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Is there any reason there wouldn't be a PoE 3? Or a big risk of it?

From what it looks like, it's cut content.

She puts a curse on you that you can only break by killing a certain amount of Kith. Holy ****! That's messed up. That's an interesting challenge for a pacifist run, though.

Don't know. I only know the Hylea one. Does anyone knows what happened if you made an oath to Berath and broke it?

Why is Josh leaving the project ? D: Is it completely and permanently? Is he leaving the company? He has said that he's stepping back from Directing any particular projects for the time being. He's still the Design Director for the whole studio, and presumably will continue to have input on Pillars stuff from that position. If he's planning to leave, he has kept it quiet. I don't think it was ever his goal to have primary authorship of Eora stuff until the end of time. (He has likely worked on enough IPs to know that that's a fools errand in this industry. Plus, the D&D mimickry at the core of the setting has always been something they've done for marketability rather than something they've done because it's their creative passion.) His "work is done here" in that he's laid out the bones of the setting and directed 2 games that have built audience interest, but left plenty of empty space for the folks who follow him to fill in. Oh okay! That seems fair and reasonable. So long as most of the creative team/creative voice at Obsidian is great and similar, and he's not doing it because of it being awful for him, that's totally fine. Not that I could do anything if those two things weren't true, but I'd be sad about it. ;p Thank you for the elaboration!

Something really cool in this game is the way some of the mechanics, quests, and storylines surprised me. The direction(s) the game took instead usually make a lot of sense, too, but go against what a player used to typical RPG patterns. Examples!: Romance - As a disclaimer, I'm not really into the romance feature of RPG's generally. I've been listening to that content and the negative rep conversations post-facto because I wanted more PoE content and I've already beaten the game, and probably won't ever go the routes needed to see the content naturally. That said, although I know it upset and disappointed some people, I really liked that PoE2 doesn't make the whole party deeply in love with you and champing at the bit to date you. The romance mechanic kept in mind the people in your party, their personalities and personal interests, and determined if they'd ever be interested and, if they are, what kind of relationship they'd be interested in/okay with. It actually adds a level of depth that's really neat! I'd say every companion handles it differently, but the most notable examples that drift from the typical RPG set-up that I can think of are Serafen, Eder and Pallegina. Serafen is completely cool with flirting and casual sex, but doesn't want a relationship. Eder and Palegina are no where near an emotional place to even be interested. And even Aloth, while technically romanceable, won't ever engage you himself and will reject you unless you're in a specific situation. There's no magic way to make them change their minds by just being charming or the main character, either. --- Maia's Quest - This is one of my favorite examples (I've seen someone else mention this earlier, too). RPG's have ingrained the idea that every companion needs help with something personal, and that helping them out is the nice and right thing to do. Generally, if there's a gray zone or a questionable moment, you're usually given the chance or expected to correct your companion's direction. Usually doing otherwise is the evil or wrong thing to do. Maia's quest completely manipulates you and those assumptions into potentially doing some horrible things. It comes off as banal and helpful at first, but there's obviously something wrong, there's no way to get anyone to admit what, and there's no way to stop Maia from doing it altogether or change her mind before she's already done something horrible. You have to either already know the consequences or go off your own suspicions to decide to go against the objectives, which completely goes against the player mentality. And you have to pretty much be a **** about it - which at least in my case, is extremely uncomfortable. The way the quest objectives and its story works does a great job at showing how the RDC works and thinks, and how Maia works and thinks. And it's especially fitting that a quest that manipulates player assumptions like this comes from Atsura. --- Eothas's Storyline - This one is a little more finnicky. But I really liked the ethical issue his storyline brought up, in part because it felt like a storyline a main character in an RPG might do. Eothas is trying to do the ultimately right thing, in his eyes, by giving kith the opportunity to see what the gods are and gain independence and freedom from them. But the actions he's taking to make that goal are morally reprehensible - sacrificing and killing hundreds (thousands?) to do it, with no choice or say on their part, and potentially dooming the entire universe without anyone else's say. It's interesting, because that's the kind of thing a player character can and often does. To some extent. Often RPG's give you morally gray or questionable choices for the ultimate greater good. Often getting the best result involves killing several people. This, and Wael's comment about how the main character, "reaps, but on a smaller scale" like the gods, made me start to feel a lot more uncomfortable with the choices I was making for other people and the people I was hurting or killing to get an end positive result. I have at least one more example that I like, but this is already kind of a wall of text, so I'll hold off on that.

I think the Xoti and Eder vs Xoti and Watcher thing are treated separately. Which gives you some funny continuity blips. She had already had the confession talk, where she sounds like she's gotten over Eder, but because I didn't have her and Eder in the same party enough, she reacted to an anti-god comment Eder made at Ukaizo and started talking to me about her insecurities about their relationship lol. And right before that, at Ondra's Mortar, and in the epilogue, they're very platonic buddies (as if I had let them work things out). Probably because I talked to Eder to be more empathetic/patient with her.

Why is Josh leaving the project ? D: Is it completely and permanently? Is he leaving the company?

@Bonte I've completed my attempt at your portrait request. It didn't really come out right, but if you want, I can add a background. You might need someone else to make it watercolor. https://imgur.com/a/uOzCYq1

I agree. I avoided the main quest and did a lot of exploration first and it did look strange. Sometimes I found things that didn't make sense or caused bugs (like the rotten eel for the guy who swallowed a pearl). For my next pt I'll get the companions asap and then follow the quests. Why is almost everyone suggesting getting Tekehu after going to the palace? Isn't there some interesting reaction when taking him there? Because it helps avoid doing quests ahead of getting the palace event and companions related, and because the prince will specifically get Tekehu involved right after the palace incident

The Guardian always showed up for me. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to.

Haha, that first one. I never saw it but I've heard there's sort of an apology /follow up conversation. And with Xoti, I didn't get her final romance trigger until after her quest, but it was also right after I got more rep gain from her, so there's a chance that's just incidental.

I disagree. POE1 had one of the best main quests in recent memory. I don't think they're criticizing the main story itself, just the style of the mechanics that presents it. Unless that's what you meant? Also Grimo, I actually really like the direction they took too (at least in concept).I think the issue is more the execution. Doing quests out of a certain order can make things not less or no sense, or miss out on something, because the game doesn't expect you to do it the way you did it, and the rest of the world feels weirdly detached from what's going on with Eothas for a lot of the game. *that said *, the Eothas issue is a really common issue with a lot of games. And Deadfire does integrate it *some. *

I really like that they worked to make it more dynamic. I'd be sad if they had to go backwards though. Haha, that is a little weird.

That wasn't really the point. How did you determine that? Disregarding that it's in let's say the nature of humans to make comparisons - we constantly evaluate and compare which very useful to our knowledge and ability to make decisions -, thus displaying let's say amazement over humans making comparisons seems naive, which is just obvious, pointing out that "meaningless" is term without meaning is right on the point. I mean, what is not meaningless? Oh meaningless is what I do not think is meaningless, right? Right. The point wasn't that all comparison or opinion and thinking was bad or meaningless. It was questioning why we *rank * things like this. And I think that's a valid criticism. You could compare and contrast these two games without arguing about how one is "objectively" or subjectively better than the other. And usually, the only reason people make threads like this is to complain about how a game doesn't reach their expectations or put a game down. Again, I can relate to that feeling (though I don't feel that way here), but I think it's kind of disingenuous to act otherwise.

That wasn't really the point.

It's kind of a negative conversation to have. I think people often do it when they're frustrated with a game or games. I certainly did. And right now there are only a few developers making a few games anywhere close to games like Baldurs Gate or Fallout 1, so if you're missing those kinds of games and the ones that are supposed to be like them don't hit you right, it's probably really frustrating. For me, I love Obsidian's games, even when they're a mess, and I like the world and system they've built and the way the game integrates with the universe, so I don't mind that it's not exactly the same /doesn't have the same feeling.

wRAR explained the water dragon. I didn't kill the fire dragon, but I only convinced her to tell me what to do and then grab a thing to do it. I don't know (and would be surprised) if you can get her to help you.

Lol. That one hit close to home.

I'm so confused by this. People react to your choices and attitude. That includes women. The reputation system is just clunky in this game. Or maybe they're trying to make up for the fact that Maia joins later. Aloth joins early and he is eternally at 0. When she joins isn't the issue. That wasn't my experience (though he took the longest to reach max rep with), and he's the most extreme case for most people, in the opposite direction of Maia and Tekehu. Xoti very much felt like she took longer than Maia, to actually go the romance route, even though she joins earlier. I think that's intended in design. It's just kind of crazy extreme with Maia and Tekehu.

Oh man, you can do that? You might be out of luck on this playthrough without console commands or tracing your steps. :/

Man, that's a pretty crazy series of nasty bugs. I didn't have anything near that bad lol.

Wait, Aeons, were you joking or something? Yeah, I think that hits the nail on the head.

I never completed the Baldurs Gate games, but I tried them out in earnest. I second TheisEjsing on the writing. It was very epic, tropey writing and the characters were either very minimalist or stereotypical or both. I think the games seem cool and whatnot, but they're also flawed and simplistic writing wise and kind of broken mechanically. The problem, I believe, is that you're not getting something that feels like /makes you feel like the original game. But that sort of feeling isn't something that I think Obsidian generally creates, and I don't want them to. Obsidian has always been the one that twists and complicates and makes ideas and people more real and believable. Baldurs is very Bioware. I am sorry though, that you haven't had a game that made you feel the way you did before. I've been in that same boat about different games and things, and it sucks.

I'm so confused by this. People react to your choices and attitude. That includes women. The reputation system is just clunky in this game. Or maybe they're trying to make up for the fact that Maia joins later.