While I don't necessarily disagree, and personally have a couple of gripes and criticisms of my own when it comes to storytelling, there's some arguments here that I just have to raise a hand at. Mainly the case of missing meaningful answers or solutions to removing the tadpole. I know at least I don't watch the first 20 minutes of a movie, pause it and start complaining about not having meaningful answers to some of the main mysteries of the movie already, or solutions to defeat the big bad. Like... What?
However 1varangian does make a fine point of a logical inconsistency of...
Originally Posted by 1varangian
If Shadow Magic implies Shar has altered the PC's tadpoles, surely a divine intervention level event does not require Mind Flayer tadpoles to be inserted first
Logical inconsistencies and how a story is presented is usually where my passionate thoughts hide. Though I recognize I only have Act 1 of a "book", which in Larian's design approach is to lay the foundation of some of the main mysteries, while Act 2 explores them and Act 3 answers them. (Beginning, middle, end) - So I'm not ready to be all overdramatic and hyperbolic, and rather just say that I hope some of the points, like the quote of 1varangian has some satisfying/believable enough explanation later on, to make sense in hindsight as the party gets deeper into their adventures.
Normally I'd be in agreement. Except we're at a point where the standard EA playthrough is approaching ~30 hours or so. Taking in the perspective of a new player who will be taking it much slower (as much of the people in EA right now have already done their first playthrough long ago), probably closer to 40-50 hours. I've played and seen enough games that I don't think Larian should make it a goal for the typical 'this game gets interesting after X hours' criticism to approach the higher end of the spectrum.
Of course, there's probably a way to actually rush a solution to the tadpole problem in the full game. But then you run into other potential issues - possibly being extremely underleveled because you didn't put things on hold to explore instead, along with the implication that you're not returning to the area + possibly losing half your party afterwards. Again, not a problem with the foresight us EA players have. But with the floodgates opening to new players once the full game launches that come into the game believing what we all did on our own first playthroughs in an environment where we can actually act on it now? Oh boy.
Always gotta look at the big picture.
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My argument though is less 'the tadpole plot device is bad and should be scrapped', it's just I don't think it should have been the central focus of the game because of how much it can hamstring the potential narrative in the long term. The amount of handwaving the overall presentation already does over it is outright concerning.
Maybe it's a red herring and the tadpoles aren't actually that important, they're probably just the vehicle for us to gain access to crazy magical abilities. Perhaps we actually do get the option to have a permanent solution to the tadpole problem at the end of act 1 but still keep some of the abilities granted by them/still at risk of being brought under the influence of the Absolute. It's what I'm hoping for, because I'm not wholly interested in a plot that's controlled by a singular mcguffin plot device, where all of the other more compelling plot threads throughout the entire game end up being interrupted by constant queries of 'oh by the way we have a tadpole in our heads, what do you think about it/what can you do about it?' while knowing in the back of our heads that everyone's just going to string us along until towards the end.
Earlier today, someone went and posted a thread on Reddit about recent datamining discoveries. The tadpole stuff is only mentioned once, and... It's a bit much.
The datamining reveals that one of the Absolute's followers is going to tadpole the Githyanki dragon in the middle of a fight.
That said, I am intrigued as to what the game may do with that plot development. But I expect half this thread to react purely negatively to it too since it'd be way high up on the epic scale, ha.
Meanwhile the Last Light Inn subplot seems to make no references to it, and I imagine it'll be a lot better off for it.
