User blog comment:Vometia/Mapping Bitterblack Isle/@comment-33780977-20200119123255/@comment-1471916-20200120115421

I have 2.8 on my Linux desktop where I do most of my day-to-day stuff and it does seem a great deal faster. I really regret using 2.10 on Windows instead, which is only as it was more convenient at the time but it seems the file formats aren't (easily) interchangeable, especially with all the changes to layers. Gimp in Windows also has the additional annoyance that it's file dialogue takes 10 seconds to come to life every time you use it; while 2.8's is still rubbish, at least it isn't glacially slow and rubbish. Oh well, hopefully I'll learn from it.

I hadn't thought about the issue with the riftstones; well observed. I had considered the matter of "broken and decrepit from the outset" and apart from the loldungeon stereotype that also doesn't make much sense, same as Daimon's true form being very much nastier without Ashe in the picture. But my interpretation of the various accounts and bits of commentary were that they're explaining how they see things rather than how it actually is. I guess the situation is as it often is, where the way is deliberately left open for the player/reader/viewer/whatevs to make their own mind up.