"Reach out for their soul"?

[onemeg]

Are these purely flavor text?  I saw one other post where the question was how to talk to these NPCs (answer being that you can't), but my question is is there any reason to read all the "reach out for their soul" stories other than just for world flavor?  I like reading stories as much as anyone, but if I have no way of interacting with that character and will never come across anything or anyone from their story, then I guess I just don't want to read them all. If I might encounter other characters or locations etc. from their tales then I would probably read them.  Just curious.

[ruzen]

this is NO SPOILERS section

[Bazy]

this is NO SPOILERS section

Not anymore...

 

A mod should move this thread.

[Dray Truoc]

this is NO SPOILERS section

 

It's not really a spoiler?  He hasn't said what any of the text is, hasn't given away anything about the story, and it might help someone avoid confusion when they go to play the game?

[Bryy]

Guys, it's not really a spoiler if this was a Reward Tier.

[NorthernSquirrel]

I really wish they would do away with having that ingame Kickstarter stuff. I love the game and all, but it's a bit jarring to see a random finnish name on a character in a medieval fantasy world. I'm sure people would be happy without having their name or nick tied to a random NPC or a tombstone.

Edited March 27, 2015 by NorthernSquirrel

[Prime-Mover]

 

this is NO SPOILERS section

 

It's not really a spoiler?  He hasn't said what any of the text is, hasn't given away anything about the story, and it might help someone avoid confusion when they go to play the game?

 

I don't see any way of answering his question without it constituting a spoiler regarding these NPC's role in the game, even if that is "no role besides flavour".  I'd like to find that out for myself. And I can't really see how not knowing could lead to confusion, since the notion of reading their soul's understandable through following the game's story. 

[Steaksauce]

Relax guys. This could not be any less of a spoiler.  It would literally be telling you more about the game to say that there are monsters in it.

 

In fact, if you're in to a really pure experience, this is a valuable question, because you should completely ignore these useless NPCs.

Anyway OP, these characters are kickstarter NPCs for the $1,000 backers. They are completely unrelated to the actual universe of the game, and they frontload it with a bunch of largely irrelevant filler text that doesn't help to develop the story or world, but will do an excellent job of confusing you while you're starting out. They also help to introduce a bunch of Godlike in a location that should have absolutely zero of them.

 

In short, they are 100% skippable, and if I could have spent an extra $5 on a DLC that deliberately removed them, I'd have done it.

[Cantousent]

I read through the posts and I can see the point that it's not really a spoiler thread.  However, the General PoE thread is specifically meant to be as spoiler free as possible.  The irony is that I've seen a lot of spoilerish stuff going through the various posts, and this one seems pretty innocuous.  Still, to play it safe, it's now in the stories section.  Nevertheless, I didn't put spoiler tags on it because I think the title is about the only spoilerish thing in the whole thread, and even that appears pretty harmless.

[valmont]

I really wish they would do away with having that ingame Kickstarter stuff. I love the game and all, but it's a bit jarring to see a random finnish name on a character in a medieval fantasy world. I'm sure people would be happy without having their name or nick tied to a random NPC or a tombstone.

 

I don't mind the tombstones, but I'm not a fan of all these touching souls. Some of the stories in them are great, but really quite generic because they're so damn common - I tend to just not read them, which is a shame because I'm sure some are fantastic and I really liked the one with the lesbians. I mean in lore, I assume you'd notice someone's soul if they'd done something truly heroic, awful etc etc but these are just people with really non-descript backgrounds or stories presented as heroic? I dunno.

 

I'd point to Lost Odyssey and the memory stories they presented - if they were gonna do something like this. Seeing 3-4 people standing around a table, all with unrelated and different short stories which you read in quick succession is kinda....not exactly encouraging me to read them. I think they'd have been cooler if you saw past ghosts or locations which your soul had encountered (I'm only 10-12 hours in, so my lore is sketchy) and got stories from your souls past.

[pstone]

I actually love those soultouch characters, i even have a log of of read/unread NPCs. Its kinda like a free short story collection that comes with the game. Sometimes i want to advance the plot/quests and skip them (and the books), sometimes i'm in no hurry and get back to immerse myself in the world.

[onemeg]

Relax guys. This could not be any less of a spoiler.  It would literally be telling you more about the game to say that there are monsters in it.

 

In fact, if you're in to a really pure experience, this is a valuable question, because you should completely ignore these useless NPCs.

 

Anyway OP, these characters are kickstarter NPCs for the $1,000 backers. They are completely unrelated to the actual universe of the game, and they frontload it with a bunch of largely irrelevant filler text that doesn't help to develop the story or world, but will do an excellent job of confusing you while you're starting out. They also help to introduce a bunch of Godlike in a location that should have absolutely zero of them.

 

In short, they are 100% skippable, and if I could have spent an extra $5 on a DLC that deliberately removed them, I'd have done it.

Thank you!  

[Voss]

Relax guys. This could not be any less of a spoiler.  It would literally be telling you more about the game to say that there are monsters in it.

 

In fact, if you're in to a really pure experience, this is a valuable question, because you should completely ignore these useless NPCs.

 

Anyway OP, these characters are kickstarter NPCs for the $1,000 backers. They are completely unrelated to the actual universe of the game, and they frontload it with a bunch of largely irrelevant filler text that doesn't help to develop the story or world, but will do an excellent job of confusing you while you're starting out. They also help to introduce a bunch of Godlike in a location that should have absolutely zero of them.

 

In short, they are 100% skippable, and if I could have spent an extra $5 on a DLC that deliberately removed them, I'd have done it.

 

Ah, good to know this.  I was confused and a little frustrated that they were essentially non-interactable, but made to seem important, and since the main character is 'seeing things,' I had wondered if they were spirits of some sort, and thus relevant.  At least at first.  Then there were far, far too many of them, with bizarre proportion of the 'rare' godlike, just standing around like any old idiot.

 

They go a long way to disrupting the atmosphere of the game, especially in Gild Vale.    What they should have done was stuck a special inn somewhere, lumped them all in and put a mausoleum in the basement. 

[Tropico]

Thanks this had me confused as well. I don't mind the short stories and I expect I will grow to like them, however as someone else mentioned higher up in the thread, I have to say I'm not feeling that this was particularly well executed... to have your character start running around "touching" people's souls and having visions about them for literally no reason within the first half hour of the game was quite jarring and took me clean out of the world where I had been quite immersed up until then.

 

Said jarring was made worse by not being able to interact with these people at all beyond that initial casual soul-touching, not even the regular short greeting/comment you do with every other common NPC. Like, looking into these people's private memories and moments and then just walking away without even acknowledging them, makes me feel a bit like a peeping tom, like my character's the type of person that would be peering into other people's windows as they dress at night or something, lol.

 

Anyway, yeah, not the best thing ever, but not a really huge deal either I guess.

[Ausir]

I'm sure there will be a mod that removes them eventually.

[TheRiddick]

I was kinda hoping that you could put together secrets from the stories and discover some unique items/locations. Shame its just filla text. But helps also to backup the 'Watcher' concept anyway.

[Perzyn]

I am of two minds about those. The concept itself is pretty fine. It is a great way to make the world seem more real, with characters that have their own stories and adventures. However some of the vignettes are bit out of place in my opinion. Some of the characters are suggested to be quite powerful or important, but they just stand around doing nothing much at all.

It makes me wonder, how much involvment did backers have with the creations of the stories, because some of them are pretty great and some, not so much.

 

Density of such characters is also bit much. Reading 3 or 4 stories of extraordinary deeds in a row strains the disbelief a bit, maybe if they were spread I'd be less conflicted about them.

Still, it is overall a decent piece of fluff and easy enough to ignore if one feels inclined to do so.

[Zwiebelchen]

I'm on Perzyn's side here:
Some NPCs seem out of place due to their racial choice. Other than that, I feel this serves two purposes I wouldn't want to miss in this game:

1) it makes the whole soul thing more believable

2) it fills the world with interesting side-stories to discover.

 

I actually took the time to read through most of the stories and I have to say that a lot of them are actually pretty interesting. Some were cliché, but other's were pretty good.

 

 

Also, what's so unbelievable in finding a hero or two in local taverns, when the world is filled with monsters, magic and warriors? Actually I find this more believable as if my hero group was the only adventurers you would ever encounter.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I was kinda hoping that you could put together secrets from the stories and discover some unique items/locations. Shame its just filla text. But helps also to backup the 'Watcher' concept anyway.

 

Well storywise, my NPC (Hiro in Dyrford Crossing) and Item had the intention of being tied together. My NPC was to give you something and you go off to gather 4 components and bring them back to him to make a sword. However, the developers said no to my initial submission. I then let Obsidian write the background to my NPC so as far as I'm concerned, the NPC is part of the story as they wrote it. My first item was a sword but it was too OP. So I changed it to a cloak (Hiro's Mantle) and let Obsidian come up with what the cloak would be.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Hiro Protagonist II

[SSH83]

 

I was kinda hoping that you could put together secrets from the stories and discover some unique items/locations. Shame its just filla text. But helps also to backup the 'Watcher' concept anyway.

 

Well storywise, my NPC (Hiro in Dyrford Crossing) and Item had the intention of being tied together. My NPC was to give you something and you go off to gather 4 components and bring them back to him to make a sword. However, the developers said no to my initial submission. I then let Obsidian write the background to my NPC so as far as I'm concerned, the NPC is part of the story as they wrote it. My first item was a sword but it was too OP. So I changed it to a cloak (Hiro's Mantle) and let Obsidian come up with what the cloak would be.

 

 

your cloak is still pretty OP when stacked with 2 other retaliate items + monk's retaliate ability.  cast wizard's expose vulnerability and attackers would take 40 damage or so every time they hit the monk.  lmao

Edited April 5, 2015 by SSH83