The Sharmat

A Rymrgand centered expansion may well be the cure to Rymrgand not being terribly interesting to you. He needs screentime if he's ever going to get fleshed out.

Yes the blind run is the purest run if you want consequences to matter but that's not entirely in your hands. Devs rarely make save import impactful.

Since White March revealed a seemingly benign deity like Ondra was actually pretty horrible, will Beast of Winter reveal that a seemingly horrible deity like Rymrgand is actually a very nice guy?

Rymrgand is actively malicious if you consider wanting to hasten the end of all existence as malicious. Woedica also should be honest + cruel, -deceptive and benevolent I think. I love the idea of a priest of Hylea getting some chanter invocations. I do wonder just how open the Watcher and the returning companions can be about waht they found out at Sun in Shadow. I mean yeah, there's nothing you can do about it, but some people would probably have problems holding their tongue. Especially given one of the new companions is a priest. I can't imagine Pallegina and Xoti will get along, or that any argument between the two can long avoid Pallegina going "Hey you know your God is actually just an animantic construct."

Even if it does end up mattering it may be hard to tell what makes for the best narrative before a complete run of Deadfire. PoE 1 had the same issue. Most RPGs do I think.

Well that can't be the case with Skaen's since Thaos is dead at that point.

It's only fair, they'll need a couple weeks to get through the mandatory 10 hours of content on story mode required for a review.

Would you say the same of a parent that gives its life for its child? After all what is a human being but a vehicle programmed to propagate genes? But human beings can consciously choose to defy their genes and impulses. The point I was trying to make is: can the gods say the same for themselves? We have as much evidence of that for Gods as we do for humans. Which is to say it's an open question on both.

I imagine Open World as a concept is going to actually get worse in a lot of ways because advancements will lead to to larger, emptier worlds that developers simply cannot populate with enough content to really be engaging. What's a whole continent for instance if most of it is just fields and mountains where the only encounter you may have while travelling is an animal attack? Perhaps it's wishful thinking but I hope fatigue sets in soon and those ambitions are scaled back and more manageable RPG games (Of any subgenre.) are made in their place. And we're all the way back to Daggerfall. Gameworld the size of Great Britain IRL, but almost nothing ever touched by man in it. I know it categorizes my name as equiviliant to ‘weirdo’ but I loved Daggerfall..... I liked it too, but the open world was not a strength for me.

Would you say the same of a parent that gives its life for its child? After all what is a human being but a vehicle programmed to propagate genes?

Mass Effect started deteriorating in the second game, that's why I never bought the third. I could tell they'd never be able to deliver what they advertised. ME2 was fun enough but there were warning signs all over it.

I guess I can kind of get your position considering I'd think people that liked the rest of the Mass Effect series as a whole probably would like Andromeda. Personally I played ME 1 a couple times, did one short run of ME2 with no DLC, and never even bothered with ME3.

I imagine Open World as a concept is going to actually get worse in a lot of ways because advancements will lead to to larger, emptier worlds that developers simply cannot populate with enough content to really be engaging. What's a whole continent for instance if most of it is just fields and mountains where the only encounter you may have while travelling is an animal attack? Perhaps it's wishful thinking but I hope fatigue sets in soon and those ambitions are scaled back and more manageable RPG games (Of any subgenre.) are made in their place. And we're all the way back to Daggerfall. Gameworld the size of Great Britain IRL, but almost nothing ever touched by man in it.

I can absolutely confirm Eternity is not loved for it's combat. The biggest thing most reviewers liked was the story build up and how it was different than anything really ever done in a game, how it had a lot of connections to modern society, and how well built the world was. Most people said the combat was "serviceable but nothing you haven't seen before, and it could become a bit of a slog". Reviewers are idiots. They speak for no one but paid sponsors and some vague sense of consensus that only exists in their tiny echo chamber.

Humans will do the same thing in certain situations. Being aware and learning doesn't mean you're infinitely aware and capable of infinite self modification. Besides, Abydon did nothing wrong. You call repeating a chain of events that could ultimately lead to his death glitching, I call it noble.

I guess that gap is closing since both the west and the east is getting infested with the open world craze.

If there's 3 expansion, having one more combat-focused isn't such a bad idea to me. After all, the combat is what makes this game for so many people. We'll have to see if it's extensive enough to really stay interesting. I agree that an expansion that only covers one or two zones does seem a little forgettable What People. I haven't seen many people praise the combat in Pillars. People praise the athmosphere and the story, not really the combat. Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 are RPGs that people like and praise for their combat. Pillars not so much. I've seen plenty of people do it and will do so myself. I've seen that far more than praise for the story or atmosphere. We must read different sites.

I've actually never seen anything but the infinity engine games, Dragon Age: Origins, and the first Witcher called a CRPG but I don't read game journalism.

It could also be that a lot of the problems are simply due to divergence. The gods have rules and governing impulses like any intelligence, but they are still independent intelligence of vast scope and powers that have existed for over two thousand years. They're bound to have learned and grown in ways that were impossible to foresee for their architects. Their original architects may have understood this possibility, in which case Thaos' plan may have been the kind of thing that was always on the table. Keep one of the original animancers around to watch the whole system and occasionally nudge it back on the right course, as they saw it. If that is the case, I almost wonder if Woedica was happy to no longer need him around. The Watcher as a replacement is far preferable. Nowhere near Thaos' experience and completely lacking in any understanding of the principles on which the Gods actually work. Their relationship with Woedica would be far more lopsided than Thaos' own relationship with her.

No idea, I'm not in the beta. Just repeating what I've heard about it. If it's misinformation then I apologize for spreading it. Personally I almost never use the direct healing spells in PoE 1. There were just always better things to spend those actions and spell slots on.

So wait is more voice work good or bad I'm getting mixed signals here

A fair point. We'll have to see how things shake out. Maybe the ol' whore made out. Particularly if the Watcher made the pact with her triumvirate. See now, this has been mentioned a couple of times, and I'm somewhat sure Galawain himself explains this during Council of Stars, but the more I think about it, the more this bugs me. I mean, when you consider the nature of the gods, and all the self-preservation checks and balances built into their being... isn't Galawain's sponsorship of animancy something of a contradiction? We know that the Eoran pantheon was created with obfuscation of truth in mind, with Wael being the chief offender here. We also know that their ideologies and behavioral patterns were pre-programmed by the Engwithans. As such, doesn't Galawain seem like a huge design flaw that endangers the entire system from the get-go? Maybe I'm thinking of Eora's gods too much in terms of kinda-sorta fantasy AI/complex soul programs, but I've always been under the impression that the gods cannot outgrow their makers' parameters. I get the impression they were supposed to counter each other with Woedica as the final override to keep everything going as planned. The system has clearly gone off the rails, which is why Thaos is scrambling to amend it by boosting Woedica (possibly back to pre-burned-by-Magran status?)

I agree, to some extent, with DAO being listed among the sub-genre. I definitely dont think the genre HAS to be pc only, but the best examples pf it are pretty exclusive to the platform. Mostly because the Golden Age RPGs like fallout, darklands, BG, NWN, and so on were exclusive. However, Wasteland 2, DOS 1 and 2, PoE 1 and 2, and Shadowrun Returns + Dragonfall all had (or will have) ports to other platforms. I still consider all of these new entries cRPGs even if they all have some short comings compared to the old school games. Even games like the early Ultima games are part of the genre IMHO, and another odd one that I include as a CRPG is the TES games from Morrowind and prior. Oblivion and Skyrim are arguable, but I consider that's when Bethesda started deviating. That isn't to say they are bad games. They are just moving into a different genre of RPG IMHO. I dont like them, but I dont like God of War either and they are good games. Yeah the subgenre really works best with a mouse and keyboard so it will always be primarily a PC thing I think. Personally I'd rather play Pillars than any of the Infinity Engine games but apparently i'm weird. @Frog Man Pretty sure that chant is in PoE 1 already. Didn't use a high level chanter?

You could argue CRPG now refers specifically to the mechanics of a subgenre of RPG so that despite not being PC exclusive a game like the original Dragon Age counts. But you'd probably be lynched for doing so.

A lot of the displeasure comes from a conception that the time and money could better be spent elsewhere. Personally unless voice work has near zero or less value to you I doubt it really could have been given the realities of game development, but there you have it.