Gnaeus Pompeius

Originally Posted By: Master Ackrovan Fire Creations and Magic Creations were still a tad better, but in all Battle Creations could still bring in the punch. The Battle Alpha in G1 in particular was quite effective. Therein lies the main problem with battle creations in G1-4. In G1, even if you have a lot of essence, it's better to save it for Glaahks instead of Alphas as you yourself admit that Magic creations are better than Battle creat. Aloreal has a point, because compared to the other two, Battle creations take a back seat. This was arguably remedied in G5.

G1-G3: Shaper. G4 & G5: Shock Trooper.

Originally Posted By: Thuryl It takes a special kind of wilful incompetence to anger five factions at once, though. You mean to say that you've never wanted to find out what happens when you rub everyone the wrong way? It is wilful, but it isn't incompetence; just curiosity.

Shaping is much more powerful in G5 than in G4. Perhaps Xelgion thinks that this automatically means that G4 was a low time for shaping. But compared to G1 - G3, the main differences were that G4 didn't have the same 3rd tiers and that you were more liable to get your early creations killed frequently(at least for me). Battle creations didn't endure much in G4, so creations were treated as disposible. In G5 on the other hand the forum had a thread going in which DV pretty much wiped half of Terrestia clean of everything that moved using a couple of plated bugs, alphas and a solitary vlish by the name of Delicious. So, yes G4 was a low time for shaping if you compare it with G5. Otherwise, not really.

The hot springs were in a secluded out-of-the-way location. But it is to be expected that most adventurers, who ferret around exploring every bit of the map and run into walls whenever they see them, find the springs early in the game.

Originally Posted By: Amend Your Hopes Deus Ex wasn't inspired by a G. K. Chesterton novel. His writing is relevant to some of the themes, but the game definitely isn't an adaptation of his work. Not even an adaptation translocated to a cyberpunk semi-dystopian future. Of course not. If it was, Deus Ex would have had a lot of Christian symbolics and allegories, not to mention his excellent wit. Not only that, there wouldn't even be a conspiracy or a dystopia. I did not ever try to say that it is an adaptation. All the game contains with respect to Chesterton are some quotes and a paltry few excerpts from his work. What I meant by inspiration is the same thing you said, the recurring themes and such. There is no relation at all between Chesterton and Deus Ex's plot. The game is just a vision into a chaotic future where some politicians and bankers get together and have some fun with bio engineered viruses and some nano-augmented(read l33t h4x0rz) agents. Then the guys who were thus augmented got together with some rebels who wanted the powers of these oppressors and wiped the floor with them.(In one of the three endings.) Hell, that game even had bio-augmenting blue canisters. Not that it proves anything. And no, I don't think it contained Skribbane.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer This topic has been discussed before, but I can't remember the novel that was mentioned as a source for some ideas. Originally Posted By: Existential Semicolon & Cordial Jeff mentioned a novel source? Really? No, I was talking about the inspiration for Deus Ex. Not only are there numerous allegories and aphorisms from Chesterton et al. in Deus Ex, he is also quoted ingame. His and many others' ideas made it into the game. There is no corelation between Chesterton and Geneforge. Heck, he died much before we even started messing with our own and other genomes. He was just another philosopher like Paine and Thoreau. It's just that Chesterton inspired Deus Ex, which on its own may have inspired Geneforge.

Sorry, I was just quoting one of the most famous lines in Vidya game history. I would say that he got his ideas from 'real world' technologies. I have read somewhere that Jeff actually wanted to do a sci-fi epic set in the future where an elite group of scientists had a monopoly on genetic engineering and cloning. You know one of those utopias which in practice turn out to be impossible and quickly evolve into a dystopia. The closest thing I can find is Deus Ex(a most beautiful game) where human subjects are specifically bionically engineered to serve the ulterior motives of a megalomaniac(he just desires to be a god) banker. The antagonist is a banker because one of the primary sources of inspiration for that game was G.K.Chesterton's 'The Man Who was Thursday' and other works. Evidently, Chesterton and many other social-anarchists(I don't mean this in the same sense as the word has nowadays, for his views can be considered moderate today) didn't like the money of the masses in the hands of the elite few. And I don't know whether the Yuuzhan Vong in Star Wars predates Geneforge. They are somewhat akin to the Shapers and/or the Drakons. And Neossokrass, LOL at the Sss.

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith My guess: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Wat Srsly?? You crack me up little buddy

Originally Posted By: Toby-Linn I think what I did was just save a lot of conversations and then I would delete them after the quest was complete. Yeah well, whenever I did the same I became too confused to read it all, just like Ishad said.

Originally Posted By: Excalibur ...and who's going to find out about it anyway? The All-Seeing-Roving-Eyes-Of-Sheer-Unmentionable-Terror, who else? Afterall, how else can one explain a town going hostile when you assasinate an unfortunate slob living far enough from the town for his/her cries not to alert the townspeople. Or how they gang up and lynch you whenever you have had the temerity to kill a poor cat or dog in the backalleys of a town where you thought no one would see you. And guess what, the All-Pervading-Eye(or is it the all-perverted?) exists not only in Emarian, it has also been discovered lurking in the World of Geneforge.

Haha. Anybody else here find it humourously ironic that for all the A3 bashing in this thread, A3 is currently leading in both the categories specified? Not all irony is funny, but this is most amusing. And it does say something about the quality of the game.

Wait, there is quest list for Avernum? OH Shoot. And to think that I played through the whole darn thing with a pen and paper at hand. I know that many people enjoy playing games lacking quest logs, but for me it just sucks the fun out of gaming. Probably the reason A2 was such a drastic improvement over A1. Thanks Dikiyoba and Tyranicus. Maybe I'll use them as referance in a future replay.

You have heard correctly Sss-Chah. Though methinks that trolling /b/ is infinitely more rewarding than playing WoW. But I digress. I hope Jeff doesn't stop making games once he ends the Avernum series. Not only are his games (IMHO) very original, you can find subtle humour and moral ambiguity that modern games lack. Very few games have been able to command the same attention from me as the Geneforge and Avernum(except for BoA and A4) series. Well, if he does end his programming career and decides to settle down, I'll have to go back to playing Rome:TW, KotOR and Torment all over again. *sighs*

Originally Posted By: Sss-Chah if the anama were real, i think they'd be kind of like scientologists, only with a much older religion. Scientologists? Wat?? I dunno much about them, but I thought that they were a religion who believed in aliens and stuff. They don't exactly fit the profile of a magic(technology?) hating religion. If you don't think that a religious discussion is prudent on a game forum please disregard this, but I think that while the Anama are rather extremist in their banning of magic, I find the scientologists somewhat moderate when compared with other real-world faiths/cults.

Originally Posted By: Revileréd —Alorael, who has to give Taygen credit where it's due: his ideas aren't all bad. They're just not bold enough. A much better ending would be taking your one-man army and offing rebels and loyalists alike. Unleash plagues on everyone! Then shape a populace you can live with. That would work, provided the populace You shape don't rebel against you when they get powerful enough/get sick of living under your thumb. Afterall, I think that the rebellion was more or less inevitable as long as the shapers continued to oppress/exploit the creations and outsiders. The discovery and subsequent usage of the Geneforge by the rebels were just catalysts for the initiation of the revolution. What tyrants fear most of all is not punishment for their crimes, but that they will be tyrannized in turn.

Originally Posted By: Sss-Chah Areas for Improvement The main thing I plan to improve is the graphical engine. It is simply too old, and it doesn't do enough to take advantage of improvements in computers over the last decade or so. Our next games will use a new graphics engine that is based on OpenGL. They will still run on older machines, but they will be able to take advantage of the graphical improvements in newer systems. The graphics will still be low-budget, but we can do a lot more. hmmm... Well, as long as it does not turn out to be the next Geneforge 5. It's almost impossible to load a huge map in G5 without the system shuddering like anything(v1.0.2 Windows). That you can play their games on obsolete hardware was one of the most attractive things about SW's games apart from the story and the gameplay.

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith Some of the articles, especially in the Danette page, are poorly written. I'm playing through GF1 right now and plan on continuing through the next four. Starting with GF2, maybe I'll make a list of every important person and event and copy all the lore in my Journal so I can transpose it onto a Notepad file later, if someone cared to upload it on an actual website. Maybe I could make it even more interesting, and write it from the perspective of the character I'm playing. Make it kind of like a roleplaying LP sort of thing. Enraged Slith, while I find your idea of expanding upon the wikis commendable, please don't make it so that it is from the PC's perspective. Such an article may suffer from the twin disadvantages of not only inadequately representing the 'other' side (whichever side you fight against) but also may subvert the overall canonicity of the article. It is my opinion that RP and wikis are best kept seperate. With Warm regards - Pompeius

Wow cool. I've always wanted to try out modding. Danke m8

Originally Posted By: The Ratt I say keep the one that has the most in it. That is a good solution, but the problem seems to be that one wiki contains stuff the other one may be lacking in and conversely. It would be better if someone(who has adequate knowledge)takes it upon himself/herself to edit and add articles in anyone of the abovesaid wikis. Or I suppose one could just combine the info contained in these into a third wiki.

If I recall correctly, only the human towns in Bigail become hostile after you steal the Anama's stuff. BTW, why do you hate the GIFTs. They are one of my favourite species in the entire Avernum mega-fauna. 'The Happy Spider on seeing you, starts to jump up and down. After a while it becomes tired and says "You're cute" ' :-D Anyway, the lewt itself is motivation enough to off the Anama.

Originally Posted By: Darkdread btw, I've observed when I start a scenario/dungeon is fine, but as I advance and more creatures/people appear it gets slow. For example inside a town is very slow I've noticed the same thing. Also, when I called up the Win Task Manager, the Page File usage started to climb up in an arithmetic progression corresponding to the size of the map currently uncovered in the game. By the time that I was finished exploring the map, it was almost at 750 MB. I am not a programmer, but it may have something to do with buffer allocation or something. Machine specs:- 1GB RAM, GeForce 4(Yeah I know it's old) :=)