SkySlam

I'm curious about this as well. I already like a couple of premade companions a lot, I desire to help them and I'm wondering how much our interactions will be deep/important to the story. I'm not really interested in romance, but I want them to feel and react to my friendship/appreciation/affection!

Considering that it took me around 60 hours only to reach Spellhold in BG2, I suppose the first playthrough of PoE will keep me busy for at least 100 hours!

Ahah, the tea metaphor is really fitting! For sure we need some intense and less generic comments like "Victory shall be ours!", "Me axe be bloody ready!" "Swords, not words!"... just to name those that immediately come to mind. It's also true that we've heard only a small part of companions' banters. Anyway, I believe that the voice/audio/sound department is kinda easy to fix/improve, because I've seen it worked on during the final phase of development even in other games (D:OS for example).

The game looked amazing to me: the atmosphere, the companions (stories, looks and voice overs), the battles and the music were all great in my eyes. I'm not that worried about the stronghold either. The scripted interactions and the legendary "you must gather your party..." are the cherry on top. My only minor disappointment is the annoying voice of the main character, I'm surprised how they let it pass, considering those continous "YES" "OH?" "MH?" "INDEED"... it's very irritating in 20 mins of gameplay, can you imagine 20 hours? And 200 hours? I hope we'll be given the option to have a mute main character; hearing the companions' banters is enough for me, because they are amazing.

Is there a "no voice" option for the main character? I've always considered it immersion-breaking anyway: if I'm roleplaying myself, I don't really want to hear a strange voice, especially if it's an annoying one!

Thanks for the videos, the game looks amazing indeed, I have zero complaints (maybe the voice of the MC was a bit annoying, but that's just me). The atmosphere is captivating and enchanting, the fights are cool and the scripted interactions add that sweet nostalgia touch. The companions look interesting, with outstanding voiceovers; I especially enjoyed Aloth and Pallegina. My original plan was to take only 2-3 premade companions in my party, but after this preview I'm more oriented towards 4-5 of them. They are alive, you can feel the love and the inspiration behind their creation. Too good to pass...

Is there a video somewhere featuring the stream for those of us who just missed it?

I totally agree. Infact, I think this is something they could have *easily* improved, instead of just removing it from the game. I believe some random ambushes here and there don't take much resources/developers' time away, nor they need too much playtesting/balance. Still, they contribute greatly to the immersion, the sense of danger and the uncertainty of the adventure.

No monsters' respawn is fine by me, but I'm surprised about the absence of random ambush battles. They used to give me a sense of real danger in BG, strengthening the immersion.

I own... ~30 games on Steam, and I can play every single one of them without an internet connection. Now, maybe I'm just super lucky, and every other game available on Steam requires an internet connection. But... *shrug* I only had to be on the internet and logged in to buy and download them (which is the same with GOG), AND to install them (GOG doesn't require this, but, at the same time, if you've just downloaded a game, why not go ahead and install it real quick?). The only other advantage is that, should you lose your hard drive or something, and both Steam AND the internet have been shut down, you could still use your installer from GOG to re-install the game and never ever patch it (assuming you have the installer backed up somewhere). Which, admittedly, IS an advantage. But, I just wish people would kill the ridiculous Steam rumors. "I heard you have to feed one of your organs to a DEMON every time you play a game on Steam! If you're out of organs, you can't play the game, AND you die! o_o!!!" That's good news for me! I must be definitely doing something wrong then, because every time I try to open BG EE (that I've bought on Steam), it immediately prompts me to the Steam login screen instead of opening the game, and there's no way out of that, no "start anyway", "offline mode" or anything... my bad, I guess. Not that it matters to me, because I'm going to support GOG anyway, but it's good to know that Steam isn't that evil at least.

Can one play the game with Steam without internet connection? In any case, I'll go with GOG!

Thanks for the series, keep up the good work! I'm learning quite a lot from your videos, can't wait to see the classes ones.

This is really a valid point and I hope they will consider making this easy fix before release: use the original names for towns and places, please!! I'm from Italy too, and those names could potentially break my immersion during the game!

Hello everyone! New player here, willing to buy the game as soon as possible from GOG. I've been following the development of the game during the last few years, but without putting too much attention on it, because I really hate to wait and I already knew that the anticipation would have killed me. So, now that we are really close to release, I'm just starting to catch up with the game, and I've got some questions for the backers/beta/knowledgeable players; I'd really appreciate your help! 1) How difficult is "normal"? I'm not an RPG expert by any means. I'm fascinated by this world, but sometimes I lack the patience to focus on every aspect of a battle, and in general I'm more the APS guy than the strategic one (e.g. I'm skilled at Dota, while I'm pretty bad at D:OS). I've played and enjoyed BG2 years ago, but I think I was switching between normal and easy modes during the whole game, and for sure I remember frustrating moments/battles there. Do you think I can finally face the challenge of an old-style RPG at normal difficulty? Or would it just ruin my gaming experience? And what about "easy"? Is it a viable setting for inexperienced players like me or is it just "trivial", made for people without a brain (or without enough time to focus on the "nerdy" aspects of the game)? 2) About adventurers: I'm planning my party ahead, and I'd really like to fill a gap in my team by using a custom character made by me as my 6th companion. I already know that he won't interact with me or other NPCs, but will "the world" notice his presence in my team? Or will he just be non-existent in roleplaying terms? Example: if my 6th character is a godlike adventurer, will a village hostile to godlike people react to him being in my party? Or will the people just totally ignore him as if my party was made of 5 characters only? 3) Language: The game will be translated in my mother language (italian), but in general I prefer to play any game in its original form. How hard will it be for me to understand everything? Will characters speak in strange/unclear/dialect ways? My official "english level" is B2, will it be enough to understand everything, without missing a comma of this amazing experience? And if I decide to play it in italian, will there be voice dubs or just subtitles? Thank you for reading this wall of text, I hope someone will shed a light over all this!