My experience as the Dark Urge felt lackluster. I was really appalled at how my character slaughtered a squirrel without an ability check to resist it or anything, but seconds later I was intrigued, and really into seeing what's my character gonna do next. I tried talking to many animals and stuff, but all the way to mid-act3, besides Alfira, I've never seen my character do anything similar, and played her as a nice-hero type....
I was really disappointed not to have more challenges in trying to be good, or more hurdles thrown at me. I got almost no reactions from other party members despite trying all the dialogue options to confide in them. Fel's reveal felt out of character for me, and the demand to kill Isobel, after I had to fight to save her felt silly. IMO Violence and murder should be presented as tempting to achieve my character's goals, instead I got a weird creature demanding that I work against my already selected goals, followed by a demand to kill the one I'm attracted to.... Hardly feels like a dark urge, more like a demanding master, and his doing this while pretending to be my butler makes this even harder to believe.
Dark urge should ease us into being murderers. Start with taking pleasure in killing enemies (be they goblin or whatever), then let us off an annoying character that's impeding our progress... Tempt the player to kill the character with lowest approval rather than the one you like most. (Astarion's particularly tempting to kill, after his racist remarks about saving Gnomes. Link the murderous urge to them being annoying - Shadowheart's evasiveness, Gale's Arrogance... Or try to link it to attaining a goal like taking the artifact from Shadowheart) I would also have liked to have more options to seek help from good holy characters, only to have the character kill them outside your control. I loved the feeling that I had no control over killing Alfira, that I need to keep innocents away from me lest I lose control and kill them etc. But to my disappointment, besides very rare isolated incidents, there was nothing.
I agree, the butler is not a bad idea by itself, but he should be more like a voice similar to a Guardian.
"Oh, look at these goblins, they are such repelling creatures, surely nobody would miss them."
"What a uncoperative little runt, this prisoner is. Perhaps, a bit of hot iron would loosen his tongue, maybe losing an eye or two as well."
"Are you sure you can trust this little vampire spawn after he bit you? Surely he wont do it again when you least expect it? Or maybe he will..."
At the same time, I really enjoyed him tempting you with power in exchange for vile acts.
"Oh master, you could gain more power if you just got rid of this cute innocent npc. I assure you, the girl's life is worth less than what you could possibly with the power you could unleash with a bit of my help..."
