Profile for Replicant

Field	Value
Displayed name	Replicant
Member number	406
Title	Apprentice
Postcount	12
Homepage
Registered	Sunday, December 16 2001 08:00

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Recent posts

Author	Recent posts
Mesage to Mertis (Vorhees) in Avernum 4
Replicant Apprentice Member # 406	written Saturday, January 14 2006 06:00 Profile #1 Vorhees is actually in the north part of Mertis. He's one of the farmers wandering around outside the buildings; you probably mistook him for an unnamed NPC. Try walking around the north part of Mertis with the Tab key held down. Posts: 12 | Registered: Sunday, December 16 2001 08:00
Character DISadvantages in Blades of Avernum
Replicant Apprentice Member # 406	written Sunday, May 23 2004 13:57 Profile #0 It's very common to pick the positive character traits for your PCs - Divinely Touched, Elite Warrior, and Natural Mage are all perennial favorites. Have you ever picked one of the bad character traits, either for the extra experience or to make things more interesting? I just started a party where all 4 characters are Completely Inept and Cursed at Birth. I felt like doing something different and challenging, but didn't really enjoy the idea of playing a singleton. (Maybe later...) I haven't hit the really difficult parts of the included scenarios yet, but so far it's been pretty fun. The big experience bonus, on top of not having the 20-40% penalty for picking good character traits, means that my party levels very fast, and I get to enjoy more PC development. I imagine that I'll start needing those extra levels once I meet tough monsters that can take advantage of my party's cursedness and ineptitude. Thoughts? Posts: 12 | Registered: Sunday, December 16 2001 08:00
WTF are we still in Iraq. in General
Replicant Apprentice Member # 406	written Tuesday, January 20 2004 22:17 Profile #16 Question: Several people have said that GWB began the war out of some greed for power. On what rationale would you say that a war in Iraq increases his power? Let us remember for a moment who we are talking about: the President of the United States, the single most powerful man in all the world. You can argue that Congress collectively wields more real power in the United States, if perhaps not as flashy a kind of power, but individual Congresspeople don't have anywhere near as much influence as Bush. There is no office, station, or holding which exceeds the power, prestige, and importance of U.S. President. As such, if Bush were to coldheartedly calculate the course of action that would ensure him the most power, his overriding goal would be one word: re-election. Bush's power is therefore measured in American votes, not Iraqi oil. So why would a truly power-hungry politician, already secure in his office with an enormous post-9-11 popularity rating and a made-to-order issue to stand on in the form of the war on terror, embark on such an obviously controversial and politically dangerous undertaking as the war in Iraq? Posts: 12 | Registered: Sunday, December 16 2001 08:00
improvements for geneforge 3.... your thoughts in Geneforge Series
Replicant Apprentice Member # 406	written Thursday, January 1 2004 17:49 Profile #78 I personally have two big wishes for Geneforge 3. Thing the First: Missile weapons. In Geneforge 2, missile weapons had the potential to be a flexible and fun gameplay option, but for the most part aren't. Interesting possibilities exist - there are weapons that disable, deal damage over time, or strike many targets at once - but for the most part they aren't borne to fruition. The first reason is that missile weapons really don't fit in to any of the character types. Guardians get the skill the cheapest, but are tough enough that they don't need to avoid close combat and powerful enough that they would rather be in the thick of it anyway. Agents get the skill at a reasonable price but would rather use Battle Magic. Really, Shapers are the ones that want to use missile weapons the most; they're frail enough to want to attack from a distance, and using missiles instead of magic saves their essence for making, healing, and blessing a bunch of creations. But Shapers get the worst price for the skill, meaning that missile weapons don't have a 'home.' The second reason missile weapons aren't so hot is that they simply lack power. Melee weapons not only deal more damage, they also come with a chance to hit twice. Quick Action is really nothing more than "Melee Weapons II," a second category for point placement that really does the same thing as the first one, i.e., make your melee attacks stronger. Finally, missile weapons suffer from inventory management. First, you have to manage ammunition. Wands, crystals, and batons all have to be managed and kept track of in order to be used. They also take up valuable space in your inventory. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the game, inventory management tends to be boring rather than challenging. You can leave a zone any time you want to and go stash things in your home at Drypeak, so it's easy to take enough items for one trip and leave the rest at home... easy, but tedious. More importantly, the finite amount of ammunition makes missile weapons less enjoyable. As a rule, the more interesting and fun a particular weapon is, the fewer times you get to use it; for example, the most useful wands appear only a few times in the entire game and can't be replaced once depleted. Set aside for a moment the challenge aspect of conserving ammunition. Using wands and crystals to cast cool spells is fun. Running out of ammunition forever is not fun. It's reasonable for there to be restrictions on missile weapon uses, but I think it would be better if the restrictions didn't involve never being able to use that missile weapon again. Second, simply using missile weapons is a minor hassle. If you want to switch between a melee weapon and a baton, not only do you give up any magic bonuses on the weapon and 3 action points for the round, it also means searching through your inventory, finding the baton, switching it for your sword, and putting your sword back in the inventory. If you have to do that every battle, those seconds spent clicking and dragging add up to a lot of bother. Now, inventory management is a valid part of the game, and tasks that require clicking on your inventory aren't exactly uncommon in RPGs, but those minor hassles add an extra layer of annoyance to an already unrewarding tactical decision. So, my first wish for GF3 would be to make missile weapons more flexible and easy to use. Having two weapon slots, one for melee and one for missile, would go a long way. That would make missiles much more convenient, especially if you could switch through the two attack options just like you can switch to and from battle magic in GF2. Making it easier to manage and replenish ammunition would also be a great help. For one thing, it would be nice if wands could be recharged. Considering how much Shapers seem to enjoy hooking things up to gigantic, glowing energy crystals, you would think they would have figured out a way to put magic back into a pointy stick. Likewise, considering that thorns literally grow on trees, it seems reasonable that you would be able to periodically return to where thorn bushes grow and get new thorns rather than scouring the world's supply caches and merchants for fresh stock. Plus, that would give a natural balance and symmetry between the three kinds of missile weapons and their ammunition. Thorns would take time to grow, but wand recharging and crystal purchasing would be available on demand. Wands would only be able to contain so many charges, so you would have a capacity limit on your ammunition, wheras you could carry around as many thorns and crystals as you could pack on. Finally, crystals would be the most expensive ammunition, since living things and magical energy are naturally cheap, or even free, for Shapers. Thing the Second: The economy. I just recently finished a game of GF2, and less than halfway through the game, gold become worthless. I chose to join the Servants, and as a result, Rising was the last place I found merchants that would deal with me. I ended the game fabulously wealthy, with a house full of salable valuables, and nobody to sell to or buy from. Furthermore, even if anybody was willing to trade, there wouldn't have been anything for me to trade for. All of the best equipment is found by killing monsters and completing quests anyway. I could have bought usable items like pods, spores, and so forth, but those are common enough that I was never in danger of running out of even the most valuable items. Now, I do understand that things would be different if I played the game differently. The Servants have the fewest purchasing options overall, for one thing. Other sects can spend money on powerful high-level abilities. For another, if I were playing on a higher difficulty level, I would probably have found myself buying those extra supplies and running out of things. Still, the point remains - at some time, usually well before the end of the game, every player will find him or herself with a lot of money and nothing to spend it on, and I think that that's a shame. Let me illustrate why. Let's say you get some loot for doing something - killing a monster, completing a quest, a bit of good old-fashioned home invasion, whatever. If you get a shielding pod, you have one more shielding pod. If you get an essence pod, you have one more essence pod. If you get a battle pod, you have one more battle pod. But if you get enough money to buy a shielding pod, an essence pod, or a battle pod... you have a decision to make. Making those decisions - what do I spend my money on? - is part of the fun of the game. Just like creating your own custom army of horrible mutant creatures is fun, just like choosing skills to make your own custom Shaper is fun, buying and selling things to make your own custom inventory kit-out can also be fun. But, if nobody is selling powerful items, or if you end up with powerful items whether or not you spend money on anything, then that customization opportunity does not exist. So, I hope that GF3 has a more robust economy, with merchants both more available and more necessary. Posts: 12 | Registered: Sunday, December 16 2001 08:00
improvements for geneforge 3.... your thoughts in Geneforge 2
Replicant Apprentice Member # 406	written Thursday, January 1 2004 17:49 Profile #78 I personally have two big wishes for Geneforge 3. Thing the First: Missile weapons. In Geneforge 2, missile weapons had the potential to be a flexible and fun gameplay option, but for the most part aren't. Interesting possibilities exist - there are weapons that disable, deal damage over time, or strike many targets at once - but for the most part they aren't borne to fruition. The first reason is that missile weapons really don't fit in to any of the character types. Guardians get the skill the cheapest, but are tough enough that they don't need to avoid close combat and powerful enough that they would rather be in the thick of it anyway. Agents get the skill at a reasonable price but would rather use Battle Magic. Really, Shapers are the ones that want to use missile weapons the most; they're frail enough to want to attack from a distance, and using missiles instead of magic saves their essence for making, healing, and blessing a bunch of creations. But Shapers get the worst price for the skill, meaning that missile weapons don't have a 'home.' The second reason missile weapons aren't so hot is that they simply lack power. Melee weapons not only deal more damage, they also come with a chance to hit twice. Quick Action is really nothing more than "Melee Weapons II," a second category for point placement that really does the same thing as the first one, i.e., make your melee attacks stronger. Finally, missile weapons suffer from inventory management. First, you have to manage ammunition. Wands, crystals, and batons all have to be managed and kept track of in order to be used. They also take up valuable space in your inventory. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the game, inventory management tends to be boring rather than challenging. You can leave a zone any time you want to and go stash things in your home at Drypeak, so it's easy to take enough items for one trip and leave the rest at home... easy, but tedious. More importantly, the finite amount of ammunition makes missile weapons less enjoyable. As a rule, the more interesting and fun a particular weapon is, the fewer times you get to use it; for example, the most useful wands appear only a few times in the entire game and can't be replaced once depleted. Set aside for a moment the challenge aspect of conserving ammunition. Using wands and crystals to cast cool spells is fun. Running out of ammunition forever is not fun. It's reasonable for there to be restrictions on missile weapon uses, but I think it would be better if the restrictions didn't involve never being able to use that missile weapon again. Second, simply using missile weapons is a minor hassle. If you want to switch between a melee weapon and a baton, not only do you give up any magic bonuses on the weapon and 3 action points for the round, it also means searching through your inventory, finding the baton, switching it for your sword, and putting your sword back in the inventory. If you have to do that every battle, those seconds spent clicking and dragging add up to a lot of bother. Now, inventory management is a valid part of the game, and tasks that require clicking on your inventory aren't exactly uncommon in RPGs, but those minor hassles add an extra layer of annoyance to an already unrewarding tactical decision. So, my first wish for GF3 would be to make missile weapons more flexible and easy to use. Having two weapon slots, one for melee and one for missile, would go a long way. That would make missiles much more convenient, especially if you could switch through the two attack options just like you can switch to and from battle magic in GF2. Making it easier to manage and replenish ammunition would also be a great help. For one thing, it would be nice if wands could be recharged. Considering how much Shapers seem to enjoy hooking things up to gigantic, glowing energy crystals, you would think they would have figured out a way to put magic back into a pointy stick. Likewise, considering that thorns literally grow on trees, it seems reasonable that you would be able to periodically return to where thorn bushes grow and get new thorns rather than scouring the world's supply caches and merchants for fresh stock. Plus, that would give a natural balance and symmetry between the three kinds of missile weapons and their ammunition. Thorns would take time to grow, but wand recharging and crystal purchasing would be available on demand. Wands would only be able to contain so many charges, so you would have a capacity limit on your ammunition, wheras you could carry around as many thorns and crystals as you could pack on. Finally, crystals would be the most expensive ammunition, since living things and magical energy are naturally cheap, or even free, for Shapers. Thing the Second: The economy. I just recently finished a game of GF2, and less than halfway through the game, gold become worthless. I chose to join the Servants, and as a result, Rising was the last place I found merchants that would deal with me. I ended the game fabulously wealthy, with a house full of salable valuables, and nobody to sell to or buy from. Furthermore, even if anybody was willing to trade, there wouldn't have been anything for me to trade for. All of the best equipment is found by killing monsters and completing quests anyway. I could have bought usable items like pods, spores, and so forth, but those are common enough that I was never in danger of running out of even the most valuable items. Now, I do understand that things would be different if I played the game differently. The Servants have the fewest purchasing options overall, for one thing. Other sects can spend money on powerful high-level abilities. For another, if I were playing on a higher difficulty level, I would probably have found myself buying those extra supplies and running out of things. Still, the point remains - at some time, usually well before the end of the game, every player will find him or herself with a lot of money and nothing to spend it on, and I think that that's a shame. Let me illustrate why. Let's say you get some loot for doing something - killing a monster, completing a quest, a bit of good old-fashioned home invasion, whatever. If you get a shielding pod, you have one more shielding pod. If you get an essence pod, you have one more essence pod. If you get a battle pod, you have one more battle pod. But if you get enough money to buy a shielding pod, an essence pod, or a battle pod... you have a decision to make. Making those decisions - what do I spend my money on? - is part of the fun of the game. Just like creating your own custom army of horrible mutant creatures is fun, just like choosing skills to make your own custom Shaper is fun, buying and selling things to make your own custom inventory kit-out can also be fun. But, if nobody is selling powerful items, or if you end up with powerful items whether or not you spend money on anything, then that customization opportunity does not exist. So, I hope that GF3 has a more robust economy, with merchants both more available and more necessary. Posts: 12 | Registered: Sunday, December 16 2001 08:00