the exploitation of pliability can interfere with other character traits that might be more central to the individual. Traits that manifest themselves outside the presence of a charismatic figure.

Originally Posted By: Tem44e You can convince people with bad arguments, but they're not mindless and can be convinced otherwise. You take a more complimentary view of humans than I do. I happen to believe that most people are mindless, at least in the presence of respected authority figures, convinced by shine instead of substance. Some are too lazy to think. Some are desperate for guidance. Others are "affiliated," whatever that's supposed to mean. While I agree that charisma as a principle is not mind control, any application of charisma is at least mental manipulation. You cannot take the mentally weak, exploit their weaknesses to make them do or think something foreign to themselves, and claim not to be controlling them. I also dispute your assertion that the property of charisma is morally neutral, simply because the tendency to exploit mental weakness in others is contrary to the expression of the victims' personalities and therefore evil in my book.

Originally Posted By: Shaper Erika Originally Posted By: Desmarestia If we assume a degree of personal freedom on the NPC's part, mental magic is the greater evil because it forces your enemy to fight the battle that, more often than not, you initiated. Except when mental magic is used to avoid battle... That's true. I do occasionally terrify some furious servile or civilian to keep him from impaling himself on my spines. Aren't I a nice person.

If we assume a degree of personal freedom on the NPC's part, mental magic is the greater evil because it forces your enemy to fight the battle that, more often than not, you initiated. When I non-fatally burn, freeze, corrode, or otherwise harm my opponents, theoretically they have the choice to run away and avoid senseless slaughter. If they run, it's because they value their own lives. (Maybe I'm going to hunt them down and brutally end them anyway, or vice versa, but right now the survival instinct has been appeased.) If I charm, daze, or terrify* my enemies instead, they become slaves to my violent whims. I utterly disregard any personal bias toward peace and force them to kill and die. Of course, I'm trying to inject real-world motives into a fantasy game. I agree with feo takahari; trying to carry your real-world code of ethics over into Geneforge is pointless and will make you crazy. *EDIT: by "terrify," I meant "terrify such that enemy is unable to defend against my continuing attack" because that's how I use the spell.

I see. Personally I would have gone ahead and released a patch, considering how important damage types are to the game. Or maybe a bulletin advising Mac users to change their data files accordingly.

Can anyone tell me why the game mechanics are different on different platforms? Originally Posted By: Randomizer Windows testing is quicker because most bugs are gone, but he still tweaks game balance and sometimes makes changes from the Mac version. In GF4, drayks have physical missle damage for Mac and fire damage for Windows. I've noticed that drayk breath does physical instead of fire damage, but I never realized it was Mac-specific.