Jedi_Learner wrote:I find it very interesting that a handful of people are complaining about being made to take the Crux of Fire into Talushorn. Some suggest Korren and Erubor safeguard the Crux in case the Taurax stop you and take the gemstone. Fair enough I say. However, I don't remember any of you complaining about being made to take the Crux of Ages into the Goblin Citadel in Book I.
Can I ask why this is? I'm genuinely curious.
I'll try to tackle this:
I think the reason why it's not an issue in Book I is because, frankly, you had
no support personnel in Book I. Yeah, sure, later on you discover you had a brother, but you make it through most of Book I without knowing about him, and by the time you get to him, he's no help to you anyway. And there's no one else really there who can help in a meaningful way get the Crux of Ages to Bastion Spire.
So, in Book I,
you have to do it alone, and you have to take it through The Goblin Citadel because that's your only route to Bastion Spire.
IOW, in the context of Book I's plot, it makes perfect sense.
(There's an additional suppositional element on my part which makes this make even more sense in Book I - and that is that I suspect having the Crux of Ages in your possession the whole time prevents Gramuk's attempts to locate you or cloud your mind. There's nothing
textual in the game that spells that out in Book I, but it's always been the
subtextual supposition on my part about the developments in that game...)
In Book II, however, because you
do have a supporting crew (that you choose to join up with), and because there's a mechanism to get the Crux of Fire to its destination without
you having to take it through all of Talushorn yourself - and, additionally, having your supporting crew bring it in this way avoids the whole 'inventory check' issue that Elwro stumbled across - I just think the plot would work better that way.
Now, having said all that, I am definitely not in the camp that's too "disappointed" with Book II's plot overall, nor does the Skiffy plot development at the end put me off particularly because it's so peripheral to the main happenings in the game.
I would agree that Book II is probably a little weaker, plotwise, than Book I - but I figured that was likely to be the case going in because I think the main focus in Book II went into game engine development (which I think led to a little bit of short-changing plot and atmospheric elements), and frankly I have no problem with that because those game engine advances were needed.
As long as the development focus shifts back more to the latter (plot and atmospherics) in Book III, I have no real problems here.
Anyway, that's my $0.02.
But I'm certainly not in the "wildly disappointed" or "put off camp" at all...