xzar_monty

This is one thing I've been wondering. If demon hordes are laying waste to everything, how can you start at level 1. Well, I suppose you're not going to meet the demon hordes for a while...

Very interesting, thanks a lot for that! I don't know whether that can happen in my game, but maybe we'll see.

Wow. I didn't know this. What is that option, and where/when can you take it?

That's such a shame.

I also finished the game, despite the very obvious flaws in the writing. However, on replay, I found that I couldn't generate enough interest: once you get to the final chapters and the House at the Edge of Time, the encounters become both repetitive and cruel, and so far I have felt there's no enjoyment to be found in going through all that stuff again. So I stopped earlier. I am maybe 65 or 75 per cent there, and I know the end is looming, and it just doesn't appeal to me. But yes, I agree, the game does have a lot of merit, and I did enjoy my playthrough, even if the writing was cheesy.

Here's a question to all of you who have played P:K and are now playing WotR in beta: has the quality of writing improved at all? P:K was cartoonish, cheap and cheesy in the writing department. Both PoE and Deadfire had plenty of narrative and even literary ambition, and while we may debate about whether they were wholesale successes, I certainly appreciated the ambition. P:K had none, it was just cheese. Is WotR any different? Thanks in advance!

He also worked for P:K. The goblin character Nok-Nok is written by him. It's not good writing. It's not terrible, but there's nothing there that stands out.

It's such a shame that BG3 is turn-based only. I tried to enjoy turn-based in D:OS2, but it just doesn't work for me. So, unless there is going to be real time with pause in BG3, I'm simply going to skip it. It may be a great game, but heck, turn-based is too much for me.

I agree with everything here. I am currently playing the Beast of Winter, and it's probably the best-written piece in these two games, all DLCs considered. (The White March might be a close second.) I just did the Endless Queries quest, and that's a damn fine piece of writing. Coming up next: the Drowned Kingdom and the Bridge Ablaze (the best!). The big problem in PoE was in pacing. The beginning was superb, but then it got slow and somewhat unclear. The city of Twin Elms was in the wrong place: once I got there, I no longer had the energy nor the interest to explore another city, I just wanted to get to the end. Deadfire's main story is very short. It looks as if you're in a hurry to do it, but actually you're not: the world waits while you explore the whole archipelago. And the side quests are a lot more interesting than the main quest. And once you get to Ukaizo, it's like -- heck, is this it? There's a strange dissatisfaction at the end.

This is very likely to be the heart of your problem and your non-enjoyment of Deadfire. There has been quite a lot of talk about the translations, and some of them appear to have been really, really bad. It's such a shame. A bad translation can totally ruin a book, a game, a play etc. (I have worked in book publishing for over twenty years, and translation is my speciality. This is the area that I know a lot about.) I understand you a lot better now. I have not played Deadfire in Italian, but knowing something about the overall quality of the translations, I can understand why the writing may look very poor in translation. Again, as I said, it's such a shame.

@Mazisky: Based on what you write, I cannot trust your opinion, but it'll be interesting to see what WOTR looks like. In fact, I just went on Youtube to check out the beta, and the very first scene I came across used one of the cliches of all time. Somebody says to a wounded person: "And you -- hold fast, don't die, we'll see you right!" I mean, this is cliche at its worst. There is no such stuff in Deadfire. It is ambitious writing which takes pains to avoid cliche. It isn't always great writing, but much of the time it works well. As far as quality of writing is concerned, I'd say Disco Elysium is the best cRPG out there. BG2, PoE and Deadfire are all quite good, and they're in the same category. Neverwinter Nights is a bit worse, and so is Icewind Dale (much more simplistic, less nuanced). P:K is even worse, and by a considerable margin. It doesn't seem that WOTR is going to be great, but let's hope it's not bad. By the way, @Mazisky, did you play Deadfire in Italian? If so, then I can believe you. The problem is in the horrible translation.

Please don't make assumptions from what I write. I am not biased for Deadfire, and I don't love it. Again, if you claim that Deadfire was written by some "amateur young guy", you should be able to explain that view a little, because it is very hard to understand. You are also being unnecessarily condescending when you bet that parts of Deadfire were written by American teenagers -- I am almost certain they were not, and if they were, those teenagers were quite competent. I only agree with the problem of "too American-sounding" in the sense that one of the wizards in the The Forgotten Sanctum DLC is acted in an overtly American style which I did not particularly care for. But again, the differences between Deadfire and P:K are just huge. There are grammatical errors and even spelling problems in P:K. The dialogue trees are extremely simplistic and they rarely allow you to make proper choices. Every single character is so shallow that they are essentially a parody: Amiri is a butch stereotype, Linzi is a naivety stereotype, Tartuccio is an evil villain stereotype. There is no development in any of the characters, and no mystery, either. I am almost certainly going to give Wrath of the Righteous a try, but if the writing really is as bad as in P:K, that's a huge problem and a great disappointment. P:K could have been a great game, but there are two things that kept it from being one: the quality of the writing and some of the encounter design (because the game so clearly cheats against you, which is a huge no-no).

I would think they are contractually obliged to essentially copy the tabletop rules. Your point is valid, and I agree with it in the general sense, but I think there's a logical and legal explanation for what you describe.

I cannot comment on D:OS2, because I lost my interest in about an hour, but your comparison between Deadfire and Kingmaker makes no sense. If you cannot see the huge difference in the quality of writing, then I cannot help you. It's clear as day. If Pathfinder: Kingmaker is someone who has been playing the piano for a few months and keeps making terrible mistakes, Deadfire is an accomplished concert pianist. Not a virtuoso, but somebody who knows what he's doing, understands the style, has technique under control and is pleasant to listen to. Here's the paradox: taste is a subjective matter. Despite this, there are still objective degrees of proficiency. These can even be analyzed: how much depth there is in characterization, how nuanced the narration is, how variable and/or repetitive the language is, and so on. This here my friend you see is no good sentence in the writing of English language. This, on the other hand, has nothing wrong with it, and although you may dislike its length and perhaps consider some of the words too perspicacious for their own good, the sentence is written by someone who knows what he's doing. So I'm sorry to say but you're just wrong. The writing in Deadfire is worlds away from Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It is so much better than there is just no comparison. If you prefer P:K as a game, that's just fine, but that's not the question here. The question is the writing.

That's a terrible flaw. I played Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but much of the writing was just awful. I have in fact wondered on these forums whether the writing was meant as a parody, because it was so bad. It's a huge disappointment if the writing in Wrath of the Righteous is of the same quality.

Eld Engrim does remember Durance, right at the start of Deadfire, when you first speak with him on the beach. But good guess nevertheless. It would be nice to know the intended answer to this.

Also, I would like to think that the person "forgotten by the world" should be someone rather more important, shall we say, than Grieving Mother. Nearly everyone who has ever lived (in fantasy or real life) is forgotten by the world, so to say that would imply that the person used to be someone notable at some point.

Who is in your party, then? I doubt it has to do with spells available, because it is quite rare that I (have to) use healing spells. What are the enemy types that cause you problems with poison? This seems to be more interesting than I thought. I am not a particularly good player, but I honestly never struggle with poison.

Indeed! I was not thick, my memory just failed me. You're quite right.

You lost me there -- perhaps I'm just a bit thick now. What abilities? Abilities to make the world forget them? (The last two words in what you wrote.)

I don't think anyone else can properly answer that; go ahead and try, I think that's the only way you can know. Turn-based is definitely not for me, it takes away most of the magic of the game, but that's just the way I see it. You are in a good position to try the other way now: you have not done much, but you have done enough to make a good call, once you've tried the other way, too.

Yeah, I checked what it does. And it is really lame, you are quite right. Heck, PoE had the same: it was a drag collecting the pieces for the Blade of the Endless Paths and then putting it together. And then, I never used it once. I already had a better sword, which I found just lying around...

Wow. This has not happened to me. @Boeroer: Doesn't that ("which nobody needs") apply to essentially all loot in the game?

Fair enough. I have no interest in the megabosses, though. They are a wall of hit points, and you gain nothing from winning them. I understand the challenge, as a battle, but that's not enough for me.

Ha -- I never use drugs, either. Also scrolls very rarely. It's funny how much stuff there is in the game, stuff that you can just forget about. It's also slightly odd...