If I remember correctly, while yes, you do talk about the fact that none of you are dying yet, it is like the third conversation in the camp, it comes after a night where everyone is very sick and it seems like you are about to turn into mindflayers, everyone acknowledges that it is odd we have not turned yet, but its not as tho we know the reason or that it will not happen for sure. It doesnt do much to easy the tension at all imo. But of course, as you say you can go for hours without going to the camp again, if we are expected to explore without limits at least give us some sort of insurance from one of the possible healers that we are in no immdiate danger or something.
Agreed about the map layout, like I outlined, I do believe that is to accomodate the multiple possible people playing at the same time and the separation would really help, it would at least give you the illusion that this is a bigger place. You are correct that its not as much as the map being big, as it is the map being incredibly packed and agian that feels like something done for multiplayer, because while one player is talking the others can explore around. I cant really name another game that makes me feel like I absolutely have to explore or I miss out on important even main story related content, its like exploration is a whole another gameplay feature that you simply cant skip.
Played greedfall, its very good imo
Absolutely agreed with you on the Origin characters, I find it odd especially given how much emphasis they put on the tag lines of the sort "your character, your story" or such. And it is the tag system yes, you have a choice of backround tag and are given the race tag depending on what race you play, you can also get hero or villain tags during the game I believe, problem is, the origin characters have their own tags that enable them to experience not only their quests differently but also have wholy unique interactions and reactions ON TOP of the generic ones that all the custom characters can have, as they also have access to the backround and race tags of course. This makes absolutely no sense to me, and just like you, as I wrote, it makes me feel like I should be playing as the origin characters, which is something I absolutely do not want to do, you can roleplay within that character for sure, but thats not why I play games like Baldurs Gate, I doubt anyone wants to be constricted like that, especially on the first few runs.
Worst thing is, they wrote that they are chaing the system somehow in one of their updates I believe and the custom characters are provided more tags seemingly, which should serve to alleviate the issue, but if they know it is an issue why even make the companions into origin characters, feels like a waste of resources and its still not explained exactly what the different in playthrough as them vs the custom character would be.
