Divinity: Original Sin-2 characters, 1000 stories: a turn-based sandbox RPG

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Divinity: Original Sin-2 characters, 1000 stories: a turn-based sandbox RPG

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Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8npdvVydbHk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HevrTza0Nxg

:siren:

The Beta is now out on Steam Early Access as well!

Kickstarter: Before and After Trailer

Other cool trailers:

Early Access Trailer (January 17)
Spring is Coming (February 24)
Beta Trailer (April 3)

quote:

For all our Kickstarter backers who want to play the beta version (that comes with all the crashes, placeholders, breaking save games) of the game: the moment has arrived. Head on over to http://www.larianvault.com and log in using your Kickstarter account where you'll find your alpha key to be redeemed on Steam.

Also if you have design information, why haven't you filled that in yet?

quote:

Info needed!

You want a forum badge on the Larian.com forums? Write a "Message in the woods"? Do you need to design a henchman? An NPC? Come up with a pet name? Have to name an undead creature? Got to name a statue? A summon? You're gonna be in the credits? Do you need to create an item combination? Do you need to do all of these things because you pledged above a certain amount?

If so, you should head over to the Larian Vault, log in to your Kickstarter account and fill in the necessary info. We're going to start importing all of the data and contacting people where necessary but that process starts with you filling in those data fields.

We will send you reminders, yes we will, so if you don't want to be spammed by us, head over there now!

Divinity: Original Sin is a isometric sandbox RPG (with turn-based combat) in which you have a partner: controlled either manually in single-player, or optionally by another player in co-operative mode. It comes from Larian Studios, the team behind the Divinity Series. (Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Divinity 2: Ego Draconis/Dragon Knight Saga/Developers Cut).

For this game, Larian is going back to the Ultima-like roots of Divine Divinity, where you could explore a vast world, interacting and moving any object you wished, and where secrets were hidden in every corner.

This PRE-ALPHA video they made for their tremendously successful Kickstarter campaign should tell you what is so awesome about this game better than I can in mere words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weUPfejQ7xE

The met their minimum funding goal and achieved almost all stretch goals.

OTHER INFORMATION

Dragon Commander is Larian's RPG-lite/Risk-like/Real-time Strategy game (Released August 6 2013). It's much different than the usual CRPG fare from Larian which is why it is in its own thread.

I will be updating the OP with new information as it comes in, so feel free to make corrections and adjustments.

What�s the story? Your two Source Hunters are sent to the besieged town of Cyseal - not to deal with the hordes of undead plaguing the area, but to investigate the murder of Jake, a local official who was murdered. It is suspected he was killed by the forbidden dark magic known as the Source. Your mission is to locate his killer and see they are brought to justice.

It is a prequel to Divine Divinity, taking place a couple hundred years before it, and it sets up some of the events of that game. What, I'm not sure yet.

Update #12 - Story of the Divinity Series Explained

Because the Beta was only of one of the areas, some of the Screenshots are still from pre-alpha days. I will replace them as the full version becomes available.

PRE-ALPHA SCREENSHOT:

Your Characters

You control one of two characters (�Roderick� and �Scarlett� by default), junior Source Hunters. The Source Hunters were created by the Council of Seven (Six races [Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Lizards, Imps] + wizards) to enforce a ban on the use of Source magic. You've been sent to the city of Cyseal to investigate the possible murder of a prominent citizen with the use of Source Magic.

How does the character system work?
It�s still a work in progress, and things in the alpha change often but at the moment the following primary stats are implemented:

Strength � Increases damage for (most) melee weapons, carrying capacity, throwing distance, what you can pick up, and it lowers AP cost for Warrior skills. Higher quality weapons and equipment require more points into this attribute.
Dexterity � Increases damage for ranged weapons, daggers, and spears, increases chance to evade attacks, and lowers AP cost for Ranger and Rogue skills. Higher quality weapons and equipment require more points into this attribute.
Intelligence � Boosts the damage of magic Spells and reduces the Cooldown of magic Spells.
Constitution � Influences the amount of hit points you have, and your resistance to poison. It also increases your maximum AP.
Speed � Influences how far you can walk (in combat) with one action point, and your defense against attacks. It plus Perception increase how much AP you get on the first turn of combat, and also increases how much AP you get on subsequent turns of combat.
Perception � Grants a bonus to sight and hearing, helps you figure out which the best dialogue options are, and lets you spot traps and hidden things. It also, in combination with Speed, helps determine how much AP you get on the first turn of combat.

New characters start with 5 un-removable points in all of those, and 5 free points to allocate as you wish. Spend them wisely, because one attribute point in this game is worth a LOT more than in many other games, and you only get 1 attribute point every time you reach an even-numbered level.

You are Not Alone

Unlike most other games, the conversations and decisions about what to make are co-operative: Both characters have a voice and an opinion and they won�t hesitate to inject it into a conversation. This is meant to invoke the feeling of a pen-and-paper RPG where everyone sitting around the table gets involved in party decisions.

If you and your partner disagree on what to do, a dice roll behind the scenes based on several statistics will determine who prevails. The stats used for the argument are based on your Charisma ability, with occasional situational bonuses and penalties to using specific techniques (Intimidation, Charm, Reason) in a conversation. With enough points in Persuasion, you can learn what the bonuses or penalties are. There's also a Rock-Paper-Scissors minigame that you can use to try and win the argument.

Each decision builds a �personality profile� of each character, bit by bit. How the different personality profiles of both characters mesh together will determine the kind of relationship the two have at the end.

You can also have up to two mercenary characters accompany you, as well as two summoned creatures on the field to aid you in combat. There are two types of mercenaries: Henchmen, who share a generic pool of backgrounds, but don't have a lot of character, and Companions. Companions are fully fleshed out characters with their own stories and personalities. They'll interject their own opinions into various things that happen on the quest, and you can have an influence on them with your responses.

Combat

Combat in Original Sin is somewhat like the earlier Fallout games. It�s turn-based, and what you can do depends on how many action points (AP) something costs. Inventory items will show how many AP it costs to use them on a tooltip. Moving your cursor around the screen will show you how many AP it will take to walk to there. Plan carefully, because all decisions are final.

Don�t expect to use the turn-based system to just stroll past a horde of bad guys to target a weak one in the back: if you pass too close, enemies can and will make attacks of opportunity.

It is possible to retreat from combat and lead monsters around, even into towns to attack/distract guards.

There are at least 9 different damage types, including three just for physical attacks (Crushing, Piercing and Slashing), and a lot of nasty status effects as well, like Frozen, Burning, and Stunned.

Combine Elemental Magic, Destroy your foes
Use your powers over Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to re-shape the battlefield to your will.

Throw barrels of oil next to an enemy, then hit it with a fireball to blow up several enemies at once. If an enemy is standing in water, a lightning bolt to the puddle will make it Electrified, ruining its day. If a puddle isn�t big enough, cast the rain spell to increase its size. Icy surfaces will make you and your opponents slip when walking across, and fireballs leave burning patches of ground in their radius.

Use these spells wisely, for the enemy will on you: Rain may put out a Burning party member, but when they�re Wet, they�ll take additional damage from Air-type attacks, such as Lightning. Wet enemies will take less damage from fire-based spells, so co-ordination is key.

Some spells like ice walls can be cast by selecting one end point, and dragging to decide where to place the other end point.

Co-operative
There will be LAN and Internet co-op play. The co-op is drop-in-and-play, if you�re playing single player another player can join in and take control of the other character, and if they leave, you get control of the other character back.

PRE-ALPHA SCREENSHOT:

It�s better to play with someone you trust, and not a jerk, because friendly fire IS in this game, and you and your partner are considered to be both the same faction, so if they run around pissing off the guards too much, you can get in trouble as well.

PRE-ALPHA SCREENSHOT:

Your party can split up as much as you want, as long as you stay on the same large map. If one person gets into a fight when not near the second player, the second player can continue to wander around in real-time all they want and even get into their own fights. (Of course, that could be a problem since the fights are balanced for at least two or more player units, but you CAN do that if you want.)

If one character dies, they are dead until you revive them with a Resurrection Scroll or spell. If both Source Hunters are dead, it's game over.

Decisions have consequences

Many (maybe all) quests have multiple consequences, some of which will only become apparent hours after you make the decision.

You can�t just walk into a house and steal things. If an NPC sees you moving their things, they�ll complain and get upset. They aren�t psychic, though, they have to see you moving them.

If you do get caught stealing, though, there�s an increasing number of penalties: first a warning, then a fine, then jail time. Once in jail there are multiple ways for your partner to get you out, or you can find a way to escape on your own.

Build Your Own Adventure

Larian is also going to be shipping the editor they used to create the game for free, so players can create their own adventures and share them. They can import their own graphics, models and sounds as well. There�s even a separate moddable version of the base campaign included so you can monkey around in the fully-fleshed out world (without breaking the original).

Is there any planned DLC? Not at this time. Larian dislikes the nickel-and-diming approach of most DLC. Any additional content they produce will likely be in an expansion pack with substantial content.

Update #1 � The Editor
Update #9 - The Editor, Part II
Update #30B - Editor Magic - Materials Editor
Update #39 - The Osiris Scripting System

When will this be released?
June 30, 2014, for PC and Mac, with Linux to follow shortly. Available, from Steam, GoG, the Larian Vault, and in selected retail stores.

Links
Reviews
(Older links removed)

Interviews and developer quotes
Dagons Lair - Interview with Swen Vincke (53 min.) (French with English subtitles)
IGN Article: Risking it all for jetpack dragons (added 04/02)
Total Biscuit � interview with Larian (2012)
PC Games Germany (German, added 04/03)
PCG Media Article - Why the hell should Larian get your money? (added 04/06)
RPG Gamer.com - Original Sin E3 2012 Interview (added 04/06)
Matt Chat Interview (1 hour, added 04/08.) Matt Chat interview summary here. (added 04/08)
Compilation of Larian quotes on Kickstarter (added 04/16, thanks to Norbyte!)
Weresheep of Original Sin - Steam Group
Twitch.TV � Kirill Live!

Developer Blog Entries

Note: Project E was the code name for Original Sin before the announcement

Quality over Quantity in RPG�s

quote:
Sean R. in a comment on �The route to the very big RPG that will dwarf them all� wrote that one should prefer quality and uniqueness over quantity. He hit a note that doesn�t really feel right to me, given that I�m the one who likes both quality & uniqueness but also quantity when it comes to a RPG. However, there�s some evidence to suggest that he�s more right than I am, and that if forced to choose, you should always reduce the quantity.
The inspiration behind Original Sin

quote:
I consider Ultima VII: The black gate and Ultima VII: Serpent Isle to be among the best RPGs ever made, and in my mind there�s not been a single RPG since 1992 that surpassed them, including those now considered to be the industry benchmarks.
So why was I talking about Ultima VII so much ?
Well, for one, I was trying to explain that when making the first Divinity, my goal was to recreate the feeling I experienced when I played these Ultima games.
Original Sin revealed

quote:
Next on the list of reasons why Divinity � Original Sin seems to have surprised people is the turn-based combat system. That one comes from the desire of doing something like the first Fallouts. I always wanted to do a turn-based game with action points but my problem was that I couldn�t find a publisher who agreed with me.
Active-pause was considered for some time (and we actually started out like this), but in my heart I really wanted to make one of those games that has epic tactical battles, where you really have to think how you�re going to defeat the enemy. And because I�m occasionally very impulsive, one morning I stormed into the office and told the team that we were going to ditch all the hack & slash stuff and go for turn-based.
Larian on Kickstarter � an improvised start

quote:
Everything suddenly went into overdrive. Now for clarity, Myrthos is not to blame � it�s bad communication on our side combined with the complexities of running a Kickstarter campaign from Belgium that caused this, but that�s a different story altogether. But still, it did leave us with a major problem.
Because if he published, then the others were going to publish also, maybe, we didn�t know. And there are about hands-on 70 articles lined up to give the KS some momentum, but obviously, we�re not going to manage to get all those articles online right away, not if we don�t give any heads up�and when all the journalists are busy covering GDC/PAX follow ups�especially after we asked them to wait for so long and promised to give them a date up front (which we couldn�t because we only this morning(sic) received approval for KS (which was actually fast given that we submitted it last thursday or so) etc�
So, what to do?
Release date Postponed to February 28 - why?

quote:
Divinity: Original Sin is one of those games for which I have a lot of �we should put everything we can in this one� sentiment in me. I�m a big believer in both its game and sales potential, and it doesn�t take a lot to convince me that we need to do everything we can to let it grow at its own pace. If it tells us that that it needs five more months, it�s going to get its five more months, even if those are months in entire social lives will come to a standstill again, and this for the third time this year. There are good reasons to think that it�ll be worth it and I really hope I�m not making another big mistake, again
Educating Players

quote:
We decided on doing another preview tour this late in development (which really is the most inopportune of times) because it became clear that there are still a lot of journalists out there who think of Divinity:Original Sin as a Diablo clone or a Diablo clone with tactical combat. This despite all the videos, walkthroughs, early access content and previews being out there. Better make that, despite the truckload of videos, walkthroughs, early access content and previews out there.

It makes me despair some times and tbh a bit worried too.

The problem seems to be that the game has a top-down perspective and turn-based combat in its first 5 mins of gameplay. This apparently is sufficient to classify the game as just-another-generic-fantasy-rpg-clone not worth spending time on.
Here we go!

quote:
We�ve been working hard these last few weeks to integrate the last of the features we really wanted. Looking at the net result, I�m pretty proud of what my team has accomplished. We�ve amplified limited means into a lot of gameplay� a testament to the creativity of my team.
The power of crowd-funding

quote:
It�s now been one year since we successfully completed our Kickstarter campaign for Divinity:Original Sin , one of the most intense and rewarding periods in my game development career.

Now, as we�re approaching the moment where the game is going to be released, I think it�s safe to say that without any doubt, the two smartest things Larian Studios did this year were deciding to put the game on Kickstarter and subsequently deciding to put the game on Steam Early Access.

Kickstarter Update Videos

Update #1 � The Editor
Update #2 � Review Meeting (Stuff that they�d like to fix or change)
Update #4 - Single-player Presentation
Update #6 - Beating the System (Exploiting factions)
Update #7 � The Music (Sample track)
Update #9 - The Editor, Part II
Update #10 - Funding Achieved!
Update #11 - Kirill's Surprise (Live Concert announcement)
Update #12 - Story Explained
Update #14 - RPG's Are Complex
Update #15 - Rewarding Exploration
Update #16 - Divine Iteration (art design)
Update #17 - Unexpected Help
Update #18 - Kirill Live!
Update #19 - Kickstarter Update Digest
Update #21 - Stretch Goals
Update #23 - 600k! What�s still coming!
Update #25 - 650k! Traits and Talents!
Update #27 - 666k! Legend of the Weresheep!
Update #28 - 700k! Something Special (Aleroth recreated!)
Update #29 - 750k! Henchmen and Companions
Update #30A - Companions, Again
Update #30B - Editor Magic - Materials Editor
Update #30B - 800k! Bugs and Bloopers
Update #34 - 900k! NPC Schedules
Update #38 - Post-Kickstarter Aftermath
Update #39 - The Osiris Scripting System
Update #40a - Dark Forest Review Meeting (Very minor spoilers for one area.)
Update #40b - David's Pledge Management Update #2
Update #40c - Kirill's Orchestra Update #1
Update #44 - The Phantom Lair Update
Update #44 - 66,666 - Leslie's Model
Update #45 - Stretch goals and Cyseal expanded
September 27 Live Q&A session
Update #46 - D:OS Editor will be available with Alpha
Update #47 - Bert's quest (example of different quest outcomes) [Spoilers, natch]
Update #48 - Alpha free for all backers.
Update #49 - Swen tests the single-player Alpha build (41:42, Spoilers)
Update #50 - Fans get an early tryout of the Alpha
Update #51 - Alpha's Here!
Update #52 - Kirill's Orchestra Update
Update #53 - Cooperative Multiplayer is active
Update #54a - The Mac Version
Update #54b - Alpha Updates
Update #55 - Valentine's Alpha
Update #56 - Status Bonanza
Update #57 - Getting Excited? You'd Beta be!
Update #58 - Beta is live!
Update #59 - Kickstarter 1-Year Anniversary

The Final Countdown to $1,000,000 � 4 hour livestream
Larian Studios After party
Swen says thank you and Patrick the Dragon Dancing
Testing the Alpha again - Part 1 (3:40:58, spoilers)
Testing the Alpha again - Part 2 (3:40:58, spoilers)
March 31, 2014 Q&A session (1:30, mild spoilers)

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jun 18, 2014

# ? Mar 30, 2013 18:18

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# ? May 7, 2024 16:36

DrManiac: Feb 29, 2012

I'm liking the way this is shaping out. I might even go for the $65 tier on kick starter because Dragon Commander is also looking pretty good.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 18:22

Nobody Interesting: Mar 29, 2013; One way, dead end... Street signs are such fitting metaphors for the human condition.

Divine Divinity is really great. Beyond and Divinity II lose the plot a little bit, though, but you don't really need to play them if you've played Divine.

It's great they want to return to the roots of the series. I'm really excited for this. My dad's a junkie for a good RPG too so I put in a $40 pledge so I could get a copy for him.

I'm a little bit worried about the Kickstarter's pace, though. Yeah, a lot of work on the game has already been done but I think they set the goal optimistically low in expectation of exceeding it. I don't see there being much excess on this one, so if they had plans for $1million and up then they're going to be disappointed.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 18:48

Sakurazuka: Jan 24, 2004; NANI?

I was initially worried that they were spreading themselves a little thin between this and Dragon Commander, now I'm worried that they have far too many ideas to develop them all properly.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 18:52

null_user01013: Nov 13, 2000; Drink up comrades

I've always enjoyed the Divinity series, hope this one turns out good!

# ? Mar 30, 2013 19:13

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

I backed this. I REALLY enjoyed Divine Divinity. It had clever quests and some interesting puzzles, good dialog and level design. The diablo-like gameplay with an actual character driven story went really well together.

And it was huge. I loved it.

This game should be even better because of the turn-based combat and more focus on dialog. It seems like it might add some more depth to it all. Pretty excited to hear more of what they're planning.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 19:16

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

The teleporter pyramids are back! :bubblewoop:

# ? Mar 30, 2013 20:05

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

I played Divine Divinity a while back and really liked it, but never finished it. Plus maybe it glitched or something?. I should try it again regardless.

That said, I thought that Larian was making a nice bit of money from the new entries in the series. Are they only doing this fundraiser in order to put even more content in this game?

# ? Mar 30, 2013 20:23

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

C-Euro posted:

I played Divine Divinity a while back and really liked it, but never finished it. Plus maybe it glitched or something?. I should try it again regardless.

That said, I thought that Larian was making a nice bit of money from the new entries in the series. Are they only doing this fundraiser in order to put even more content in this game?

Yeah. It's literally a "we want to add so much more content that we'd like some additional money to hire another group of programmers and designers, because our current budget won't allow for it" kickstarter.

Which I'm totally cool with, actually.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 20:28

Satanos: Feb 5, 2010

I absolutely loved Dragon Knight Saga but I think I'll try out the original two games before considering making a pledge.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 20:51

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Satanos posted:

I absolutely loved Dragon Knight Saga but I think I'll try out the original two games before considering making a pledge.

Try Divine. If you have to try Beyond keep in mind that DKS came out after it can compare how it was changed, they clearly learned their lessons there.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 21:06

Fart of Presto: Feb 9, 2001; Clapping Larry

Planning on starting up Divine Divinity in the next couple of days.
Are there any community patches or mods I need to add to the Steam version or is it good to go right out of the box?

# ? Mar 30, 2013 21:56

Nobody Interesting: Mar 29, 2013; One way, dead end... Street signs are such fitting metaphors for the human condition.

Satanos posted:

I absolutely loved Dragon Knight Saga but I think I'll try out the original two games before considering making a pledge.

You don't need to play Beyond Divinity, really. I mean you can, but you don't have to. It's really not very good. Still has the same charm as Divine in a lot of ways, but it has more bugs and it's just not as well executed.

You'll love Divine, though, I'm sure. It looks like a lovely hack 'n' slash at first but it plays so much better than you'd expect it to. Original Sin can only improve on what Divine does.

Oh - and don't expect to finish Divine before the end of the Kickstarter. It's huge.

Fart of Presto posted:

Planning on starting up Divine Divinity in the next couple of days.
Are there any community patches or mods I need to add to the Steam version or is it good to go right out of the box?

Did you already get the Steam version? You really should have grabbed the GOG version which, to my knowledge, is the only one of the two that has all the fixes rolled in. I might be wrong, though. I do have both versions but haven't needed to run the Steam one so far.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 22:02

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

I seem to remember installing some small patch that fixed some audio issues on multicore systems? I couldn't tell you what it was though, I just remember that the game's audio would occasionally spit out short, loud bursts of static.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 22:07

lolasaurusrex: Feb 8, 2013

Probably going to drop some money on this. I recently bought the Divinity Anthology off of their website, which has Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity and the Directors Cut version of Divinity two. So far I've played through Divine and am half way through Beyond. I'm really enjoying them, so I'm interested in seeing what they can do with a decent sized budget. That said, it seems they have most of the work done already so anything they make from this would only serve to add more content to the game, which is fine by me as long as they don't stretch themselves too thin.

Is it just me, or are some of the rewards for the upper tiers pretty weak?

# ? Mar 30, 2013 22:15

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

lolasaurusrex posted:

Probably going to drop some money on this. I recently bought the Divinity Anthology off of their website, which has Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity and the Directors Cut version of Divinity two. So far I've played through Divine and am half way through Beyond. I'm really enjoying them, so I'm interested in seeing what they can do with a decent sized budget. That said, it seems they have most of the work done already so anything they make from this would only serve to add more content to the game, which is fine by me as long as they don't stretch themselves too thin.

Is it just me, or are some of the rewards for the upper tiers pretty weak?

Oh god, the voice acting in Beyond Divinity was aggressively bad.

Presto - There's also a patch from Larian to increase font size for larger resolutions - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2789573

I don't remember using that for myself, but I can see how it would be useful.

# ? Mar 30, 2013 22:31

DeadFatDuckFat: Oct 29, 2012; This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.

So it seems like the coop multiplayer has the same kind of drop in that Dungeon Siege 3 had, right? Where a save is only really saved on one person's computer?

# ? Mar 30, 2013 22:40

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

I'm not sure how saved games work for co-op, especially the drop-in co-op, but I will certainly ask.

Dagons Lair - Interview with Swen Vincke (53 min.) (French with English subtitles)

EDIT: I updated the OP with some relevant links to

Developer Blog Entries

Note: Project E was the code name for Original Sin befpre the announcement

Quality over Quantity in RPG�s

quote:
Sean R. in a comment on �The route to the very big RPG that will dwarf them all� wrote that one should prefer quality and uniqueness over quantity. He hit a note that doesn�t really feel right to me, given that I�m the one who likes both quality & uniqueness but also quantity when it comes to a RPG. However, there�s some evidence to suggest that he�s more right than I am, and that if forced to choose, you should always reduce the quantity.
The inspiration behind Original Sin

quote:
I consider Ultima VII: The black gate and Ultima VII: Serpent Isle to be among the best RPGs ever made, and in my mind there�s not been a single RPG since 1992 that surpassed them, including those now considered to be the industry benchmarks.
So why was I talking about Ultima VII so much ?
Well, for one, I was trying to explain that when making the first Divinity, my goal was to recreate the feeling I experienced when I played these Ultima games.
Original Sin revealed

quote:
Next on the list of reasons why Divinity � Original Sin seems to have surprised people is the turn-based combat system. That one comes from the desire of doing something like the first Fallouts. I always wanted to do a turn-based game with action points but my problem was that I couldn�t find a publisher who agreed with me.
Active-pause was considered for some time (and we actually started out like this), but in my heart I really wanted to make one of those games that has epic tactical battles, where you really have to think how you�re going to defeat the enemy. And because I�m occasionally very impulsive, one morning I stormed into the office and told the team that we were going to ditch all the hack & slash stuff and go for turn-based.
Larian on Kickstarter � an improvised start

quote:
Everything suddenly went into overdrive. Now for clarity, Myrthos is not to blame � it�s bad communication on our side combined with the complexities of running a Kickstarter campaign from Belgium that caused this, but that�s a different story altogether. But still, it did leave us with a major problem.
Because if he published, then the others were going to publish also, maybe, we didn�t know. And there are about hands-on 70 articles lined up to give the KS some momentum, but obviously, we�re not going to manage to get all those articles online right away, not if we don�t give any heads up�and when all the journalists are busy covering GDC/PAX follow ups�especially after we asked them to wait for so long and promised to give them a date up front (which we couldn�t because we only this morning(sic) received approval for KS (which was actually fast given that we submitted it last thursday or so) etc�
So, what to do?

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Mar 31, 2013

# ? Mar 31, 2013 00:46

hopterque: Mar 9, 2007; sup

I'm very excited for this, Larian are fantastic world builders and have some pretty clever writers and stuff like that, this should be very cool.

# ? Mar 31, 2013 01:40

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

You should probably put 'Kickstarter' somewhere in that title, Stabbey.

# ? Mar 31, 2013 01:55

Great Rumbler: Jan 30, 2013; For I am a dog, you see.

There's just so much to be excited about for RPG fans right now, and since I've been a fan of the Divinity series for a while, backing this one was a no-brainer. And it's actually coming out later this year!

# ? Mar 31, 2013 02:23

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

DeadDuckFat - Here's a reply from the man himself:

Lar_q posted:

Sorry for not explaining well enough - you always join the host's game, so it's going to be his savegame. IF you were the joiner, you can take his savegame and continue on your own, but then he'll have to join your game and play with the progress that is stored in your game, if you want to continue your session together.

I post on the Larian forums and can convey some additional other questions.

Kickstarter Update #3 - FAQ, part the first

This is a brief (ha!) summary.

DRM? - No, this game won't have it (unless you're using Steam, and then, only the standard Steam DRM).
Mac/Linux release? - Eventually, but for now, development will be focused on the PC version.
Console release? - Possibly, but again, PC version first. If there is a console version, the UI will be re-written.
Languages? - Currently only English, French, German, Polish and Russian because they only have distributors there. If they had an Italian distributor, they would localize in Italian.
Co-op over LAN? - Yes.
Can GoG and Steam versions play together? - Yes, but not over Steamworks.
Level-scaling? - No. All monsters are at a fixed level. If you run into something too tough, run away and come back later.
Respawning monsters? - No.
I only want to play single-player. - You won't even notice the co-op features. You can set different options for your AI partner to use when making decisions, like "always agrees", "always hippie liberal", or "a mad dog", or turn that off and make all the choices yourself.
Can henchmen join the dialogues? - No, but modders could add it in.
What about character development? - It's classless, pick any attribute or skills you want. You get one attribute and one skill point on level up.
Level cap? - Estimated to be at about level 20.
Character re-spec? - Yes, depending on the difficulty you may be able to respec at a trainer, but it will be expensive.
Do I control everyone in combat? - Yes, you have full control. There is no AI for your party members. In co-op, each player has up to one mercenary and one summon to control.
What about out of combat? - Your party follows you around unless you tell them to wait somewhere. Your henchman and summon can't be controlled by another player.
Friendly Fire? - Yes. Watch your aim.
Is loot and XP shared? - Loot is first come, first served. XP is split between all members in the same combat. If another party member is wandering elsewhere while you're fighting, you get all the XP.
NPC Schedules? - Not at this time. Perhaps if the Kickstarter is successful.
How long is the game? - Hard to say. Larian estimates it will be 40 hours long, but it depends on how much you explore. but they also thought Divine Divinity was 20 hours long (it's more like 60).
How big is the world? - Currently 4 big zones. There is a loading screen between zones, but you could play for hours in just one zone alone. It's possible more zones could be added based on the success of the Kickstarter.
Save anywhere? - Yes. In co-op, if you want to run the same campaign, you have to join the host and save/load from there to stay in sync.
Alpha/Beta? - Alpha in summer. Beta in September or earlier.
Lockpicking / Sneaking / Pickpocketing? - Yes.
Crafting? - Drag one item onto another. Some combinations are obvious, others you can find hints at from books and people in the world.
How customizable are the Henchmen? - They start out as a default build, but after hiring, you can do with them as you please, and you choose their skills and attributes.
Henchmen personalities? - Not yet, but that's one of the Kickstarter stretch goals.
Quest markers? - No. If you want to know if an NPC has a quest, you have to talk to them. Not all quests are obvious and you can accidentally stumble into them. When a party member wants to talk to you, they will have an indication like an exclamation mark overhead.
Voice acting? - Only for important characters with unique lines.
Death. - If two heroes die, game over. If one dies, the other can be revived at a cost. Henchmen can also be revived at a cost, or left for dead, but new henchmen might ask for more money because of that. Summons can be re-summoned.

# ? Mar 31, 2013 02:31

Raze_Larian: Mar 31, 2013; Larian Studios

Sakurazuka posted:

I'm worried that they have far too many ideas to develop them all properly.

They had far too many ideas for the previous Divinity games, as well, but what they managed to get in still made for great games (though some would disagree about Beyond Divinity). Reading the Developer's Journal from the Divinity Anthology or checking out the associated video, etc, there are lots of examples of things that had to be dropped or cut back.

Nobody Interesting posted:

Did you already get the Steam version? You really should have grabbed the GOG version which, to my knowledge, is the only one of the two that has all the fixes rolled in. I might be wrong, though.

The releases on GOG and Steam are the same. In terms of fixes, the previous GOG release is almost identical to the current release (which primarily added support for other languages and a slightly improved configuration program). The screwup that resulted in some of the fixes from the disk version patches being lost in the download version (as well changes to the skills, etc) happened when a serious new bug in the original download release was patched.
FWIW I played half my first game in the original unpatched disk release, and didn't run into any serious problems (the issue I installed the hotfix for is fixed in the download version).

C-Euro posted:

I seem to remember installing some small patch that fixed some audio issues on multicore systems?

There wasn't a patch specifically for that, but setting the game to run on a single core or running it in Win9x compatibility mode could fix it for most people who had this issue. On Win9x/XP system lowering the hardware sound acceleration could also help.

lolasaurusrex posted:

Is it just me, or are some of the rewards for the upper tiers pretty weak?

In the next few days the tiers are going to be adjusted a bit, and a chart made to make it clearer what exactly is in each tier (and make them easier to compare).

And I'd also love to see what Larian could do with the budget of some other recent AAA RGPs.

Drifter posted:

Oh god, the voice acting in Beyond Divinity was aggressively bad.

It wasn't that bad. OK, maybe at the start it was, but the DK's voice got better as the game progressed (and he talked less), and IIRC all the really bad voicework was for characters near the beginning of the game (like the talking skull).

# ? Mar 31, 2013 23:04

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

I had been blindly following some links and read that Larian (or at least the producer of it, Sven or whomever) really didn't like Divine Divinity - in the sense that it had been reduced in scope from his original vision by publishers and junk. Aside from the multiplayer that had to be removed out of Divine, were there any story parts or gameplay aspects that he wished were different as well?

I don't remember where I read that article last night and while normally I'd go through my history to find out I don't want to revisit that strange part of my night or the internet I was surfing in. That was a shameful time.

^^^ - Beyond Divinity had some super brutal Dialog from the Demon Knight. haha. This was one of those cases where having no voice over would have been a better choice. My impression of the game was that it was interesting, and a little clumsy, but I never played enough of it to recommend or decry it.

Drifter fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Mar 31, 2013

# ? Mar 31, 2013 23:26

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Raze_Larian posted:

There wasn't a patch specifically for that, but setting the game to run on a single core or running it in Win9x compatibility mode could fix it for most people who had this issue. On Win9x/XP system lowering the hardware sound acceleration could also help.

You're right, now I remember downloading a little generic utility instead of a game-specific patch. Any idea if that needs to be done on Windows 7? I might try to jump back in to this sometime soon.

# ? Mar 31, 2013 23:35

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

Welcome to SA, Raze!

Beyond Divinity had flaws, oh, so many flaws, but I felt kinda bad ragging on Beyond Divinity's flaws after I read the Developers Journal and learned how much trouble Larian was as a company at that time.

About the voice-acting: Larian actually went to the trouble of re-doing the voice acting for the Death Knight in Beyond Divinity after fan complaints. I think they missed part of that in the Trial of wisdom in the Temple of Raan, and the original voice-acting was in. If that's the case, then the final voice actor they used was indeed better than that one.

If it's any consolation, I thought that the voice acting in Divinity 2 was really good overall.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 00:45

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Good thread, OP. I decided to go for the Kickstarter tier that includes both Dragon Commander and Divinity: Original Sin. I haven't been paying much attention to Dragon Commander, and I'm not sure it's really my cup of tea, but I might as well support them.

I've also said this in the comments of one of the updates, but I think Larian needs to work on its viral marketing. The game has glowing previews, the mechanics appeal to a lot of people and the production values of what's finished already seem to be fairly high - the problem is that just not enough people know about it. 250K in a few days is definitely not bad for any Kickstarter, but it could have been more. Of course, it's true that the timing of the launch was a little unfortunate, so we might see a non-traditional Kickstarter backing curve. I certainly hope so. Anyway, there is plenty of time left to play the social media a little more, and I'm sure they've been brainstorming about ways to do exactly that.

Also great that we have one of the devs (?) posting here.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

If it's any consolation, I thought that the voice acting in Divinity 2 was really good overall.

I thought this too, but I looked up some reviews and apparently not everyone agrees. At the very least, some of the unimportant townsfolk NPCs had fantastic voice acting, which pleasantly surprised me at the time. The juicy British accents were great. I'm not that familiar with the different regional accents in the UK, but I still appreciated that.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 07:07

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Phlegmish posted:

I've also said this in the comments of one of the updates, but I think Larian needs to work on its viral marketing. The game has glowing previews, the mechanics appeal to a lot of people and the production values of what's finished already seem to be fairly high - the problem is that just not enough people know about it. 250K in a few days is definitely not bad for any Kickstarter, but it could have been more. Of course, it's true that the timing of the launch was a little unfortunate, so we might see a non-traditional Kickstarter backing curve. I certainly hope so. Anyway, there is plenty of time left to play the social media a little more, and I'm sure they've been brainstorming about ways to do exactly that.

I already told them, but I think they need to try and make the updates more, uh, rebloggable and Reddit-able. Reddit, as I recall, was pretty much the biggest outside source of donations for the other big RPGs but the news about D:OS don't seem to have taken off on it at all. They need updates about a big name writer that will write for them or a free game with every pledge above X or something that will bleep the radar again.

quote:

Also great that we have one of the devs (?) posting here.

Yeah, I invited them.

Phlegmish posted:

I thought this too, but I looked up some reviews and apparently not everyone agrees. At the very least, some of the unimportant townsfolk NPCs had fantastic voice acting, which pleasantly surprised me at the time. The juicy British accents were great. I'm not that familiar with the different regional accents in the UK, but I still appreciated that.

It was alright but I felt it lacked... coherency? The voices just didn't work that well for me with the dialogue animation that the game had. It might have been an improvement to skip it altogether.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 07:55

Raze_Larian: Mar 31, 2013; Larian Studios

Drifter posted:

Aside from the multiplayer that had to be removed out of Divine, were there any story parts or gameplay aspects that he wished were different as well?

Well, the end of the game got cut back quite a bit when the publisher rushed the release of the game (it was behind schedule, but they were given little warning and had to really rush to get it finished), leaving it a fairly large area of almost straight hack and slash gameplay.

If it wasn't Swen Vincke's blog you ended up on, you may want to check out his post How I tried to save Divine Divinity.

Yes, the opening voice acting from the DK was pretty bad. I remember the second time I started the game, the voice was a bit disconcerting after getting use to the better voice acting later in my first game.

C-Euro posted:

You're right, now I remember downloading a little generic utility instead of a game-specific patch. Any idea if that needs to be done on Windows 7?

People with Win7 have run into this problem. Since at least your OS has changed, though, it is possible you may not encounter it again.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

Welcome to SA, Raze!

Thank you.

You don't have to feel too bad about ragging on Beyond Divinity. Swen made a comment in the blog post The inspiration behind project E (Project E being the code name for Original Sin before it was officially announced) that he always regretted making it. I know developers compare the release to an ideal version they wanted to create (given unlimited time and resources), but that is just harsh.

I don't recall the DK's voice from the demo. It wasn't bad, per se, just unexpected and I remember thinking that it would take awhile to figure out how I felt about it. It was kind of funny (at least in retrospect) having a small part of the forum complain loudly about the DK's voice acting until Larian delayed the release and re-did the voices, after which another part of the forum, many of whom were silent before, complained that the voices were better in the demo.
They redid the voices for Edmond, the talking skull and at least a few other NPCs, as well.

The only voices in Divinity 2 I didn't care for were the comments your character could make, except for one of the female voices.

Phlegmish posted:

Also great that we have one of the devs (?) posting here.

I do work for Larian, but 'dev' might be a tad bit grandiose a description. Early last year I was hired as Community Ambassador and Larian forum mod; before then I just hung out in their forum too much.

I'm also not really into RTS games, but between dragons and being a Divinity game, I'll certainly give it a try (I may need an extra easy mode, though).

Raze_Larian fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Apr 1, 2013

# ? Apr 1, 2013 08:00

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Megazver posted:

I already told them, but I think they need to try and make the updates more, uh, rebloggable and Reddit-able. Reddit, as I recall, was pretty much the biggest outside source of donations for the other big RPGs but the news about D:OS don't seem to have taken off on it at all. They need updates about a big name writer that will write for them or a free game with every pledge above X or something that will bleep the radar again.

I think you're right. I've been spreading the word about this game on some of the obscure forums I frequent, but they really need to get a buzz going on some of the big-name websites. Maybe they should consult a social media expert. I just want this game to do well; everything about it looks and sounds awesome (those who haven't yet should check out the Kickstarter promo video) and the developers seem like genuinely nice people.

On the other hand, it might not be fair to compare this to Project Eternity or Torment. PE was really a zeitgeist sort of thing, and Obsidian is a lot more well-known than Larian. As for Torment, it's only natural for everyone to want to jump on a modern RPG based on Planescape: Torment. Still, this deserves a lot more attention than it's currently getting.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 09:03

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

Too many oldschool RPGs these days! Give me back my third person corridor action RPGs!

Just kidding. Larian are great guys and I wish them all the best. In for $25 at the moment, but I am considering upping my pledge to get a copy of Dragon Commander too.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 15:55

kuddles: Jul 16, 2006; Like a fist wrapped in blood...

Phlegmish posted:

I thought this too, but I looked up some reviews and apparently not everyone agrees. At the very least, some of the unimportant townsfolk NPCs had fantastic voice acting, which pleasantly surprised me at the time. The juicy British accents were great. I'm not that familiar with the different regional accents in the UK, but I still appreciated that.

I also thought what made the game (which was also true for the original Divine Divinity) is that the dialogue was incredibly good in Divinity 2 for the most part. The people just talked like normal people would talk if they also happened to live in a fantasy universe. The game also didn't take the subject matter 100% seriously all the time which also helped.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 16:13

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

CrookedB posted:

Too many oldschool RPGs these days! Give me back my third person corridor action RPGs!

Remember the good old days of Dragon Age 2, when you could just press a button and something awesome would happen? Not to mention all the hot chicks you could jack it to. Nowadays game developers only seem to care about things like 'competent writing' and 'challenging combat', gently caress that noise.

kuddles posted:

I also thought what made the game (which was also true for the original Divine Divinity) is that the dialogue was incredibly good in Divinity 2 for the most part. The people just talked like normal people would talk if they also happened to live in a fantasy universe. The game also didn't take the subject matter 100% seriously all the time which also helped.

I'm pretty sure they're going to have good dialog/voice acting this time around as well. The Dragon Commander voice acting that I've heard was really good and I'd be surprised if they weren't working with some of the same people.

In fact, I like almost everything I've heard about this game so far. I was originally a bit apprehensive about the turn-based combat since I find that it tends to break up the flow of a game, but from what I've seen combat is very smoothly integrated in D:OS. Of course, it's all very ambitious and we don't know how well everything is going to be implemented and executed. I feel pretty secure in my investment, though. I just hope the Kickstarter makes enough money to add some of the stretch goals they've been talking about.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 17:32

Boner Slam: May 9, 2005

I backed this, even though I haven't played any of those games before.

Are the previous games worth getting?

# ? Apr 1, 2013 17:45

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

Boner Slam posted:

I backed this, even though I haven't played any of those games before.

Are the previous games worth getting?

I'd strongly recommend you play Divine Divinity and the Dragon Knight Saga. They're both really good, good enough that I pledged to this one.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 18:31

the black husserl: Feb 25, 2005

This looks awesome but why on earth are people rewriting history and saying Divine Divinity was like Ultima? It was a straight up Diablo action RPG.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 19:05

Corin Tucker's Stalker: May 27, 2001; One bullet. One gun. Six Chambers. These are my friends.

the black husserl posted:

This looks awesome but why on earth are people rewriting history and saying Divine Divinity was like Ultima? It was a straight up Diablo action RPG.

There were a ton of interactive items in the environment, and the quest structure was deeper than a Diablo-type game. You still killed a lot of dudes in real time, but it had loads of extra detail.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 19:20

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

the black husserl posted:

This looks awesome but why on earth are people rewriting history and saying Divine Divinity was like Ultima? It was a straight up Diablo action RPG.

I think the Larian people are saying that this one is heavily influenced by Ultima.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 19:54

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Phlegmish posted:

On the other hand, it might not be fair to compare this to Project Eternity or Torment. PE was really a zeitgeist sort of thing, and Obsidian is a lot more well-known than Larian. As for Torment, it's only natural for everyone to want to jump on a modern RPG based on Planescape: Torment. Still, this deserves a lot more attention than it's currently getting.

Yeah, they're not going to get this kind of money. But what I am trying to say is this:

They need more eyeballs. The only way to get more eyeballs is to get new articles on news-sites and new posts on Reddit on a regular basis. The original announcement's 'Reddit potential' has been exhausted. The previews on other sites are nice, but are usually not rebloggable and only bring in the eyeballs from those sites. The updates they've had so far, "hey look at us fiddling with our editor" and "hey, look at us play the game while talking about what's bad about it" are just not something that gets a lot of upvotes on Reddit or gets mentioned on kotaku/Polygon/RPS/whatever.

They need to try and come up with updates that will get reblogged and posted on Reddit. It's not even the contents that matter, but the title that will get enough upvotes to get visibility and will make them click on the Kickstarter. I don't know how Brian Fargo is good at making games at this point, but he figured this poo poo out better than anyone else at the moment.

You know, I don't know how achievable this is or if it would be a developer faux pas, but if I were the Larian dudes, I'd try to informally contact Inxile and Obsidian and see if they can work something out with them to juice up the updates. Well, Chris Avellone as a stretch goal is not going to happen, heh, but they could get the dialogue software that Obsidian is so proud of or they'll put a portal to Numenera as a stretch goal or they'll send George Ziets over or something. Something to cross-pollinate the audiences.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 20:13

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# ? May 7, 2024 16:36

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

I think Larian might get the extra boost of bloggability of they add in the "weresheep" that's becoming a thing on the Kickstarter comments.

kuddles posted:

I also thought what made the game (which was also true for the original Divine Divinity) is that the dialogue was incredibly good in Divinity 2 for the most part. The people just talked like normal people would talk if they also happened to live in a fantasy universe. The game also didn't take the subject matter 100% seriously all the time which also helped.

It's amazing how much life can be brought to characters if they're allowed to be dry and sarcastic. Walk around Broken Valley village in Divinity 2 and there's all types of distinct characters, from dim guards, to the arrogant braggart Richard, to Folo, the man worried about his pigs being seized, to gossipy townswomen, and many more.

the black husserl posted:

This looks awesome but why on earth are people rewriting history and saying Divine Divinity was like Ultima? It was a straight up Diablo action RPG.

The combat certainly was Diablo style, but the difference is that Diablo was basically all about the combat. Divine Divinity was focused more on creating a larger world. Yes, there were orc-filled woods at the start, but after that you emerged into a largely peaceful series of farmlands and villages. There was more to do than just fight.

Colony of Gamers Preview

quote:

The first thing you should know is that Original Sin is intended as a cooperative game. Two players at different computers play through the game simultaneously. You can play alone, controlling both of the main characters, but that's honestly a lot less fun. Part of my fascination of the game was the way that the two characters interacted, and grew from their interactions.

Around the very beginning of the game, as my companion and I wandered around getting our bearings, I found a book next to a corpse. My character read it aloud to the other character: apparently this man leaped from the top of a cliff because his Gods told him if he did, he would fly. My partner's character said that the man was obviously a fool, and I was offered a choice of dialogue options. I could either agree, disagree, or not make up my mind one way or the other. I disagreed, and said that sometimes you have to trust the gods. My character gained two points of Faith, my partner's gained two points of Cynicism.

<snip>

You can read more of their core principles and guiding ideals over at their Kickstarter, but I do want to let you know that this is not a pie in the sky concept. I played this game for about 45 minutes, wandering about at my leisure, and didn't reach any kind of artificial wall. Hell, I found a dungeon that half of the development team didn't know about yet.

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Apr 1, 2013

# ? Apr 1, 2013 20:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Divinity: Original Sin-2 characters, 1000 stories: a turn-based sandbox RPG

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