Profile for Student of Trinity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Student of Trinity |
| Member number | 3431 |
| Title | Electric Sheep One |
| Postcount | 3335 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| G3 ? - Skill Points and Item in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 19 2006 21:04
Profile
Welcome to the boards. G1 is my favorite of the three by a slight margin, but G2 is good too, you know, and fills in some of the story before G3. Levelling up is the only way to get the skill points that you can then apply to any ability you choose, but there are several ways throughout the game to get extra points in various abilities. If you've played G1 you'll know the main one, but there are also trainers and books. I often end up hoarding a few, mostly just because eventually you have to save up through a couple of levels just to gain a single point in your higher abilities. Flawed crystals are just for cash. Selling candles is probably not worth it, and even selling tools is more trouble than most people consider worthwhile. You can probably only bother about better items, and still not be short of money in the end. The boss at the end of the first island is kind of tough, most people find. You can search around for some tactical advice for this particular battle; scroll down in the FAQ and there should be something. As to your character, you may be spreading your skill points around too much. You don't really need dexterity and you shouldn't need Strength much because as a Shaper you shouldn't be needing armor for melee. You shouldn't need Endurance much because your creations should be taking all the damage for you. What you need are decent shaping skills in one of the three types (I like Magic best), and high Intelligence so you can make more creations. What creations do you have? For a shaper, this is the crucial point. With half a dozen Artilas, and War Blessing, that boss shouldn't be too much trouble. Add a Speed spore for good measure and it should be easy. What difficulty setting are you on? If you've made some mistakes in building up your character, you could drop it to Easy, then crank it back up if you found it too easy. I think you can delete the excess save slots by deleting their files from outside the game, but be careful you don't delete the ones you want to keep. I generally end up using several, though, because I like trying dubious things. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Where are the Geneforgers? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 19 2006 09:23
Profile
It's just that all the bots are down for maintenance. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Children in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 18 2006 15:06
Profile
It's not clear that there are any baby Ornks. Ornks may just emerge as adults from Shaper vats. Or, in at least one case, a Spawner. Or perhaps young ones are brought by the stornk. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| V for Valkyr in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 18 2006 07:40
Profile
If you keep calling someone crazy and you're wrong, you're unfair. If you keep calling someone crazy and you're right, you're taunting a sick person for being sick. And if someone's just playing crazy, don't feed the trolls. I make no reflections on GremlinJoe's sanity; I don't know him or his life, and I'm not a psychiatrist. For whatever reason, he often comes across as strange. I think he knows this. I think everyone knows this. Let's just take it for granted. [ Tuesday, July 18, 2006 07:42: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Children in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 18 2006 01:16
Profile
Also one in Zhass-Uss, I seem to recall. Playing behind a building where there's no other reason to go, so if the town did go hostile you could probably escape fighting the little dude. In fact I think if you're careful you can whack all the Drayks and things without hurting any of the noncombatant Serviles. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Oh my God, you just can't make this **** up. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 18 2006 01:11
Profile
You didn't catch the allusion to Heidegger in that last word. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| browser in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, July 17 2006 20:36
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Ha, I knew it. I was having all those problems loading this site yesterday because all YOU people were dragging it down with your error messages. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Time for another, most embarassing moments thread. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 16 2006 23:43
Profile
In this context, and with no further details to be provided, I can extend an important warning: Cuban cigars typically taste mild but pack a lot of nicotine, and if your nicotine tolerance is low you may have trouble. Nicotine is technically a poison, and what does 'technically' mean here? Nothing. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Children in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 16 2006 09:02
Profile
He's just describing the logic involved in eliminating children in order to eliminate the possibility of killing one, while still allowing the possibility of killing everything else in the game. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Signature of Your Dreams in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, July 14 2006 10:34
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What are prolini? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Oh my God, you just can't make this **** up. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 12 2006 23:23
Profile
Trinity is a difficult subject. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Worst game possible: First round in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 12 2006 04:28
Profile
A Dying Earth CRPG would be very cool. Heh. Hey, I once played a pen-and-paper RPG based on Michael Moorcock's world of Elric, called Stormbringer. It had a horrible combat system in which death was relatively rare, but wounds very common. The result was that is was very hard to put an enemy out of action reliably; a hero had to take several rounds to kill the weakest opponent. But it was very easy to get your character maimed, and it was a near thing whether your rising experience levels would compensate for your accumulating handicaps. The old sci-fi RPG Traveller had a combat system that was similar but not quite as bad, in that there were no hit points, and instead damage subtracted temporarily from your ability scores. So it was almost impossible to kill anything with one shot, but it was quite easy to take a hit that would lower your dexterity to the point where you couldn't hit anything any more, or your strength to the point where you couldn't wield your weapons. At least you could heal afterwards, but until then one hit could make your character useless for the rest of the game. Conceivably realistic, but not much fun as a game. For all its flaws, the D&D combination of random hits and damage subtracting steadily from a large hit point total makes it easy to keep going effectively for a while, then retreat before you get killed. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shaper hypocrisy vs. Shaper tragedy (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 12 2006 04:11
Profile
I guess it's just a matter of extrapolating from the areas we've seen in the three games so far to the Shaper heartlands. Just how different are the fringes from the center? I'm guessing not so much, you're guessing a lot. Perhaps we'll see more in G4. The Shaper Council does seem kind of ineffectual, though. If you leave G2 too soon, they drag their feet about dealing with Drypeak, and get overwhelmed. And your poor little apprentice PC always has to do the hard work for them, but then gets treated as a mere apprentice, despite being 50th level and able to take Benerii-Uss before breakfast. They just don't seem very clued-in about power, and that's not good in a Shaper Council. I'm not sure what the Shapers should do, other than putting the brakes on until they do find something to do, however long that takes. Add a few more ethics courses in Shaper school. Build in a lot of tests of character into the curriculum, as wells as tests of skill, and make these tests be about more than whether you believe in keeping the Serviles down. Give normal humans (maybe even Serviles?) some voice in risk management discussions, so that Shaper arrogance doesn't always carry the day. Maybe the Shapers are just doomed, by now, the time in which they might have steered their society straighter having passed centuries ago. I doubt there was anything much Gorbachev could have done, for instance, to salvage the Soviet Union at his point. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Civil Unions disallowed in ACT in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 12 2006 03:38
Profile
Actually, what is the latest verdict on the prevalence of homosexuality? My understanding is that Kinsey's figure of 10% came from a survey in which college students and prison inmates figured disproportionately, and in which 'homosexuality' was defined rather broadly. Last I heard, no subsequent study had found anything higher than a few percent. I'd be interested to hear an update. The 10% figure is popularly cited, I think, because it tends to make homosexuality seem less marginal. A 10% minority is actually pretty big. If it voted in anything like a bloc, it would swing most elections. It would constitute a major consumer market. The percentage of the population between the ages of 15 and 24 is only about 15. 10% has a good shot at commanding respect; 2% doesn't. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| weight suggestion for G4 in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 12 2006 03:19
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New creation in G4, by popular demand: Pack Elephothizon This is by far the largest creation ever developed. It carries all your stuff, is indestructible, and drips acid. Best to wrap your stuff up well before you load it on. Base essence cost: 800. With 2 points of intelligence: 8000. Not having to carry everything yourself: priceless. ************************************************ New creation in G5, by popular demand: Elephotizonhound This fast, huge-mouthed, acid-resistant Roamer variant will keep your Elephotizon moving at a decent speed, and stop it from wandering off in combat. It will also sometimes accidentally swallow your lesser creations whole, particularly your Eyebeasts. ***************************************** New creation in G6, by popular demand: Annihilation Vlish This creation floats ahead of you and uses its magic rays to disintegrate all valuable items before you even see them, so that you never have to bother about carrying stuff at all, and don't miss it. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shaper hypocrisy vs. Shaper tragedy (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, July 12 2006 03:03
Profile
To clarify my first scenario again, it is not that all Shapers are hypocrites or megalomaniacs. It is just that too many of them are prone to megalomania, such that all it takes is a bit of temptation, and they start chugging canisters and making monsters. And given that, it is (according to this scenario) foolish and reckless of Shaper society overall to keep on with its research and rule, as if its discipline were much better than it actually is. It ought to be freezing all research, and pulling out the serviles that are laboring to build labs in hostile places, until it can get its collective act together, purge its own ranks of latent corruption, and return with the right cultural tools for the job. Instead, Shaper culture may not actually encourage corruption, but it tolerates it too much. It punishes rogues who get caught, but it does not do enough to keep unreliable people out of responsible positions in the first place. In this scenario, Shaper culture (not all individual Shapers) is like an alcoholic who refuses to recognize that he has a problem. He talks about self-control, and demonstrates it in periodic bursts, but the fact is that he is fundamentally unreliable. However much part of him may believe in discipline, another part of him is just waiting for a big enough temptation or a good enough excuse to fall off the wagon again. Even in this scenario, the Shaper empire can be considered successful. It may have strewn the world with sealed labs, but it has grown and avoided total catastrophe at least until the present Rebellion. But in this scenario the success of the Shaper empire is kind of like the success of the Soviet empire in the real world: a ramshackle regime that muddles through the minefields of history, occasionally exerting great coercive force, and otherwise piling up waste and riddled with corruption behind a solid ideological front. Many of the individual cogs in the big machine may be honorable, or even heroic; but the system they serve in staggers and lurches. And a system like this can still be resilient, in a sense, just because it is so big. The whole Rebellion (in its current form) had to start with one overlooked vat growing in G2. The Rebellion is small, and it is not surprising that an intercontinental empire, even a dysfunctional one, might squash it by concentrated effort. Personally I still find this scenario the most persuasive. An ignorant apprentice has had to pull the Shapers' chestnuts out of the fire three times now, and my respect for the Shaper council is not running high. Observing their deeds more than their words, I've started thinking of them as a politburo of grey old geezers in baggy suits, much better at pulling triggers on easy targets than at solving grave problems. For what it's worth, I'm still more inclined to support the Shapers than the Rebels. I just think of them as a lesser evil rather than the good guys. About Sucia Island and Danette: I don't actually remember any indications in G1 that Danette followed ancient clues, but I presume that she might have, since otherwise it is just a wild coincidence that the Geneforge was discovered on the same island that gave birth to the Shapers centuries before. About the Runed Servile guy (can't remember his name, don't have the games here to look him up): I had indeed forgotten the remarks that indicate he was okay until meeting Litalia. Still, even though Litalia may have corrupted him, he camps close to Dhonal's Keep without anyone ever giving you a mission to rub him out. Rahul never mentions him; for the moment, at least, he is being let lie. It certainly seems as though a sortie from the Keep could easily wipe him out. But okay, perhaps he is just being overlooked in the excitement of the war. Finally, about why there are so many sealed labs: of course the sealed labs are really all there just to provide dungeons. And cool dungeons they are; exploring a sealed lab sure seems more exciting than just some cellar currently serving as a monster flophouse. But the question is whether Jeff made the sealed labs by special creation, or through the evolutionary mechanism of a dysfunctional Shaper society. EDIT: Important clarification: In this pessimistic scenario, I am still only criticizing the Shapers according to their own lights. The basic injustice of creating and using Serviles is another issue, and on it I don't think the Shapers come out as well. [ Wednesday, July 12, 2006 03:56: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Viva Italia !!!!!!! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 11 2006 12:18
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Nobody's upset over Zidane headbutting a guy just because he headbutted a guy. The problem is that he headbutted a guy in a sport where that is an incredibly dumb thing to do, just because those are the rules. Imagine Michael Jordan (or whoever has taken his spot since I stopped following the NBA) trailing in game 7 by one point with a second left to play, and he just grabs the ball and travels the length of the court. In American football people grab the ball and run with it all the time, but basketball people would freak. Not because he ran with a ball: because he threw away the big game idiotically. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shaper hypocrisy vs. Shaper tragedy (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, July 11 2006 12:01
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In the Wow G4 thread, I argued at some length that the long-term and collective behavior of Shaper society is very much like the mad rashness of the various rogue magicians that the Shapers condemn. Like the many rogue magicians we have seen in the games, Shaper society pursues dangerous experiments to increase its power, mistakenly believing that its controls will prevent catastrophes. We have seen many instances in the game of dangerous accidents, yet Shaper society has not stopped trying dangerous experiments. Ironically, then, Shaper society seems to have something of the Rebel madness in its collective soul. So I argued, citing episodes from G1 to G3 which seemed to show that an alarmingly high percentage of Shapers are latent megalomaniacs. But as Waylander argued against me earlier in that other thread, it is not clear that the examples seen in the three games are typical of Shaper society. They could all be dreadful exceptions. So I think that at least two alternative scenarios are also possible. We might first suppose that the original Geneforge on Sucia Island was an unprecedented event. It happened, and happened there, because Danette and company ran into some sort of records from the aboriginal culture that had launched Shaping in the first place. Plausibly, those early proto-Shapers had suppressed the most dangerous Shaping secrets; with this suppression came the stability that enabled them to build the Shaper empire. Clues to these deadly secrets survived in their most ancient records, however. Danette found some of these, and the rest is history. If Danette really was unique, the speed and throughness with which her project was shut down were remarkable achievements. Perhaps implausibly so; but perhaps the Shaper Council is a remarkable bunch of folks. And perhaps it isn't because sealing labs and barring regions are common that the apprentice PC recognizes these as standard Shaper procedures. Perhaps Shaper education just drums these ideas into students, precisely because of how shaken the Shapers were by the first Geneforge. After Danette, there are still alarmingly many instances of fully indoctrinated Shapers going power-mad for canisters or geneforges, and doing the really dangerous things of G2 and G3. But it could be that Goettsch wasn't really picked up at random: perhaps only a somewhat corrupt Shaper would have been sailing close to a barred island in the first place. Then perhaps a single brilliant but unscrupulous character like Barzahl might naturally find his way into the clean-up team. And once the Rebels get rolling, they are good at finding people like Litalia. Plus they find out-of-the-way places, like the Ashen Isles, where rogue Shapers and magicians do occasionally manage to escape the generally excellent Shaper vigilance. On this view, the prevalence of corruption in Shaper ranks is actually very low. In fringe areas one does find a fair number of eccentrics; but only in fringe areas, and these eccentrics are generally successfully contained. The problem is just that a very few bad apples have gotten their big chances after the secrets of canisters and the geneforge have gotten out, and they have seized their chances. Shaper society is thus in a unique crisis. Perhaps indeed in retrospect a crisis like this was bound to happen eventually, and one might fault the Shapers for not anticipating it. But in this scenario, the Shapers had no idea that all this could happen, until Danette dropped her bombshell; by then Shaper culture had a lot of momentum, and a big empire, and they've been doing their best to cope anyway. They may be victims of a historic irony, but they are tragic victims rather than fools. A second scenario which also tends to exculpate the Shapers: Rogue magic is and always was very common in Shaper society, but this is just because magic is actually quite easy to learn in the Shaper world. So magicians are cropping up constantly. The Shapers are doing their best to suppress the necromancers and monsters, but it's an uphill struggle. They make deals where they have to, sometimes turning a blind eye to wacko hermits making Runed Serviles or Experimental Gammas, in order to contain them while sparing their few reliable people for cases that cannot be settled by such compromises. And they enroll all the talented younsters they can find in their Shaper schools, hoping to turn as many as possible into disciplined Shapers. Given the raw material they start with, a fair proportion of their graduates are still latent megalomaniacs. But they are trying to walk a fine line between producing trained maniacs and not producing enough Shapers to control the maniacs. It's tough, and they're doing their best. Under this second scenario, Shaper discipline is indeed about as flawed as I alleged in the other thread, but the Shaper ideology is not hypocritical: it's determination in the face of adversity. They're collectively trying to 'fake it till they make it', believing in the disciplined society that they are actually still struggling to build. And then the Geneforge comes along ... I think that the evidence available in the games doesn't really suffice to force a choice between the three scenarios I have now outlined. One can still be persuaded of one of them -- or of some other one -- based on subjective impressions; for myself, I'm still sticking with my first one, of Shapers as slow Takers. But this is a matter of opinion. Perhaps G4 will resolve things. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Wow (G4) in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, July 10 2006 11:55
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Not 'topic' as in the thread title; just the multi-post discussion/argument within it to which Major was replying. I wasn't faulting him for board etiquette, but criticizing the logic of his counter-argument to Thuryl. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Wow (G4) in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 9 2006 22:29
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The discussion is not about Rebels vs. Shapers, but about inconsistency between the long-term behavior of Shaper society as a whole, and official Shaper ideology. Whether or not the Rebels would do any better is irrelevant to this particular topic. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Viva Italia !!!!!!! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 9 2006 12:02
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France did seem to play better than Italy, at least to me. But the Italians hung on until their opponents made mistakes. And what a mistake: this just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth about the whole thing. Zinedine Zidane, perhaps minutes away from leading France to the world championship in the last game of his long and illustrious career, gratuitously and blatantly head-butts an opponent in the chest. It was not a collision; it was a deliberate attack, from a standing confrontation. The only discernible provocation was that the Italian player had just held Zidane back with his arm, itself probably a minor foul; but the ball wasn't close or coming close, and the play wouldn't have been important. Zidane just snapped, inexplicably. Red card, he's gone, France is down a man for the last few minutes of the second overtime period, and is missing him for the penalty shoot-out. So stupid it reaches tragedy. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Viva Italia !!!!!!! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 9 2006 10:55
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Second half over and still tied: France had a lot more attacks, but couldn't get through. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Oh my God, you just can't make this **** up. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 9 2006 06:10
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Drakefyre eats for the brood. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Worst game possible: First round in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, July 9 2006 06:05
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Hmmm. This makes me think of Titan, which was originally a cardboard-on-tabletop game but has by now been ported pretty effectively to computer (and it does have the barest minimum qualification as an RPG). It is a quirky game in many ways, but overall a very good game. Once two armies meet on the main board, they fight on a separate board and the players have full control over moving their units. But the strategic movement on the main board is more like a kids' game than a wargame: you roll a die, and each unit typically only ends up with a couple of options for where to go that turn. Which enemy units you engage, whether or where you can retreat, and what new units you can recruit, are all heavily affected by pure chance. But this is also sort of liberating in Titan, and even contributes to the game's fun spirit of monsters slugging it out: tactical cunning fits right in, but elaborate strategy is not the point of the game. So somehow a reduced amount of control in a crucial feature seems to be okay, if it is done right. For one thing, strategy is not eliminated from Titan. You do have choices, and you can estimate the chances and play the odds. You can adopt various sets of principles to guide your choices, and over several games one can observe the relative merits of different styles of strategic play. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Worst game possible: First round in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, July 8 2006 23:35
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Majesty sure does sound bad. Important units or characters being beyond the player's control does sound like a winning feature. You could bill it as a strategy feature, that you have to recruit, equip, train and lead various in-game entities. And at first it goes okay. But then you spend the last half of the game laboriously pumping up your heroes, in all kinds of tedious ways, only to discover in the endgame that the AI is an algorithmic representation of mouldering toast, and your heroes all die ludicrously without your being able to lift a finger to help. Perhaps a theme is emerging here, that effectively denying the player control over essential units, at essential times, makes for really bad games. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |