Things I learned from playing Geneforge

[mok]

Odd things geneforge teaches you:

 

1 - Books all consist of exactly 5 pieces of paper -- since all paper weighs in at a very heavy 0.2 pounds each and all books weigh only 1 pound.

 

2 - Books, blocks of stone and bars of iron are all smaller than rings and necklaces (though they do weigh more). You know this b/c the books, iron and blocks can be stuffed into you pack in unlimited quantities, but each ring and necklace takes it's own slot.

 

3 - Eating is completely optional, but it is good for your health. Drinking is not possible, although you can buy drinks until your money runs out.

 

4 - As long as they don't see you doing it, no one ever knows if you steal something from them -- even if you immediately turn around and sell it back to them. (I especially love selling Rahul's stuff to Sciolino--I just wish I could be there when his lordship finds all his stuff has been stolen and is sitting in the shop around the corner from his room.)

 

4b - Even if they see you taking their stuff, there are usually no consequences until you take multiple items.

 

5 - You can learn to complex forging techniques for powerful items by reading a few scraps of text in forgotten notebooks.

 

6 - Walking into a nice town will immediately heal all of your wounds and refresh your energy as well. Depleting yourself of any of this easily found energy or health while still in town is permanent until you do something about, including walking out of, and back into, the same town.

 

7 - No matter how direct your route or how fast you travel, everyone where you're going already knows what you did everywhere else you've been. (This is especially bad when you cure Torsten -- how's his wife know you did it when there's no way they could have talked in the time from when you leave to when you find her again?)

 

8 - No one minds or notices if you keep asking them the same questions over and over.

 

8b - Anytime someone asks you a question there are only 3 possible answers.

 

9 - Even if you've never before seen an item, you will immediately know exactly what it does and how much it is worth.

 

10 - Killing a creature will sometimes yield it's skin or a piece of it's body, but never leaves more than a bloodstain otherwise.

 

10b - On rare occasions, the skin a creature drops is actually already formed into a piece of equipment suitable for human dimensions -- even if the creature has few (or no) physical characteristics in common with a human.

 

11 - Even in the thickest of forests and underground, you never have need of a light or torch of any kind.

[Indeterminatus]

Very nice, i had the need of a laugh.

[Contra]

12 - There must be some kind of Unisex in the Geneforge world, because even if described as a "she" some of the people in Geneforge still look exactly like the ones described as a "he".

 

13 - Shapers must have monopoly on textile industry, because there are only 4-6 diffrent available full sets of clothes in the world.

Going to a masqurade must be boring.

[errte]

14- People in the GF3 don't know they are in a game.

 

15- Shaper are idiots to make dangerous experience that cost life. One day, they create a monster that will rule in the world, slaying humans, off course, the fault is shaper!

 

16- Shaper don't have a brain either a face, it's just a dark hole.

 

17- The servant minds can think, but not intelligent

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

Servant minds are itelligent just not as much so as a human.

[Zeviz]

lol That list was very amuzing.

 

About Servant Minds, they are like computers: very "intelligent" in the areas for which they are designed (running schools, mines, etc.), but very "dumb" in all other areas.

 

And to add a few more items to that list:

 

- You can carry 1000lb, as long as you do it slowly.

 

- However, none of you friends, or pets can carry even a single gemstone, no matter how strong they are.

 

- Normally, it takes years to master magic, shaping and combat technique. However, you can learn them instantly if you pay the right trainers. (Why couldn't your school hire these trainers and save tons of teaching time?)

 

- In the course of a few weeks you and your travelling companions can become stronger and better trained than experienced soldiers, who spent their entire lives training and fighting.

[Dallerdin with a custom moniker.]

22. Nobody cares if you clearly and obviously order one of your pets to sneak into a place where you aren't permitted to be.

 

23. Trees are impassible barriers, and they always grow in groups of four.

 

24. You can instantly tell the difference between any two objects, even if they look absolutely identical.

 

25. Some crystals are considered to be more valueable than others based purely on colour.

[arkadilo]

26. During a heated battle, your melee charcters typically do NOT take the shortest distance between spaces. They tend turn run a circle around you or an object first.

 

27. When you die, you can always call up father time to reverse things just a bit to avoid the same result.

 

28. You can find a rolling pin, scapel, and tea cup in some of the strangest places.

 

29. No citizen on any isle has a wardrobe. They wear the same piece of rag each and every day. Though they may have a spare shirt or spare pants every now and then. I bet the places really smelled....

[MUDdex]

I don't know what numbers these are:

 

In Geneforge games, people sleep standing up. There are chairs, but no one sits on them.

 

No matter what gender your character is, it screams like a man when it dies.

 

No matter how many creatures you have, you never need a pooper scooper. Leash laws don't apply to you either.

[Contra]

33: There are always two possible ways of approach.

[Walter]

Quote:

Originally written by Zeviz:
[QB]- Normally, it takes years to master magic, shaping and combat technique. However, you can learn them instantly if you pay the right trainers. (Why couldn't your school hire these trainers and save tons of teaching time?)
QB]

In both Geneforge 2 and 3 it is explained that shapers are trained to learn very quickly without need for repetition, but are taught very little early on.

[Contra]

That is from reading books, not from battleing monsters and suddenly learning more about shaping. Makes no sense.

[Icshi]

These are aspects of the game that I've always found amusing, and it's great to see this list!

 

I guess this is where the whole "suspension of disbelief" comes into effect. Or, as it's known in more mundane circles, "the imagination." Just pretend such things aren't so. Games are a limited medium, and if every effort was made to make them ultrarealistic they'd be so dull and tedious that they wouldn't be worth playing. The player fills in the gaps and glosses over errors in logic caused by limitations of the medium.

 

EDIT: Incidentally, it's this that makes mediocre games like Galactic Core worth playing: a heavy dose of imagination, and the ability to enjoy the quirks rather than just be annoyed by them.

[We Didn't Shard of Fire]

34. When pickups are wounded on Harmony Isle, they will still survive after walking across the island, rowing a boat to the next island, and walking across to rest.

 

35. You can walk over terrain a million times and not leave a single footprint or trace that you've been there.

 

36. You don't have to pick up your feet to walk, so you basically shuffle.

[catspeak]

37. whatever you choose to be in reality you are always female in the game.

[Contra]

..Huh?

[NanaBanana]

Very Amusing!

 

Other things I've noticed..

 

Money weighs nothing. Wonder what it's made of? (that change in my purse gets awfully heavy after a few dollars but the character can carry 16,000+ and not notice?)

 

Pods and pouches weigh very little while food, herbs, saltweed and wiry moss are heavy in comparison. (takes less of those to equal one pound than it does pods/pouches)

 

Characters being right in front of a rogue still can't hit it with a sword.

[mok]

Quote:

Originally written by NanaBanana:

Money weighs nothing. Wonder what it's made of?

This was sort of discussed once before. Student of Trinity thought the shaper economy was entirely online. My thought is that you're using a special type of debit card which, when touched to another debit card (such as one you find on a freshly killed servile or in an unsuspecting person's cabinet) instantly transfers all the contents from one to the other. Conveniently, the debit card has no weight. Perhaps b/c in the world of the shapers the debit card has been joined to your arm in some way so you never notice the weight. (and when you go into a cabinet and take money, you are actually touching your debit "arm" to some grisly token chunk of something dead which still had some money on it).

[NanaBanana]

ROTFL mok!

 

Another thing I noticed but hadn't mentioned.

 

I've cleaned out 3 islands of rogues, spawners and creators but when I go back to the earlier islands, they are still soooo busy cleaning up the stragglers.

 

I know they were all dead when I left and a quick turn around the islands reveal no more rogues. (methinks they are just too lazy (and skeered) to get out and help me clean up the other places.

[Claymore]

38. you can dump all your loot to create a 15 foot wide pile on the floor, yet it all fits nicely in your pockets without a single bulge

 

39. your left hand is never used, it just kinda hangs limply by your side, withering away

 

40. When you lie to someone to protect a servile, they can somehow tell (Although they don't tell YOU) and they tell everyone else on the island, although the servile remains perfectly fine.

[We Didn't Shard of Fire]

40b. If you kill a group of people and hurry back to the opposing group, they will already know although no messenger exists.

[Walter]

Well as for when you lie to protect a servile, I assume that word about you liking serviles comes from the servile talking about you, not his keeper.

[Micawber]

40c No matter how difficult the quest, no one ever doubts you when you claim to have completed it. It's like they have independent confirmation for everything you do...

[Fzmultiply]

41. Leadership means you can lie and get away with it.

[Contra]

41b: If you can lie and get away with it, wh don't this independant source of information blow your cover?

[green kid]

42.your weapon is practicly the same (gurdian claymore/puresteal blade/shaped blade) yet it has different damage points

[Archmagus Micael]

43. Serviles come in many different colours, yet always the same shape.

[green kid]

44. guardians have helmets with no veiwing point but they dont all have broken necks

[hooh]

Quote:

Originally written by green kid:
42.your weapon is practicly the same (gurdian claymore/puresteal blade/shaped blade) yet it has different damage points

If you're such a good graphics artist then why don't you make individual graphics for each diffrent weapon?

[hooh]

Quote:

Originally written by Archmagus Micael:
43. Serviles come in many different colours, yet always the same shape.

Yes, but then you could say all fyoras are the same shape, all thahds are the same shape, all artillas are the same shape, all guardians are the same shape, all agents are the same shape and diffrent colour and so on and on, not just serviles.

[Akharzi_Bow]

45. there are about 6 diffrent trees

[Marlenny]

It is all joking hooh. Don't take it so personal.

[hooh]

Quote:

Originally written by Marlenny:
It is all joking hooh. Don't take it so personal.

I'm not .

46. You're only allowed to have a total of 30,000 coins.

47. You start as a apprentice but after less than a year you are able to kill Lord Rahul, who is supposedly the most powerful person on the continent, and there are only 2 main shaper continents.

48. In less than half a year, you can kill Master Hoge, the master of your school.

49. Master Elek (a servile) has more hp than Lord Rahul. (the most powerful shaper on the continent) (Master Elek = 1213 hp, Lord Rahul = 999 hp)

50. No one cares about what creations you have. Even if you have illegal creations, no one cares. (e.g. you can have an army of dryaks and no one cares)

51. Litalia serves a creation!!!!!

52. All "normal" shapers have 202 hp.

53. 15 powerful full shapers were defeated by a handful of serviles... wow...

54. Shopkeepers don't bargain. They always trade with you as long as your their friend, and they have set levels of pricing and set levels of amount of money that they offer for your goods. They also have an infinent suppy of money! (ROB THEM!!!!)

55. Most of Lord Rahul's captains, leaders and commanders are females. (not to be sexist... also most shapers are females)

56. Most Shapers wear blue robes.

[Webrat]

57. No one want´s to join you and clear the mess up together? They are afraid, although the shapers should be like gods. It turns up that 3 apprentices and some creatures can kill infinitive amounts of monsters, higly trained soldiers and fully skilled shapers. An ending should be: you´ll take all of your companions and rule the earth, for all the mankind will crumble at the mere sight of you.

[hooh]

Thats what happened in GF1 if you killed everyone and used the Geneforge.