GF Musings

[Kelandon]

Just re-played Geneforge 1 for apparently the first time since I first played it five years ago. The few bits of strategy that I've picked up from glancing at topics here on the boards apparently made a huge difference.

 

On the first play-through, I saw the in-game tip that said that creations would become very strong if you kept them all the way through the game, and apparently I took that to heart: as a Shaper, I kept my original two fyoras that I created within the first couple of areas. I kept them to the end of the game. They were about level 17 or 18... pretty low for the end of the game. I pumped their stats by evolving them as much as I could, so they were pretty ridiculously strong for fyoras, but they were still fyoras. I apparently added a drayk near the end of the game, but that was it. I beat the game originally with a couple of fyoras and a drayk. That was hard to do.

 

This time, I didn't evolve the creations at all. I gave them 2 intelligence points and that was it. I made as many as I could, and I absorbed them and made new ones when I got the ability to make stronger creations. I had 7 creations almost from the very beginning of the game, and I ended with a pack of drayks. This was a lot easier and rather more fun, too. I could go into the Shaper Crypt and just blast the heck out of the creatures there, which I could never do before. Doing a full-on assault at the Front Gate was pretty fun, too.

 

I had a lot of success not ever getting hit. I'd get just in the range to attack one creature, hit it enough to kill it, and end combat mode right there. Then the next creature would come into range, I'd enter combat, kill it, and end combat again. This got me into trouble with Corata, actually — killed him before he had a chance to say anything to me, so I never got the control rod. Seemed like less than ideal programming, but maybe it was also less than ideal playing.

 

Originally, I felt that GF1 was something of a disappointment. It felt very mysterious and exciting, but the secret of what the Geneforge was got revealed long before the end of the game, and there was nothing interesting to learn about Sucia Island in the last third of the game. It was just a matter of killing stuff and working through areas to get to Trajkov and help/kill him. There needed to be more to discover, especially in the last part of the game.

 

I felt the same way this time, but not to the same extent. Maybe because I had a vague idea of what I was doing this time, my movement through the map was more directed and efficient. I was paying a bit less attention to the plot and a bit more to the strategy, so it was okay when the plot faded out at the end. It was decision time by then, anyway.

 

Eh, there's my meaningless ramble about GF1. Expect another in a few weeks, when I go through GF2.

[Evnissyen]

The only problem, of course, is keeping those creations alive in the Power Core. Too bad you can't coop them up and tell them to stay home for a little while... tie them up at a post, perhaps, like other people in the game seem to be capable of doing.

 

Also, how'd your creations avoid getting hit right off if you didn't increase their dexterity (even given that you're absorbing and making more powerful creations throughout the game)? Perhaps I don't remember fully, but I don't think your creations can strike first with every foe, in G1, if they don't have high reaction skills?

 

I myself have found it a little wasteful increasing endurance, but dexterity seems more vital.

 

Otherwise... interesting.

[Kelandon]

I didn't bother with the Power Core. And the creations had no issues there, the one time when I did wander in — it was me, the Shaper, who did. I put nothing into Endurance the whole game, so I was still pretty weak at the end.

 

As far as initiative, I forget whether the more important factor was that I relied mostly on missile creatures (fyoras, artilas, drayks) or whether I pumped Fire Shaping from the very beginning and therefore had pretty high-level fyoras even at start. Either way, I pretty much always could get a good round of attacks from most of my creatures before enemies got to attack.

 

I could never have enough Intelligence. I kept dumping skill points into it to get more Essence for stronger creations. It wasn't until the very end, when I had my gang of drayks, that I finally felt as though I had enough Essence. (And after using the Geneforge, of course.)

 

Oh, I should mention that I never bothered changing the difficulty, so I think I was playing on Normal. Torment might've been a different matter.

[Hydromedia]

I always feel as if I'm cheating if not playing on torment. Like I'm robbing myself of the game. Too bad though. Normal sounds fun.

[Kelandon]

Yeah, I just didn't bother to check the difficulty level, so I left it on whatever the default was. I probably should've changed it.

 

I tried GF2 with essentially the same strategy (Shaper who is extremely weak and has many weak creations that get replaced) and it didn't work very well. I'm going with a Guardian emphasizing QA/Parry, no matter how cliche it is.

 

It's interesting that the skill requirements became much more diverse when I chose that route. The Shaper in GF1 basically just pumped Intelligence with every single level. This Guardian in GF2 is boosting QA and Parry, but I also need Strength, Endurance, Melee Weapons, Healing Craft, and a little bit of Blessing Magic, too. (Not to mention Leadership and Mechanics.)

[Brock The Archmage]

wierd...when i play a Shaper i pump all the magic skills, all the shaping skills, Leadership, Mechanics, Intelligence, and somewhere i buy a couple quick action so i can act faster and maybe some dexterity. Oh well.

[Kelandon]

Yeah, the difference was that my Shaper didn't use any magic. This was probably inefficient (should've at least hasted my creations). I dumped some extra skill points into the shaping skills, especially Fire Shaping, especially early on, but for the most part, I counted on my creations living for a while in order to gain levels.

 

Yeah, come to think of it, if I had been playing on Torment, I probably would've needed some magic to spell up the creations. Even as a Guardian in GF2, I'm getting that much.

[Brock The Archmage]

NO MAGIC!!!???? Oh My God!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

I could not ever handle that!!!! ahhhhhh

[Evnissyen]

The Geneforge world is practically built on magic... a Geneforge world without magic is simply... unmagical.

[Upon Mars.]

'Quote: Originally, I felt that GF1 was something of a disappointment.'

 

I actually think that the game is one of the best spiderweb games available.

One There is lot of well timed mystery, humor and is a very hard game to play.

In geneforge we fully appreciate the writing talents of jeff and his team.

 

Oh one thing i had restoration spores and augmented battle betas. the effects of the power core didn't have a chance at getting my creations.

 

 

[Kelandon]

Just finished GF2 for the first time in nearly five years (since November 2003). Apparently I played it twice back in '03.

 

The first time, I played as an extraordinarily weak Shaper with really high Leadership and Mechanics, together with an uber-powerful Fyora (level 37, maxed stats) and a similarly enhanced Drayk (level 40, nearly maxed stats). I couldn't really fight anything, but these creations kept me alive while my Shaper disarmed traps and reasoned with the opposition. This ended up not being very fun, because I couldn't fight anything at all.

 

The second time, I played as a Guardian, also with high Leadership and Mechanics, but with reasonable combat skills. This worked better.

 

This time, I did the Guardian thing again, emphasizing QA and Parry quite a lot, and it was pretty absurd by the end. I had so little health that just about everything that I fought could kill me with one unadulterated hit, if that hit could just be landed. Foes rarely did land that hit, though; I'd at least deflect damage almost every single time.

 

I did think that relying heavily on QA and Parry caused random chance to determine the outcome of fights much more than usual in a Spidweb game, though. I'd save before a combat, and if Parry failed me once and I died, I'd just reload and try again (with exactly the same tactics), and eventually I'd win. Eventually Parry would hold up all the way through.

 

I probably should've played on Torment, not Normal, because Easss was pretty disappointing by the time I got to him. For that matter, so were the other two, who weren't much stronger (as far as I could tell) than regular drayks or drakons. Then again, I don't know what a climactic battle could've been: really huge blasts bouncing off of me over and over again?

 

I specialized in melee, leading to some really ridiculous situations. My strategy for taking down pylons was amazingly stupid but effective: I ran up to them and hit them in melee. I'd kill one, run away, heal, run up and kill another, run away, and repeat until they were all dead. I don't think I'll be bound to melee ever again.

 

I didn't feel any plot disappointment in GF2, the way I did in GF1. I think the reason is that GF2 never builds up a mystery the way that GF1 does, so I didn't really expect anything. I was just exploring and hacking most of the time, and Jeff always builds interesting worlds to explore. The business about Shanti's death was sort of a mystery, but it didn't grip me the same way that the total strangeness of Sucia Island did, so I didn't mind as much when the resolution was simply that I met Barzahl, met his deputy, and killed the guy in single combat.

 

I do think that my ending was a pretty cool one, though. I spent most of the game avoiding those questions about which side I agreed with, remaining cautiously neutral (and never used a canister), and trying not to kill anything when diplomacy could be used to avoid death. Then, when I reached the drakons in Benerii-Uss, I let loose and slaughtered all of them, killed Syros and most of the Taker city, killed Melancon Eye, killed Barzahl and all of his city, killed Phariton, sabotaged the Radiant College, sabotaged the Magus Complex, killed Learned Pinner and most of Medab, killed Zakary and most of Drypeak, and generally rained the righteous fury of the Shapers down on all of the godforsaken place. This gets the unaligned ending, but there are special notes for all of the deaths of the leaders and for the lack of canister use.

 

For GF3, I'm thinking I'll go back to being a Shaper, unless it turns out to suck. I haven't played GF3 yet, so this will be brand new to me. We'll see how it goes.

[Evnissyen]

Interesting. So if I do get around to G2: You're saying it's a bad idea to play a shaper? Or just an absurdly weak shaper? Oh well, looks like I'll be playing an agent yet again.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever get around to playing G2, since G1 ended up boring me. (I got tired of having to hack my way through areas that gave me 0 XP because I should've cleared them already... and there didn't seem to be very many unique challenges or interesting events, I suppose. G3 was better, there. Plus it bothered me that the merchants kept running out of cash.) So... since the G2 demo, as I remember it, doesn't really seem to demonstrate any big advancement in the game or plot, I don't really have the urge to play it. The Shanti disappearance is a nice idea, and I suppose necessary if not obvious, but it's not interesting enough to get me to play the game past the demo. I guess being able to get people to forge items for you is a plus. Maybe some day I'll get around to playing it, but for now there're too many other games I'm interested in playing and haven't gotten around to yet.

 

If somebody can inspire me to play G2 I think I'll be thankful, because I feel like it's a missing piece in my grasp of the whole Geneforge story. I believed Sucia Island should be vital to this story, and I think it is... I'm not so certain about the Barzites, however.

[Kelandon]

It's probably possible to play as a Shaper who puts most of his effort into making strong creations, but making lots and lots of creations isn't quite the uber-tactic that it was in GF1, at least not at first. I didn't play far enough to find out if it ended up being helpful eventually.

 

I'll try a little harder in GF3, though. I'm thinking Shaper loyalist (whatever they call it in that game) with hordes of creations, not unlike what I did in GF1.

 

Recommendations about how to make that work? I'm too lazy to search, so if anyone wants to link to places where this has been discussed before, feel free.

[Randomizer]

I know Slarty discussed Shapers, but the last time I restored the links I couldn't find the topics. I think for the early part of the game on the second island, you create 7 vlish and that will get you through until you can get better creations.

[Kelandon]

After the beginning, I got annoyed with the "loyalist" answers that I was supposed to give and went rebel the whole way. In GF1 and GF2, I waited until the very end to choose a side. In GF3, I'm joining the rebels as soon as I can. We'll see what difference that makes. Also, yes, I put the difficulty level up to Torment, just to see if that makes any difference at all (which it hasn't, yet).

 

Making a pack of fyoras seems to be my strategy early on, just as in GF1. Small early boosts to Leadership and Mechanics, as well as a significant boost to Fire Shaping, and now I'm going to crank Intelligence until I can get three or four fyoras. I grabbed Greta... don't know if that makes any difference yet.

[Evnissyen]

One of the things in GF1 that really bugs me is the Power Core, which will kill all your creations. When I went through GF1 I went through as an agent, and only just before taking on the Power Station did I start making creations.... Playing a Shaper is mostly fun with new games, since there're always new creations. Obviously not the case when you're going from GF4 to GF1... so I chose the traditionally(?) most powerful character, and my favorite (since she's a loner as well as powerful): the Agent.

 

I played through GF3 maybe three or four times (I loved that game), for both allegiances and as both Agent and Shaper... but I never played as a Guardian. (And I think I only dragged Alwan along with me once. I never liked that sour tool.) I was interested in seeing how the guardian character would play out... but I quickly decided it was too difficult and that the difficulty that this character was having sort of took the fun out of it. (I usually play on HARD, since NORMAL is too easy... but the game seems to lean toward magic to a degree that it seems to make playing a character who's weak in magic really almost non-viable... I predicted that I'd really end up having to pour all these skill points into magic which I should've been spending instead on Quick Action and so forth.

 

[Feo Takahari]

One thing to mention, Evynissen (and I really hope I spelled that name right): the Guardian is more powerful in GF3 than in any other game in the series. I swear when I replayed as an Agent, I quit halfway through because she was so much weaker. And if anyone doesn't know what the bleep I'm talking about, I'm guessing they didn't use a Reviving Crystal on their preferred weapon.

[Enraged Slith]

I played GF1 as a Shaper and got bored and quit right before the ending. That was about two and a half years ago or so.

 

I beat GF2 on Torment as the typical Parry/QA Guardian two years ago. If I recall, it was tough at first, got really easy for the majority of the game, got really tough towards the end when Eyebeasts started appearing en masse, and then became a cakewalk once I got the Emerald Chestguard. As a Shaper loyalist, I slaughtered everything and everybody who wasn't part of my faction. As I recall, the only tough fight was against the Learned Pinder (or whatever old hag runs the Awakened.)

 

Same story for GF3 as GF1. If you're curious as to what I found works well it's playing as a Shaper with devoted creations. Once you get Cryoas, the game will be a cakewalk until you find Drayks, which should replace them as soon as possible and can last you until the rest of the game. So, 2 Cryoas will get you through the second island and then 2 Drayks will get you through the rest of the game. I have mixed feelings about this game. It is one of my favorites for the same reasons I hate it at times.

 

I'll probably give all three another playthrough once GF5 is close to release for Windows and also buy/play GF4. First, I have to finish a BoA scenario and actually play A5.

[Kelandon]

I'm doing pretty well on the second island with a horde of vlish. I swerved Rebel immediately but think I swerved too hard, because it looks as though I could've tried to broker a peace between the fighting sides on the second island but I just gave the rebels a canister instead.

 

The factions are much clearer in the previous GFs. I'm finding that I'm having trouble figuring out what my options are in GF3, and it's screwing with my attempt at role-playing. For the most part, I don't care, because I'm really liking the game.

 

At some point I heard that GF3 was something of a nadir of the GF series, in sort of the same way that A4 was for the Avernum series, but I'm not finding that at all. The plot is actually pretty engrossing, and I'm enjoying the engine enhancements and new graphics. My preliminary feeling is that I like it better than GF2. We'll see if I still feel that way after I'm off the second island.

[Evnissyen]

I wasn't on these boards, of course, when G3 & A4 came out, but I still suspect that a lot of the negativity that purportedly emerged and obviously persists in regard to those two games was initially reactionary and thus continues to be so.

[Kelandon]

Reactionary? For GF3? It's not really an engine change in the way that A4 is, so that doesn't really make sense. It's just a tweak in the way that A3 was a tweak on the engine from A1 and A2.

[Enraged Slith]

Despite the fact that GF3 is much more polished than its predecesors, it had a few problems that bothered people:

- It's as linear as the first two were open.

- Islands offer a realistic transition between settings but become a hassle to hoarders and late game backtracking.

- Lack of an option to remain neutral in the face of two very extreme sides.

 

I made a topic a while back that explained my specific problem with the second island. You might identify with it: topic.

 

EDIT: As for roleplaying, you're going to have to bite the bullet. It's easier to be a moderate on the Shaper path as you can play it off as "we're at war so there's no time for opinions (we'll reform later.)" Rebels are just crazy.

[Evnissyen]

Isn't anyone going to inspire me to play Geneforge 2?

[Dikiyoba]

Fine. If you don't play G2 immediately, the Shaper Council will send several Agents to your house to stab you while you sleep.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Evnissyen]

No!

 

Hey, wait a minute... they aren't even real....

[Dikiyoba]

That's what you think. You'll just have to play G2 to find out the details of the Really, Really, Really Big Secret.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Randomizer]

No, if you don't play GF2 you won't understand the secret in GF5.

 

Now Dikiyoba will fume until 2009 when she gets to play.

[Kelandon]

Slith makes a good point, one that I put me off of GF3 when I tried to play it back in 2005. In GF1 and GF2, I made sure not to have an opinion until very late in the game, so I could see all the sides with essentially the same save file. (Replay value is bad when I really, really don't want to replay the game.) In GF3, that was completely impossible.

 

For that matter, it looks pretty hard to take a reasonable path. You have to choose a side that has a lot of things wrong with it. The Awakened were pretty moderate in GF1, and unaligned options were pretty moderate in GF1 and GF2, but there's nothing like that in GF3. I dropped any pretense of choosing I side that I like very much, and I'm just playing an extremist canister-chugging rebel.

 

I don't mind linearity (see my BoA scenarios), but the island transitions are a little annoying.

 

Okay, I get it now. There were legitimate complaints about GF3, though they were quite different from the legitimate complaints about A4. I'm still quite enjoying the game (because I've simply accepted the limitations), and I'm looking forward to a couple of days from now, when I'll be able to play a bit more. Island three, here I come.

[Randomizer]

It's just a pain moving equipment from island to island to have it near a forge or to use later. I must have made a dozen trips just shuffling everything to island 3 and placing it in the right spot for future use.

 

Also by the end of island 3 you must pick a side.

[Ghaldring]

You can turn to the Rebels on Island 4, even if you destroyed the spawner on Island 3.

[Ghaldring]

Kelandon, I enjoyed reading your experiences regarding Geneforge 2. Geneforge 2 is good mindless fun! Perhaps the biggest difference between GF2 and GF3 is that attention is paid to small details in the former.

 

Quote:

The first time, I played as an extraordinarily weak Shaper with really high Leadership and Mechanics, together with an uber-powerful Fyora (level 37, maxed stats) and a similarly enhanced Drayk (level 40, nearly maxed stats). I couldn't really fight anything, but these creations kept me alive while my Shaper disarmed traps and reasoned with the opposition. This ended up not being very fun, because I couldn't fight anything at all.

 

That's the worst build I can think of, and it's no wonder you found it boring. High leadership and mechanics really aren't necessary, and if you are going to specialise in Shaping, you should aim for something better than just a fyora and drayk. For me, a deadweight Shaper works well, as does a Shaper with a mix of Shaping and battle/mental magic.

 

Quote:

This time, I did the Guardian thing again, emphasizing QA and Parry quite a lot, and it was pretty absurd by the end. I had so little health that just about everything that I fought could kill me with one unadulterated hit, if that hit could just be landed. Foes rarely did land that hit, though; I'd at least deflect damage almost every single time.

 

Yes, Parry is overpowered, but if you focus purely on Parry you're going to bite the dust. Especially considering that there are many attacks which bypass parry (The Eyebeast at the Taker road was torture). Guardian's should have creation support.

 

Quote:

I probably should've played on Torment, not Normal, because Easss was pretty disappointing by the time I got to him.

 

Easss is a wimp. I find Learned Pinner to be the hardest sect leader.

 

Quote:

I do think that my ending was a pretty cool one, though. I spent most of the game avoiding those questions about which side I agreed with, remaining cautiously neutral (and never used a canister), and trying not to kill anything when diplomacy could be used to avoid death. Then, when I reached the drakons in Benerii-Uss, I let loose and slaughtered all of them,

 

Lovely. Try taking the Awakened or Taker pathway, it's quite enjoyable.

[Evnissyen]

Kelandon:

Although for reasons already stated I cannot speak for G2, I can say that one of the things I found more interesting about G3 over G1 is that that in G3 you were forced to take one of only two sides, both of which were clearly Wrong.

 

Randomizer:

You are right, though, that moving my stash from island to island was very annoying. On the plus side: The separate islands made strong delineations for the differing social and physical climates... on the negative side, yes, having to constantly move your stash and the chore of moving back two or three islands truly was annoying. Still, I thought it was a good game with a strong storyline. And I loved the Monastery of Tears.

 

EDIT: Plus, in my opinion it had the best opening of all the SW games. I think I've mentioned that before.

 

[Brock The Archmage]

Originally Posted By: Ghaldring

I find Learned Pinner to be the hardest sect leader.

Really? I had more trouble with Syros.

Evnissyen? The reason you should play G2 is because as far as I can tell, it offers the most flexibility and roleplayability out of all the SW games I've played, couched in a nice, yummy Spiderweb brand story.

[Enraged Slith]

Isn't it funny that the most powerful enemy in GF2 is the leader of the Awakened? A decrepit old servile.

 

The one thing that separated GF3 from the other two for me was the fact that when I was wandering through the random zones in GF3, I felt like I was actually accomplishing something. A lot of the hacking and slashing in GF1 and 2 was devoid of any real purpose, despite having more open storylines. The sects never give you much to do in either and you really just end up on your own path of carnage with no real direction, no matter which ideology you follow.

[Confidence]

my opinion is to join the shapers. there are more shaper controlled areas than rebel areas and they offer u great training.

the only reason i got my Rotdhizon was because of Khyrk's training and a skill canister. and he says in response to yor question as to why he dosen't join the rebels if he dosen't agree with shaper ways: "Join The rebels? Those murderers? Those butchers?"

[Kelandon]

Originally Posted By: Ghaldring

That's the worst build I can think of

Well, yeah, I know that now. I didn't then. Like I said, I took that one piece of advice in a change-area screen too seriously.

Quote:

Yes, Parry is overpowered, but if you focus purely on Parry you're going to bite the dust. Especially considering that there are many attacks which bypass parry (The Eyebeast at the Taker road was torture). Guardian's should have creation support.

I had no creation support as a Guardian, and I was still fine, even against eyebeasts. I did have to boost Endurance a bit by that point, so that I could get hit once and not die, but generally I could kill an eyebeast with a couple of swings. They also missed sometimes.

I think those were the fights in which random chance played the biggest role, though.

Quote:

Easss is a wimp. I find Learned Pinner to be the hardest sect leader.

I didn't have any trouble with any of the sect leaders. But then, I was level 42 or something by that point.

[Kelandon]

I'm working my way through Donal now. I'm finding that my pack of vlish (half terror, half regular) is very strong against most things, but it struggles a bit against certain patterns of immunities. Submission turrets refuse to be defeated except by my vlish in melee, which is sketchy at best. I've kept one fyora since the beginning, and in cases in which my vlish can't do much damage, I have them throw poison and acid while Greta and my fyora do the real damage.

 

I'm really looking forward to getting drayks and such, because I have ridiculous amounts of extra essence at this point, and I need to blow it on something.

 

I definitely am working my way through the island on my own, with very little or no help from Greiner's troops. I freed the guy from his possession (had to look up how to do it, because the dialogue options are less than obvious), but his troops seem so weak and hesitant that I haven't bothered to ask them for much. I'm still playing a crazed, canister-guzzling rebel looney, so I don't know why I care so much about not wasting Greiner's troops, but I guess it's just that I want the XP to myself.

 

I've sold all missile weapons and wands that I've found, and I've just been saving crafting items, because I haven't really looked into how they can be combined just yet. I guess I should do that soon.

 

I'm hoping to make some serious headway in the next couple of days, because I've spent too long on island 3.

[Ghaldring]

Why aren't you shaping Glaahks, Kel? You can buy Glaahk shaping very cheap from the Shaper at Dhonal's Keep (not inside the keep itself, but the town around the keep), and they will solve your problem of magic resistant foes.

 

And Island 3 is probably the only interesting island.

[Kelandon]

The vlish deliver a different kind of damage in melee, so if I'm reduced to fighting in melee, the vlish can already do the job; glaahks wouldn't help me much. I just want a creature that attacks at range and delivers good fire/cold damage (but is also pretty high-level by default). Hence, drayks would be the perfect solution, but I can't get them yet.

 

It's not a huge problem. Like I said, I'm wiping out the western part of the island unaided, but it does cause a reload every now and then when I get swarmed. A huge part of my strategy is avoiding getting swarmed (and has been for a while).

 

I should probably be blessing my troops a little more often. I rarely do, except when I have to reload after a hard fight.

[Randomizer]

GF3 is the first in the series where daze is an area effect instead of a single target spell. I found this worked great for swarms for the first 3 islands. I never got around to visiting the next island.

[Kelandon]

Nothing that's strong enough to give me trouble can be affected by Daze.

 

I finally broke down and made some ur-glaahks. I don't see much of an increase in strength, unfortunately, but I gather I'll be able to replace them with drayks soon enough, now that I'm on island 4. Or something. Not sure what exactly I'm going to do on this island.

 

And the trip was a pain in the butt. Took me four loads to get all of my stuff over, but now I realize that I should probably be selling some of that garbage.

 

UPDATE: Ach. Turns out that a newly-created drayk would be lower in level than the fyora that I've been dragging along since the beginning, so I'm keeping the fyora until I can get cryodrayks or drakons. And just as soon as I add some melee power to my repertoire with the ur-glaahks, I run up against pylons. I'm tempted to replace the ur-glaahks with drayks despite the level difference (drayks = 25, ur-glaahks = 33), just for the sake of dealing with the pylons in the mines, but instead I'll deactivate them and then take them down one-by-one for XP.

 

Man, the moment I can shape drakons or gazers, I'm going to blast the heck out of everything I meet. I've cranked Intelligence to get the most Essence I can, and I'm just itching to make some high-powered range creations.

[Kelandon]

Near the end of island 4, I found a canister of Create Rotghroth, and my troubles were over. Those are melee creations strong enough to satisfy me, so I replaced my three ur-glaahks with three rotghroths.

 

I ran into a problem on Island 5, though. Ice End is now hostile to me. It might be because a drakon in Spire Forest (I think) approached me, and due to my canister use, I had to kill it. I can't think of anything else that I did between the last time that I was in town and this time, and the town wasn't hostile then.

 

Now I have to de-hostile Ice End somehow before I continue playing. I can figure it out myself from the scripts (presumably an SDF somewhere), but if anyone knows what's up, I'd appreciate you saving me the effort.

[Brock The Archmage]

pleaselikeme won't work?

[Kelandon]

Nope. I'm off to read the SDFs to see what it is. I'll edit when I find it.

 

EDIT: Weird. It wasn't killing Khossos Blaze. It was entering the cave that he was guarding, which is flag (79,4).

 

It didn't seem like it'd be killing Khossos Blaze, insofar as I clearly had no choice, and it's not like Jeff to doom a player like that, but I would've appreciated some sort of warning when I entered the cave ("The rebels at Ice End probably wouldn't like you going any farther" *takes two more steps* "Oops, you just triggered an alarm, and now even the rebels hate you — sucks to be you").

 

Looking closer, I see that Khossos does give a warning to the non-canister-mad. Lame.

 

Oh well. On to finish the game, I imagine.

[Kelandon]

Whew. Okay, separate post for a totally separate set of ideas.

 

I swore I'd finish the game today, and I did, even if it took me a dozen hours. Now I can get on with my life, at least until I start GF4.

 

For all my thinking that I had enough essence to create really powerful creations, I finished the game at level 33 and Int 21, but I still didn't at all have enough essence to make my army of drakons that I envisioned. I ended up with one drakon, two rotghroths, and two terror vlish (that ended up at level 38 since I had kept them for so long), plus Greta (who was completely maxed out). I wanted to make more drakons, but I just didn't have enough essence.

 

The less-than-ideal set of creations then may have helped make history occur: for the first time in any Spidweb game, I actually struggled with the final battle of GF3! The rebel ending reminded me a little of raiding Hawthorne's palace in A1, but it was how Hawthorne's palace should've been (full of difficult guards, climaxing in a tremendous battle at the end).

 

I had been collecting (but never really needing) essence pods and speed spores, and I needed a bunch of them to make it through the final battle, plus about four or five reloads to get the timing right (not being ambushed from behind). This was pretty cool.

 

Overall, GF3 was a fine game. Travel across the islands was a pain in the neck, and for being such a pain, it was necessary surprisingly often. Other than that, the engine adjustments were good and very welcome. A better selling system and a better "getting" screen are the two that I particularly noticed. The new graphics were also nice, where they appeared. This was my first game in which I had tier-4 creations (since I played GF2 as a Guardian), and they were pretty neat, though they didn't come into the game nearly early enough.

 

Speaking of the engine and the creations, the pathfinding algorithm seemed to need some work. I had creations refuse to go through doorways on a regular basis. I had creations get stuck in open areas just because they were right next to another creation. This had been a small problem before, but I noticed it a lot in this game.

 

The plot was engaging (and more noticeable than GF2's), though I have to say that no one reacted quickly enough to my joining the rebels. Greta asked me on island 5 if we should join the rebels. I'm thinking, "We've already given away canisters, repaired rogue creation spawners, and murdered shapers. Do you think the loyalists will let us back onto their side?!" I joined the rebels almost instantly, and the game couldn't really handle that in many of the dialogues.

 

It looked as though there were middle-of-the-road options available as resolutions on most of the islands. I'm curious to see how a peaceful loyalist game might turn out, since I think it would end up radically different from a canister-chugging rebel. If I ever do play GF3 again, I'll play a no-canister middle-of-the-road loyalist Agent.

 

Oh yeah, one more thing: the use of cut scenes was exciting when they first came in, but they pretty much vanished not very far into the game. They really needed to continue. I like a good cut scene here and there (as everybody who knows me knows).

 

So yeah, fun. Better than I expected. Better than GF2, I think.

[Evnissyen]

Cut scenes like what, like the little 'visit' Litalia pays you once you leave the school?

 

I'm not sure that's a cut scene so much as story progression? Especially since you are able to interact through dialogue, just not through action?

 

Cut scenes can be good if done well, sparingly and in the appropriate places.

 

[Student of Trinity]

How'd the Monastery of Tears work out for you, Kel?

[Kelandon]

Huh, never noticed that post. Well, if it's still at all interesting to know, I didn't actually go very far through the Monastery of Tears. Just before the final battle, I was near enough to leveling and getting another point of Int that I wandered off that way to gain some XP, but that was all I did out there.

 

Should I have done more?

[Student of Trinity]

The Monastery and its underlying Caves are the G3 installment of the standard Geneforge pair of optional überzones, like the Shaper and Inner Crypts in G1, and Outer and Inner Gazak-Uss in G2. The G3 versions were pretty good, I think, and anyway they're a good measure of how powerful your character and tactics ultimately became in the game.

[Kelandon]

Eh, I couldn't just walk through, the way I did in GF2 with my Parry-based Guardian, but I was able to work through it, as long as I was careful not to get swarmed (as usual).

 

I did find that the key was making my creatures stun things. I could kill anything as long as it couldn't hit back.