Catoblepas

Perhaps the Rebel storyline would feel more rewarding, except for a number of small things, such as the way the player character is kept in the dark about the conspiracy well after the player themselves has figured it out, yet is not actually invited to do anything of real consequence for the conspiracy until the very tail end of the game, with what little the character is capable of doing for the conspiracy via the wayfarer being little more than mercenary makework rather than anything of importance, much less anything that changes the plot, or even the epilogue in any way. The Dhoral Stead is another instance where things could have been handled differently. Despite being the last quest in the region, the character is given the opportunity to do nothing to characterize define their stance on the issue of Avadon and Redbeard, and almost nothing to minimize the damage in anything close to a logical fashion. Events in Dhorl Stead feel a bit railroady, to be honest. Lastly, the endgame itself-when the player returns to Avadon, changes in no real meaningful way if you are a rebel or not. The player can go after Miranda, or not. But the structure of the last mission remains the same regardless of their choices up to that point. Tawron assassins attack you no matter who you work for. The wayfarer meets the same fate no matter what you do. And perhaps most irritating of all, even if the palyer manages to slay Redbeard, the ending changes suprisingly little! The Rebel path seems half-written at times, esp near the end of the game. I suspect that in my next playthrough I will be palying as a complete Avadon Loyalist, because the rebel route is rather underwhelming, at least in this first game of the series.

Originally Posted By: Babster30 Perhaps a compromise. Genetic Engineering to improve the flaws in creations, dumb down Drayks and Drakons, so on. Sometimes, being on the edge of collapse in attempt to reset can work. I said sometimes... but wouldn't war finish off Terrestria eventually, too? you can win the war for the Shapers without resorting to Taygen's methods, which makes his plan unnecessary to say the absolute least. I went with Alwan, for instance, and he wins the war without resorting to Taygen's methods or having the war 'finish off Terrestria'. Taygen's faction has the misfortune of being both morally reprehensible and simultaneously unnecessary, which makes the faction a poor choice, IMO. Taygen (and Rawal) are just bad factions to join all-around, in my opinion. The 'ideal' ending, at least for me, would be the destruction of the drakons and dryaks, but with the serviles and rebel humans getting their own country to call their own without Shaper dominance/interference, and both Akhiri Blaze and Rawal dead. This ending is impossible to get, to my knolwedge, esp for Shapers, so I had to settle for Alwan-although I will say I wass impressed by his gesture of mercy in his ending.

Exactly! Taygen's plan is not only completely evil, it is also very stupid. If the shapers wiped out all creations, the economy, armed forces, industry, the ecology etc would all collapse. People would be looking for someone to blame, and the shapers will be there with red on their hands-and more importantly-without any creations to defend themselves from retribution. Without shaping, there isn't anythign seperating Shapers from normal magic users. Realistically, Taygen's 'plan' would be the most sure way of overthrowing the Shapers forever. It's unfortunate that two of the three Shaper factions are horrible choices, but it really narrows down the list of options for us shaper players. I guess that's how I chose to aid Alawan in G5-process of elimination: Rawal and Taygen are horrible options, Rebels are more of the same 'ol bowing and scraping to megalomaniac murderous lizards, and I was barred from joining Astoria and the Trakovites for being too shaper-aligned.

Taygen's plan involves the genocide of every single creation, including every loyal creation and many species of sentient ones. He puts creations in concentration camps where they are systematically starved and executed. I would say there is a lot of credence to comparisons between him and Nazis. As for Alwan being a moderate shaper, while he has mellowed out a bit from Geneforge 4, as evidenced by his ending, but his faction essentially represents the traditionalist shaper standpoint. I think that he is 'moderate' in this respect, but I also think that Astoria should be a radical Shaper faction as well for wanting compromise with the rebels while being a member of the ruling body of the shapers. It would be nice to have seen a comparable entity for the rebels who wanted peace as well, perhaps led by Greta, but unfortunately there is no real path for Shaper players to follow if they want to work towards a less destructive resolution to the conflict, despite the fact that the very faction that desires a compromise is led by a shaper. Needless to say, this was one of the few points of Geneforge 5 that I found disappointing.

Have you talked to Litalia and the Drakon Emissary in the Freehold yet? I think at some point Litalia will want you to talk to the Drakon there, which will give you the opportunity to go to Quessa-Uss.

The Redbeard fight is a ridiculously tiresome battle of attrition. I anded up lowering the level of the soul jars, which made it significantly more entertaining. I was also a bit suprised by how the folks at Dhorl Stead defended their lord with such dedication, considering that they all despised him. I would have appreciated the opportunity to point out some of the heinous crimes that he was involved with that they didn't already know about. At any rate, I didn't think it was that big a problem considering I had opportunities to persuade everyone who wasn't one of the lord's thugs to run away instead. I agree with you that there aren't enough opportunities to work agaisnt Redbeard. The conspiracy against Redbeard is a pretty strong theme of the game, and the player is given the opportunity to speak out againstthe corruption and tyranny of Avadon on many occasions, but the next logical step- the ability to act on those opinions-is never really presented to the player until the very end of the game. The player never really gets to act in a rebellious manner, except to accept bribes in exchancge for various assassinations etc and the Wayfarer quests-which while certainly harmful to Avadon, are presented strictly as mercenary buisness (even if it is painfully obvious to the player that he is working for the enemy) An 'in' to the rebel conspiricy is never presented in the game until the very last minute, which makes rebel playthroughs rather underwhelming, IMO. Doubly so considering how little the ending changes if you manage to beat Redbeard as a rebel with the explicit stated goal of destroying Avadon from within. There is definately room for improvement to the formula for Avadon II, but I'd still say it's a good game, and I have confidence that the sequel will be better. As for Geneforge? I wish it wasn't, and I would absolutely love to see the series continued. Unfortunately, everything I have heard so far seems to point to Geneforge 5 being the last entry in the series.

I think Astoria is technically a rebel faction, because when I tried to join her, she told me I was too shaper-aligned to trust or something similar. A shame, because I would have expected that she would be neutral on the shaper/rebel scale.

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo For some reason serviles really tug at my heart strings, so I have a hard time supporting anyone who is anti-servile. The broken pigeon english of the ones raised in captivity is just too cute, so I don't think I could ever kill a servile and I usually went out of my way to save the little buggers (even reloading in big fights if one of them would die, lol). For G1 and G2 I was awakened (easy call). G3 is the hardest decision of any of the game because both factions are so awful, but I ended up grudgingly supporting the Rebels just because I reasoned that insane freedom is better than none at all. G4 I was trakovite. Again, I was sympathetic to the rebels most of the way, but I couldn't support their crazy UrDrakon scheme in the end. G5 I was tempted to go trakovite again, but they became to militaristic/terroristic for my tastes (I think I balked when they wanted me to destroy astoria's lands by unleashing that super bug thing), so I ended up with Astoria who seemed the most rational of the rebels. Anyhow, it's interesting how many support the shapers. At least in G1 and G2, it's always seemed to me that the shapers are clearly written as the bad guys. I can understand hating the takers (who are kind of crazy), but I don't see how anyone could ethically rationalize supporting the shapers in those games. G1 + G2 might be a bit different, I haven't gotten far enough in them yet to say- although from what I have seen so far I could see how the rebel factions could be mroe sympathetic in those games. However, in the later games I think that the Shapers could be more sympathetic. Not having played G1 or G2 to completion, my first immersive experience with the rebel movement was in G3 rather than with the awakened in G1 or G2. The Rebels in Geneforge 3 on the other hand are really an unsympathetic bunch, oftentimes even hypocritical. Playing as a shaper Loyalist, I got exposed to a lot of their unsympathetic attitudes towards creation rights. However, many of the Shaper atrocities can either avoided such as the rebel situation on the second island which I think can be ignored, or killing the servile farmers on the last island, which can be avoided. Other bad stuff that the shapers commit might not even be noticed by shaper players-Rahul's dirty secret only reveals itself in the endgame and only to rebel players. By contrast, The Monastery of Tears, the mind-controlled serviles on Dhonal's Isle, The specifics of how the rebellion on Harmony Isle was set up, the purposeful targeting of civilians by the rebels, the use of creators and spawners to make rogues in a similar manner to Monarch in G4, the destruction of the academy, how the rebels deal with Kyhrk and Agatha, and the way Litalia and other rebels constantly try to dangle the carrot of more cannisters in front of your character as motivation for joining the rebels (unfortunate implications considering they are an addictive substance)-these things are readily obvious when playing through the game, and IMO provide a pretty massive hurdle to get over from the standpoint of a shaper student in order to join the rebels in those games. As for G4 and G5, I think the non-shaper factions are much more sympathetic in those games than in G3, and I only really ended up working for the Shapers in G4 because I felt me and the rebels got off on a bad foot with them forcing my PC to use the geneforge without telling me about the side-effects (or giving me any other options besides using the genforge and death) Most of the Shaper characters you meet right after and during the Tutorial are rather sympathetic- Miranda, The Shaper General in the shaper camp, and the Outsider creation tender who names every single one of the creations under his care like pets. By contrast, a significant portion of the lifecrafters in and around southforge show signs of cannister madness. Then of course there was the unbound problem at the end, which made me lose all the sympathy I had for the Rebels prior to that point. In G5, while I might have had sympathy for Astoria, I was locked out of joining her faction because of the snowballing effect of only being pro-rebel about 20%-30% of the time, ditto for the Trakovites. Since the Rebels had changed little since G4 that left me with Rawal (ugh), Taygen (even worse), and Alwan, who seemed to actually have mellowed out since G4, despite all of the horrible things that happened to him. At that point he seemed like the best choice. I can see where you are coming from with beign rebel-sympathetic, as the shapers clearly do quite a bit of oppression, esp of serviles, on the other hand they seem to be justified in their fears of shaping outside of their control considering what the rebels do when they have access to shaping. (unbound, the beetles, spawners, creators, Ur-Drakons, cannisters, etc etc) I think there is certainly enough justification given in the games for players to decide to choose to support the shapers over the rebels, esp in G3. I'd say they are a far cry from being the designated bad guys in these games, so the results of the poll don't exactly suprise me too much. Thanks for the warm welcome, Babster30 and Captain TrEnToN. I think I lost my sanity when I realized that my zero-cannsiter run in G5 had zero impact on the ending. (I realized this during the ending, of course)

Baldur's Gate I+II, the Icewind Dale series, Neverwinter Nights, and Planescape Torment are all great rpgs especially if you like d&d games. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, the Fallout series, and Jagged Alliance (I have only played the second one) are also good, although I would only call Jagged Alliance an rpg in the loosest sense of the word. I have not played a lot of 'jrpgs', so I can't really speak from experience, but one series that I did enjoy was the Breath of Fire series, particulalry the two games for the PS1.

Hi, I'm a new forum member! I have only beaten Geneforge 3-5, so I can only speak for my positions on those games, but here goes: G1: Shaper. The rebels are extremely unsympathetic in this game-killing anyone who gets in their way, and many who do not. Every shaper in G3 that uses cannisters is shown to become completely unstable by the end of the game, aside from the ones that are already insane the first time you see them. They respect creation rights only marginally better than the shapers themselves and only when it suits them. My first encounter with the rebels was Litalia blowing up the school and killing almost everyone that my character would have been familiar with. That was plenty of motivation for me to go rebel hunting, and I never really felt like there were any complleling reasons to join the rebellion, althoguh the servile on the second to last island convinced me to make a second save to try a rebel playthrough for the last bit (which I immediately regretted) Of the three geneforge games I have played, I feel that three has the most sympathetic Shapers and least sympathetic rebels. I think the problem is that the main quests that Litalia/ the other rebels gave me never really showed me the dark side of the shapers to any large extent to tempt me from the shaper cause, while just about every atrocity I saw over the course of the game was committed by those same rebels. G4: Right off the bat I got off on the wrong foot with the rebels around the time they forced me to use the Geneforge under threat of death. I did a few quests for the shapers out or resentment, and stuck with them because 1) the pro-shaper storyline felt a lot more 'natural' to me than the pro-rebel storyline of 3 and 2) Miranda, Alwan, and the shaper general near southforge citadel were suprisingly polite and nice to me consistantly, depite the PC being a shaping-twisted rebel. By comprarison, the only individuals I liked in the Rebellion were Greta and Litalia (who I still bore a out-of-character grudge against for geneforge 3), which was counterbalanced by the personalities of the Drakons and most Dryaks. While I was tempted by the endgame to switch to the Trakovites, I unknowingly locked myself out of being able to get that ending by completing a certain quest near the endgame, so I ended with a zero-cannister loyalist ending, which was rather satisfying. I definately think the rebels were more sympathetic than in 3, but ultimately being forced to use the geneforge, the general unlikable personalities of the cannsiter-mad lifecrafters and arrogant Drakons, and my lingering grudge against the rebels from 3 swayed my choice away from them. G5: Shaper(Alwan). There were a couple of factions that I considered joining, but I ultimately ended up with the shapers. I considered joining Astoria because I liked the idea of a world where intelligent creations like serviles were free but also disliked the use of cannisters and geneforges by the rebels and their wanton disregard for human and creation life through use of things like Unbound and the beetles. Unfortunately, I was locked out of joining her faction by having to high a shaper reputation, despite doing all of her quests, saving Mehken, and generally being pro-creation rights. I considered joining the Trakovites for similar reasons, but was also barred from joining despite doing the dryak's quest. I guess words speak louder than actions. At any rate, I didn't want to join the main rebel faction because I hate Drakons, don't like self-shaping, and disliked their use of unbound and beetles. Rawal's faction looked like bad news from the get go, so I betrayed him as soon as possible, and Taygen was out of the question for being an equally evil individual, which left me with Alwan pretty much by default. Alwan's faction was satisfying enough for me, being the third game in which I ended up working with him I think there was a bit of comforting familiarity, but I would have liked to try Astoria or even the Trakovites, unfortunately I was prevented due to game mechanics locking me out of joining those factions. Well, those are my reasons for joining who I did. I hope all of that made sense. I'm going to start playing either Geneforge 1 or 2 soon, I hear they have a great variety of factions, so it should be fun!