Tarlonniel

Those are amazing. I like them much better than what we got in the game. Ah well.

Concelhaut. He keeps following you around Eora, obviously he's got a major crush on you.

He's floating on flotsam at the far eastern side of the world map, just above the center line.

And what happened to the gods' non-interference clause that they talked so much about in the first game? Not that any of them observed it too scrupulously, but Eothas really went off the rails. Twice.

This is a problem that I first encountered when Dragon Age: Origins was released and modders began doing what they do. No matter how brilliant your additional dialogue or added companion is, it immediately sticks out like a sore thumb because, unlike the rest of the game, it's not voiced. There are ways to write around that, but they're limited. However, in spite of this immersion-breaking limitation, the mods were insanely popular. Which leads me to believe that a significant portion of the audience believes having new, interesting content trumps having perfectly integrated content. Dunno what Obsidian believes, though (or what their financial projections say).

The panthers will die. In a fire.

My strategy is always to sneak up to the bedroom, grab the items there (robe + password) and then walk around the mansion like I own the place. It's fun and Aloth does a great Arkemyr impersonation.

If you kill off the whole Circle, there'll be no one left to object...

Ah, okay. Makes much more sense now.

I'm totally going to spend the DLC stumping for inclusion in the Circle. Or for Aloth's inclusion, over his many objections, I'm sure. No doubt they'll shoot the idea down just as quickly as they did in the main game, but no one said becoming an archmage was easy.

That doesn't really answer my question, though. I thought the process went like this: person dies, soul passes though pillar to Beyond, then goes to In-Between, then gets reincarnated. And I thought it was the "going to In-Between" part that got broken. Okay, so actually the In-Between to reincarnation part got broken too. But if Eothas can pull souls from the In-Between to Eora, surely Berath also has that power. And there's never been an indication - until now - that Watchers can see or contact souls in the In-Between, only ones that are Lost, i. e. wandering Eora trying to get back into the cycle.

Arkemyr mentions it while giving you the observatory quest. And Aloth has an interesting comment about it - apparently the Circle's intervention in a problem has caused even bigger problems before. Shock, surprise!

And those souls are somehow sucked out of the In-Between into him? How does that work? Couldn't Berath just do it him/herself?

I like the whole Arkemyr quest chain - getting the tablet, investigating the observatory, fighting Concelhaut, and reporting to the Circle. Wizards are crazy and awesome. I can't wait for the related DLC.

I didn't understand this option. What displaced souls? I thought the game told us that souls were still going to pass into the Beyond, just like they always did. Is that not actually happening?

I prefer old school good and evil, black and white choice. Then video games start to have grey element, I'm ok with that at first since it really make story more interesting. But nowadays games have too many grey element, I can't fully enjoy because I can't get satisfaction I want. If writers just care about telling their own story, don't promise us "freedom" or "choice matter" then slap our face. At least we were given the option to ally with no one, rather than being forced to play the "How shall I compromise my morals today?" game. You can also steal the ghost ship out from under the Principi's collective noses. It would've been nice to be able to ally with the Dawnstars.

You didn't defeat the real Furrante/Atsura/Pim, it was a clone. Haven't we learned anything from comic books?

I think Eothas is too big. Not physically, but in story terms. A giant statue inhabited by a god striding through the land, killing people left and right, on its way to do something that has the other gods in a panic and will shake the foundations of the world - that makes pretty much everything else in the game unimportant. And yet, it's those other, unimportant parts of the game where we spend the most time, have the most influence, get most personally involved. The conversations with Eothas and the gods feel like interruptions. Nothing much really happens and we get very little information, and then we get on with our petty mortal concerns while the great drama continues to play out without us. Then we hit Ukaizo, the big (and confusing) revelations come, and the story really begins. I mean, ends. Whoops. Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying the game and looking forward to the DLCs. It just felt like the Watcher was a child playing in a sandbox and occasionally joining in the conversation of the adults standing nearby

This particular game is fine - you can ally with one of the factions full of boring, terrible people, or tell them to get bent and handle the endgame yourself. The devs did it exactly right. Now folks who care about that stuff can sit on the forums and argue fine shades of gray and other folks can ignore all that and everyone's satisfied. Sort of.

It'll be an airship that can sail into the Beyond and fight the gods on their own turf and.... now I'm getting D:OS2 flashbacks. Please, Obsidian, no awkward narrated sex scenes.

You'll trip walking down the gangplank of the Defiant, hit your head and when you wake up, you'll find that your boat has been eaten by a kraken and your steward spent all your money buying an airship to replace it.

Of course not. You make the choices appropriate for your character, whether your character is good, bad or anything in between. And if you want to explore different choices the next time, you make a different character. It's all about the player deciding how to play. Put in "difficult" choices for those who want them and "easy" choices for folks who want those. Is it really any skin off the writers' noses if I think their moral quandaries are silly and just want to get on with smiting evil?

It seems like they needed someone there to provide exposition in case Eder wasn't around, and then couldn't figure out what else to do with her.

Don't worry, you'll get depowered back to level one again when the next game hits

And that's fine. I like working hard for my happy endings. If that's how devs want to compensate for the apparently braindead nature of the choice, go for it.