Game News Divinity II: FoV vs Dragon Knight Saga

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Divinity 2; Larian Studios

<p>In case you wonder whether to get Flames of Vengeance or the new Dragon Knight Saga package, <a href="http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&amp;Number=421019&amp;gonew=1#UNREAD" target="_blank">here's some info</a> regarding the differences.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong><span id="body0">I was wondering, what is the difference of D2:ED + FoV compared to The Dragonknight Saga?</span></strong></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><span id="body1">Flames of Vengeance retroactively applies many changes which are introduced in DKS also to Ego Draconis. Most engine changes for instance are immediately present in Ego Draconis. To maintain compatibility with existing savegames however, there are a number of things which aren't changed when you install FOV. These are:<br /><br />Enemy placement and balancing (massive overhaul)<br />Loot and set-items (complete overhaul)<br />Story and scripting changes (e.g. in DKS flying fortress gameplay is very different to ED)<br />Art changes in Ego Draconis (though you do get the advantage of better lighting &amp; shading)<br /><br />In general, if you played or finished Ego Draconis and don't want to start over again, get FOV.<br /><br />If you don't mind starting over again, get DKS, in which the total gameplay experience is in my opinion much more stream-lined.<br /><br />There's no big differences between the FOV content in DKS and the FOV content applied to ED.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><br />The gameplay in the flying fortresses is very different to Ego Draconis. I wonder what that means. Also note how you will only get those streamlined improvements to ED when you buy the enhanced version: Dragon Knight Saga.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/#15737">RPGWatch</a></p>

 

[dr. one]

making a patch which applies the remaining changes from DKS surely would be a smart business decision.

 

[Phelot]

streamlined improvements to ED

I'm curious as to how they "fixed" things like loot and enemy placement. Surely they didn't make it easier, right? RIGHT?!

 

[Forest Dweller]

I'm confused. What is DKS?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

update from the thread at the Larian forums:

Ok, let's me try again - it's pretty clear when you play it but somehow I find it very hard to write it down:

The Dragon Knight Saga has been approached as if it were an entire new game from the point of view of the core item-fever & hack and slash parts of the gameplay as well as getting rid of those areas that we considered to be "boring" in Ego Draconis. We've upgraded the engine, upgrade the graphics, upgraded the audio, changed the levels, changed the balancing, modified several features and where possible applied those changes to both Ego Draconis and Flames Of Vengeance. Additionally, on the 360, we changed almost the entire interface, modified the levels and gameplay to increase performance, changed the camera system/controls, and made sure the 360 has its a different balancing than the PC version as both platforms play differently. If on PC it plays more "streamlined", on 360 it's almost as if it's a different (and better) game.

Since its a pretty big redesign of several parts of Ego Draconis, it's impossible to convert Ego Draconis in The Dragon Knight Saga with just a patch - for that there are too many changes - but those areas of the game that we can change, without affecting the existing savegames, we've tried to change through the upcoming patch. For instance, if you install FOV, you get a better-looking Ego Draconis, and also the engine improvements. A patch which would bring ED to DKS would consist of replacing almost every single file, and it's guarnateed that you wouldn't be able to play any of your previous saves.

So D2:ED + FoV (which includes patch) does not equal DKS, but it's as close as we can get it without destroying the save-games.

For people who don't buy FOV, we'll provide a D2:ED patch, but I need to add that it's up to the various publishers to release it.

The intended audience of DKS consists primarily of people who didn't buy D2:ED, but in the same breath I have to say that I think that all the changes done make the entire experience more fun and I wished we could've launched DKS as ED.

I hope you can still follow and this makes sense to you ;\)

 

[Phelot]

Well, that doesn't sound too good. I'll certainly get just the expansion then unless I can get a technical rundown of what specifically was changed (i.e. are flying fortresses out?)

 

[Forest Dweller]

So DKS is just an (extensive) patch that applies to both the OC and the expansion? And they charge for it?

 

[Archibald]

Fuck save-games. If it`s so much better then i can start over.

 

[Phelot]

So DKS is just an (extensive) patch that applies to both the OC and the expansion? And they charge for it?

It's a bundled product. Like buying those Baldur's Gate with expansion together, except with this they released it right on the heals of the expansion plus they went back and fucked up the original game apparently.

 

[DraQ]

Well, that doesn't sound too good. I'll certainly get just the expansion then unless I can get a technical rundown of what specifically was changed (i.e. are flying fortresses out fun?)

Fixed. Dragon themed game sans dragon would be pretty .

 

[Forest Dweller]

So DKS is just an (extensive) patch that applies to both the OC and the expansion? And they charge for it?

It's a bundled product. Like buying those Baldur's Gate with expansion together, except with this they released it right on the heals of the expansion plus they went back and fucked up the original game apparently.

Is it downloadable as a patch if you own both games or do you actually have to buy the version?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see they don't.

If they don't allow it as a patch I'll be torrenting out of principle.

 

[Ruprekt]

Wonder why they've done this. It means they'll have to support two different versions of the game going forward.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Is ego draconis any good?

Or should I stick with divine divinity alone?

It's laughable when they say a patch yo convert ED to DKS would mean having to change all of the ED files.

The game is new and they are already making a "special edition" remake.

 

[Archibald]

Wll it did have some serious problems. On the other hand i`d rather they`d remake Beyond Divinity into something playable.

 

[Sceptic]

OK, I'm completely confused, so let me try and get this straight. There are 3 versions of the game that will exist once everything is released:
- ED by itself
- ED + FoV. Installing FoV will patch ED to something better than the ED-only patch
- DKS. This is a one-box release of both ED and FoV, with ED patched to something even better than if you just install FoV.
Do I have this right?

Also, can any of the German codexers confirm (if DKS is already out) that the changes are actually a good thing?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

1) you have this right
2) Can't comment and I don't plan on getting DKS either, having bought ED+FoV I don't feel like paying for the enhanced edition again, lololol they're pulling a Twitcher on us except this time not for free!

more update:

Hi all,

I can understand the frustrations, and it wasn't the easiest decision to make, but then again, we didn't choose the easiest path for this either - Let me give you some more background and then offer a potential solution for those of you who want to play the DKS content and already own ED:

The obvious thing to do would've been to ship FOV, and then just bundle that with ED together with those patches that never got released. When we initially informed publishing partners that we actually wanted to do more than that, make some kind of Divinity 2.5 and actually invest quite a lot into it, they had a very hard time understanding why we'd even contemplate doing something like that. Nobody we talked to at the time wanted to fund it, and in general it was considered a strange thing to want to do. Our ratio however was pretty simple - got a wide range of ratings, going from very good to not enough - in most cases the not enough ones isolated specific issues which given the means we could fix, whereas the good ones didn't mind those issues and focussed on the good parts.

That left us with the feeling that the job was incomplete and often heard statement was "if only". So, we figured rather than saying "if only" we should just do it, and we spent the year between the original release of in Germany and now on upgrading/fixing/cutting/polishing as much as possible.

At some point we'd gone as far as we could without starting to change the content, and there were some parts in there which we really wanted to tackle - especially the entire hack & slash & item fever part as well as those flying fortresses which didn't materialize as originally envisioned. The biggest stumbling block was save-game compatibility where no realy good decision could be taken. Either we ditched it, either we didn't do the changes. We opted for doing the changes, and aim DKS at players who didn't buy ED, which would be in any case the same target audience as a bundle pack of ED and FOV.

Leaves us of course with all of you who already bought ED. FOV includes all engine optimizations and also upgrades the artwork and of course includes every fix that we've made ever since the last patch was released. It also modifies the gameplay as much as can be done by changing the engine and installing additional content, but what it can't do is replace content on which the existing savegames are dependent, which is something unique to DKS, because one of the features of FOV is that you can continue playing with your existing character from ED.

FOV really is for those who want to continue the story without having to restart from scratch. If we'd remove the feature that you can continue to play, then we could include the DKS content within FOV, but when we had to decide what to do, it was felt that that that would've been a big problem for a lot of people.

So, what we could do is the following - we can provide a FOVTODKS patch which will transform ED+FOV into DKS, though if you apply it, you will not be able to load any of your old savegames. If that's what you'd like to have, knowing that your ED savegames will not work anymore, we can try to figure something out to make that a reality. It's also going to be a pretty big patch because really a lot of assets change.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

it's kind of strange: FOV can read the save games of ED or the DSK version.

But if you have ED+FOV and upgrade it to sdk, fov won't be able to read your old savegames.

anyway, who cares about savegames? Play it all again or start a new character in FOV.

I remember I played through gothic 3 with community patch 1.6. When they released 1.70, they added more fixes, and you could play it with old savegames, but some features wouldn't have effect unless you restart the game. But you didn't have to buy the whole game again to have the patch installed.

 

[Sceptic]

Thanks VoD. Looks like I'll just wait for DKS and buy that.

So, what we could do is the following - we can provide a FOVTODKS patch which will transform ED+FOV into DKS, though if you apply it, you will not be able to load any of your old savegames. If that's what you'd like to have, knowing that your ED savegames will not work anymore, we can try to figure something out to make that a reality.

There really is no reason not to do this. Just keep both patches available and put a note on the big one saying "warning this will invalidate your old savegames". And then watch as just about everyone downloads it anyway.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

So, what we could do is the following - we can provide a FOVTODKS patch which will transform ED+FOV into DKS, though if you apply it, you will not be able to load any of your old savegames. If that's what you'd like to have, knowing that your ED savegames will not work anymore, we can try to figure something out to make that a reality. It's also going to be a pretty big patch because really a lot of assets change.