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What now? (Stuck) in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, March 10 2007 17:51 Profile Homepage #3
The door near Cotra you can't get to should have a map on it pointing out that there's another door near Formello that you can easily miss. It's hidden around a bend north of the city on the way to Motrax's old lair.

—Alorael, who would be surprised if you couldn't get into the Formello door. If you can't, though, there's another test near Grindstone. They all have to be done in order.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Geneforge world geographical questioning. in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, March 10 2007 17:47 Profile Homepage #1
Geneforge and Avernum are entirely separate worlds.

—Alorael, who will leave it there. There are many reasons why a link is implausible, but more importantly there are no signs that anyone in Geneforge is from the Avernum games or vice versa.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
This probly belongs on WoTC, but... in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, March 10 2007 17:45 Profile Homepage #5
There's also this attempt.

Mostly I think the races break down because in Exile/Avernum they're balanced against humans by being stronger in a few areas and receiving less experience. That doesn't really match the usual D&D approach to humanoids, but Avernum doesn't point out any real balancing weaknesses. Hence the various +1 LA variations.

—Alorael, who objects to having a shaper class that is essentially unable to do anything. It's really just an excuse to bring creations into the fray. Besides, Geneforge doesn't seem to have any shapers who don't throw magic around too.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
New Games in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, March 10 2007 13:11 Profile Homepage #2
A new series will start some day, but not while Avernum and Geneforge are lucrative and can reasonably be continued.

—Alorael, who expects Avernum to continue indefinitely. It's Spiderweb's flagship world.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Exile in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, March 10 2007 10:42 Profile Homepage #4
The Exile games can't be registered separately anymore. You get them all together with their editors for a very nice price.

—Alorael, who wouldn't be so quick to condemn Fantasoft for their editor. Spiderweb sold the editors for the Exile games separately from the games themselves for a long time. That only changed long after the Avernums were made and editors became standard issue.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Spam Poetry in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, March 10 2007 10:37 Profile Homepage #7
Rage polar bear inside demon living with tabloid and cyprus mulch...

—Alorael, who now realizes that he has left yet another duty undone. Back to work and pestering and crypticness!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Really anticipated ideas for A5?? in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Saturday, March 10 2007 00:17 Profile Homepage #42
ToME does very strange things to inventory, but it does strange things to just about all aspects of Angband. I have a healthy respect for it, but I mostly play Vanilla. It's a slightly more thought-intensive version of Tetris, really, and I don't want to have to think about character optimization with a complicated skill system.

—Alorael, who also fills his home with clutter. It's not usually hard to decide what to wear and carry, though. Some mods are essential, some are extremely helpful, and some are gravy. By the time you have the essentials covered, it's usually clear which extremely helpfuls fit. Then you probably end up with the odd feather fall or slow digestion because Angband is like that.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Really anticipated ideas for A5?? in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 9 2007 22:44 Profile Homepage #38
Inventory management in Angband isn't complicated. You just have a whole lot of slots for equipment, and once you start getting artifacts you'll have a lot of abilities to mash into each slot.

—Alorael, who thinks it's about time to start Rangband. Ten rings don't have to be just a dream! And it's not like anything else exciting is being done with with or two vanilla Angband right now.

[ Friday, March 09, 2007 22:49: Message edited by: Decalorael ]
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Partners and the beginning of the game in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 9 2007 22:40 Profile Homepage #1
Their deaths are assured. They don't make it to Southforge one way or another.

—Alorael, who also made the amusing discovery that the enemy creations will go to absurd lengths not to kill you. Apparently they're very picky.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Really anticipated ideas for A5?? in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 9 2007 18:52 Profile Homepage #36
I've actually thought that it would be interesting to have a game in which you can wear ten rings, but each ring can only be worn on certain fingers. When you've got one that can go on any finger of your left hand, one that can go on either thumbs or little fingers, one that can go on any finger as long as two identical rings are adjacent to it, and a pair of rings that must go on the ring fingers of both hands, what to use becomes a puzzle.

But probably not an interesting puzzle so much as a headache, which is probably why nobody does that sort of thing.

—Alorael, who also always wonders why nobody gets to wear mismatched enchanted gloves or boots. And why never earrings? Or how about getting some piercings to fit more hardware for more bonuses? No real adventure values esthetics over the chance to get +1 damage when attacking marmosets of unusually flighty disposition.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Canister Poisoning in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Friday, March 9 2007 09:34 Profile Homepage #20
What genes do you modify to make someone reach become fissile and reach critical mass?

—Alorael, who on the other hand could see the Shapers or the rebels developing a way to make people and creations suddenly become significantly more like pyroroamers. It would serve as a magnificent way to kill someone spectacularly, it would be a potent psychological weapon, and all sufficiently canistered-up rebels would find it hilarious.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Conservapedia in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 8 2007 21:21 Profile Homepage #24
Wow.

quote:
Conservapedia says:[b]
It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field.
[/b]

Well, there goes science. We should trust only the opinions of those are unqualified! They don't have any preconceived ideas, either.

quote:
Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him.
Global warming is a form of man destroying, or at least seriously mucking up, the Earth that God gave him.

—Alorael, who needn't go around debunking stupidity. He does have a problem with premise 3, though, because it's a common argument against global warming that really makes no sense. Why the Earth is heating up isn't really important; it's catastrophic even if it's just bad luck. Fixing it is rather important.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Canister Poisoning in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 8 2007 21:14 Profile Homepage #15
I've always imagined that canisters alter every copy of the genes in question in every cell in the user's body. I don't think someone whose entire body is shut down to become a virus factory would make a very good vector. The canister user would be too likely to collapse and die immediately.

Really, if the Shapers wanted a virus and understand biology well enough to create one in a canister, they could shape one and release it by, say, putting it in an ordinary glass vial and having a creation smash it near some rebels. That's not a good strategy, though, because as Thuryl said they only want to kill rebels. They also probably don't want to die themselves, and there's no genetic basis by which a virus can target rebels and spare Shapers.

A virus that removes the ability to shape might work better, but given the Geneforge skill system it's not entirely clear that learning the hard way or from canisters doesn't result in exactly the same changes. If ability is ability, the Shapers still wouldn't want to cripple themselves with an anti-shaping virus. Maybe the best they could do is create a virus that specificallly removes the ability to shape drayks, drakons and gazers. Even that would do very little against anyone but the most powerful rebel shapers.

—Alorael, who actually can see the Trakovites making the anti-shaping virus if they ever get a powerful shaper sympathetic to their cause. That would make the war very interesting.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Conservapedia in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 8 2007 17:12 Profile Homepage #21
quote:
Originally written by Cryptozoology:

quote:
Originally written by Airborne Raver:

Demopedia doesn't need to exist because Wikipedia obviously has them covered. Well, maybe. Democrats aren't all godless ultra-liberal pinko hippy treehuggers like Wikipedians.
With all due respect, you don't seem to know Wikipedians very well. There's a reason Ayn Rand's article is one of the longest on the site.
Hey, if Conservapedia says so it must be true, right?

—Alorael, who is going to start an article on the links between miscegenation and being smitten by God now.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
You can do anything if you set your mind to it. in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 8 2007 11:53 Profile Homepage #26
Most people with the power and authority to fix the worst of the education system have no vested interest in doing so. I'm sure relatively few people revel in keeping the poor ignorant, but most people just have better things to do at the end of the day because it's not their kids who are in decaying inner-city schools with incompetent staff afflicted with irrational curricula.

—Alorael, who himself does not understand economics well enough to understand how credit card companies benefit from saddling the poor with unpayable debts. Heavy debts, fine, but it's in the interests of those companies to get repayed.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Really anticipated ideas for A5?? in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 8 2007 11:49 Profile Homepage #30
Don't click the Add Reply button more than once and you won't get quadruple posts. I still don't see what expertise with computers and the internet have to do with knowing Spiderweb sales data, but I guess I'll let it lie.

—Alorael, who doesn't think houses for sale are especially useful. They're nice for flavor, but they don't do much when items are saved everywhere anyway. Besides, if A4 follows G4's generally liked system of encumberance for equipment only, strength will no longer be necessary for hauling loot.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Conservapedia in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, March 8 2007 11:42 Profile Homepage #15
Demopedia doesn't need to exist because Wikipedia obviously has them covered. Well, maybe. Democrats aren't all godless ultra-liberal pinko hippy treehuggers like Wikipedians.

—Alorael, who now has two serious questions, one for a creationist and one for a proponent of intelligent design. Perhaps he should head over to the appropriate Conservapedia talk pages. It can at least be a test of how civil the internet wing of the Christian right can be to a questioning liberal.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Conservapedia in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, March 7 2007 18:41 Profile Homepage #3
Evolution, or at least the origin of life, requires a local decrease in entropy. How fortunate for us that the Earth is not a closed system!

—Alorael, who knows which wiki he'll continue to use as the source of all knowledge of dubious provenance.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
New Cold War US-Russia? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, March 7 2007 16:51 Profile Homepage #49
Ozone absorbs ultraviolet light, which is good for us because ultraviolet is highly energetic and dangerous to our health. Ozone doesn't reflect it, and it can in fact act as a greenhouse gas by absorbing light and energy. Less ozone would mean more chances for ultraviolet light to bounce, I suppose, but I really have no idea how much of the solar energy that Earth receives comes in the form of ultraviolet.

—Alorael, who wants to see statistics on heat produced by wires and appliances. Yes, use of electricity produces heat, but it's not much of a contributor to global warming, and global warming is not the same issue as energy production although they're now linked by CO2-emitting power sources.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Rentar-Ihrno in The Avernum Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, March 7 2007 16:03 Profile Homepage #3
If you're playing A3 you can beat Rentar-Ihrno eventually but there's really no reason to do so unless you want bragging rights.

—Alorael, who recommends patience and budgeting a lot of time to do it.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Canister Poisoning in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, March 7 2007 15:53 Profile Homepage #6
If the Shapers could make canisters as weapons and thought that the idea would kill rebels, they'd be out making them. There are some problems, though.

First, canisters are expensive and can probably kill one and only one rebel at best. Canisters apparently alter genes, and altered genes aren't exactly a communicable disease. Then there's the problem of distribution: the rebels are going to be very suspicious of any canisters found among Shapers. Where do canisters get placed to rebels will use them and how long will they keep using canisters they haven't made themselves?

—Alorael, who ultimately doesn't think the effects of canister warfare could cause enough damage to justify the hefty costs and logistical problems. All that money could be going into making new creations that are drakons' equals in power and less likely to start shaping themselves.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Really anticipated ideas for A5?? in Avernum 4
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, March 7 2007 15:43 Profile Homepage #23
Why would your friend know anything about the comparative successes of Spiderweb games? Jeff occasionally hints at the games whose sales numbers are spectacular (A4) or lackluster (Nethergate), but he's never really given solid data.

—Alorael, who is happier without alchemy. It's a skill that you can easily get by without, but having it eventually enables you to get more skill points. That's just a balance nightmare.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
New Cold War US-Russia? in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, March 6 2007 19:17 Profile Homepage #36
Earth's supply of uranium is limited. It's just not nearly as critically limited as fossil fuels right now. If uranium buys us a century or two to figure out power, that's not a bad deal. In that time we can work the kinks out of using thorium and get more time. Hopefully somewhere in that interval someone will work out how to get energy out of nuclear fusion and we'l be set.

—Alorael, who doesn't think the problem with fossil fuel is running out per se. It's running out of fuel that's cheap enough to use. Uranium is quite cheap and it's all over.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
You can do anything if you set your mind to it. in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, March 6 2007 18:00 Profile Homepage #11
I'll admit that I wish I'd thought of a way to peddle mind over matter to make money, but I'll settle for unnecessary alliteration.

—Alorael, who read in the NY Times a while ago that the two parties responsible for the book have begun a bitter dispute over rights, methods, and most importantly who gets the money. Apparently their advice hasn't all worked out perfectly for them. As much as they wish each other dead, they're still around.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
New Cold War US-Russia? in General
Or else o'erleap.
Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Tuesday, March 6 2007 11:43 Profile Homepage #34
My hope is still that people will figure out that we need power from somewhere in time to start building a whole lot of nuclear plants. Unpleasant catapulting into the nuclear age beats missing the boat and plunging half the world back into the Stone Age due to lack of power plants.

—Alorael, who has low expectations for other technologies. Nobody really expects novel technologies, though, or they wouldn't be all that novel.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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