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Well, things look good so far. Second-person narration is an interesting approach, but considering the nature of the beast (a videogame that already uses second-person extensively) it works pretty well. I'd say you could stand to have a few more screenshots just to break up the text a little, but that's just me. Good luck with the LP!
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Nov 13, 2016 17:26
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:08 |
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Stay Neutral, at least until we can really understand what the different factions are up to. So far we mostly only have the Awakened's word on things.
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Nov 13, 2016 21:05
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Oh yeah, is "Satan" really meant to be mentioned in the last update? 
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Nov 14, 2016 00:46
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:"Satan" is a pretty good one from the text capture program! I'm not sure how a "w" became "ta," but there you have it. The weird spaces, letter l for capital I substitution, and periods where commas should be stem from that; the program seems kinda error-prone, but it's still much faster than manually transcribing the game text. Next update will get a run through a grammar checker so I don't miss any more of these errors, since my proofreading isn't catching everything. Onward and upward! Quality! My policy for this kind of thing (any big text update, really) is to write it, then let at least one night pass before I re-read it, correct any mistakes I notice, and post. I don't know if that'll be any help for you though; writing styles are a pretty idiosyncratic thing.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:15
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Night10194 posted:This is a goddamn fascinating setting. It's kind of sad though -- Vogel says that sci-fi settings don't do as well as fantasy, so I think we can assume he'll be sticking to fantasy from here on out. 
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Nov 18, 2016 00:09
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Hey, why don't we just teach the serviles to shape and let them solve the problem for us?
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Nov 24, 2016 23:08
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SIGSEGV posted:And if you ever get short on names, I'm sure we can get the names of some illustrious posters in there like Ironic War Criminal, Toblerone Triangular, Qalnor and Rrail. I have no idea who any of those are.
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Nov 26, 2016 16:20
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mauman posted:When Vogel does a remake of this game, I fervently hope he puts in a soundtrack. I believe his stance on music is that he can't afford to pay a musician for a soundtrack with an appropriate scale for a 20+-hour-long game, so he'd rather you supply your own tunes. Exiles 1 and 2 had a single piece of MIDI music each (Bach's Little Fugue, and some music that I think was ripped from one of the Dune videogames) which would just play on continuous loop, and let me tell you, that poo poo got old pretty quickly.
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Nov 28, 2016 15:52
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Xander77 posted:You can literally have a computer program produce variations on a basic theme in order to create something like the soundtrack for Arcanum. Yes, you can, and it's super cool, but so far as I'm aware you still need to put a ton of work in if you want to add something like that to your game, and Jeff is nothing if not vicious about his cost/benefit analyses and cutting out things that are more effort than they're (financially) worth. At the moment, that's the kind of feature you add when you care more about your artistic vision than you do about making a living off of your game. Hopefully someday soon that will change, but we're not there yet.
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Nov 28, 2016 16:37
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mauman posted:If his goal is to increase accessibility, I would respectfully disagree with your post. Adding music would increase accessibility for a number of people, myself included, that have issues with silent games. I don't need music in a game, but it really helps sell it to me and I know quite a few people who would agree with that sentiment. I won't try to argue with this (because I think really we just don't have the data one way or another), but I am curious: why is it a problem for you that the game has no soundtrack? I don't think I've heard anyone complain about that before. And as a second question, what's the issue with just playing your own music?
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Nov 28, 2016 21:28
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mauman posted:Quite frankly, I could go on here. Now, does that answer your question? Yes, it does, and thank you for writing the post. I wasn't trying to argue you down, just understand your position. Anyway, onwards!
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Nov 29, 2016 18:48
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vdate posted:In the same vein, I'm a little concerned about the whole 'canister-induced crazy' business. Seems like it's eroding empathy and giving us a touch of the old megalomania. Those are probably traits that would raise some concern when we get off of Sucia! Nah, my hypothesis is that the canisters are melding you towards the Ideal Shaper. What, you think that Shapers aren't rear end in a top hat megalomaniacs? The Shapers on this island were just trying to figure out a more efficient way to train their replacements that didn't involve a bunch of rigorous culture-fit testing. Why try to find people that have the right mindset when you can just make them have the right mindset?
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Nov 30, 2016 05:03
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What does Syros take from you? Does he permanently reduce your max essence or something?
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Dec 4, 2016 04:59
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4 Let someone with authority deal with the Serviles, who really are just playing petty politics amongst themselves. Who cares what serviles think? Our priority is to stop the outsiders; they look to be a legitimate threat to greater Shaper society.
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Dec 6, 2016 04:11
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I'm still convinced you got into that big fight earlier in an attempt to kill off your fyoras. 
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Dec 9, 2016 03:50
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:You usually also won't be running around with starter tier creations either, which makes pylon-bashing marginally less irritating... ...not that you're bitter or anything.
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Dec 10, 2016 02:41
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PurpleXVI posted:One thing I appreciate about Geneforge 1 is how much of the gameworld is optional, either for the purpose of MORE POWER, MORE GEAR or just MORE FLUFF. I think that a good fourth of the game's areas you can completely ignore, if you want. One thing that Jeff Vogel's games are very good at is being sprawling, nonlinear affairs. It really helps sell the whole "you're plopped down in the environment and can do basically whatever" experience without leaving you with the vast tracts of emptiness that tend to show up in your average open-world RPG.
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Dec 12, 2016 22:08
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Night10194 posted:So, the fact that Trajkov stopped using the Canisters suddenly while studying the Geneforge, uh, worries me. A lot. He doesn't sound like the kind of guy to easily give up a source of power and I fear he discovered a terrible cost that awaits Solution. The impression I get is that the mysterious other Shaper revealed some (possibly false) hidden cost of using the canisters. We have no idea what the other Shaper's motivations are, but it seems reasonable to assume that they have no reason to like the Sholai. There's a few interesting things going on here. First off, there's the mysterious Shaper. Who are they, where did they come from, what do they want? Second is the spreading wastelands that are slowly turning the island into a poisoned desert. Third of course is why the island was Barred in the first place. Here's my wild, completely unfounded hypothesis: the mysterious Shaper is the Geneforge, a Shaper who has advanced their arts so far they are able to able to rewrite living beings any way they wish. In particular, they have total mastery over their own body, which makes them functionally immortal. However, there's some cost or poison associated with this power; perhaps the Shaper cannot naturally recover essence and thus must drain it from the island to use their powers (much like that drayk eats peoples' essence, only on a larger scale). Hell, maybe they've extended their being into the island itself somehow; that'd provide a neat explanation for why there's all those rogues hiding in closets!  The other Shapers from 2 centuries ago decided to simply abandon the island rather than try to kill this seemingly-immortal Shaper. If this Shaper has spent all their time trying to figure out a way to fix the flaw in their being, that'd explain why they've stayed out of Servile politics.
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Dec 15, 2016 17:53
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Incidentally, I decided to look up the name Goettsch. It's a variant spelling of Goetsch, which is a "pet form" of either Gottfried or Gottschalk. "Gott" means either "good" or "god", "fried" means "peace" or "protection", and "schalk" means "servant". Maybe Goettsch is a Servile who was granted Shaper powers by the Geneforge, and now works to maintain the peace here! 
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Dec 17, 2016 16:37
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wiegieman posted:No creation can use the Geneforge or the Canisters without dissolving (painfully) into goo, it's built in. The Shapers make very sure that their power remains theirs. The canisters, yes. The Geneforge is as-yet an unknown quantity. It might very well be able to reshape a servile back into a human, at which point anything that can be done for Shapers can be done for the ex-servile.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:01
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So your underlying thesis is that in sci-fi, the setting drives the story (i.e. the story flows out from the implications of the setting), while in fantasy, the story determines the setting (i.e. the story demands X event happen; that requires a setting that can justify it). Is that accurate?
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Dec 19, 2016 16:54
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mauman posted:Partially. To be honest your entire post reeks of the old clash between prescriptivists ("This term has this meaning and nobody uses it correctly!") and descriptivists ("When we look at how people use this term, they are using it with this meaning."). Especially the hard vs. soft sci-fi thing. I literally have never heard your definition of it before; it's always been a measurement of how plausible the science is.
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Dec 19, 2016 22:06
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mauman posted:edit: I literally googled "soft science fiction" and my definition was the first thing that popped up. Yeah, and that's super weird to me because like I said, you're the first time I've ever heard anyone use that definition. Wikipedia allows for both definitions, and I can definitely see how the drift happened: initially defined in terms of "hard science" (engineering, math, physics, etc.) and "soft science" (psychology, sociology, etc.), but the former would also tend to have more rigorous / less fuzzy science in the books, so people tended to associate "hard sci fi" with "accurate science" and therefore "soft sci fi" with "inaccurate science". Which amusingly ends up lumping, say, an accurate sociological sci-fi in as "hard sci fi".
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Dec 19, 2016 22:43
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How long until Solution shapes herself a little white fyora to carry around and pet while monologuing at the rogue creations her underlings are torturing?
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Jan 4, 2017 22:19
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You have an img tag closed with a [/quote], which prevents the image from displaying properly. Too bad about our Roamer. I get the impression the party is now basically a balls-out, all-offense-no-defense glass cannon?
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Jan 6, 2017 03:43
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I will never get tired of the most "natural" contraction of my username.  I guess you've decided that Solution must be saddled with a pair of fyoras at all times, huh?
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Jan 12, 2017 23:15
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Oh, right! I wanted to thank you for using "pore" correctly. Every time someone writes that their character poured over something, it gets my hackles up.
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Jan 13, 2017 02:21
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thetruegentleman posted:Hell, look at Solution: she didn't know how to shape a Fyora before coming here, and was concerned entirely with finding a boat so this could all be someone else's problem. Now, she's perfectly at ease with deciding the fate of an entire population, and maybe even the world. So does it count as character development if your character is altered by external means? Seriously though, remove the canisters and Solution's actions still look plausible -- she's stranded on an island, and initially cares only to get off (is self-absorbed), but as she learns more about the history of the island and the plights of its occupants, she becomes more invested in actually solving problems. It's a reasonably classic character arc. The more you interact with someone or something, the more invested you become in making sure that the person/thing turns out for the best.So far as I can tell, the main effect of canisters has been to dictate how gentle Solution is about manipulating people and how easily she handles being forced to be ruthless. The fact that she must still manipulate people and kill things to achieve her goals is invariant, and the goals themselves have not been dictated by the canisters. If you look at the bicentennial Shapers, though, you see more selfish motivation. They might have been trying to push forward the boundaries of Shaper knowledge, but it's clear that Corata at least wanted personal power. Dose someone like that with canisters, and they might go from "even though I want to be in charge of this organization, I'm not willing to push someone under the bus to achieve that" to "I'm willing to do or say anything if it means I get more power."
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Jan 25, 2017 19:58
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"Glaahk on glaahk violence"? Really? ( )
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Jan 30, 2017 22:13
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Montegoraon posted:So, why is it that the Spawners are horrific because they can make other creations, but these automated shaping platforms seem to have passed with much less comment? As far as I can see, the only significant difference between them is that the Spawners could potentially make more of themselves, which would potentially be world-ending, but the automated platforms are still plenty irresponsible on their own. Also the creatures made by the spawning machines are staying nicely self-contained in these crypts, instead of going out and making the rest of the island even more of a mess than it already is.
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Jan 31, 2017 21:28
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ManxomeBromide posted:More domains where battle alphas can't really do much. The alpha is following you in a tuxedo, carrying your luggage.
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Feb 10, 2017 05:39
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The game's really taunting you with all those used canisters. The things were nowhere nearly as densely-packed on your half of the island.
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Feb 15, 2017 18:42
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You're also assuming that there isn't a canister that teaches you how to make canisters.
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Feb 16, 2017 02:30
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vdate posted:Well, as a Shaper/Researcher/Whatever anyway. POOL IS CLOSED has made prior references to no-canister runs, which are evidently an established challenge mode. I assume you'd rely on training stats and skills, carefully-hoarded consumables, running back to base to heal whenever possible, and abusing the hell out of the combat system. POOL IS CLOSED posted:What gets me is that the NPCs can seemingly id canisters without using them but we cannot. "This servile's bones have all melted, and it looks like its lungs were turning into some kind of gas sac when it died. Must be a vlish canister!" Sometimes sacrifices are needed in the name of science, okay.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:18
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Frankly, your adherence to schedule has been goddamn amazing. I'm not gonna begrudge you a more relaxed pace while you provide us with free entertainment.
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Feb 22, 2017 02:32
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About how many canisters has Solution used?
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Feb 27, 2017 22:20
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StrixNebulosa posted:Is POOL IS CLOSED alive? They are, I saw a post from them in some other thread. The LP'll be back when they're ready; these narrative-heavy things are not the easiest style to do.
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May 7, 2017 14:47
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Welcome back! Sounds like things are coming to a head.
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Jun 9, 2017 01:50
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I'm gonna go with C here because I don't think anybody can be trusted with the Geneforge. We know for a fact that Trajkov wants to use it. So basically kill anything that aspires to godhood.
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Jun 10, 2017 18:36
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:08 |
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You have a broken image tag for https://lpix.org/2831381/2017-06-09%2021_27_47-Geneforge.png
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Jun 12, 2017 20:31
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