All these people with the short visions

[NikG]

So I've been playing the game for a bit now, and I keep running into these people who I can look into, and I get a little vision that's like a short short story. But they don't seem to have any impact on the broader story of quests & side quests. However, one NPC did comment that I gain powers as a Watcher by looking into people's souls. So, is this something that gives me some hidden XP, or is it just for flavor? Sometimes I'm really intent on a quest or task and skip these, so now with that NPC's comment I worry that I am missing out on some key aspect of character development....

Edited December 9, 2019 by NikG

[Starwars]

Those characters are from people who supported the game in the crowdfunding campaign when the game was being developed. 

It wasn't a very good implementation of those characters but you can safely ignore all those NPCs (I think they have a different color than the rest if I remember correctly?). You won't miss out on anything at all in terms of experience points or anything relevant to the story. They are just there for extra flavour.

I would definitely just skip them if I were you.

[Boeroer]

It's basically fan fiction/stories placed into backer NPCs. You can completely ignore them if you wish. Same with all tombstones: the engravings are all backer-related and have nothing to do with with game's story etc. 

[NikG]

Ah, cool, thanks for the info. I haven't noticed a difference in the nameplate colors, which I did see a load-screen hint about. Maybe it's too subtle for my eyes to see!  

[Boeroer]

Backer NPCs have a gold tinted nameplate while all others is good of any color (just grey). It's not superobvious but noticable. If you know what to look for you cannot unsee it.

Unless you have some disability of course. In that case I can't tell you how to distinguish them - maybe the form is also a bit different (given Josh is colorblind and usually makes sure that color is not the only distinguishable feature) but I never noticed. 

[NikG]

Ah yes, it's a subtle gradient that I wasn't seeing before. I was expecting the name text to be bright yellow or some such.