Company News Call of Divinity? Larian plans to release RPGs annually from three different studios

[Archibald]

"How could a company destroy itself after a hugely successful KS game?"

Swen's come back from unlikely odds before so I'm still inclined to believe him a little bit, but so much of Larian is defined by the company culture, and it seems, Swen's individual decision-making. Will he be able to exert quality control and financial control over those other studios?

Well this will show us if Swen is just a Batman or a Superman.

 

[Abu Antar]

I hope they don't overdo it which it sounds to me they are doing. I wouldn't mind an annual rpg from these guys, but if one fails, their expansion could bite them in the ass. Good luck to them and I hope they keep on making cool games.

 

[karnak]

They should hire Cleve Blakemore.
That man can produce an average of 2 massive hardcore RPGs per year.

 

[CRD]

I really hope their strategy works as will do a lot of good for us, but I think that they will turn to make games for consoles and not all the products will be high quality

Also as someone already said, ffs, hire new decent writers.

 

[twincast]

Yeah, my immediate reaction is utter dread...

Then again, Crytek has somehow managed to survive overexpansion...

The same Crytek that is focusing on mobile now after sacking around 200 employees?

I said that it survived overexpansion, nothing more. By which I meant downsizing again without going under.
The last thing the company did before turning into utter shit was release the first Crysis, which was ages ago.

 

[a Goat]

They should hire Cleve Blakemore.
That man can produce an average of 2 massive hardcore RPGs per year.

'thal*

 

[Outlander]

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[Andnjord]

Sven you magnificent bastard, you better not mess this up!

 

[pakoito]

I'm waiting for the Enhanced Edition that's inevitably going to drop soonish before restarting a new run.

New game announced at E3 tho.

 

[taxalot]

Don't they realize that grown men have only so much free time in a year, that RPGs are very long games and that some people like to play games from different companies once in a while ? Putting out a lot of games, however good they are, is as far as I'm concerned pure certainty that I won't play most of them. I figure I'm not the only one in this situation.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Don't they realize that grown men have only so much free time in a year, that RPGs are very long games and that some people like to play games from different companies once in a while ? Putting out a lot of games, however good they are, is as far as I'm concerned pure certainty that I won't play most of them. I figure I'm not the only one in this situation.

You don't have to play them. Just buy it .

 

[taxalot]

Oooooh I see what you did there

 

[krist2]

Seems like a big chance to take, but hope it'll work out for Larian.

And it's good news for me if it works, as I get all games from Larian for free for the next ten years because of pledge level at kickstarter :D

 

[cfisher2833]

I think Sven can manage. If they've lasted this long, I think they can endure. How they managed to stay afloat in the first place is pretty fucking baffling to begin with considering how many studios who have produced much more popular games went down the toilet.

 

[Perkel]

I hope they won't be stupid to release same game every year.

Though i wouldn't mind expanded dragon commander just without RTS battles and more of grand strategy.

 

[DraQ]

I hope they won't be stupid to release same game every year.

Though i wouldn't mind expanded dragon commander just without RTS battles and more of grand strategy.

The thing is there wouldn't be much Dragon left in Dragon Commander then.

The problem wasn't RTS battles. The problem was that RTS layer was too rudimentary (so was the strategy layer) and that layers didn't really talk with each other in a sensible manner.

What RTS needed was:

• No unit production.
• Better integration of dragon mode.
  
• Diverse maps.

Unit production was a clusterfuck. It clashed with strategic layer, reduced most of the tactics to "roll a blob" and limited viability of dragon as you had to not just fight and command your army, but also keep churning out units all the time.
Dragon mode was incredibly poorly integrated - not only was it blocked for a long time (making it not an option when trying to blitz the map with superior starting force), but it also offered crippled interface for commanding your forces, and you couldn't respawn and despawn as needed as it ate your recruits.

Instead of having separate dragon and RTS modes, you should have just the dragon mode, right from the start, with a key toggling between fully functional RTS interface with normal cursor (from dragon's POV) and aiming your dragon. There should be no unit production (or limited one, only infantry - actual infantry, mecha should be mecha), so that you'd have no mysteriously appearing units that vanish when you're beck to strategy map, nor hectic blob rolling.

Finally, unique, interesting maps with no map recycling - as it was, if you've seen a few battles you've seen them all.

Other than that RTS layer wasn't badly done - units were pretty diverse and fun to use, projectiles were physics based with all the fun quirks of such approach, etc.
Far better than I'd ever dream of considering no prior experience in making an RTS.

I'd love to play the early "fantasy Homeworld in the skies" version, though. It looked much more inspired, even though I don't think anchoring the gameplay to gains on the ground was a bad idea.

 

[pakoito]

Can't you configure that on a custom campaign? Yo don't get the history mode tho.

 

[Perkel]

I hope they won't be stupid to release same game every year.

Though i wouldn't mind expanded dragon commander just without RTS battles and more of grand strategy.

The thing is there wouldn't be much Dragon left in Dragon Commander then.

The problem wasn't RTS battles. The problem was that RTS layer was too rudimentary (so was the strategy layer) and that layers didn't really talk with each other in a sensible manner.

What RTS needed was:

• No unit production.
• Better integration of dragon mode.
  
• Diverse maps.

Unit production was a clusterfuck. It clashed with strategic layer, reduced most of the tactics to "roll a blob" and limited viability of dragon as you had to not just fight and command your army, but also keep churning out units all the time.
Dragon mode was incredibly poorly integrated - not only was it blocked for a long time (making it not an option when trying to blitz the map with superior starting force), but it also offered crippled interface for commanding your forces, and you couldn't respawn and despawn as needed as it ate your recruits.

Instead of having separate dragon and RTS modes, you should have just the dragon mode, right from the start, with a key toggling between fully functional RTS interface with normal cursor (from dragon's POV) and aiming your dragon. There should be no unit production (or limited one, only infantry - actual infantry, mecha should be mecha), so that you'd have no mysteriously appearing units that vanish when you're beck to strategy map, nor hectic blob rolling.

Finally, unique, interesting maps with no map recycling - as it was, if you've seen a few battles you've seen them all.

Other than that RTS layer wasn't badly done - units were pretty diverse and fun to use, projectiles were physics based with all the fun quirks of such approach, etc.
Far better than I'd ever dream of considering no prior experience in making an RTS.

I'd love to play the early "fantasy Homeworld in the skies" version, though. It looked much more inspired, even though I don't think anchoring the gameplay to gains on the ground was a bad idea.

Imo game completely didn't need RTS mode because you will be fighting tens of battles each new campaign and they are all essentially the same.

Good RTS is all about mission design. You can't create 100 good designed missions and even if you do they will be repeating like motherfucker.

On other hand their map strategy was interesting and dealing with battles via commanders much more fun.
They should expand greatly that aspect of game and make it deep.

 

[Branm]

3 games a year?? Yeah....good luck with that...Gotta milk all the Larian fanboys that appeared after D:OS


I'll just leech the games

 

[m_s0]

3 games a year?? Yeah....good luck with that...Gotta milk all the Larian fanboys that appeared after D:OS

Nah. That's a game a year, from 3 studios, so you get a 3-year development cycle for each game once (if) it's all put into motion. It's not unreasonable in terms of scheduling, at least in theory.

 

[DraQ]

Imo game completely didn't need RTS mode because you will be fighting tens of battles each new campaign and they are all essentially the same.

Good RTS is all about mission design. You can't create 100 good designed missions and even if you do they will be repeating like motherfucker.

On other hand their map strategy was interesting and dealing with battles via commanders much more fun.
They should expand greatly that aspect of game and make it deep.

Can't really agree.

TBS was a fun flavour addition, but way too simplistic to carry the game. RTS, OTOH was almost there, all it needed was content and rather straightforward changes to mechanics that crippled it in terms of pacing.
Plus RTS was pretty much THE game.
It was the game about flying around as a dragon with jetpack and commanding your army to raze whatever you couldn't burninate yourself.

Now in game like DC you couldn't really have mission design in conventional sense, because you have too much strategic freedom.
Prerequisite to mission design, however, is area design, and that's something DC just didn't have.
Having distinct 3D geography would necessitate distinct approaches in different maps and make them play differently.

Another thing that would move the game closer to having mission design would be allowing player to choose what they want to accomplish rather than conquer-or-lose.

That's how I'd see it:

• each battle area corresponds, topographically, to it's part of the strategic map. Typically it's centered on a city, it also has identifiable borders.
• special buildings from strategic map are also represented on RTS map.
• Fortification level is represented by presence and type of pre-placed defensive structures.
  
• game doesn't declare victory or defeat of either of sides, battle ends when at most one side has any units on the map, this side remains in control of the map.
• Units moved to friendly or neutral border of the map can be withdrawn, they will end up in the corresponding province on strategic map after the battle. Units moved to hostile border are also removed from the map, they end up invading respecitve province in the next turn.

This basically means that you'd be able to choose to achieve any goal with your invasion, not necessarily capturing and holding ground.
You want to inflict losses and withdraw? You can. You want to perform a strategic strike against infrastructure or defenses, then retreat? You can. You want to push deeper instead of capturing particular area? You can. You want to break through with reinforcements to a besieged province? You want to depopulate province? Yep.
The game wouldn't declare victory or loss, all it would tell you would be who controls the province, what's it remaining population, fortification level and strategic buildings, and who has how many units in it and surrounding provinces.

Now for the dragon:

• You start as a dragon and it's the only RTS camera you have
• You have a key that toggles normal cursor at which point dragon functions more or less as normal RTS camera although it can be attacked.
  
• If you die as a dragon it's game over (Jetpack button acts as panic button in the RTS UI, instantly returning you to combat mode and possibly auto-propelling you upwards until you release it).
• You can personally withdraw at any point through a friendly border or upwards, from this point the remainder of the battle uses auto-calculate, based on units, population and fortification level left on the field of battle.

Now for counter-blob:

• No unit production possibly except infantry (true infantry, not giant mecha as infantry, also squishy). What you had on strategy map is what you can use during the mission.

Now, since this would break the base building I propose:

• Building pads are replaced by buildings, the difference is mostly cosmetic apart from
  • buildings being destructible
  • buildings "consuming" infantry when captured (and returning it when released)
  • captured building becoming basic defence structures (firing like infantry but better shielded)
  • occupied buildings can be captured the same way as unoccupied, except either defending or attacking infantry units are ablated at random, weighted in defenders advantage, until there is one side left in the building.
• Captured buildings can be converted for special purposes, like making or storing given ammo type, training infantry, etc. (works like building buildings in the original apart from cosmetic side where preexisting building gets adorned with appropriate doodads), this uses up part of your recruited population, which is released if you vacate the building (and doodads get deconstructed)
  
• Units have finite ammo counts. Special abilities also mostly use their own ammo which is finite.
• Units replace ammo as long as they have clear path to factory or stockpile, path can be blocked by enemy units, enemy zones of fire (for short range units) and projectile impacts (for artillery) - basically logisitcs is abstracted and as long as transports could be assumed to get through the ammo is replenished.
  
• Friendly borders count as inefficient, but universal ammo factories.

As an extra:

• Destroying civilian dwellings depopulates the area. Civilian and unit losses damage your popularity with given race and any race that is particularly averse to senseless loss of life (mainly lolves and lizards).
  
• A side that has very low support may suffer random destruction of units and buildings and/or attacks by randomly spawned AI controlled infantry (militias)
• The side with very high support may get random ammo replenishment and gains controls over AI controlled militias it encounters.

 

[tuluse]

Just copy total war, but you're a dragon.

 

[Aenra]

DraQ
why not spread those wings a bit and make these suggestions in their forum? They do listen

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=46&page=1

 

[DarkUnderlord]

We are a small player alongside the giants, but we are totally independent and we handle ourselves stages, even distribution of our games, "says the CEO of the company with 70 people currently.

Yeah, uhhh... Who are these "giants" by comparison? I don't know of any other RPG company that has three development studios spread across 3 different continents...

 

[Haba]

Bioware - 600+ employees
Bethesda Game Studios - 100+ employees
Larian - 30+ employees

Plus outsourcing from multiple locations. Plus all the resources under the publisher's wing.