FlintlockJazz

In order to give people a proper chance to answer due to the leading nature of the other one, do you think shapeshifting should be improved or is it fine as it is?

Yep, and the wear and tear of armour as it gets used and smashed up, not counting the fact that even if it survives in decent condition it was made to fit someone else and would probably require refitting (if possible) to get it to fit someone else without penalty (unless they were munitions-type armour in which case it's inferior quality anyway).

Are you guys seriously arguing about swear words now? Really? *Flips the switch* "In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star. And one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead."

They were not building it from scratch for that difficulty though, they were working with what was already there and then upping the difficulty. And it still doesn't disprove my point that they cannot know what order you will do the quests in or what quantity of the quests you will take up, and just making it stupidly hard that it would actually be impossible will result in people complaining about it, no matter what you personally may want. You're basically asking for level scaling for PotD.

Then you and I shall never agree and must fight to the death in the Backer Battle Arena.

Have you considered leaving certain things like the bounties which you yourself stated required reloads they were that hard for later or even not at all? They give quite a bit of xp and so may get you overlevelled for the point of the game you are at. Remember, the devs need to balance these games not only for those who do everything but also for those who don't do everything and without level-scaling this means not making it too hard just in case the player hasn't levelled up too much, or as in the case with these games where quests can often be done in different order meaning that one person might do one quest first and another a different one, with their levels being different for when they finally get to the same quest. This issue cropped up in BG2 especially if you did all the sidequests in Athkatla and surroundings as they were all made available at the same time which meant they were all the same difficulty but by the time you finished the last sidequest you could be substantially higher level than intended, but I liked having all those quests open to me to pick and choose as I liked and I would not want level scaling in as it made the world feel real and my character like he was actually getting more competent.... *shrug* EDIT: Also as to hitting max level with so much of the game left, same thing happened again with BG2 until they released ToB, it seems to be a fundamental issue with these types of games that seems hard to get around even today. Why do you think so many cop out with 'level scaling'?

All you actually have to do to get the god to help you survive the fall is to do their quest, the swearing to them is a separate matter and is done to get an extra boon from them in addition to the help with the fall in return for agreeing to solve the situation their way. It's probably not as clear as it could be, I wasn't entirely sure when I did the same and avoided swearing to any of them when I jumped in the hole, but then given the nature of the gods it was possibly intended.

So people are saying we have to call him Welcher Avellone from now on then?

Two of those, and the worst offenders, are MMOs. Different kettle of fish. The others were big budget AAA games, which would need expensive new assets made for them. Not saying 6 months is unlikely, just that I don't think it's easy to compare.

By those definitions there already is romance in the game: I think the issue is that when people say romance they are usually talking about the conversation tracks with NPC companions that lead to jiggle time. Honestly, unless the PC is a predefined character and not a custom made one then those ones just can't work, it requires the companion to be basically open to a relationship and fall in love with such a wide range of possible characters even if you restrict it to just one gender and orientation that it just cannot be well defined by definition.

Belkar of course! Hmm, so I need to create an Orlan Ranger Cook who favours the Cruel and (special for just him) Sadistic dispositions? I feel this must be done...

Then I was the one to have a humour failure. :D

I help both men and women equally (open doors, etc). It's what this video implies, that a good deed is not worth the trouble without possible repayment, that is irksome. Actually no it's saying the guy is a bastard. That's the humour, that he goes around being all chivalrous to ladies until he finds out they're married or otherwise unavailable and then immediately shows his true colours. You're supposed to laugh at him not with him.

That's the point I've been arguing though, for people to volunteer up their children for sacrifice requires them to either believe in some religion or have some reason. The reason put forward in the game is that they believed other cultures would lack a moral compass, not some great religion on the contrary it was supposedly the fear that people would not have a religion that led them to do it. This based on some theory they came up with as what might happen, this does not seem a strong enough reason for an entire civilisation to all agree en mass to throw themselves into a soul-machine, leading me to think there is something more going on. You can both think they did it for 'theological imperialism' but there is zero evidence in the game to back this up. Maybe it was the reason, but until something is presented proving this then it is mere conjecture and nothing more. I do not believe the pantheon in any way embodies Engwithan ideals particularly, it might do but we see nothing to prove one way or another, no one even mentions it as a possibility in the game.

Remind me NOT to have you make me any food.... And as far as finding and making food I would this that wizard or cipher would work best. The wizard could kill and cook the food all in one shot with fireball and the cipher could control the mind of the animal making the animal season itself and cook itself! I have no idea what you could be implying... Mind controlling an animal has a very... dark and twisted tone to it. Kinda reminds me of the pig that can talk and wants to be eatne at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Douglas Adams). Yeah that kinda fits with what I was thinking too, a lot of the backgrounds only really makes sense with certain classes and some classes seem almost synonymous with certain backgrounds (Ranger and Hunter for instance).

I know all that, but saying "They thought differently back then" is a cop out. There are reasons for why people believe as they do, it might be ****ed up but you can usually work out a logic behind it, and there is always human nature. Varana said that they volunteered for it, you are saying that they were forced into it, if they were forced into it then there wouldn't be this discussion but the vision at the end shows nothing like that. It showed people who seemed to know exactly what was going to happen and willing to go along with it. From what we know of the Engwithans, they seemed to be a very scientific culture, advanced in animancy, which is another reason to suspect this act of group suicide/ascension. As to it being theological imperialism, there is absolutely no evidence of it in the game: the gods not only don't present a unified system of beliefs but are often contradictory to each, some overlap, and most don't even seem relevant to what we know of the Engwithans. The goal presented in the game wasn't a theological domination it was to stop other people finding out that there were no 'real' gods for fear of the impact it would have upon the world. We do know what happened to the Engwithans, they were all fed to the machines to make the gods, that is what the vision is showing and that is why I think there must be something else going on for an entire culture to sacrifice itself like that.

SPACE OPERA ESPIONAGE! I like. Let's get them to do it! Proper sci-fi, proper espionage. Their own universe. It must be done. None of this Mass Effect rubbish too, I want human genetic engineering to take the place of aliens, with a proper view on transhumanism (seriously the writers of Mass Effect had no ****ing clue on what makes you transhuman, I was literally banging my head on a wall listening to some of their bull**** explanations), actual thoughtful look at the ramifications of AI and bioroids, etc.

Or the lord he was serving wanted to cook his companion, and that was the reason of the spit... He wanted to eat Bob the Thundercat?! There'd be more than spit in his lunch! Hmm, maybe spit is a euphemism....

So I have kind of fallen in love with the Labourer background of Cook for some bizarre reason. Probably something to do with the option of spitting in people's food to be honest. Thinking of classes that would fit this class RP-wise, Rogue fits the most but I was wondering if people saw a Ranger working as well. I mean, survival influences the effects of food after all... maybe it wasn't just his spit but also his companion's spit in there as well?

I doubt the babies it mentions people holding agreed to anything. If it involved the entire society then there would have been some who would have gone around telling the truth of what the gods really were, you wouldn't need the heretic woman whose name I cannot remember to find out and spread it since it would already have people doing that. What about our world and children? If you mean how they are used against their will then that goes against it being volunteers who agreed to be sacrificed, and if they are too young to talk or understand what it is they are doing then they cannot volunteer. The greater good as stated by Thaos was to prevent others from finding out there were no gods in the belief that it would lead to everyone doing as they pleased without consideration for the consequences which would lead to destruction of society. There is no evidence that these gods represent Engwithan belief or that it was done for theological imperialism. EDIT: Basically, I cannot see why an entire society would be so committed to what is essentially a belief that other people can't cope without gods, to such an extent that the entirety of them would go along with it en mass unless there is something else going on here that we have yet to find out.

There's also different forum styles. I use a style with black ink on white-ish background, because the other way around really is a PITA to read. Bright letters on a dark background is a crime against decent eyesight. :D Funnily enough my niece has dyslexia and finds black on white background hard to read while white on black is fairly easy for her, which is quite common for people with dyslexia. It's annoying that e-ink readers don't give the option to invert the ink on them (it can be done, kindles will actually display the page inverted initially for a second or two when you change pages).

Is this where the Tyrion x Hiravias slash fiction getting posted?

I know that's why some would go along with it, but an entire city? Including parents taking their kids along who wouldn't be able to make the choice for themselves? I'd expect something like this to split a society, not only would some refuse to go along with it they would probably actively sabotage those who do. And the vast majority would not even take sides, they would go "Well as long as it doesn't affect me..." The average member of a population doesn't care enough about religious matters or long term issues to do something like this. There's either something else going on here or most of the people were told lies and didn't actually know what was really going to happen.

Could explain why Durance's questline involves stuff that we would have no knowledge of, be interesting to know what was supposed to be revealed in that Mind-Dungeon (while GM does some questionable things I'm not sure I would say she has a unpleasant core, she seemed to just make mistakes that lead to more mistakes, so it implies that we may have found out more about them, unless I am underestimating just how much mind control she did to people). As to it being contrived for two companions to know each before meeting you, surely it would be written in that the reasons why they joined you was because of their shared history? Durance seeks you out because of some vision (that never gets explained actually) while GM is recruited when you see through her illusions due to being a Watcher, so whatever they did to each other arguably causes them to be link together still and drawn to the same place (you). Also, if they screwed each other's souls up that badly then it could be that you were intended to find them wandering around the same area where they blew each other up, not realising that the person that did it to them is just on the other side of that bridge...

Woedica did not gain soul power from the Inquisition, I think you are misinterpreting that vision: that wasn't Woedica being empowered but either her or another god (or all the gods) being created in the first place. Woedica did not threaten to become the one god which prompted the rebellion, she was already head of the pantheon at the time and quite possibly from the start and the other gods overthrew her and messed her up. The issue isn't whether it makes sense for Magran to do that but that there is no evidence that she did it because she was allied with Woedica at the time or that Eothas was trying to expose the Leaden Key. Those two things seem to come out of nowhere and is not supported with what we do find out in the game. All we know is that some being that claimed to Eothas went on a rampage and Magran got some dudes to blow him up. The gods were not being fed souls. The Hollowborn Crisis was Thaos gathering souls to empower Woedica but the other gods were not being fed souls, so no they will not weaken at all.