F4LL0UT: All the different bosses and even some comparably minor monsters in the Everfall drop wakestones. I had explored multiple levels in the Everfall, doing like ten boss encounters in the process, and had collected the 20 wakestones quite quickly, despite not vising all the levels and never getting past the locked gates (still have no idea how you open those). What's stupid, I intentionally skipped the road to the Ur-Dragon because I assumed one should do that one AFTER collecting the twenty wakestones. By the time I handed them over and got informed about a point of no return I had totally forgotten about the Ur-Dragon's level in the Everfall and thus accidentally finished the game. And I was pretty sure that even after completing the story in its entirety one would still be able to fight the Ur-Dragon without starting the story all over. :P
I think during that time I was selling every wakestone I got. I was aiming to kill the Ur-Dragon, and fight through Bitterblack Isle, so I was trying to upgrade everything to maximum, and at that point in the game it meant 150.000G a pop.
F4LL0UT: Well, only after the love interest was already chosen I even figured out how gifting items works, plus somehow the Dragonforged never gave me that item that instantly maxes out affinity with the character you give it to. Also, I'm pretty sure that the Duke's wife should have been my love interest but I guess she couldn't be the love interest since she left Gransys after doing her quest line. Sigh. Anyway, I guess I'll try to make Madeleine my love interest during the next playthrough because she is cute and has balls. I like women with balls... also I wouldn't mind having a good shop at home. Valmiro or whatever he's called was just a nuisance and I would have chopped his head off for moving into my place if it had only been possible.
If more than one character has max affinity with you the one that gets kidnapped at the end is the last one you talked to.
I wouldn't worry too much about that item (which is a Dark Arisen addition by the way, and they also made vendors harder to gain affinity with in that version). All you need to do is: if you talk to an NPC and their cheeks go all rosy, there's a glow behind them and you hear a little jingle, and you don't want to romance them, then pull your weapon in front of them. Do that 5 or 10 times and the affinity will plummet.
C'mon, Mercedes has twice as many balls as Madeleine and is twice as cute.
F4LL0UT: I thought the love interest is reset when you start the story over with the existing character? That's what some comments on the Dragon's Dogma Wiki suggested. Also the Wiki stated that if an NPC moves into your place they still offer all the options as before? (like selling items, changing vocations etc.?).
The wiki says I was wrong. I only played the game twice, the original on console and Dark Arisen on PC, and never tried New Game+ so I didn't have too much first hand experience with the love interests. Apparently the problem is just between the beloved being kidnapped and you defeating the Dragon that the services are naturally suspended, afterward it goes back to normal duties.
F4LL0UT: The problem is that on console you only get that one if you transfer a saved game from the base game to Dark Arisen. Since I created a fresh character on Dark Arisen I sadly never got the Eternal Ferrystone. However, first off: I generally don't like fast travel much and only do it when I'm REALLY fed-up with travelling so I used fast-travel like maybe five times over the course of the game. Secondly in Dark Arisen ferrystones are dirtcheap, like 1000 gold pieces so by the time I finished the game I could have bought hundreds of them if I really wanted to.
I figured you were talking about the PC version given the forum we're in. You might have gotten a bit more of the taste of the original then.
In the original they were like 20.000G. I don't think I ever used one in the whole game.
Talking to you has made me want to replay the game. I don't have the hard drive space, but I think as soon as I finish one or two other games I'll go back to this one.