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Development Info Swen Vincke's Divinity: Original Sin Postmortem at GDC

Infinitron

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Tags: Divinity 2; Divinity: Dragon Commander; Divinity: Original Sin; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke

Larian's Swen Vincke was at GDC last week, where he gave a talk about the development of Divinity: Original Sin. I was hoping a recording of it would show up on the Internet, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon. Instead, we'll have to make due with abridged summaries from the games journalists that attended the event, such as this article over at PC Gamer:

Larian Studios has been trying to make Divinity: Original Sin, in one form or another, since 1997. Founder Swen Vincke gave a great post-mortem on the development of one of our favorite games of 2014, focusing more on the business side of game development than the creative side. Or, more specifically, how business and creative clash and overlap. To make their dream RPGs in Divinity: Original Sin, Larian went independent, borrowed money from the bank, got outside investors, raised nearly $1 million on Kickstarter, sacrificed Divinity: Dragon Commander and still nearly ran out of funding. If Original Sin hadn’t been a serious success, that could’ve been the end for Larian.

But it was a success, which Vincke credited to Larian’s philosophy in developing the game: not compromising its vision. He recounted a history of previous games, like Divinity II, that reviewed and sold poorly because they released too early. For Original Sin, Larian built its own technology instead of relying on middleware that couldn’t support the features they wanted. Larian tried to make a co-op RPG for years, dating as far back as 1997, but inevitably cut the feature from multiple projects because it would be too difficult or time-consuming to implement.

Divinity II's premature release left Larian in debt, so the studio decided to go all-in on its next project. To keep the entire team of 30 or so developers together, they started two projects: the RPG that would become Original Sin, and strategy game Dragon Commander. Interestingly, Dragon Commander was meant to be the bigger project, while Original Sin was a smaller RPG that would be released first.

But Larian fell in love with the RPG, and decided not to release it until it was completely finished. In Vincke’s words, Larian “murdered” Dragon Commander—releasing it before it was really done—to focus on Original Sin and pull in some badly needed funds.

The talk was remarkably candid: Vincke admitted how many mistakes and desperate decisions the studio made to continue developing Divinity: OS as long as possible. They delayed tax payments to spend more on development and spent money they didn’t have to add voice acting to the game later in development. They missed releasing some languages at launch by a day, after crunching on localization for three weeks with an emergency staff of 20 translators. And when Original Sin finally hit Early Access, the developers added thousands of bug fixes to their tracker and made significant gameplay system changes based on player feedback.

Larian initially had 1.5 million Euros to spend on Divinity: Original Sin and hoped to build it on a budget of 3 million. In the end, the studio spent 4.5 million Euros. After listening to Vincke talk, it seems almost miraculous that Larian didn’t collapse, and that the game made it to release with its openness and co-op multiplayer intact.

Vincke closed the talk by mentioning that Larian is working on two new RPGs, as we reported yesterday. Original Sin’s success hopefully gives Larian the leeway to develop those games without nearly going bankrupt.
Other summaries are available at Gamasutra and GamesRadar, but for maximum detail, I recommend this live-tweeting of Swen's talk by Civilization 4 lead designer Soren Johnson.
 

undecaf

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
For once the all in gamble was worth it.

Now just hope they spend their divine millions well.
 

Black

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For those you who don't know, 1.5 Euros is basically how much 3 Americas are worth.
 
Weasel
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To make their dream RPGs in Divinity: Original Sin, Larian went independent, borrowed money from the bank, got outside investors, raised nearly $1 million on Kickstarter, sacrificed Divinity: Dragon Commander and still nearly ran out of funding.

I see the corrupt gaming press is already trying to write Greg Martin Enterprises out of history

:rpgcodex:
 

MicoSelva

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I hope their new games feature some better writing, because as great as the general feel in DIv:OS is (especially combat is impressive), I kind of lost interest in what was going on after the first map.

I am still hoping to get back to the game eventually, but I had the same hope for Divine Divinity and Divinity 2*, so...

*I still have my save games from that one
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Google says 1€ = 1.086165$.
That's a recent collapse though. Would have been more like $1.2-14 when they were making the game.

Not sure that it really matters since apart from the KS they would have been dealing entirely with euros so the value of the dollar is p irrelevant.

In Vincke’s words, Larian “murdered” Dragon Commander—releasing it before it was really done—to focus on Original Sin and pull in some badly needed funds.
You don't say.
 

evdk

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Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
In Vincke’s words, Larian “murdered” Dragon Commander—releasing it before it was really done—to focus on Original Sin and pull in some badly needed funds.
I do not want to be needlessly negative (lies, I do), but if I had actually bought that game full price that kinda talk would have pissed me off incredibly. They certainly forgot to mention this fact during the DC marketing blitz.
 

undecaf

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Google says 1€ = 1.086165$.
That's a recent collapse though. Would have been more like $1.2-14 when they were making the game.

Not sure that it really matters since apart from the KS they would have been dealing entirely with euros so the value of the dollar is p irrelevant.

Yeah, I know. I just threw it there since the other guy mentioned it. It doesn't really matter, like you say, but it makes a nice small time trivia comparison for the (potential) costs and profits.
 

Black

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Because you're all so acoustic you can't even take a fucking joke, fags.
 

SausageInYourFace

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So how well did Dragon Commander sell? I greatly enjoyed the game and would love to see a sequel but I suspect its not going to happen.
 
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In Vincke’s words, Larian “murdered” Dragon Commander—releasing it before it was really done—to focus on Original Sin and pull in some badly needed funds.
I do not want to be needlessly negative (lies, I do), but if I had actually bought that game full price that kinda talk would have pissed me off incredibly. They certainly forgot to mention this fact during the DC marketing blitz.
The thing about Swen and Larian, as much as I like them, is that you don't need to be Roguey to see that their honesty and openness come with certain caveats. They may be pretty frank about the various development disasters, but not until sufficient time has passed and/or they have something positive to balance it out with, and even then there's usually a healthy dose of selectivity and/or creative re-interpretation of facts. It's not hard to come to the conclusion that it was not so much them "falling in love with D:OS" and making it a priority as realizing (far too close to release) that Dragon Commander was beyond repair (at least in terms of becoming a commercial hit). D:OS was enough of a success for them to admit to many of the mistakes relatively soon, but I don't think we're going to get the full story on just how rushed certain parts (i.e. everything past the first act) were, or much focus on the stretch goals that failed to materialize, etc. until the next game (or at least the PS4/GOTY version of D:OS) is out.
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Dragon Commander could have a well done Total War game with more interesting politics (this part they already had done). Those games sell millions of copies.
 

evdk

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Dragon Commander could have a well done Total War game with more interesting politics (this part they already had done). Those games sell millions of copies.
Well, I have never played a Total War title in my life, but I doubt the only salvageable part of them is a CYOA talking heads minigame.
 

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