Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pre-Release Thread

[Fry]

Yes, Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, and Divinity II were all reviewed in well known PC gaming magazines like PC Gamer, the later Divinity II was also featured elsewhere.

PC Gamer UK or PC Gamer US? There wasn't always a ton of crossover back in 2002.

Divinity II definitely got some attention here, but I had never heard of Larian before that.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

PC Gamer UK or PC Gamer US? There wasn't always a ton of crossover back in 2002.

Divinity II definitely got some attention here, but I had never heard of Larian before that.

It was both PC Gamer US and UK. And in divine divinity's case PC Gamer US rated it as higher than the UK version of the magazine. I learned about Divine Divinity from the PC Gamer US magazine and they included a demo of the game that I liked a lot.

 

[Bubbles]

Niche games and lousy marketing? Did Larian actually do the rounds at North American games sites/magazines and trade shows before DOS?

They've also been going to E3 since 2000, with LMK.

 

[Raze]

Can't wait for this grounded and more mature game in the Divinity series.
*camouflages as a boulder with legs and walks away*

The sneak animation will be changed for D:OS 2.

I wonder if any part of the OS 2 Kickstarter's success is due to listing Sacramento instead of Ghent as the company location.

For D:OS, a company needed a legal presence in the US to use Kickstarter, so the Larian Studios LLC had to be formed. Kickstarter has expanded quite a bit since then, but everything was already set up and presumably changing the company, country and all the related accounts, etc, if possible, wasn't worth the effort.

 

[Bubbles]

For D:OS, a company needed a legal presence in the US to use Kickstarter, so the Larian Studios LLC had to be formed. Kickstarter has expanded quite a bit since then, but everything was already set up and presumably changing the company, country and all the related accounts, etc, if possible, wasn't worth the effort.

I mean that the D:OS Kickstarter page claims that the game was being made in Ghent, while the D:OS 2 site gives the location as Sacramento. Probably doesn't make a lick of difference though.

 

[AetherVagrant]

I found out about Divine Divinity from mainstream US websites.
I read the previews and reviews for the subsequent games from mainstream, US news sites.
In fact, it was the fucking gamespot/ign/pc gamer reviews that sold me on even trying the first game despite being worried it would be another diablo clone.

they just never sold that well because they werent the kind of games to get big posters, front-place shelf placement, and other shit that used to be important in the Gamestop/EB games era of pc sales.

Also while ive encountered bugged sidequests, I never broke a larian game to the point of being unable to continue the main story. Baldurs gate im constantly trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to fix it just so i can progress.

I love the kickstarter videos. Sven has a passion and vibrancy and desire for attention that's rare in boring-ass developerland. maybe he learned his lesson from previous times, maybe its just a whole new generation of social media pervasiveness, but if he did the sort of promotion then as he is now, i think all the other games would have sold more, or been able to get enough fan feedback so that Larian could have made the games closer to their original vision without the publisher freaking out.

 

[Nael]

I love the kickstarter videos. Sven has a passion and vibrancy and desire for attention that's rare in boring-ass developerland. maybe he learned his lesson from previous times, maybe its just a whole new generation of social media pervasiveness, but if he did the sort of promotion then as he is now, i think all the other games would have sold more, or been able to get enough fan feedback so that Larian could have made the games closer to their original vision without the publisher freaking out.

Swen is higher than shit. Anyone that's spent at least a year in college could tell you he is eating Adderall like Junior Mints at this point.

 

[Roguey]

The sneak animation will be changed for D:OS 2.

That's disappointing.

*remove cute uniqueness, use the same hunched over animation everyone else uses*

 

[Ellef]

I have a feeling DOS2 will be even more ridiculous in its heavy-handed attempt at a 'serious' narrative.

 

[Sjukob]

I have a feeling DOS2 will be even more ridiculous in its heavy-handed attempt at a 'serious' narrative

I am starting to share your thoughts already .

 

[Athelas]

That's disappointing.

*remove cute uniqueness, use the same hunched over animation everyone else uses*

You'll probably barely notice the different animation since the enemies you'll be sneaking up on will be too busy swearing and showing off their breasts, in keeping with the new gritty direction.

 

[Roguey]

Figuratively fuck everyone who said "the problem with Divinity Original Sin is that it isn't more like other games."

 

[Nael]

Who said that?

 

[Roguey]

Who said that?

Enough people to make them make a lot of changes to the tone of the sequel.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Enough people to make them make a lot of changes to the tone of the sequel.

Yeah, there were a couple of threads on the Larian forums that commented about wanting it changed.

 

[pakoito]

C'mon, everyone here assume their part, how many "fuck these warcraft 3 graphics" posts were there? Hundreds?

I didn't mind it, I like it because it abstracts concepts.

Now we'll get overdetailed grimdark oversized spiky shoulderpads.

And don't make me go back to that post I made to pre- amd post-Madureira art.

 

[Ellef]

Figuratively fuck everyone who said "the problem with Divinity Original Sin is that it isn't more like other games."

Well said. I want them to keep the same tone, just write it better. These cunts who think grim = good writing are the ones fellating GRRM for his hackery.

 

[Neanderthal]

Thought Div Div just about hit nail on head wi writing, preferred art design an all, but then again I played OS and enjoyed it for what it were and never thought o asking for owt different. That said I think they could ave done wi a beefy bodytype for birds, an a skinny one for blokes.

 

[Infinitron]

Welcome to Quebec: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin-2/posts/1360696

Flying Solo
Since we've launched the campaign, one of the biggest questions that we've been getting is "will the single-player experience will be as in-depth and interesting as multiplayer?". The answer is - of course

We know it can be hard to get four friends together to regularly play through something as long and in-depth as a Divinity game. So, while we've been spending a lot of time talking about the multiplayer experience, we haven’t forgotten that it's important that the single player game is just as engaging and fun.

The secret we discovered with Divinity: Original Sin 1 is that allowing for cooperative multiplayer in the manner we do it enriches the single player experience tremendously.

Every time we try to wrap our heads around the different possibilities of a quest designed for multiplayer, we're able to go and feed all of that extra content back into the world, which means it's all right there for you when you walk up with a single player party.

It also adds a huge amount of roleplaying to the world. Thanks to the multiplayer effort, each of your companions can interact with the world as if they were your main character with dialog options that correspond with their origin story. So if you have an elf in your party, it might be more interesting to interact with an elven ancestor tree using your elf rather than your dwarven warrior. But if you interact with your dwarven warrior, you will get different reactions.

While this is all very cool, we did make sure that your main character still remains special. If the advanced relationship system gets in, then you’ll be able to roleplay the relationship options from the viewpoint of your main character, but not from the viewpoint of your companions. That ensures your relationship decisions feel weighty and that you can’t manipulate your companions.

The same goes for persuasion. Persuasion dialogs pop up whenever members of the party have different opinions. We obviously have a large range of persuasion options available in multiplayer and each party member will have its say. In single player however these options will not appear. Instead, the companions will state what they they think is the right course of action depending on their own beliefs and perhaps also the relationship with the main character.

With regards to competitive questing, it’s not so that your companions will go off on their own. There’s a number of PVP things that will be limited to multiplayer and that won’t pop up in single player. However, the fact that we have competitive questing ensures that there’s a broad spectrum of options available to your party in single player, more so than would ordinarily be the case.

 

[Aenra]

Not sure if mentioned anywhere, but:

SWORD COAST LEGENDS NEW LAUNCH DATES

ORLANDO, Fla. – September 22, 2015 – Independent developers, n-Space and Digital Extremes, announced today that Sword Coast Legends™, a party-based RPG set in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) Forgotten Realms universe from Wizards of the Coast has a new release date. Sword Coast Legends is now scheduled to launch for PC, Mac, & Linux on Tuesday, October 20, 2015

https://swordcoast.com/content/sword-coast-legends-new-launch-dates

Someone smelled the coffee and decided to up their own ante..or i'm just wearing a tinfoil hat and the SCL really is bug-ridden. Either way, not good

Infinitron i mixed up the threads, lol..should have posted that in the D:OS I thread, my bad. You want to move/delete it, no problem. And my apologies once more :s

 

[Jedi Exile]

Swen is on Reddit right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3lz39o/we_are_larian_studios_developers_of_divinity/

 

[LESS T_T]

Soms AMA answers. (Swen is the Swen, Jan is the lead writer, Char is a writer, Jeff is a senior level designer.):

Can you explain a little about what the Game Master stretch goal is?

Swen: The idea is that we'll have one player who'll be able to introduce encounters, objects, traps, environmental effects, quest templates and perhaps even new areas on the fly. We've been talking about it for a long time & if we get the opportunity to put a dedicated team on it, I think we'll come up with something very cool. Especially with the competitive/coopeartive mechanics we have.


You guys seem to be big Ultima fans, and you've cited Ultima VII as a big influence on your games. There have been rumors swirling around that EA was considering hiring Larian to work on an Ultima game. I'm assuming you can't confirm such rumors if they are true, but would you have interest working on an Ultima game if you are able?

Swen: Yes!

Was there this rumor, huh? Anyway, as much as I want to see how Larian would make an Ultima game, EA is a big NO.

Are you guys going with same kind off music theme in D:OS 2, and do you guys have composer for D:OS 2 already? Loved the music theme in D:OS. RIP Kirill Pokrovsky.

Swen: We're talking to different composers and will probably make a decision soon. All of the ones that we are talking to are composers that showed a deep respect for Kirill's legacy but obviously we'll want them to do their own thing too.


Will there be any VR options in D:OS2?

Jeff: We will at some point experiment with it but right now this is not our priority.


I know there will be more races ,but will there be more appearance customization for those races? In Original Sin if I wanted my guy to look like a more slender wizard or rogue type I was completely out of luck, which kind of killed it for me.

Jan: Body type variety isn't planned at the moment for a variety of reasons. But we will have all those races though: no less than five!


Is Dragon Commander finished? I found the game very cool and creative but nothing seems to have happened with it since launch.

Swen: We don't have any plans to continue working on Dragon Commander. Personally I'd love a Dragon Commander 2 but the focus for the moment is on D:OS 2. We'll see what happens after that.


What's it like writing these games? What's the process like when you get a team of writers together?

Char: Hey there! It's .... exciting and chaotic!

We work in a very collaborative writing environment. So, we'll start out brainstorming together either in a room or over Skype. Then, once we are tired of arguing, we'll all head into a collaborative document and type it all up, editing and changing each others' work the whole time. Sometimes (like earlier today!), we can have 5 writers all working on the same paragraph at the same time, fine-tuning it to perfection. It's like gardening with words!

At the end of the day, everything needs to pass the eagle eyes of Jan and Swen ... and then we pick up what didn't work and either throw it out or make notes for what needs to be changed. And then it's back to the drawing board again...


Hi Swen, Mainly wanted to say hi to the team from a former teammate (Sébastien Van Deun here) but also ask the following: Would you plan a remake of the first games (Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity) using the engine of D:OS / D:OS2 ? that would be sweet (although probably take quite some effort to realise... maybe an extra strech goal?)

Swen: Hi Sebastien! I thought about that but in the end decided we're better off doing new things. Life is too short as is. Hope you're doing well!


Swen, what would you like to see from a fan created adventure using the divinity editor?

Jeff: Swen will answer at some point but me, I would like to see a Tower Defence, haha. Hi Windemere by the way!

Swen: Something that surprises me and that makes me skip work


Will the 4 player coop ohave some way to still have a way to win arguments. Example - I use my charisma and its greater than any other trait someone uses...so I win decision/agurment. If yes - will you be able to choose anay trait and will NPC's individually be more susceptible to specific character traits? IE - maybe a woman/widow is better effected by romance?

Swen: We have a new system that is more about letting the other companions/rest of the party know what you think about something. If you listen to it or not then affects your relationship with them but you're free to do as you want. It's also possible to say that something is really important to you as in - I'm ready to fight over this. We're still prototyping this but so far it seems to work well.

Thanks for the reply! I really loved the rock/paper/scissors. It gave the game a great sesnse of decision making...and made it even funnier when someone decided to break that decision. I was a bit sad when I saw it was removed.

Swen: It didn't work well with 4 players and the new system really has a lot going for it. But we tend to change a lot during development so I really wouldn't be able to tell you know what the final system is going to look like except that it'll probably be the best one we could come up with during development


What do you guys think of Pillars of Eternity? I have to say I really like some of the streamlining (like not having to manage inventory for non-critical stuff like crafting ingredients)

Char: I didn't get anywhere close to finishing it yet, but I enjoyed the start a lot! I'm a pretty huge fan of Baldur's Gate, so I really liked playing something that felt similar. Also, don't tell me what happens with Aloth, because I love that character and am determined to play more to find out

Swen: I only played it for an hour so far so I really can't make a comment. But we did make a lot of improvements to item management in D:OS EE so hopefully that'll help.


Have you ever thought of doing a MMO? Were you happy people ended up making Div 1 four player even though it was a feature you scrapped?

Jan: No, an MMO is not our cup of tea, but a four player RPG most certainly is! So yes, we thought it was cool that people created a four player mod and this time it'll be a very important feature of Divinity: Original Sin 2 from the get-go.


1) Besides RPG's and Strategy Games, what kind of game would the writers and Larian Studios like to work at?

2) For writers and Designers: Which old piece of writing or which gamedesign-decision do you still like, even if the final product wasn't as good as you wished?

3) Why the "more grounded" narrative, after the more cosmic story of Original Sin 1?

Jan: 1) A GTA-style Space Opera would suit me just fine! ;-) 2) I loved writing Dragon Commander. I could write Edmund all day! 3) We want to grip the players more and make the story more personal to you as you progress. The story still features plenty of fantasy though, so don't worry if that is what you're after!


Hi! I heard that the love and rival relationship (if we reach that stretch goal) will be linked with your characters origins, at least that was the idea, i find that idea cool but how limited will you be in options?

Swen: There'll always be limits obviously but we'll do our best to hide them. We're currently toying around with a number of systems and once we find one that we think really works (and that is feasible productional),we'll present it to you.


I'm really excited about dedicated mod support in D:OS 2. If we reach this stretch goal (last I checked, we only had ~$100k left, so it's close!), what kind of tools can we expect for modders to use? Do you expect to have something as encompassing and simple as, say, the Construction Kits in Bethesda games?

Jeff: It will depend on a lot of things. Like I answer somewhere earlier the 1st thing with want to do is reducing the amount of clicks and then after that creating tool easier for non-professional. After that, if the community want something like the Construction Kits we'll have a look for sure.

Swen: Our ambition is going to be to make it really simple but it remains complex stuff, so I really can't say at this point how well we'll manage. It'll certainly help that we'll have people dedicated to improve the modding.


I've already bought the PC version, but do you think there is a chance that D:OS could make its way to Wii U? I realize that the console has a small player base, but it is starved for RPGs compared to just about everything else. Imagine if one player was playing on the screen while another was playing on the GamePad.

Swen: As it happens, we have a guy in the team who did a fantastic port of a well known game to the Wii U. I'll ask him Also - Thomas agrees with you and thinks it's the perfect platform for D:OS.

Swen: So I asked him and he jumped out of the window, so I guess that's a no


I'd still love to see what you planned for LMK, or what you guys could do with such a rich ruleset in the end. So what is your current mindset regarding it? Would you say you'd like to work on something like that again? Or that you grew out of it?

Swen: It remains a real pity LMK never saw the daylight but I don't think we'll be returning to it. By now some of the concepts are outdated.


Is the rivalry-love stretch goal gonna be a 'dynamic' system like the Rock Paper Scissor responses system of the first game or is it gonna be actual narrative content (ie, actual side-stories, so to call them)? The description in the KS is really vague.

Char: It will be both! Firstly, there will be actual narrative content with each companion. Then, within the narrative, the player must make dynamic choices that will determine the next stage of that relationship. If we hit the stretch goal, we will provide more detail in an update. I should also add that we are still prototyping things on this front, so nothing is set in stone at this stage..


How is the romance option for npc's panning out. Not going to lie, that part of, for example, in Bioware games, was one of my favorite parts. So I was just curious how in depth it could go. If we get that stretch goal of course. Again thanks so much for this!

Char: We are planning a huge range of options within relationships - from love to hate and everything in between! So, indeed, you could stop working together, you could become bitter enemies, you could kill him (and/or resurrect him).

We were actually working on varieties of relationship charts today - figuring out exactly how different characters could relate to each other and the various options for them. So, we are considering romance to be one part of a WIDE relationship world, one that takes into account many variables as you interact with other player characters and/or NPCs. I can't say too much more on the details at the moment, but hopefully we'll make the stretch goal and be able to do a whole update on relationships


Are you guys going to be changing up the journal in EE or OS2? It was fine, but could get confusing or cumbersome with lots of quests.

Jan: We've done quite some rewrites for the journal of the Enhanced Edition, and there have been UI improvements as well. As for DOS2, I think we'll have to think long and hard about the journal, what with different origins, competitive questing, etc.

 

[Infinitron]

Was there this rumor, huh? Anyway, as much as I want to see how Larian would make an Ultima game, EA is a big NO.

Might be confusing them with Obsidian.

Also, yet more evidence of the emerging Aloth fangirl brigade.

 

[LESS T_T]

Only thing I can imagine remotely related to that is this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05/15/interview-divinity-original-sin-enhanced-edition/2/

RPS: Do you think there’s an extent to which some of the games that inspired Original Sin – and I’ll always talk about Ultima VII, you know that – never really received follow-ups or had their intricacies carried forward. They became dead-ends to an extent so people want to revisit them, which feels like looking back – but it’s actually a form of looking forward.

Vincke: Yeah. We think alike there. Back in the nineties, certain parts of the tree that are game development weren’t explored anymore and were killed off for no good reason. There’s something very strong about some of those leaves. I’m pretty sure that if somebody made a real modern Ultima VII with all of the schedules and day/night cycles and stuff, that would work well. That’s a no-brainer to me. To that extent, I never understood what they’ve done to the Ultimas. I mean…well, don’t get me started (laughs).

......

RPS: Do you have any interest in working with a license? I’m digging now.

Vincke: Maybe you’ve seen me sitting with people in certain places (laughs). We have talked about licenses but the two things we’re working on now are our own stuff. There are a couple of licenses – one you’ve already mentioned – that I’d work on with my eyes shut. But nothing concrete.

Still not directly implying Ultima, though.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Is Dragon Commander finished? I found the game very cool and creative but nothing seems to have happened with it since launch.

Swen: We don't have any plans to continue working on Dragon Commander.

I has a sad now.

That Ultima rumor sounds pretty sweet though and his reaction isn't exactly a vehement denial either.