I know what you mean with main game - for me that's TQIT/AER.  I've been playing since I found it in 2008 and have over 10,000 hours in it. 

And if you want a story - here's Crate Entertainment's.  Arthur Bruno who was the lead game designer for TQ and IT founded Crate Entertainment in 2008 when Iron Lore who made the game folded.  A year after founding the company he bought the rights to the TQ engine and started working on the game pretty much on his own with just occasional help from friends/colleagues in the business.  Wasn't earning anything because that was all he was doing really.  Word had gotten out about what he was doing and funnily enough people kept asking if they could donate to the project.  Eventually he did set this up and also the option to pre-buy the game.  This helped a bit, but he still struggled on working alone.  In 2012 he ran a Kickstarter for the game with a target of $280,000.  He ended up with over $500,000.  With the money he was able to hire full time staff and the project began to move more quickly.  In 2013 the game was released in an alpha version on Steam - just the one act to start with, but slowly building up over the years to a full 4 act game which was fully finished and released in February 2016.  The Crucible was released in August of that year and Ashes of Malmouth came out in October 2017.  The team has grown from that one man band to 14 now.  To date the main game has sold over 1.5 million copies, Crucible over 200,000 (at first anniversary of release) and Ashes of Malmouth over 300,000.

Well, they increased the resistance types you see on the character screen in the AE edition of the game.  They were already there in the game, just not shown on the screen.  AE has added them and a few more iirc.  I always make sure the primary ones (those on the first page) are pretty good, if I get any of the secondary ones I'm doing well.    I can't even remember all the new ones yet.

Grim Dawn has a crafting system as well plus you can find blueprints/recipes for things which can also be crafted.  Instead of relics/charms it has components with standard bonuses rather than the variable ones TQAE has.  Started off with the variables, but it got too complicated for other things in the game so the devs standardised them.  The more common ones are easily found, but the rarer ones have to be crafted.  There's also the inventor (enchanter equivalent) who, as well as separating components/augments from items, can dismantle gear to gain components and other crafting materials found in the game.  With the Forgotten Gods expansion the inventor will have new crafting options - if you find a piece of a set that you already have you'll be able to transmute it into another random item or a piece of the same set.

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70306

Where TQ has storytellers giving you background on the various cultures you pass through, Grim Dawn has lore notes and also other more general notes.  It's a darker, more gritty storyline - what you'd expect with a name like Grim Dawn - but it's still very well written and detailed.

Unlike TQIT/AE, you don't have to play the Ashes of Malmouth expansion to unlock the next difficulty.  If you want to do it in Normal and Elite you can, but it's not a requirement.  Which may be just as well since the main game is 4 Acts and AoM adds another 2.  The expansion also adds two more masteries to play with: the Inquisitor who can dual wield guns and the ever popular Necromancer.

Welcome to the forum and to the game Melancholia.   

If it's on a staff it affects only the staff attacks.

+skills versus resistances really depends on whether you need to boost your resistances or not. If you already have +4 to all skills then I'd go for the resistances.  You get a resistance penalty in both Epic and Legendary so it's always good to keep an eye on how they're doing.

Stats - again this depends somewhat on how you play.  If you're relying on your pets to do damage and are staying out of the fray then you really only need enough dex to be able to equip gear/weapons.  The rest can go into int.  If, on the other hand, you're getting into the thick of things then boosting your dex will help you stay alive - you should probably go 1/1 int/dex in that case.

If you want you can put some into health and/or energy if you need it, but here's a little trick to keep in mind from TQ forum legend Poinas.  There are 3 quests where you get bonus attribute points as part of the reward: the Chiron's staff side quest, when you hand in the Hand of Balance and the Eye of Chaos as part of the main quest and the Terracotta Soldiers side quest.  You get 2 points for each of these so that's 6 points per difficulty - 18 in total.  Use these to boost your health/energy.  Each point boosts these by 40 so if you put all into health that would increase it by 720 for example.  Bear in mind that while you can buy back skill points, you can't do the same with attribute ones - once they're allocated and you close the window that's it, you can't change them.

As for item drops they can get stuck at times, even did it in the original game occasionally.  One that particularly stands out is the Staff of Khufu - that sometimes takes a long while to actually show up.  What I've observed is that the items are still moving, even fractionally, so don't show up until they're completely still.

You will find a lot of throwing items because Ragnarok introduced throwing weapons so the devs obviously want them to be plentiful for people to try out.

Finally if you're enjoying the game you might want to have a look at Grim Dawn.  It's made by one of the developers who worked on TQIT originally and it also uses the TQ engine though much upgraded and improved.  It's similar too in that it has the dual mastery system, but also has factions, a devotion system to add even more diversity to your builds and of course lots of loot to find.

http://www.grimdawn.com/contribute_buynow01.php

There is also an expansion for it called Ashes of Malmouth and a separate arena battleground DLC called The Crucible.  Both are available through Humble, Steam or GOG.  There's also another expansion under development called Forgotten Gods which is due out some time later this year.  What's pretty unique in the gaming world is the relationship the devs have built up with the fan base - they give regular updates on what's happening with the game and also do live streams on a Friday fairly regularly.

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/

You'll find me there too - I'm a playtester and recently became a moderator of the forum as well.  We're a generally friendly and helpful bunch too so no problems asking questions if you do decide to try out the game.

Don't have any from Act 5, but here's an example from the rest of the game.

 

It should roll on both types.  If it doesn't sounds like they've been changing a lot of things in the expansion which won't make sense for the rest of the game.

Thanks for the explanation efko.  Didn't think of the forum putting locked thread at the end of open ones.  Makes sense I guess.  Just used to closed ones staying where they are and being marked closed.

Added to the leaderboard and good luck with him.  Are you playing with Ragnarok too?

Shouldn't be a problem.  Enjoy. 

To which none of you have to reply of course.

No, this forum setup we have doesn't seem to have a close thread option, only to lock it.  I tried it a couple of times and when it's locked it disappears completely.  Admins/mods can continue to reply in it if needed, but it can't be seen by anyone - which is a bit weird when you think about.    efko understand it more than me though, so maybe he'll have some ideas/suggestions how we can get a close option.