Originally Posted by Innateagle
This to say, it's not my opinion that the plot should be more urgent, that's all Larian, and neither do i believe that the areas should be gimped. What i'd like is for the latters to make sense with the former, and that until the urgency's reduced. All it takes, like i said, is for the level design to be a bit cleaner.

For example, roughly keep the Underdark as it is, with the encounters spread all over and the 'main' entrances at the bottom(Hag's lair and goblin's fort), but move the tower and beach at the upper corners with the myconid village more to the middle. Slide Karlach a bit west, maybe above the gnolls or something. That way i'm still exploring, i'm still getting reward for exploring, but doesn't clash as badly with the over-reaching story.

Everyone experiences the game differently, but I'd have to say that I don't really agree. The plot starts with great urgency, but you fairly quickly realise that while your hitchhiker is a concern you need to investigate and address, something else is happening.

In particular, you constantly meet other NPCs that are NOT from the ship, living happily with the tadpole. At this point it becomes clear that time is not the trigger ( even if you companion dialogue sometimes thinks it is ), and that cautiously searching more widely for information to solve the mystery is perhaps a better strategy.

I like the level design exactly because it is NOT streamlined and linear. You do not need to go to find everything, you do not need to do anything in a particular order to progress. Whatever you choose to do leads to discovering more information, which interlinks into a generally coherent world state, and perhaps gives you access to future allies and resources.

Eventually, after ( as Raphael says ) you have exhausted every opportunity for help ( assuming you choose to look ), you can decide to pick a side with Halsin or Minthara, just to discover they are equally useless. In the released game, you may actually be able to ignore them both and travel on to Moonrise Towers regardless.

The point of this part of the game is to introduce the dramatis personae that will allow you to get the most out of the rest of the game. It is to be hoped that the story continues to make sense, regardless of what you choose, and that is a real challenge for the Larian writers.

I'm not a great fan of the mechanics of the game, but I do like the way they have approached the storytelling so far.