Elwro
Arcane
Tags: Divinity 2; Larian Studios
Myrthos from RPGWatch has written a nice <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=95&ref=0&id=67">preview</a> of the upcoming sequel to Divine Divinity, based on his experience with the (presentation of the) game during the GC in Leipzig.<blockquote>One of the things you will be taught is the mystery of mindreading, which according to the words of Swen Vincke; “is a cool thing we have introduced in the game”. Every time you encounter a dialog in the game you have the option to read the mind of the person in front of you, which gives a new and unique twist to the quest you are doing. The mind reading is skill based as well, and you will get better at it when you assign more skill points to it.</blockquote>This could be a good feature if fleshed out properly. Hopefully, successful mind reading can open new dialogue options, for example. <blockquote><b>Swen “Lar” Vincke</b>: I will show you one of the quests and also show you how mindreading works. I am going to visit 2 guys. So these guys are having a bit of an argument. I will interrupt them and I will show you how the quest structure in Divinity 2 has been approached. These guys will start you off into a standard ‘fasten my shoelaces’ quest, where he asks me if I want to make extra money and I say; ok what’s the deal and he says well I am killing goblins and I give you money for every goblin heart that you bring me. Here I can accept the quest which will then bring me to a series of other quests, or I can refuse the quest and then I will enter another quest chain. This is what we tried to do with every single quest. The choices you make in Divinity 2 are much more immediate than before.
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When you are in a dialog with someone you also have the option to do mindreading and the way we implemented it is really new. It is a special power of the dragon slayer and when I use it I learn that he is actually not going to pay me enough for the Goblin heart. I can get much more money if I’m going to negotiate with him when I come back with my hearts. Or I can go to the guy to whom he is selling those hearts and get more money from him. There is however also a downside to mindreading that I can’t talk about at the moment unfortunately.
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Besides accepting and mindreading you can also refuse the quest. When I refuse the quest, the guy says: Ok, bugger off I’m going to do it myself and off he goes. Later on he will then be found in the woods surrounded by Goblins and you can pick up the quest with him again. If I had accepted I would have gotten a series of quests that were darker in nature, like there is a famine somewhere; there is some food to stop this famine and are you going to help him to steal the food and so on.</blockquote>I don't think it was a good advertisement of the mindreading opportunities (money? uninteresting), but the prospect of multiple branching quest chains is nice. There's more about quests later on in the preview, and also an example of a better use of mindreading:<blockquote>But there is also the choice to talk to Dana again and confront her with the contents of the letter, so that you can blackmail her - or you can read her mind. When you do that, you learn she thinks about a hidden key in the village belonging to her husband that she cannot find. The key can be found in the village if you look close enough. When you find it, it will open a cellar. In that cellar is a diary that belongs to Karl and in that diary he wrote he killed the former lover of Dana. You can go to the guards with the information who will then arrest Karl or you can go to Karl and blackmail him instead. Then again you can do none of that and just tell Karl about the letter and the affair, which will make him angry at Dana and throw her off the farm. She then runs off to Dirk and goes to live with him. Dirk is not so happy with the chain of events that I set in motion and I will find that when I want to buy some weapons from him the prices have become higher.</blockquote>Spoilers.
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The preview makes the game seem quite interesting for me; hopefully they'll manage not to make playing as a dragon slayer (and later a dragon) too cheesy. Great news is that Kirill Pokrovsky will again be writing the music.
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Read the whole thing <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com//show/article?articleid=95&ref=0&id=67">here</a>.
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This is part one; the second part is to contain an interview with one of the devs.
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<b>UPDATE:</b> the interview is up, go <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=96&ref=0&id=67">check it out</a>.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</A>
Myrthos from RPGWatch has written a nice <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=95&ref=0&id=67">preview</a> of the upcoming sequel to Divine Divinity, based on his experience with the (presentation of the) game during the GC in Leipzig.<blockquote>One of the things you will be taught is the mystery of mindreading, which according to the words of Swen Vincke; “is a cool thing we have introduced in the game”. Every time you encounter a dialog in the game you have the option to read the mind of the person in front of you, which gives a new and unique twist to the quest you are doing. The mind reading is skill based as well, and you will get better at it when you assign more skill points to it.</blockquote>This could be a good feature if fleshed out properly. Hopefully, successful mind reading can open new dialogue options, for example. <blockquote><b>Swen “Lar” Vincke</b>: I will show you one of the quests and also show you how mindreading works. I am going to visit 2 guys. So these guys are having a bit of an argument. I will interrupt them and I will show you how the quest structure in Divinity 2 has been approached. These guys will start you off into a standard ‘fasten my shoelaces’ quest, where he asks me if I want to make extra money and I say; ok what’s the deal and he says well I am killing goblins and I give you money for every goblin heart that you bring me. Here I can accept the quest which will then bring me to a series of other quests, or I can refuse the quest and then I will enter another quest chain. This is what we tried to do with every single quest. The choices you make in Divinity 2 are much more immediate than before.
<br>
<br>
When you are in a dialog with someone you also have the option to do mindreading and the way we implemented it is really new. It is a special power of the dragon slayer and when I use it I learn that he is actually not going to pay me enough for the Goblin heart. I can get much more money if I’m going to negotiate with him when I come back with my hearts. Or I can go to the guy to whom he is selling those hearts and get more money from him. There is however also a downside to mindreading that I can’t talk about at the moment unfortunately.
<br>
Besides accepting and mindreading you can also refuse the quest. When I refuse the quest, the guy says: Ok, bugger off I’m going to do it myself and off he goes. Later on he will then be found in the woods surrounded by Goblins and you can pick up the quest with him again. If I had accepted I would have gotten a series of quests that were darker in nature, like there is a famine somewhere; there is some food to stop this famine and are you going to help him to steal the food and so on.</blockquote>I don't think it was a good advertisement of the mindreading opportunities (money? uninteresting), but the prospect of multiple branching quest chains is nice. There's more about quests later on in the preview, and also an example of a better use of mindreading:<blockquote>But there is also the choice to talk to Dana again and confront her with the contents of the letter, so that you can blackmail her - or you can read her mind. When you do that, you learn she thinks about a hidden key in the village belonging to her husband that she cannot find. The key can be found in the village if you look close enough. When you find it, it will open a cellar. In that cellar is a diary that belongs to Karl and in that diary he wrote he killed the former lover of Dana. You can go to the guards with the information who will then arrest Karl or you can go to Karl and blackmail him instead. Then again you can do none of that and just tell Karl about the letter and the affair, which will make him angry at Dana and throw her off the farm. She then runs off to Dirk and goes to live with him. Dirk is not so happy with the chain of events that I set in motion and I will find that when I want to buy some weapons from him the prices have become higher.</blockquote>Spoilers.
<br>
<br>
The preview makes the game seem quite interesting for me; hopefully they'll manage not to make playing as a dragon slayer (and later a dragon) too cheesy. Great news is that Kirill Pokrovsky will again be writing the music.
<br>
<br>
Read the whole thing <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com//show/article?articleid=95&ref=0&id=67">here</a>.
<br>
<br>
This is part one; the second part is to contain an interview with one of the devs.
<br>
<br>
<b>UPDATE:</b> the interview is up, go <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=96&ref=0&id=67">check it out</a>.
<br>
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</A>
