Game News Divinity: Original Sin Kickstarter Update #61: Voice acting and music, release delayed to June 30th

[Infinitron]

Tags: Divinity: Original Sin; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke

Many of you have already heard that Divinity: Original Sin has received a short delay, from June 20th to June 30th. In this week's Kickstarter update, Swen Vincke explains the reasons why:

In this Kickstarter update, Swen talks about the voice recordings and how they will be implemented in Divinity: Original Sin, the reasons for the (small) delay, how a setback Kirill incurred resulted in this game having one of the biggest soundtracks ever, backer rewards, and more.



The Voices of Original Sin

We had to rob a bank to be able to bring you this news, but our getaway car was swift and drove us directly to a recording studio in London.

Right now the studio responsible for Divinity: Dragon Commander is recording voices for Divinity: Original Sin. That means you can once again expect AAA quality voice acting with a fantastic cast.

If you’re not familiar with the voice acting quality of Dragon Commander, check out the following video. It’s bound to get your excitement meter up. We certainly can’t wait to hear the voices of the characters we’ve been working on for so long.

The Music of Original Sin

Over 130 songs are going to be included in Divinity:Original Sin and several of them are now ready and polished. To give you a taste of what’s coming, here’s one of the completed tracks with live instruments. Listen on big speakers, it’s never sounded this good!

June 20th becomes June 30th

Because of the voice recordings (and a few other things which will become clear soon) we have to delay the release of Divinity: Original Sin by 10 days.

This is going to give us the time we need to get everything integrated. We know we’re testing your patience, but you can rest assured that we’re as keen as you to release-- it's high time we get this game out of our hands and into yours! Those extra days, are strictly necessary; we promise!
​

The update also reports that there will be an Early Access update later today:

We’re planning to do another Early Access update later today, featuring once again several things you’ve been asking for in addition to yet another truckload of bugfixes and balancing updates. Since the last EA update over a 1000 updates were done here at Larian. Full changelist coming once the new version goes live.

Expect things like further tweaks to spell specialization, a lobby which allows you to find other people to play with, much needed balancing changes to the surfaces & a fitting rewarding for eating that annoying shell. Coming soon, very soon!
​

Stay tuned for the next Divinity: Original Sin livestream on Larian's Twitch channel on June 18th. They'll be showing off some late game areas.

 

[Delterius]

The guy with the Barrack Obama nickname probably didn't fill his shipment address on purpose.

 

[catfood]

It would be funny if they send the game to the white house.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Fortunately they're taking all their time to make sure the game is good and polished!

 

[Athelas]

Voice over work being done when the game is mere weeks away from release sounds pretty rushed to me.

 

[MicoSelva]

You can only do voice overs when the writing is finalised, so it makes sense it is done at the end.

I would be more concerned about Larian doing this over ten days, but as we have no idea how many lines are being recorded or how long it should take in the first place, it is hard to tell if it is being rushed or not.

 

[Infinitron]

If you watch the video, you'll see that they've already begun to record the voice acting.

That said, recording sessions for voice acting are typically done quickly. You can't keep the voice actors around for months doing a little bit at a time. I'm sure it's a grueling experience in games with full VO.

 

[:Flash:]

Did anyone order the Collector's Edition and receive the email Swen mentioned?
I pledged CE, but I didn't get an e-mail. Not that I would have wanted a refund.

 

[m_s0]

Voice over work being done when the game is mere weeks away from release sounds pretty rushed to me.

It would've been an issue with games that require tons of work afterwards (animation etc), probably not so much here. It does seem pretty late, though.

 

[deamento]

Did anyone order the Collector's Edition and receive the email Swen mentioned?
I pledged CE, but I didn't get an e-mail. Not that I would have wanted a refund.

I assume that it's only for people who bought the collector's edition after the KS, not the ones who pledged.

 

[The Bishop]

Well, if the track they posted is anything to judge the whole thing by, the D:OS soundtrack shaping up to be pretty remarkable. It's atypically complex and full of nuances for a video game soundtrack, with very expressive (apparently live recorded) strings. Sounds very unusual and fresh.

 

[Infinitron]

Update is out: http://steamcommunity.com/games/230230/announcements/detail/1658762364501410450

Beta update version 1.0.93. Release date updated.
6 JUNE - LAR
Hello everybody!

We

Another weekend, another Divinity:Original Sin update. There were more than a 1000 changes done internally to the game this week so there is lots to check out.

Before trying out the build, you may want to check out our latest Kickstarter update which details the new release date (June 30th) and the reasons for the delay.

There's some pretty good news in there too.

Here is the changelist:

Spoiler

Fixed damage calculations for surfaces, which will make surfaces a bit more forgiving
Fixed situation where combat could get stuck
You will not see progression bars (identify, repair, etc...) for invisible characters
The skillbar will no longer contain empty slots when selecting skills in the character creation menu
Fixed errors in certain materials resulting in GPU errors
You can no longer travel to the Homestead when in combat
Changed some impact effects
Fixed HP desync issue
Improved color formatting on tooltips
Optimized texture streamer, resulting in allround better performance
Fixed player characters not correctly looking at NPC characters in a dialog
Reduced memory usage for scripts
Fixed issue where items could dissapear from your inventory
Petpal is no longer visible in talent list for companions
Item combination UI improvements
Fixed worldmap generator to generate nicer minimaps
NPCs will no longer react to surface damage coming from old surfaces
Memory optimizations for particle systems and effect pools, resulting in game client using around 250Mb less runtime memory.
Sneaking will hide your weapons now
Fixed issue in treasure generation, where certain items were preferred more above others
Added movie to telescope in Homestead
Exposed a lot more call to enemy AI scripts. Resulting in more intelligent AI.
Changed max pickpocket weight
Fixed issue with leadership for dead characters
Fixed big memory leak
Fixed issue where certain items could not be reached by the pathfinder
Added nicer water materials for lakes and rivers
Added sound effects to more surfaces
Items moved from story will no longer do hittests and cause unwanted damage
Projectiles shot from staff are fixed
Changed the way range CTH is calculated. Perception is a lot more important now!
Greatly reduced the amount of (unneeded) sound objects created by the game
Added skill level to tooltips
Loading a savegame won't make the partymembers move
Changed camera behaviour in combat. A lot more intelligent focus on targetted characters is the result
Fixed cone spells being cast in opposite direction when targetting too close
Fixed teleport skill
Added UI notifications when equipment is about to break
A lot of small stability fixes + memory improvements
Fixed seaspider skills not working
Fixed voodoo dolls
Earth summons now do a bit of earth damage
Arrow recovery, Obedient, Armormastery, leadership and luck description
Stats and equipment for Astarte
Snowboots and item combo and treasure
Eglandaer has weapon
Candles now stack
Deleted unused "empty potion" stat
Fixed: crafting knife with crafting 4 created crafting 3 knife
Fixed: dragging potion over ooze barrel no longer destroys barrel
New: can now make lockpicks with needle+needle or with hammer+NiN
New: can now dip arrowhead in ooze barrel to create poison arrowhead
Fixed: turning wood into mush with water bucket no longer destroys bucket
Changed: unbreakable boost only starts from level 16 and higher, when it starts making a difference
Changed: animals now always drop at least 1 thing
Changed: being Lucky and looking in containers now has a chance of finding the "Precious" category
Changed: made 66 changes to food effects: food now heals you less if it has another interesting use, some food types no longer give +2 or higher on primary stats, some foods no longer give high resistance boosts, some foods make you slow, some small alcoholic drinks now have a chance of making you drunk
Fix: changed bloodletting description so it makes sense when you use it on a thing that cannot bleed
Change: treat poisoning now costs more AP but has lower cooldown
Change: helping hand can now also be used to "tap" a burning friend (put it out)
Fix: some drinks were not dropped by treasure
Can now fill bottle with water by combining it with a well
All skill types and schools and classes and such now have the same name everywhere
Renamed Raistlin to Glass Cannon
Rewrote tooltip of Raistlin
Moved bartering ability to Personality category
You get the AP bonus of LoneWolf before AP gets doubled by Raistlin
New damage values for clouds and surfaces
Fixed: All Fear skills
Fixed: Can now eat carrot
Fixed: Gave DKBane skill a more fitting icon
Description of lockpick, clarified
New: Added some item combos with arrowheads that were proposed
New: Can make poison cheese with ooze barrels too
New: some item combos now create more than one instance of end result (e.g. axe + log = 2 branches; knife + branch = 3 arrowshafts; silver + anvil = 4 silver arrowheads
You can now eat Ishmashell (if you dare) or even do other things to it...
Fixed crafting the smokescreen arrow

Please note: Savegames will not be compatible.

Have fun everybody, we're looking forward to your feedback!

 

[LESS T_T]

Love the music.

 

[MicoSelva]

If you watch the video, you'll see that they've already begun to record the voice acting.

That said, recording sessions for voice acting are typically done quickly. You can't keep the voice actors around for months doing a little bit at a time. I'm sure it's a grueling experience in games with full VO.

Just watched it. I like the direction they went with voice-acting. Voicing overhead text only is a great idea that should make the world and characters feel more alive, while actual dialogues can be read at one's own pace, without distractions.

 

[Morality Games]

My goodness but the Codex would be a fantastic venue for gambling. How much do you want to bet they'll need "just two weeks more" on the 30th?

Have to admire Sven's ambitious production standards though.

 

[tuluse]

Remember that time Swen said never to give a release date until you're absolutely sure you can keep it?

 

[Morality Games]

Well, I'll be alright; there's always more games to play.

 

[jdinatale]

Love the music.

When Larian is producing music of this quality, it makes you just want to vomit at what a studio like Obsidian is passing off as "music" in Pillars of Eternity.

 

[Jaesun]

Edgy

 

[NotAGolfer]

Well, it's summer and World Cup is just around the corner so I won't be playing games that much anyway. But I'm looking forward to this nonetheless, there will be time for it, there has to be.

Remember that time Swen said never to give a release date until you're absolutely sure you can keep it?

Remember when Konrad Adenauer said "What do I care about my chitchat from yesterday?"
Me neither, same for that Swen quote.
They have a beta out and it's shaping up to become an awesome final product. Everyone can follow that development, there's nothing shady happening, so stop bitching, you spoiled brats.

 

[Morality Games]

When Larian is producing music of this quality, it makes you just want to vomit at what a studio like Obsidian is passing off as "music" in Pillars of Eternity.

Easy there. It was good, not a revelation.

Based on the recent video, Obsidian's will work in context . . . probably.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Kirill Pokrovsky is just very good. You can't really demand the same kind of quality from your average composer, even a relatively good one.

 

[coldcrow]

K.P. is pretty good as game music composers go. Still he "just" has a very thorough classical education, like almost all russian music students. Standards on russian music academies are very high, as many european bands can verify.
This track reeks of reused classical motives, it's a pleasant change to the normal crap, but no invention of the wheel. Bascially Arcanum all over again. I like it.

 

[Irenaeus]

It's far above anything I heard in games in the last 10 years. Maybe it has reused classical motives, but damn, those are good motives that should be reused more.

 

[Delterius]

I've been listening to it on loop for the last 6 hours on a constant loop in a feeble attempt to keep myself away from the early access.