To be fair, one of the game's tooltips literally tell you that the tombstones are immersion breaking and if you want to be immersed, you should ignore them

I think AiCola was writing exclusively about the backer NPC, not the tombstones.

ieMod will optionally change the unfitting backer names to more fantasy themed ones (or perhaps it changes them all, I've only played with ieMod installed and that option activated), and there is an addon for ieMod that changes all the references to websites and corgi's in the tombstones to more thematicaly appropriate things.

EDIT: clarified and expanded comment

yes, sorry for not being more clear.
I don't think the npcs are immersion breaking and since it's basically free content made by backers it probably did not take much other content away from us.

the tombstones are immersion breaking, but i couldn't care less ....
Also i don't really have any great immersion with games like pilars.
I enjoy the feeling of playing them, it sets me in a nice mood, but it is not like i am playing fallout:nv, feeling like the courier wandering the mojave, or feeling like I'm the ***** Dovakin when i play Skyrim.
And even then i could live with it.

PS: this game is much better than da:o and the dlc commercial is somethign else entirely than those tombstones are ...

Wait, these soul stories where backer-created content?!
Congrats to these high-level-backers then! (I´m only a mid-level backer) They are awesome, I thought they´d have been Obsidians own stuff!

Anyways, the non-interactive part of them does suck, really!

Oh, I'm sorry for misunderstanding you then. And yes, they're very easy to ignore :-) And yes, it's so much better than Dragon Age: Origins. Not that Dragon Age was a bad game, just not nearly as fun

Oblivion did not expect to get as many backers as it got. My guess is that they added the higher tier for the backer-created NPCs without knowing how many would actually take them up on the offer.

"Oblivion"?
I assume you meant "Obsidian"?

I'm glad to know these aren't necessary. I didn't like most that I read so far, and was thinking the writers took an ever bigger step to High School Sci Fi writing. Don't get me wrong, i have a lot of respect for anyone will to write, and I'll own I'm too picky when it comes to writing. Regardless, knowing I can get them amiss without losing out on something critical in the game is a relief.
Loads of respect for whoever wrote them, but no desire to actually read them. Just my opinion.

I also haven't found one book in the game I would say was worth reading, so the backers aren't alone. BG 1&2 I read almost every book and enjoyed them. So far, in my opinion, I haven't found much to get excited about regarding the writing overall. At least I know why, in part.

Happy gaming!

All this kickstarter game inclusion is starting to become crazy. All those soul things, it was becoming a real chore reading them, then I found out I do NOT have to, so why put them there, they have nothing to do with the game and give no clues. The Books the books not more books, I got fed up with those from the off. If I want to read a story I will by a book thanks, game outline no problem, but all those books.

I will go with these comments from above.

Soul Stories - Loads of respect for whoever wrote them, but no desire to actually read them. Just my opinion.

Books - I also haven't found one book in the game I would say was worth reading.

just don't read them, i did only read a few myself, but some people like them.
especially the books can sometimes be useful to get more knowledge about some in-game lore

See, that's the cool thing about such games - I have red every single book and soul story I ran across and I enjoy reading both immensely. While there's not too much point to the soul stories other than giving the world more flavour (which is cool too in my book), the books are actually very useful to understand the current sociopolitical situation and history of the game's world - what good is that, you ask? It helps you understand better how are your actions going to affect the game's world, and offer much more insight into what's going on in the main storyline.

Funny, I didn't find anything worth reading about in Baldur's Gate games, yet here I am, reading everything in Pillars.

Sorry to agree, to be honest the stories aren't the issue (even thou some are really bad and cheesy), you can avoid them, but you can't avoid noticing dozens of godlikes.

Shouldn't they be feared and avoided (at best)? Why should a friggin "racist" hamlet be filled with them standing around smoking pipes?

Wasn't sure about it, 'till I met Sturmblade (or however they tried to change the name), what is a dragonlance dude doing in this setting?

Not saying they shouldn't have put them in, but maybe a little box to uncheck for everyone else not wanting to see the backer credits in-game?

Well game's amazing anyway, but I agree 100% on the "kickstarter intrusion" being a bit too heavy.

Yeah, I was never a fan of Forgotten Realms lore. And even if Pillars is a brand new world, I already find it one of the more important ones I've seen in games. I've never seen a game centered so much on souls, reincarnatio and how would these concepts reflect in society and science - really like that spin, and how far they took it.

Well... You could also find TARDIS in Fallout 2 you know. These references are not really alien to RPGs.

Edit: I forgot to reply to Belsirk. Fixed that shiz!