The Sharmat

Not really no. I'd prefer to read most the dialogue regardless of how well written it is because, as I said in my post, I read faster than voice actors speak. Terrible voice actors then.

Exactly. All that answer comes down to is.... okay... well they still exist, and they still have power, and they still answer prayers (hell you have talked to most of them at this point), so does this knowledge even matter to you? Does it actually make them "less godly", did gods come before them, and if so, where are they? That revelation doesn't actually change anything for your character, but it forces your character to decide what it all means to them. As I said, the story is about personal discovery, coming to terms with your past, and deciding your actual place in the world. Not the gods, not Thaos, not Iovara, and certainly not all the Animancy subplots. Well, presumably anyone that had faith in the Gods would be changed by it since that faith seems to hinge on them being fundamentally different from the rest of creation rather than products of animancers. There are important philosophical and moral questions that people tend to come to religion to answer and this will require most of them to seek new ones, either from alternative religions or philosophies or to just say **** it and make it up as they go along. It's not purely a personal thing.

It's not that hard. The most important thing to know going into PotD is that accuracy is the most important stat but there's lots of ways to get it for yourself and to take it away from enemies. buffs and debuffs are mandatory. Can't just ignore them as fluff like you might in other RPGs.

Nah, it's Shadow of the Sun triggering in the first flashback segment in the prologue.

That's basically the Voice Actor's curse right there. People know your work, but nobody knows who you actually are. And if people know who you are, they probably have no idea the other things you've been involved with. True, but to be fair I did actually know the names of many of them. I just didn't know about Critical Role. It's really sad when a VA gets typecast. All the downsides of typecasting without the upside of getting extra recognition because you're still ultimately just a voice with no face attached. But i guess the important part of typecast is the "cast" part in the end.

I don't follow. What do you mean?

No we haven't. The gods being worshiped in Eora at the moment are man-made....and? Now what? That doesn't really tell you anything about how you should live from a moral or practical standpoint. All it does is put the onus of all those questions back on the individual, since the Gods (at least the ones we know about) don't have an unassailable privileged position outside of creation.

That'd be because their dialogue is usually boring and even a great va can't make "and here's why I need ten xaurip anuses" interesting.

Consumers don't know what they want. Survey data says people playing POE want big old school expansions DLC but in reality everyone has ADHD and 100 games on their steam library they never played, so if you don't blitz them with horse armor the day after release they won't buy crap. Sad really.

I don't see why that necessarily follows since it's established the imprint lasts multiple lifetimes but is usually just sitting around in storage until the soul fragments or recombines. Devil of Caroc: Not a natural case anymore than Thaos. Perhaps as long as a soul is attached to something and not floating in the ether identity isn't leeched from it like it normally would be?

I wonder if it started that way or if people that got frustrated with Wael just went for the only other applicable God, and Galawain decided to expand his portfolio? Though come to think of it Hylea has creativity and inspiration as one of her spheres. Shouldn't she get some researchers and inventors too?

Huh. I knew about most of these people individually as talented voice actors with tons of range, but never knew of Critical Role as a group.

It's pretty easy to understand. New engine is prettier, but until one plays it, it's possible you will not like new game. You already like old game, you like new engine, you think "hey what if they stuck these two things I like together"?

I would argue you are completely mistaken.The plot of eternity is about the mystery behind your past life, trying to find out what your past self wanted to know, and discovering how to deal with the personal trauma of that past. The "main plot" is actually a very personal story about self discovery and what you believe. The animancy issues are a back drop. Your character could revile animancy, respect it, or not care about it one way or the other. It is a focal point of the sub story surrounding the factions of Defiance Bay, and the dyrwood on the whole, it is not a focal point of your personal story. Most of this subplot really just boils down to learning about your "enemy" and his motivations. The climax about the gods being man made is nothing but a foil to serve as your pasts life question, and the answer is that in reality, it wasn't relevant. As I recall the games own writing implies that once you discover what you do, you can't even remember why it troubled your past life so much. And that is because the truth is, the revelation of the gods isn't what troubled your past life, it was your role in the conflict between Iovara and Thaos that caused your troubles. Your past life could not come to terms with whether he made the right choice or not. Basically if Thaos and Iovara were two sides of the same coin, your character represented the person who called heads or tails. This. The main theme isn't "Oh **** gods aren't real religion is a lie. In this moment I am euphoric." it's the question of what to do when there are no answers.

Most of the NPCs have no particular reason to be with the Watcher, which is weird to me coming off other games from these developers. They used to go out of their way to justify it. I guess they were just emulating Baldur's Gate. I suppose it's telling that the two companions largely conceived by Avellone are the ones with the clearest reason to be following the Watcher. Though I suppose Aloth and arguably Edér also fit better than the others.

Thaos didn't seem like a very happy guy to me. He's been stuck doing this for two millenia. I don't think he gets out much. The problem with the main quest can be put simply as "50% of the plot is in the last 10% of the game" I think.

I think they'd have said that by now if they were going to do it. More likely it's just gaming journalists being idiots, as they are wont to do.

Durance is simultaneously one of the most hated and most loved companions. Fits. Anyway, Hiravias for me. I found him a bit one note and just couldn't get into the autumn stelgaer story. Pallegina may be the worst companion simply due to lack of content, but what little is there is fine. I'm not seeing the political pandering. People these days are too sensitive. Try being a right winger a few decades ago and then tell me about how horrible agenda pushing from the media you're suffering today is.

It's not from killing him. The cure is ripping the answer to the past life's question from Thaos' soul. Which, Thaos being Thaos, required killing him.

By understanding the mechanism of it and making the imprint so strong with divine intervention that it never changes? Woedica apparently has his soul well in hand for every part of the cycle. They even manage to tweak his biology so he's always born exactly the same man, physically, too. He's not just thaos' soul in a bunch of different bodies through the years. He's always the same guy that originally was born in Engwith. To Thaos, at least, the biology does seem to matter. EDIT: Wait are you talking about his soul projection when he possesses people? That's always very short term, and still using Woedica's cheats and Thaos' knowledge of animancy. Plus it's usually cohabitating with another soul. And finally, I never denied that souls retain a memory of what was there before. I'm seriously not sure either of us understands what the other is getting at.

I think Wael exemplifies this. The chief god of learning and scholars is also the god of ignorance and secrets. That's the way you design a pantheon if you don't want people finding uncomfortable answers.

We're going in circles at this point. I can't think of a better way to explain what I'm trying to say.

Well you'd have to be pretty crazy to be worried about heat death at the moment in the real world too. It's such an inconceivably long time away. If entropy acts on souls on a similar timescale, they're probably far more immediate apocalypses even on geological time. Yeah despite what she says, I wouldn't be surprised.

In our world split personality only happens on TV. I think you misunderstood what I was saying though. It appears in this setting that at most a soul retains a copy of a personality that arose entirely independent of its influence, which is weird given in most mythologies the soul is the most essential part of the self. here it's rather superfluous to identity, the body and its experiences being far more important. Souls seem to just be something that biology and environment leave an imprint on, instead of being something that is the "real you" but filtered through your body and experiences. Does that make sense?

Pillars of Eternity's dialogue is pretty straightforward. Thaos barely even gets any lines. The exposition can be awkward at times, but dense? It's not a complicated plot or world. i think the flaws with the writing are more just how in your face the exposition is. Characters acting like encyclopedia entries at times. I think some of the visceral negative reactions to Iovara come from exposure to the "euphoric atheist" phenomenon to be honest.