I can't test this. but i heard. if you knockout alfira. and then do that scene with the new npc showing up. you can continue to talk to alfira
However does that also mean alfira's questline will continue? or are you permanently screwed out of it even if you metagame like that?
Yup, if the player knocks out Alfira she will still talk to them despite the massive attitude loss, but in order to do so it requires naturally extreme metagaming. I believe she still will have her storyline available, despite the negative attitude.
I am proceeding as a glacial pace, and it took me 40h to get to the point this scene was happening if I were the Dark Urge. If I were in the middle of a “Try to turn the Dark Urge into a good person” I would have restarted without a second thought (or respecced out of that Origin, if possible).
I am not necessarily saying what Larian did is necessarily wrong, but all the people who were hoping to do a redeeming Dark Urge playthrough are in for an incredibly rude awakening.
The issue is not about redeeming Dark Urge, it's about Dark Urge killing off side-NPCs which have nothing to do with him and ending their stories without giving the player any choice on the matter. To make matters worse Larian made a unique NPC just for this scene alone, but instead of using the unique NPC they've instead locked it behind extreme metagaming and decided to sacrifice Alfira and her entire questline/story just for the sake of shock value. So in the end I as a player lost an entire optional storyline just because I am playing as Dark Urge.
If the character will be prematurely closing off side-stories of other NPCs then that's an issue, for me at least.
