lordgizka

There you go: https://steamcommunity.com/id/darthgizka/recommended/560130/. Likely got downvoted to hell. I got pretty pissed with the endgame, so I did a ramble. Also, I should use both factual and emotional narrative, and not what I did there...

Existing companions don't get that much content, including interactions between companions themselves. Also very little banter. Rekke is suddenly hilarious with his wall of conversation options out of nowhere though. Wonder how that happened. Basically, what I'm doing is spouting negativity: if everyone's favourite walking corpse gets this sort of DLC, it probably won't be that good.

I don't remember the exact quote from Thaos during Poe endgame, but he basically claimed that gods are a good idea, because the reality of people being constantly reborn, but with their souls always getting smaller until they are destroyed completely, is too depressing. He could be lying, I mean, but that would be stupid. I am interpreting this as a retcon. I hope it has actual storytelling reason, and not just a case of nobody giving a crap. Optional locations not having a lick of story and ridiculously limited interactions with companions make me lean towards the second alternative...

Tried my PoE save first - the ending was mayor - instead in-game Eder got Night's Market - both the item and explanation. Thought - oh, direct import is borked (it usually is, can't remember a game with this feature where it wasn't...), who knows where else, made a manual save. In game Eder has his mayor item, but speech for his bad ending (left Dyrwood to visit his parents). So, yes, everything is borked.

Luckily, I'm super unemployed, so I'll go employ time travel until release. Should help with the actual product consumption afterwards too...

Read this https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/Cipher, and got wary of running a pure Soul Blade. That CohhCarnage stream got through all the classes, and Soul Blade description mentions "Max focus is reduced (Combat starting amount as well)" malus. If this persists throughout the whole game during level ups, that's worse . No wonder people are using this sub with other melee classes...

Frankly, I enjoy Avellone's writing style. It is wordy as all hell, but it is, at least to me, never dull. In fact, Durance and Grieving Mother had the most engaging stories out of all of the companions in PoE. And I remember reading previews claiming that Deadfire is a lot less wordy compared to the first game. So, whatever the truth of this whole debacle is, I am currently inferring that his writing style (perhaps, even overall work ethic) was, in fact, the problem and the source of potential conflicts with others in Obs' management. Regardless of who was incompetent as a manager or actually escalated the situation. Which means, the final product promises to be more dull. I would love to be surprised though.

All I could find that supports this particular "backer outrage" are second-hand accounts that Sawyer said that sidekicks will have similar level of interaction as Mazzy/Cernd in BG2 (see thread https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/96229-wtf-are-sidekicks/page-6).Mind, I couldn't find a direct quote by JS anywhere, or even a link to it. And, of course, both Mazzy and Cernd had banter, and quiet a bit of it. Cernd had his interactions in the druid quest too, limited as they were. So yes, if the quote is genuine, this latest stream does constitute a broken promise. If not, well, Fig updates didn't make any lofty promises about what sidekicks would be. That said, not giving people who are ready to throw money at you for mere promises "quite" what they want, may be both a smart business decision to widen the target audience, or a fast way to lose any audience altogether. I am personally watching steamcharts. For science, you see.

Honestly, I would prefer to play a proper expansion, and not the current industry standard "short self contained adventures during the main campaign". Still, if White Match was apparently unprofitable, and it was, all in all, a big proper expansion, then the decision to make smaller DLC faster is not surprising. These also have the lowest price point for each individual DLC, compared to WM parts and Bastard's Wound, which just adds to my "short length" fears...

I'll go pure Soul Blade. It has way too many goodies for a minor penalty. Not multiclassing for the two mystery power levels.

To be honest, as long as the game doesn't have Original Sin's "comedic" tone, that's awesome. With OS2 I was in a state where I fell compelled to listen to all this crap since someone obviously went through the trouble of voicing it (and well, too), but it was all just so long and boring, I just kept skipping it. Basically, I think the old "minimal or no voiceover" idea was functional for a reason. The player then knows how characters sound, and writers/designers can exercise their graphomania without many real-world constraints, except time limitations. And OS2 doesn't seem to have any planned DLC, and thus, no reason to bring in actors again. In PoE2' case, to me, the question is whether the lack of actor availability for, say, party member, might influence writing. With full voiceover, that would be jarring...

Bought the issue on Google play. No doges of any sort, but it was cheap and I haven't read any "printed" game magazines in a while. So that's something.

I honestly just want all the eventual DLC to amount to what WM was content-wise, preferably as parts of a continuous story. Personal worst case scenario would be smallish unrelated adventures. Still, with Paradox not in the picture, perhaps we are going to be spared portrait packs...

Bioware games have this thing where it's in the customer's best interest to wait at least a year after release to atually play them. When the last DLC is released and the bugs are (mostly) gone, I mean.

Judging by old trailers and screenshots, quite a lot was either cut or outright remade for some reason (Randy taught the new kid the nagasaki fart in an old trailer). We can't even beat up hippies in this game! That's practically a travesty.