Dantius

Originally Posted By: Warmaster Kahrikkis tip:if u want more money without getting a trainer to mess up the gsme try to modify the scripts. if u'll find in gf3itemschars the "rock" just modify it's value and charge,so u can have a lot and sell them at high value. Just tryed t and worked. Here's how to edit the rock value, if you feel so inclined: 1. Right-click on the G3 icon 2. Click "Open file location" 3. Open the scripts folder 3.5. !BACK UP YOUR gf3itemschars.txt FILE FIRST! 4. Open the gf3itemschars.txt file 5. ctrl+f and search for "rock" 6. You should see something like Code: begindefineitem 190; import = 0; it_name = "Rock"; it_graphic_sheet = 2; it_which_icon_ground = 2; it_which_icon_inven = 3; it_variety = 11; it_value = 0; it_weight = 10; it_charges = 1; it_extra_description = 22; (That's taken from the G5 files, so G3's might be different.) 7. In the line "it_value = 0;", change the 0 to 4000. 8. Save the file 9. Open Geneforge 3 10. Find a rock 11. Sell it 12. You should get 1000 coins for every rock sold. 13. Repeat as necessary until you have as much money as you want.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity In twenty-first century armies they still make soldiers master foot drill, marching and turning and swinging rifles around in unison on command. Two hundred years ago that was all vital battlefield tactics; I dunno why the heck they continue to do it today, but they're awfully fussy about it still. I'm sure the reason is to just build discipline or instill respect of authority or something like that. I find it very hard to believe that a functional modern army would keep such a enormous timesink for the recruits without having a pretty good reason for doing so (even if they didn't tell the recruits their reason for it).

Originally Posted By: Warmaster Kahrikkis i just wanted to modify my creations and i deleted fyora and placed spawner so i can create instead of fyora,spawners. But i have a problem:how do i do it to spawn monsters at selected intervals,or just to spawn everytime? can't spawn anything with it... Just did the same with thand and roamer: thand=servand mind now and roamer=misshaped golem and these 2 worked. but can't do anything with spawners. need help quickly pls That's probably because the spawners spawning is hardcoded into the scripts instead of being in the creation definition file. Short version: You can't make the spawner spawn.

Originally Posted By: The Dirty Nephil No, not Gladwell. I like Gladwell.. sort of. Oh, so it's one of Melancion's quests then, right? I did like Gladwell better than Melanchion, but not by much. Both were just too distasteful for me, I suppose.

Originally Posted By: The Dirty Nephil I refused to steal and give up that mirror. Am I the only one who despises the person, and his leader, that you give the mirror to? In fact, if you truly love the nation of Avernum, then put the mirror back.. or just keep it. Don't give it to them. Why, does Gladwell want it for a quest? I don't recall him asking for it...

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Did Jeff really defend DRM? I remember him in the past defending only very limited forms of DRM and being somewhat ambivalent on the topic as a whole. Has that changed? He's defended Assassin's Creed 2's DRM, which was very draconian and unpopular, so I guess that he could be construed as "defending" DRM. Of course, all he really said was that "This will remain uncracked for long enough for them to make tons of money", but still.

Originally Posted By: Monroe I was kinda joking. Even if Jeff could pull something like that off Jeff did manage to piss of quite a few people when he defended DRM on his blog. He hit main page on Slashdot, IIRC. I'm sure that did increase sales, and without too much negatives.

Enough responses are in, and the next session is scheduled for Wednesday, July 14, at 6:00 PM CDT. And everyone can make it, so yay for no scheduling conflicts!

Bumpity-bumpity-bumpity-bump!

As soon as Jenny and René reached the edge of the forest, René stopped dead. Jenny turned around curiously, and René grasped her by the shoulder. He closed his eyes and muttered a single word. Colors ran and the world bent and spun around them. It felt he he was being squeezed through a tiny hole. Suddenly, it was over, and he and Jenny popped back into existence in the street in front of the temple. Several bewildered passerby stared at the priest and the young woman that had materialized in front of the shrine, but René ignored them. Thinking quickly, he pulled Jenny into an alley across the street and spoke to her: "Word of Recall. Sorry about that, it's not exactly a pleasant experience. At any rate, the Rider should be far enough away that we will have more time to prepare. I don't know how he got into the catacombs without activating any of my wards, but at least we'll have advanced warning if he tries to come near us again." Jenny responded to René: "We shouldn't remain here too long. We need to find the ritual of banishment Vorn spoke of if we are to rid ourselves of this abomination." René shrugged. "Of course. But do you know where he hid it? He wasn't very specific on the location. All points several days travel, on foot, would cover an area of several hundred square miles. We can't search all of that by hand, we need to find Vorn again and have him locate the ritual for us. But I can't reverse the Word of Recall, and it would be dangerous to confront the Rider." Jenny shook her head. "We need to remain several steps ahead of him. That could be difficult. He has powers and resources that would be difficult to trump" "Yes, but now we have advanced knowledge of him, his current location, and what he wants. The exit he chased us out of was a old tomb in the forest. He's at least two hours travel from here by horse, more by foot. We have many more options now. Plus, ow that I know he's coming, I can ward the town gates to place a spell on him so that we know his exact location. We should have enough tricks up our sleeve to foil him for long enough to retrieve Vorn and the ritual." It was at this point that René noticed something that he cursed himself for not noticing something that should have been painfully obvious on entering the alley. He was not alone. A short woman wearing a battlemage uniform and another woman wielding a knife in her hand were facing them with curiosity. They looked at them with interest, as it was clear that they recognized them. This was odd, since René had never met either of them. Renee opened his palms in a gesture of peace, and then walked up to begin speaking with them...

Originally Posted By: The Ratt I like the idea behind it, people making themselves more exposed so they are more considerate, but many people like the internet just for the opposite reason. They like being able to satisfy their vices and torment others while feeling hidden and secure. The internet truly does expose some of the worst aspects of society. There's a great quote from Oscar Wilde, it's something like "Give a man a mask and he shall tell no lies". I've always felt it provides interesting food for thought, especially on the internet. While there are certainly many drawbacks to anonymity, it's also true that there are a great many benefits. It's just a question if the benefits outweigh the negatives, as are all other things in life.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES As a side note, I always wondered why the magical gloves that enhanced spellcasting ability were called Micah's Gloves. I thought that they just gave +1 to Magical Efficiency, not actually increased spellcasting ability. Perhaps they were a research project supported by him? Kind of like how Al Gore invented the Internet, that kind of thing.

Originally Posted By: Monroe Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft, is taking steps to end anonymous forum logins. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10543100.stm Kind of meta to talk about forums on a forum, but I thought it was interesting none the less. I'm sure this will never happen here, though, if only so that those that run this board can maintain their own anonymity. Well, at least it's not as bad as EA, where if your forum account is banned, you lose access to all the games that you paid for.

Originally Posted By: Master Ackrovan By "powerful being", is that strictly limited to magical power? Or will it count if the party has to interact with, say, a powerful politician? Politician should count. I mean, Micah is powerful( he rules Avernum, after all), rven though he has no magical power. On the other hand, he does control a good deal of magical power indirectly through the ToM and others, so you could argue it that way. But I do think a powerful politician or king should fit the bill.

Originally Posted By: The Ratt I think he meant G3. The G key and the T key are right next to each other. I am wondering why he just doesn't do the mini-map like G5. I never had any trouble navigating with that. Yeah, I've memorized the number keys and their shift symbols, so when someone says A@, I know what they mean. 9It's handy for parentheses, too0

Originally Posted By: webgrunt How do you remove his geas in the cellar? The walkthrough said you smash some crystal by the west wall, but I can't find it. You have to go to the mage Shafrir in the Azure Gallery, and he can remove the geas. EDIT: I fail at reading other posts.

Originally Posted By: Lilith NASA has been a political organisation ever since it was founded. It's just that it's not focused on beating the Russians any more. This may partially be due to the fact that their budget has been slowly and surely being leeched away as the public lost interest in beating the Russians. Taxpayers don't want to fork over billions for pretty pictures of Jupiter- they want to fork over billions for propaganda about how our space program is superior to that of the dirt, dirty commies' space program.

Originally Posted By: Lord Safey http://www.space.com/news/nasa-chief-muslim-remarks-controversy-ft-100707.html Meh, all it is is Charles Kranthenoogabooa taking a remark out of context to attack Obama- he does that all the time, and this example is really just him grasping at straws (hardly one of his finer examples of such). Move along, move along. These are not the opinions you care about.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Similarly, the murder of Shanti in Geneforge 2 was meaningful plot, while the sprite temporarily stealing the Contract in the Ruined Hall in Nethergate was total filler. Death is permanent, and can't be reversed (except for PC's, of course), so killing off characters seems to be a decision that's not made before careful thought and writing. You can't write a game, and then go back and say "Well, it's too short, so I think I'll kill of x central character in the opening cutscene" without a major rewrite. However, you can say "Well, it's too short, so I think I'll have x central object stolen and have the PC go fetch it" and then just add a few quests without altering the rest of the game at all (except maybe a dialog option in a few characters).

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba The problem is that "find Dorikas" is all the plot A5 has. There are a few Darkside ambushes and plots, but most of the game is dominated by random obstacles. The game is mostly padding. Dikiyoba. Really? Oh come on. Most games are mostly padding, if not almost entirely padding. Just because it's padding dosen't make it bad. Take the Dark River from A/X 2. It's an amazing, interesting, and thrilling ride under Avernum through a land that' wild and unexplored. It keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. It also has absolutley no relevance to the plot whatsoever besides the vahnatai that meets you at the beginning and the ambush at the end. That dosen't mean that it should be eliminated by any means. The same goes for the vast majority of A/X 3. No bearing on the plot, and dozens of dozens of filler towns that do nothing but add to the atmosphere and feel of the size of the game. That's crucial. (In the beginning, I really, really didn't like this, but it did grow on me. A bit.) Or look at Geneforge 1. You could eliminate the entire NW segment of the island (if you moved Gottesch somewhere else), and nothing would be lost- it has no plot relevance. Filler. Does this mean it's a detriment to the game? Of course not- it has a great atmosphere, enjoyable combat, and even the GREAT SECRET. Filler isn't bad, especially when you remember to intersperse "filler" with "plot"- in A5 this would be Ruth attacking you in the Drake Pillars, the ambush at the Howling Depths, the encounter in the Dark River, etc. What is bad about filler is if the game is all filler except the very beginning and the very end. But I don't think SW has ever made a game that has that much filler- not even A5 comes close, despite what you say.

Originally Posted By: loyal servile wait can i edit a poll? No, UBB is evil that way. All you could do is create a new poll, but that would be a lot of work for relatively little effect.

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan Just download the A3 demo and go to the vahnatai town in the demo. Really, as long as you use the vahnatai wall/door set, and be sure to include lots of crystals, vahnatai hammocks and cabinets, and funky trees, you're good. Pools of water are very popular, too. Having the outdoors feature prominently (as in parks and such) works well, too. I suppose that the "point" of vahnatai architecture is to create a feeling of lightness and openness, as opposed to cramped or restricted town designs that try to cram as much things in there as possible. I would recommend using a larger town that you think necessary (48x48 instead of 36x36, 36x36 instead of 24x24, etc) in order to help create the atmosphere.

Originally Posted By: Monroe There are really only so many plots that fit well with a given game engine. But no matter what you do, it's probably been done before, so the real question is (and this goes for anyone making games, writing books, or filming movies) can you make it feel fresh? Jeff does this and does it well. It's what keeps us all coming back for more. There are only 37 stories and Shakespeare wrote all of them.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES G3: Help one of two groups end up on top of the other (Shapers, Rebels) through sabotage and killing, and take revenge by assassinating a bit part. See, I'd summarize G3 as G3: Explore the land, figure out the a source of the rogue creation/attackers of Greenwood, aid one group (Shapers, Rebels) by assassination. There's really a much greater emphasis on "find and kill the perpetrators of the attack on Greenwood" and "eliminate the source of the spawners/monsters" for the first, oh, 2/3 of the game. The Rebel/Shaper dialog only starts when you get past Dhonal's isle. It's nowhere near a war-centric as G4 was.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: Dantius ...and G4 and G5 were all different, too. So was A5. G4 is the same basic plot as G3, just with the sides flipped. A5 barely has a plot. Dikiyoba. No on both counts. G4 is the first game in the geneforge series to introduce the actual war, to the point where you know everything tha was going on from the beginning. G2 and G3 are very much derivatives of G1, in that you are thrust into a dangerous situation with no knowledge of what is actually going on, and you work it out as you go along in the storyline. A5 very much had a plot, but it was unlike the other plots of the series because it was very much a driven plot. You had a very clear objective (kill Dorikas), and you followed the tunnels until you attain/betrayed that objective. It was probably the most driven game Jeff ever made, and it was kind of hit/miss on whether you like it or not. In contrast, A1 and A3 and the later parts of A2 were very much sandboxes where you were told "You mission is _____", whether is be "explore" "get revenge on the Empire" "return the Crystal Souls", etc. I can't really speak for A4, since I just started to play it, but it seems that A4 is just a derivative of A3, with "monster plagues on the surface" replaced by "Shade plagues in Avernum".