Divinity Is Fort Joy well designed? And if so, is it the only DOS2 area to feature interesting design?

[Tigranes]

Of all the things to defend vigorously

Sure, you can create a rationale around why a penal colony is a random mishmash of people in despair, people just hanging out, a fort leaking like a sieve, and so on.

Should you choose to create such an island, when you can create anything you want for your game? No.

 

[kangaxx]

Why the fuck do people hire testers who can barely breath unassisted due to how complicated it is?

They likely represent the majority of the game playing public, sadly.

 

[kangaxx]

They are planning an attack on the magisters, and they are hiding because they are not ready to face them yet.

Yep, from memory they're afraid of the shriekers. Plus when you first find them they've "lost" their leader.

 

[MajorMace]

There is a quest clearly named "Escape from Fort Joy" and you get XP for completing it.
You're arguing that there's no "escaping fort joy" because the actual prison is the island.
Period.

they are hiding because they are not ready to face them yet.

Why are they hiding ? They aren't escaping anything according to you, there is no reason to hide ?
Why would the magisters strike them down, since people just explained that these fine folks are still in prison ?

 

[NJClaw]

There is a quest clearly named "Escape from Fort Joy" and you get XP for completing it.
You're arguing that there's no "escaping fort joy" because the actual prison is the island.
Period.

What the fuck does the name of a quest have to do with anything?

"Fort Joy" is a well defined place, and you escape it. So what?

 

[MajorMace]

Here's how things went in this thread :
- Someone points out that the whole "escaping the prison" schtick is poorly executed because the guards seem to give no fuck and you have a thousand ways to escape fort alamo.
- Fine gentlemen explain that it makes perfect sense, because there's actually nothing to escape but the whole island, and the magisters are actually just leading experiment on site.
- Someone points out that the game itself presents you this fort alamo as a prison that you should escape, and that therefore the former point still stands.
- sO wHaT ?

 

[NJClaw]

Why are they hiding ? They aren't escaping anything according to you, there is no reason to hide ?
Why would the magisters strike them down, since people just explained that these fine folks are still in prison ?

Are you really asking why the magisters would strike down an organized group of people whose manifest goal is to destroy the magisters order and let every prisoner escape the island?

 

[MajorMace]

Are you really asking why the magisters would strike down an organized group of people whose manifest goal is to destroy the magisters order and let every prisoner escape the island?

No I'm asking how they'd know this particular group's goals since they're just a bunch of prisonners like any other. Main difference being that they're not in Fort Joy anymore, you know, the "defined place" that is totally not supposed to be a prison.

 

[NJClaw]

Are you really asking why the magisters would strike down an organized group of people whose manifest goal is to destroy the magisters order and let every prisoner escape the island?

No I'm asking how they'd know this particular group's goals since they're just a bunch of prisonners like any other. Main difference being that they're not in Fort Joy anymore, you know, the "defined place" that is totally not supposed to be a prison.

Man, have you actually played the game or are you just acting like you did?

They are not a bunch of prisoners like any other, they are a group of prisoners rallied and organized by the seekers. Magisters and seekers already clashed on the island: they fought, and now the seekers are hiding because they know that they can't win. I don't remember "how" the magisters became aware of the seekers' plot, but there are in-game letters detailing their plan to help prisoners escape the island.

 

[MajorMace]

Fine, let's deem this particular example retarded and dismiss it entirely.
The general idea remains : the whole escape from fort joy is indeed poorly executed.
It still makes no sense whatsoever to claim that the actual prison is the island.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It still makes no sense whatsoever to claim that the actual prison is the island.

Do you think it's a coincidence they chose an island in the middle of fucking nowhere to house people capable of accidentally summoning monsters that eat reality?

 

[MajorMace]

This is not the point mate. The point is that I am to escape Fort Joy, there are several ways to do it which all grant XP and -I think- trigger some dialogues to mark the occasion, and it's not exactly compelling one way or another for reasons mentioned earlier in this thread.

You can't dismiss this criticism by "but they're on an island anyway". We're talking specifically about the design of Fort Joy.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

This is not the point mate. The point is that I am to escape Fort Joy, there are several ways to do it which all grant XP and -I think- trigger some dialogues to mark the occasion, and it's not exactly compelling one way or another for reasons mentioned earlier in this thread.

I have no idea what your point even is beyond "completing a quest gives XP"
Fort joy is just a ghetto for them to live in that's lightly supervised.
Escaping the island is a completely different story because it's the real prison. It's the reason that fort joy doesn't have strict security and the guards let the inhabitants do whatever as long as they're not being aggressive towards them.
Remember: the entire point of the magisters is to do whatever they can to stop sourcerers from using source magic until they get

Spoiler

turned into a zombo

How is this hard to understand?

 

[MajorMace]

How is that hard to understand that the whole design of the fort and the main quest tied to it don't mesh well. Why am I even to "escape Fort Joy" since it's just a lightly guaded ghetto ?
That's the very first thing you're presented with in this game : Remove your collar and escape Fort Joy. And it doesn't feel very compelling.
Oh but that's because it's actually not supposed to be a prison. Cool, it's still not interesting.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

How is that hard to understand that the whole design of the fort and the main quest tied to it don't mesh well. Why am I even to "escape Fort Joy" since it's just a lightly guaded ghetto ?
That's the very first thing you're presented with in this game : Remove your collar and escape Fort Joy. And it doesn't feel very compelling.
Oh but that's because it's actually not supposed to be a prison. Cool, it's still not interesting.

Maybe you should try reading instead of complaining you can't understand english and blaming the game for it

 

[Thal]

If Baldur's Gate 2 entered Early Access today, one year later it would come out as Dragon Age: Origins. And that's if we're lucky. Just fuck most people's opinions (and Codex ratings). Most people, most of the time, are retarded.TM

Very good point, which also applies to crowdfunded games to a certain extent. If you accommodate fans at the expense of creativity you will end up with a decent but not brilliant product. I doubt JA2 could be created from a scratch with EA or crowdfunding and BG1 would be impossible (They would immediately whine about the level cap). Soulless clones of both OTOH would be perfectly possible.

Of course, you have successes like AoD, but I recall Iron Tower consciously fighting back against fans, who wanted it to be exactly like Fallout (no teleporting, issues with gated content iirc). But they stuck to their vision and made their own game instead of someone else's, which turned out to be the correct choice.

 

[MajorMace]

I'm done with your shit man.
The game presents you with Fort Joy. It's a selling point of the game reactivity with its several ways of completing it. The goal is to escape.
THE GOAL IS TO ESCAPE.
People explain that it doesn't feel all that compelling. Guards don't care, you can escape by jumping over some random cliff etc.
Oh but it makes sense since the island is the prison.
Cool story but
THE GOAL IS TO ESCAPE FORT JOY.

In blue : The topic, the opening "level" of DOS2, which is supposed to display the game design with its various possible solutions etc.
In red : Posters' criticism about the blue part.
In green : Lore.

 

[kangaxx]

How is that hard to understand that the whole design of the fort and the main quest tied to it don't mesh well. Why am I even to "escape Fort Joy" since it's just a lightly guaded ghetto ?

Are you asking what the motivation is for the player to escape, rather than sit imprisoned?

 

[Darth Roxor]

If Fort Joy were just a ghetto and the entire island were the prison, then it would be much more poignant if the magisters didn't even stop you from leaving in the first place, and instead said something like "we're here to make sure nothing comes in from the outside, not the other way around, but if you wanna try your luck, be my guest pal, heheheh." Unfortunately Larian's writers couldn't write their way out of a cardboard box, so what we get is a schizophrenic theme park.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If Fort Joy were just a ghetto and the entire island were the prison, then it would be much more poignant if the magisters didn't even stop you from leaving in the first place, and instead said something like "we're here to make sure nothing comes in from the outside, not the other way around, but if you wanna try your luck, be my guest pal, heheheh." Unfortunately Larian's writers couldn't write their way out of a cardboard box, so what we get is a schizophrenic theme park.

gee, almost like one of the first things most people do after escaping the fort is taking your collar off
couldn't imagine why magisters would want you to stay in the fort where they can keep an eye on you

seriously, did you guys actually play the game or are you just bullshitting?

 

[Darth Roxor]

very fortunate that these super magic collars meant to keep guantanamo prisoners in check are so easily removed

in fact they are so easily removed they can be removed already in the ghetto under the watchful eyes of the ever vigilant magisters

 

[rusty_shackleford]

very fortunate that these super magic collars meant to keep guantanamo prisoners in check are so easily removed

in fact they are so easily removed they can be removed already in the ghetto under the watchful eyes of the ever vigilant magisters

They can be removed by exactly one person in the Fort, the skilled blacksmith that has been studying divine order tools since she was a child.
Keep goalpost shifting you dumbfuck, or you can just admit you're wrong.

 

[Darth Roxor]

how can i admit to being wrong when i'm right

it's you who's doing the most impressive mental gymnastics to attempt an apology of a badly thought out theme park that has band-aid solutions stacked up on it to somehow keep the entire thing from falling apart

 

[Luckmann]

If you ask me, there are many signs which point that it used to be different but was repurposed to something else later in development, and I'd say the primary piece of evidence is the way it looks. It has that ruined appearance that would fit an old, crumbling structure being taken over and fortified by a vanguard force or whatever, but it definitely doesn't look like a damn high-security prison established specifically to keep extremely dangerous people locked up.

It is my understanding that Fort Joy was supposed to be substantially harsher, but early alpha/beta-testers bitched too much about it. It was actually supposed to be quite hardcore, with more of a "prison island full of bad people" rather than "an actual prison but not really". You were supposed to be dumped there and then prison-shiv your way through it, more or less.

This is still the vibe you get very, very early on when arriving to the island (before you make it to the fort) and it's the reason there's all these recipes for making makeshift equipment.

All of that was thrown out because Larian are visionless hacks that cannot take criticism.

the release version on tactician is harder than the beta was

It is not a matter of difficulty. It is that the entire area was supposed to have been completely differently. More Robinson Crusoe meets Battle Royale than a bargain-bin Escape from New York.

 

[The_Mask]

The real problem with Fort Joy is the vendors imo. Not only their placement, but also their content. Either this being a prison or a penal colony, them vendors are way too well stocked (and stacked) to give any credibility to your situation.
It is one of those cases, again, where gameplay is in complete dissonance from story.

And as far as "huh... you can escape the Fort without even realizing it, lul" - that's completely fine. In fact, I would say that particular aspect is a strength of the game. Luck is a skill, and should be treated as such.