Preview Divinity: Original Sin Hands-on Preview at Rock Paper Shotgun

[Monkeyfinger]

DD1 was notorious for having half of its skills looking fun in theory, but being completely useless in the context of the actual game. I wonder how DOS fares in that regard.

That's true of most of my favorite RPGs when I think about it. It's the shotgun approach. Design and/or port a whole bunch of skills that seem cool and let the best ones take traction with most of the players, with some of the weaker ones taking traction with LARPers and hardcore players seeking a self-imposed challenge. It seems to have quite a strong track record in practice.

 

[V_K]

That's true of most of my favorite RPGs when I think about it. It's the shotgun approach. Design and/or port a whole bunch of skills that seem cool and let the best ones take traction with most of the players, with some of the weaker ones taking traction with LARPers and hardcore players seeking a self-imposed challenge. It seems to have quite a strong track record in practice.

It's a bit different story - in most games skills get under- or overpowered because of encounter/level design. In DD however some of them just don't fit core gameplay at all.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Tell them that I fucking want to play this game and I want it now ffs

Looks even more promising than before. I hope the writing is up to par too. I'm kind of worried that it will drag the rest of the game down.

It will be typical Larian writing. Judging by Dragon Commander, they had hardly improved it. It's not so bad, really... but yeah, their humour is a bit special.

 

[J_C]

Looks much better than whatever Josh can come up with, right Roguey?

 

[NotAGolfer]

Please ask them if there will be any kind of party banter besides that coop part (I'm used to playing my games alone so I don't care about that feature).
Will all of the big game areas be unlocked at start?
And will the alpha be feature and content complete?

 

[Haba]

Please ask them if there will be any kind of party banter besides that coop part (I'm used to playing my games alone so I don't care about that feature).

That'll be the party banter, the AI will do it. And companions will have some things to say, too.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Shaping up to be great. Glad i backed this

 

[NotAGolfer]

Please ask them if there will be any kind of party banter besides that coop part (I'm used to playing my games alone so I don't care about that feature).

That'll be the party banter, the AI will do it. And companions will have some things to say, too.

Yeah, just checked the KS page again and inner party banter and dynamics actually was the 800k stretch goal.
But where did you get the info about AI stepping in for the missing second player from?

 

[Haba]

One of the million different updates they released during the KS.

 

[Robcat]

Volrath

Echoing ERYFKRAD, ask them about itemization (item fever favoured by Swen vs magical items being special for their rarity as favoured by David), and how they plan to respond to complaints about difficulty.

Also, ask them about their writing style.
Not only in regards to Original Sin but it would be really interesting to hear their thoughts on whether they think their writing lacks something with its focus on humour and freedom of the gameworld. This appears to be a common complaint/concern about them, not just on the codex. Ie that their games are fun, funny and full of great stuff but lacking in lore that creates verisimilitude and a strong overarching narrative that really engages the player (gameplay at the cost of story-telling). Do they recognise/agree/disagree with this assessment? Do they see this as a trade-off or is it something they are working on improving in future games? I personally really like their whimsical fun style and wouldn't want to lose that, but I hope that one day they'll be able to combine that with a world and narrative that really draws me in and makes me care. I'm particularly interested to see what they will do with the dual protagonists and party in this regard, as now there is a sort of shared experience in relating to the gameworld, even if playing by yourself.

 

[Lancehead]

If you guys have some questions or things you want me to pay attention to, list them here. I'd like to go prepared to Larian on thursday, we are a prestigious magazine after all.

In the RPS article, when the player decided to lure the orcs towards town guards, he was wondering how to get the xp for killing them by landing the final blows. So how do they make sure that xp for killing doesn't de-incentivise other creative solutions?

 

[SCO]

Ever since DD is haven't seen a Larian game where i cared about items, it's all lol-random level scaled crap even when it's technically 'unique', which means everything 'unique' gets obsolete by the endgame.
Quite the wrong way to copy Ultima 7 item design but no one is asking me.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Its Swen's fetish with Pinyata style loot.