Join the Club?

[Retlaw May]

I think that I'll start a club, the "I was waiting since G1 to use the geneforge again, but was found the use of the geneforge in G4 somewhat anticlimactic." I liked G4, but that geneforge was weak.

[Randomizer]

I, like Groucho Marx, don't believe in joining any club that will have me. After all if their standards are that low, who else will they let join.

[Retlaw May]

Just because you would want to join doesn't mean I'd let you in.

[Sudanna]

Aye.

[Emperor Tullegolar]

I would like to join that club. Even though I don't think it made the game any less awesome than it was, it sort of ruined my whole obsession with it as a source of unlimited power. I used to say canisters were only bad because the geneforge made them obsolete, but now I have no reason to stop using them, ever.

[Student of Trinity]

I really wanted Jeff to insert some explanation about this. He does have someone mention that the Geneforge you used was probably not much like the original. But I wanted an explanation that said that the new generation of Geneforges had been designed to minimize the insanity risk by acting slowly, and in combination with the subject's own actions. Thus, keep casting spells, and over a few months the Geneforge's effects will gradually make you an awesome spellcaster; etc.

 

This would then finally give an explanation for why, unlike all the NPCs, the player grows quickly to godlike power by simply hacking around and fighting stuff: gaining experience levels is really the gradual, delayed effect of the Geneforge.

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

No. It helped the plot.

 

SoT - The Shapers on Sucia Island had the best lab equipment of that time, peace and a lot of time. The Rebels had bad lab equipment and revolution to deal with. Do you really think that the product would be as powerful?

[Upon Mars.]

Yes when it's hidden and closed off of corse.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Kyrek:

 

Quote:

SoT - The Shapers on Sucia Island had the best lab equipment of that time, peace and a lot of time. The Rebels had bad lab equipment and revolution to deal with. Do you really think that the product would be as powerful?

They probably could make one as powerful, now that they have a pattern to build off of. They built powerful ones in G2 and G3, didn't they?

 

Dikiyoba.

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

You have to work hard to keep something like a being created Geneforge hidden. Also, most of the mages would be making canisters, not the Geneforge, to supply the rebel humans.

 

Another thing, there were many skilled and experienced Shapers making the origanal, while for these ones there are only newly created Lifecrafters.

 

Drakons built the powerful ones, and they are very powerful. They didn't bother making the human ones because they feel the humans are not worth their time.

[Randomizer]

The Southforge Citadel Geneforge was made by the drakons to create cannonfodder for the Rebellion. It appears to be deliberately weak so those serviles and humans that use it won't be a real challenge to the drakons. Also considering the side effects even without using a canister, it wasn't well made.

 

I think this is a drakon plot to sow chaos by creating a large number of unstable people and then release them into the world. Meanwhile the drakons stay back in safety making their army to attack when the shapers are weakened.

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Question: do we know whether the Northforge Citidel geneforge is for humans or drakons?

[Lilith]

It's made for humans and serviles, which is why the drakons have been neglecting it ever since they started work on the Unbound.

[Student of Trinity]

Granted, the rebels' current Geneforge-creation capabilities seem rather below those of Sucia Island in its heyday. Since Tuldaric is mysteriously MIA, the closest thing to a Danette that the humans or serviles seem to have left is Litalia. The tasks she feels up to seem to be things like reverse engineering Wingbolts: sophisticated shaping challenges, but hardly in Danette's league. And it's clear that the Southforge rebels are under a lot of pressure from the Shapers, enough to hamper Geneforge creation efforts.

 

But the Southforge Geneforge was built in happier days for the rebels, before the Shapers closed in. It's pretty clear that Southforge Citadel used to be a very secure base, far from the front lines, and that its Geneforge was built back then. And the whole point of the Geneforge story, the bell that can't be unrung, is that it doesn't take a Danette to make the second Geneforge. Once the basic ideas are out, and once it's known that the thing is truly possible, people of much less genius can follow her path.

 

It does seem possible to me that the human side of the Rebellion acquired its knowledge of Danette's achievements through the drakons. Ghaldring does seem to have been the only gifted rebel survivor of the canonical ending to G2. And I'm sure the drakons are not above deliberately weakening the human/servile 'forge. So, yeah, I'd accept this scenario as a possible explanation for Geneforge Junior.

 

I still find this a doubtful scenario, though, just because everyone you meet in the game, Rebel and Shaper, human and drakon, all speak about the rebel Geneforges as though they confer really significant powers. And it is evident that the Rebels have been producing Geneforged Lifecrafters for some time: the PC is not the first Lifecrafter, but the last. So even those Rebels and Shapers who have no direct knowledge of how the southern rebel 'forge worked would seem to have had direct experience of its products.

 

None of the characters who are thus impressed with rebel Geneforging is likely to be awed by firebolts and fyoras. So to me the only plausible resolution is that the Southforge Geneforge actually does have immense effects. They just take time to develop. The ability of the PC to gain levels so rapidly, through adventuring, is the Geneforge at work. People who have not been Geneforged cannot multiply their health, energy and essence by killing rogues and disarming mines. And that is why it never occurs to Alwan, for instance, that he and his handful of lieutenants could easily whup the drakons, if they just farmed the Barrier Zone for some experience first. They couldn't. You can, thanks to the wonders of modern geneforging technology.

 

(You have to overlook the fact that Alwan gained quite a few levels by adventuring in G3. Well, he never gained enough levels then to stop being a total wimp.)

[Lilith]

You also, of course, have to overlook the protagonists of G1 through G3, who gained phenomenal powers at just as speedy a pace without geneforgery.

 

And you also have to overlook Khur and Shotwell, who apparently haven't used the Geneforge, yet gain levels alongside you much like Alwan in G3. (Admittedly, also like Alwan in G3, they don't really stop sucking however many levels they gain.)

[Lattan]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
I still find this a doubtful scenario, though, just because everyone you meet in the game, Rebel and Shaper, human and drakon, all speak about the rebel Geneforges as though they confer really significant powers. And it is evident that the Rebels have been producing Geneforged Lifecrafters for some time: the PC is not the first Lifecrafter, but the last. So even those Rebels and Shapers who have no direct knowledge of how the southern rebel 'forge worked would seem to have had direct experience of its products.

Hmmm. I always just figured the Southern Geneforge was considered so powerful because it could give serviles the power to craft and cast magic, and it could let humans do the same thing without the years of study otherwise required (remember, your characters in the past games are all old apprentices who have been learning magic and memorizing different formulas for years).

[Slawbug]

This is another situation where premises were designed for G1 and made perfect sense, but were not updated accordingly with the new settings. The rapid experience gain made sense in G1. It was accounted for by the fact that you were using canisters (a pretty fair assumption in G1). Other people couldn't do it as well because they weren't Shapers, but the ones who used canisters *were* significantly more powerful.

[Student of Trinity]

Even in G1, it was never explained that the level gain was a delayed effect of canister use. You could tell yourself that, but the game didn't tell you.

 

I gave up hoping for a levelling explanation in G2 and G3, since there the "no canister, no modification" game is a very reasonable one, and since the games are full of heavily modified NPCs, all supposedly struggling fiercely, but all actually sitting pat while the PC overtakes them in power by killing rogues. That leaves "you're a historic prodigy" as the only possible explanation for the PC's meteoric ascent, but then this doesn't jibe with the fact that NPCs who really ought to recognize a historic prodigy still treat you as an apprentice twerp.

 

But in G4 there was such a neat possibility to take the conventional RPG conceit of levelling into the game itself, and I'm disappointed Jeff passed it up. I tried to sell him on it during beta testing, since it would only have needed one added line of dialogue. He didn't bite. It's a shame that in games that do so much of other interesting stuff with the theme of gaining power, the greatest source of power is left as an unexamined (and rather ludicrous) genre convention.

[Upon Mars.]

So what would that club have?

Discussions? Stories? What? So as rules?

You can all talk about it but you can't make it :

Tell us how are going to organize your club.

[Dikiyoba]

It's more of a figurative club than a literal one, upon mars. And it doesn't involve anything more than being unsatisfied by the G4 geneforge and occasionally complaining about it.

 

Dikiyoba.

[wary wanderer]

Just for the record, if upon mars were to join, this (or any?) club would be significantly less appealing...

[Upon Mars.]

In that case you all seem altruistic to me .

 

WE all see reality in a different way because people come up with after 1 minute hundreds of other realties of one single event.

 

Excluding me and saying i am a weirdo is not going to change the fact that we are all different and alien to one an other is it ?

 

The world is cruel and make us mad we are all mad.

 

Ladies and Gents we are Alice in wonder land chasing the white rabbit of hope that makes us still going running all over the place.

We sing the same song why is the world so awful? why is paradise here? why is Diki and Niki like ice cream and why am i like that ? We have bits of the puzzul but we can figure that out. Believe me i don't know and i am shure you haven't a clue.

 

From the fact i can't totally think like you, i have deduct this.

I am as human as you lot, i am lost like you and i am only writting here to make me forget the awfullness of life .

And here people don't even realise that !

Childish people with childish dreams !!!!!

[kenn5]

dont think that aves nothing to do with G4 Upon Mars

[nikki.]

Quote:

Originally written by upon mars:
why is Diki and Niki like ice cream and why am i like that ?

What flavour? And why are us two, out of a couple hundred people "ice cream"?

Also, on topic, from what I've read and heard about GF4, I will probably be a member of this club when Jeff finally finishes the Windows port.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Nikki:

 

Quote:

What flavour? And why are us two, out of a couple hundred people "ice cream"?

Probably because we've been nice to him. Or we give people brainfreezes. Whichever.

 

Dikiyoba.

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

Quote:

Just for the record, if upon mars were to join, this (or any?) club would be significantly less appealing...

Ummm...........

He doesn't make the club less appealing......

And seriously, don't flame him. I'm not exactly sure that you wouldn't make the club any less appealing.

[Student of Trinity]

I hereby declare myself Grand Mugwump and Supreme Dictator-for-Life of this club. (I'm not making the same mistake twice.)

 

By the power invested in me, through the august office(s) I now hold by merit of preemptive claim, I disband the club. I raze it to the ground, disgruntle its fortifications, sow its fields with salt, and spit on its grave.

 

And no saying it's alive again, or I'm going home!

[Dikiyoba]

Grab your children and run for the unzones! Student of Trinity has taken one too many canisters and gone mad! He's taking over!

 

Dikiyoba.

 

Edit: Typo.

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Quote:

Student of Trinity:
By the power invested in me...

I'm afraid this grammar malfunction is going to cost you your claim to leadership. I hearby vest the power in myself to keep this club going. Mission Statement: To assure, through much whining and polite begging, that the geneforge in Geneforge 5 is disgustingly overpowered, at least enough so to make it once again worthey of being the game's title.

[Skrat]

I, too, was dissapointed that I didn't gain more power by using the Geneforge.

I think that having the Geneforge so accessible in the early part of G4 diminished the possibility of immediate and extreme alteration of power. Afterall, how much fun would the game have been if you were almighty at the start, rather than gaining power through experience and adventure? I think having access to the Geneforge at a later point in the game would have been more interesting for those of us who wanted to experience the same satisfaction of becoming omnipotent.

 

As far as the club goes, its too bad that dissention has killed it!

 

"If decade after decade the truth cannot be told, each person's mind begins to roam irretrievably. One's fellow countrymen become harder to understand than Martians."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Skrat:

 

Quote:

Afterall, how much fun would the game have been if you were almighty at the start, rather than gaining power through experience and adventure?

Please note that this is a rhetorical question, Emperor Tullegolar, you dirty cheater.

 

Dikiyoba.

[kenn5]

lmao when its out for the win's computer ill have to get and see for my self, then i might see if ill join, SoT go home

[Upon Mars.]

I don't know what flavor likes Diki but i am sure he like ice-cream.

I will let you know if i would join the club, i like the idea .

G3 kind of "( BIP )" cause it doesn't open in anyway faster the rebel shaper war onto a big scale kind of a boring passage between G2 and G4.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by upon mars:

 

Quote:

I don't know what flavor likes Diki but i am sure he like ice-cream.

Because everyone likes ice cream. If you don't, you're just crazy.

 

Dikiyoba would like to be something chocolate flavored. Or perhaps cookie dough. Or maybe mint chocolate chip. Mmm...

[Alorael at Large]

Power doesn't wear a vest. It wears a suit and often is indeed involved in investments.

 

—Alorael, who is also pretty sure that power and grammar aren't keeping company these days.

[Micawber]

Quote:

Originally written by Alorael:
Power doesn't wear a vest.

Power might wear an infiltrator vest.

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Power wears a black cloak and hood, everyone knows this.

[Micawber]

Direct linking to that site doesn't work, unfortunately.

 

By coincidence I watched that film this afternoon, right after slaughtering everything in Gazak-Uss, yet again. Just 10 more days till GF4 and a whole lot of new opportunities for slaughter, yay!

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Oh, now I have to find a new source of Palpatine quotes...

[Retlaw May]

I am Grand Master of the club, of course. And if any do not submit to my rule I will burn their crops and sow salt into their fields and force them to work the land until something edible grows.

[kenn5]

stop quoting the obvious

[Demon Blade]

Go to hell.