No exp for random kills is a great design decision. Earlier games punished players for peaceful solutions, as they would yield less xp AND less loot. Now that this is dealt with you have the freedom of choice again which is the most important property of any roleplaying game (while combat isn't).

Good post.

I just finished the game and I'm truly surprised by how much time I took to do it. I completed every quest I could find, and also all tasks (terciary quests?), and I took me a solid 72 hs 25 minutes to do so.

******Spoiler Warning*******
I really liked the variety of races, classes and backgrounds to chose from, and the fact that you can pretty much build your own party and not use any companion, which I intend to do in a new run.
I didn't encounter ANY bug that broke quests, though I updated to 1.03 after having played roughly 45 hs.
The music was great, and REALLY reminded me of Baldur's Gate 2 at some points, which is a plus for me as I loved those songs.
The characters were varied, I really liked the backstories of everyone, they were diverse enough that I could find them unique. My only complain there would be that Durance speaks as fast as a turtle walks, which is to say every dialog with him took a WHILE because I wanted to hear everything he said, but oh well, the others weren't, and it kind of suited his personality so meh. Yes I would have probably enjoyed having romance options as in Baldur's Gate, but it wasn't THAT important, it's just a preference of mine in RPG games.
The main storyline I found to be satisfying, though I had one issue with it: I enojyed doing the side quests so much, because there were really a lot of them, and very different from each other, so I ended up with the feeling that I just enjoyed the side quests, improving the fortress, and just plain going from place to place and saving people with their own issues a lot more than the main quest itself. Though I can't say it wasn't good, by any means. It's just the feeling I get after doing everything else.
I loved that you can enchant your weapons and armor, but the fact that anyone from any class can do it kind of let me down. I know the gameplay difference of doing it yourself and having a "merchant" enchant your things is minuscule, but it somehow didn't feel right, so I guess I would have chosen to go with a merchant doing it, but oh well. this is called nitpicking.
I loved that you have different factions but it was very confusing at one point: I intended to go with the knights but because I had done 1 or 2 side quests for the 12 because i was on the are their base is at first, when I wanted to ally with the knights they just wouldn't take me because I was too close with the others. That annoyed me, I feel the game should have warned me somehow that I was locking myself in the same boat as a faction by doing ANY sort of questing with them.
The pathing for characters was awful, I was kind of expecting IA to the level of Dragon Age Origins for some reason.
Maybe I'm forgetting something, but my point is I was expecting a great game... and found one. Some things were lacking, but they were either minor or issues I could simply overlook. The game itself was awesome, and I look forward to playing it some more in reruns.
I just wished there was a way to shut off the character shadows, I have an intel core i3 HD FIRST gen integrated graphics, which runs this game very laggy. If someone made a mod in that effect, I would love to use it :D it would probably help a lot in open areas or anywhere with lights really.
I would also like to see something more done with the fortress, but I read somewhere they are going to improve it with an expansion later on, so there it is.

Damn I wrote too much. Oh well, 9/10 in my opinion a great game.

Yeah, I think that was the idea - that at some point, somewhere, your characters go to a merchant to get their stuff enchanted, thus the monetary costs of it. And yes, it would make more sense to do it with a merchant in-game - but it does add more clicking, visit a merchant, open "enchant" screen, find the equipment you want enchanted and then do what you need as opposed to the current approach where you just click on what you want to have enchanted and enchant it. I feel like Obsidian tried to put a lot of effort into allowing you to skip as much tedium as possible (along with stash)

*****SPOILER WARNING*****

Doesn't the very first quest you have to do for dozens include you needing to kill one of the knights at one point? At least I didn't find a different way to solve the thing with the armor - after visiting the cipher, he just attacked me

Erh, when you got to the point of not returning, the dozen and the other 2 factions warning you that taking the next quest will give you problem with the other factions. I can confirm that for dozens and the order as I was avoiding these sidquests due that warning (the mafia faction was already hating me so never do quests for them).

I'm with Fenixp, the stash and the enchant system as they are now are very practical as you are not forcing to do dozen of unnecessary clicks and backing your steps from time to time.

The pathfinding is strange, I think the reason in battle is so poor is because the system try to avoid to engagement when moving from point A to B, if there are multiple enemies, then the areas to avoid is to huge (and invisible to us) making the strange choices. I take my idea from the fact that outisde of the battle, the characters don't has any problem moving in long distance even with multiple access (by example the fire district or the first town).

Spoiler too**

Yes, that is a weak point with that quest (as you don't need to go with the captain to clarify what happened), anyway, if following certain actions, that knight attack in public without warning, and if you already has good reputation with the knights or the city seem the things are in your side, so technically you are victim of a very bad example of the order and was auto-defense with many witness.

Another thing that should be noted is that, while in the middle of combat, if you move your heroes around and they are attacked, they will autodefend themselves by turning to attack the enemy hitting them, which makes it a necesity to pause and re issue the previous order you had given them. I mean it's cool that they defend themselves if attacked, but if you are trying to get him/her to go to a particular point, having to click several times to keep giving that order because he/she is under attack is not cool.

And yes, I should put spoiler "tag" on my post, I'll do so right now.

Yes, but that is the engagement system, that is why there even feats or attributes giving you extra points for those defense. Is something similar to the D&D attacks of opportunity.
If you pass close to an enemy and ignore it, you got a free attack against you

Yup, I understand, agree with and appreciate that system. But if I want to go from A to B, I'm just saying having to click 10 times is annoying.
Still, this is nitpicking. Nothing in this game amounts to a problem, at least in my opinion. It has to be the smoothest game I've played in the last few years, but then again I read some people did go through a couple of issues, so maybe I was just like.

Oh given how powerful disengagement attacks are, it would be damn annoying if you sent someone someplace and he just died on the way because he was engaging and disengaging enemies. Besides, this is not a convenience thing, it is a mechanic - just as your character interrupt their movement when engaged, enemies will do precisely the same thing and you can use this to your advantage.

Oh well, they put that feature in and it's not gonna leave so it's just better to accept it as it is.

Bear in mind that it is a huge tool (so to speak) for you to use. Your tanks are just as sticky and just as deadly if the bad guys try to run past. If your tanks couldn't do this, your second line would be toast.

In all the rpgs I have played, I have never attacked anyone just because it yielded more exp or loot (on my first playthrough anyway). If this was a temptation for some players I guess I can see Obsidian's design choice but, anecdotally I don't think it has been a very strong temptation. You could also just address this by giving more/different loot and exp for roleplaying decisions, rather than taking away exp for a certain game choice, i.e. combat. Moreover, this argument doesn't address how a random fight with monsters in the wilderness is simply less rewarding because there is no combat exp. Why would I sneak past the wilderness fight? There are loot ingredients to be had, at least. Is it more fun to sneak than to fight? No, its not even viable to sneak if you want to explore/find everything in the map.

In short, I can see the motivation behind removing combat exp, but I think the way they did it was a mistake/poorly executed.

i read many topics here and on the internet it seems there are quite some bugs and other problems with the game, even after a patch according to some various fora on the internet.

i was thinking about maybe buying it at the listprice because the game looks awesome ,
but after reading all those problems i decided to wait untill the game is older, has more patches, and then get it on a sales or so, cause 42 bucks is quite a lot of money for a game that still has many problems.

I also read somewhere they were already working on a expansion?
Strange cause the game isnt even 99% bugfree, i have many games and so far i havent got any GOG game that needed patching before it was playable, the only gliches i had was because an old game had GPU issues,
(Inquisitor problem on win xp: weird black block around the player)
other then that i was able to play all games even on XP.

Plus i read someother posts about the game: A Lot to Like but Far from Greatness
and : Patch 1.04 Error: This patch does not support the version of your game...

At 42 bucks its a bit too much of a hassle, if i have a game for 12 bucks and its buggy i just wait patiently and dont mind it before i can play it,
but at 42 bucks (or more) the expectations of a game are much higher and is alot for a game from which you be spending most of the time looking for solutions and fixes, instead of playing.

I wait till its really stable.

Having played it through a couple of times now, playing with mods and shit as well i gotta say game is Stable, Balance is another issue which i think they are working on. compared to many other games i love the fact that they are actually trying to balance it, its not like they have to. So i hope they are working on the expansion as is, that being said i really miss specializations like Kensai for fighters and stuff like that to make each char more unique:), and more different heads for all races would be welcome as well.

As of 1.04, most bugs that I know of have been fixed, and even back with 1.02 (?), I did not "spend most of the time looking for solutions and fixes, instead of playing".