Game News Divinity: Original Sin Kickstarter Update #65: New Patch + Larian Devline

[pakoito]

Western
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Prehistoric (Jurassic or Pleistocene)
Any fantasy setting that doesn't use goblins, orcs, & elves, and isn't based on previously established fairy tales or lore
17th Century Piracy

You only missed SciFi and you'd have listed all the plan B settings the industry has after fantasy is discarded.

Give me Gilgamesh, Spanish Reconquista, Arabian Nights, 1980s, Planescape, anything out of China Mieville's Bas-Lag, Hyperion's demon, something from a Rick & Morty episode, but not fucking pirates, steampunk or western again.

All of those sound awesome to me too. What games are you talking about for pirates or westerns though? I'm not aware of any rpgs that have done it well at least.

It doesn't matter if it was or wasn't in an RPG context, the themes and storylines have been abused so much it'd be difficult to respin the narrative into something interesting. I'd argue that storyfags with no interest in mechanics may find Red Dead Redemption as the ultimate Wild West RPG.

 

[jdinatale]

The next game needs to be more grim, dark, and edgy.

 

[Darkzone]

It doesn't matter if it was or wasn't in an RPG context, the themes and storylines have been abused so much it'd be difficult to respin the narrative into something interesting. I'd argue that storyfags with no interest in mechanics may find Red Dead Redemption as the ultimate Wild West RPG.

Red Dead Redemption is a great game, if you like the Western setting, but i would not call it a RPG. Despite liking all the proposals that you and Korron have made, i doubt that Larian can make it right. They have their goofy fantasy and that fits them the most.
Larian humor would taint all the settings, besides the 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea, which in a way would be quite a good fit for Larian and it's kind of humor. Perhaps a french thing would be quite a Larian thing, like Mousquetaires du Roi?

The next game needs to be more grim, dark, and edgy.

You can always buy me with grim, dark, and edgy. Me and the rest of the 20 people. Simply said while i love this, it is not a seller like the current DOS art and story. People whatever the reason that i do not understand, do like very much the Warcraft art and humor.

 

[Xenich]

I think it would be interesting to see them use this setting:

Nice thing about it is that it doesn't have a lot of depth to the writing, so Larian could pretty much take it in any direction they wanted and fill in their own lore as they chose. The art and style seems to work for them and I think Larian's humor would also fit in. /shrug

 

[Weirdstuffinspace]

The humor and lightheartedness isn't the problem with their writing. It's that it's totaly forgettable and there is no connection with the characters. Even the first 3 hours of wasteland 2 made me more invested in that world than the whole of original sin did. I'd love for larian to have a good look at the gothic games too. They have a down to earthness that might go well with their style.

 

[cvv]

I don't know if I could force myself to be interested even if a game with this setting received critical praise. I suspect that sentiment would be shared by many RPG players. I'm burned out with the same settings I've played over the past decade or so.

Absolutely. My initial delight over DOS turned into grey ashes of boredom and disappointment shortly after Cysael and I won't be supporting or D1Ping their next game precisely because of that drab, hackneyed, juvenile writing&setting. This game has simply ZERO ambition do to something new or original. I'd much rather play something pants-on-head insane like the early M&Ms or Ultimas than this inert blob of wallpaper paste of a setting.

But let's be clear, Larian is a small dev and they can't afford to experiment too much with expensive games like that. And nothing except a fantasy setting will sell reliably. So a fantasy setting it'll probably have to be. And it has to be something reasonably familiar too, so nothing to weird or obscure or confusing for your mainstream American consumer like Verne, Tim Powers, Gene Wolfe or such.

That said there are tons of fantasy setting that would not confuse the teenagers and at the same time not bore witless the oldtimers. The success of books like GoT, Witcher or Malazan Book of the Fallen is a sign you can have a fantasy setting that is mature, fun, engaging and accessible for a wide audience at the same time. But to tap that Larian would have to stop employing teenage girls fresh from a week-long writer crashcourse, scrap the multiplayer budget and give the money to one or two professional writers.

 

[MicoSelva]

It would be nice if someone from the Codex took part in the devline and mentioned the flaws in writing, setting and itemization.

 

[pakoito]

It would be nice if someone from the Codex took part in the devline and mentioned the flaws in writing, setting and itemization.

 

[MicoSelva]

It would be nice if someone from the Codex took part in the devline and mentioned the flaws in writing, setting and itemization.

Yeah, I know, I too would prefer if they just hired me as a writer and designer, but we have to take what we are offered.

 

[Xenich]

It would be nice if someone from the Codex took part in the devline and mentioned the flaws in writing, setting and itemization.

Yeah, I know, I too would prefer if they just hired me as a writer and designer, but we have to take what we are offered.

Lets see...

If we hired you as the writer, someone else here as the coder, the graphics artist, producer, etc... Ummm wait? Why hasn't the codex created its own cRPG with all of this abundant talent?

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Because nobody thought of it yet... wait... OH MY GAWD...

 

[Xenich]

It would be nice if someone from the Codex took part in the devline and mentioned the flaws in writing, setting and itemization.

Yeah, I know, I too would prefer if they just hired me as a writer and designer, but we have to take what we are offered.

Lets see...

If we hired you as the writer, someone else here as the coder, the graphics artist, producer, etc... Ummm wait? Why hasn't the codex created its own cRPG with all of this abundant talent?

And no... I am not being facetious, I see a lot of good comments and direction here on this site, why hasn't someone here stepped up, defined the codex view and brought to life a game that personifies it? I mean, seriously, you have the greatest gaming minds of the industry here fulfilling their inner demons with baited breath and you guys haven't capitalized on it? Seriously.... incoming capitalization... W...T...F...?

You have a culmination of like minds here seeking all the same thing, antagonizing over it, lamenting like bitches in heat and you guys... in all this time can't figure out how to put the square block into the fucking square hole?

Seriously? WHAT THE FUCK? I mean, you can pour out thousands of dollars for the next wishful project and you can provide infinite gaming commentary on what is and what is not of cRPGs and yet... in a market where cRPG gaming is dying, all you can do is bitch about the next indie game not quite achieving the rub off you were expecting? Seriously, step up... use all of this talent here or fade into obscurity.

 

[MicoSelva]

You do know that one of the ex-admins, namely Vault Dweller, is the creator of Age of Decadence?

 

[Xenich]

You do know that one of the ex-admins, namely Vault Dweller, is the creator of Age of Decadence?

That invalidates my point how? Or... are you implying that the codex gets to take credit for the individual accomplishments of Vault Dweller? What next... It takes a village and all? The individual didn't create that, etc...?

 

[Infinitron]

This is a fan forum and a critic forum, not a developer forum. Although it might seem otherwise sometimes, the fan or critic is not in fact a latent or incipient game developer. They are orthogonal roles.

 

[Morality Games]

If we hired you as the writer, someone else here as the coder, the graphics artist, producer, etc... Ummm wait? Why hasn't the codex created its own cRPG with all of this abundant talent?

The talent in the Codex would never reach a consensus over how they should approach development and the project would never secure universal acceptance from the laymen Codexers. Thus undermining the purpose of a "Codex" RPG.

I can also imagine the butt hurt over the people who wanted to be writers. Although in theory such a gathering of unpaid talent could result in writing of unimagined quality and detail (you could assign one person to create fictional languages, one person to create dialects for those languages, one person to specialize in writing officious memos and documents, etc). In some ways features and game design in RPGs are held back by how much writing you can realistically incorporate into the game.

 

[Lhynn]

We cant seem to agree on the definition of an RPG and you want us to make one?

 

[Xenich]

This is a fan forum and a critic forum, not a developer forum. Although it might seem otherwise sometimes, the fan or critic is not in fact a latent or incipient game developer. They are orthogonal roles.

I understand the "arm chair" role of such, but in reality, many of the posters here (as a tangent of the volume of occurrence) are capable and existing within the field (admitted or not). It is sad to see such a culmination of talent that lingers but never achieves much past the nightly rants of their beer drunken stupors. It's like a bunch of fireman lamenting over the actions of the locales with buckets of water as they twirl their pressurized hoses in disgust. Seriously, the power to make change here through more than social and monetary is actual, physical, and real. To see it here twisting in the wind is both comical and depressing.

 

[Xenich]

If we hired you as the writer, someone else here as the coder, the graphics artist, producer, etc... Ummm wait? Why hasn't the codex created its own cRPG with all of this abundant talent?

The talent in the Codex would never reach a consensus over how they should approach development and the project would never secure universal acceptance from the laymen Codexers. Thus undermining the purpose of a "Codex" RPG.

I can also imagine the butt hurt over the people who wanted to be writers. Although in theory such a gathering of unpaid talent could result in writing of unimagined quality and detail (you could assign one person to create fictional languages, one person to create dialects for those languages, one person to specialize in writing officious memos and documents, etc). In some ways features and game design in RPGs are held back by how much writing you can realistically incorporate into the game.

Doesn't need a physical consensus of the group, but one able to see the ideal of the groups consensus. Think about it, even if one was able to achieve 50% of what the codex desired, it would be far surpassing of even the greats to which it salivates over.

 

[Xenich]

Let us be honest though. There is no defined direction for the codex. I see the desire of this community as a hand with many fingers, all of the same core, but each stretching out to its on direction and purpose.

 

[Morality Games]

Doesn't need a physical consensus of the group, but one able to see the ideal of the groups consensus. Think about it, even if one was able to achieve 50% of what the codex desired, it would be far surpassing of even the greats to which it salivates over.

A lot of Codexers would see 50% as good as 0%. Half the community would immediately dismiss the legitimacy of the project if it used Unity, for example. Same would be true of other engines. The only engine that *might* obtain a consensus would be a Codex home brew. Even if people didn't like the functions, they would respect the concept.

 

[Xenich]

Doesn't need a physical consensus of the group, but one able to see the ideal of the groups consensus. Think about it, even if one was able to achieve 50% of what the codex desired, it would be far surpassing of even the greats to which it salivates over.

A lot of Codexers would see 50% as good as 0%. Half the community would immediately dismiss the legitimacy of the project if it used Unity, for example. Same would be true of other engines. The only engine that *might* obtain a consensus would be a Codex home brew.

You are making my point though, sad as it may be. It is like a tribe being attacked by another, but they are too busy squabbling over little things to see they are being over run. Sad, pathetic, and a bit angering.

 

[Weirdstuffinspace]

prosper can build an engine most could get behind.

 

[Xenich]

prosper can build an engine most could get behind.

For me personally, I have seen so much "fail" in the direction of RPG's, heck... even games in general that having even a remote direction of focus would be acceptable to me. Seriously, we are not simply in a state of decline, we are in a battle of attrition. The very state of intelligent gaming is in danger of dissolution. The very fabric of all gaming is at state. Not simply RPGs. Seriously look at the state of all genres. They are failing, dissolving, fading away. What is a game? Is it simple entertainment? Or... is it more than stimulating generic pleasure centers of the average Joe? I remember a time when people teased me for enjoying games? What changed? Did the population adjust to be like me or did games adjust to attend to them? Think about it.

 

[Weirdstuffinspace]

money and popularity corrupt everything. Don't worry about incline, it won't happen, only flawed gems now and then to sustain you.