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Krajzen

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About Krajzen

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    science, philosophy, history, humanity
  1. I have completed the game once, reinstalled it few months ago with the intent to finish it for the second time before Deadfire arrives. Back then I remember I have launched it to check if everything was fine and it was. I uninstalled it at some point and installed again, recently. As I launch the game and menu opens, I see MISSING GUI [number] instead of every button text. The game is unplayable. I have reinstalled it multiple times, verified game cache, changed game folder etc. Nothing worked. MISSING GUI. Apparently, it looks as if the game cannot "find" its own language files. Because log: The same thing repeats for all its language versions. Please, help.
  2. 1) Durance's quest. I have never expected to be so moved by the quest consisting only of dialogue - guess I need to play story-concentrated games more instead of Mass Effect Hollywood-like stuff. And they way it is connected to the main story is brilliant. I really want to see Durance in PoE sequel, he can be turned into even more interesting character with his entire personality so changed over the course of the game. 2) Eder's quest. I love, love, love this one because how... non-Hollywood, how unusual for video games and primitive storytelling, how deep it's ending was. After the long search you... Don't find anything. Eder's brother is dead and his motivations are unknown forever; Eder has to deal with it and choose his own path. I expected some plot twist like 'mwahaha Eder's brother is evil let's punch him' and the lack - no, not merely lack of; the denial of - plot twist here really moved me. Wow. 3) Raedric's quest. I had really hard moral dilemma and the moment I have reached bedroom, oh god. Also this quest was wonderfully not linear, I managed to do it quietly and had awesome battle only in the end. 4) Skaen cultist's quest in Dyrford. Blood pool, hidden creepy sect... And the moment when I realized the 'lover' has kidnapped and brainwashed his 'beloved' girlfriend, I was genuinely shocked (a bit). 5) That Galawain's god quest in Twin Elms when you had to choose the animal champion more deserving a victory. This was so original and interesting dilemma, I really liked that because in order to complete that quest I had for a while to think like Glanfantan hunters here, to shake up my usual moral hierarchy and really think which of those beasts is stronger and deserves god's glory more.
  3. Okay, so I have finished the game. Pallagina, Kana Rua and Sagani are the least favourite of companions for me. They all aren't very bad when compared with usual roleplays because they all have not-so-usual quite cool design (bird-like black-skinned paladin woman from Italian-style city states! big, jovial, orc-like, yet intellectual bard! inut-polar dwarf woman archer with white fox!) but compared with the rest of a team they seem so... Disconnected from the main story and concentrated on their own matters. Not sure if companions' fates differ for various people (I finished all their quests, to be clear) but for me they looked like this: >Pallagina sits bored in Defiance Bay, goes to negotiate some stuff, doesn't agrees with overlord, leaves him, walks alone >Sagani: does a quest for her native village, finishes her personal quest, goes back home, the end. >Kana Rua: seeks stuff for his pals, (doesn't) find it, goes back home. ------------------- Compare that with other teammates - Eder, Aloth, Grieving Mother and especially Durance are linked with the main story and are, in fact, quite important pieces in the setting. Hiravias' background is less connected with main theme but it still touches spiritual and divine issues. Meanwhile Kana Rua and Sagani are just on their personal quests and I have hardly seen emotional attachment in them. Pallagina doesn't have such particular quest as them but I haven't detected any personality in her, and neither my sympathy for her - super bland character. 'Paladin idealist at conflict with her cynic master'.
  4. I expected a serious setting review and I have discovered these ten words are enough for some people to enjoy very good game significantly less by the way, I have always hated Baldur's Gate (D&Ds???) custom of mixing Tolkien-style fantasy names with Fantasy Class B English Names. Sword Coast, Candlekeep, Trademeet etc. sound super retarded for me, I cannot imagine places being called like that in real world. Just smashing two random words against each other and done. This is a part of 'classic roleplays' I could never accept because it was a bit immersion breaking for me. PoE's naming, with cities like Defiance Bay, somehow feels more serious and making sense for me. I don't know, maybe that's just me. Fampyr is a bit silly word but I can live with tiny differences like these and I certainly cannot understand someone rating setting 'I very like' at 3/10 just because of so tiny things. This is not a 'harsh review', this is 'tiny details which annoy me'.
  5. What I would like... - To Durance, Eder, Hiravias, Aloth come back for sequels. They all had (at least for me) 'open' endings and 'seeking new goal in life'. Well to be honest Eder was stated to stay in Dyrford village happily but he's to awesome for him not to come back I really liked all these guys. Well... I wouldn't describe my feelings towards Durance as generic 'sympathy' but I think this is one of the best companions I have ever met with in any RPG game in terms of personal story, character, motivations etc. He is very, very distinctive. Also, events revealed in PoE's ending leave him in perfect spot for being even more interesting and developed in a sequel. As for Pallagina, Sagani and Kana Rua, I didn't very care about them (and Sagani almost definitely went back to her village). Grieving Mother has kinda accomplished her goal and her personal story has come to an end for me. - To enable romances in a sequel so my Monk Girl could finally choose between Eder and Aloth. - To combine upper two and enable a romance with Durance this could be, with a proper writing, incredibly crazy, hilarious and deep in the same time. - To make Pillars of Eternity 2 go a step forward and have truly epic plot (PoE had 'medium level adventure' revolving about player character and Dyrwood, similarly to BG1; BG2 had 'great world-deciding adventure' while Torment had 'great personal/philosophical adventure') - For the sequel to take place in more diversified locations. I mean, PoE has very nice location design (especially Twin Elms) but I have been a bit tired by the same 'European-style green forests and caves'. I would love PoE2 taking place in Rauatai areas. - Better crafting and stealth. - More nonviolent and stealth options in quests. - More humour, comedic parts of the game, funny quests, wacky ittems like the Disappointer etc. - More philosophical/ontological/spiritual epicness of PoE last level (the Iovara's revelation was wonderful moment), more delaing with creepy/shocking/fascinating phenomenas changing your image of Eora.
  6. Meh, I have seen much worse balanced games. Though I have to admit, in my team Aloth used this black-oil-knockdown level 1 spell for the entire game and till the last fight, it has been absurdly good :D Meanwhile some late level spells were absurdly weak. Spell level 3 - ton of AoE fire/shock/acid damage Spell level 5 - wait, seriously, few seconds of Hobbled? or for my Monk Girl: Skills I learned at first few levels - wow amazing let's see what late levels will bring! Level 11 Flagellant's Path - wait, that's it? That was the effect? I didn't even see that! Let me use these skills <I used for the entire game> again... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, this is what I would work with - skill balance and timing. I also went through the entire game at Hard without even thinking about taking these 'attack bonus against x type of opponent' and 'defense bonus against y element' enhancements/talents. If I have 6 characters in my team and there are 6 main groups of enemies, taking one 25% dmg bonus for one character means overall, in team terms, few % of dmg more overall... But maybe I failed to discover hidden potential here. I think between-classes-balance is quite good, as between-companions-usefullness-balance. At first I thought Wizards suck but then Aloth became my favourite companion to use besides my main character. Now only Ranger and Shapeshifting skill of (overall good) Druid need some buff.
  7. I mean, I sided with Crucible Knights but due to bug present before patch 1.06 I have no option to go with them, only to lonely represent Dunryd Row. Due to issue with GOG patch 1.06 I'd need to reinstall the game to patch it, as well as reinstall few other things. Is it worth it? I mean, is there a meaningful difference between going at hearings alone and with one faction?
  8. I have exact same team composition as OP, on my first playthrough, high difficulty and I'm shocked how easy the game suddenly became after Defiance Bay. I was tired but wanted to finish Fyrga's quest so I set quick speed and then roflstomped through many drakes at once with barely taking damage, then killed a red dragon like it was nothing... Up to Defiance Bay difficulty level was perfect.
  9. As much as I love this game, it has few irritating issues. One od them is a quantity of different loot types. I am currently un like 2/3 of a game and I have tons of rings, capes, armors and melee weapons. Each of my 6 team member has two rings, unique cape/armor, unique weapon and I have reserves of few unique rings, capes, armors and melee weapons. Meanwhile I have mey with like three boot/helmet/gloves/waist/unique ranged items so far. Uhm... Did I do something wrong? Also it seemed for me there is a third firearm weapon type after pistols and muskets in a game, according to wiki there are "blunderbuses" or something like that. Oh well I have yet to see one - even generic
  10. I think that's Gromnir's point : the alignment of the characters is part of their character sheet, and their reaction to your reputation is based entirely on that. They only react to the number, not to something in particular you did. You can't have companions who could accept some harsh measures while still having a line that they wouldn't cross, for example. It gives them a bit more of a personality, but it doesn't mean that they're well-written. In my humble opinion, D&D's trivializing the entire spectrum of morality into this retarded chart of chaotic-lawful-good-evil-neutral was one of the worst aspects - if not outright worst - aspect of a setting. A character is Lawful Good? Great, he is set in stone, no matter what happens he will be lawful good, maybe he would react differently if he was stuffed into more neutral part of a morality chart. How would German guardians of concentration camps be placed in this chart, as Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil? But they had families, friends, children, normal lives outside of insanity of holocaust, so maybe Neutral? And what is the point of artifically putting every character in this simplified chart instead of his morality being ambiguous, fluent, emerging through his words and actions? There is also gigantic psychological nonsence of many fantasy worlds of purely evil people, evil armies, evil realms, evil teams etc. like it was a child's cartoon. Did human beings we consider almost universally as evil - planners of ethnic cleansings, for example - said to themselves 'I am evil and let's destroy stuff for evil's sake, come on my dark minions?' no, they said either 'it's bad but well I do that for greater good' or just plain thought about themselves as 'I am good and WE are fighting evil forces'. Not to even mention mental illness and its impact on individuals when undiagnosed. All of that is an element of this horrible myth of humanity 'there are good people and bad people and well maybe I am imperfect but I am good and they are evil and the best solution is... to kill and destroy all evil, right?' “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956, Literature Nobel Prize I hate 'moral affiliations' of D&D systems and love moral ambiguity of Pillars of Eternity (which still manages to not fall into the grey pit of cynicism). Where the hell would Durance go in D&D? As lawful good, lawful neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil? Would he be even possible to be stuffed into this idiotic moral division? Who cares - here are his words, here are his actions, and here you are, the Watcher.
  11. Personally I'd kick spiders the hell out this game for another reason: *groan* Oh come on, again giant spiders in fantasy setting?! Same with idiotic concept of slime enemies. I have never understood D&D obsession with such retarded enemy types: spiders, slimes, ants, giant wasps; they are all stupid, not serious, boring as lame. I am thankful PoE doesn't have rats at least. In Drakensang the most difficult to defeat enemy was not one of 3 dragons you encounter, not necromant wizard or demon lord but rat queen in a cave under a city, surrounded by respawning rats. But that could be expected - Drakensang was so incredibly bland, unoriginal fantasy it was giving me nausea with blatantly copying each and every asset from class C fantasy books.
  12. PoE doesn't feel too dark for me and I am usually an enemy of cynical fantasy worlds. To be honest I think PoE is almost perfect for me - one thing which I think PoE universe needs more is HUMOUR AND HILARIOUS CRAZYNESS! Hiravias, Aloth and Eder were nice comedic elements but the game mostly felt a bit too 'serious', not too 'dark'. PoE would need more hilarious items, quests, characters - hey, real life world has tons of humour despite all its darkness. There are not many real-life historical events, event dark ones, when something hilarious, random or crazy didn't happen. Auschwitz death camp is one of such '****ing serious' points of history... The oldest known British joke, from 1000 years ago: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before? Answer: A key." One of things I love at Witcher's universe is how a game with very brutal and rather dark plot manages to have so much of so brilliant sense of humour (mainly in dialogues). Not 'brilliant' but still making a gamer's smile, there is a quest in W2 in which you drink heavily with your buddies in a city, to wake up without equipment and clothes in the middle of a forest, and then you need to figure out what the hell happened. -------------------------------------------------- As for the 'darkness', I think PoE does a pretty good job. It doesn't attempt miserable 'HEY LOOK I AM EDGY AND SERIOUS' of cartoonish violence (yes I look at you, dragon age, with your characters swimming in blood), tons of vulgarity and so on. It shows a beatiful, fascinating, deep, conflicted world with its upsides and downsides, moral dilemmas and a great philosophical/psychological intrigue at it's core, which is pretty dark indeed. But hey, doesn't our world have mentally ill people (sanitarium)? Ethnic conflicts? Spiritual issues? Damn, personally I am an atheist-agnostic so PoE is already lighter than my vision of the real world in which when you die you rot, not move in the Cycle of Souls PoE isn't dark, more like grey and ambiguous - nothing is obvious in its' universe. Now let my review few other RPGs regarding this issue: Witcher saga - I complimented its sense of humour and generally I think it does wonderful lore building, but in the same time I think it goes a bit too much to the 'cynical' side: every idealist fails, main character looks permanently tired of 'all this crap', background war and following devastation is completely pointless, there is rape, slavery, racism, betrayal, hanging, assasinations, shady politics, corruption and... Well, THIS is a game OP wouldn't like Drakensang - completely opposite: this game and universe is so ****ing shallow in its unimaginative heroic stereotypic crap it's amazing for me how it could be created without giving nausea to its creators. You get a quest to find magical stuff and save the world and guess what, you go and do that, no twists. Heroic heroes, divine divinity, bad badguys, betrayers from cartoon network and the only 'big moral dilemma' turns to be scam because one of its two conflicted sides quickly jumps out as evil. Seriously: medieval era European-like fantasy world where elves and dwarves are good while orcs and goblins are evil and main hero kills bad dragon to save the world? Planescape: Torment - this is a special class of such games: it is extremely dark but that's intentional and making perfect sense in it's plot context and general themes (mortality, meaning of life, pain, faith, suicide, regret, nature of a man).
  13. I don't want to be rude but IMHO the real solution should be to treat phobia itself I suffered on very deep social phobia years ago (almost not talking to anyone except few people and being extremely awkward, extremely anxious) but managed to get rid of it almost completely to the point of 'doing socially fairly well'. There are psychologists, there are therapies, often free and often online. Are you going to run away from all amazing stories and unique experiences just because there is a <harmless IRL> little animal somewhere in them? This is not a solution, this is being defeated by mental issue. I unfortunately used to run away from my depressive/anxiety disorders for years before finally kicking them out.
  14. So my team has explored 7th level of Endless Paths. I had no Kana in my team so despite clearing room where his quest should end, I got nothing - I also got no experience points from activating those four elemental... things. If I return to surface, take Kana Rua and go back here will I be able to finish the quest (and get exp from elemental towers) or is it lost?
  15. I don't know how people can vote for Durance. I mean, I understand why - he is completely insane :D - but he is so well written and interesting character I can not like him just because I don't like his motivations. And mentality. And erotic retardation. And lack of hygiene. And the fact he is completely insane. Oh well. Same with Grieving Mother, she is creepy but too fascinating character to me not like her. (not to mention the fact these two are getting more likeable the more you know them) My least favourite character is probably Kana. Not really sure why as I like aumauans and unorthodox races. I found him super boring. Wise giant chanter? Here his originality ends and he turns to be easygoing joking combat machine without depth. Some people prefer simple, nice guys like him over desperate crazy Durance or telepathic midwife Grieving Mother or other weird, controversial characters. I have a friend who always sides with more moderate, nice clean typical heroes. I always prefer crazier or more problematic sidekicks. In Mass Effect I was a fan of Jack, bald female tattoed psyched criminal telepath with emotional issues, as well as of Javik - super pessimistic egocentric ****. I was trying to understand them and decide whether they are silly freaks or well-written characters. This doesn't change the fact Eder is my favourite companion in PoE, he is impossible not to love :D
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