Triumph

In G3, the Ornk canister is hidden in Khor's Deep; a hidden lever or switch (I don't recall which) opens a hidden room containing the canister. I actually missed it my first couple playthroughs.

You asked for it.... Click to reveal.. Well, basically there are two endings, rebel, and shaper. As a rebel, for the endgame you go to Dhonal's Keep and eventually kill Lord Rahul, then return to the Drakon rebel leader Akhari Blaze. This makes it safe for him to activate the Drakon-Geneforge he's built, and he becomes a new Ur-Drakon. You are then sent back to the mainland. You land near a city that appears in G4 (Porphyphra or something like that) and get captured by the Shapers. They learn from you all the stuff you did in the Ashen Isles, and how you helped the Rebels and Drakons. Meanwhile the war is already going on the mainland, and comes to where you are, rescuing you. You become a great rebel leader, leading a legion of free serviles against the Shaper forces, enmeshed a long war with no end in sight. As a Shaper, you go to the Isle Spears, infiltrate the rebel fortress of Benerii-Eo, kill or spare Litalia, defeat Akhari Blaze, and destroy his Geneforge. You return triumphantly to Lord Rahul, then head out for the Mainland. You arrive at the same place, end with the Shapers the same way, report on what you did the same way. They mostly like you, although if you were a big canister user they won't like you at first. But when a rebel attack comes, you totally save the day, from there become a major Shaper military leader, enmeshed in a long war with no end in sight. The islands also get endings. The Rebels let the "rebels" on Harmony Isle live quietly on their own. They wipe out the Shapers on Dhonal's Isle. Gull Island gets largely forgotten, although Greta ends up there being diplomatic and helping serviles and drayks to get along. Isle of Spears becomes a great fortress and base of the rebellion. Whether or not you destroyed the Creator on Dhonal's Isle tweaks this slightly. The Shapers are pretty similar: "rebels" on Harmony Isle are defeated, Dhonal's Isle becomes a major base for Shapers, nothing important happens on Gull Island so people ignore it, and the Shapers return to finish wiping out the Rebels on the Isle of Spears. I think Alwan helps with that. There may be a couple other variations, but not many. At the end of both endings, you learn that super-boss-Drakon Ghaldring is watching over everything that's going on and making secret plans.

You may look down your nose at JRPGs, but Chrono Trigger is STILL an outstanding RPG, lo these many years since it first came out. I actually played it for the first time this past fall, with DS port of it, and much enjoyed it.

I think factions can be cool, I'd just want some of them to be remotely likable, or else include to choice to ignore them. One of the things that annoyed me about G3 (besides the boat system) was being forced to choose between murderous rebels with occasionally quasi-nice-sounding ideals and the harsh-and-mean-sounding Shapers who didn't murder people right and left but were still rather cruel. If all the groups are stupid, at leave in the freedom not to join. But ideally there should be factions that actually have appealing qualities. The factions in G1 and G2, and G5, included some very interesting and thought-provoking groups.

Blue and Green are pretty nifty flame colors. I remember seeing a chemistry demonstration that showed how burning certain substances could achieve unusual flame color. Neat stuff.

Originally Posted By: I need no introduction I would recemend playing the nethergate game as a crossover to Avernum. I agree. Nethergate: Resurrection is an excellent game, and uses more the paleo-Avernum style of engine.

I wonder if Mr. Vogel ever imagined when he first started writing games that he would one day provide a place for discussions of quantum mechanics...or any of the other things on these forums, for that matter. LOL.

Originally Posted By: Golgoth Seriously, Long winded sentences that take extreme amounts of words to make a simple point? We've got a new Socrates. Ooh...now I'm curious: please summarize SoT's "simple point" in a small number of words!

Hehehe. That seems to be a common problem around here. Though...let's see, I think I remember that the Selos party blew up a forest and made people mad, and more recently Vitze tried to lead a mob to kill Zarusa. The Blood Marsh party...had some tension with Tabazinth, and with the entertainers, and with Kurex + any NPC. I have a new ambition: to make sure Lanrezac is NOT a socially disfunctional, friendly-NPC-antagonizing PC!

So... How did it go?

You are attending the GDC, I presume? Coolness. You should post about what it's like. Currently been playing my old copy of Pokemon FireRed. Still fun. :-)

That's part of what I liked about Geneforge's zones/overworld map. While not as good as the old Avernum way of giving a sense of large spaces, the Geneforge map still helps me to feel like I'm exploring a big place, with individual zones representing just one spot in the area. The feeling of "smallness," is one of the most disappointing qualities of the later Avernum games.

That was my point...leasing some things is awfully similar to buying it temporarily...

Originally Posted By: Starbreak Scattershot Conceivable, but that's really not what the patent claims to be for. It's for demos. A purchase is not a demo. Who would buy something temporarily? Auto leases.

Originally Posted By: Dantius I'm sorry, what's that you were saying? Too far away from the requisite skill level to cast Eph's uber-spells of doom? I hope you're prepared for fiery lines of doom within three sessions. Originally Posted By: Sarachim Well, Vitze's only two levels away from Flight, if she boosts Transmutation both times. Read things before you quote them, Dantius. If you don't, you won't be prepared for flying death from above. YES! Inter-party grudge match between Vitze and Kurex!!! Go!!! ...of course, both of them have to actually LEARN their epic spells first... And no worries for Lanrezac since apparently no one has yet invented epic level spells for the incredibly obscure branch of magic known as abjuration. Huh. Sounds like Kurex needs to visit Zarusa. Of course, knowing Kurex, Zarusa probably hates him for killing someone she knew, and therefore won't teach him anything.

Originally Posted By: Monitor. Eh, as awesome as those spells sound, I think it's more fun when people do interesting and creative things with low-level spells. Well, if you come up with any ideas for creative Abjuration spells, Lanrezac is always interested

What about the anti-matter unicorns?

Major coolness. I hope people in the Mote parties get an actual chance to learn these, or similar spells, and use them. :-)

No, unicorns are white. At least, normal ones are, because of all the cotton they eat. That's what part what defeated the South in the U.S. Civil War: the Union unleashed unicorns that ate all the Southern cotton crops.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Dikiyoba thought it was part of the rainbow, but only people who have magical ability or training can see it. Exactly. That's why serviles can't see rainbows: the Shapers won't let them learn magic.

Originally Posted By: Niemand @Triumph: Dang, that was fast. Click to reveal.. I sure hope that this involved examining the list at least a little more, rather than the fact than the symbols for elements includes no 'j's being a fact so widely known (to everyone but me) that it was a natural first guess. Click to reveal.. Sorry, but no, no list-examining was involved. :-) The key was your clue that "That set of components is, itself, rather well known, if not in the context of spelling." I thought about what might be a well known group letters that didn't involve "J." My first thought was an ancient language like Hebrew, Greek, or Latin (none of which have an equivalent to "J" despite sometimes being transliterated that way), but I decided that didn't fit. Oh, your comment that you thought about this puzzle after taking an exam was also significant. I thought, I need a well known group of letters, likely something you took a test on, oh, hey, Period Table of Elements. I double-checked, saw there were no J's in the elemental symbols, and had my answer. So not my first guess...pretty close. :-)

Congratulations, you made me look up "concatenation." Now...a guess: Click to reveal.. The words are built using the Periodic Table of Elements? Just the first possibility that came to mind. Explains the absence of "J" I noticed earlier. But don't have the patience to see which words would belong on the list.

I think the stuff is kind of cool..though I agree there's definitely room for improvement, to make it more interesting. In any event, I just don't have the money to spare on t-shirts and coffee mugs that I don't need right now.

Odd...there are no J-words in your list...

i. I want to see i post-count.