Gallenger

Oh no unexpected things occurred and I don't want to suffer the consequences in my role-playing game Press A for Good! Press A for Good! At least for me, just rolling with what the game gives me is 1/2 the fun, especially of a first playthrough where you really have no idea what's going to happen. If I wanted everything to be just so I'd use a character editor to flag all the proper quest results (a pretty handy thingue if they end up making any subsequent sequels reactive a la ME1-ME2). I ended up doing all the quests that I could and didn't get the faction I maybe would've preferred, but it was still cool, and there's something different for me to do next time.

I take it a bit differently, you awaken *first* and then become a watcher as a result. The machine itself doesn't awaken you nor does the Biawac. What awakens your soul is seeing Thaos carry out that particular ritual at *that* particular machine - because you had been present for (or directly participated in) such a ritual at that very site before when you were grand inquisitor. That's why you see all the torture devices - because that's what you did on the reg., to people who didn't repent properly. Most people just presume you're a watcher, excepting Aloth - not that you're awakened, and that remembering your past life, has also granted you the ability to see lost spirits. The Dwarf lady hanging from the tree says as much to you - that your soul has remembered what it was to walk around without a body, so you've suddenly gained the ability to see it. She's simply not aware that a lot of your visions are tied to your past life. Nor is the player really, they just assume, I imagine, it's stuff that's supposed to be kinda creepy. All the torture scene stuff isn't just random visions you get it's stuff that your past life did, regularly.

It is the adra pillars... I mean look at the game box... It says Pillars of Eternity... with Adra stones behind the words lol.

I was more scared that he'd turn into the "jacob" character of this game - but Eder was *great* His drawl didn't bother me at all, because I'm not defective in that way. I *think* Aloth talks to you after you wake up one time as well as those above have mentioned.

The whole point of the quest is that abortions are in TREMENDOUS demand - nobody cares about the moral repercussions of abortion in the situation, literally anybody who gets pregnant, and isn't naive to the whole hollowborn situation, is having an abortion. Furthermore, throughout the land, people who produce hollowborn children (some villages haven't had normal births in YEARS when the PC shows up) are killing/shunning those who produce the hollowborn children, and klling the children themselves. Not to mention that so far the best that's been done with hollowborn children is turning them into roving, insane, dangers to man and beast. The reason the quest is in the game is to demonstrate to the player, yet again, how warped society has become due to the hollowborn epidemic - not to give the player the opportunity to grandstand on moral principles that nobody in the game world would give a solitary .... about.

I had already solved the quest, and I went in there and terminated him for lying to me because I don't have time to be roped around by NPCs lol. Such was my policy lol.

I had stuff appear in my main hall on some of the "attack" events - I presume that's where they're supposed to come from. Also it plays into the endings you can get (based on having cleared the dungeon or not).

It's not like they didn't include multiplayer simply to spite people who like multiplayer lol. They simply felt they couldn't produce the game they wanted to on the budget they had, and *also* include multiplayer.

Well, first I look at the words, and then my brain interprets the symbols be to phonetic sounds. Then, experience has taught me, that English likes these phonetic symbols to be said in the order or left to right, and then, when necessary, wrapping around to the left again once one has run out of space. It's just that easy.

I clocked in at ~65ish hours to finish. Over sixty is what I typically say it as, because that's what was promised. I played on Normal, I did just about everything there was to do BESIDES things that I found outside of the desires of my character, so I *did* skip a few side-quests and leaves some stones unturned. I did do all the bounties, all of the Endless Paths, etc etc. My final time sink, is that I always collect every book I find in the game, and then right before I go to what I believe to be the ending, I make a save wherever I've put all those books. Then If it turns out I'm likely at the end of the game (no more books to find) I go back to that save and organize them and read all the books I've found. That took quite a while - because it turns out there's a lot of books in this game lol. Started doing that as a young lad playing BG1 and have kept doing it for any game with books. The journal also has a HUGE amount of stuff in it that I hadn't really checked out yet so that sunk some more time lol.

I rationalized all of the things that turned out badly as big "misunderstandings" I mean.... Yes, my generally benevolent Paladin killed every person in the Sanitarium, it was a complete misunderstanding. Yes, I did the bidding of the Gods and killed all of the war-paint manufacturers for no real reason other than to please the Gods. BUT THEY GAVE ME A VISION! I told Calisca's sister the truth instead of letting her believe she'd have a normal pregnancy, for no reason; because truth.

lol Madhatter your sentence gave me a Wittgensteinian moment lol. Yes, something becomes cliche through repeated use. Tropes and Archetypes are themselves cliches - if they weren't they would not be tropes or archtypes lol. You essentially used 3 words to describe the same thing; hence my brush with Witty. The purpose of the cliche is that it is alienated from independent meaning - so you don't distract your audience with the existence of the cliche and its details, and let them focus on learning about your setting. At least that's how you'd try to utilize a cliche if you were not an unoriginal hack who only had cliches to offer.

I let him go because of the prime directive It didn't bother me that it meant I missed out on the item. I'm sure I missed plenty of other items! lol.

I'm really not going to wade in here, because it's just subjective opinion and I don't really wanted to engage with that - because I found Dragon Age's world to be a bit of a let down, but it was still fun. I'm going to talk about the *role* of cliches. Most of the time, people talk about cliches as if they're a bad thing; they are not, inherently, bad. If you're an author or creator who is trying to make interesting content, you can effectively use cliches. In very fantastical, or heavy sci-fi, settings cliches are actually helpful. They provide the reader or observer with a predictable formula, that allows them to immediately understand the cliche (provided they have the necessary background to establish the cliche) - so as not to become overwhelmed by the content. When you throw people into a setting or world they know very little about, feeding them cliches for an extended period of time is actually a fairly helpful writing tactic, because you can explain a lot more about your setting without confusing people. Nearly every decent story, in any strange setting, feeds you a few cliches so your brain doesn't overheat. It's why nearly every fantasy RPG starts out with a "kill the rats" quest - it helps you center yourself in the world and work out the combat mechanics. It's why most RPGs with races stick to the tolkeinish races, if they have races, because the player automatically understands what an "elf" is and what they are like. You can layer on additional content - which they do in this game - but the fundamental cliche is still there to keep the player from being overwhelmed by the content. You can also create a "thrilling" situation where the reader/observer *assumes* the cliche is going to occur, and then reverse their expectations - which happens fairly often in Pillars.

I felt happy with the decision to leave the dragon up there. A. The folks in Eir Glanfath could likely cut a deal with her - just let her eat all the looters! B. With a massive dragon and her brood kicking around, maybe the tribes in Twin Elms won't be so nasty to each other, I mean, a moment of weakness could bring dragon sponsored death from the sky! C. Hylea gets a new temple, eventually.

The Gods are big soul balls basically.

Your camping supplies are limited by difficulty setting. Once you hit your limit you can't buy anymore.

Well there's an NWN mod that remakes Baldurs Gate 1 - I think it took them 10 years to make lol.

The game takes place in the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood - but there are frequent references to other places, and plenty of characters from them as well. So you are correct, the game does not occur over the whole map per-se.

My problem ultimately with D:OS was that the game started out hard as hell, then you discover your sad error; that you just need 3 mages, and the game immediately transforms into a cake walk. I'm ok with games having janky systems that cause things to be easily exploited - I mean, I love Arcanum, but if you buff your dexterity from the start, you'll become a virtual God in short order. But the game had enough other stuff going for it, that I was able to look past that design misstep, and play through several times a year for the last... decade+ lol. D:OS just didn't have enough to keep me engrossed once I started smashing everything they set up for me - because the game seemingly only consisted of additional smashing of things. I still feel bad about not giving it more of a chance... sometimes...

I too went with the pale elf for the fire/freeze resistance. It's pretty easy to get yourself to unhittable status - and most spells won't hurt you that bad lol. By mid game I was able to blast my tank with all manner of ice/fire spells and have it fail to hurt him. One thing I'd suggest looking for in the early game is a Hatchet. They add deflection as well, and once you get your first large shield, you'll be banking that deflection. They're also pretty widely available early game.

As far as I could tell, they seem to restock every 24 hours. Not *everything* obviously, but ingredients and minor items etc.

The nostalgia goggles are stronger for some people than they are others lol. I can heartily agree with the OP - I felt physically ill after playing this game at release because, I got to playing around 1:30 on that Thursday. I had some soda, and some snacks, and expected to play until 7-8, and I looked over at the clock at it was 4 am :/ It's been a long time since I just blasted a game the way I did PE lol. And as soon as I finished, I had to make another character lol. As far as NPCs - I honestly expected more BG1-esq NPCs (I was initially worried that there were only 8, but what they *did* give us was great. The way the NPCs are written in this game is plainly more P:T than BG1-2, or Fallout 1-2. You *can* put NPCs in the game who don't really talk much or interact with the world - and have it still work. Just look at how many people love dog meat. Dog meat has almost 0 party banter, no party interaction, no NPC interaction, and no romance subplot. Do people still remember dog meat fondly? They opted for more verbose NPCs in this game, and I was fine with that. One of the main criticisms of BG - from a new player - if you show it to them, and they've played say, Mass Effect, is that the NPCs and the game world feels "cold" because of how little direct interaction with the PC goes on. The old salts among us are fine with that - maybe even prefer it - but it's certainly a new "trend" to feel the need to laden your NPCs with a lot of interaction and back story + direct PC interaction. (I regularly give BG as a birthday present lol)

Report these as bugs - I had no similar issues. I however completed these quests prior to 1.03

Honestly Doom and the build engine games are almost an entirely different genre from what a modern FPS game is - the same would roughly go for quake (often copied rarely met). Maze-like levels, health/armor management, just to name a few aspects of classic FPS gaming that no longer exist. It depends. I'd *at least* look at a lets play or something of one of the old games to see if it's something you'd like - I adore cRPGs, but I'm all too aware that some folks just can't get into them . You can also pick up some of the oldies for like 5$, so it may be a better investment - despite how much I loved Pillars. But if you've got money to blow, Pillars wouldn't be a bad investment in and of itself.