Starwars

What kinda confuses me at times are the powers of the Watcher. We can see certain souls, yes. But apparently we can also at times interact with them, like what we do with Maerwen for example (and with Thaos at the end) I think the more *exact* nature of the Watcher is the weakest link in the story. It's been brought up before on the forums but I think it's true that the real pain behind is never quite... brought alive so to speak. Yes, you see a few visions and so forth but I never got the feeling that my character suffered. Some of the companion reactions after resting kinda tries but... I dunno, I don't think they quite manage to bring across that part of it. If we are to compare, Mask of the Betrayer also had us "catch" an affliction and I think it did a superior job in really hitting home that being a Spirit-eater was a terrible curse (though you could turn it into a terrible power also). The background of it was also *solid*. I found PoE kinda lacking in this regard. The whole concept of the Watcher is kinda floaty at times.

I enjoy the reputation/disposition system. While its use is fairly basic here, I think it does a lot to encourage some roleplaying. I think the basic reactivity in dialogues goes a long way. I hope they can expand upon it further on down the road. I also love the scripted interactions though I wish there were more of them. I think character building as well the combat system is a lot more fun in PoE even though there are details in the IE games I like more. I'm torn about pre-buffing. On one hand, I find it quite nice because it's not a particularly fun *mechanic* the way you tend to use it in the IE games. On the other hand, the freedom to just cast whatever you want, whenever you want is something I miss quite a bit in PoE.

According to the strategy guide (which doesn't mean it's 100% true of course), there is no other way to solve this. You have to get down and dirty with them.

It's cool to read that! It does seem to be a bit of a recurring "theme" in the game with chimes and bells (most notably in the Grieving Mother story but in other places also). It was something I reacted to back in one of the earlier videos/trailers (might even have been the first kickstarter video?), toward the ending there was a soundscape featuring bells and such if memory serves. Always liked the image it seemed to conjure up. I hope you will still get the time to write up that article on the music in the game at some point. Would be very interested in reading it.

I was thinking about backing FemFreq back in the day and probably would've if I hadn't forgotten about it. I still think it's good to examine games from that perspective. Unfortunately the whole discussion has now become tainted beyond any point of reason. Does that mean I think Sarkeesian has done a good job of it? Definitely not. I must say it's rather annyoing to see people constantly bring their own politics into everything. Both people trying to censor the game, and the people lashing out against Josh or Obsidian. Becoming outraged that Josh chose to support the FemFreq kickstarter is on a similar level of people being outraged that you can kill a child in the game. It's very silly, not to mention counter-productive, as being outraged and pointing fingers will not solve the debate or further your cause, no matter what side you happen to be on. The people on the other side will simply think of you as another idiot and use that to further their own cause and on and on and on it goes... forever until we all die from brain damage.

As everyone has said, it's just hilarious that there's some kind of moral line between killing grown-ups and children.

Is there even a mod tools release coming? I must've managed to miss that. Regardless, I think a modding subforum would be good!

I think the wilderness areas vary in how they feel though generally speaking I would certainly welcome bigger maps. Some areas aren't really given enough space to "breathe'" as there's a lot of monsters to be found. The "ecology" of many of the more normal wilderness maps feels kinda off in how many monsters are around and it makes the maps feel smaller. I think Twin Elms felt just right for me for the type of town it was. I would've liked Defiance Bay a bit bigger also. Though I do think the actual areas themselves in the city were good it could've done with some additional district. Also, First Fires felt pretty empty to me. While Ondra's Gift is one of the best areas in the game I think. When I was playing the game, it was mostly apparent to me in the wilderness areas though, I would've liked some of those to be bigger (and with less monsters in some cases). Both the cities felt pretty good to me while playing, though it is like you say, Defiance Bay didn't quite match up to Baldur's Gate, Athkatla or Sigil in terms of its size and business. Would be awesome if they can really make a huge city in a possible sequel. Exploring the cities is always my favorite thing in these games.

I love the use of chimes here and there. Listening to the Burial Isle theme now and it's just... epic and haunting. And those chimes in the background, it's just wonderful! I wish there was a final boss battle theme though. Also *love* the Twin Elms music. The opening with the harp and that soft, soft synth (I think) in the background. The use of piano is also great. Hope there will be more music for the expansion!

Hopefully that may be the case! Thanks for the answer at any rate. The "soul sound" is quite cool though, it kinda sounds like there's a bell going off in the distance or something at one point. I always listen for that, it's a nice sound.

I could've done with less VO also. Like it's been pointed out, it kinda clashes with the descriptive text at times (and I would *much* rather have the descriptive text in a game like this) and the way some nodes are voiced, and then some silent... and then voiced again is kinda jarring I think. Would've liked it if only the more "key scenes" were voiced entirely/almost entirely. The stuff with the antagonist for example, I think it works really well there. And the VA for him is really good too of course.

I think it's pretty weak of OEI to change it (though I do like the new rhyme) but this quote is just amusing to me (bolded parts for emphasis).

I just finished up my first playthrough and yep, this is one amazing game. Definitely the best Obsidian has done and one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Like anything, it's not without its flaws but wow, what a game. Seriously. I'm so excited to see where this is going next. I hope to god they keep the formula the same and DON'T DUMB IT DOWN ANY!

I also think PoE has a certain complexity in some areas that BG2, for its enormous size, does not have. Choices in quests and so forth. Personally, I'd at least definitely say that I feel this game has much more (and generally higher quality) content than BG1 does. But I cannot believe how someone could complain that PoE "lacks content". I mean... waht. That does not compute.

Just bumping this up once so maybe someone will get a look at it now that the devs are more awake.

Personally I would welcome a bit less XP, playing on Hard.

I like how the keep is setup also. I just wish that A) more things happened there really. Maybe I had bad luck on my playthrough but very little of note actually happened. A visitor or two. I only got the item merchant once. It feels a bit bare to me. I also wish it had been setup a bit differently area-wise. It's a bit of a pain that you have to go upstairs (two loading screens) to rest and then back down again. The Endless Paths is an interesting experiment. I think I had built up something more awesome in my mind but I still enjoyed it. I think it dragged for a few levels in the middle where it really felt like it was just clearing out room after room. I also think it could've been paced better story-wise. Still, I think it's a supremely cool idea and I'm glad they were able to pull it off.

Was wondering if it would be possible to have background music and such to continue playing in an area despite the fact that you're looking into someone's soul. It's a bit annoying that the music stops (and later starts again) everytime you go "fooooooom..." and look into a person's soul. Especially if one wants to check out the backer NPCs, it makes for a rather "choppy" experience so to speak. Just a suggestion, no idea how hard it would be to implement! Maybe it'd be a bad idea, I dunno, maybe some of the music would clash with the soundscape or something, but yeah...

I would love a random encounter system for this (both non-fights and hostiles). A few things I'd prefer though is that have the chance be fairly small-ish (because it gets annoying as hell after a while), have the encounters actually be challenging (because fighting trash mobs is pointless to the system) and, as you say, maybe have some skill-usage involved in avoiding fights and so on.

Durance is probably my favorite. Writing "crazy" to be interesting and not over the top. He still managed to feel like a real character... somehow, even with all the craziness going on. Grieving Mother is also really interesting, though I really enjoyed the imagery mostly. The descriptive stuff and experiencing her memories. I found her actual dialogue (when she's speaking I mean) to be a little... overly dramatic and weird. But it's a very interesting take on a character. Edér is a bro. Just down to earth, nice to have around and pretty funny. Aloth is... well, I liked him but nothing really stood out I must admit. Somehow it just felt like he kinda melted into the background eventually. I can't believe it's the same voice actor who did Edér though, what a great job he did. Would've never been able to tell that if I hadn't read it. Sagani was cool, I really enjoyed her quest. It was also cool to get an outside (not just the locals) "tribal" influence. Kana Rua. Pretty fun to have around but nothing very special. Pallegina seemed to me to be a really nice character but she also felt underveloped. A few of these characters... I just wanted *more* of them, and Pallegina is one of those. Hiravias was funny, but not much more than that. His story didn't really have much of an impact on me. A pretty enjoyable bunch, and it's always nice (and surprising) when there's no companion that I find flat out annoying. If a sequel is coming, I wish that the companions would feel a bit more "even" in their dialogues though. It feels like they vary quite a lot in how much meat there is to them, feels a bit uneven.

Cast your minds back to the heady days of 1998... When you likely were an impressionable teenager. BG was *not* a masterclass in storytelling. And especially not in *interactive* storytelling (which is what we're dealing with in games). PoE's story is certainly not flawless (I think it could do with it feeling more threatening to the player from the start, it doesn't come across as well as it should) but it's miles better than the BGs.

Twin Elms music. Pure love!

I think the one thing that really gets me excited (and I've posted it several times before) is the prospect of a BGII-like sequel to PoE. Personally, I'd rather have it be with a fresh character (but no a deal-breaker) but yeah... Just the thought of using the systems in place now, and just going crazy with the content. PoE is a really big game, make PoE2 freakin' enormous!

Dungeon Siege 3 was also pretty bug-free. While I would never excuse a developer for bugs (and there are some pretty nasty ones present in this game), I think it's just... pretty much impossible to deliver a largely bug-free experience while making a game of this size and complexity. There are just *so* many things that can go wrong. The IE games had plenty of problems as well, and the enhanced editions introduced a large amount of bugs yet again. Look at any hugely complex games (Crusader Kings 2 for a Paradox example, even though it's been out for a long time and actively patched) and they will often be very buggy I think the truer test will be if they keep up the patching to fix problems and such after release.

From memory, he's like northwest of the Salty Mast in an alleyway (at night).