Originally Posted by JeyFrey
I don't really want to disagree with you, but if lot of people would've preferred another gaming or story experience, where are all their comments, rants and such?
Looking at Metacritic, I see a 96 and a 8.9 - lets be honest, a whole lot of companies would offer a bowl of kidneys to get that.
Most people throw up reviews far before they finish a game, and act 1 is still by far the best experience the game has to offer. We both do agree the game as a whole is great anyway, though, don't get me wrong.

Originally Posted by JeyFrey
The first time I went into the forum and Discord, I was way more emotional ridden, mostly because I disliked that this totally good game made a few dumb writing mistakes. I like to write and play tabletop myself and felt like it was way too rushed or they sacrificed some good writing to get more sales (also on most tabletop rounds, sexual stuff is not really appreciated and if needed, its just a quick classic fade-to-black).
Now, after a few weeks have passed, I try to understand and see the facts.
I understand why they did it, but you also have to look at the negative consequences of such a move. They sold goodwill for a few quick bucks, that's a fact. Like I said it's incredibly small scale, and won't matter whatsoever as a standalone incident. But I've seen what this does on a larger scale. Just look at Activision Blizzard. They've been selling goodwill for years now and ran out, and their sales plummeted with it. Now they're bought up by Microsoft, with the deal finalized two weeks ago.

Originally Posted by JeyFrey
I really understand everyone who is disappointed, tired, angry or even feels betrayed by how Halsin turned out in the full game - he has changed compared to EA Halsin. Its a bit like it could happen in real life: You get to know someone, you start dating and at some point, the person shows a completely changed behaviour - one that you dislike. I really get that and all of you have my honest support - I just think, we don't take the right path if we try to downvote everything in the game just because of the experience made with a single character (well, maybe 3 if we add SH and Astarion to the mix).
Majority of the game is good. Shadowheart and Astarion are perfectly fine ignoring these few (mostly skippable if you don't bring Halsin) inconsistencies which in the larger picture are absolutely nothing compared to the rest of their stories. And while it tends to only take one rotten apple to spoil the bunch, one can live with it. Halsin got ruined, however, and he got ruined because of feedback being used as an indicator that he's popular and then translated that into a marketing campaign. That's not a good look.

Originally Posted by JeyFrey
As for Act 3, of course it lacks depth, but I feel like thats mostly due to bugs (that are totally fine, if they try to fix them in a proper timeframe), performance issues and the game itself being rushed. With like 300-400 people working on it, I feel like its not right to blame the addition of Halsin for the state of Act 3. We don't even know if the people who worked on Halsin would've worked on Act 3 otherwise.
Bugs are a big part of it. But companions turn into hirelings in act 3 - they have more to say about you kissing a goblin's foot in act 1 than they have about multiple massive questlines in act 3 combined. That's not bugs, that's just lack of time to write more, or care to do so.

Same person/team of people (I doubt he's doing it all alone) that wrote Shadowheart also wrote Halsin. The same Shadowheart that people currently can't comfort at all during her final cutscene (or ever) even when romanced and who has absolutely no dialogue remaining after that cutscene - nothing. Her story ending is miserable because it's a bittersweet ending with no positive outlook unless you romanced her where you at least get a couple of lines of dialogue in the epilogue stating that together you'll get over it. So all I can imagine is a world where they spent the time ruining Halsin (and adding a few inconsistencies to Shadowheart and Astarion in the process) on finishing her story up proper instead.

Last edited by Michieltjuhh; 27/10/23 02:23 PM.