Triumph

Doesn't the pattern kind of break down when you account for elements that hinge on player choice? E.g., the order in which you tackle the major quests of E1/A1. There's no reason Grah-Hoth has to be the endgame. You could defeat him first and still have the find-an-exit and kill-Hawthorne quest lines to tackle. Faction alignment in the Geneforge games can also change the endgame geography. Like in G3, yes, if you play as a Shaper, your path is a straightforward east-to-west trek, but if you play as a rebel, your route to the final boss (Rahul) goes eastern start-> all the way to the west-> back east to the middle for the endgame.

I think the point about starting in the south and/or east is more compelling. There does seem to be a broad pattern of games starting in either the south or east. On that front, you could even add A6 to the list, since you start in the central south IIRC. Nethergate (the town) and Shadow Valley Fort are both in the east, and even Valley of Dying Things (the "beginning" of BoE) starts in the south.

Please do not necro long-dead threads, and please do not multi-post. The first time you said it was enough.

So when you're not trying to kill Ruby, you play RPGs, eh? How unexpected. 😉

I'm kind of appalled to realize how just long it's been since I reguarly checked these forums. Hi, I'm actually supposed to be a mod, and I'll try to do better.
 

I'm doing relatively well. Being history professor didn't work out, due to both the trash job market and my own emotional issues. However, for the past couple years I've been freelancing as a proofreader and editor of novels. Meaning I get paid to read books! It's pretty cool. I still need to ramp things up and take on more work (so I'll get paid more and mooch off my parents less), but I've definitely made progress in the last couple years.

I hope you're all still alive, and if you're not, why are you wasting your afterlife haunting this forum?

Ellhrah would leave us at one L, making him mutually exclusive with fellow Servile leader Rydell. But, based on the number of names vs. number of letters, I think we probably need some names with double-letter usage, I think Ellhrah (two L's and two H's) is the better contender. Oh, but wait! A Spiderwebber name especially relevant to this thread, and mutually exclusive with the aforementioned Serviles, is Alorael.

Astoria would use up two more A's and bring us down to one S.

Masha is probably not a "major" character...but maybe the fact that I even remember her is proof she's "major" enough to make this. LOL.

One name the remaining letters can form, and a name which is so important to the series that I can't see leaving out, is Ghaldring.

After that, another name the letters can make that I'd expect to see is Goettsch.

IIRC, there is something of a temporary "point of no return" in connection to one of the game's three major questlines, to wit:

"Multinational companies are unethically exploiting the plant genetic resources of developing countries." -- what is this even talking about??? I don't remember what I ultimately clicked, but I reserve the right to change my answer once I understand what it means. 😂

That aside, while you all are hanging out in the corner as a group, I'm supposedly on my own near the center of the room. Fascinating.

 

Ess fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," but only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against a Slarty when math is on the line."

I've been debating whether to post in this thread for the past month...

On 8/12/2020 at 12:52 AM, Arch-Mage Solberg said:

there's no sense of adventure. In the Exile/Avernum games, you get a quest then you have to ask where to find the place where you go to. Now you get a quest and a marker comes up telling you where to go. While it makes for easier game play, I think some of the adventure is taken away.

This is a perfectly valid subjective, personal opinion regarding what makes games "easy" and what provides a "sense of adventure." If one person thinks map markers make a game less fun, and another appreciates map markers, they are both equally right insofar as their individual experience with a game is concerned.

The quote is not, however, valid as a sweeping statement about game design. In the first place, we need to define "sense of adventure." The quote seems to equate "adventure" with "absence of map markers." But what about the story? The characters? The visuals? The audio? All the rest of the gameplay beyond from the map markers? If map markers alone can result in "no sense of adventure" for a person, then I can't help but wonder if they have an awfully narrow notion what constitutes "adventure." 

Second, we should talk about what it means to have an "easier" game, since the OP also links being "easier" with having less adventure. "Does anybody really know what time game difficulty it is? Does anybody really care? 🎶" The truth is that games be difficult in many ways. Game devs don't face a simplistic binary choice between making a challenging game or an easy game. They face a slew of choices regarding where and how to inject "difficulty" to their creations. The fact that a game users map markers to tell you where to go next proves absolutely NOTHING about whether the game is "easy" or "difficult." Indeed, devs don't normally try to make a game "difficult" along every conceivable dimension. Instead, they tend to focus the challenge in certain areas of their game, while going easier on the player in other areas.

Like other creative arts, games are a collaborative process, where the creator's efforts and intentions can result in different experiences for different people, according to individual tastes, ability, personal history, etc. Not everyone is challenged by the same aspects of a game, and not everyone enjoys the same kinds of challenges. In the context of this discussion, some people have a great sense of direction, an aptitude for exploring and maintaining a mental map of where they've been / haven't been. And other people don't. Devs have significant influence over game difficulty in an abstract sense, but the difficulty level of each player's in-game experience is heavily shaped by players themselves. Just because one person finds a game "easier," that doesn't necessarily prove that the game actually is "easier" in some broad, general sense.

On 8/13/2020 at 5:48 AM, ladyonthemoon said:

Sign of the times; let's make games for people who pretend that they have limited time and have "a lot of other games to play". Yeah, I was answered that once. The worst is that this kind of behaviour from players is going to be that default mode. How many people are willing to read a book nowadays?

6 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

even if they have all the time they need to actually take their time and enjoy what they are doing, they don't, they rush through like they were fleeing something.

Where are you getting this idea that people "pretend that they have limited time?" And why would anyone lie about that in the first place?! Also, about the "lot of other games to play" part: how would you know someone is pretending to have many games they want to play? And then there's that last bit, about how people rush through games instead of taking their time to enjoy it. How could you possibly be equipped to know how much time another person has available for playing a game and how much time they would need to spend playing it to actually "enjoy" it? You can't. The snide comment about how people don't read books is equally problematic. In this very forum, just a few topics down from this one, there's a 47-page thread about the books people have been reading. It was started in 2008, and the most recent post (as of the time I'm writing this) is YOURS, earlier this month. Who are these people you have in mind who don't read books? Or maybe they read books, but they don't read the kind of books you think they ought to read? Or do they, according your authoritative standard, read books too quickly to properly enjoy them? Look, maybe when you made these comments you had in mind specific people you've known. But without context, your comments come across as pretentious judgments against people who don't share your tastes.

Just need to say this thread is amazing. A+, 10/10, would let Ess and Slarty argue again.

13 hours ago, TM Paladin said:

...from G1 on, it's been very clear: shaping combines the brute force manipulation of genetic material with the synthesis of organic matter from essence.  It's not a transporter.  It's not a replicator.  It's not a holodeck.  It's the Eugenics Wars, or maybe if you're lucky it's just tribbles.

^ This is the best part, FYI.

While I'm posting, I've been meaning to ask: is "TM Paladin" a reference to the most infamous TM of the Spiderweb forums?

On 7/8/2020 at 3:45 PM, TM Paladin said:

There is a positive trend over time here, at least.  A3:RW and Queen's Wish are both a lot more like this ("no one best answer") than A:EFTP and A2:CS were.

The Parry Guardian of G2 and the Vlish Horde of G3 also spring to mind...  😂

15 hours ago, Edgwyn said:

Of course I could easily have said Romans

Jeff's got you covered: Nethergate.

Whether some things remain "vague and mysterious" is on totally different axis from whether a story is "lore-heavy" or "lore-light." Consider magic. In a classic example, The Lord of the Rings is vague and mysterious on numerous points, including what is magic, but it would be laughable to call it a "lore-light" story. On the other hand, Brandon Sanderson writes such meticulous magic systems that readers can predict future revelations about what magic can do by analyzing the rules established at the outset.

It's fine for a story to explain every last facet of the world with scientific rigor, but not doing so isn't necessarily an indication of being "lore-light." Contrariwise, loading up a story with mundane details doesn't necessarily mean the world-building is actually good. It could just mean the story comes across a pedantic fantasy version of my high school biology textbook. So the fact that the Geneforge series doesn't establish what Rotdhizons eat or how Kyshaaks smell indicates nothing about whether the Geneforge series is "lore-heavy" or "lore-light." Geneforge is a lore-heavy game, but it may not deliver on the *kind* of lore you want.

IIRC, Gladwell's quests in A6 are an all-or-nothing situation. Doing just some of them doesn't affect the game's ending. Only finishing off Gladwell's entire line of quests alters the A6 ending. Specifically, it leads to

For future reference, please don't spam a bunch of short comments that could have easily been combined into one post. Also, the place for a "general complaint" is it's own thread, not a string of off-topic comments in the FAQ/guide thread.

Thank you, be nice to the fluffy turtles, and have a pleasant day.

Jeff's games have a long tradition of seemingly random / arbitrary monetary values for items.

The words of a certain Klingon rebel ambassador come to mind here: "Remember this well. There shall be no peace as long as Kirk Khyryk lives!"

I experimented with this a fair bit back in the day, and as best I could tell, it is impossible to advance the game as a rebel without killing Khyryk. Whether he lives or dies seemed to be the one and only factor in whether you are treated as a rebel or loyalist upon reaching the Isle of Spears. You may  say the most pro-Shaper things imaginable to everyone you meet and slaughter every rebel you find--including every rebel on Gull--but if you then turn around and kill Khyryk before sailing to the Isle of Spears, you'll be a rebel for the endgame (though in the ending the rebels may not like you very much...). Likewise, you can try your hardest to be pro-rebel before Gull, saying pro-servile things everywhere, taking the rebel side in every quest, but if you click that boat icon and sail to the Isle of Spears while Khyryk yet lives, you'll get the loyalist endgame (though, again, in the actual ending you may be called to account for your many pro-rebel deeds...).

Amusingly, it's safe to murder Khyryk if you first go the Isle of Spears and lock yourself into the Shaper endgame. Then you can return to Gull and kill him and you'll still be considered a Shaper, and the ending, not accounting for your  treachery, will talk as if Khyryk is still alive. LOL.

I don't recall there being any trick to beating Rahul. I checked the hintbook and there's no sign there of needing to do anything special to beat Rahul. You just have to keep whacking him and eventually he'll go down for good.

On 8/16/2019 at 2:01 AM, Dintiradan said:

Disney princess round

On 8/16/2019 at 2:01 AM, Dintiradan said:

Kuzco

lolwut dinti plz

I know there are people who want Shaper records and Shaper equipment. Not sure if there's anything else.

Villain round:

Morgoth
The White Witch

Arawn Death-Lord
Lavos (is this basically equivalent to Sweet Meteor O'Death?)

Kefka

Kylo Ren

Khan
 

Bob the Builder
Caillou
Clifford the Big Red Dog

Wishbone

Curious George

Sir Topham Hatt

Pat Sajak

Blaise Pascal

The sad thing is that I'd be sorely tempted to vote for Smaug over Donald. 😂

Let's add

Harcourt Fenton Mudd

Jean-luc Picard

Mary Shelley

Abigail Adams

Darth Vader

R2-D2

Faramir (book version, not film version)

Grima Wormtongue

Puddleglum

Eowyn

Marle (a.k.a. Nadia)

Frog (a.k.a. Glenn)
Lucca
Robo (a.k.a. Prometheus)
Ayla

Magus (a.k.a. Janus)

12 hours ago, Fate's Bulwark Against Fate said:

I think we've had pants since 1997...

The fact that a context exists where this makes sense gives me no end of amusement. 😂