We will have to agree to disagree my friend, Im not really talking about a unqiue* option.
Im talking about drastic different changes in the characters arcs based on players choices. That are throigh out the game and that build on to each other.
As for her being a late addition she was indeed a late addition but i believe she was always intended as an origin character. But her like wyll went through alot of story changes and switchs before they could even nail it down to get her voice recorded. So while i agree she was added late and suffered for it.
I still hold firm that she was more then likely meant to be fixed. But it did not make it to the august launch. If a DE comes and ahe is still doomed ill concede. But looking at patch 4. My hopium is pretty high. No one i think was asking for a new kiss animation for karlach, but my god was it such an awesome surprise. That costed money that was mocap and larian did it without even announcing it. I think we will see more content for her not just epilogues
That's just not true. If i'm not mistaken she wasn't even a companion at first and back in the EA she was completely different character. With so many changes there is no way she was planned as origin from the begining, it's the same situation as Halsin - he wasn't meant to be companion (or even romance option) but that was changed because how popular he became. As for the mindflayer option, yes it destroys the soul but well, it's still some kind of life. If she was meant to only be companion or character we meet along the way, your friend sacrificing themselves (despite it being cheap since the alternative is death etc etc, I already talked about it) could be a great way to raise the stakes. It stings because she was made origin so concept of her whole character was changed once again, maybe writers had disagreement and didn't want to let go of the idea that one of the companions could sacrifice themselves, maybe there was not enough time.
Originally Posted by Comrade Canuck
I mean, that's quite possibly all true, and I'll agree knowing how we got to the ending we did, and what the intention was is interesting in a "how was the sausage made" way, but in the end what matters to me is the ending we actually have in the game that actually released.
(I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything, to be clear- it is genuinely interesting the hints we have at what might have been planned based on what's in the game, but absent official clarification that seems unlikely, it's all pretty much speculation. Does make me wonder what on Earth enriched infernal iron was meant to be for if the engine was always meant to be unfixable, though)
Maybe we weren't originally meant to spend so much time with her, but in the release version, we do. Maybe the engine was planned from the beginning to be unfixable, but whether that was the original intent or not doesn't make the fact that there's a bunch of options that are at least plausible within the setting that you simply can't try- and there's not so much as a hand-wavey explanation for why you can't do any of the obvious stuff- less irritating. There's a reason so many people have the experience of seeing her ending for the first time and more or less responding with "Wait, what? Did I miss something somewhere?"
It's basically obvious that plans changed, but sadly it is what it is. Changing or fixing that would require enormous effort and resources so it's really hard to expect any changes. Maybe DE, if they decide to even release that AND retcon Karlach's entire arc on top of that
