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Interview Swen Vincke talks Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Narrative Competitive Multiplayer at PCGamesN

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Divinity: Original Sin 2; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke

PCGamesN have a new interview with Swen Vincke, on the topic of Divinity: Original Sin 2's co-op feature (which he's taken to calling "Narrative Competitive Multiplayer") and how it's helping make the game's story better. It's not the first time Swen has expounded on the idea of Divinity: Original Sin's multiplayer making the single player experience better, and with the sequel Larian seem intent on taking that to the next level. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

“One of the biggest complaints about Original Sin was that it was sometimes too obtuse. The mechanics came in front of everything that was there in terms of story,” Vincke admits. “Also, we were a very small studio working on lots of things at the same time, so we didn’t have enough time to finish all the systems in the way they should have been finished. We have more time and more people now.”

The phrase Vincke uses to describe the approach is “narrative competitive multiplayer”. It sounds like a fancy but ultimately vacuous slogan reserved for a Steam page bullet point, but once you start to pry into its meaning you see the storytelling aspirations for Original Sin 2 are monumental. Pen-and-paper RPGS are the go-to reference point once again, but Vincke talks about crafting a story that is not only better told but also gives players more opportunities to influence. There’s greater focus on your characters and their interactions with fellow party members.

“The tagline for the game is going to be ‘your origins, your party, your story’ and we really mean it. Your origins really have to affect everything so that you feel like it’s you and your character, which is the essence of role-playing.”

From what’s been revealed of Original Sin 2 so far, your character’s origins are one of the sequel’s biggest additions. You’re given the option to create a character from a range of multiple races with differing backgrounds, upbringings and motivations. These differences, however major or minor, promise to modify almost all conversations with NPCs and fellow players. Using a system of invisible tags, Larian can assign players with different lines of dialogue or topics of conversation based on your choices in character creation. Vincke uses the origin question “how did you survive puberty?” as an example.

“Basically that means how did you negotiate in Kindergarten, right? Were you manipulative? Then you get that tag. Did you try to make fun of it so that everybody liked you? Jokester tag. We do fool around with it a bit deeper than that, but that’s essentially how we’re thinking of handling it.”

In Original Sin 2 your party can fracture and split. Did someone else make a decision you so despised that you didn’t want to be a part of the group anymore? You can leave, abandon your party and go off on your own adventures until you’re prepared to reconcile – if ever. And even then you can hold onto that grudge when you return and slip your adversary a subtly poisoned health potion for them to drink at an unsuspecting moment. It’s those sorts of scenarios that excite Vincke:

“In a varied group there are so many different things that you can do, and because we have such a systemic approach to it then we can start talking about morphing and changing it more. I haven’t played a game like that, not on a computer at least, so I’m very curious to see what the end result will be.”

The idea seems ridiculous. How do you build an RPG with that level of freedom without the whole thing buckling under its own ambition? What failsafes do you need put in place to ensure all players can still progress when the systems are pushed to their extremes? Can you even prepare for those circumstances? Larian are well aware of the significant challenges they’ve placed on themselves in order to achieve it.

“One writer was frustrated that there wasn’t a single bloody bottleneck in the game except two. He was annoyed at how he was supposed to ensure players didn’t miss details.” Vincke explains one way they’re getting around that specific issue. Story has been seeded throughout the world – in every side-quest, in every conversation, in every place you visit – so that wherever you go or wherever you’ve been, you can start to piece it all together.

“We never know what you’re going to do, [but] we have to ensure you get something from the main story everywhere,” he continues. “We’re not doing a Witcher 3 thing with a lot of cutscenes and a lot of emotional moments because we can’t. Not with the gameplay that we have, because it has to work in multiplayer. We have to tell the story through player agency, basically.”

“[Divinity: Original Sin] was more like a toy box that you could do plenty of things with and you had a narrative holding it together. But that story got buried sometimes, so now it’s much more fleshed out and we’ve put much more time into it.”
Swen's talk at Reboot Develop last week was also about the Narrative Competitive Multiplayer concept. Hopefully a video of that will show up.
 

Crooked Bee

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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
From its tactical turn-based battles to the reactionary game world, there was an undeniable depth and richness to what Larian had designed.

lol

Last time I checked reactionary and reactive were two different words.
 

Kem0sabe

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“We never know what you’re going to do, [but] we have to ensure you get something from the main story everywhere,” he continues. “We’re not doing a Witcher 3 thing with a lot of cutscenes and a lot of emotional moments because we can’t. Not with the gameplay that we have, because it has to work in multiplayer. We have to tell the story through player agency, basically.”

Witcher 3 had some great writing and quest design, but those werent great because of fucking cutscenes... As soon as Larian understands who shit their writing has been and how ridiculously banal their quest design and characters are, the better.
 

DeepOcean

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I admire your ambition but next time guys, when you have the idea of having you kill woves so a dog can have bones, rethink your quest priorities.
 

worldsmith

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Some races do not get on with other races; persons of one upbringing may look down upon another's and so on.
That is when the group dynamic is truly tested: when personalities clash, tempers fray and rifts occur,
A world full of think-with-their-emotions-and-indoctrinations morons is what I'm trying to escape when I play a game. Don't make my party consist of them.

Sure, have such characters in the world - and I'll do "really bad things" to the ones that are too annoying/troublesome. But why would I choose to join up with a bunch of such losers? Is that all the DOS2 world is going to have to offer?

If you want to have the possibility of intra-party conflict, then do it intelligently. Have each character have their own goals (that aren't just "don't like X because that's how they feelz" - actual goals: revenge, riches, power, a specific item or position, bring a certain change to the world, what have you), some of which you might know about, some of which they may be keeping to themselves (based on what they believe best serves their purposes).

(A lot of TV/movie entertainment tends to suffer from this same retardation, with most/all of the "conflict" being borne out of stupidity and irrational decisions rather than being a natural result of the intelligent actions of independent agents with incompatible goals and/or a willingness to harm/exploit others to reach their goals. And I don't care if it's "realistic" because the world is in fact full of such stupid people - it's still shitty entertainment.)

The article mentions the possibility of players having different agendas:
I think I we'll only find out when the entire game is put together and we see a situation in the game where players may have their own agenda and do not want to work co-operatively with one another.
but talks about it like it's expected to happen ex nihilo (no game mechanics reason for it), and like it's entirely inapplicable to AI characters.

Would it be so hard to have some individual goals secretly revealed to and/or selected by each player/AI at the start of the game?
 

Mustawd

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It's not the first time Swen has expounded on the idea of Divinity: Original Sin's multiplayer making the single player experience better


I gotta say that I'm always impressed with Swen and Larian's marketing instincts for D:OS and so far with D:OS2. They always seem to hit the right tone in how they promote their games. Talking about how one new school aspect makes an old school aspect even better is the definition of being able to appeal to multiple audiences. Not sure i believe him, but well done in addressing perhaps my biggest worry about D:OS2 (apart from stupid romances of course).

:salute:
 
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From its tactical turn-based battles to the reactionary game world, there was an undeniable depth and richness to what Larian had designed.

lol

Last time I checked reactionary and reactive were two different words.
DOS2 is Irenaeus approved.
What, 100% white?

looks like we are going to see more of this
11555.png
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
It's not the first time Swen has expounded on the idea of Divinity: Original Sin's multiplayer making the single player experience better


I gotta say that I'm always impressed with Swen and Larian's marketing instincts for D:OS and so far with D:OS2. They always seem to hit the right tone in how they promote their games. Talking about how one new school aspect makes an old school aspect even better is the definition of being able to appeal to multiple audiences. Not sure i believe him, but well done in addressing perhaps my biggest worry about D:OS2 (apart from stupid romances of course).

:salute:

Not everybody is buying it:

sMgRwZc.jpg
 

ERYFKRAD

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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
It's not the first time Swen has expounded on the idea of Divinity: Original Sin's multiplayer making the single player experience better


I gotta say that I'm always impressed with Swen and Larian's marketing instincts for D:OS and so far with D:OS2. They always seem to hit the right tone in how they promote their games. Talking about how one new school aspect makes an old school aspect even better is the definition of being able to appeal to multiple audiences. Not sure i believe him, but well done in addressing perhaps my biggest worry about D:OS2 (apart from stupid romances of course).

:salute:

Not everybody is buying it:

sMgRwZc.jpg
As valid as that seems, I get the impression that these are drawbacks if the interactions scripted as opposed to systems of interaction. Then again, I have no clue how far Larian wants to go, and did go, with that systemic interaction thing.
 

DeepOcean

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Middle Eastern Muslim looking = White guy with a tan.
I tought we were the racists here Roguey.:lol:
 

Roguey

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Middle Eastern Muslim looking = White guy with a tan.
I tought we were the racists here Roguey.:lol:

Muslim? That's stereotyping.

Being perceived as white is a good thing. :M
 

mutonizer

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Well, even though I think D:OS is retarded, don't think these guys can write for shit and have no interest whatsoever in multiplayer in cRPGs...Can't wait to see how it turns out.
 

Zeriel

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Y'know, I can't recall any non-white characters in a Divinity game. :M No one cares because they're not CD Projekt big.

Jahan. And that's right off the top of my head.

Edit: Why am I not surprised you are discounting something that is empirically true with some handwavey excuse.
 

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