Divinity: Original Sin Pre-Release Thread

[ERYFKRAD]

If only Josh Sawyer were our project manager. He would fix it all, cause we have no idea what we're doing. Update next week.

Fix.

 

[:Flash:]

Larian has been late on every game it has ever released.
Now they make a kickstarter saying give us money, so we don't need to have a publisher who forces a release date upon us, and people go "yeah, take my money, fuck the publishers with their schedules".
So who expected them to be on time?
I certainly didn't. That's what you bought with the kickstarter. I never expected the game to come out this year. Didn't stop me from pledging. In fact, that was the point of doing it.

 

[Gord]

Certainly not after they made all the stretchgoals...

 

[Arkeus]

Larian has been late on every game it has ever released.
Now they make a kickstarter saying give us money, so we don't need to have a publisher who forces a release date upon us, and people go "yeah, take my money, fuck the publishers with their schedules".
So who expected them to be on time?
I certainly didn't. That's what you bought with the kickstarter. I never expected the game to come out this year. Didn't stop me from pledging. In fact, that was the point of doing it.

Pretty much this.

 

[Roguey]

Summer's days away from ending. Looks like they're reneging on their "alpha before summer's out" promise. Sounds like they have a real mess to deal with, as expected.

How unlike the before-schedule Eternity

I'm only gloating because this is what they told the fans during fan day. That was back in August.

 

[Jashiin]

Take the time you need guys, just make sure to release it all nice and shiny, polished up.

 

[Outlander]

Larian has been late on every game it has ever released.
Now they make a kickstarter saying give us money, so we don't need to have a publisher who forces a release date upon us, and people go "yeah, take my money, fuck the publishers with their schedules".
So who expected them to be on time?
I certainly didn't. That's what you bought with the kickstarter. I never expected the game to come out this year. Didn't stop me from pledging. In fact, that was the point of doing it.

I think scheduling issues are the least important when it comes to dealing with publishers, except when they rush unpolished products into the market, which isn't the case here. Anyhow, a dev taking more time than initially expected should mean a more polished product in the end, so it's ok with me.

 

[deuxhero]

A bad game is bad forever, but a delayed game only MIGHT be eventually good, time doesn't ensure quality (see: DNF)

 

[Jaedar]

As a wise man once said: Delays are temporary, mediocrity is forever

 

[Cosmo]

A bad game is bad forever, but a delayed game only MIGHT be eventually good, time doesn't ensure quality (see: DNF)

Which brings up the fact that there are two kinds of delays : the ones that stem from tergiversating (your example), and the ones that enable devs to polish things up.

 

[Arkeus]

Welcome Back
It has now been exactly five months since we closed our Kickstarter campaign. Looking back, it was quite a ride, and one of the best parts was that all stretch goals were met!

As we were integrating the stretch goals in the game in the last couple of months, we realised they affected a lot of the game systems and this would be more work than we thought.

Deeper character creation (traits and talents) made us rethink the stats system, the inclusion of companions meant we had to have more party support, and the day and night schedules affected all the behaviours of NPCs. And even the world they live in! Because where else would these people live and sleep?

The following video has Swen & Axel explain what including the stretch goals meant for the development of the game, and features an example of how schedules for instance influenced the game world. Here's a spoiler:

"I wonder what that fire is on the first floor... And how do I get to the second floor?" - (fullscreen image)




Original Sin Set For February 2014
We are very determined to implement all the extra features gained through stretch goals the way they should be implemented, which essentially means that we want to incorporate them in the story, the world and the gameplay mechanics. This is taking us more time than we originally thought, and so we decided to move the release of Divinity: Original Sin from this fall (as originally announced) to this winter, specifically to February 28th 2014.

For backers that have Alpha access, expect to have the rough and rugged version of Original Sin by November. Beta should be your New Year's present in January!

What are they thinking ?
For those interested in the details of the how and why, check out Swen's brand new blog entry, in which he explains his thoughts on postponing the release of Divinity: Original Sin.

Live QA on friday September 27h at 17:00 CET
We'll be doing a live QA session via the Larian Studios channel on Twitch TV tomorrow, september 27th, 17:00 CET. Join in, and you'll be able to ask David or Swen pretty much anything you want about Divinity: Original Sin via the chat channel. They'll try to answer as many questions as they can, and perhaps even show a bit of the game.

In closing: Fan day report
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! On August 9th, a wild horde of screaming fans descended upon the Larian Studios' offices, and hijacked what was to be the Dragon Commander release party. We made a video to mark the occasion, but we forgot to post it! So without further ado, here's the video report on Larian Studios' first ever fan day!

 

[Jedi Exile]

February? Damn. It was expected though.

 

[Arkeus]

February? Damn. It was expected though.

Not only is it kinda-earlier than iexpected, but we have an actual date.

 

[AstroZombie]

I don't mind waiting.

 

[Arkeus]

Mmmh ,the Blog Article linked in the update really shows how risky Sven's gamble is. I really do hope it sells well as well as be good.

 

[Kaldurenik]

I would rather wait and get (i hope) a better game then to have it relesed now and it turns out to be bad / broken or whatever.

 

[MicoSelva]

As a gamer I don't care about this delay. My backlog has over 500 games in it, so I won't run out of them anytime soon. And I prefer waiting to get a better game than getting an average one earlier.

As a someone who wants Larian to succeed, I'm not so sure. I have every confidence in Larian guys using the extra time to make the game better, and it is praise-worthy that they are willing to do so. However, at the same time I have exactly zero confidence that this will affect game's review scores and/or sales. Reviewers are still going to slap some general 'cool, but not AAA - 7/10' rating on it, and the market for old-school PC RPGs is limited, so bloating production costs is probably a bad idea. I am afraid that this could affect the company in a negative way. Maybe not sink it, but put it in a 'step back' state when it comes to making the dream RPG that will dwarf them all.

tl;dr - Swen is doing the right thing, I hope this doesn't come back to bite him in the ass.

 

[Rake]

That's why the publiser model sucks. Between this, Wasteland 2, PE, Shadowrun Returns it is clear that RPG devs cannot deliver with strict deadlines. To have a 3-6 months window to dalay the game is essencial.
If these games where publiser funded, all of them would have come out in beta state, or without proper endings.

 

[AstroZombie]

I think February makes financial sense because it usually isn't as packed with "big releases" as November/December

 

[felipepepe]

The most important one for me was that in the future I’ll try to only commit to a release date when the game is actually done. Not if it’s 85% done or even 95% done, but only when really, it’s done. As in, ready to be released. It doesn’t matter if that release date is inconvenient – the lifecycle of games is now much longer than it used to be, and there are ways around inconvenient release dates.

How weird, last update Swen was talking about never committing to a release date until the game is 100% done, and now he set D:OS for February 28, 5 months ahead...

Anyway, as a gamer I'm really happy, and I hope it pays off for Larian Bros, I would hate to see such a company suffering after trying so hard to release the best game possible.

 

[felipepepe]

Before & After screenshots from the video:

 

[Gord]

How weird, last update Swen was talking about never committing to a release date until the game is 100% done, and now he set D:OS for February 28, 5 months ahead...

Logically it means that the game IS done, they are just sitting happily on it to torture us.

 

[Mortmal]

As a gamer I don't care about this delay. My backlog has over 500 games in it, so I won't run out of them anytime soon. And I prefer waiting to get a better game than getting an average one earlier.

As a someone who wants Larian to succeed, I'm not so sure. I have every confidence in Larian guys using the extra time to make the game better, and it is praise-worthy that they are willing to do so. However, at the same time I have exactly zero confidence that this will affect game's review scores and/or sales. Reviewers are still going to slap some general 'cool, but not AAA - 7/10' rating on it, and the market for old-school PC RPGs is limited, so bloating production costs is probably a bad idea. I am afraid that this could affect the company in a negative way. Maybe not sink it, but put it in a 'step back' state when it comes to making the dream RPG that will dwarf them all.

tl;dr - Swen is doing the right thing, I hope this doesn't come back to bite him in the ass.

Thats exactly the score it will receive if its a good game 7/10, even if its something exceptional and ultra polished it will never get over 80% not just cause its not AAA. They have not understood yet they need to bribe reviewers.The bigger the advertisement budget and the bribe the bigger the score, i am pretty sure the big guys EA and co also pay the reviewers to give bad reviews to indie competitors
Read the metacritic scores they absolutely have nothing to do with the game qualities, for 100% score think advertisement budget like bioshock infinite, then the mainstream wlll write on how cool turn based is and how refreshing that quaint new feature is .

 

[tuluse]

It's not really true. Plenty of hipster indie games get high scores.

You get a high score if:
your production values are high
your story appears to be deeper than it is (bonus points if it's actually retarded if you think too hard about it)
the game is easy enough for the reviewer to get through it in a couple days since he has a stack of games sitting on his desk and deadlines are coming up

 

[felipepepe]

Hipster games only get high scores if they are already fully hyped by the community and saying it sucks wil cause hipster outrage and make your website uncool. Also, they instantly get +3 on their scores if any cool opressed minority is on the game or development team, like transgenders or rape victims.