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Where to begin?


Owozifa

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I hope this question doesn't get asked too much (it probably does), but I've basically just recently heard about these games and am interested in trying one out. I'd like to play one of the Avernum games, and since they come in two trilogies, I was wondering if Avernum 4 would be a decent place to start.

 

Just as a complete beginner here.

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You can start with any of the Avernum games as they are not dependent on you having played the previous games. Avernum 4 is nice in that it is made on the newer game engine and also it the game that "saved" Spiderweb. If you do play Avernum 4 first continue on until Avernum 6 and then go back and play Avernum 1- 3.

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Despite Jeff's recent claims that he just recycles everything, actually his engines have changed a lot over the years. For me, the first Geneforge game was the first one with graphics that were good enough not to get in the way. I tried Avernum 1 and 2, and Nethergate, and just could not make myself care what was happening with these tiny little blobs bipping across the crudely represented landscape. But Geneforge was great.

 

The basic look and feel of the Geneforge games doesn't change much over the series, the games tell one long story, and the first installment is many people's favorite of the five. So it makes sense to start with it, play the long demo, and decide whether you're in for the whole series. (The game engine does develop significantly, although the basic graphics change only slightly. But there are added monsters, spells, items, and features — crafting, mini-levels, joinable NPCs, more complicated and interactive plots.)

 

After getting used to Geneforge, I found I could tolerate the updated Avernum engine used for Avernum IV-VI. Then once I had spent some time with Avernum IV, I found that I could get into Blades of Avernum, Avernum II, and Nethergate: Resurrection, after all.

 

Your mileage may of course vary, but I found that my visual palate needed training, or something, so I started with Geneforge and only later developed the taste for the older-looking games.

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The Avernum games will get redone eventually so you might want to wait for 1-3 to play them then. After the Exile series I stopped for a while and then played Avernum 4. Then Geneforge 3. Then Geneforge 4. Then Avernum 5. Then Geneforge 5. Then Avernum 6. I had a blast so I recommend exactly that order.

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Owozifa, as you can see the preferences for S/W games is totally varied. My suggestion is to try some demos and it should become clear what appeals to you. I also discovered S/W recently and started with A4 (it is still my favorite) but couldn't get in to A1-3 or Geneforge. Nethergate Ressurection is cool too.

Happy gaming! smile

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Originally Posted By: VCH
gENFOREG iS tERRIBLE


sPREADING THE cAPS lOCK cURSE IS strictly PROHIBITED BY THE cOc.

EDIT: Actually, I checked, and nowhere in the CoC is the wod "caps" or "lock" mentioned. But I distinctly recall that the exact words that I typed above (case and all) were mentioned somewhere in an official context. Perhaps the FAQ or one of the older CoC's?
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Originally Posted By: Unbound Draykon

note note: also i hate the Avernum series and love the Geneforge series i now have completed the first four
in the series always getting the canister junkie ending though

See, I found the canister junkie endings growing less and less satisfying as the series went on. In G1, you're just a badass demigod who does what he wants (insert Mr. T. references as needed here). In G2, you're still pretty awesome, and you're second only to Barzhal. (think Vader in this case). But as you become more and more watered down, in G3 there's a pretty hefty hierarchy between "you" and "ultimate leader of the rebellion". In G4 there is a multispecies barrier in terms of power between you and the top- pretty much the only human who's remotely near Ghaldring in power is Litalia, and by the time G5 whirls around, you're paralyzed by factional infighting to the point where canister junkies are just a minor freakshow on the side, instead of the driving force behind the plot.

I wonder if you could make the argument that the powers-that-be in the Geneforge universe deliberately watered down the powers of the canister as time when on in order to prevent the insanity that was seen at the beginning of the series...
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
I wonder if you could make the argument that the powers-that-be in the Geneforge universe deliberately watered down the powers of the canister as time when on in order to prevent the insanity that was seen at the beginning of the series...

 

1)Jeff did make the endings worse because since you get so very powerful from using them he made bad endings for the players who overused them just to balance the game

2)and if only good things happened when using canisters then most people who don't like an easy game wouldn't play it like Jeff

 

oops i don't think i answered the question

edit: something weird happened when i went to the forums list it showed in general that 1707 posts had just been posted in the miscellenous forum

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Originally Posted By: Dantius
I wonder if you could make the argument that the powers-that-be in the Geneforge universe deliberately watered down the powers of the canister as time when on in order to prevent the insanity that was seen at the beginning of the series...


No, it's just that the madness of the drakons, who have been continually reshaping themselves (similar to canister junkies) for years of war means there are many such powerful, power-mad, magic-and-shaping-capable beings running around. A PC canister junkie is not nearly as unique a phenomenon in G5 as in G1 or G2 (even if most of them are non-human).
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I think it's not so much the canisters that got watered down, as the geneforges. Danette's original model let you rule the world for a long, long time. Then the Drakons took over the geneforge business for two full games, and by the time humans and serviles got them back, they were totally watered down.

 

It could be argued that that all makes sense, that in the years of development that occurred over the series, the makers of canisters and of geneforges have found ways to mitigate the madness they induce, by making them give power more slowly.

 

In fact I always really wanted the Geneforge games to say, somewhere, that the reason the PC was gaining levels was somehow due to geneforging or canisters, or at least somehow caused by exposure to self-shaping technology. It could be a unique, individual reaction, that the power develops slowly through performance under mental and physical stress. This would in my opinion have added a lot to the games, by making the player's addiction to levelling represent the character's addiction to self-shaping. And it would have explained why the PC goes from peon to demigod over a few months, nobody else can do the same, and nobody else seems to realize that this is going on.

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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
I In fact I always really wanted the Geneforge games to say, somewhere, that the reason the PC was gaining levels was somehow due to geneforging or canisters, or at least somehow caused by exposure to self-shaping technology. It could be a unique, individual reaction, that the power develops slowly through performance under mental and physical stress. This would in my opinion have added a lot to the games, by making the player's addiction to levelling represent the character's addiction to self-shaping. And it would have explained why the PC goes from peon to demigod over a few months, nobody else can do the same, and nobody else seems to realize that this is going on.


YES. Even if the games never explicitly said this, I liked the fact that the games at least implicitly offered this rationalization for leveling. It's not a big deal, but it is a nice touch when "leveling up" and becoming extremely powerful can be made to make sense within the gameworld. (I think Morrowind was like this as well: the reason the player can become as powerful as a demigod is because...the PC actually IS a minor demigod).

As for the Geneforge being weakened...I always figured the drakons did that on purpose. By G4-G5, the only source for transmitting knowledge of the Geneforge was the drakons - and they were pretty focused on self-shaping themselves. Building a couple low-power Geneforges for the human and serviles was may have seemed like a practical step to further the war effort and please their allies, but the drakons definitely weren't wanting to power up humans and serviles into demigods. They want that for themselves. And the G5 forge was apparently based on intel about the rebel forges. Danette spent years perfecting the original Geneforge and maxing out its power. Even though the general technology/magic remained known to the drakons (ultimately it must have been passed down by Ghaldring), they didn't know all the details of the original, presumably, and in building new human Geneforges (to which they added servile compatibility) they just never bothered to try to unlock all the power that Danette's orginal forge could.

/overthinking
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: VCH
gENFOREG iS tERRIBLE


sPREADING THE cAPS lOCK cURSE IS strictly PROHIBITED BY THE cOc.

EDIT: Actually, I checked, and nowhere in the CoC is the wod "caps" or "lock" mentioned. But I distinctly recall that the exact words that I typed above (case and all) were mentioned somewhere in an official context. Perhaps the FAQ or one of the older CoC's?
An older version of the Refuge CoC mentions it:

Originally Posted By: It was this, or something like it. I have niether the time nor the patience to find it.
SPREADING THE CAPS LOCK CURSE IS NOT ALLOWED. DO NOT SPREAD THE CAPS LOCK CURSE.
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¿esruC kcoL spaC eht si tahW

 

The only thing I never understood about the Geneforge series is how quickly your PC learned new skills from other people. Canisters I can understand, but learning from an instructor how to craft a new form of life in just a couple of minutes? That one is a little difficult to swallow.

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The difference is that Geneforge makes it clear that even basic shaping is an incredibly complex task requiring years of study. Given that Geneforge directly references the concept of a genome in-game, this makes a lot of sense. Magic is billed in the same direction but not nearly to the same degree.

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Actually, that never bothered me nearly as much as gaining levels (for which I also reached for SoT's explanation). Learning how to shape might be very, very hard unless you have it forged into your genome, but learning how to shape a particular thing is not so difficult once you have the basics down. Think of it as learning vocabulary versus learning a language. Or maybe you really get handed some kind of magical equivalent of a blueprint. Without an extensive understanding of genetics, that doesn't do anything for you since you lack the techniques to turn the blueprint into the final product. With training, that blueprint is really all you need.

 

—Alorael, who can't catch the curse on a Mac. Caps lock doesn't work that way.

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Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith
¿esruC kcoL spaC eht si tahW

The only thing I never understood about the Geneforge series is how quickly your PC learned new skills from other people. Canisters I can understand, but learning from an instructor how to craft a new form of life in just a couple of minutes? That one is a little difficult to swallow.


Observe. It took me years and hundred of thousands of dollars to learn how to draw and understand this:
ptu3-27_xx.jpg
Now I could read that if seconds or even draw one of those in a few hours. I can image that Shaping would be very much similar.
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Originally Posted By: cfgauss
Don't tempt me to start posting what I do...

(Slowly turns around in chair)
Are you threatening me, master Jedi?

Six feet to my left I have a complete set of the Feynman Lectures on Physics right next to two college calculus books.

Below that I have two shelves of chess books. I can and will post a complete analysis of the exchange variation in the Four Pawns Alekhine!
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Originally Posted By: Ephesos
Originally Posted By: Ephesos
Do not taunt happy fun mod.


...for real, folks. We've crashed the board with huge chunks of text before, don't try it again.

In algebraic notation, that would be less than a page, MS-word default settings. Just so you know.

And knowing is half the battle!
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: cfgauss
Don't tempt me to start posting what I do...

(Slowly turns around in chair)
Are you threatening me, master Jedi?

Six feet to my left I have a complete set of the Feynman Lectures on Physics right next to two college calculus books.

Below that I have two shelves of chess books. I can and will post a complete analysis of the exchange variation in the Four Pawns Alekhine!


Way ahead of you; that was my bookshelf when I was 14. Except I had more than calculus... group theory, analysis, and complex analysis too I think?
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: cfgauss
Don't tempt me to start posting what I do...

(Slowly turns around in chair)
Are you threatening me, master Jedi?

Six feet to my left I have a complete set of the Feynman Lectures on Physics right next to two college calculus books.

Below that I have two shelves of chess books. I can and will post a complete analysis of the exchange variation in the Four Pawns Alekhine!
Pissing contests are considered gauche in most circles.
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Originally Posted By: cfgauss
Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: cfgauss
Don't tempt me to start posting what I do...

(Slowly turns around in chair)
Are you threatening me, master Jedi?

Six feet to my left I have a complete set of the Feynman Lectures on Physics right next to two college calculus books.

Below that I have two shelves of chess books. I can and will post a complete analysis of the exchange variation in the Four Pawns Alekhine!


Way ahead of you; that was my bookshelf when I was 14. Except I had more than calculus... group theory, analysis, and complex analysis too I think?


lame smile
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Back on topic, In Geneforge when we learn new skills, certain dialog actually tells us they spend hours teaching us. Perfectly feasable considering in each game the PC has gone through years of mental training. I think the games fast leveling could be beacause everyone has completed all their Theory work for Shaper/Lifecrafter initation, now they do the practiles. Once they get the hang of it, presto, powerful. Since there is no Day/Night in Geneforge, how do we now hours arn't passing while training?

 

Chess = Fun

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Originally Posted By: Hypnotic
Since there is no Day/Night in Geneforge, how do we now hours arn't passing while training?


There is some kind of arbitrary day counter on the map. I've never been able to figure out how it worked, though. I think it has something to do with the number of times you switch zones...
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