I totally agree with the things mentioned in previous posts. In terms of reactivity I would also love to see for example Volo not only standing in our camp and waiting to catch our eye(pun intended) but also having some other talk with him about maybe the next story he would write or maybe we could ask him to make some performance? The same with other NPCs. I'm not a big fan of puppets without a purpose and life in camp personally; I'd rather imagine them going about their lives and then eventually coming to us for a meaningful scene. It would be cool to see those NPCs in our camp be more proactive in reacting and commenting on what happens in-game and even stating their opinion about what we do. This would give those characters more depth and connection to the plot while enriching it.

When it comes to some text and lore to which characters respond, there is also a lot of loose ends when it comes to what is left from the cut content and it obviously should be cleaned so as to not make player expect unnecessary things in the game just to later leave them with distaste after not encountering those. I know people often mention this in the case of Act 3 but honestly, I found a lot of it in Act 2 too. The best example is the whole uneventful buildup for
orcs. You can find the bodies around the way near the Rosymorn Monastery little bit further from the actually not-so-useful Trielta Crags Waypoint and then information about them in the Moonrise Towers - and this was only funny for me because of bad translation from orcs to orcas in Polish, and I had previously DM'ed a session where during a fight in mountain cavern a deva blocked a passage for demon by transforming randomly into orca, so it became a canon for me and my fellow players who also play BGIII that You can meet orcas in Faerun's mountains. Honestly, I remember that orcs are mentioned in the game only because of this little coincidence. Without it, all of this content feels like some breadcrumbs leftovers from buildup for an additional location and questline that are taking up Your time for exploration and give you nothing in return, because those things are not even storywise and lorewise important. And I'm writing it as a person who loves exploring and got every little secret treasure before any NPC told me about it and had more than 200 different books in camp chest! This content should be flat-out removed from the game because it had no ounce of importance for the plot and even the world or characters if it's left like that. It just is; it doesn't even entertain or have any purpose. Orcs aren't existent in the game even, which is a shame really, because orcs in D&D always mean some funny shenanigans. I ended Act 2 feeling it had a lot of wasted potential when it comes to storytelling and subquests, especially if you are playing half-orc in this case. There were many things like those orcs, not used and without a purpose. Couldn't even get a proper response from Isobel about meeting Ketheric or finding information about him during exploring Act 2. Just the same, and eventually boring, answers. frown

That being said, a few days ago I posted a thread with my feedback about storytelling in BGIII when it comes to the purpose of characters, places and events, their role storywise and the consequences of our actions throughout the game.

I also proposed there an idea about "postcard epilogues". Summarizing it: along with the thirty minutes-long credits we could get scenes from the life of various characters post-game. Those still images should have a photo-like tone that shows players the consequences of their actions but still leaves room for imagination. They could also have some short dialogue from characters or commentary written around them to make them more situational and kind of memorable. Thirty minutes is a lot of time to show enough of those for specific companions, some based on random choices made during the journey, for our love interest and our Tav's life with them and finally for the NPCs we met along the way. All those scenes could be done using models and things already in the game, just combined in nicely "frozen in time" moments. Bonus gift also if we could save them afterward as a reward for investing so much time in the game and the "postcard" format should be nice for using them as wallpapers for desktop. It would also give an additional motivation for replay as we could get different images depending on our actions, choices and various Tavs we create. This could really change the tone of the endgame from playthrough to playthrough.

If you want to read the full post along with my specific(and a bit spoiling!) examples of those "postcard" images, You'll find it HERE.

I've also stated my opinion about the idea of "last, final camp" in THIS thread. Since it's not that long, I'll copy it and put it in tags below as there's a small mention of one of the final choices in-game:

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I'm actually all in for something like a "camp" party (maybe in a tavern?) at the end of the game, where we could talk with our companions and NPC allies. I think most players love the aspect of roleplaying in games like BGIII, so it's obvious that we, as both our characters in-game and players, would want to know what all those characters plan to do about their lives post-battle, if we will be maybe sharing those plans, and how they feel about all of this. This is also why in my post the first example of image rolling out after an ending with credits was that "party choice" and celebration. I feel this is an important point storywise, both for in-game characters and those who follow their stories as players. At this exact point, the story should have a conclusion and some form of summary, and "last camp" would be perfect for this, even if you decide that after the final battle you will do something different than partying. I think this would also be an ideal in-story circle to that "first celebration camp" in the first act, and as a player, you could see firstly the difference in scale that your actions brought upon all, then the change in companion attitudes towards being some kind of hero and towards the world around them, and especially how the world receives our character now (this is the most important point for the DU characters probably).

Unfortunately, I do understand the hardships of changing things you did previously and how troublesome it can get from the point of view of the creator. That's why I suggested just images in a kind of postcard format based on things we already have in-game. That would probably be a lot easier to do than making new cinematics or creating new scenes and then implementing them in the game. From a game recipient perspective, I just really want to see some solid closure and conclusion for the story and characters; that's the most important for me. The format of how it will be done comes in second place.

But of course, if both of those ideas had been used, I would've cried from happiness, seriously. That would be a "dream come true" situation! We can only hope that in the end, Larian will deliver us the best solution for this. wink

And lastly... welp, I'll be salty if, at the end of the final-final version of the game, I don't see Astarion being a daddy to a gith kid... I was not leaving that egg on his camp cushions throughout the game just to raise it myself! wink (Just kidding, but it's funny to imagine origin characters as parents, uncles and aunts for a little gith!)