Varana

That would've been much more appropriate for Pillars 1, with the "losing your mind to awakened pre-memory" and stuff. :D

Consequences will be poop, sleepless nights, and power attacks of Irresistible Cuteness +5.

Less "dead baby land" is a good direction - but please, they should keep "somewhat nuanced characters behaving relatively realistically".

For creating individual pirates, I'd think that the background of the crew should be fixed a bit more. The general way of going forward is good, though - getting ideas and then letting Obsidian decide how much they can use of those. (Sorry for posting something a bit contrary again. I really appreciate this effort. )

Got the email that the pledge had been collected, money hasn't been withdrawn, yet. I'd not worry too much. These things take a few hours or days. (Backer 2659.)

The Chinese and Arabs could be imperialist, as well. :D AFAIK, the standard ship is supposed to be built in the Dyrwood (Defiance Bay, probably), so it'll be European in style. As we've hit the stretch goal with the additional ship types, everything's possible with those.

That is wrong.

"Kluft" isn't "chasm" here, it's a colloquialism for "clothing". May be regional. (I've heard it from various regions across Germany, though.) Translating names: The question about those is - did they create a world with names that are supposed to sound English, or ones that are supposed to sound familiar? The example is probably overused, but that's what Tolkien was getting at with his specific instructions that Hobbit (and other) names should be translated: They're "your language". For Tolkien, that happened to be English; in translations, that should be the respective language. Now, that works reasonably well for European languages; translating Baggins into Chinese, Yoruba or Arabic probably doesn't really evoke the same feeling of "home" because of the cultural differences. Between English and German, that's usually not an issue. As for PoE, both views can be justified, I think. Oh, and translations in the 90s: I switched to playing games in English because of Civilization II. God, that German translation was awful. And yes, worse than the examples you cited above, completely without Google Translate. :D

The Heaven of Nobody, or something like that.

Classless is usually superior for all cases, though. Classes are a crutch. A limiting genre convention that should be ditched as soon as possible. So there.

Cannon!

If you read a name in any language, that is going to evoke a certain emotion or image in you. It is of absolutely no importance whether you understand that name, pronounce it correctly, or whatever. Just by looking at the letters, and pronouncing it in your head. This is inevitable. It's even stronger when you (partially) understand the name. A translation (regardless into what language) will never give you that same emotion. Never. But that is not the goal of a translation. A translation is there for someone who doesn not speak the original language to experience the game as intended (at least as closely as possible). That includes names. If the creator choose a very mundane and plain name (like, "Snow" ), that will sound plain and mundane to native speakers. It will sound somewhat exotic and cool to everyone else, even if you understand what the word means. Translating it to "Schnee" will make it suddenly very plain and non-impressive - which is the original intention but not the one you got first by hearing the English version. And that often is the actual problem with translated names: People expect something completely different. They want a native word that evokes the same foreign impression while retaining the meaning as closely as possible (or no one would complain about Königsmund). That is simply impossible, and the best a translator can do is coming close to the sentiment the creator tried to evoke in the original language. That is also why simply retaining names often is not an option in fantasy. (As opposed to real life texts.) Now, we could argue a lot about ASoIaF and so on, but generally: Translating is waaaay more complicated than it seems, if you want to do better than a fan dub that is basically content with getting the meaning across. Also, it seems you haven't used Google Translate in a while. P.S. Don't really understand what's the issue with Goldtal and Weißmark, either.

I very much agree with FlintlockJazz that the major reason why I (mildly) disliked the Steward was the lack of people at the Keep. In a setting like PoE, I can totally imagine a soul bound to a chair managing a castle. That it all happens by invisible gremlins and no one actually builds anything, there are never any stacks of logs and stones for further construction, no one ever hangs out at the theatre thing, no one tends to the garden, etc. - all this makes the Steward look as a cop-out. In retrospect, I'd even retain the Manage Your Keep smartphone app, because quality of life. At the keep itself, though, it felt lifeless, which made the pure functionality of the Steward stand out that much more. As for the adventures: Those are the best thing EVAH!!! At least in their latest incarnation, with actual stories. If Obsidian has money to burn, the adventures could have slightly different outcomes (or flavour text) depending on what character does them, but that's icing on the cake. In general, though, these things were a really great idea. They needed a little bit of filling in context (and dialogue) for yourself, but that's fine.

They did make a poll: "... the final tally is: 7,267 TB, 7,052 RTwP and 782 Indifferent. With the vote at 48% to 47%, and with those who voted “indifferent” being more than triple the difference between the TB and RTwP camps, it is essentially a draw." (TToN Kickstarter Update) So... "it's what the backers voted for" is a bit misleading.

I think we can be fairly sure that the eventual price tag of what you're getting will be $20 or more, not less. In what form or shape the DLC comes, isn't known. I'd ´guess that it's going to be an expansion like WM, not a bundle of Horse Armour and More Tattoos, though.

Also, most people here actually wouldn't have a problem if there were six in the party. They just don't see the world ending in flames with five, either.

Jesus Obsidian, is that something like a Black Madonna?

While the idea with the hidden message in the log is nice, I'd be cautious. If the "treasure" is actually worth getting, it means that players would have to really read backer material, closely. Seeing as how I for one reacted to the backer NPC stories and tombstones in PoE1, I don't think that's a good idea. (I was very happy to ignore the stories completely - even though they weren't usually breaking the 4th wall all that much. And though I clicked on most tombstones eventually, I did so knowing full well that this was out-of-game material.) Now, I'm all for being more subtle; having the donors fit in as much as possible is the right way. However, I don't think that it's ultimately possible to have both a seamless integration into the game world, and getting your name into the game in a recognisable way. As side content that's easily ignorable, that's fine. Having to dive into it, probably not. Apart from that, options B through D sound fine. I'd like seeing those remarks about people as "ambient dialogue" - i.e. the kind of chattering between the Glanfathans in Twin Elms, for instance. They're talking, and if you like, you can stand next to them listening, or you go on and ignore it. (I can't remember whether that was only spoken dialogue, or text-based. Non-spoken is the only option, I think.)

I trust you had great difficulties keeping a straight face when posting that.

Talking about Trump, I see.

Micamo: But no one's trying to write you. Everyone's experiencing their identity in their own, personal way. There are broad patterns, but those are the ones you can research. I didn't talk about stripping these things away; of course they're integral to a character. But how they affect a character, how they behave as a result of them, is never identical in two human beings. Even if a character shares many of those identities with you, it's perfectly possible that she's very different from you. (And it's guaranteed that she will be different at all.) We are shaped by our identities, we are not pre-determined by them. Taken to its conclusion, what you are saying is that no one can write about anything except themselves (and given how much of us is subconscious, probably not even that). That is demonstrably not true. We can write believable characters who are not us but speak even to those sharing some identities with them, we have done it for millennia.

Not exactly sure what you mean. Stats and story should go hand in hand. Both are different sides of the same coin. Characters can't do anything in the story when their stats don't allow it; what they can do in the story, should be reflected in their stats. That's how it should be.

Now that is equally bull****. There isn't a way "all of those {conveniently pigeonholed group of people} work". People are socialised with the patterns and aspects of behaviour that are relevant to them - at best. They might not even know one of the other group, personally. But what you're writing is a character (err... I hope), not "member of {group X}". Claiming to have something "special" that no one else understands, might be comforting. It might be a useful thing to say if you want to have more writers of {group Y} writing about same group by claiming that others "get them wrong". It's still nonsense.

I would actually welcome a fantasy world that does away with the old "squishy wizard bookworm" trope and introduces wizards that need to be physically strong. Fantasy is so tediously entrenched in its clichés that it's kind of boring sometimes. It's fantasy, you can do almost anything! But if you do that, it has to be consistent. From actually describing wizards that way, to including obligatory gym membership in your setting's Hogwarts, to wizards doing appropriate tasks in non-wizarding daily life. That's where PoE fell short - it sold its wizards as traditional bookworms and required them to be physically strong in stats.

As an option: Why not. They apparently bring Big Head Mode back, which is equally useful. :D As default (or only way): BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!