Game News Next stop Godhood - Beyond Divinity demo online

[Whipporowill]

Tags: Beyond Divinity; Larian Studios

The chaps (and chapettes) at Larian studios has made good on their word and has gotten a Beyond Divinity demo available to the starving CRPG public - in both german and english. So skedaddle over to Larian for some sweet <a href="http://www.larian.com/riftrunner/BDdemo.php" target=_blank>demo mirrors</a>. Can't wait to try this one out (which I have to, since I'm at work. Darn)!

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Nice to see they kept to their word about a Wednesday release. Downloading now. :D

 

[Azael]

The demo is pretty short, not nearly as long as the original one or the demo for Sacred, but I liked it. Pretty much the same as Divine Divinity with an extra character and a better skill system. One thing which I didn't see, but hope is in the game, is more special moves for the warrior branch. Hacking and slashing is a lot more fun if you can mix it up a bit with different attacks, something which was sorely missed from the original game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Can you be more specific on the "better skill system"?

 

[Transcendent One]

Well I have to go back to school in twenty minutes, so unfortunately I'll have to wait to download the demo :evil:

 

[DemonKing]

Please remind me - this is 2004 right?

The graphics in this demo look worse than in Baldur's Gate, and that came out 6 years ago.

Hell it's almost as ugly as Arcanum.

I'm no graphics whore but I think a certain minimum standard of presentation is required to be competitive, and this thing is just...bleech.

And the gameplay didn't do much for me either.

If it succeeds it will be more because of a lack of competition than its own merits, methinks.

 

[Nightjed]

i tried the demo and it has a lot issues :

• 
  -as soon as i ran it, it tried to call home (baaaad Larian)
  
  -there are a LOT of obvious hotkeys missing like "select all party members" or "close all windows" or even "close window" (i tend to use esc to do that by reflex but in this game it sends me to the menu) and you cant change some existing hotkeys (like the zoom), i wish they would use a toee like hotkey system
  
  -there is no way to tell which skills are asigned to each hand without hovering the mouse pointer over them, couldnt they add a simple small icon ?
  
  -the animations are not synched to the game, you are often doing damage when you are not hitting ( might be related to the next point )
  
  -it really needs frame skipping / frame limiting options, the game is either too fast or too slow depending on the zoom level and area particles
  
  -the text is still ultra small like in DD, i wonder if it would be too difficult to add a "font size/color" option
  
  -bug : the luck stat is broken, with survival 1 (luck+1) you dont get any luck bonuses, with survival 3 (luck +2) you only get luck+1, if you use the permanent survival potion the luck stat seems to fix itself, wth
  
  -bug : somehow my main char went though the wall in the initial level near the 4 levers and couldnt go back to the actual floor so i had to enter in another location to get him out of there
  
  -why does every char have his own money ? it should be a party thing, now to buy something you have to change chars or move your money arround
  
  -you cant see the effect of your stat increases without accepting them (Which makes the choice preview kind of useless)
  
  -there should be an "object highlight" along with the "item highlight" it would make spoting doors and other things much easier (well, maybe there is one but since its not in the hotkey selection window and the readme sucks i dont know)

the graphics are allright imho, i like the zoom and i love the skill system (there are a few weird skill options tho, like whats the advantage of "one handed" over "with shield" ?, and how the hell does "age weapon" help me in the middle of a battle ? )
I've only played an hour and im kinda dissapointed of the game, oh well, i'll let the bugs slip because it hasnt been beta for more than a few days but they really need to fix the hotkeys and frame skip/limits

edit: oh yeah, the voice overs suck ass, doesnt really matter for casual npcs but for the death knight that i could predict will whine at every step of the game (he/she/it whined quite a bit in the demo) its horrible, just horrible

 

[Volourn]

I'll wait til bargain bin.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm no graphics whore but I think a certain minimum standard of presentation is required to be competitive

That's what all graphics whores say

 

[Voss]

I'll wait til bargain bin.

Really? Why?
Did you ever pick up the original?

I couldn't muster enough interest in the demo (of DivDiv) to bother with it myself. I'll give this demo a whirl, but I'm not expecting much, particularly if there at that many issues with it.

 

[Volourn]

Yes. i did pick up the original. It was back in stores with the other trash within a few months of purchase after gathering dust on my shelf.

 

[Barghest]

Quit with the negativity, will you...!

Unlike previous posters, I actually liked the demo. Having to manage two characters is quite a challenge - The pause button is very useful! I can see more roleplaying involved in this game too.

It also had its downside too. I thought the voice acting was 'off' It was, well, too 'American' if you catch my drift. I do agree that the graphics engine is aging , but it will get us through to DD2. It did ran like a dream at 1280x960 on my PC, and I can get 80fps at 1600x1200 if I really wanted to push it. I've not noticed any game-killing bugs yet, though.

Not quite finished it yet, but so far it seems to be worth me buying the full version.

 

[fnordcircle]

Divine Divinity, the great RPG with the odd name from Larian Studios, set some new standards for PC role-playing games. It offered a huge world with lots of quests and side quests, giving the player the option of accepting or declining certain tasks. It allowed for character development, skill development and a whole world of magic. But most of all, it provided an immersive storyline that sucked you in and made you forget the clock in the real world.

WHOA! That is a new standard. Quests....and side quests?! HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

Good gravy, do reviewers just throw a bunch of hyperbole magnets against the refridgerator to create their reviews?

 

[Nightjed]

Having to manage two characters is quite a challenge

I dont think that part of the game is supposed to be a challenge, i dunno about you but i dont like fighting with the game's controls, i must have clicked on the "select all" button 50 times in an hour of playing, i think it deserves a hotkey

The pause button is very useful!.

:shock: who said it wasnt useful ? but its nothing special, kind of a standard since bg

It also had its downside too. I thought the voice acting was 'off' It was, well, too 'American' if you catch my drift.

just "off" ?, it didnt really sound "american" to me.
Maybe im a little biased but i was hoping for some kind of darth vader like voice for the death knight, right now he just sounds like a male version of bastila (recorded by a really bored person)

I do agree that the graphics engine is aging , but it will get us through to DD2. It did ran like a dream at 1280x960 on my PC, and I can get 80fps at 1600x1200 if I really wanted to push it.

Funny, the graphics are the only thing i didnt care about in the demo, i played it at 1024x784 ( i allready have trouble reading the text in a 17' at that res to try higher) and the speed was constantly changing between areas and zoom levels (actually i started using the zoom to tweak the speed)

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I'm with Nightjed on this. I thought the interface was abyssmal. You can't just click on the enemy to fight the enemy either, you have to double click on the enemy's FEET in order to get it to work it seems. There is no drag box party selection like nearly every other game in existance - you have to right click on the portrait thing and then select the SELECT ALL option from the pull down menu. You can't even shift-click select all your party.

DemonKing is also right about the graphics here. It's one thing to say that bad graphics are fine if the gameplay is there, but that isn't the case here because the graphics seem to get in the way of the interaction with the stuff in the environment.

 

[Transcendent One]

Graphics are bad, yes. Backgrounds are okay, but character models are abysmal. The game also seems very choppy. I noticed some sound glitches. Combat seems quite bad as well. It seems like occasionally the death knight wouldn't respond to my combat orders, and I also found it rather annoying that I couldn't just draw a box around the characters to select both. Maybe I'm dense, but I also did not notice if there was any visible indication of whether you ordered to attack or not. The loading times are extremely long. Addition of a death knight second character doesn't seem to make combat much more interesting than in the original. Overall, I'm disappointed.

 

[Nightjed]

Maybe I'm dense, but I also did not notice if there was any visible indication of whether you ordered to attack or not.

there is no indication, you have to click on their feet and wait 2 seconds to see if your guy does anything

edit : btw, did anyone get the spin attack to work ? i tried it and they do some kind of fag dance without spending any stamina and not hitting anyone

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Sadly, I wasn't impressed. I'll take Volourn's stance on this and wait until it hits the bargain bin. Sacred gets my money first in the 2004 CRPG race, I guess. Well, unless you consider Silent Storm an RPG, but I don't so mneh.

It's sad really. I expected a bit more than this. It just seems to me like all they did was add a bit to the old DD engine and made a new story. And, like NightJed, I got tired of having to click on the "select all" button. If they don't at least hotkey that before release, they're friggin nuts.

 

[dagamer667]

I'll definitely get the game, but I'm somewhat disappointed with the demo.

First off, the Deathknight's voice sounds too monotone and flat out annoying. DivDiv wasn't a winner in voice acting either, but the main characters' voices were decent and infrequent enough not to get annoying really fast. I don't how well the german version sounds, but the english voices don't sound too promising. That one makes old Bastila sound nice.

The graphics are pretty decent, but the game is opimized heavily for 1024*768 and 800*600 resolutions like DivDiv. At 1600*1200, you can barely see your characters. One thing they had better fix is the synch issue where you move twice is fast in certain areas and slowmo through others. DivDiv didn't have this issue, and I think it's just a bug in the demo.

Greyhawk, I think the sync issue is the reason the game feels so unresponsive. The old ctrl+click to attack works well enough if you do it just once. In DivDiv, that was the way you initiated most attacks and it didn't need any *bonk* to confirm your action. My guess is that the deathknight's addition makes little difference in the demo because you don't have enough skills to play with. As you gain skillpoints and gain access to more skill paths, you'll be able to specialize your characters in different trees. For example, you could develop the warrior skills for the knight while concentrating on magic and support skills like ID or bartering or lockpicking for your main character.

Yes, hotkeys are a problem, and I hope they will add them into the final cuz most hotkeys are pretty trivial to add from the programmer's standpoint.

 

[Jarinor]

I had high hopes for this game, but after seeing the reactions to the demo, now I'm not so sure.

I never played through Div Div (actually, I don't think I ever got around to picking that second pyramid thingy up) and from all accounts I missed out on a decent game, so I'll be looking to rectify that soon.

I really hope Larian improve on what the demo offers though, even if I am just going by your comments.

 

[Whipporowill]

I wasn't terribly impressed with the demo either, considering the great and very humorous demo for the original. Also, I had some problems with actually attacking enemies, as mentioned.

I'm pretty confident that the full game will be worth it, but this was indeed a setback.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Meh. Seems like a bargain title from where I'm standing. If they don't get their act together and remedy the aforementioned issues (noted by Saint, NightJed and DemonKing - who was totally right about this) I don't think that too many people will have much fun with the game, especially when they're going to be competing with Sacred and Seal of Evil (which has a beta demo that plays MUCH, MUCH better).

 

[beans]

The demo crashed for me during character creation. It also displayed colors in some low quality VGA setting and there weren't many settings to toy around with to try and fix it, so I gave up on it pretty soon.

 

[Azael]

Yes, there are some issues which need to be fixed, no doubt about it. A hotkey for 'Select All' is one of them, the way you attack enemies (or rather the way you don't) is another. I didn't use the pause button much in the original game, this one seems to require a lot more use of it which gives me some bad IE memories of choppy combat. I think they could have done a better demo, this one didn't really show off much of the game and some of what it showed wasn't as impressive as you could hope for. Zooming seems like a pretty useless feature in games like this (same thing in Sacred), works better in turn-based games where it can actually be useful for scooping out the surroundings, finding cover, etc.

 

[Barghest]

Pah, I still liked the demo.