My character tells Sage Clois things I didn't know. Is it a bug or I missed them?

[alhoon]

The following contains Spoilers on Sage Clois and parts of the early/mid game.

Note: I have not met the Shapers and I have cleared perhaps 25 zones or so. The easy-ish ones. Please avoid further spoilers. 

 

So... I have found the name of Trajkov from a few sources and I have heard about the Geneforge from Syros the Drayk. Discussing with Sage Clois my character says that Trajkov lives in the Northeast. I was under the same assumption since that's where the "new" rogues come from. And then, my character, not Sage Clois, drops a bombshell: 
"Trakjov holds the Geneforge however he can't use it." 🤨
I was thinking something along these lines because the drayk mentioned something ... but I had no confirmation and me the player was not aware, that Trakjov already holds the Geneforge. For starters, that lvl 20 guy on the bridge makes more sense now. But... how? As player I thought the most plausible scenario was that Trakjov is looking for the Geneforge in the mysterious ruins everyone avoids to the Northeast. Serviles have told me that the invaders had trouble cutting through the vlish and clawbugs there.  So, I assumed that Trakjov is leading expeditions and sets up all those camps and blankets the place with mines to stop the Awakened and especially the Obeyers from meddling (or the Takers too since the Takers promised me great power and if Trakjov is putting 1 mine every three steps he probably is not the sharing power, so I am not sure that Trakjov is in good relations with the Takers). 

 

So... is that a bug? Should I have found something else before that dialogue option became available? 

Or did I miss something somewhere in the discussions and I the player should have already known that Trakjov just looks for a way to use the geneforge? 

[TriRodent]

Is everything out in your meat life logical & consistent?  Say you're going to meet two friends, Bill & Jim, at a park & only one shows up.  That's all you know right now, Bill showed up but no Jim.  However Bill knows that Jim needed to stop at the Post Office while he was out & will be there in a few minutes.  Jim not showing up at the exact time you expected is not a bug, it's just what's going on & you don't have all the information that you need to understand why he isn't there at that exact second.

 

I'm honestly not trying to be a jerk here, really, but you should just roll with things as they come along.  Gather information from various sources, put it all together & see if a pattern emerges.  If something conflicts with what you think is going on, reassess your collected info. 

 

Maybe 'you' were wrong in your initial suppositions.  However just because further incoming information doesn't fit with your (incomplete) world view, that doesn't make it a bug to drag you out of your game immersion.  Stop overthinking  things & just enjoy the game.  I'm not saying don't try to understand what's going on, but you don't know all the pieces of the puzzle yet.

 

Again, not trying to be a jerk, but you've stated in many threads/thread titles that you want zero spoilers to screw up your game... and yet here you are wanting a discussion/clarification on something that sounds like it might or might not be a fairly good sized plot point...  If you don't want spoilers, roll with it, keep exploring, & stop thinking that Jeff may/may not have screwed something up.  Or ... if it's stressing you out 'that' much where you can neither sleep or continue on with the game...say so & we can talk about what Trakjov's been up to before you arrived on the scene.

 

[Slawbug]

I mean, alhoon is also the guy who wanted endless public discussion of G2-G5 with no spoilers for G1, a game released 15+ years earlier, and which for years he refused to play.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is he is very good at mental gymnastics when he has decided how he wants to approach something 🙂

[Ess-Eschas]

Hello alhoon,

 

All I think has happened here is that you’ve slightly misinterpreted this conversation. Nothing more than that!

 

As I understand it, this conversation is process of deduction. You give Sage Clois information, and she gives you information, allowing you both to infer things that you don’t strictly know.

 

Think of a classic detective story, for instance. When Hercule Poirot gathers all his suspects together for the big reveal at the end of a mystery, he doesn’t know directly who the culprit it. He hasn’t witnessed the crime himself firsthand. But he infers it from his investigations. That’s what your character is doing here, I think.

 

Here’s a summary of how I interpret your character’s process of deduction:

 

Spoiler

– Your character learns of Trajkov, and something of what he’s hoping to achieve.

 

– You mention this to Clois, who has heard of Trajkov from members of the Sholai who have passed by her hut. Clois tells you that Trajkov “holds a power your kind feared”, one that “was so horrible that they Barred this island to keep anyone from having it”.

 

– Your character learns of the Geneforge, the powerful secret the Shapers left behind on the island.

 

– You mention this to Clois, who points out that this must have been why the island was Barred.

 

– So the character knows that Trajkov holds the secret power on the island, and that that power is the Geneforge. Thus, Trajkov holds the Geneforge.

 

– But has Trajkov used the Geneforge? Let’s think about this. Why would Trajkov stay at the Geneforge if he had already used it? As Clois implies, the Geneforge is powerful. If Trajkov had already used it to make himself powerful in some way, wouldn’t he want to go ahead and do something with that power, rather than just hanging around the artifact? And if there was someone immensely powerful on the island, wouldn’t they have made their presence known? Say by destroying some of the Servile villages, or the rogues, or doing a far better job of getting rid of you at the beginning of the game? Granted, this last point is a bit more of a leap of faith than the others, but it seems reasonable to assume that the Trajkov has not used the Geneforge.

 

In other words, based only on information your character currently has, you can infer that Trajkov holds – but has not yet used – the Geneforge.

 

Do ask for more information if you’d like, and of course feel free to question my interpretation of what’s going on here!

[Mechalibur]

I agree with Ess-Eschas' interpretation. Putting those 2 pieces of information together would allow someone to reasonably make the assumption that Trajkov isn't able to use the Geneforge. Although I suppose another logical interpretation would be that Trajkov knows about the Geneforge, but is still looking for it.

 

I took a look at the dialogue scripts and it seems to be set up this way (assuming I'm reading the scripts right, although that's frankly a bad assumption 😛 ) :

 

-If you know about the Geneforge, but not what it does, Clois mentions you should learn more, and the conversation doesn't advance.

-If you know about the Geneforge AND what it does, Clois acknowledges this must be the reason the Isle was barred and the next step is to find out who, if anyone, currently controls it. This sets a conversational flag (let's say "Flag 1").

-If you've heard the name Trajkov, but don't know where he is or where he came from, Clois will tell you to learn more about him.

-If you know about Trajkov and where he is now (from Mascha or Gnorrel, for example), Clois will acknowledge what you told her and a second conversational flag will be set (I'll call it "Flag 2")

 

Once you have Flag 1 and Flag 2, you get the dialogue option saying you know what's going on now. This all seems reasonable from my end.

[alhoon]

9 hours ago, TriRodent said:

Is everything out in your meat life logical & consistent?  Say you're going to meet two friends, Bill & Jim, at a park & only one shows up.  That's all you know right now, Bill showed up but no Jim.  However Bill knows that Jim needed to stop at the Post Office while he was out & will be there in a few minutes.  Jim not showing up at the exact time you expected is not a bug, it's just what's going on & you don't have all the information that you need to understand why he isn't there at that exact second.

 

I'm honestly not trying to be a jerk here, really, but you should just roll with things as they come along.  Gather information from various sources, put it all together & see if a pattern emerges.  If something conflicts with what you think is going on, reassess your collected info. 

 

Maybe 'you' were wrong in your initial suppositions.  However just because further incoming information doesn't fit with your (incomplete) world view, that doesn't make it a bug to drag you out of your game immersion.  Stop overthinking  things & just enjoy the game.  I'm not saying don't try to understand what's going on, but you don't know all the pieces of the puzzle yet.

 

Again, not trying to be a jerk, but you've stated in many threads/thread titles that you want zero spoilers to screw up your game... and yet here you are wanting a discussion/clarification on something that sounds like it might or might not be a fairly good sized plot point...  If you don't want spoilers, roll with it, keep exploring, & stop thinking that Jeff may/may not have screwed something up.  Or ... if it's stressing you out 'that' much where you can neither sleep or continue on with the game...say so & we can talk about what Trakjov's been up to before you arrived on the scene.

 

 

To my defense, I was asking whether I was wrong in my initial suppositions. This is what I close my post with: "Or did I miss something somewhere in the discussions". 

 

I didn't infer that I find this a major flaw or that I can't sleep or continue because of what I thought as a minor inconsistency. I just thought that since the game came out recently there may be a few bugs out there and I thought to mention it in case it was indeed a minor bug. 

I don't think that what I did was bad enough to be worth of a page-long denunciation. 

 

However: I honestly appreciate you guys going out of your way to avoid giving me spoilers. It was worth it.

 

@Ess-Eschas

Thanks buddy! That clears it up. What you say makes sense. Indeed, if Trakjov HAD used the geneforge he would have zero reason to personally stay in a crappy island instead of leaving his cronies there to guard it while he goes to conquer the world or something. 

PS. I think it wasn't Trakjov that killed my Drayk-boat because even from what I have seen his people doing, they would indeed have done a much better job. 🙂 The Sholai on the ship must have been quite low in the ranking.