Ceiling Durkheim

"I can't speak for others, but I bought copies of the Twilight novels BECAUSE of the hate, not because I cared about them myself." This is what libraries are for. You save money, and said money doesn't go into the pocket of someone abominable. I did that with Left Behind...well, that and it had actual bearing on my thesis. But mostly because of the hate.

I don't see what the "by those following Shaper law" has to do with anything. Drayks exist, Shaper law says they all have to die. The fact that Shapers don't make more drayks doesn't change the fact that they would gladly murder all existing drayks. I suppose it's better than making more drayks, then murdering them for the hell of it, but "damning with faint praise" doesn't quite do that comparison justice. Drayks, drakons, and eyebeasts are sentient species capable of reproducing themselves, and also barred, i.e. to be killed on sight. One can argue that this might be for the best with eyebeasts, as they seem to be pretty Always Chaotic Evil, though even then I find the whole genocide thing a bit questionable. Drakons are often bastards, but by no means all of them are, and even then the games imply that this at least as much the consequence of unchecked reshaping as it is anything intrinsic to the species. Drayks don't seem substantially worse than humans and serviles. So, yeah, extermination of entire sentient species. I do agree on other aspects of Shaper law, though. Reshaping/canisters, while they could theoretically be good in moderation (imagine the number of lives a village healer/army medic/doctor could save with access to basic healing magic), very few people seem to actually practice any restraint in using them. Ideally, they would be strictly regulated, but banning them entirely seems preferable to letting a bunch of lunatics use them without restriction. Still, the genocide thing seals the deal for me. I don't think the rebels are good by any stretch of the imagination (hence my previous comment about not liking either side), but I think they're better than the alternative.

Yeah, I think the way the early Avernums and N:R deal with food is pretty much the worst of both worlds relative to earlier and later games. I'm most inclined to favor leaving out food entirely, but I do also like the way A6 handled the issue in light of the whole 'people are starving and food is a precious commodity' bit.

Well, that or slavishly adherent to Shaper orthodoxy, and thus willing to exterminate entire sentient species. Really, there's not much to like about either side in G3/4*. Methinks 'A Small Rebellion' gave Jeff a lot of ideas for the Geneforge series... *Except Khyryk, and maybe Greta in G4.

Oh, you know how it goes. Have a huge haul of treasure, sell off everything without thinking about it, end up selling important things. Thank heaven for that 'unsell' feature in shops in recent Avernum/Geneforge games.

On the bright side, there's no risk of selling the quest-critical trowels by mistake. I never quite forgave Jeff for that one time I accidentally sold Vyvnas-Bok and had to restart Exile 2.

It did, however, have the redeeming quality of featuring a peroxide-blond Dennis Hopper as the primary antagonist. I think I basically agree with Slarty: so long as story and gameplay are separate design aspects and priorities in video games, story is likely to get the shaft in a great many cases. Not necessarily all, but at minimum this fact brings down the average a great deal. This is hardly a problem unique to video games, as one encounters it in opera and ballet as well. Then again, neither of those media are known for telling brilliant stories. Nevertheless, at the risk of opening a colossal and terrifying can of literary/critical theory worms (which are pretty much the grossest type of worm one can find in a can, particularly if Jacques Lacan gets brought in), I'm curious how we measure the quality of a work of fiction. I can think of quite a few measures: depth/realism of characters; skillful use of medium (whether this means writing style, cinematography, etc.); skill with which the work handles 'themes' and social/political commentary; arrangement and pacing of plot; quality of setting/'world'; originality. We haven't specified which of these measures we've used in our evaluation of video games. I can think of examples of video games that compare favorably to the great majority of books and films in each of these categories, but I'd still say the average quality is lower, and the best video games are still below the best works in other media. On the specific issue of Torment not translating well to book (or theoretically film): so what? Plenty of the great books have ended up as crappy movies, and novelizations of movies are notably poor. This is especially true of something like Torment (and the Bioware school of RPGs more generally), since a large part of the story revolves around player choices. Roger Ebert may hate this idea, but I don't see why I should.

You can change traits with the character editor. I wouldn't even call it cheating to do so, since you're not getting anything extra, just reversing a basic character creation decision whose consequences weren't clear to you. As for skills to hold off on buying, there's a list of trainers here: http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=188910#Post188910 If you're looking to get some battle disciplines for your casters (and it's probably a good idea to do so; conventional wisdom on the forums suggests that you're best off getting to adrenaline rush by the endgame), it's better to buy points from trainers before using skill points for them. Ditto for mage spells if you have a character you want to minor in magic. You get access to a trainer in nature and arcane lore early on, but it's pretty overpriced, and I'd say probably not worth it. Most of the skills that are really worthwhile to buy from trainers are the ones you have to wait to unlock: anatomy, lethal blow, magical efficiency, gymnastics, sharpshooter, and parry in A6. This is more obvious, though, since you literally can't spend skill points on them until you have enough points in other skills.

Well, that and you may end up bald. http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/index.php?date=062209

I'm confused by "but I get the impression Litalia saw her as more heavily Shaped than that. Meaning canisters." Saw her as that when?

Almost useless. It gives you points in magical efficiency, but there's no reason to take it over pure spirit unless you plan take some levels in mage spells.

Well, they do have the same character model. On the subject of Litalia, she claims she doesn't know who you are, but she could be lying. Given the way the game frames it, this seems at least as likely as not: "She thinks carefully before she responds. 'No. I do not know who you are. But I do know that you, like me, have been altered, forever separated from our kind by Shaper magic.' You try to tell if she is lying or not, but her face is blank. For all you know, you bore a great grudge against her once. There is no way of knowing yet." Still, at least it's not certain that she knows you.

He didn't. Priest spells aren't armor-restricted, and never have been. Priests (and magi, for that matter) take the same penalties from encumbrance that everyone else does, which have no specific casting-related effect: only the usual one of having fewer AP to take action, spell-related or otherwise.

The timing's still slightly iffy, but not damningly so. I think the real problem is the number of people who mention the G5 protagonist seeming familiar. Greta would know her, obviously, but Alwan seems less likely: the impression I get is that Crowley intended to send Shaila somewhere pretty far off to help her recover, and one would think that if Shaila met up with Alwan around the time the G4 protagonist did, we would've heard something of it in G4. Litalia seems to be the real obstacle for this theory, though: she's nowhere near Southforge Citadel during G4; the farthest south she gets is the Fens of Aziraph, and even seems to be a fair bit into the past. It's possible that Shaila spent time in Burwood and near to Litalia before using the Geneforge, but she would have been just a prospective then, and probably not too notable to the woman who leads a substantial portion of the rebel war effort. It also seems a bit weird from a narrative standpoint: Shaila, while interesting, is a minor character, and G5 hints that the PC was a pretty big deal in his/her past life. Still, while I think these factors make it pretty implausible that Shaila would be the G5 PC, none of them render it actually impossible. If anything, the timeline of the series makes it more likely that Shaila, rather than the G4 PC, is the G5 PC. I still favor the idea that the G3 and G5 PCs are the same person, and also possibly Shaper Monarch.

Nope. Item weight and 'bulky item' work in different ways: -Bulky items reduce chance to hit (which, as Triumph points out, very rarely matters), and past a certain point prevent the character from casting mage (and only mage, not priest) spells. I'm not exactly sure where that threshold is, but I think it's around 20% total penalty to hit. The trait 'Natural Mage' either removes this possibility or sets the threshold much higher (I've had magi with up to 35-40% hit penalty who can still cast spells). -Encumbrance reduces AP available in combat. It has no effect on spellcasting ability.

I think your idea is an interesting one, but I disagree. I mostly play games (RPGs especially) for the story, but gameplay is still important. When story is my sole concern, I'd as readily read a novel or watch a movie. This is a bit less the case in games (e.g. KotOR or Geneforge) that allow player choice to influence the story a great deal, but even then I find the "game" aspects of the game matter to me. I think Jeff makes a good point in his blog about "addiction-based design." When I acquire shinier loot, new skills, and so on, it makes me feel like I've accomplished something. This is a positive and enjoyable feeling, at times dangerously so (and seems to be one of the main factors responsible for MMO addiction/obsession). One I've experienced even in the RPGs whose stories I most enjoy.

Many favor Portal Keep, since you go through it so frequently. For that matter, depending on the extent of your pack rat-itude, you may not even need to. I generally carried quest items, crafting ingredients, such wands/scrolls/potions as I actually used, and the occasional alternate piece of equipment. This took up about 1.5 characters worth of inventory space at most. I found that I almost always had to return to town to heal up before I ran out of inventory space.

The point I meant to get across was that in video games in particular the focus on sex was new (aided by realistic graphics and voice acting). Of course, reading back over what I said, said statement didn't actually convey that. Apologies.

"And the concept that people will want to sleep with you if you are not a total jerk is... strange." Really? Because I feel like this happens a great deal in real life. Particularly to women, but men are by no means exempt. Heck, some people want to sleep with people who are total jerks (despite, because, or a bit of both, depending on the specific case). Simply put, people not infrequently fall in love/lust for pretty stupid reasons. Also, while I'm somewhat sympathetic to the 'we have to save the world, no time for love triangles' idea, that is not how it has traditionally played out in most fantasy/space opera fiction, for better or worse. The focus on sex is new, but the idea of people falling in love while saving the world is absolutely not. And really, it's easy to see how such situations would encourage that sort of thing as much as discourage it: as comfort and solace to detract from the stress and grief of the adventuring life, the potentially sexy exhilaration of being caught up in a thrilling, dangerous, and important mission, or simply the hope, in the face of mortal danger, to not die alone and unloved. Also, I can't speak for the Mass Effect series, but in KotOR and Dragon Age there are definitely ways to be nice to one's party members while keeping things platonic.

Turrets don't seem to go rogue all that often though. Arguably weirder are the bedrooms of Rahul/Anjali in G3 and Alwan in G4, which respectively contain ur-glaahks and wingbolts. I guess it's similar to dogs sleeping at the foot of people's beds, but it still seems more odd when we're talking about lightning-shooting winged snakes or giant venomous insects.

Yeah, I do find some high level spells tempting. Like cloak of blades. On torment, there's almost no time when I don't have that on (and those times tend to be the times when I fight melee-averting enemies, and use cloak of the arcane), and longer duration makes it a little less of an energy sink.

What...I..wait. How. But. What. But I but no.

It can be quite worthwhile for cheap, low-level spells that you use all the time (fire bolt, minor heal, curing, etc.), since you can max those all out for all relevant characters for a thousand or two. That's the same amount one level of a high-end spell costs, even at a reasonably priced trainer. Also the same amount as a level of a skill, and as the above commenters point out, a level of a skill is generally much better than a level of a spell.

Fried twinkies! Oh god, the vile and terrible redundancy.

Slightly spoiler-y, but if you're going the munchkin route, you probably are better off rolling with the Darkside. You have to give up a good item or two in the mid-game, but in the endgame you get access to a very nice shop, and by far and away the best trainer in the game (he even teaches you riposte!) and probably the cheapest as well. And of course you have to pick a side eventually. Alas, there's no "kill Redmark and Dorikas and become emperor" route.