Lilith

What happens when you try to interact with the pools?

G5's faction system isn't really that complex when you look under the hood: there's a unidimensional reputation scale, plus a handful of specific events that lock you out of certain factions. Which is kind of a lesson in itself: mechanical complexity often matters less than presentation.

on the other hand people have made utilitarian arguments that it's better for most people not to be utilitarians, because believing in utilitarianism isn't as effective at actually motivating people to make good utilitarian choices as other moral systems.

The original version of Blades of Exile is a 16-bit application, which basically means it's too old to run on modern 64-bit operating systems. Luckily, the source code has been released to the community and some volunteers have updated the game to run on today's computers. As far as I know, this link from the Blades of Exile forum header should get you a working version.

Unfortunately, from what I can tell from a little googling, this is a common problem: a lot of people have reported sites on that host being frozen for no clear reason and their support team being unresponsive. They have a Facebook page, so you could try contacting them through that and seeing if they respond faster that way.

Also, for future reference, the game makes an autosave to a separate file from your regular save every time you move between map areas, so if you have a problem with your saved game you can try loading that and see if it helps. (Unless you tried that already and the corruption had already happened by the time the autosave was made). It's still a good idea to keep more than one manual save file, though, just in case.

If you want Jeff to read your suggestion, the best way would be to email him directly at support@spiderwebsoftware.com -- Jeff doesn't come around here that often.

tbh i'm not sure any of them were really that competent, they're all shown failing disastrously on multiple occasions

355. Dam Canals - Saunders writes a story about baby's first PDN change oh right how did i miss this one, this must be the one you meant when you said there was one on the list that only i would get. ok so yeah a long, long time ago, forum poster Saunders once wrote this story with the working title of "The Guy by the Canal" that i was, despite appearances, really much too young and innocent to appreciate at the time. which should tell you something about just how long ago this was. i hope she's doing okay for herself these days

publicly displayed name that is, the name that appears to other members when you post, as opposed to your login name

In general, I don't think achievements for not doing things or not having things happen count anything that you undid by reloading to a previous save.

No. The Steam releases of all Spiderweb games available on Steam have exactly the same content as the versions available anywhere else. Pretty much the only thing that Steam's content policy disallows these days is full frontal nudity, which, obviously, no SW game has.

The easiest way would be to use a screen magnifier. If you use a recent version of Windows, there's one built in as part of the Ease of Access Center control panel.

I mean, if you count a couple of randos making threads about the idea as "talk".

VMware and VirtualBox are the two main options. Here's an article about virtual machines if you'd like to learn more.

The Exile games definitely won't run on any 64-bit operating system. If you're one of the tiny percentage of people using 32-bit Windows 10... well, I still wouldn't count on it running. Your best option is probably to use a virtual machine, basically running an earlier version of Windows inside your main version.

There is at least a way around the heterosexuality thing. Pity it's hidden behind a cheat code that's only mentioned in the back of the manual and nowhere in-game. And honestly, considering that Bioware exists, I don't think we can even call that state of affairs "good by industry standards" any more.

It's certainly possible to go to Rawal and brag to him about how you got your control tool removed. He'll be furious and I'm pretty sure he won't give you any more quests if you haven't done them all yet, but he still won't attack you unless you directly pick a fight with him. That's probably what happened to you.

Yeah, none of the Shaper Council members particularly like each other but they'll all stand together against you if you kill one of them: the zones they're in will all go hostile and you'll be forced down Ghaldring's path. If you manage to make Ghaldring hostile as well, you get an instant game over as everyone you could possibly have allied with works together to hunt you down.

hey i know this hasn't exactly worked out as planned but i just wanted to say thanks a bunch for trying. ok that's all from me for now, have a good day

It's an outlier for sure, but I dunno if it's all that ridiculous by the standards of the series: most Geneforge games have at least one or two high checks like that relatively early on. Leadership and Mechanics requirements aren't always balanced around the point in the game you're at to the same extent that combat is. Usually it seems like once you get enough Leadership and Mechanics to pass all the important checks in the first half of the game, you can coast by on equipment boosts for the rest.

Here is a 100% complete list of all the places you can learn Vahnatai Lore, courtesy of Randomizer over in the item list thread: Note that Vahnatai Lore is actually a separate thing from learning the Vahnatai language, which you do by completing the ritual with the pools in Avit. If you haven't done that yet, go do it.

There are actually a total of four places in the game where you can learn Vahnatai Lore. I'm not sure if there are any places that need more than two, but each point of Vahnatai Lore also counts as a point of Arcane Lore for most (not all) spellbooks.

Not really, aside from one or two very minor things.

If you mean what monsters you'll encounter outdoors and how often, I don't think anybody's reported any effect of Luck on that. If you mean special encounters, I believe there's one place near the start of A2:CS where having a few points of Luck in your party allows you to get a reward that you otherwise wouldn't.