Divinity: Original Sin Pre-Release Thread

[Infinitron]

http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/1/5460866/divinity-original-sin-seeks-a-lost-rpg-path

Divinity: Original Sin seeks a lost RPG path
By Colin Campbell on Mar 01, 2014 at 5:00p @ColinCampbellx

According to Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke, Divinity: Original Sin is helping to get role-playing games onto a track from which they diverged over a decade ago.

The game, backed with a million dollars in Kickstarter funding, is a top-down party-based fantasy featuring turn-based combat. It is, according to Vincke, influenced heavily by 1992 classic Ultima 7, albeit utilizing technology advances unavailable in the 1990s.

According to Vincke, the years following games like Ultima 7 and its ilk have not been kind to core RPGers. "RPG development used to be all about the quest to give players more freedom," he said. "And then it stopped because it got too expensive and the money went in to the graphics. It was a development pathway that was abandoned, which I am really unhappy about. We have been really underserved since then with the kinds of games that I really want to play. "

Divinity: Original Sin, shown to Polygon in a demo this week, is a complex amalgam of role-playing ideals. Players can make use of multiple paths through puzzles, choosing character and combat attributes down to micro-details.

"When I look at modern games, there is nothing there for me," said Vincke, who has been making RPGs since the 1990s, mostly under contract with publishers. "Everything is polished and pretty, but they are empty worlds where I am not really having any impact on the story. "

Divinity: Original Sin isn't big on huge animated cut-scenes, but it's set in an attractive, colorful, busy world, teeming with NPCs, creatures and interactive items. One of the game's big attractions is its conversation trees between players, which can aid attributes according to the paths taken, and have an organic, natural feel.

A player who tends towards sympathetic replies can become more charming, while one who chooses action-based solutions becomes more pragmatic. These are just a few of the stats underpinning the game, which Vincke said is attempting to bring the free exchange associated with pen-and-paper gaming, to video games.

But he said that his dreams to create a game like this, going back to the 1990s, have continuously been thwarted by publishers.

"Ultima 7 and Fallout 2 were really pushing the boundaries about story and character and freedom and suddenly it was all over," he said. "Publishers started releasing visually rich worlds with only the illusion of freedom. But it was the wrong path. It was just easier for people to make pretty cut scenes and they sold a lot so they carried on."

"It became impossible to convince a publisher to put his money in [complex games], because he is looking at a QA nightmare and all kinds of features that are not easy to explain, that are fun but not in an immediately visual way."

He said that Kickstarter and Steam Early Access would be a boon to RPGs likeDivinity: Original Sin, which is due for release on Windows PC this spring.

"It takes me a long time to show all the elements in this game, all the depth and complexity. But if I had a pretty monster, I could just show you that and everyone would praise its high production values. Whenever I showed this to publishers, the games guys would be really into it and then I would encounter the marketing guy and he could never figure out how to market it. With Kickstarter we are able to give people who want these deeper games something to play."

 

[NotAGolfer]

Okay. What's your example of writing that's clearly leagues above the Divinity series? More than one example ("Torment" is an answer that suffices for better than just about any game).

New Vegas, age of decadence, alpha protocol, baldurs gate, bloodlines, shadowrun, arcanum... Shit more, most on the best RPG list have better writing than what larian tries to pass as Witt and or comedy.

They don't try, it's witty.
Grow a sense of humor.

Regarding your examples:
Vegas has dull writing and the Legion is herpaderp. The C&C make up for it and it's at least refreshing that it isn't that over the top.
AoD is a CYOA, so of course it has superior writing to most CRPGs.
BG is not more passable than anything Larian has released. Imoen is annoying as hell and that whole intrigue set up by that derpy looking guy is nice, but since the main plot only covers a small fraction of play time the forgettable side quest content drags it down. It's fun though.
Bloodlines? Maybe. Can't remember any of the NPCs except that whiny wannabe leader and that blonde gothic chick you can screw at some point but it's been a while. The way the story unfolds is certainly nice ... until it isn't (lategame).
Never played the rest long enough.
And I don't really care, never played Divine Divinity because of the writing, but because it has excellent world building and gameplay mechanics.

 

[Tribal Sarah]

bought into the kickstarter. still haven't played more than an hour, because i don't want to be burned out on it before it's release.

 

[Stabbey]

I think Larian's dialogue and characters are pretty well written. I can remember a lot of great lines and interesting characters.

The overarching story and plots for their games, that's noticeably weaker. In part, that's because Larian focuses mostly on giving the players freedom, and too much freedom can make stories weaker, because it reduces pressure and motivation.

 

[hiver]

RPS: The content that you guys are going to make, will that be free?

Vincke: If we’re going to make a campaign, no, because we have to pay our team. If it’s going to be a little things, little updates, those are probably going to be free. We had Ego Draconis, talking about Divinity II. We weren’t very happy with that, so we gave Dragon Knight Saga to these people, also, if they had the previous game. We upgraded them for free. We’ll help our existing customers. We’ll let them upgrade. But if it’s a full campaign, we’re going to ask for a little money for it.

And you shall get it.

Vincke: Honestly, right now, we want to finish this one. Then we’ll take a holiday. And then we’ll see. It’s been a busy year, because we had Dragon Commander come out also. We had to make a new engine. We started on this in 2010, so we’ve been at it already for three years. Well, early 2011 is better. It was the end of 2010 when we decided to go independent. We’re now at the end of the first part of that road. Now we’ll see what happens.

If the game doesn’t sell at all… I have high hopes that it will sell at least a few units. But maybe we’ll have to do something different. If it’s going to work out the way we hope it’s going to work out, you can be sure that we’ll be building on top of this, and hopefully coming up with a whole bunch of new RPG adventures. Personally, this game will be a success for me if I can come home and sit together with my wife and we can start playing an adventure somebody’s made in multiplayer together. So I don’t know at all what’s going to happen. That would be really cool.

It will sell. A thing of quality always does.

make it - and they will come.

Also, you can be sure youll get adventures and campaigns youll (hopefully) enjoy to play.

We get really long, detailed emails with really good ideas and suggestions on how to solve things. Or people who say, I really like this game, and here’s what happened to me and what went wrong. You get this dialogue going on, and it’s worth its weight in gold. It’s worth 10,000 QA departments, basically. You have 20,000 Kickstarters. That’s also why we gave the alpha version to all of them. I think that out of the 20,000, 13,000 actually activated their alpha version to try it out, and they gave us feedback, because we’re collecting crash reports and stuff like that. It’s enormously helpful on that front.

- this includes all others, its just that there is no smiley that specific.

RPS: Yeah, no kidding. You mentioned that you have a male-female writing team. That is, sadly, still quite rare in this industry. How has that affected Divinity? Was it a game-changer?

Vincke: Oh yeah. Sarah joined the team as a result of the Kickstarter, actually. She was one of the hires as a result of the Kickstarter. Best decision ever. It’s balanced completely the dialogue writing, which was indeed too male-focused. Now we have this balance going on. You notice in the dialogue, we have a much bigger variety of characters. You get better interaction between them going on, which is more realistic. I’m very happy we did that. If I were to expand my writing team, I’d try to keep that gender balance in there.

RPS: Shame it had to come as the result of a Kickstarter

How the hell is that a - shame? Oh, its Nathan... :picard facepalm: they should really send him to IGN...

That’s why you’re not seeing us release Original Sin yet, and why we keep on postponing it. As long we’re finding bugs – and we still have a long list of bugs to squash – we’re not going to release it. If it’s not ready by spring, we’ll just postpone it. We’re not going to release it early. Not this one. So much love and effort has gone into it, and so much hope on our side, that it would be suicidal to release it.

Totally approved.

 

[Kem0sabe]

They don't try, it's witty.
Grow a sense of humor.

Humor is possibly one of the most subjective human emotions, if your going to base your entire game series off "humor" and "silly character fantasy archetypes" there's bound to be people who will dislike the writing style with a passion... *raise hand

If their overall story arcs compensated for this by providing an interesting setting and plot, then it wouldn't rub me so much, but they do not, and are noticeably cliche and underused.

Also, all you fucking mainlanders are humorless little whiny bitches

 

[DeepOcean]

They don't try, it's witty.
Grow a sense of humor.

Humor is possibly one of the most subjective human emotions, if your going to base your entire game series off "humor" and "silly character fantasy archetypes" there's bound to be people who will dislike the writing style with a passion... *raise hand

If their overall story arcs compensated for this by providing an interesting setting and plot, then it wouldn't rub me so much, but they do not, and are noticeably cliche and underused.

Also, all you fucking mainlanders are humorless little whiny bitches

Man, I guess you go on Larian games with a serious attitude, if that is the case I understand why you don't like the writing. Their writing is more similar to a silly parody of a fantasy world than something to take seriously. You play their games to have fun and see what the silly belgians invented this time, they seems to enjoy a more lighthearted writing and with the sea of grimdarkTM games out there, they are a refreshing change of air.If you didn't like Belengar you don't know what fun is.
How about you wait to play DA 3 for the usual self-conscious gaming fantasy fagotry melodrama?

 

[LundB]

Yeah cos if you dislike one specific humour writing style you must hate all humour and want grimdark 24/7 right? That's just logic.

 

[DeepOcean]

Yeah cos if you dislike one specific humour writing style you must hate all humour and want grimdark 24/7 right? That's just logic.

Cool, you read something that I didn't wrote, something terrible uncommon on codex.

 

[t]

Someone should have asked why larian seem to be incapable of writing genuinely good dialogue and characters...

Name one, only one studio that can.
And no, Black Isle or Troika don't count, they're long gone.

How 'bout AoD?

 

[Bubbles]

Daedalic.

 

[Infinitron]

Gaming journalists are still dumb, news at 11: http://www.lar.net/2014/03/07/educating-players/

We decided on doing another preview tour this late in development (which really is the most inopportune of times) because it became clear that there are still a lot of journalists out there who think of Divinity:Original Sin as a Diablo clone or a Diablo clone with tactical combat. This despite all the videos, walkthroughs, early access content and previews being out there. Better make that, despite the truckload of videos, walkthroughs, early access content and previews out there.

It makes me despair some times and tbh a bit worried too.

The problem seems to be that the game has a top-down perspective and turn-based combat in its first 5 mins of gameplay. This apparently is sufficient to classify the game as just-another-generic-fantasy-rpg-clone not worth spending time on.

Honestly, I didn’t believe it when somebody first told me about this line of reasoning, but by now I do because I’ve heard it repeated so many times.

Because there are so many games coming out, an hour is pretty much the maximum you can hope for when sending out preview code. And apparently that’s already a lot.

A preview is an article in which the reporter tells his audience what the game is about, what he expects of it and if there’s anything cool to get excited over.For a game that doesn’t have Battlefield style gfx, that takes its time building up and that relies on the player trying things out, the one hour thing is bad news.

Reporters relying on their gaming instincts and the first hour of gameplay won’t see what our ambitions are and thus jump to the wrong conclusion. (Off topic but in that context I’d like to advise “Thinking fast and slow”’ as obligatory reading to everybody. This type of approach is an excellent example of how your fast thinking fools you into making the wrong assumptions.)

Anyway, the good thing is that whenever we do manage to grab a reporter and put him or her through the “torture” of a D:OS demo, they do eventually understand that there’s more than meets the eye, and because we usually exceed their expectations, we get some excitement.

But it does leave us with a real problem.

Despite being so long in development and talking so much about it, we still didn’t discover the right way of communicating the game’s unique selling propositions. And we’re running out of time.

I asked one of the reporters who was very vocal about how happy he was that I showed him Divinity:Original Sin’s depth what we were doing wrong. Given his excitement it was clear to me that he was part of our target audience and I was really curious how we managed to miss somebody who was clearly informing himself on what games are coming out (it’s his job after all).

He replied that he wouldn’t have tried half the stuff I showed him because he would’ve assumed that we didn’t support it and instead jump to the conclusion that the game was broken. For him, the kind of presentation I gave him was exactly what was needed in his eyes.

It reminded me strongly of something another journalist had told me. During a demo, I think at the German magazine Gamestar, I was told that we’d probably have to re-educate players because they’re not used to this type of gameplay anymore, conditioned as they seem to be by all the streamlining games go through nowadays.

I thought of this again when I watched this youtuber the other day. I cringed when I saw how he missed out on a couple of key features. I also cringed when I saw how he ended his video, which while typical, is also the reason why so much potential innovation has been stiffled by the gatekeepers at the ruling class of old, i.e. the majority of publishers.

I mentioned I’m getting a bit worried by this because eventually we will need to sell this game. At this point I’m starting to think tutorials everywhere, which is my least favourite part of development, but I do want Divinity:Original Sin to be a success, and that’s not going to happen if everybody thinks it’s yet another ARPG clone. Or wait, perhaps it will?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

 

[SuicideBunny]

Gaming journalists are still dumb, news at 11: http://www.lar.net/2014/03/07/educating-players/

codex should add a "reviewing the reviewers" section where we shit all over gaming "journalists"...

 

[hiver]

he discovered that only now?

they could have asked us here... years ago.

 

[LundB]

RPS: Shame it had to come as the result of a Kickstarter

RPS has gotten the OMG PERSECUTION shtick down perfectly. Don't have women on the writing team? OMG you're terrible and sexist, hire some! Have women on the writing team thanks to an influx of funds that let you hire new talent? OMG you're terrible and sexist, why didn't you hire them earlier!? Have women on the writing team from the very start? OMG you're terrible and sexist, [insert new reason here]!

Congratulations RPS, you have mastered the art of never being happy with anything.

At least Swen is too bro to let this sort of thing get to him overmuch, and the game seems fun, though its performance is utter shit on my laptop (although it doesn't put my hardware under significant load, so I have no clue where the poor performance is coming from).

As for marketing the game and getting games journlolists to understand it, the sad reality is that no matter what efforts he makes, the majority of the mainstream will fail to grasp it entirely, for the reasons he states, among others. The only bright point is that most of the people in the target demographic for this sort of game understand this, and won't take the opinions of IGN et al. too seriously. The average moron Youtube reviewer follower isn't likely to be the type of person who would play and enjoy this sort of game anyway.

 

[sea]

Maybe the issue is that the start of the game has too much combat and not enough character interaction etc. Starting players off in a small "tutorial town" that showcases all aspects of the game wouldn't be a bad idea, but of course that's a bunch of extra work. Another solution is to make a build for press that starts them off under different conditions so they can see more aspects of gameplay early on. I agree that selling players early (anyone, press and public alike) is important because many will make their impressions on a game in the first 5-10 minutes.

 

[Bubbles]

The mass market will probably prefer a game that drops you straight into combat.

 

[clemens]

The mass market will probably prefer a game that drops you straight into combat.

The sad fact of the matter is probably, I think, that those morons don't really know what they like, actually. They will need someone to tell them, like they always do.

And they'll listen to whomever speaks the loudest.

 

[sea]

The mass market will probably prefer a game that drops you straight into combat.

Maybe. Action early on is good, but too early and people will assume that's all it is. See a game like BioShock, which has one of the most effective intro sequences in recent years - it's about 20 minutes and has a compelling story setup/hook, great atmosphere and art direction, looting the environment and character upgrades, plus some early combat that shows off both melee and ranged. It tells players exactly what the game is about - that it's atmospheric and story-driven, but also familiar shooting gameplay (not to mention, in what proportion).

There are probably better examples out there but, especially if you don't have tons of hype to drive press and players to want to invest time into your game, showing off the "main loop" and all major features as fast as possible is really critical. It's not really stupidity, though perhaps it is ignorance driven by the fact that press especially have more games to play than time.

 

[Gord]

The start on the beach in Cyseal is already close to a small town where you can learn about how the game is more than just combat.
Thing is, we have indeed become conditioned not to expect anything extraordinary from games, so players might really have to be re-introduced to the concept of just trying stuff that looks as if it could work, instead of following quest markers.

 

[hiver]

Maybe the issue is that the start of the game has too much combat and not enough character interaction etc. Starting players off in a small "tutorial town" that showcases all aspects of the game wouldn't be a bad idea, but of course that's a bunch of extra work. Another solution is to make a build for press that starts them off under different conditions so they can see more aspects of gameplay early on. I agree that selling players early (anyone, press and public alike) is important because many will make their impressions on a game in the first 5-10 minutes.

Starting the players anywhere doesnt mean much - since they would have already bought the game.
But if they make some kind of free demo that is concentrated specifically on these more interesting features - or, start journalists in such a place that is full of this better more diverse content - that would work.

I already suggested it on the blog, btw.

 

[NotAGolfer]

I'm playing the new Tomb Raider atm. Wow, those graphics are amazing and it looks like you are in the middle of some very gritty Indiana Jones movie ... only with lots of cleavage ... and falling off trees and chasms and everything Lara could possibly fall down from. Really great cinematic feel, from the camera to special effects. It's actually quite fun, reminds me of Far Cry 3 a lot, only with less freedom but a better story ... it's also one of the dumbest games I ever played. Before that I tried out Ass Creed, which was even worse, because freedom of movement was often even more limited than even in Tomb Raider and it's incredibly piss easy. Tomb Raider is already a piece of cake even on hard but I think even my neighbour's dog could successfully play the Ass Creeds.
Console kiddies who grew up with similar games with all these comfortably streamlined features, handholding and going through the motions to unlock the next awesome ingame movie scene are not the target audience for a game you clearly are not supposed to just play for an hour as an alternative to watching How I Met Your Mother after a hard day's work. And of course many of those "game journalists" are recruited from that pool so they want the same stuff the mainstream wants and know if a game is "fun" or "too tedious".
A game where you can't even look through your character's eyes for immershun? WTF? Who would want to play that?!

 

[Xenich]

I meant it as in the majority of their games. The entire divinity series contains mediocre to passable writing.

I disagree. While they have never had "great writing" in the typical sense (epic stories, memorable villains, EMOSHUNAL ENGAGEMENTS etc.), Larian's dialogue is so full of sheer charm, wit and class that it's impossible for me not to like it. Of all the games I've played, Larian's might be some of those where I've had a dumb smile across my face for the longest of times.

You know, I think that is the best way to describe their style.

 

[LundB]

Starting the players anywhere doesnt mean much - since they would have already bought the game.
But if they make some kind of free demo that is concentrated specifically on these more interesting features - or, start journalists in such a place that is full of this better more diverse content - that would work.

I already suggested it on the blog, btw.

This is actually a very good idea. Seriously, I'm almost ashamed that I didn't think of it.

The way to do it is definitely to avoid the typical lazy-demo trap of just using the tutorial and the first level/area of the game, with perhaps a later part thrown in. Provided there's adequate explanation at the start to avoid confusing demo-players, it wouldn't even need to be a segment of the base game itself (in which it's hard to showcase everything within the adequate timeframe), but a special demo module custom-built to showcase what Larian deems the key draws of the game in a more concentrated fashion, within the timeframe of a single short adventure. If you really really worry they still aren't getting it, you can even explicitly point out what's being showcased with some form of in-demo commentary (though it'd be nice to have the option to disable the HEY DUMBASS THIS IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO SHOW YOU popups or whatever if they're in the demo).

I can think of a number of games that have done this or something similar, though they grew fewer and fewer as time went on. I think it was one of the Jedi Knight games that had a pretty good example: A fairly short level, not found in the base game, that in its short length showcased gunplay, puzzles, saber combat, etc., better than any individual level taken from the game would have. Instead of providing a cut-off chunk of the game itself, having said custom level as the demo allowed the player to get a sense of what the game experience was about as a whole, in a quick condensed format.

With their toolset, it should be possible for Larian to create a short module tailored to this purpose. It would take a bit of thought to figure out how best to address the key aspects they want to cover in such a short package, and would no doubt take some extra time, but if Larian is genuinely worried about people not 'getting' what the game is about, this is probably the best way to solve the problem. It wouldn't help much with reviews, since those would be based on the main game, but it should at least help with previews and the average curious youtuber/random uninformed guy not quite getting what the game's meant to be.

lar_q
ForkTong
Tagged because I have no shame and since I spent a whole 8 minutes writing it, I demand someone reads it. Also I want Swen to be able to sleep at night, not worrying about youtubers not understanding his company's game.

EDIT Adding what I said in the other thread:

I see this as something very different from a hand-holding tutorial, since those are made to teach someone how to play a game. This is a module/level designed to teach someone what the game is, and what makes it interesting. You slap the tutorial on at the start as you would in the main game if you want, but the bulk of the demo is more analogous to the main game itself, just a far shorter, more condensed version of it.