The Sharmat

I can't quote most of it from memory but the opening narration scroll has Odema the caravan leader struggling to lead the caravan through the dark"looking to the stars for answers" but them "giving no hint of what they know". He's doing it to navigate and judge the weather but the stars are also a stand in for the heavens/gods. The whole game main plot is about conflicts arising from people stumbling along trying to find answers in a universe with no clear ones. There's your main theme. Not long at all after you have the dude that greets you in front of the hanging tree in Gilded Vale saying "A bad cure is worse than none at all." in reference to charlatans peddling false solutions to the Hollowborn. But narratively this also refers to the Engwithans' solution of manufacturing artificial gods to force clear meanings on the world. There's your thesis statement. I mean it's very lit 101 but not bad for a video game.

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Chris Avellone, the Obsidian owner?He could even stop his own projects from getting finished. Is it possible to learn this power?

I offered him a free copy of full release a long time ago, he had no interest. He wants BG3, and he knows Eternity will never be that. It is not Baldur's Gate 3 he yearns to play. It is the experience of playing Baldur's Gate for the first time. /Zahua

Wait I found a way to be pessimistic about the character: She knows the stuff you're saying she knows because she's actually the good part of Eothas that split off when Eothas possessed Waidwen, or when Waidwen was destroyed. The end game has a forced dramatic sacrifice where the player can kill her to reunite her with the rest of Eothas and turn him back into a Lawful Good redemption deity.

An AI Sawyer created in the mad pursuit of Balance. It eventually decided that the player itself is the source of imbalance and tried to exterminate everyone. It was only through the sacrifice of a few brave heroes that its central mainframe was reached and deactivated.

* NOTE: I am something of a difficulty fetishist (though not on the first couple of playthroughs). But even I realize that it's a side challenge that the vaaaaaaast majority of the user base not only won't care about, but would be upset to find out that things were cut just so folks like us could scratch an itch. By the way, it would be extremely interesting to know what percentage of players do more than one playthrough (you mentioned "first couple", and this caught my eye). In my view, PoE 1 had a replay value of exactly zero: there was nothing random in the game, and the world was totally static except for the choices you made as a player. I really liked playing the game, but having got to the end, I can't see why I would ever want to start another game. (No criticism implied here.) Besides the different choices and mechanics of a new character, if a story is any good it's worth experiencing more than once. There's things that can only be appreciated on a replay. For instance the entire prologue and first little bit of act 1 actually states the thesis and themes of the game directly but it's hard to tell until you've been to Sun in Shadow.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, but... It's rarely clear you've overstretched until it's too late to do anything but damage control. There's a reason every game has cut content.

A great question. It’s entirely speculation on my part, but the man isn’t shy about relationship with alcohol. Maybe he isn’t as happy and carefree as he would others to think that he is. Who knows. May I ask where do you get that alchohol stuff from?Follow him on Twitter for a while. And IIRC, he wasn't exactly clean during the final countdown during the Kickstarter campaign either. That long clip is still up for viewing over at Obsidian's twitch site, I believe. It'll just take some scrolling to dig it up. "WWOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo!" -Master Chris Avellone

Developers design their games to some extent in response to feedback. Also said waifu wars can be morbidly amusing. Or on the glass half empty side, spill out into unrelated areas and poison discussion of other parts of the game. But that's life.

You sweet summer child. Nah I've been a member of the husbando/waifu wars. It won't get that bad here because we lack the base for true embittered venom. I mean there will be some but not the hair pulling you see on other fandoms. That stuff is the result of years of arguing and bitterness. I've seen this said of other fanbases before. It always ends the same. The cycle cannot be broken.

Stop trying to make me optimistic.

On the contrary those are the kinds of fans you can most afford to displease, because they have already bought your game and will continue to do so unless you release three or four stinkers in a row.

My strategy towards release is different. i go to very negative places that make me think it will be a disaster, so when they game comes out I am blown away by how much better it is than I expected.

You sweet summer child.

I dread the thought, yet welcome the discussion of waifus as it concerns the game, at the very least. You're mad.

Oh this is nothing. A few weeks after release there will be a waifu megathread for each companion with running battles between rival shippers spreading all over the board. This? This is fairly comfy.

He lacks attraction to the thread, but still desires normal posting.

Tomorrow the mod chokes on his own banhammer. Tomorrow, I become the Effigy.

I don't know, I think most priests would be mad that you want to kill their God. it's likely to be a problem for a lot of characters. Durance would just laugh.

What good is being self aware if you can't graduate from lifeless mechanical reproduction to full on depravity?

Git gud at decryption scrub

Aren't they saying we'd be the ones to disbelieve it This IS Obsidian's board. That's a fair expectation. But this board seems more apathetic about this subject than anything. I expected to wake up to a much larger thread, but apparently "Chris hates Obsidian" isn't as big a draw on this board as posting "Romance in PoE II". Chris has never stated he hates Obsidian. His beef is with 'upper management' and primary Feargus based on what he's posted. With very good reason if what has been said is true. He doesn't have to state it, it's pretty obvious. Platitudes about how he wishes the poor victim employees the best don't mean much when he's actively hoping they'll sue him and rooting for the company's destruction.

It's not hard to understand a years long temper tantrum. It's just hard to sympathize with one.

Temple of Eothas and Caed Nua could be yeah. Final fight at Raedric's Hold as well.

Yeah I haven't actually watched the stream but I'm hearing Xoti really is the most transparent kind of waifubait. I hope my experience differs from others in game but I'm bracing myself for disappointment.