Diveine Divinity

[Andhaira]

Looking back, how do you find the game vs Witcher, NWN2, etc?

IMO DD was an excellent rpg. Th eonly issue I had with it were that it was real time (so combat became tooclicky) and you couldn't have a party. And the worlkd itself; I would have wanted something other than elves, dwarves, orcs.

But it still rocks. The grafix and animations look amazin gto this day, and the music is still among the best. The spells were cool too.

 

[Jasede]

I am trying to play it, but 1), it crashes every ten minutes, and 2), I never played past the first dungeon. If the whole game is like that I don't want to carry on anyway.

 

[Lesifoere]

From what I've heard of TW and MotB, I wouldn't compare DD to them--different leagues and all. DD was a quirky and fun game, but it was nothing innovative or original, and the writing/plot/setting left much to be desired.

I agree that the music was good, though.

 

[Joe Krow]

I'm pretty sure I made it through DD at some point. It reminded me a lot of Ultima 7 as I recall so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Beyond Divinity was very similar but was more focused on combat. I would pass on it.

 

[Lesifoere]

Beyond Divinity blew, hard. It tried to be original with the setting and story, but failed miserably; the writing was even worse, if that's possible. And all the bugs, and the godawful Battlefields with its crappy randomly generated dungeons/quests, not to mention the combat balance and voice-acting.

...also, the novella booklet that came with it was written by Rhianna Pratchett (Terry Pratchett's daughter), and if ever there is a living proof that talent is not in fact hereditary, that's one.

 

[Andhaira]

The interactivity with the world was IMO far superior to MOTB and TW (though nothing compared to u7).

Also, the system itself was imo, quite sweet. That is, the abilities you could get at level up were very sweet. You couldmake nearly any type of sterotypical character or combination, such as sorceror, assassin, ranger, warrior mage, warrior necromancer, etc etc.

Ohadn play the game after the first dungeon; it changes radically (i.e. gets much bette)r. You have total choice of going wherever you want (including are's where the critters can kill you in seconds :D )

 

[Lesifoere]

I prize story, writing and general gameplay far, far, far above "interactivity with the world." So you can... move crates and pick up cutlery. So what? You can do that in Oblivion too.

 

[Jasede]

But can you bake bread? CAN YOU?

If you can't bake bread... It's not a real RPG. [Actually - when they made Ultima 8, in an interview, they said "baking bread is not what made Ultima 7 good; please don't panic that we removed it. We all know how that turned out.]

 

[Andhaira]

Ultima 7 is the reason trade skills exist in MMORPGS. Heck, it was Ultima Online that started themadness. And that, in turn was based off the U7 engine, not any of the Ultima's that cameafter.

Honestly, the Ultima series is responsible for so much innovation, its crazy. Ultima Underworld itself is respnsible for the evolution of fps's and fprpg's.

Anyhow, back to DD, its story was slightly cliched, and nothing revolutioanry, but still fun to play and kept you coming back for more. The gamepla was great through; combat was fun. And there was lots of variety in monsters.

Also, monstersdid not scale. And you could go into reallytough area's too high for your level if you wanted. What this meant is that if you could somehow manage tokill a really tough critter, you got a real sense of accompishment.

Lastly, the in game books to read, the talkative npc's etc gave a lot of history and atmosphere to the world.

IMO i liked DD better than Arcanum. Arcanum was good, and hada agreat char gen system,but its flaws were too many.

 

[Texas Red]

What ruined it for me were weirdly balanced skills and incorrect information on them. Also retardedly huge dungeons

The gameworld was pretty good. The starting village was BEAUTIFUL with a great atmosphere. The characters were diverse and interesting.

In the end of the day it could have been ten times better with a different combat system. As far as Im concerned, Diabloesque combat = shit. At least add a party or something, Jesus, there are infinite amount of options how improve it .

 

[Gonchi]

But can you bake bread? CAN YOU?

If you can't bake bread... It's not a real RPG. [Actually - when they made Ultima 8, in an interview, they said "baking bread is not what made Ultima 7 good; please don't panic that we removed it. We all know how that turned out.]

Well, baking bread didn't help Ascension any, so they were probably onto something.

And I liked DD, the "starter dungeon" sucks, but it gets fun once you reach a decent level and explore a little.

 

[bezimek]

Also, the system itself was imo, quite sweet. That is, the abilities you could get at level up were very sweet. You couldmake nearly any type of sterotypical character or combination, such as sorceror, assassin, ranger, warrior mage, warrior necromancer, etc etc.

- true , system is easy and gives player ability to custom make his alter ego.

interactivity with the world

- true but don`t forget about C&C ( for instance 2 soldiers, prince or vampire .... and war with orks ) and of course your alter ego reputation.

DD is good, stable game ( last patch - I don`t have single CTD) with interesting story and nice ending One of better ending in crpg games.


TW ( load/save time is a killer one and stablity - patch should fix this but we will see ) and MoTB (spirit meter bugs) are different kind of rpg game. IMHO not better, not worst but different.

But can you bake bread? CAN YOU?

If you can't bake bread... It's not a real RPG

yes .... flu or fever :

 

[JarlFrank]

Ultima 7 is the reason trade skills exist in MMORPGS. Heck, it was Ultima Online that started themadness. And that, in turn was based off the U7 engine, not any of the Ultima's that cameafter.

Honestly, the Ultima series is responsible for so much innovation, its crazy. Ultima Underworld itself is respnsible for the evolution of fps's and fprpg's.

Yea, I wish Garriott would go back to the single player RPG market again instead of working on MMOs all the time.

On DivDiv... well, it's fun, got some nice dialogue and minor C&C if I remember correctly, nice gameworld and gameplay, and combat is Diablo-like, but less of a clickfest than the latter. Worth playing till at least the middle of the game.

 

[Keldorn]

I rather disliked the numerically exponential and hyper-exaggerated physical attributes.


I also rather disliked the clickfestian megadoses of combat, even though there was ambient artistry via the glorious isometric viewangle, and ample ground to explore.


Keldorn hereby officially rates Divine Divinity 7.9/10 (Yes, an average).

 

[JarlFrank]

I also rather disliked the clickfestian megadoses of combat, even though there was ambient artistry via the glorious isometric viewangle, and ample ground to explore.

Indeed, the graphics were beautiful. Much love for detail and all that. Also, the inventory system was very Ultima-like, which I liked.

 

[bezimek]

Keldorn hereby officially rates Divine Divinity 7.9/10 (Yes, an average).

You alwayes talk about yourself in third person.

 

[Dhruin]

Fantastic game - my favourite hack'n'slash game of all time. I thought the writing was pretty good with nice touches of humour. Nice gameworld to explore, fantastic skill system with neat alchemy (I loved manually poisoning my weapons) and great interactivity.

The first dungeon is a travesty and the ending Act is weak but well worth the ride. If its reminiscent of Ultima, that's because Larian wanted it to be an Ultima title at one point but couldn't get anywhere on the licencing so they did their own thing.

 

[Volourn]

A horribly overrated game. First village wa sok; but the dungeons and millions of wussy and boring opponents for conmbat absolutely ruined any chance for this game to be any good. Total garbage.

 

[A user named cat]

I'm with Dhruin on this, by far my favorite Diablo clone to date. Still play it from time to time. Beautiful art design, fantastic music (Krill is awesome) and atmosphere - just very immersive. Had no problem with the click combat or dungeon design, it just worked for this game. Also loved the distinction in the different areas you visit, most of it felt unique from one another.

Personally enjoyed it more than I'm enjoying Witcher and anything Bioware has put out over the years. A shame about the sequel, that sidekick had quite possibly the worst voice attached to him possible. Wanted to kill him from the opening dungeon.

 

[Dhruin]

How could I forget the music? Awesome.

I have a current part-finished game on my laptop and still come back to it from time to time. To be fair, I probably have some bias (about 4 RPGDot guys worked for Larian or had close associations and I got to know Larian somewhat) but I could make room for DivDiv in my Top 10. I think...never really made a solid list.

 

[A user named cat]

Kirill (sorry, typoed his name) has the entire Divine Divinity soundtrack up on his site for free. It's probably the only video game soundtrack I've ever DLed that I can sit and listen to when not playing anything. Really relaxing tracks, he has a great sound to his music.

http://www.kirillpokrovsky.com/

 

[Severian Silk]

I got most of the way through it, but couldn't bring myself to finish. I didn't like the clickfest combat, and didn't find the story interesting enough to continue. Plus, finding myself at one point in [spoilar]a world filled with dinosaurs[/spoilar] kind of broke the fourth wall for me (some would consider this a plus).

edit - added spoiler tags, sorry

 

[Norfleet]

Wait, what? Dinosaurs? I don't remember any dinosaurs...

 

[A user named cat]

Because there were none, only lizardmen and such of that sort.

 

[Keldorn]

Keldorn hereby officially rates Divine Divinity 7.9/10 (Yes, an average).

You alwayes talk about yourself in third person.

That is one of the clichés of uncreative writers in their attempt to make characters/NPCs that look like unique, but are totally generic besides referring to themselves in 3rd person. All it usually does is to become annoying for anything but a total nutjob type of character/NPC.

Ooooh, how bitterly uncreative your blind envy has become.