i'm with you here lestai when i came back after some absence and having played the demo, i noticed a dramatical increase in members and a dramatical increase in shady practices.
now i do need to come clean: i have to admit i *have* done this editing once too, just so i could take a sneak peek at the other masteries. but the same probs happened to me (more crashing, spells not completely functional) and somehow the chests at the end near the centaur didn't open. anyhoo the char was fun to play (storm mastery has some cool skills) but a pain in the *** with the bugs that came with it and i quitted that char knowing i have to wait for the official release.
this experience made sure that i'll never edit again, it has no use cuz when the devs wanted stuff to be in, they would've made the game that way.
but the continuing rambling about editing out here got me a bit ticked
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" consider it cheating whenever you edit it.. but maybe the way bardo puts it (opening other classes) might be not that bad.. but things like many free skillpoints, upping your levels or other tweaking which makes your char more powerful i DO consider cheating/hacking. and i'm not very fond of ppl like that, who can only play a game if their chars are easy and overpowered from the start. what's the point of playing a game when you can't even enjoy it the way you were supposed to? enemies are made stronger for a reason you know! they are to be a challenge! they should give you a rewarding feeling at the point of defeat!
sorry guys but i just can't stand ppl that cheat to overpower their chars, what's the fun of playing games that way anyhow?"
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"why is everyone so obsessed with editing their chars.. why do ppl even PLAY games if they can't even be patient enough to accomplish something BY THEMSELVES 
sheesh
T. "
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i'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping the char saving with the official version will be updated.. this kind of cheating (that somehow EVEN I managed to do which is quite remarkable) is just plain BULLSH!T