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Eej posted:Unless they changed the tone significantly from the other Divine Divinity games I'm pretty sure every game in this series is extremely tongue in cheek. Yeah, the concern I think is that because Dragon Commander is heavy on the politics (or appears to be) it can be hard to have your cake and eat it too. It's not easy to remain tongue in cheek while referencing real world issues of significance, and trying to be politically serious to some degree.
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Jul 27, 2013 19:47
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folgore posted:I recall a talking well in Divinity 2 that practically orgasms when you throw a big sack of money down its GAPING SHAFT. This is probably what you're referring to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCQO0sr7M4U&t=96s (edit: I only just noticed this was uploaded by Stabbey) I really need to replay Divinity II one of these days. The voice acting is so good, and I had forgotten all about the well. I think there was something similar in Divine Divinity. Captain Oblivious posted:Yeah, the concern I think is that because Dragon Commander is heavy on the politics (or appears to be) it can be hard to have your cake and eat it too. It's not easy to remain tongue in cheek while referencing real world issues of significance, and trying to be politically serious to some degree. Tonal inconsistency is always lurking around the corner in Larian games, but I think they've matured a lot in that respect since DD. Phlegmish fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jul 27, 2013 |
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Jul 27, 2013 20:59
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Stupid lizard-tits and dress codes aside, the actual in-game treatment of women in the Divinity series has generally been okay. You could play as either gender in the previous games (and you can in Original Sin as well). The series has a number of powerful female characters, although Larian could do better. Larian generally is pretty good at finding a balancing tone between serious and humorous in all the games. There's both light-hearted and darker stuff to be found, but not so much that one detracts from the other. I've found a bunch of tweaks in the beta that weren't listed (at least in detail): - Armours can now carry 5 Troopers/Grenadiers with Public Transportation, up from 3. - Free-For-All matches against the AI now always have all 4 factions participating. This only applies if you're involved, though. AI versus AI fights don't give you the option to participate or send mercenaries. Endgame situations (population is 0) have been altered: - If your army is 10% or less of the total units on the map, you have 60 seconds to build units or lose. - Recruits can defect from the enemy (or maybe surrendering remaining FFA players) to give you a minor boost, but they can also defect FROM you unless you have some number of Recruitment Citadels. This encourages the player to spend all their recruits on troops immediately. Unrelated, I'm planning to change my avatar to an Original Sin one (ignore the wrong regdate). Which text looks best (left, middle, right)? (Note that the image will be animated).    The animation:  The idea is that either or both could be saying that about the other.
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Jul 27, 2013 21:27
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That reminds me, I need to finish divinity II as well, but I have lost my save, I got burnt out at the flying around as a dragon and take out many towers and bases section... How far was that till the end anyway? edit: stabby, lethial fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jul 27, 2013 |
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Jul 27, 2013 21:28
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lethial posted:That reminds me, I need to finish divinity II as well, but I have lost my save, I got burnt out at the flying around as a dragon and take out many towers and bases section... How far was that till the end anyway? That was in the final major area of the main game. After you completed the quests there, you'd get a boss rush and then fight the final boss and then start the expansion. If you want you could always look up a Let's Play of the ending bits and then hop into the expansion with a new character. They do allow you to start at the expansion.
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Jul 27, 2013 21:34
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Unrelated, I'm planning to change my avatar to an Original Sin one (ignore the wrong regdate). Which text looks best (left, middle, right)? (Note that the image will be animated). If this helps, left looks best to me personally.
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Jul 27, 2013 21:34
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Djeser posted:That was in the final major area of the main game. After you completed the quests there, you'd get a boss rush and then fight the final boss and then start the expansion. Oh cool, thanks. So the expansion doesn't import things you've done from the main game? I spent a lot of time pimping out my tower in the main game and would hate to get some bog standard default one  .
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Jul 27, 2013 21:41
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lethial posted:That reminds me, I need to finish divinity II as well, but I have lost my save, I got burnt out at the flying around as a dragon and take out many towers and bases section... How far was that till the end anyway? That's around the halfway point, not even that if you count Flames of Vengeance. There's a lot of content you've missed out on. My vote is for the text accompanying the avatar in the middle, by the way.
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Jul 27, 2013 21:42
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lethial posted:Oh cool, thanks. So the expansion doesn't import things you've done from the main game? I spent a lot of time pimping out my tower in the main game and would hate to get some bog standard default one It does import stuff from the main game, but you can also start out with a new character and play through just the Flames of Vengeance expansion. Phlegmish posted:That's around the halfway point, not even that if you count Flames of Vengeance. There's a lot of content you've missed out on. Well, depends if he's talking about first getting the dragon form at Sentinel Island or whether he's been going through Orobas Fjords. (Speaking of which, most of the content in the flying fortresses is optional, right? I know you do have to go back to Broken Valley, but I don't remember if there's any plot-necessary stuff in the other places.) Also I'm voting either of the first two.
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Jul 27, 2013 21:51
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The flying fortresses stuff is completely optional, and they do get repetitive. So repetitive... the Flying Fortresses were the one part of the game that I did not do full videos of for my LP, it was just too long. Doing them all should boost you up to about level 35, which is where the final boss of the first part of the game is, and where the enemies in the expansion start. I actually liked the huge numbers of enemies in the Flying Fortresses because it actually gave me the feeling of being a one-man army because you were actually beating an entire army all by yourself. UI can understand why people would get tired of it, though. Opinion is split on my avatar. The only reason why I didn't outright choose the third one is because it might seem a bit long. (Looking at it, it's not much longer compared to my current avatar.) Djeser posted:If you want you could always look up a Let's Play of the ending bits and then hop into the expansion with a new character. They do allow you to start at the expansion. Oh hey, What have we got here? lethial posted:Oh cool, thanks. So the expansion doesn't import things you've done from the main game? I spent a lot of time pimping out my tower in the main game and would hate to get some bog standard default one The expansion imports your existing character and their stats, equipment, money, battle tower Trainers. If you got a lot of the bonus attribute-boosting points, a brand new expansion character, will have fewer stat points. They also start with no equipment and only 35,000 gold to buy gear, so it'll be a bit more challenging. The expansion assumes you made certain choices in the main game, and does NOT take into account if you made different ones.
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Jul 27, 2013 22:07
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Hehe, I actually just finished watching the latter parts of your LP. Looks like I really should've continued my game since it looks like I am at most an hour or two away from the ending... sigh... Not to derail the thread more, but one more question about the expansion for divinity II, if I may, stabby. You had suggested in your LP that the dragon combat is improved or maybe less grindy in the expansion is that true? What are some other notable improvements in the expansion? I am contemplating whether to just watch your LP or play the expansion with a new character. Thanks!
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Jul 28, 2013 02:39
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lethial posted:Hehe, I actually just finished watching the latter parts of your LP. Looks like I really should've continued my game since it looks like I am at most an hour or two away from the ending... sigh... The dragon combat is a bit different in that it only happens once and it's a bit of a linear escort mission. You also get all your powers boosted, I think, but it's still set up as a challenge. You get a new ability where you can order a bombardment from the zeppelin you're accompanying, though. Other than that, the expansion is pretty much the same as the game, though I found the quest structure to be a bit better because it's all in a constrained area, so things mesh together rather effectively and it packs a lot into Aleroth. The one big mechanic change I can think of is that while enemies don't respawn in the main game, certain enemies do respawn in the expansion. So while you were limited by the amount of enemies you killed in the main game, in the expansion, you can be a bit more liberal with your XP. The price in gold/XP debt of everything goes through some serious inflation though. I wouldn't be shocked if the costs of some mindreads were in the 100,000 XP range by that point. Granted, it's all relative, but still.
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Jul 28, 2013 03:09
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Thanks much Djeser! I guess I know what I will be playing after shadowrun returns and in between playing the secret world... Was there a thread for the expansion? I remembered having to tweak settings for the main game, I wonder if I still need to do that.
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Jul 28, 2013 03:14
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There's no thread for the Divinity series, so feel free to use this one or the Original Sin one for general Divinity series discussion. When I said that the Dragon combat improved in the expansion, I meant to say that it feels like it actually has a purpose other than "hey look, you can be a Dragon". In Orobas Fjords, the Dragon could really have been replaced with teleporters for the most part, it was generally just transport around the Fjords, or between Flying Fortress platforms. In the expansion, you have a firm objective for the Dragon to accomplish, and an objective in which the Dragon could not have been replaced with anything else.
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Jul 28, 2013 03:34
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Thanks. Looking at Original Sin again makes me wonder if there is going to be an editor release for DC? If not, it is okay, since from the look of it Original Sin's editor is very powerful. I really hope Larian starts to drum up their editor feature for Original Sin after they get some sleep after DC launch... PC gamers loves any mentioning of good editors... Back on topic for DC, I have been trying to convince a hardcore RTS playing friend of mine to get DC, and he raised a good question about the possibility of lack of focus of DC which would result in watered down RPG, stretegic and RTS element. I really haven't played DC enough to tell if that is the case, but I am wonder if say the RPG and stretegic element is deep enough by themselves that I can avoid the RTS battles and still be able to enjoy a great game.
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Jul 28, 2013 13:05
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I think DC has both elements (the branching decision making of an rpg, and the rts gameplay) running through the game pretty tightly woven together. The RTS is the way you accomplish things in the game. If you hate RTSs this probably won't be the game for you, even though it sounds like there will still be a large amount of branching paths for the storyline. It looks like there's a hard focus on both aspects, it certainly doesn't seem like they're skimping on either. It sounds like it's less 50%/50% between the two and more 100%/100%. I'm not a huge rts gamer, but those gameplay elements certainly seem like it's a pretty solid rts game. I've heard nothing about an editor for DC. It's funny that as much as the editor draws me to D:OS, I couldn't care less about getting an editor for Dragon Commander.
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Jul 28, 2013 15:39
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The previews have been more impressed with the RPG side than the RTS side, but the RTS has gotten much better since I started playing the beta, and they were playing a press version, which was actually more limited than the generic beta (it didn't have as many of the updates as the multiplayer-only). From more recent changes, unit abilities are much better, and offer some pretty good opportunities for strategy and depth. The changes to Cloak are particularly nasty, as they let you fire normally while cloaked (except for the Transport ship, but you don't want them attacking anyway). The Zeppelin's AoE cloak lasts for a long time, and unlike Starcraft, the Zeppelin doesn't need to stay with the units. EDIT: I am not implying that the previews thought the RTS side was terrible, it's more like the story side was really good. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jul 28, 2013 |
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Jul 28, 2013 18:47
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Drifter posted:I think DC has both elements (the branching decision making of an rpg, and the rts gameplay) running through the game pretty tightly woven together. The RTS is the way you accomplish things in the game. If you hate RTSs this probably won't be the game for you, even though it sounds like there will still be a large amount of branching paths for the storyline. At the same time it does seem as if they've made the RTS aspects optional, to some extent. Like if you play the strategy game well enough, you should be able to auto-resolve your battles instead of having to fight them out. (And, I mean, you have to be able to auto-resolve battles consistently, because you're only allowed one RTS battle per turn and all others have to get auto-resolved.) So while you might be missing out somewhat, it wouldn't be like, say, trying to play Mass Effect without doing any of the shooter bits.
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Jul 28, 2013 18:51
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Djeser posted:
You mean, Story Mode? 
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Jul 28, 2013 18:56
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Oh don't get me wrong, I don't hate RTS or anything, just that the current trend of RTS is more emphasis on, say, APM and a lot of repetition even in single player. And there are already games, most notably SC2, that does this kind of gaming extremely well. So I don't think DC would stand out on the strength of its RTS. I loved the cross level persistence that Homeworld had. If I understand correctly DC is somewhat like homeworld in this respect, right? I guess I (and my friend) got worried about the game when we watched the dev matches and the RTS aspect seemed to be very much following the current trend. I guess what I am really saying is that I just want DC to standout and sell a butt load of copies.
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Jul 28, 2013 19:09
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A strategy map editor is possible, while an RTS map editor is not. Other than that, I don't know. Dragon Commander is focused on being a Dragon Commander. Not having played the single player campaign I can't comment on the story, but there are more choices and consequences in DC than any of the previous Divinity games. The topics proposed by the councillors all seem to be binary choices (fund health care or not, legalize drugs, etc), but the princesses and generals should have more depth. With the advanced options added in the latest beta you can bias combat towards strategy map units, etc. A few betas ago I could use the dragon to turn the tide since I'm not great at RTS, but the enemy AI continues to improve and more recently Larian made the dragon weaker (I have not tried in the latest beta, though). Hopefully dragon focused combat will be feasible for RTS (and there was a co-op mode proposed some time ago, which sounded likely, where one player would control the dragon and the other the troops, so that could potentially mean you could leave that to an AI). In any case, Larian makes RPGs, so I can't imagine them using a tacked-on story as an excuse to string together a bunch of RTS combat, so even without the RTS the game should be enjoyable.
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Jul 28, 2013 19:15
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Djeser posted:At the same time it does seem as if they've made the RTS aspects optional, to some extent. Like if you play the strategy game well enough, you should be able to auto-resolve your battles instead of having to fight them out. (And, I mean, you have to be able to auto-resolve battles consistently, because you're only allowed one RTS battle per turn and all others have to get auto-resolved.) You can indeed auto-resolve your way to victory. I finished a 30+-turn campaign against the AI in which I basically only auto-resolved after turn 10 or so. It used to be that auto-resolving was preferable to RTS battling, but they've tightened things up, so that isn't so much the case anymore. When the game says you have a 67% chance to win, it's important to know what that means. It does not simply mean that there's a 67% chance that you flatten the enemy and have your entire army left over, it means that there is a 33% chance that your entire force will be completely wiped out. Even if you win, having only a 67% chance to win means that you will take heavy, heavy losses. I experienced this myself in a 2v2 (my ally was Green), trying to take out an enemy who had been reduced to their capital. This was on turn 25.  Yes, all my forces are fully upgraded. 17 enemy Grenadiers survived, everyone else was completely wiped out. You don't want to hit that auto-resolve button idly when your chance of victory is less than 80%. lethial posted:Oh don't get me wrong, I don't hate RTS or anything, just that the current trend of RTS is more emphasis on, say, APM and a lot of repetition even in single player. And there are already games, most notably SC2, that does this kind of gaming extremely well. So I don't think DC would stand out on the strength of its RTS. The good news is that I think Dragon Commander is trying to stand out on the strength of its story. If that's good enough, it can probably get by with an RTS that's merely decent. I don't know what cross-level persistence Homeworld had, could you clarify that please?
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Jul 28, 2013 19:32
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I don't know what cross-level persistence Homeworld had, could you clarify that please? Any built units and all collected resources stayed with you from mission to mission until spent/destroyed.
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Jul 28, 2013 19:42
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Mokinokaro posted:Any built units and all collected resources stayed with you from mission to mission until spent/destroyed. The Campaign mode does have something like that. Any units you build on the strategy map are persistent until lost in battles. Any strategy map resources - gold, research points, is also persistent. Units you build in RTS mode are NOT persistent, you can't enter a map with 0 Armours, build 20 in an RTS match and get 10 Armours back on the strategy map. The population is persistent, any remaining population unrecruited is left over after you get back to the strategy map, although it recovers pretty quickly.
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Jul 28, 2013 20:30
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Errr a surprise twitch event is live now. I missed part of it, but I'll link the stream when it's up for replays. EDIT: Swen's review of the Review Copy The livestream was Swen playing the version they're sending out to reviewers. I'll post my thoughts on it later. Also a new patch has dropped. Lar_q posted:
Coming soon is also some kind of training map. I'm not sure if it's a just a tutorial or a unit tester which lets you control both sides, because they forgot to actually include the map in this version. They're adding it in I didn't see any obvious balance changes in this version. I hope the lots of units on the RTS map means that I'll no longer get performance hits when there are a lot of units. That happens sometimes. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Jul 30, 2013 |
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Jul 29, 2013 21:54
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Swen's review of the Review Copy The livestream was Swen playing the version they're sending out to reviewers.
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Jul 30, 2013 04:27
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Fantastic. It doesn’t work at the moment, though.
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To steal Stabbey's post, a new update just got pushed through, apparently focused more on fixing bugs. Release is only a week away!  Lar_q posted:A small but sweet patch today, as we continue our quest to eliminate all crashes we know off. The FPS cap option comes on the heels of a tech preview by Rage3D.com that cited their largest complaint being the FPS cap. And, from the Larian Facebook page, first, a list of less-than-obvious key commands: quote:LOL - we asked QA what shortcut keys weren't explained in Dragon Commander. They came back with this list And then on top of that, physical copies of Dragon Commander are available from the Larian store. God drat it, Larian! quote:There was one last thing missing in our release of Dragon Commander and that was the English box! We have a limited set of boxes available via the Larian Vault so if you want one, now's the time. And on Swen's twitter, he's retweeting QA humor. quote:99 little bugs in the code Djeser fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jul 31, 2013 |
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Jul 30, 2013 23:34
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Now how to put this in a hint text ?
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Djeser posted:To steal Stabbey's post, a new update just got pushed through, apparently focused more on fixing bugs. Release is only a week away! That settles it, I am going to give the copy of DC that I already preorder to that friend of mine that was concerned about lacking of focus, while I will get the boxed version.  lethial fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Jul 31, 2013 |
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Jul 31, 2013 00:50
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Thanks for the great collection of stuff, Djeser. I was not in the mood to quadruple post. I'll probably add the controls to the FAQ. I think I'm getting better at the RTS part, aside from the occasional blunder, like spending 75 Recruits at the start of a match to make 4 buildings. They've added new music and is is fantastic. I've found some more undocumented changes, one of which was spotted in Swen's twitch video. Troopers "Spoils of War" upgrade which lets them capture enemy buildings is now super-fast Get three troopers close enough, and they can change a building over in about 3 seconds. The Dragon skills have been tweaked, although with all the patches, I couldn't say when that was exactly. Blood Leech now steals 40% of your damage, and Rejuvenation does double the health regeneration. That helps the Mountain Dragon's survival improve a lot. It's still fragile, but a bit less so than before. Ray of Power now grants the other unit +175% bonus damage, instead of +120%. Inspire lasts for 30 seconds, but has a cooldown of 10, so you can spread it around. Charm (on the Dragon) lasts a whole 2 minutes. Aegis gives +70% damage reduction, much better than the Shaman's +50% It turns out that the autoresolve has a little bug in it at the moment, which they're going to try and work on tomorrow. That might explain things like lone Troopers defeating Armours and Hunters in autoresolve, and lone Grenadiers beating 4 Juggernauts.
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Jul 31, 2013 03:57
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With the physical copies now, I'm trying to decide whether I want to buy one. I really like having the physical copy of games. I bought the Divinity Anthology pretty much for that purpose. I just don't really want to have paid $80 for a game that isn't even out yet. I guess there's always the option to sell or trade the Steam keys I get from it. I mean, when it came to Divinity 2, I bought it 1) Ego Draconis, retail ($20) 2) Dragon Knight Saga, Steam ($40) 3) Dragon Knight Saga, 360 ($30) 4) Developer's Cut, GOG.com ($20) 5) Divinity Anthology, retail ($40). I definitely could have paid less if I bought Flames of Vengeance on its own instead of Dragon Knight Saga (but I wanted the improved main campaign  ), and I definitely could have skipped the GOG.com Dev Cut since I got it retail in the Anthology and for free on Steam for having DKS, but all in all, ignoring tax/shipping, I paid $150 for three versions of Divinity 2 across two platforms, three publishers, and three methods of distribution. Which still comes out at less than a dollar per hour of play time, but still, I paid a lot for that game. Larian is the one developer who short circuits my 'don't waste money on games' approach.
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Jul 31, 2013 07:17
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Djeser posted:I just don't really want to have paid $80 for a game that isn't even out yet. In Canada, with shipping the cost is around $65. In the Larian Vault the US gets charged in $ rather than € so it would only be about $50. The Australian conversion from the euro is $59 and presumably the shipping would get that close to $80... Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Larian was able to get much retail distribution for the English version of the game.
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Jul 31, 2013 11:50
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Another livestream is up. I think Swen is in it, but it's not an official Larian livestream. All this week Larian is doing these kinds of events with the press, like they did for the D:OS Kickstarter. There will be a preload on Steam, but the Beta version will not count towards the preload, you'll have to re-download. There might also be a beta after release to test out changes and such before they go live, like the Team Fortress 2 beta.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:56
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I've tuned in. Looks like it has been going on for some time. Who's the guy that's playing?
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Jul 31, 2013 21:46
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I've updated the Units post to give more information on the roles of the various units, their abilities, and their counters. I have not included specific information on health, costs and other statistics because that stuff changes a lot and I can barely keep up with it in my private spreadsheet. I will not be including such detail in the future, I think it's enough to know the basics. How does that look?
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Aug 1, 2013 02:35
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Recording of KenutTy's Stream with Swen. (1:51) Preview from GameGrin quote:I'm very much in love with the dragon inclusion to the RTS format, and can't wait to see it used to its full potential come release day on the 6th August. And this is just one side to the full game – with so many different modes of play all rolled into one, the appeal of DDC is widespread, and by the looks of it, the balance between RTS, RPG, board game and trading card game is spot on. Imagine the best bits from Mass Effect, Command & Conquer, Risk and Magic: The Gathering all mashed seamlessly together, then throw a dragon into the mix and you're looking at something much greater than the sum of its parts, and a suitable contender for game of the year (even though it will most certainly be GTA V). I'm getting better at the RTS mode. I came back from a couple games where I was at a major disadvantage against the AI to at least get a Phyrric victory. I wish that I could remember to use my Dragon better and more often.
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Aug 1, 2013 19:49
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What does Mass Effect have to do with this game? 
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Aug 1, 2013 20:51
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Thank you for the massive amount of "love" you have poured into supporting this game stabby. The unit info page looks great, though in the future, do you plan on adding some of your own or other goons' opinion on the units? It would help us noobs to the game. Though that could probably go into another more strategy or tactics oriented post by itself. As much as I am thrilled that the game is coming out, I am saddened by the fact that I will not be able to finish divinity II expansion in time.
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Aug 1, 2013 20:54
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Ainsley McTree posted:What does Mass Effect have to do with this game? I've only played the first game, but I've heard people favourably compare the sections where you walk about the Normandy and talk with your crew to the sections where you walk about the Raven and talk to your Generals, Councillors and Princesses.
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Aug 1, 2013 20:55
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Ainsley McTree posted:What does Mass Effect have to do with this game? The massive breasts on everything without a penis. Also the conversations with your councilors and their branching storylines while you wander around your headquarters, etc.
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Aug 1, 2013 21:05
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Patch 167 has dropped. quote:Changelist 1.0.167.9727 Now the Zeppelins, Bomber Balloons and Juggernauts have maximum range indicators when you select them, just like the devastators. That is great. You can also now reassign the camera pan from Middle Mouse, but I found a bug, at least with the Logitech G500 where the 5th mouse button is stuck as the Dragon Morph, so you'll end up spawning as a Dragon when you want to move your camera. Hopefully Autoresolve works a bit better now. EDIT: It does! Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 23:49
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