LordCrash

Update 12: Is that a stretch goal I see? We're only halfway through our campaign, and already you have us talking about the first stretch goal. Well done! And thank you! All 10000 of you! Without any further delay, here is today's update: Dragon Commander available as add-on More reward tiers now available with Paypal Free shipping in US and EU Cleaning up the rewards table How Divinity: Original Sin fits in the Divinity universe (video) Your Homestead at the Shelter Plane at the End of Time unveiled Dragon Commander available as add-on By (very) popular demand, we added a digital version of Dragon Commander as an add-on, available at $40. To include it in your pledge, click the "Manage Pledge" button and add 40$ to your pledge (just like with other pledges). Keep your selected reward tier. Once this Kickstarter is over, we will contact you so that you can specify what add-on(s) you wish to receive for the extra you have pledged. The minimum pledge amount for this add-on is 25$. For more add-ons, visit the home page of our project (bottom of the page). Find more information on the Dragon Commander website. Alternatively, you can have a look at this official trailer. More reward tiers now available with Paypal There was a bit of a delay, but we increased the range of reward tiers available via Paypal. In case you're wondering, we'll be monitoring the ones that are limited and close donations should the threshold be reached. Free shipping in EU and US We finally got our act together regarding shipping in the EU. We'll spare you the details, but if you live in the EU, you don't need to pay extra for shipping physical goods anymore. If you have already pledged extra for shipping and you live in the European Union, you can click on "Manage your pledge" and adjust your pledge downwards with the amount you added for shipping. So if you pledged 65$+18$ and you live in France, you can now adjust your pledge to 65$ again. Cleaning up the rewards table Because Kickstarter doesn't allow us to change the reward descriptions, we included correct descriptions in another dimension. Don't worry - nothing is removed - but a whole lot of things were added and clarified. World premiere: Jan spoils the storyline! Not really, but the man who prefers to write instead of talk a.k.a. Jan Van Dosselaer, our brilliant lead writer, opened up considerably now that we told him he can get all those extra dialogue lines he wanted in. Good stuff! Definitely worth watching if you want to know how the story of Divinity: Original Sin links in to the tale of the Divine and the Damned. Well, you'll think you'll know, but obviously... The Shelter Plane at the End of Time Created by imp historian Zixzax the Almost Wise; located on the Precipice of Ages - where time itself ends in endless black - you will find your homestead. It is a barren place; arid and forlorn, but beggars can't be choosers, and neither can a couple of Source Hunters down on their luck. In time, though, perhaps your Shelter Plane might turn into quite a cosy abode really: a place to put up your feet and relax by the fire, staring out unto the very edge of oblivion. What are some of the nifty things you can expect to find in your Shelter Plane? The Transcript of Unravelled Destinies As you play through Original Sin, you will encounter a great many characters, and like any respectable RPG hero worth their salt, you will be able to alter these characters' lives through your actions and decisions. For some, the consequences will be tangible and immediate; for others, they might seem imperceptible at first, but become more apparent as time passes. Each time you visit your Shelter Plane, you can consult the Transcript of Unravelled Destinies and learn about the consequences of your actions, for it is a magical tome which registers the fate of every single being in Rivellon. By flicking through its pages, you will learn about what happened to all those people whose lives you affected. Did the young couple you reunited live happily ever after? Did that swindler you dragged to court really learn the error of his ways? Did you impact past or present and did you thereby influence the future? Can you jump back to reality and still make changes? Interior Decider-Decorator Yes, the Shelter Plane at the End of Time is a lonesome and empty place at first, but never you worry! Its appearance will change, though not as the result of a wholesale shopping spree. Instead, decisions you make during specific quests will change its initial shape and give your Shelter Plane a distinctly different atmosphere... Henchmen, the Gathering As you recruit henchmen throughout your journey, there will come a time when you'll want to leave one of them behind (because you just cannot resist hiring that bull-sized battle mage you just met!). Yet fear not, for they will not hold a grudge against you! Instead, they will patiently wait for you until you require their services once more, safe in the comfort of your Shelter Plane. The Coffers That Have No Bottoms Each player gets his or her individual storage chest, where they may safely store their loot without fearing their loyal partner (or Zixzax...) might 'borrow' any of their belongings. Even the best of couples need their privacy. Shelter from the Storm If things get a bit much for you on the battlefield and you see no other option than to flee, you can quickly retreat to your Shelter Plane and catch your breath. After all, there's no shame in surviving, and when you feel ready to head out again, you can simply pick your waypoint of choice. Secrets Galore There is more to The Shelter Plane at the End of Time than meets the eye; much more! Seek and you shall find. Great wonders await inquisitive souls... In Closing Don't forget... 163 likes to go...

Update 11: Kirill's Surprise, Character Stats, Sources of Inspiration, Dragon Commander footage, Fanday Kirill’s Surprise In this video, Swen has a short interview with Kirill Pokrovsky, our composer. At the end, he even has a surprise for everybody! Mark the date - thursday, april 18th! Character StatsPeople have been asking about character customization. We will post information about equipment and skills later on. This update will focus on character stats only. Before you read on, please realize that these things tend to change a lot during the process of building the game. We tweak the formulas and the balancing constantly, and the way we programmed and organized this, allows us to make big changes. (Data driven and relative values are the keywords here.) So what follows is the current implementation. But so yeah, stats. That’s actually a long story. Just so you know, we don’t come up with "a stat system" overnight. At first, we started out with something very, very similar to Divine Divinity. Without implementing it, we realized it wouldn’t work well in a turn-based combat game. We considered the Beyond Divinity stat system, because Beyond Divinity started out as a turn-based game (the publisher decided against that back in the day). Breaking that down, we again had to let go of that idea because it had been changed too much to reflect the real-time combat system Beyond Divinity ended up with. So this quickly became the tale of how a programmer, a designer, a producer and a CEO set out to each make their own stat proposal. Hearing them one by one, you could feel where each of them was coming from: the mathematical background, the creative approach, the realistic/empirical method... One of us actually wrote a four-page study about how "realistic fighting" actually works. Part of it looked like this: When I try to hit someone: the more skilful I am with my weapon, the more chance I have to hit the more skilful I am with my weapon, the more damage I will do strength can determine the damage of some weapons (e.g. a crossbow does not benefit from strength, but a having a bigger draw weight has an effect on a normal bow) strength can determine the range of some weapons (e.g. the stronger you are, the higher the draw weight of your bow can be, which means that your arrow can go a greater distance) strength can determine the chance of a normal bow hitting the target because the bowman can draw longer and hold steady longer for better aim the better my motor skills, the more chance I have to hit and the more damage I can inflict (e.g. having a good aim is having efficient motor skills) if I am wearing a shield, I am often less free to do with my weapon what I want (even a simple one handed sword benefits from the freedom of not carrying a shield and having a second free hand) ... And it went on like that, and we started to wonder what this guy does during the weekend... But it became clear that being too realistic would make it a very complex system. Not only to balance it, but also towards the player. And this proposal also only took into account that you were going to fight, and that’s a very limited stat system for a game where a lot more is going on than just fighting. On the other hand, this breakdown wasn’t that bad of a read because we all agreed that a stat and combat system have to make sense, and be logical. Sitting together and talking about all of our ideas, we learned where everyone was coming from. So, still on paper, the first stat system we came up with was called SPAM, which was an acronym for Strength, Presence, Accuracy and Mind. After trying it out (still not in game, we were actually building characters on paper, and rolling dice when fighting monsters, persuading characters, picking locks...), we noticed everyone was putting a lot of points in the Presence stat, because that stat was really carrying too much weight. And back to the drawing board we went. A couple of times. Through trial and error, and discussion, we ended up with the following character stats, and we implemented them in such a way that it is easy to change the values, the rules and the formulas. We have already changed it often, and even added stats, simply by reading our forum (and other forums) and by playing the game. We know there are nuts here (on Kickstarter, on internet, and at Larian Studios) that love stat discussions, so don’t hold back! (The names of these stats are programmer names, and may still change. Well, anything is open for discussion and balancing, really.) Also take into account that skills play a big role as well. We’ll tell you more about those later. And hopefully we'll also make the 650K stretch goal, because then we'll be able to add talents and personal traits to the system, which will make it pretty cool. The NPCs have the same stats and formulas as the player. One level makes a big difference: they have more hitpoints, do more damage, and are generally harder to hit. But it’s still doable if you know what you’re doing. As the hero, you start the game with 5 points in every stat, and you get 5 statpoints for customizing your character. Per level-up, you currently get 1 statpoint. But 1 statpoint makes a difference. Items that have an impact on stats, have their positive and negative effects, so there are trade-offs that help building a character. There are items that support different types of character builds. We'll talk about items in a future update. Stats are also used for saving throws against different effects. For instance, a high dexterity lowers your chance of falling down when walking over ice, and strength gives you a saving throw against being caught in a wall of ice (you can break through). It doesn't take a genius to see that this guy's speed stat will be low. And that his armor will absorb a lot of damage. And to wield such an axe, he must be very strong. Other than the lack of speed, what will his weak spots be? Level is a multiplier for your hitpoint bonus from constitution is a multiplier for your mana bonus from intelligence Primary stats Strength gives damage bonuses to attacks with melee weapons defines how much weight you can carry defines what items you can lift defines how far you can throw items, depending on their weight gives you a bonus to intimidation Dexterity gives damage bonuses to attacks with ranged weapons gives you a higher chance of successfully picking locks and picking pockets affects the "ideal range" of ranged weapons lower chance of triggering traps, higher chance of disarming traps better at repairing Intelligence determines your amount of mana gives bonuses to magic (depending on the spell: damage, range, width of a cone, duration, how easy or hard the saving throw is...) gives you a bonus to reasoning helps you figure out NPC stats and resistances helps you to identify unknown items gives bonuses to mind resistance Constitution determines your amount of hitpoints gives you higher resistance against poison gives you a bonus to charming Speed determines the distance you can walk with one action point defines how good you are at dodging or evading attacks (defense rating) gives bonuses to initiative spend less action points when changing equipment or using items in combat Perception determines how much chance you have of successfully hitting an enemy (offense rating) defines your sight and hearing which helps your enemy awareness (e.g. on the mini map) helps with discovering traps and finding treasures and secrets This fire demon is a formidable foe. He has a very high resistance to fire. So high even, that fire damage actually heals him. He can create lava surfaces from a distance. Even though his speed stat is pretty low, he is known to sometimes fly over the battlefield. When he runs out of mana, he has to come close to drive his claws through his enemies, dealing piercing damage, or uses his tail to sweep multiple enemies in one attack, dealing crushing damage with a chance of knockdown. Secondary stats Offense and defense These are determined by your primary stat perception and speed. They can be boosted by magical equipment. When you attack someone, your offense rating is compared to your enemy’s defense rating. This determines how much chance you have of actually hitting him. Damage This stat is determined by your weapon or your spell, and gets a bonus from one of your primary stats. This can be boosted by well-made or magical equipment. Critical chance and critical damage These stats are determined by your weapon. They can be boosted by well-made or magical equipment. Armor When a hit is successful, armor absorbs part of the damage that was dealt. For instance, if you’re hit with 8 damage and you have armor 3, you only take 5 damage. If your armor rating is very high, it is possible to completely absorb all the damage that is dealt by a weak enemy. This stat is determined by your equipment and can be boosted with well-made or magical items. Blocking chance This is determined by the shield you are wearing, if you are wearing a shield. When a hit is successful, the shield gives you a chance of actually fully blocking the attack. Different shields obviously have different blocking chances. Hitpoints This stat is determined by your constitution stat, and can be boosted with magical items. Hitpoints do not regenerate automatically, and can only be regained by healing, eating or resting. Mana This stat is determined by your intelligence stat, and can be boosted with magical items. Magic spells cost mana. Mana does not automatically regenerate and can only be regained by drinking potions, eating certain types of food, or resting. Sight and hearing These secondary stats are determined by your perception stat. They can be boosted by special or magical equipment. They define how far you can see (we have a shroud, and fog of war system), and how well your hearing is (so you can hear and even identify an NPC without being able to see him). Initiative This stat is determined by your speed stat, and can be boosted with special or magical items. It gives you bonuses when combat starts and initiative is rolled. Persuasion This is determined by equipment bonuses only. Persuasion gives you bonuses when trying to intimidate, charm or reason with your party members or NPCs. Walk speed This stat is determined by your speed stat, and can be boosted with special or magical items. It determines how far you can walk with one action point in turn-based combat. Luck This stat can only be boosted with magical items. It’s the X factor of the game... Poison resistance Determined by your constitution stat. Poison resistance will absorb the damage poison would do every turn. Fire, Water, Earth and Air resistances Determined by magical items you are wearing. These absorb elemental damage. Mind resistance Determined by your intelligence stat, and magical items you are wearing. This helps against mind attacks (for instance fear). Piercing, Slashing, Crushing resistances Determined by the equipment you are wearing. These resistances absorb damage from physical attacks. Which games influenced Divinity:Original Sin? Our Russian friends at Gamebox.ru suggested that we post this video in one of our updates, because it clearly shows where we're getting some of our inspiration from. They asked Swen to give a rundown of his five most favourite games ever. There’s a couple of surprises in there. What's also surprising is how awake he looks in the video! Dragon Commander livestream! Today we did our first twitch.tv livestream ever together with the good folk at GOG.com and while we initially had some issues (you should skip the first 10 mins or so), it was a pretty cool experience because we could interact directly with the audience. If you pledged for the 65$ tier, you might want to check this out. If you didn't and are just thinking about it, definitely check it out, because Dragon Commander is the type of game that will take everybody by surprise. http://www.twitch.tv/larianstudios/b/389054545 Before you bombard us with messages, yes, we're going to be adding a Dragon Commander add-on option here. We wanted to do it today even but that didn't happen. Most likely it'll be the case tomorrow. Fan day dated In yesterday's update, we announced a new add-on which allows you to get a fan day ticket. We neglected to mention the date though So the Fan day will be on August 9th 2013 in Gent, Belgium, and start at 10:00 am in the morning, lasting the entire day and evening for those who want. In Closing If anybody wants to contribute to the stats, talents or personal traits discussion - go to our forums and drop us a message there. You are free to drop a note in the Kickstarter comments section, but there's a lot of traffic there and your suggestions might be lost. You are btw only 300 likes away from having an extra Bellegar encounter in the game. See our previous update for more details, but for every 1000 likes above 1061 likes, we will add an extra Bellegar encounter to the game. We'll start preparing some rhymes

Pledge withdrawn. Haha, epic.... If by epic you mean pretty dumb, then yes. I thought it was a joke.....

+1 for a backer store! And a small note about the video: please add dynamic shadows. They would even increase the awesomeness of the engine.

Stay tuned, mates, there is an update for the availability of the physical box editions via PayPal! And please like Larian Studios on facebook! We'll get one additional encounter with the mighty Bellegar for every 1000 likes! (Remember that you can unlike the like after the kickstarter campaign for D:OS is over so please help us.) https://www.facebook.com/LarianStudios

Pledge withdrawn. Haha, epic....

I cannot talk about how awesome that scene is because MY DAMN HEAD EXPLODED! Obsidian, that is really awesome stuff, better than I have imagined how it could be. It's the true modern HD successor of the Infinity engine, KUDOS! And a great thumbs up for all the animators and art people at Obsidian, you're doing a freaking awesome job! Now give more, MORE......

Urge to donate screeches to a halt: there's no Paypal option for the boxed copy. Not good. Sucks, maybe they just need to update the page... This doesn't affect me since I was going digital anyway, but sucks for others. Anyway, write them an email and ask them what the deal is. There are some problems with paypal atm anyway which will hopefully be dealt until tomorrow. And I also hope that Larian will offer box copies via paypal then....

Or perhaps also due to Obsidian's facebook shoutout... https://www.facebook.com/obsidian Thanks again for that, Obsidian. You're awesome.

Ditto. I'll be pledging in the next day or two. Edit: I also love that they're going to add Weresheep into the game. You really started something there, LordCrash. Hehe, I must admit that I did not expect that when I started that little cult... But hey, it had worked quite well for PE with the OOoE, so why not for D:OS? I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up in game, it wouldn't be the first time Hehe, who knows, who knows.....

Ditto. I'll be pledging in the next day or two. Edit: I also love that they're going to add Weresheep into the game. You really started something there, LordCrash. Hehe, I must admit that I did not expect that when I started that little cult... But hey, it had worked quite well for PE with the OOoE, so why not for D:OS?

Update 10: Funding successful! New info, new goodies, new lots of things! Thank you!!!! You are the best!!!! Wow! Funded in less than a fortnight! You are amazing! And what a great community you are too. You have no idea how much ideas you gave us already by posting your question and feedback in the comments section and on our forum pages. Your belief in our ability to deliver is extremely motivating for us, and we will do our utter best not to disappoint you. As a token of our appreciation, here’s a new video that contains a little gift to all of you in our community. You’ve been working very hard in getting people to notice our campaign and without you, we wouldn’t be funded today. Enjoy! Bellegar hears you! There’s been a lot of demand and a lot of rhyming to summon Bellegar and he let us know that he’s not insensitive to your prayers. But this is Bellegar, right, so nothing comes easy. He sent us this message: Divinity fans, rise and cheer For Bellegar shall soon appear! Yet, my friends, when push comes to shove First I'll want a little love! So 'Like' me on my facebook page And everybody's favourite mage Will soon arrive on the glorious stage! For each and every thousand likes, I'll cheer and clap and yell out 'Yikes!', And to your great, your utter delight Brighten the day by stepping in sight, For no greater joys or pleasures there are Than meeting the mighty Bellegar! Yes, Bellegar now works (interim he assures us) at a social media marketing firm and yes, he's indeed shamelessly looking for more likes on his Facebook page. So his deal is that for every 1000 Facebook likes, we can add an extra encounter with the might Bellegar to the game! What are you waiting for? Share, like, invite, you know the drill. Stretch goals! Now that we’re funded, we’re going to make every effort we can to reach those stretch goals. We think they’d make a brilliant addition to what’s already going to be a very good RPG, so help us spread the word. Again, everything that’s invested in the game now, ensures that your gameplay experience (and modding experience) will be so much better this fall. Spread the word! Paypal available now! Also, now that the campaign is successful, paypal pledges are available. Click here to access our paypal pledge page. Confirmed: Coming to Linux & Mac! It's about time, but we are extremely happy to announce that Divinity: Original Sin will now definitely be coming to Mac & Linux. We will do everything we can to ensure that the release dates are going to coincide with the Windows PC release, but if that doesn't happen, it will be shortly after. For Kickstarter backers only, new rewards! Over the last two weeks there have been many requests for adding goodies, extra rewards and extra add-ons to our campaign, and to celebrate our successful funding, we extended the list of rewards and add-ons. First perhaps an overview for those who missed it. There are two Kickstarter-only items that are a gift to everybody who pledges $10 or more to our campaign: Zandalor's epic trunks of intelligence & the Kickstarter potion. Zandalor's Demonic trunks Everybody who backed our campaign will receive the delightfully evil demonic trunks of Zandalor. We think they will make gaming history so you should consider yourselves very lucky to have them. Kickstarter potion Additionally, anyone who gets the game via Kickstarter will also receive the Kickstarter potion. Quaffing the potion will ensure that whenever you play Divinity: Original Sin (or for that matter, whenever somebody else plays the game with you), it will be clear that you were part of the brave legion that supported our campaign to make this the best RPG we can. New: Message in the woods Anybody who pledges $50 or more, will be able to write a message which will be carved in one of the trees in the Dark Forest for everybody to see. Since this is something that all players will see, there will be certain constraints, but we're quite flexible. New: Engraving tool (equipment inscriptions) Anybody who pledges $95 or more, will receive an in-game engraving tool with which you can engrave messages on any piece of in-game equipment. You will be able to engrave as many pieces of equipment as you want, and give them to people you play the game with online. Change: Listed in the credits Everybody who pledges above $95 will be included in the credits of the game as a backer For Kickstarter backers only, more add-ons! (Note: Digital add-ons require a base pledge of $25. Physical add-ons require a physical tier, starting at $65. To include an add-on in your pledge, just increase the amount you pledge by the cost of the add-on. When the campaign finishes, we'll contact you via Kickstarter to so you can tell us what add-ons you want. If you want more than one add-on, just sum up the total cost of all the add-ons, and add it to your pledge. When in doubt, contact us ). New Digital add-ons Divinity Anthology – add $20 For a mere pittance, you can now get a digital version of the Divinity Anthology included in your pledge. Ten years in the making, the Divinity Anthology collects all games set in the acclaimed Divinity universe: Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity and the complete Divinity 2 (including the expansion). Experience the remastered versions of these epic fantasy RPGs; enjoy the many unique extras that come with this exclusive edition and celebrate a decade of Divinity! New Physical add-ons Fanday ticket – add $150 By popular request, and because we realized we shouldn’t limit this to the upper tiers only because we have many fans whose pockets are not that deep, you can now get a ticket for the first ever Larian Studios fan day! The fan day will be organized in Gent, Belgium this Summer (in August) and will be the ideal opportunity to meet the team ,visit our studio and play Divinity: Original Sin with the devs. You will need to pay for travel and accommodations, but we will take care of all the catering during the day. You'll have fun! Limited edition Cloth Map: add $25 There has been a lot of demand for this, so we decided to add the lovely cloth map as an add-on. Get it while supplies last. We will remove this add-on once we run out of stock. Limited edition Kickstarter Signed Poster of Divinity Original Sin: add $25 The Divinity:Original Sin poster, signed by the team at Larian (while supplies last) Existing add-ons As a reminder, here are the add-ons that already exist Digital add-ons Divine Divinity Digital Version (Remastered, HD): add $5 Digital Artbook featuring the Art of Divinity Original Sin: add $8 Digital Map of the World of Divinity Original Sin: add $8 Digital Soundtrack of Divinity Original Sin: add $10 Extra Digital Copy of Divinity Original Sin: add $20 Beta Access for Divinity Original Sin: add $20 Alpha Access for Divinity Original Sin: add $50 Physical add-ons T-Shirt of Divinity Original Sin: add $25 (Tshirts are available in S, M, L, XL and XXL) An Extra Box Copy with Printed Manual of Divinity Original Sin: add $40 In closing

Divinity: Original Sin is funded on Kickstarter!!!

If you are still undecided if you should back Divinity: Original Sin just watch this gamespot video in which most of the elements of the game are really well described.

Well, we'll see about that. Imo the game should be stong enough to attract way more poeple than it has so far. We only have to spread the word and communicate the game and its concept in the right way.

It's not a good idea to show everything you have so soon in the campaign. You always should have something new to present in updates. I'm sure we will see much more until the end of the campaign.

And another update is online! Update 9: Are we nearly there yet? The butcher, the editor & Matt Chat We're getting very close now! We are less than 15K$ away from our funding goal, and as you can probably imagine, our stress-levels are at an all-time high. There's a slate of announcements lined up to mark the moment, and with a bit of luck, you'll be reading about them very soon. Today's update is going to be a bit shorter than usual, but that doesn't mean it doesn't contain any good stuff. On the contrary! Continuing the Butcher questIn our first update, Axel showed you how our editor worked by scripting a simple quest. In today's update video, Leslie, our enigmatic & brilliant 3D artist responsible for such gems as the dancing whale (featured in Divinity: Dragon Commander), takes charge and shows us how he envisions Axel's quest should develop further. Good stuff! Matt ChatMatt barton interviewed Swen about the Divinity: Original Sin's Kickstarter campaign. The one-hour interview can be found here but if you don't have the time to watch it all, here are the highlights, courtesy of none other than Stabbey! (9:30) Quests aren’t going to hand-hold you through them. There isn’t going to be a “Quest Completed!” pop-up. Instead, your journal will have little parts of information, like “we found a book by a dead guy that talks about lying statues”, later if you talk to a statue, you might find “we met a statue, It might be one of the lying statues from the book”, and if you deal with the statue somehow, it’ll just be a thing, and you may not even realize that it was a quest. (13 min) In that demonstration battle on the 10-minute kickstarter video, they died three times. That’s one reason why they never showed the conclusion to that battle! (22 min) The main characters relationship is not specifically a love story. You can certainly take it in that direction if you wish, though. Their relationship is defined by two different axes: Affection and Affinity. Affection is how much they like each other, Affinity is how well they agree with each other on moral dilemmas. So they might hate each other, but work well. You aren’t going to accidentally end up as your friend’s gay lover, it’ll be a conscious choice if you go for that. (23:30) The main characters are Source Hunters, and one of the perks they get from being trained in that area is that they can talk to animals. (24 min) No sheep henchmen at the moment. They are thinking about adding weresheep in the game, but you cannot have a deep meaningful personal relationship with sheep yet. You will have to make a tough moral decision about the sheep at some point in the game. And the rabbits. And a cow. (25 min) I think there may be multiple different ways to try and get your way in a dialogue (Charm/Reason/Intimidate), instead of the current “I agree/I disagree” system. I’m not sure. The context of the situation is also important. I think that for example, the “dead body on the beach” would probably be a Charm or Reasoning situation, and Intimidation would have a penalty. (27 min) No mini-games. Lockpicking will be item based and dexterity based. (28 min) The Source (elemental) magic is not just for mages casting spells. It also gives you Source-based warrior and Survivor skills (28:40) The editor is not about making it easy for a novice, it’s more of a tool to do powerful things. They’ve used that technology (or parts of it) for over a decade to make their games, and that’s why as a small team they have been able to make such big games. (30 min) They’ll integrate the modding scene with Steamworks, and there will be another TBD thing to centralize mods for those who don’t use Steam. If the community picks it up, Larian will support the hell out of it. (31 min) “Have you thought of adding any DRM to this?” No. (32:20) Larian admits that some of the reward tiers for the Kickstarter may not be cost-effective for them. (33:30) What’s the minimum pledge tier for fans to get the full experience? Just the $25 for the base game, although it does play well with a friend ($40 for the duo-copy pack). (35 min) If Divinity 2: Ego Draconis had been a PC game, it would have been released a year earlier and in much better shape. Development for Xbox lead to a lot of compromise just trying to finish the production. (36:10) Beyond Divinity was bad, it was a game they company made just to survive. They never got a dollar of royalties from Divine Divinity (from CDV). They were only able to get a deal to make Divinity 2 because they were going to do it for Xbox. If they asked to do it for PC only, the game wouldn’t have happened. (37:50) "Why did you end Ego Draconis the way you did?" (I’m going to save my fingers from typing and just link to that spot in my LP. Watch the videos for the actual experience, not the text I added.) - It goes back to Divine Divinity. They decided not to cut the game at the end of the Council of Seven sequence and instead went ahead and added a new “Wastelands” zone, despite warnings they’d never finish it. (Spoiler alert: It was a huge combat zone with no quests.) The publisher wanted them to show variety in the environments. “If there is not a screenshot with orange stuff, we’ll sue you.” - For Divinity 2, Swen figured it would be better to stop with a cliffhanger and cut hard, instead of making another weak ending area. (41:40) Dragon Commander is going to take a lot of people by surprise. The leader writer and animator spend a month in London recording dialogue – more dialogue than they’ve ever done before (Divinity 2 had like 9 hours of dialogue, and it felt like more). That’s just to cater for the choice and consequence in the game. Dragon Commander is probably the most complex game they’ve ever made from a gameplay point of view. (43:50) “What would you need to personally hear or see about Original Sin to get you to buy it?” If you invest in it now, you’ll have more fun in a couple of months. If you’re planning on buying it anyway, buy it now and get it better later. It’s future profits from the game being invested into the game before it’s released. They’re not taking your money for an already funded game, they’re taking your money and giving you a much better game (at a discounted price!). They’re not pushing Original Sin as far as it could go because they haven’t enough resources, not enough time, not enough budget. (48 min) Final thoughts: Other non-human playable races is a huge, impossibly high stretch goal, because it would be so much work, because of how the game reacts to how the players are. If you wanted to play as an orc, they’d have to cater for that all over the dialogue lines in the entire game. - He’s not keen on full voice acting, because there are more tangible gameplay things that can be added instead for the same price or cheaper. - They hope to get enough for the Perks stretch goal (650,000), and do things like have synergy bonuses if the party affinity go up if they perform combos with each other, or maybe solo bonuses if they don’t work well together. - In Dragon Commander, there is an extraordinarily complex depth to your generals/councillors/princesses, because of the way that game was specifically constructed with that in mind. You couldn’t do that for Original Sin at this point, but at the 800,000 stretch goal, they hope to add more depth to party interaction and give the henchmen more personality and story presence, with branching choice and consequence based on how you treat them. Ideally, tying that into the players social stats and perks as well. - It’s a bit tough to get professional authors in at this part of the development. They’ve worked with a bunch before, but it’s tough it they’ve never done videogame work. (55:10) The game would work well on the console with a controller, but that was killed early in development. Maybe as another stretch goal in Kickstarter, but they probably would react poorly to that idea In ClosingWe're nearly there, but not yet. Anything you can do to spread the word will be appreciated, and we'll return the favour by making you a fantastic RPG with a fantastic editor in a fantastic game world. It's an offer you can't refuse!

Come on, guys, spread the word. It would be a damn shame if Divinity: Original Sin wouldn't reach its stretch goals. Show some love for Larian and the resurrection of CRPGs.....

A new extensive video interview with Matt Chat!

Cool update. The fact that they mentioned that you can play as two male or two female characters hopefully also means that I can change their roles. Hopefully this means that rather than having a buff dude warrior covered in armor and a sultry vixen ranger showing skin and cleavage, I can have a female warrior covered in armor and a dashing male ranger showing of skin and ... I'll leave that to the imagination. Anyway, if the system is anything like Divine Divinity, then the starting "profession" won't have much bearing on the game other than starting stats and I'll be able to build both characters any way I want to, that's what I'm expecting, anyway. Hopefully the armor sets for female character will include actual functional armor, rather than just leather bikini, chain bikini, plate bikini, and Princess Leia style bikini with comically massive single pauldron. It's already confirmed that the game will be completely classless. So there are no predefined roles for your two characters, you can choose your skills and stats completely free when starting a new game. Larian only chose to crreate two defined characters for the gameplay presentations. And Larian also stated that there will be "real" armor for females.

Update 8: Announcements, Single Player and Dropping In, Talents and Traits One of the best updates so far, riddled with references to and quotes from other games and literature, have fun.

Man, this party at inXIle is boring...... But nothing can beat the drunken MCA at the Obsidian wrap up party for PE anyway!

I think they will include the stronghold anyway and count the 200k from Brian and Steven in the end if there if the funding number is at 4.3M (paypal included)..... @ Drowsy Emperor Yeah, I thought about that, as well. It's a pity that people only look for famous names and nostalgica other than for quality and concept. I don't want to say that Torment's concept is bad and I can't because everything we've seen so far is only written on a page. Not even a combat sytem is announced yet. PE was similar but at least Obsidian has a reputation for good RPGs being made in the last 10 years but inXile? I don't know. Look at Divinity: Original Sin: it has a fully flegded concept and systems integrated and everything works well so far. So why is Torment at over 4M and D:OS at 330k? I don't know, I'm not that good in understanding people....

Don't forget Kirill's (unpolished, unproduced, unmixed!) music sketch for D: OS:

They're from Gent (en: Ghent) actually (the difference is ~150km ) a city you definitely should to visit if you ever find yourself in Belgium (disclaimer: I might be biased as I live there). I'm sorry, mate. But it was only a typo (though a bad one).....