Caribou

Honestly, a popup window seems far too meta-gamey to me as well. I like your thought that a better way would be to have the dialogs with each faction's leader include language that should make it clear that you are aligning yourself with that faction, without being immersion breaking or too meta-gamey about it. I think that there are definitely ways for well written dialogs to do this. With the Doemenels, it might involve taking some sort of blood oath. With the Knights, it might have their CO telling you that if you accept this mission, other groups are sure to learn about it and refuse to work with you. And the Dozen's CO might say that if you accept this mission, you're now "one of us", and that the other groups won't like that, yada-yada-yada. Or even something as simple as the faction quest chains ensuring you meet/know about the other factions.

Are...are you praying right now?

A lot of it is dependent on the level you're playing the game on. On the lowest level, you can pretty much walk around, with the entire party selected, and focus the enemies down one by one. On the higher level not accounting for a single enemy will result in a wipe.

Same deal with me. I'm not sure if I missed talking to one of the spirits the first time through, but it opened fine for me after methodically going and talking to each one after I cleared the place.

Maybe it's because I didn't have her in my party for that long, but I recall some banter dialog from Eder basically referencing GM appearing to him as a middle aged peasant woman, which was explained in dialog when you first meet her. I feel like they really dropped the ball there, aren't the other characters just the least bit curious why a group of adventures who are constantly in dangerous situations are dragging around such an obvious non-combatant? Would have been even funnier if it was only Iselmyr who could see GM for what she really was.

Eder is just so damned likable and easy going. You WANT to help the guy.

Well damn, if the Witcher is from an Atheistic point-of-view then that completely destroys my "Atheists are intellectually lazy" argument I'm not going to make friends by saying this, but I find The Witcher to be a bit of a lazy setting overall. A lot of its stories are fairy tales with added gore, its monsters are often lifted straight from Eastern European folk tales, its different countries and nations are either stereotypes (Nilfgaard, Skellige) or undistinguishably bland (all the Northern Realms). It also abuses character archetypes; peasants are pogrom-happy and supersticious, soldiers are sociopaths who hang everything that moves, sorceresses are conniving and ambitious, kings are racist **** when they aren't just mad. Eora has shown more originality and personality in its setting that the Continent did in three games to me. In the light of the above, the writers of that series treating religion with all the maturity of an edgy teenager doesn't surprise me. Cripes, even Dragon Age did much better in Inquisition. Also, if one example is sufficient to challenge your ''atheists are intellectually lazy'' theory, maybe it wasn't that good a theory in the first place. But The Witcher is based on a series of Polish fantasy books. That kinda makes sense, right?

So, I had the opportunity last night to replay through the end game encounter again and I still don't see where OP is getting is getting bent out of shape. The gods of PoE seem to be gods and are able to tangibly impact the world. (The gods that were unhappy with my choice for fate of the souls wreaked havoc on the Dyrwood for it). They certainly EXIST. I don't see why knowing where they came from makes them any less of a god.

Trump ArmyTM

Preach it.

Apparently they were at one point more than cosmetic. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62578-torches/

The full fog of war disappears after you've discovered that section of the map, and darkness would have to be accounted for and countered. Fog of war just is or isn't. Oh, I thought fog of war was separate from seeing the map, because it's possible to see terrain features once discovered, but not creatures, etc. I guess it's a bit of a moot point in PoE since this is really only an issue with patrols wandering into an area already discovered or the bounty quests since there are no respawns.

No, they all share the same bed, so they get the same bonuses. Think of it as PoE's interpretation of in game romance.

Nah, I'll pass. I've been through many, many such discussions over the years, and they never really go anywhere -- I was a regular on alt.atheism in the 1990's. I also haven't been really invested in the question for over fifteen years or so. I'm not all that interested anymore in what people believe; I'm more interested in the question of how people with different beliefs find ways to coexist and cooperate. That's a far more pressing question in my opinion, and likelier to lead to constructive outcomes. With all this obvious proof of the existence of god rattling around, it's a wonder there are so many different beliefs out there to cause so much conflict.

Also, how would darkness be functionally different from the fog of war effect?

You just reminded me...when equipping a wizard with a wand on the character screen, his avatar shows the grimoire in one hand, wand in the other. What probably happened, they introduced staves and realized it would look stupid to wield something so large one handed, but also wanted the character to be able to cast spells while wielding one.

I can agree with that completely. I would simply add that the God as described in the Bible is just as absurd as a purple dinosaur named Charlie who answers to Francis in a dimension outside of our own lol That was my point. People believe in gods based on faith alone. If there were actual proof, there would be no need for faith.

I kinda agree with B-Dubb_B. If I said there was a purple dinosaur named Charlie (who answers to Francis, oddly) who exists in a dimension outside of one we can perceive who spends his days singing a capella renditions of 90s sitcom theme songs , it is absolutely true that no one can prove that assertion incorrect. But all that really illustrates is there is zero point to making a hypothesis that is not falsifiable. There are an infinite number of such assertions and they are as immune from being proven wrong as they are absurd.

Atheist Crop

No, ever since transversing "The Spiral" from Avernum: Escape from the Pit, I will never miss that!

Wizards compensating for something.

I guess it depends on what your metrics are for a strong economy. Anecdotally, I feel like people have been complaining about the economy since the dot com bubble burst 15 years ago, despite the fact the markets have been more or less on an upward trajectory since March 2009. It's just something people talk about now, when they're talking about nothing, like the weather. "Sure has been warm recently." "Yes, unusually so, but I think we're supposed to get rain this week" "My office at work stopped providing organic free trade kkups in the break room, damn economy!"

I'm not against the inclusion of romance options in the context of the story ...but having a situation where every character can fall in love with every other character "just because" is distracting and detracts from the overall narrative.

Go read through the thread in this forum about how the game's ending shoves atheist propaganda down your throat, because the in-game universe gods may have been created by man. Honestly, I didn't even notice the 27 hours in a day.

All believers are one god or perhaps one pantheon of gods shot of being atheist. Considering this is a fantasy game set in a fantasy world with magic, dragons, non-humanoid racers, and where souls exist as something tangible that can be manipulated, I really don't see why the revelation that the in-game gods are artificial is so scandalous.