Yonjuro

I see - it's the "despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument," bit that's the distinction for me... Sure, there are beliefs that are impossible to prove one way or the other. Whatever I might think about such a belief, I wouldn't call it a delusion. There are also beliefs that are clearly wrong but accepted by many people based on faith - such as: people who believe that the earth is 6000 years old, there was a global flood about 4500 years ago and everyone alive today is descended from the eight people who escaped on a boat, etc. I would put the latter group of beliefs firmly in the delusion category as they are contradicted by reality and rational argument.

^While we're on the subject of definitions: A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. Or from oxford dictionary: An idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder: Faith isn't the same as maintaining a delusion (assuming we're talking about real world faith as opposed to evidence in PoE that we got, if in a flat info-dump 'this is the way it is' way)... Fair enough. I used the word 'delusion' because, in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the section on delusional thinking explicitly excludes religious faith because it is otherwise indistinguishable from (other) delusional thinking using the available diagnostic methods - so, I tend to view it as a distinction without a difference but YMMV. I agree. That is exactly the point I was trying to make.

In the game world there is actual evidence; evidence that can be seen, not "evidence" of things not seen. I agree that faith is powerful, that people kill and die for it and start wars over it. It can turn sinners into saints and vice versa. I certainly don't underestimate it. However, it is just wishful thinking. It is very solid and very real to believers just as all delusions are very solid and very real to those who believe them.

I see what you mean. We could call that faith definition 1, but I think others in the thread were using faith definition 2, something closer to the biblical (Hebrews 11:1) version of faith: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." By that definition, if you have evidence, it isn't faith. Hence: and

I think of 'faith' as being different from 'trust' or 'reasonable expectation.' When you turn on a light, you have a reasonable expectation that the light will go on based on trusting that the people who wired the fixture did it correctly and of your own understanding of how it works. I think that is the distinction that NC and Gromnir were making. In the PoE world, there is actual evidence of the (artificially constructed) gods as opposed to belief without seeing that normally characterizes faith.

I don't see any sentence in my post that was disrespectful. In much of the English speaking world (apparently, since I'm in the USA and Tawlyn224 is in Australia), these two sentences seem very blunt: You probably just intended to make an emphatic statement but it can come across as rude in some parts of the world. If, instead, you had started off with something like, "Discworld deals with related themes but the causality is reversed" - that would have been less of a conversation killer.

There was a bug that made saves take a long time that has been fixed in one of the patches. I think it was the first or second patch that fixed it so, if you are anywhere near up to date with the patches, this isn't the problem you are having. If you aren't up to date, then you can download and install the patches for an easy fix.

Well, no. There were five Infinity Engine games and one of them, BG2, had the option to romance a party member.

Yes, but it was Arachne, a weaver who challenged Athena to a weaving contest and was turned into a spider (either as a punishment for challenging a goddess or, in some versions of the story, because she lost to Athena and the bet was that the loser would never weave again and so, Athena turned her into a spider out of pity so she could continue to weave. Uh, yeah, thanks for nothing Athena.). The name Arachne is where the word arachnid comes from.

And we need multiple feather slots for the hats. Also, feather bonuses should be cumulative.

Well, ok, realism. Historically, almost nobody ever dual wielded. I say 'almost' because the Filipinos sometimes used two equal length weapons, usually two sticks or short to medium length swords. This style can be very effective, but it relies on specialized training drills (called sinawali - 'weaving') to learn to avoid tangling yourself up. Sword and dagger was more common in Europe (and was also commonly used in the Philippines, possibly due to Spanish influence or maybe it was the other way - but I think that style existed in Europe before the Spanish went to the Philippines. It might have been independently developed.) Also note that Miyamoto Musashi wrote about using two swords in The Book of Five Rings that he wrote late in life after surviving a large number of duals but he never actually did it in any of the duals he fought. Sword and dagger fighting was generally not used on battlefields. On a battlefield, you want a shield to defend against projectile weapons. Walking around town, you wouldn't be carrying a shield. An empty hand is just another target for your opponents so a dagger (or a buckler) is far better than nothing. I'm pretty sure that what I've written here is historically accurate (European fencing treatises are available online, if you care). If you have credible sources that say otherwise, of course I would be interested to know about them.

Dude, I hate to be a grammer nazi but, in English, when you use an expletive infix, it goes ahead of the stressed syllable. E.g. Fan-mother****in-tastic would be correct. Fantas-mother****in-tic would be incorrect. So, really, "Durance" can't take an expletive infix because the stress is on the first syllable. Again, sorry, it just bothers me when I see grammar mistakes in English. Internet forums must be very difficult for you. The usage of incorrect grammar being so rampant. ... Abso-****in-lutely.

Dude, I hate to be a grammer nazi but, in English, when you use an expletive infix, it goes ahead of the stressed syllable. E.g. Fan-mother****in-tastic would be correct. Fantas-mother****in-tic would be incorrect. So, really, "Durance" can't take an expletive infix because the stress is on the first syllable. Again, sorry, it just bothers me when I see grammar mistakes in English.

Shape shifting druid who turns into a wolf to have a threesome with Eder and Itumaak. If that's an option, what would be the point of anything else?

A threat as well, now. So entertaining.... I think you misunderstood the joke (whether or not it was funny is left as an exercise for the reader). He meant "I'm here to help you."

Apologies for the boring reply (meaning: I agree with you on pretty much everything). Yes, the memorials seem out of place. They're mostly harmless in that you don't need to read them, but maybe there's a better backer reward? I don't really know; it would need to be something with a similar level of effort for the developers. Something like making paintings to hang up in the inns, but that requires the ability to draw which would limit the number of takers. Yes, these guys are harder to ignore than the memorial stones. Then again, they are easy source of extra cash, so there's that. There is a big list of things I would rather have than a stronghold. Another companion, an extra dungeon, more quests/encounters, more work on the spell system ... The idea of a stronghold isn't really appealing in a game where you play a wandering adventurer and, in practice, traveling there, including walking across the map and doing area transitions, means that going there is mostly pointless. The good thing about it is that it is optional, so it doesn't do me any harm if it's something that other people like (other than that we could have had something else for the same level of effort/funding). If it were more closely integrated with the game, the game would not be as good (according to me; YMMV).

Then the choice is easy - you kill him. It's what your character would do. Everything else is meta-gaming.

Facebook is a walled garden - like AoL. What year is it? 1994?

I am mostly going to echo what a few other people have said. Some encounters are fully voiced and I ended up skipping most of it because it is too slow. Also, the voice interferes with the descriptions since the lines and descriptions are interleaved. On the other hand, the world would be more alive with a few more voices in minor interactions. So, I would very much be in favor of saving some money on voice acting and spending the smaller budget a bit better. This is something that BG 1&2 and PS:T did very well - setting the mood and developing character concepts with minimal voice acting.

A better way to protest would be to refuse to post in the forum.

Thanks for the interesting thread. (I hope we can keep it on track.) Let me start with a minor nit. For many atheists (I would say most), the atheist position is closer to: There is no evidence of any particular religious claim, not that there are necessarily no gods. That is, in principle, if we were to uncover some actual hard evidence -something that would cause all of the religious studies departments in universities to close and new scientific religious departments to open - then and only then is it something believable. Until then, better to live with uncertainty than to accept something on bad evidence. I bring this up because it's relevant to: Related to my previous point, there can be a god or gods and religion can still be a lie (or, just wrong with no intent to deceive by anyone). That brings us to option 3: look for the actual truth with the best methods available to you. That's the wager I wish Pascal had made: follow the truth wherever it leads. If you do, your reward will be a better understanding of the truth. If you don't, your punishment will be mass delusion maintained by force as was done in the game world (and in several unfortunate periods of history in our own). In the game world, the old gods didn't exist, the new gods were fabricated (literally, as it turns out) to enforce an old social order but there could be a third set of gods (possibly an empty set, of course) who are actually the truth. One could argue that option 3 is the only rational choice so I wouldn't be surprised if that option comes up in a sequel. The point here is that, in the game world, the centuries long detour from the truth may have prevented the discovery of the actual gods of the world, among other things. Of course, we also have option 4, exploit the credulity of the religious for personal gain rather than for the greater good as cults and many politicians have done and continue to do in the real world. Option 4 could be an interesting evil option in a sequel.

Your two statements seem to be at odds with other. If the combat is already too easy, adding more powerful loot just makes it easier. What are you saying here?

Oh, I see. I didn't really get that far with them. I went with stupid faction is better than evil faction with fascist tendencies and left it at that but apparently there is more to it if you can talk them out of the golem plan. Well, there's no 'maybe' about it. That seemed like a deal breaker, to me. Well, we can certainly agree on that.

Should arguably more of a problem with the "completionists" who suck each subsequent map try in the pursue of quests, loot and XP. .... I suppose it could be. In my game, it seemed that the Crucible Knights' plan to buy stolen souls to animate their peacekeeping army was a purely evil (oh, and stupid, did I mention stupid?) idea and the Doemenels were dead so, it was an easy decision to join the Dozens. However, it seems like a lot of people were surprised that accepting a quest (rather than completing it) locked them into a faction.

This seems to be the majority opinion. Why is that? The Crucible Knights are buying souls (which seems like an evil incarnate type of thing to do) and planning to use them to make a golem army to keep the peace which seemed like a sufficiently bad idea that I sided with the Dozens who just seemed to be mostly harmlessly stupid. (The Doemenels were, um, unavailable.) Really, how could the stealing souls to make a golem peacekeeping army plan not go wrong?