God DAMN Divinity II is addictive

[ManjuShri]

Hey niggas, what does dragon transformation look like in DD2? Do you just glow and voila, you are a dragon? Or is it like Shadowcaster, with proper shapeshifting animation?

And please don't post a youtube video, I can't access it (Pakiland)

You jump and spin in the air then a flash of light hides the immediate changeover.

 

[Blaine]

Like Swen himself said, the series has fans DESPITE and not because of the combat. Don't let that stop you from being edgy.

In fairness, that first post of mine was more confrontational than it probably needed to be. I usually wear my shithead hat when discussing games I don't like, so I can hardly blame anyone for lashing out.

20 hours (I checked the listing on Steam; I played 25 hours, approx. 5 of which were spent AFK) is a fair shake to give a single-player RPG, and if I don't like it by then, chances are I never will. It's not just the combat that put me off, either. I also felt that the skill trees, itemization, exploration elements, quest structure and dialog were lacking. Unlike the combat however, these are at least arguable and a matter of taste. I'm not a big fan of self-aware amateur parodies (parody might not be the right word, but there's an undercurrent of humor), so that might be a big part of it.

The environments themselves were fairly well done.

I'm nevertheless amazed that a fair few Codex people like this game. It's unusual for a game I consider to be utter shit to receive a stamp of approval from people whose tastes normally agree with mine, that's all.

I'll let you all get back to liking what I don't like.

 

[Kitako]

Damn now I want to replay it.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

RPGs are all about popamole blocking & parrying mechanics, everyone knows that.

 

[Blaine]

You can take all the jabs you want at me. When irredeemably terrible combat occupies a large portion of the actual gameplay, then the rest of the package had better be pretty damned special if I'm to suffer through dozens of hours of it. Ultima VII can be forgiven its abysmal combat, because the rest of what it had to offer was outstanding. Arcanum can be forgiven for the same reason. Quest for Glory can, too; its combat system was so simple an eight-year-old me could finish each fight effortlessly, but the adventure portion of the hybrid was fantastic. Hell, Planescape: Torment's combat was nothing special, though it was worlds better than this.

This game? You're out of your God damned minds. It's a fairly average RPG at best, and would be tolerable if the combat were also average or better, but its combat makes Final Fantasy Mystic Quest look like Wizardry 7.

 

[Kitako]

This game has many flaws, but it's fun, at least to me. That's enough nowadays to call it a good game.
(And I too was one of those that dismissed the game 2-3 times after trying the demo, and finally got hooked)

 

[sea]

I bought this game for $5 when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago, played it for about 15 hours, then uninstalled. The combat is as popamole as you can possibly get... no strategy at all, just pres butan.

You do realize that the Divinity series was always a fairly simplistic hack and slash game, right? The combat isn't meant to be complicated.

 

[pistletoe]

Divine Divinity is far better imo. I liked the classless system. Should be interesting to see what they do with Original Sin.

 

[Blaine]

This game has many flaws, but it's fun, at least to me. That's enough nowadays to call it a good game.

I understand. It's difficult to see through my personal distaste, but I'm really not trying to browbeat anyone into disliking it. If a game is fun for someone to play, then they should play it.

I'm mainly responding (a little heatedly) to those who are implying that I think combat is the most essential element of RPGs, because that's a misrepresentation of my opinion... and on the Codex, an especially caustic insult. It's my own fault really, since I barged into the thread shitting all over the game due to its combat and didn't elaborate until later.

 

[Gord]

Fair enough, I think, the game IS a relatively shallow aRPG at its heart.

Somehow for me, and a lot of others here, Larian still did something right with it, because I did have quite some fun playing it.
OTOH, my motivation to go on was substantially lower during my second play-through, which is currently on hold after mostly finishing Orobas Fjords.

 

[Roguey]

The award-winning Larian Studios are proud to present this design document that will
describe all the design ideas and plans for our new upcoming game: Divinity 2.
Divinity 2 is a beautiful, fast paced, next generation single and multiplayer RPG that
mixes the accessibility of action RPG’s with the depth of traditional RPG’s. We break the
mould of RPG gaming today, as we explore new concepts as episode content, a new take
on character development, and much more.
This document gives a broad overview of the concept and features of Divinity 2, the
sequel to Divine Divinity. Details behind the concepts and features can be found in the
appendices.
When reading through this document, please be aware that is a ‘live’ document, prone to
changes as preproduction continues.
Target audience
• Divine Divinity audience
• Action RPG audience
• Traditional RPG audience
• Fantasy games audience
This product is designed with an ESRB rating of Teen in mind (13 and up). For Europe,
this means a PEGI rating of 12+ and a German USK ‘green’ rating. The game will have
the action and impressive scenes that young players crave, as well as the deep, rich
storyline and hidden, tongue-in-cheek humour that more mature players can appreciate.
This will make the game appeal to casual and hardcore gamers alike.
Platform
The game’s platform is a P4 with pixel shader 3.0 capable GFX card minimum. More
detailed specs are not available at this time, since the game engine is still under
construction, and middleware technology evolves every day.]
Release date
The game is set for a release around the second quarter of 2008.
Game duration
The game is split in different episodes. The main story line contains 8 episodes with each
episode taking between 3 and 4 hours. Thus, the total duration of the main story line is
between 24 and 32 hours

A review from the future
Divinity 2 is a big game, and reading through the design documentation can be a
daunting task. That’s why we prepared a hypothetical review that touches on the main
strengths of the game, and illustrates what we’d like people to take note of.

Role-playing aficionados will fondly remember Divine Divinity, Larian’s cult RPG that
won several awards in 20021. Now, five years after the release of the original game, and
three years after the standalone add-on Beyond Divinity, Larian has released the long
awaited sequel, Divinity 2: Dragon Lord.

Set in the same universe as the previous games, Dragon lord puts the player in the role of
an adventurer who will become a new Dragon Lord. The Dragon Lords were once
powerful avatars with access to an ancient secret: morphing into a Dragon. Split in
different episodes, the initial story focuses on how the player becomes a Dragon Lord,
and how he gains access to this glorious power.

What follows is a fast-paced story featuring many plot-twists, several of them quite
surprising. The story is told in a non-intrusive way and contrary to many other games in
the genre, it is not heavy on the dialogue, something that comes as quite a relief. That
doesn’t mean there isn’t any depth to the story. Larian has chosen to tell its story in a very
visual way, showing the story rather than writing about it, and only relies on the dialog
window when a player needs to actively make a choice. This makes the game feel like a
top-notch Hollywood Fantasy movie.

While this design choice could’ve led to a multitude of forced-to-watch-cut-scenes, the
design team crafted their story in such a way that you always know what’s going on by
just observing your environment. For a genre that used to boast the number of words as a
feature on the back of the box, this is a radical departure, and it definitely opens up the
game to a broader audience.

The game plays in a unique system of so-called episodes. They can be compared to
something like the chapters of a book. The episodes are something Larian is pretty
excited about, and when playing Divinity 2 it becomes clear why. Each episode takes
between two to four hours, allowing players who don’t have vast amounts of time to start
and finish an episode in one play session, and still get a cool reward for their trouble.

Single player and multiplayer modes
Besides the deep and rich story your characters will play through, there is also a second
story. The difference is that you can play through this in multiplayer mode. That’s right –
you can play it will your friends over LAN or with a matchmaking service over the
internet. After you have played through the entire story, you can continue working on
your character in the online part.

Alternatively, you can opt to start a new character in the online part. This is a great way
to try out new things and make wild new characters. You can’t take these characters over
to the single-player story, however.

Since the release of the game, the Larian folks have not been sitting still. They have
released additional quests, stories and items that were all gracefully integrated into the
multiplayer story. Several more are in the works, and there is no end in sight. The Larian
forums are abuzz with suggestions and ideas, and the creative team always has an eye for
the community, ultimately improving the quality of the new content. They are even
starting writing contests, and promise to integrate the winning stories and quests into the
newest upcoming content-packs.

The Battle Tower
An important part of the story is told through a structure called the Battle tower. In terms
of story progression, the battle tower is to Divinity 2 what CTU is to 24 - Fox’ award
winning show. The tower is inhabited by a number of well-written characters and acts as
the player’s home base. It’s a great setting for stories of friendship, loyalty and treachery
as the player unravels the fantastic plot involving his draconic heritage.

Apart from a story function, several of the NPC’s in the tower also have a practical role.
They can research spells, craft items, make potions, discover new skills and many more
things. There’s even a necromancer who gives the player a hacksaw with which he has to
cut off limbs from creatures. Upon receiving the limbs, the necromancer grafts them
together in a Frankenstein-like monster called the Creature, which acts as a special kind
of pet for the player. This Creature comes with its own skill tree, with skills that depend
on the composition of its body.

The player can recruit and fire NPC’s from the tower, and he can decorate the place with
artefacts he finds during his travels.

One noteworthy feature is the trophy room where the player can hang the heads of the
enemies he defeated. There are also living quarters where the NPC’s that inhabit the
tower hang out, and the way they develop relationships can be observed by spending
some time here.

The battle tower also acts as the glue in the story between the different episodes. With a
few exceptions, an episode typically starts and ends in the battle tower. This provides
continuity throughout the story. While playing, I found myself eager to return to the
tower to see how my deeds would affect the people in the tower.

The Dragon inside you
With a sub-title like Dragon lord, it’s a giveaway that there will be Dragons in the game,
but it’s not often that you get to play as one. Forget horses, carriages and other dull means
of transportation, in Divinity 2, you can transform yourself in a Dragon and that is by the
far the coolest way of travelling we’ve ever seen.

Players access their Dragon powers through a powerful artefact called the Dragon stone.
The stone has different purposes, the most important being the Dragon-morph. Just click
the little trinket, and you’ll be soaring above the treed. If you are inside a dungeon or
building, the stone allows you to turn into the more agile but ground-based Half-Dragon.

The Dragon at your side
At a very early stage, you run into a cute little winged creature called the Mini-Dragon.
You will soon form a bond of friendship with the lonely Dragon. The Dragon helps you
get through the rough times of being a Dragon Lord, an ancient and lonely responsibility.

There is great comic tension between the player and the Dragon, as he constantly
complains about new emotions that he has been having. These emotions are the results of
a soul-linking spell that bound the two of you together as Dragon Lord and sidekick.
The little rascal is full of tricks! At many occasions, the Dragon surprised us with its wit
and sense of humour. He can also turn invisible at will; something very useful when
talking to the many NPC characters walking around. In some big battles against the huge
monsters that the game has, the little one shows inventiveness and got me out of a tight
spot.

The Mini-Dragon has a will of its own and does not like to be ordered around. At some
moments, he even refuses to help you. But he is a friendly, gentle soul, and would save
your neck plenty of times. When the time finally came to say goodbye, I felt genuinely
sad.

A very accessible RPG
Divinity 2 has all the features you’d expect from a modern day RPG – skill trees,
inventory management and trading, quest diaries, auto-maps, cool items, character
customization and gigantic monsters. But it is apparent throughout the game that Larian
has strived to keep everything as simple and accessible as possible without sacrificing
depth.

This is very noticeable in the way they handle experience and leveling up. To put it
simply, they dumped the idea of experience altogether and instead express everything in
gold. If you want to level up, you need to buy that level with a certain amount of gold.
While this is a radical shift from the way things are traditionally done, it does open up an
entire new level of gameplay. You find yourself constantly balancing whether you should
spend your gold on boosting your character, on paying for a cool piece of equipment or
spending your hard earned gold on a promising area of skill research.

Everything that has to do with stats received the same treatment. If they thought
something was too complicated to explain - like strength, intelligence or agility - they
simply dumped it and replaced it by something simpler to communicate to the player.
Now we see much more straight-forward things like damage, health, and casting speed.
The list of innovations is endless, but it all balances up in something that is surprisingly
simple and yet still adheres to the core values of the RPG genre.

Next generation technology
In terms of technology, this is by all means a next generation RPG. Full per pixel lighting
with soft dynamic shadows, advanced parallax and normal mapping, atmospheric effects,
3D physics based particle and fluid effects, procedural terrain and texture generation and
soft/rigid body physics simulations are all part of the technology mix. Powered by an
impressive array of middleware including the latest versions of the Gamebryo, Kynapse,
PhysX, Speedtree and Rendezvous engines, Divinity2 sets a benchmark for the genre.

Graphics
This game has some of the more impressive graphics I have seen to date. All the locations
are highly detailed and rich in life. You can see wildlife running about, trees sway and
birds fly in the skies. There are realistic light conditions, powered by a great HDR
lighting system.

The terrains are often covered in grass and bushes, making for some of the most peaceful
pastoral landscapes I have ever seen. In other places, like the snowy mountains of the
North Pole, or the vast sun-scorched desert, where particle and lighting effect really make
the places come alive.

There are dozens of NPC characters, all expertly modeled and animated, that really make
the towns and dungeons come to life. I should mention the NPC character’s faces – an
exceptionally high amount of love has gone into the faces of the characters. They all look
very lifelike and possess a lot of character.

Graphically it looks great, and accompanied by Kirill Pokrovsky’s brilliant music (winner
of IGN’s 2002 and 2004 best music of the year awards), it is certainly a very impressive
package. The voice acting is all top-notch with captured facial expressions underlining
what characters say.

Conclusion
There aren’t that many traditional RPG’s out there anymore, but this one shows that with
the right level of commitment and good design choices, there’s still plenty of innovation
possible within the genre. Crafted for a modern day gaming audience, Divinity 2 paves
the way for the next generation of RPG’s.

It features coolness, depth, a fast-paced story, great multiplayer and easy accessibility, all
executed with a great degree of polish, and presents the player with a memorable gaming
experience. If you want to try it out now, get the special free demo episode Larian has
created.

Better still, run to the store and buy Divinity 2: Dragon Lord. Depending on the day
you’re reading this, there could already be a lot more content available than it says on the
box. Log on to the Larian website and see which episodes have been released.

The future is bright: Larian is planning to make several expansion packs that add to the
multiplayer story. At the lively Larian forums, people are making suggestions to make the
game’s next episodes even more spectacular.

Need to know features
One world: While the game is divided into multiple levels, they are all connected to each
other creating the impression of a seamless world.

Character development: A sophisticated character development and item system, together
with new gameplay opportunities as the player progresses, will give the player a true feeling
of growing to be a hero. Character development will exist on 3 axes – the hero, the dragon
and the battle tower.

Light without being light: The presentation and gameplay will be very accessible but that
doesn’t mean the game won’t be deep. There are multiple layers of complexity for players to
discover, catering to both traditional and casual RPG gamers.

Multiple difficulty levels: To keep increase replay value (especially in multiplayer), we’ll
introduce a Diablo style difficulty level system.

Market viability
The strong focus on character development which is original but not too different should
attract players that seek the next-gen Diablo experience.

The interactivity and depth of the characters, against the background of a strong multi-layered
story-driven world, will lure in the traditional RPG audience (Elder Scrolls: Oblivion,
Baldur’s Gate).

The atmospheric environments and quality of the polish as well as the premise of being able
to play as a dragon should attract the casual RPG audience.

The multiplayer mode will increase shelf-life and assure that a dedicated community will
form around the game, increasing sales through word of mouth and continuous press
exposure.

lol just lol

I'm glad Larian released the full design docs for Divinity 2 with the Anthology collection so I could see for myself what a fucking joke they are. Dragon Commander and Original Sin are going to crash and burn.

 

[abnaxus]

To get approval of publishers you need to touch the right buttons. News at 11.

Then they actually went against the same shit publisher by pushing out Dragon Knight Saga which was so succesful that they could go and self-publish.

 

[Roguey]

To get approval of publishers you need to touch the right buttons. News at 11.

Then they actually went against the same shit publisher by pushing out Dragon Knight Saga which was so succesful that they could go and self-publish.

No publishers were involved at this point. They mention in the developer's journal that they paid for half of development themselves, ran out of money, then had to go crawling to a publisher for the rest of it.

 

[DraQ]

lol just lol

I'm glad Larian released the full design docs for Divinity 2 with the Anthology collection so I could see for myself what a fucking joke they are. Dragon Commander and Original Sin are going to crash and burn.

Detected.

 

[thesoup]

Roguey cannot into "give us money" talk.
I mean really, does anyone remember any "fast action and impressive visual storytelling that appeals to the young" or "top notch Hollywood fantasy" parts?

 

[Roguey]

No publishers were involved at this point.

Clearly those were features they didn't have the talent/money to include just like a million other unrealistic things they wanted to do.

 

[thesoup]

You say it so it must be true. If they weren't even planing to contact publishers, why did they do a console RPG from the get go instead of going turn based and in a more Ultima approach like Swen has been trying for over a decade and has finally actually done it because of self publishing?
This is obvious PR moneymaking talk. Even in that development video on youtube they say they had high ambitions (as high as you can get in a popamole RPG), went to publishers all around the world and had to settle for a smaller publisher. Saying that they wanted to make a really ambitious game without going to a publisher then "crawled back" after they ran out of money is retarded because they cannot be so retarded to try to self publish such a game in their economic state circa 2007. or whenever development began because they weren't Valve back then. I mean, really. They made DD, then somehow 5 years later, without earning a shit ton of cash on a megaultrahit, thought they had enough money for a sequel on their own?

 

[Roguey]

thesoup it wasn't a console RPG from the start. Talk of consoles doesn't appear anywhere in the first design doc, as shown above, the only hardware they considered was PC ("The game’s platform is a P4 with pixel shader 3.0 capable GFX card minimum.").

Here's a paragraph from the developer journal:

Our experiences with publishers and having insufficient funding, had taught us that it was vital to earn enough money so that we could fund our next game ourselves. So between 2004 and 2006, we took on an enormous amount of work for hire, the key aim being to generate sufficient cash so that we could develop Divinity 2. It wasn't the best nor the fastest strategy in the world, but it did work. During those times, only a small team worked on creating Divinity content, but Larian as a business was building up reserves, reserves that were going to be sorely needed when making the next Divinity...

Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like now.

 

[thesoup]

It still sounds far fetched. They worked to make money for the game, but ended up spending all of it barely into production? That sounds like the worst money management ever or like bullshit. Guess we should ask Swen.

 

[Roguey]

Well, they paid for half of it, with DTP paying the other half. Since DKS in total cost 6.5 million euros/~8.26 million dollars they paid for about 3.25/4.13. In this blog entry Swen said he could have cut 2 million euros from the budget knowing what he knows now (meaning they could have paid for nearly the entire thing themselves had they planned better, and possibly the entire thing had they decided to forgo frivolous things like movies, dialogue animations, full voice acting, the xbox port, etc)
In the preface to the developer's journal, he acknowledges he has a problem:

The one thing that stood out for me during my trip down memory lane was the realization that there is one particular mistake Larian keeps on making: always trying to put too much in one box. I knew of course that we have a tendency of doing that, but I don't think I realized until today how bad it really was.

The thing that triggered this was chancing upon two emails I sent, one written in 2001 and the other written in 2008. Both of these mails used almost the exact same wording and reasoning to explain to our publishers why the game was going to be late, what features we were going to cut and why they shouldn't abandon hope.

What startled me was how little we had learned: we'd managed to get ourselves into the same kind of trouble for exactly the same kind of reasons, and we were happily defending that position against desperate people who had invested money into our project with the same arguments.

Surprisingly and ironically, the publishers who were cursing and yelling at us so much for being late, were also the ones that benefitted(sp) the most, as our tendency of putting so much into our games is what created the large Divinity fan base in the first place and what ensured that we'd have a following of millions of players.

Looking at what my team is doing today, I can see that they're feverishly trying to put too much into our new creations, so I guess our next games will be a bit late once again.

 

[Haba]

Can you name me one RPG project that had a realistic scope from the start, no budget overrun, quick development pace and end result was a rich, deep RPG.

 

[Roguey]

Can you name me one RPG project that had a realistic scope from the start, no budget overrun, quick development pace and end result was a rich, deep RPG.

This is difficult to answer because I'm not some all-knowing wizard who knows all the behind-the-scenes info of every RPG developer. Most devs are pretty stupid about this, but what Larian thought they could do was absurd (Divinity 2 also isn't a rich, deep RPG nor was it even intended to be according to the three different design documents I've read).

 

[Murk]

And yet, Divinity 2 and the original were great fun. Huh, go figure.

 

[Roguey]

Obviously I disagree. Timesink trash with a few smirk-worthy lines. "I'm very upset about Div 2's combat" as a sage once said.

 

[Zeriel]

You're probably just going to have to accept that your opinion isn't that common, then. What I've seen of reaction to DD2 is basically either mainstream reviews giving it good marks or "Well, it's not Skyrim and they didn't send a check so let's just give it 70% to be dicks" and non-mainstream people mostly loving the shit out of it.