Game News Divinity: Original Sin 2 Released

[veevoir]

DOS2 is out, I come back from work and internet is down, eta for fix - 5 hours.

Fuck my luck.

 

[Sacibengala]

Someone knows if it is possible to disable the superfluous effects, like sand blowing and stuff? that thing is killing my performance.

 

[jungl]

Shame the tactician difficulty same shit as previous game. WRPGS are a waste of fucking time playing on hard difficulties. I never see a developer do it right. Its all about looking for the weakest encounters then onward to the next weakest encounter you can handle. Should be more about gearing and playing better.

 

[Invictus]

First codex fund raiser I have participated on and feels good to do so on such an inclined game, to be honest if there was any game that is capable of reaching to mainstream crowds is this one... hope it is a success Sven is such a bro and his company is probably the last big hope of incline (along with golden era games of course) for the future

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Starting up the game and seeing RPG Codex above RPG Watch in the "special thanks" section was a good way to begin.

Seen the math for the 1 place and it was awesome! Our handless champion smashed Watcher to the tiny bits.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

After trying it quickly.... they seem absurdly obsessed with that element-based combat system to the point of having level 3 crocodiles teleport around and shoot earth-fireballs out of their tails just to get more use of dem awsum abilities. Also, metal bikini on the elves, even male ones, bleh.

 

[Crichton]

I installed it last night and played for a couple hours. I played as a Male noble/soldier dwarven fighter, all points in strength and warfare. Haven't decided on 1H/2H yet.

Good:
-Nice visuals and still runs well on my ancient rig
-Several balance improvements over D:OS, armor blocking all the CC bullshit while it holds up is probably the most welcome
-I'm not sold on the 'descriptive' dialog, but it still beats out some of the cringeworthy writing from D:OS
-Lots of race/background reactivity in the dialog
-That 'Stomp' warfare ability that clears out all the fucking fire/oil/poison/water/lightning storm/deathcloud/seasonal pollen/whateverthefuck

Not-so-good:
-I found the lack of complete customization on the companions a little irritating (i.e. I want to be able to tell them to put two points in water magic and choose rain + restoration as starting skills, not chose the Cleric package)
-The lol-random loot/merchant inventories still manage to raise my blood pressure. There's no feeling quite like walking into Candlekeep/Easthaven/Gilded Vale and just buying a fucking pike for the character you specifically designed to use a pike
-I think the stat system is skill going to push everyone into being either a STR, INT or DEX character and "Battlemages" are eventually going to be sadsacks without those sweet, sweet stat-based bonuses to skills.

 

[Valky]

I think there are only general map markers in this game, not per-quest markers, not game screen markers, not over-NPC markers, quest compass or other bullshit. I didn't played it yet, but it was so in the first game, and in Sven videos too.

Can somebody confirm this with an image of their map after they have a few quests ongoing?

What quest markers?

The stuff that Enhanced Edition declined into the game.

 

[Iznaliu]

I think the stat system is skill going to push everyone into being either a STR, INT or DEX character and "Battlemages" are eventually going to be sadsacks without those sweet, sweet stat-based bonuses to skills

Despite Larian's grandiose claims, I don't think the stat system will work out to be much different in practice from D:OS 1.

 

[Valky]

I did my own research. Somebody explain this degenerate shit. Absolutely decline.

 

[Bohrain]

Not-so-good:
-I found the lack of complete customization on the companions a little irritating (i.e. I want to be able to tell them to put two points in water magic and choose rain + restoration as starting skills, not chose the Cleric package)

I found this extremely infuriating, especially now that no decent class seems to start with lockpicking. Also I don't know what they were thinking when they changed the companions to automatically distribute their stats if you don't recruit them at level one.
When I decided to ditch Sebille since rogues are so garbage compared to early access, I took Red Prince as a ranger at level 6, but it turns out he had like 5 or 4 points in pyromancy, which is essentially 20-25% damage increase being flushed down the toilet.

I think the stat system is skill going to push everyone into being either a STR, INT or DEX character and "Battlemages" are eventually going to be sadsacks without those sweet, sweet stat-based bonuses to skills

Despite Larian's grandiose claims, I don't think the stat system will work out to be much different in practice from D:OS 1.

I agree. If the effect of the melee range scaled with weapons specific attribute and skill level a lot more builds would be viable. Constitution is also pretty underwhelming as a defensive stat.
Fights are more or less decided on the positioning and crowd control of the early turns. Once you lose your armor and the enemy has disables available the utility of more health is pretty negligible, it's all about wit and memory. And since the early turns matter so much, it's just better for every character to focus on one damage type, since hybrids get their armor broken first.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I think I'm going to need a new PC to play this

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

I think I'm going to need a new PC to play this

I don't and I absolutely am playing it on an old rig. Like a laptop win Nvidia 710m. But the game is optimized very good for it's looks! BTW Congrats on RPGcodex appearance in the start of the game! ( title screen).
It loads and works very good, to bad they still didn't implement day/night cycle but that's just me.

 

[Quantomas]

Here is the full interview I quoted earlier:

Sep 14 2017
Lohse’s Origins – Voice Acting for Divinity: Original Sin 2

Today is an exciting day for gamers, with the release of long-awaited MMoRPG Divinity: Original Sin 2. After previous denials, the developers surprised fans with an announcement in August that the game would feature voice acting. The game now includes over 74,000 lines of dialogue and hired around 80 voice actors along the way!

One of these was our Tamaryn Payne, who was asked to take on the key role of Lohse. It was no small commitment. In the process of creating Lohse, Tamaryn recorded thousands of lines, donned motion capture gear, and made a single!

To find out more we’ve interviewed Tamaryn to learn about the voice acting (and more!) that went into the game.

What can you tell us about your character, Lohse?
Don’t mess with her! Lohse is no shrinking violet, in action or attitude. She’s the person you want in a crisis. And she’s got brilliant hair.

Who inspired you when voicing Lohse?
Actually it was Sarah the writer that inspired me. Her love for Lohse inspired me to do a really good job as she seemed very emotionally connected to her. Sarah gave a really great description of who Lohse was, to the point where I didn't really need to guess anything. She gave me the confidence to know my voice was right for her, and that was the centre of my characterisation.

Did you do any other voice acting for the game?
I didn’t. To be fair, there was no time. This game is huge - by far the largest I’ve ever worked on. I had thousands of lines and a song too, so unfortunately I didn’t get to be a random squirrel or something!

The project was your first experience with Motion Capture – what was that like for you?
Mo-cap was weird, and scary, and then awesome! I had a bit of nerves once all the gear was on, and that hasn’t happened to me in a very long time.

Once I was used to the light in my eyes and little camera in my eye line, it was fun to physically bring Lohse to life. I focused on finding the balance between movement that makes sense with the words, but not too much for the sake of it.

What were the highlights of working on this project?
The biggest highlight was having a real sense of ownership over the character. Often with voice acting you feel that anyone could do what you’re doing. With Lohse, although someone else could, it really felt like it was my part. That’s special.

I got to record my first ever single, which I never thought I’d do. I also got to do my best Charles Dance impression – but you’ll have to play the game to see what I mean!

An Introduction to Lohse:

Thank you to the wonderful Tamaryn Payne for the interview. Divinity: Original Sin 2 and its accompanying soundtrack is available from today.

For more articles like this, check out The Pillars of the Earth: Game Voiceovers and In Video Game, Who Am I?

Hey, she sings and dances? I need to behold that! Lohse will be my companion.

Will likely play as a human or elf male first. That as a given, it makes sense to choose Ifan for the additional background and origin story. While rogue is not my preferred class, I hope the game allows me to invest heavily into magic skills regardless. The Red Prince is probably too iconic not to have him in my party. This makes three. If you don't choose Fane, you probably will benefit from having an elf in your party, so chances are Sebille makes it into my party too. As Swen said, Fane makes more sense for a second playthrough, which is probably a must because Beast is there too, and I know his writer put a big effort into him. Let alone all these insane undead mechanics that come with Fane.

 

[Flou]

Peaking around 64k players on Steam today. I guess it's save to assume that the game has sold quite well so far

 

[Valky]

How do you make it so that decline in my previous post is removed from the game?

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Peaking around 64k players on Steam today. I guess it's save to assume that the game has sold quite well so far

And still climbing (as is Swen's blood pressure it seems)

 

[Valky]

Peaking around 64k players on Steam today. I guess it's save to assume that the game has sold quite well so far

And still climbing (as is Swen's blood pressure it seems)

No way, Grimoire is that high? How is this real life.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Those numbers are just crazy. They're not that far below Skyrim's all-time concurrent player peak (90,000) and have left the first nu-XCOM behind (with the latter's 70,000).

 

[Dorateen]

Cleve's latest patch was a gamechanger.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Well, maybe some of the guys at Larian do have some humour after all.

 

[Grunker]

Anyone know whether eating Orivand's body part as an elf is supposed to have an effect? Did it with Sebille but nothing happened.

 

[Axie]

(...) The Red Prince is probably too iconic not to have him in my party. (...)

My Fane undude stabbed the bastard while he was "helpless" and moaning about water-splashing. Fuck him, let him wait second pass.

 

[Black]

(...) The Red Prince is probably too iconic not to have him in my party. (...)

My Fane undude stabbed the bastard while he was "helpless" and moaning about water-splashing. Fuck him, let him wait second pass.

Can you kill-off all the companions at the start like that?

 

[LESS T_T]

Those numbers are just crazy. They're not that far below Skyrim's all-time concurrent player peak (90,000) and have left the first nu-XCOM behind (with the latter's 70,000).

Well FYI Steamcharts.com started recording data from July 2012, so it doesn't have Skyrim's launch (Novembr 2011) data.

Skyrim set the record at the time: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?s=a3ec68b54d8bf29707938a0ea53caa73&t=451769

(Ah the old Steam's color scheme.)

Still valid about nuXCOM I think.