Divinity: Original Sin Pre-Release Thread

[MicoSelva]

Mico: I don't think so, cause they'd have to commit suicide if one of their factions turns on the other.

Not if they were prioritized.

Anyway, I have another question - can one faction be defined as a sub-faction of another one? What I mean is, for example, Town Guards being a sub-faction of Town. If You started killing normal citizens the whole town would turn against You (including the guards), but if You picked a fight specifically with Town Guards, normal bystanders would not take part in it.

 

[Havoc]

Sure, I'm interested.

Another idea, about those faction proprieties that can be connected to the npc schedules. What if the merchants were killed? Do the villagers still go to the market, when all they see are bodies? What if some other NPC can fill the role of the merchant? He was Faction Commoner, but values Faction Merchant more. The downside was, that there wasn't any place for him. Now with the merchants dead, there is and he can fill that role. Let's just no look at the dozens of dead bodies that the PC left.
And what if the village loses it's most important members? The chief, captain of the guard and other important people? Do the villagers stay in the village like nothing has happened? Or the move (Faction Village A -> Faction Village B/Homeless)?

 

[Doctor Psitronix]

​

Another idea, about those faction proprieties that can be connected to the npc schedules. What if the merchants were killed? Do the villagers still go to the market, when all they see are bodies? What if some other NPC can fill the role of the merchant? He was Faction Commoner, but values Faction Merchant more. The downside was, that there wasn't any place for him. Now with the merchants dead, there is and he can fill that role. Let's just no look at the dozens of dead bodies that the PC left.​

And what if the village loses it's most important members? The chief, captain of the guard and other important people? Do the villagers stay in the village like nothing has happened? Or the move (Faction Village A -> Faction Village B/Homeless)?​

​

Havoc you are truly detailed in your C&C outlook I wish I could brofist you this is giving me some ideas for my projec

 

[pakoito]

Correct, but for me it makes less work. Why? Take for example a faction wipe out. In D:OS you can kill anybody, and I mean anybody. Let's say we kill the leaders and other important people from Faction A. What happens to the other ppl in that faction? Are they still part of that faction, when it clearly doesn't work? What if they join the next on their priority list? From Faction A to Bandits.

I need to check, but I do believe we had a discussion with design about this. If I remember correctly, a cat was of faction CAT and of faction ANIMAL, and it messed shit up. I'm sure that, if you have time and your game needs it, you could script all kinds of stuff around this, but in this case, we chose the safe way out. If you're really interested, I can check with design lead if there's any NPCs left that have more than one faction

It would make sense to have a faction hierarchy, so you still assign one single faction to an NPC yet he belongs to all of them.

Example: CATS and SHEEPS are part of the ANIMAL faction. A shopkeeper is a MERCHANT, which in turn is a VILLAGER, which is a subset of HUMAN. An orc is a WAAAARGHRRIOR which is part of faction ORCS.

Use? If the village gets attacked all villagers are called to arms BAM! you have the merchants join the rest of the NPCs.

The thread died when word about job openings at Larian appeared. I guess everyone even remotely interested in D:OS is in Gent right now, busy doing job interviews?

No I cannot apply to work at Larian because I don't have my own game portfolio yet, tho I've shipped a couple of small games. DAMN!

 

[HiddenX]

Yeah, let's mention it some more, then he'll stop dropping by.

Codex has always been tsudere as fuck... "g-go away HiddenX, is not l-like we we're having fun, we just wanted to humiliate you, b-baka!"

/out of lurking mode/ Keep in mind -> me or one of my alter egos is always watching /back to lurking mode/


PS:
Everybody could be one of my spies...

 

[felipepepe]

I sent them a postcard after the kickstarter ended, I'm sure my amazing writting skills and fantastic penmanship will award me plane tickets and a job invitation at Larian... if they manage to even read my handwritting, that is.

 

[J_C]

Son of Kit and Sturm was called Steel btw. Why do I know these things

As an RPG messiah, you should know these.

I just had a look at my book case and was reminded of having read "Dragons Of Summer Flame" in which the kiddies of the "Heroes" (including Steel) have some squabbles. (Don't care what anyone else thinks, I liked it.) So that settles that.

I read it also. With the other Dragonlance books. ....gasp...I also liked it.

 

[handup]

I also have a question. As I understand it you can use a fork to attack people, but can you use it to eat food? It is important for my imershun to be able to eat properly and I don't like the thought of eating food out of random barrels without at least a fork and a napkin.

 

[Angthoron]

I also have a question. As I understand it you can use a fork to attack people, but can you use it to eat food? It is important for my imershun to be able to eat properly and I don't like the thought of eating food out of random barrels without at least a fork and a napkin.

In other words, can you combine items Fork and Tongue to restore some hitpoints? I see what you did there!

 

[ForkTong]

I just checked and apparently I mixed up factions with "dialogue groups". NPCs can only belong to one faction, but they can belong to multiple dialogue groups (which gives them automatic keywords, and that's it, nothing to do with alignment).

Havoc, as far as your ideas go, I have to say they go pretty deep and do sound very interesting, but we are first focusing on story and some behaviour, rather than making a complete sim out of it. Everything you say IS possible, but there is only so much time...

 

[Havoc]

Maybe in the future.

"Complete sim" maybe that's not the right word for it. For me, if the game advertises "you can kill anybody", I want the world to react to that. I want to see people react to me killing the king and queen. Are they going still going to the market as if nothing as happened? Or when the head of state is severed, chaos ensures and some people become thugs, burglars etc?

 

[Havoc]

It would make sense to have a faction hierarchy, so you still assign one single faction to an NPC yet he belongs to all of them.

Why not have both? Faction Hierarchy and Faction Priority, a 2d table of Factions. For example:
Last Subgroup of Faction <- Subgroups... <- Main Faction ; * is the active Faction

Market Merchant <- Merchants <- Village A
*Carpenter <- Craftsmen <- Village A
Carpenter <- Craftsmen <- Village B
Homeless <- Slums <- Village A/B
Bandit <- Bandits <- Forest B

If the player kills a merchant at the market, there's room, so this NPC fills that role. "Somebody killed NPC B, so I took his place. Do you want to see my wares?"
If the player destroys Village A by, let's say, killing all the important people and there's nobody to fill their roles, then the NPC goes to Village B and work as a Carpenter. If he can't, he becomes homeless.
If village A and B are destroyed, then he's screwed. Last resort. He goes to the woods and start the living the life of a bandit.

Hierarchy is good for reputation too. Let's say that the player did something very bad. Commoners, Craftsmen will not like that, so -5 to their attitude towards the player. Merchants don't care, they just want gold. Nobles? They think that was reprehensible, so a -20 or worse to their attitude.

 

[Angthoron]

It would make sense to have a faction hierarchy, so you still assign one single faction to an NPC yet he belongs to all of them.

Why not have both? Faction Hierarchy and Faction Priority, a 2d table of Factions. For example:
Last Subgroup of Faction <- Subgroups... <- Main Faction ; * is the active Faction

Market Merchant <- Merchants <- Village A
*Carpenter <- Craftsmen <- Village A
Carpenter <- Craftsmen <- Village B
Homeless <- Slums <- Village A/B
Bandit <- Bandits <- Forest B

If the player kills a merchant at the market, there's room, so this NPC fills that role. "Somebody killed NPC B, so I took his place. Do you want to see my wares?"
If the player destroys Village A by, let's say, killing all the important people and there's nobody to fill their roles, then the NPC goes to Village B and work as a Carpenter. If he can't, he becomes homeless.
If village A and B are destroyed, then he's screwed. Last resort. He goes to the woods and start the living the life of a bandit.

Hierarchy is good for reputation too. Let's say that the player did something very bad. Commoners, Craftsmen will not like that, so -5 to their attitude towards the player. Merchants don't care, they just want gold. Nobles? They think that was reprehensible, so a -20 or worse to their attitude.

I feel your idea would require a different UI than what currently seems to exist in the toolset; possibly an overlay for the overworld map that could be used to easily assign groups to factions and arrange them hierarchically with one-two presses of a button. I was actually thinking of an overlay/system similar to this myself, but it would likely take a fair amount of time to design and implement in a way that wouldn't be half-assed.

That's me though, pros might be able to conjure something like that up relatively quickly.

 

[Infinitron]

"Complete sim" maybe that's not the right word for it.

Sounds pretty sim to me.

You guys sound pretty naive with these requests.

 

[Haba]

Yeah, you should try doing a proof-of-concept yourself. You'll see how much fun it would be.

And even more fun when you realize how few people actually go killing NPCs in the first place.

 

[Havoc]

Guys, Guys, Gays! It's just an idea. I doubt you can implement it in D:OS now. Maybe in mods or in later games. I'm just saying, it's doable and gives reactivity to the player actions, but not only them, even events that happen in the world, like sending an orc tribe against a village, because we failed (or succeeded, depends how you look at it) our bluff check.

 

[Zed]

I just checked and apparently I mixed up factions with "dialogue groups". NPCs can only belong to one faction, but they can belong to multiple dialogue groups (which gives them automatic keywords, and that's it, nothing to do with alignment).

Havoc, as far as your ideas go, I have to say they go pretty deep and do sound very interesting, but we are first focusing on story and some behaviour, rather than making a complete sim out of it. Everything you say IS possible, but there is only so much time...

But you were getting rid of keywords, no? I thought one of the stretch goals involving "richer game" or some generalist thing involved changing keywords into complete written sentences.

 

[ForkTong]

I don't think it was ever part of a KS thing.

Some here are pro full sentences, others are against that. As a producer, I'm against it at this point

 

[Jack Dandy]

Hey Fork, while you're around here.. Any hints about whether you'll manage to insert keyboard controls for out-of-battle movement?
Or- if inputting keyboard movement will be too troublesome, how about adding an auto-walk button; Press it once, and as long as the cursor isn't centered on the character, you'll walk in that direction?

The main thing I'm concerned about is that since it's a big open world without "world map" which quickly allow you to travel around it, keeping the mouse button pressed to keep moving will be annoying.

 

[Angthoron]

I don't think it was ever part of a KS thing.

Some here are pro full sentences, others are against that. As a producer, I'm against it at this point

As long as it isn't a dialogue wheel.

Are you pro, or against that abominable horror?

 

[evdk]

I don't think it was ever part of a KS thing.

Some here are pro full sentences, others are against that. As a producer, I'm against it at this point

As long as it isn't a dialogue wheel.

Are you pro, or against that abominable horror?

It's like asking him whether he's pro or against being quietly assassinated during the night and his body being hanged in front of the Larian offices as a warning.

 

[ForkTong]

Angthoron: give me an example of a good PC game that uses a dialogue wheel.

Jack: you don't have to hold the mouse button all the time. You click on the ground anywhere and your char/party will start going there.

 

[Angthoron]

Angthoron: give me an example of a good PC game that uses a dialogue wheel.

You know full well that I can't

It's like asking him whether he's pro or against being quietly assassinated during the night and his body being hanged in front of the Larian offices as a warning.

"Quietly"?

 

[Jack Dandy]

I know, but it's a big world, right? I'd hate to just go click.. click.. click.. every few seconds while navigating the larger areas. Think about it.
Wouldn't it be really simple to just add that autowalk thing? Click once, start walking in the direction of the cursor. Click again, stop.

 

[Tigranes]

You don't open the interface and do other things while you're walking?