Divinity: Original Sin 2 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Lacrymas]

Zombra, there's no need to establish a moral perspective at all. There have been many things that have reverted to Nazis, not only in gaming, and it's always in bad taste. They CAN do it, they just wouldn't be showing us anything interesting. I would've expected more from 7 writers, or maybe that's a symptom of having too many cooks.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I have been listening to the Divinity 2 soundtrack again lately and was wondering .. how is the new composer and music? Is it any good?

 

[Seethe]

I have been listening to the Divinity 2 soundtrack again lately and was wondering .. how is the new composer and music? Is it any good?

Kirill is better, but music is decent. It's hard to top Kirill anyway, so it's not a surprise.

 

[norolim]

There's no way in hell they can justify concentration camps to make the evil guys seem reasonable and worthy of consideration, i.e. make them capable antagonists.

Hmmm...

 

[Lacrymas]

Hmmm...

That's what I'm talking about. We already know the historical context on which concentration camps were built, so we, as people who have already gone through this, know that they can't justify them to us. They can justify it to in-narrative characters, just how the real world ones were, but not to us as audience. To us, the people who made those camps are literally Hitler, him now being almost universally condemned. That means he'll fall flat as antagonist because there are no valid ideological differences, there's only evilness incarnate. The antagonist isn't synonymous with "evil" or "bad", it's the person/people who the protagonist is opposed to, either physically or mentally. Which means that there's no need for any kind of moral stance. They are making him/them antagonists to the audience, rather than the characters in-narrative, it just so happens that those two things align. There is no need for someone to preach to us that concentration camps are bad, any kind of disgusting moralization is in bad taste in general, let alone something as pronounced as this. Even if they aren't trying to preach, it's still a very specific allegory which isn't necessary and is banal, not to mention Tolkien's thoughts on allegory.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Lacrymas is interesting in the way he frequently argues dumb shit in a very sophisticated style. Elaborate troll or well spoken moron? You decide!

 

[norolim]

To us, the people who made those camps are literally Hitler.

So, in the light of what I showed you, you're basically saying we're all Hitlers.

 

[Zombra]

To us, the people who made those camps are literally Hitler.

So, in the light of what I showed you, you're basically saying we're all Hitlers.

Right. And therefore all iconically evil, with no sympathetic or relatable traits. No wonder I feel so alienated.

 

[Lacrymas]

norolim, no, I meant the people who made the camps in-game :p Of course there were a lot of other concentration camps in history, but we instinctively think of the Third Reich's camps, that's why I mentioned Hitler, which in hindsight I shouldn't have. What I meant was forced labor/experimentation and death camps. However, all internment/concentration camps are places where people are forcibly held without a trial. They are also not prisoner-of-war camps, those are a different category.

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Lacrymas]

...and we still don't have it on GOG.

 

[RK47]

can't wait to get in that nazi camp, huh?

 

[Aenra]

Really surprising, isn't it... how flawed, deviant or abnormal individuals find Hitlers everywhere? Or have a need to? One would almost wonder why that is.. almost..
Fucking idiots. Half your comforts and needs are met by an immense, unheard of (in terms of scale) exploitation of lesser populaces/races. All so you can bust our balls with your librul agendas or your petty, selfish needs to redefine yourselves as something, anything other THAN flawed, deviant or abnormal individuals. While keeping said comforts.
News at eleven..

Back to topic, i tried reading your posts guys, get a sense of how things are going in D:OS 2, but no one puts spoilers, lol and already i've learned more than i wanted.
So on a general level, how is it? Are you having fun? Any obvious shortcomings? Something else that picked your eye?

 

[SniperHF]

It's Divinity: OS with some tweaks, a story that tries to hard but seems reasonably well written, and a nutty surface curse/bless system. There's a lot of reasons to think it might play differently but it feels very similar to 1 to me outside of balance changes like melee being insanely overpowered.

The economy is also somewhat improved in that you aren't drowning in all sorts of phat redundant loot you can sell for millions of gold pieces. In some ways it goes to far the other direction but overall it's an improvement. I'm sure they will be "fixing" it in short order though since people like their phat loot even in a prison camp where it makes no sense


Also the next patch coming out tomorrow is supposed to mostly be bug fixes and will require a restart, but it will be in a separate beta branch so you'll have opt into it.

 

[Aenra]

SniperHF have you ever felt as if the story dictates your gameplay flow? Or do you find yourself more or less at liberty? Pacing/progression-wise?
edit: sorry man.. last thing. In terms of choices, are you satisfied? Be they in number or depth?

 

[SniperHF]

SniperHF have you ever felt as if the story dictates your gameplay flow? Or do you find yourself more or less at liberty? Pacing/progression-wise?
edit: sorry man.. last thing. In terms of choices, are you satisfied? Be they in number or depth?

I'm not super confident on discussing the choices situation until I play it again after the next patch. There are definitely some binary and consequential choices in there regarding which factions you choose to help or not. Impact gameplay wise is questionable but that's pretty normal.

There are also a few instances of "Help me with this task" - "no I won't help you because I don't want experience for some reason" types. They are mostly minor side quests though.

Characters do react in that as an example if you align yourself with another group after having decided to help another, the one you aligned with first will react negatively after your change. In some ways I actually disappointed by this though because I had gone into that situation just intending to play along up until the point where I could decline to backstab my initial ally but there was no dialog that accounted for this. In this particular instance it was related to a personal story character quest based on my chosen background where I had to murder the leader of the groupI was previously helping. So the "main" quest theoretically could have been impacted if I chose to backstab my ally for my own personal motive. But I haven't tried doing that yet so I'm not sure if there's any meat to it or not.

Story mostly impacts where you can go and not so much what you can do where you are. Since escaping is part of the story in act 1 that makes sense. It really opens up a lot after you escape the first half of act 1. Larian clearly hasn't properly accounted for all the different orders you can approach things in though because I completed a section that had some impact for NPCs I hadn't even met yet depending on what I did. Those NPCs reacted 3 times to the same event and also I could initiate it yet again using my party members. I think this is more an alpha is alpha issue than one of design. There's reactivity in there but it's not all properly implemented yet.

I'm not much of a storyfag either FWIW.

 

[Aenra]

Future-influencing (ie do sth now, someone you haven't even met is affected, 'pay' for it later, unaware as you may be of it) i am fine with. If done right, it enourages both thinking and replays.
What you say is worrying though, as it sounds very Larianesque.

You reminded me of traits.. they ended up being superficial precisely due to the amount of influence we had on them. Project it to the macro scale of D:OS2 quest branching, yeah, i can see a potential issue there. Not in terms of functionality, what you're saying relates to only one side of the coin; even if many iterations later this is fixed, they still have the "players" to worry about. Larian ""fans"" are not exactly famous for their love of complexity, so i can foresee the usual outcry. But that is to be seen.
Needless to say i hope i'm proven wrong. Likewise with loot, would sure love to know they intend to keep it.. restrained. Even after the prison.
Just can't realistically expect them to

 

[LESS T_T]

Dear [Everyone], unfortunately the patch for [Divinity: Original Sin 2] will be delayed. This is due to [Make up something reasonable. DON'T TELL THEM ABOUT THE SCREAMING ELDRITCH HORROR.] We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, and expect the patch to be released in [Jeez, I don't know. How long does it take to get boiling blood out of a server? Next week?].

We're sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Regards,

-Larian Studios

https://www.facebook.com/LarianStudios/posts/1236177429775786

You can see their QA is busy with testing the patch: https://steamdb.info/app/435150/history/

 

[Bésame Mucho]

Dear [Everyone], unfortunately the patch for [Divinity: Original Sin 2] will be delayed. This is due to [Make up something reasonable. DON'T TELL THEM ABOUT THE SCREAMING ELDRITCH HORROR.] We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, and expect the patch to be released in [Jeez, I don't know. How long does it take to get boiling blood out of a server? Next week?].

We're sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Regards,

-Larian Studios

https://www.facebook.com/LarianStudios/posts/1236177429775786

You can see their QA is busy with testing the patch: https://steamdb.info/app/435150/history/

Patented Larian humour.

 

[LESS T_T]

(This tweet was before the delay.)



He was at Steam Dev Days conference.

 

[Jaesun]

And Seattle is having a gigantic wind storm, of which we haven't seen in 50 years tomorrow.....

 

[Alienman]

Maybe it's for research - wind elemental spell or something.

 

[vortex]

He was at Steam Dev Days conference.

Probably Valve has secretly showcased Half Life 3 just to his eyes only.

And Seattle is having a gigantic wind storm, of which we haven't seen in 50 years tomorrow.....

Could it be butterfly effect from hurricane matthew ?

 

[anus_pounder]

So apparently the next EA patch that was due yesterday is now delayed for a bit? What was this patch gonna add? Undead and dorf premade - i.e. never touch - origins?

 

[Sizzle]

So apparently the next EA patch that was due yesterday is now delayed for a bit? What was this patch gonna add? Undead and dorf premade - i.e. never touch - origins?

You'd never touch a character whose origin was written by MCA?