wackypanda

I have a bit of a problem with this. The entire plot of the games started because they found their art going places that they didn't want it to go, and their response was "Shut down everything, that never happened", making it possible for the dangerous knowledge to be discovered by people who were not even trying to discover it and who had to draw their own conclusions about whether that power was legitimate. To draw parallels to a real-life situation (which always backfires ), this would be like cloning Dolly the sheep and then thinking "The same technique could be used to clone humans which is unethical for reasons XYZ, shut down everything that never happened", only for a scientist to stumble upon records of the cloning technique in a file cabinet that you never destroyed, and because you preferred to forget everything rather than impress into everyone trained as a scientist why you forbid cloning, he goes "Why is this hidden here? Having a clone of myself would be awesome!" "Responsible" is not how I would describe someone who tackled problems with their art that way. (As an aside, the Shapers certainly don't have a problem impressing into their acolytes that creations are tools, and that anyone who says otherwise is thinking ungood thoughts. So why do they have a problem conveying other important conclusions they draw about their art?)

The demo Shaper camp is hostile by default. I think any zone that is hostile by default can be cleared, or as close to cleared as spawners will allow, without consequences. So yes, I'm thinking more about ones like the Rebel Safehouse.

Tangentially related: Do you make the factions hostile if you backtrack to completed chapters and wipe out their strongholds?

The ending is normal, and the Shapers appreciate your efforts. If you don't think so, try not killing the triad and see what happens. The door is a sequel hook.

You should find him soon enough. As one of the blacklisted, he should be in a crucial place, like maybe... near the Taker's magnum opus.

Are Taker-type and Barzite-type drakons capable of flight? If they aren't, the Awakened plan becomes more feasible, as the Barrier of the Winds drakons can fly and their emphasis is on defense. They might have needed to scale up if the PC hadn't intervened, but they wouldn't be lagging all that badly. Also, the Takers and Barzites don't really have happy endings (for you at least), now that I think about it.

If you don't want to infiltrate or destroy them you don't actually have to do anything with those two sects. They probably won't get a happy ending, but in Geneforge 2 sects won't get their happy ending unless you pledge allegiance to them and mean it.

I'm not sure if I picked up on the fact that my choices didn't affect the game much, because at this point none of them are presented as anything that should affect the game. The push from people to break from Avadon is what I'm looking for. I may not agree with them, but it's hard to say when they haven't even tried. Is there an opinion meter in this game?

My first entry into Spiderweb games was the Geneforge series, and what I liked about that was how the moral dilemmas were the entire point of the game. I decided to try Avadon thinking that it would have a bit of that, but in a different way. But right now I'm in the Dhorla Woods (for the first time) and things don't seem to have picked up yet. People are dissatisfied with the failure of the Pact to protect them or whatever, but it's nothing I can personally do anything about so it's a waste of my energy to care. Am I the only one who thought this, and when does the conflict start picking up?

Having someone explain how the Geneforge allows you to level up is one thing. Working it into the game's theme of power and responsibility would require at least a few loyalists to get on your case about yielding to Forbidden Power™, which is another thing. On one hand, it would provide additional justification for a pacifist run. On the other hand, it would make players feel bad about something that is normally a good thing and it might intensify the dislike people already have for stealth (and/or loyalists).

It's hardly your fault that they don't want to heal themselves, so your victory still counts for something. And since it's explicitly a quest it's something that people think your character might be able to do (though they emphasise the "might"). Contrast the other things that fluffwise are stated to be out of your league, like clearing the Turabi Gates or taking on the Northforge Warrens infiltrators by yourself - it's obviously possible for you (the player) to do it, but storywise it isn't supposed to be done. Hypothetical: "Yes. You have been changed by the fires of the Geneforge. Made new. You can feel, even now, the power filling you, waiting to be called. It is your mind that cannot yet grasp the gift that has been given, that limits itself to calling forth only the most trivial of cantrips. But that will change, as you assert your superiority." 1. Assert my superiority? "Yes. Every time you slay a foe or break its will to fight you, every time you sabotage one of the crude mechanical contraptions that would confound lesser beings, you show that your new form is superior. Then your mind will grasp, more firmly, the magnitude of the power within you, and using that power will come more easily."

For all that The Chosen One is a cliche, in games it really helps to explain why the main character can do things that no one else can if they really are different from everyone else. Geneforge generally does a good job of tying up everyone else who's supposed to be more powerful than you with other work, but sometimes you do things (e.g. wiping out the Poryphra camp in G4, which pits you directly against those people with 2000 HP) which show that you really are more powerful than everyone else.

Rather reminds me of Skyrim, where the fact that you are Dragonborn, a mortal with the soul of a dragon, is the source of your awesomeness. One of the few good dragons talks to you about the perils of having the soul of a dragon, mainly the urge to dominate, kill, destroy, and conquer. Presumably you were supposed to chew on that awhile. Do both leadership and combat? That's the Geneforge talking. Break their wills before slitting their throats.

Granted, they have an interest in maintaining that facade of infallibility. But when it cracks, of course the first thing that would come to mind is "What else is there that I don't know about? Do they even know what they're doing?" not "Maybe it was just this one time, I'm sure they know what they're doing". How am I supposed to know what they think? In fact we see shades of this on Harmony Isle in G3. The rebels have invaded. Lankan needs protection from Diwaniya (which is his job as the ruler) to make a living, and is angry that Diwaniya won't provide it. So the facade cracks, and Lankan decks Diwaniya and runs off. Then when you talk to Diwaniya you find that it's not so much that he doesn't want to do his job, but that he can't. And the facade prevents him from admitting it, and even if he could people already hate him for failing to meet (what they think is) the Shaper standard. It's just really sad to watch. Of course, Diwaniya is young, and the rebels are a threat that the Shapers have not had much experience facing, but it's not a good job overall. If what Lilith said is true re: destroying records, they really don't. That hints that they don't like to admit failures even to themselves (i.e. are literally blind to their failures, or intend to be so). One can argue that only the records of the research are destroyed and not which places are sealed and why, but usually no one the PC talks to (including Shapers who have a vested interest in cleaning up, like the Guardian who needs the anvil) can remember why a place was sealed beyond the useless "an experiment went wrong", which shows that even Shapers who want to clean up can't prepare themselves. (In fact the Guardian doesn't even know that there is another anvil, while the outsider blacksmith who also needs the anvil does. I'm not getting the impression that they keep good track of their facilities and accidents.) I agree that sealing things up is not unreasonable under certain circumstances, and we now agree that it doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that the Shapers act as if it does. I keep using Darkstone Mine as an example not because it's a particularly spectacular SVH - quite the opposite, in fact. It was a relatively minor incident and it occurred when the Shapers were in full control of the island, and therefore were as able to actually solve the problem as they ever would be. Instead they sealed up the place and forgot it ever happened - according to procedure, true, but it came back to bite people when the other anvil broke, betraying a lack of foresight in their policies. The fact that this is standard procedure is also not up to the standard they set for themselves. Their claim to power and their stance on serviles and drayks is based on the premise that they are the masters of what they create. Then when something goes pear-shaped they go "Seal it up and forget this ever happened instead of risking our lives" instead of "Well, we made this mess, now let's get together a party of glaahks and show that thing who's boss" ... there's a disconnect there. And the "forget this ever happened" part is, as I said, punting responsibility. That is how their risk management stinks.

No one denied that Shaping was inherently risky - the point is that their risk management stinks, and rather than claiming that it's the best they can do with what they have, they always claim that they're doing fine. No, there is no land shortage, but that's not the issue - the point below is. That they were allowed to accumulate over extended periods of time still shows that the Shapers' default response to problems is to seal it and punt it to underlings, if any are available, or let everyone forget about what happened. It is true that the things usually don't escape immediately to harm people, but as Sucia Island shows, sealing the mess doesn't solve the problem, only punts it forward in time to people who are even less equipped to deal with the problem because they didn't know there was one. In fact, the seal on Sucia Island was not "broken" intentionally but due to circumstances completely beyond the control of the people involved. (There is also the danger of the mess festering under the seal - if Sucia Island had gone through a thorough dismantling when it was first Barred the serviles would not have had to fend for themselves on poisoned land and there would not have been a servile uprising.) Darkstone Mine is another example - if someone wanted the anvil but no one could remember why the place was condemned (which is quite close to the situation in the games) they might not go in prepared and so end up as pink jelly. Not even admitting that these occurrences are possible is not responsible risk management. Compare that to the PC's thoughts when you clear out the necromancer's lab on Harmony Isle in G3 (which was supposed to be Diwaniya's job as ruler of the island) - after the first time you call the shades, the subsequent times you do it, the PC knows what will happen but thinks: better you than someone who won't.

Still, the fact that the Shapers' solution to Sucia Island was to seal it off instead of confronting the issue belies their constant claims that they are the only ones responsible enough to control the power of Shaping. It reminds me of one bit in Lord of the Rings where someone on the Council of Elrond suggests throwing the Ring into the ocean to be lost, only to be rightly told: "Not for ever." Drypeak wouldn't have happened if the Shapers on the belated Sucia cleanup crew weren't corrupt. And even on the Ashen Isles you find yourself cleaning up messes that the Shapers sealed away (eg. Darkstone Mine, which if memory serves was condemned before the rebels appeared, so they don't even have the excuse of strained resources). In that case sealing up the mess instead of cleaning it up wasn't even in their best interest, as they could no longer access the enchanted anvil and other resources inside.

I see. Are there any consequences for killing Shorass? Will Khyryk have anything to say about it later on? ETA: So it looks like the reward is clearing the zone without having to do any of their quests, although they will still offer their quests. Hm.

The "reward" that Ossissess gives for killing Shorass is promising the aid of her colony in Grayghost. Where exactly is her colony and how much is this help worth? (I play on Normal so I don't appreciate kill-stealers.) Thanks in advance.

I like the idea of imagining a character for each side, because I usually play that way as well. That said, I have a very hard time imagining a full rebel for G3, or at least one who's in in for their philosophy. (As it is, my character is in it for canisters.) My Shaper character was a moderate who tended to say pro-rebel things and figured that he could become like Khyryk. G1 and G2 made it much easier by having the Awakened explain the backstory and show how the Shapers have wronged them, without trying to kill you along the way. There is also a great deal of impact in playing these two games in sequence and seeing how the people in the factions changed after the Shapers retook Sucia, e.g. hearing how Dayna, an Obeyer in G1, had her entire worldview destroyed. G3 has a distinct lack of that. The sufferings of the people under the Shapers (Torsten's sickness, the gatherers, the quarantine) don't come across as the Shapers' fault the same way the issues in G1 and G2 do. And the PC only meets sympathetic rebels at Icy End after they are already a rebel, which kind of defeats the purpose.

I laughed out loud when I landed on the Monastery of Tears for the first time and the PC showed his exasperation at the people who built the thing and their attempts to achieve "pure moral purity". There's also one moment in the loyalist ending in G3 where

Did he mellow in G4 and G5? This certainly doesn't seem true of the Alwan in G3, where near the endgame (if he is present) he asks the PC what they intend to do after everything. If you say that you want to treat your creations with more kindness and compassion to prevent future wars, he chastises you for being weak and for having the attitude that led to the war to begin with, following up with "No offense". ("Well, I've always thought you were completely useless compared to my ranged creations. No offense.")

Not that the Shapers ever need to know what you did. With canisters it's the glowy-ness that tips them off.

From what I've seen so far (haven't played much of G4 or G5), canisters, alterations, and the Geneforge all work in the same way - by Shaping a person, which is forbidden. The thing is that alterations don't count as canisters, so someone who only uses those will not notice any canister madness or glowy effects. What I'm wondering is: Is this merely a game design compromise to make no-canister runs easier, similar to how the PC can Shape drayks without any repercussions, or is there actually a difference between being Shaped by pre-programmed essence and being Shaped by a person? (Note also that the more debilitating "canister leprosy" seen in some NPCs in G3 is implied to be due to the canisters going "off", so at least one of the side effects of canister use is due to the essence.) Another thing: alterations and the Geneforge are incredibly painful, while canisters are not. Maybe canister addiction is not addiction to the power per se, but addiction to... additives?

Also, in G3 the moral dilemmas the rebels pose are really awkward. Ran off into the swamps because the local Shaper wouldn't fulfill his obligation as the local ruler to protect you? You have a point. What do you want me to do about it? Fulfill my obligation as a Shaper and kill the rogues for you? No? You want me to... give you a canister. From the same person who created the rogues. Right. I'm not going to betray my people to help you be an idiot. Then again, in G4 I usually play rebel. Just as it is difficult to imagine a Shaper in G3 joining the rebels, I have difficulty imagining that someone who joined the rebels before the game started hasn't already worked themselves into a mindset where they will take anyone but the Shapers. I admittedly haven't played it past the demo, so I can't comment on the moral dilemmas.

Admittedly I have wondered if the PC ever does anything for anything other than selfish reasons. It's hard to RP someone whose heart is bleeding for the plight of the serviles when you're simultaneously vacuuming up every saleable object in sight.