Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pre-Release Thread

[Makabb]

Sven goes to angryjoe's home to preview divinity 2

 

[Aenra]

"mom, i am bringing some people in"
"you have friends Joe????"
"no mom, it's just these nice people from a gaming company, we will be playing a gaem together!!11!"
"together???"
"yes mom...in the living room ok?.. It's just a computer thing, you know?"
"sure hon..you want some pancakes, Mr. Swen was it?"
"(/embarassed)"
"Joe make sure you show these nice people how lovely your room is!"

 

[Makabb]

Sven at one point says to angryjoe


'ah, you are starting to think'

 

[Bubbles]

His relationship with youtubers is complex.

 

[Dorateen]

but asking you to sit there and make four deep, complicated characters might be a bit much

Not, it's not, really. Players have been doing it for decades. Sometimes even six characters. Trust me, we can handle it.

(And if Larian doesn't implement party creation, mods will fix it.)

 

[Zeriel]

Not, it's not, really. Players have been doing it for decades. Sometimes even six characters. Trust me, we can handle it.

(And if Larian doesn't implement party creation, mods will fix it.)

Just like mods fixed it for D:OS, right?

(Hint: there were none.)

 

[Dorateen]

Just like mods fixed it for D:OS, right?

(Hint: there were none.)

http://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin/mods/21/?

 

[Bubbles]

Not, it's not, really. Players have been doing it for decades. Sometimes even six characters. Trust me, we can handle it.

(And if Larian doesn't implement party creation, mods will fix it.)

Full character creation could cause troubles with what they're envisioning for companion AI in single player, where the other characters would act of their own accord against each other and the player character. If you know that the single player party will include three out of six pre-determined characters and one customized wildcard, that will be challenging enough to program and playtest. Now imagine if the party could consist of four wildcards...

 

[Dorateen]

Since when do veteran gamers worry about breaking a cRPG?

 

[Excidium II]

You are not mondblut

 

[LESS T_T]

Somewhat remind me of Deathfire's Psycho Engine concept. I wonder if Guido Henkel will comment on this like he did with Shadow of Mordor.

 

[deuxhero]

I hope when designing the 6 party members mechanically they remember all female parties are always popular. I have bad memories of how unsuited Seiken Densetsu 3 was for it (You had two dedicated mages and a balanced character and can't use magic till a decent bit in.)

- You can kill whoever you want (no important characters) , minimal skills in necromancy allow you to recieve information even from dead ones .

FINALLY! Another game with Arcanum's Summon Spirit mechanic.

I hope it's useable for alternate routes in quests involving dead people like in Arcanum.

 

[LeStryfe79]

The spell combining at the end of that video is great.

 

[Lucky]

The way they describe the 4-player co-op has me tentatively hopeful of what those systems might mean for singleplayer - multiple storylines running in concert, actually reactive party mechanics, lots of different approaches and reactions to the same situation, etcetera. The only thing I'm worried about is that the 'consequence' part will be too light for it to reach its potential. I can see, though, that people might get worried about how important they seem to be making co-op, but I doubt that Larian intends for that to be the main way the game is to be experienced. RPGs like this are so long and already belong to a niche audience, so going through the hoops to get a group of four so that you can play the game the way it's meant to be played, is hardly a realistic expectation to design the game around. I doubt that the amount of people who played Original Sin in co-op are anything more than a small minority, which Larian should be aware off.

Well having an RPGCodex logo again is both a must and glorious (because butthurt). However, instead of memes and NPCs, how about we beg to design one joinable PC?
We get to define his/her/its background, looks, the lot. Just the one, only we get full freedom, ie including dialogues. Which of course we get to decide on after the obligatory compatishun has taken place!

The degeneracy that this place could instill on it would be a wonder to behold, lol.. and there should not be any issue with it (children, language, etc) as you'd need a code to unlock it, right?
Just think of the possibilities ^^
Even if Larian has an issue with swearing, could still be grand without it, all those trademark replies and words used here..just begging for it

Spoiler

he's in your team, you ask him or order him to do something for you, and he replies "Joined: Yesterday.."

Won't happen, even if the Codex brings in an absurd amount of money. Making an exclusive PC for a subset of kickstarters is already a PR-nightmare, let alone one connected to a controversial forum, plus having it designed through mass-input would just result in shoddy craftsmanship.

 

[Bubbles]

I hope it's useable for alternate routes in quests involving dead people like in Arcanum.

I listed an example of that in the front page feature.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Won't happen, even if the Codex brings in an absurd amount of money.

Codex doubles the KS amount, Codex gets a custom DOS2 PC


so yeah, wont happen

 

[Infinitron]

I doubt that the amount of people who played Original Sin in co-op are anything more than a small minority, which Larian should be aware off.

It would appear that Swen believes that multiplayer features are a prime reason, perhaps the prime reason. for his game's success. It's why he thinks Sword Coast Legends is his greatest competitor.

So, I'm not sure that's true.

 

[deuxhero]

I listed an example of that in the front page feature.

I meant already dead people. There were lots of already dead people you could talk to in Arcanum for stuff.

 

[Bubbles]

I meant already dead people. There were lots of already dead people you could talk to in Arcanum for stuff.

Oh, like in Pillars of Eternity? There were a couple of chatty spirits standing around the cemetery, yeah.

 

[Zeriel]

It would appear that Swen believes that multiplayer features are a prime reason, perhaps the prime reason. for his game's success. It's why he thinks Sword Coast Legends is his greatest competitor.

So, I'm not sure that's true.

I think multiplayer plays better in marketing/demonstrations, but isn't how most people play the game most of the time. He wouldn't be the first game developer to confuse the two, though.

 

[vonAchdorf]

He should have user data / analytics to support his assumptions or doesn't the game have analytics? He literally doubled down on multiplayer (4 players, coop and "competitive coop").

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.gamepressure.com/e.asp?ID=254

In other words – you are not even considering adding things like optional quest marks, etc.?

No. The way we developed our game, quests and adventures – we simply cannot do that even if we wanted to. There are some improvements over the original system – people will see it for the first time in the Enhanced Edition. Some things are going to be a little bit more clear to the players. There won’t be any quest marks, but solving the puzzles will be more obvious if you look around carefully enough. We are “helping” players more, but it’s still up to them to find every single solution. You do that not because it’s easy to find, but because you are exploring the environment and options that are given to you by our RPG system. We don’t want you to feel like “I’m stuck, I don’t know what to do” – by fooling around with objects you are eventually going to solve the quest.

Yeah, in the first Original Sin the frustration was quite, well, popular. I remember this one quest – note that when I was reviewing the game there wasn’t even a single guide yet so I had to figure out everything by myself – where you had to put some objects on a platform. If the weight was right, you were opening the next gate… I finally made it and was extremely proud of myself, but…

And that was our goal. We didn’t change this quest in the Enhanced Edition, it’s still up there. But we implemented some small hints that will make the whole process more obvious, plus the interface is going to be a much better, so placing objects with specific weight will be easier. No one will tell you what to do, but finding a solution shouldn’t be as hard as it was. We are investing a lot of money in aspects like that – in improving interface, so the players can explore their options more easily.

Ok, that sounds promising. Looking at all those artworks in your office for the Original Sin 2, it seems that the sequel is going to be much darker, mysterious and serious. Am I getting the right impression?

Yes, you are right. It’s still going to be humorous from time to time, though. There’s a lot of extra effort being put in the narrative. In the first one it was more like “well, we need to place something here to fill the plot-whole, let’s just invent something”. But now, several of our writers are working on a lorebook – explaining every detail of the lore, our world, creatures, history, background, etc. – to make everything reasonable, connected and as comprehensive as possible. In game, you will never see it in so much details, unless you are going to read the lorebook, but…

Are you planning to release it somehow?

Yeah, we will probably release it, it’s a wonderful piece of work actually. And if you read it and then play the game – everything that you encounter will make perfect sense. It just makes a game so much better – knowing the fact that every detail, like behavior of the dwarves and their political situation, is extensively explained, absolutely changes the experience during the gameplay. It was mostly possible thanks to tripling out our narrative team – we took the new guys from completely different backgrounds. Some of them are experienced Dungeon Masters, but there are also screenwriters who worked on fictional stories all their life. Writing and pacing the story is a very complex matter and now we are capable of handling it even better than before.

Looks like the interviewer had same time slot with Bubbles.

Photo by Bubbles:

Photo by gamepressure:

 

[Lucky]

It would appear that Swen believes that multiplayer features are a prime reason, perhaps the prime reason. for his game's success. It's why he thinks Sword Coast Legends is his greatest competitor.

So, I'm not sure that's true.

Did he say that explicitly, though? I took from the interview that he certainly sees it as a major feature, but the mechanics he describes are equally viable for singleplayer. As far as multiplayer being the main draw, I only saw Bubbles mention that Swen thought Sword Coast Legends was a major competitor, nothing more. I can't imagine he actually thinks that the multiplayer was the main selling point of Original Sin, especially seeing as how the co-op mechanics weren't even fully implemented on release and yet it still sold very well.

 

[Infinitron]

Depends what you mean by "main selling point". Is it the reason for the majority of sales? Probably not. Is it the reason why the game sold a lot more than certain other single player RPGs? Could be.

 

[Bubbles]

Swen cited SCL as a major competitor because of its multiplayer. We discussed my impression of the game at Gamescom a bit, and he only wanted to know if co-op was fun.