Divinity: Original Sin Kickstarter

[Humanoid]

 

As with practically any game, I can almost guarantee that a nude mod will be one of the first to pop up.  The modding community has it's priorities in order. 

 

They might need to mod in more camera control in that case. But on the other hand, Ultima 7 which they're claiming as a primary inspiration had nude sprites, or at least Serpent Isle did.

[LordCrash]

Update #38 : Hello world!

May 3, 2013

 

We're alive & kicking!

Life after running a successful Kickstarter campaign certainly isn't the same as life before running a successful Kickstarter campaign. For one thing, certain people return your calls. For another, you find yourself exploring the possibilities of Kickstarter's backend facilities. Turns out that doesn't last very long. Check out our new update movie in which David discusses how we'll get your pledges fulfilled, what happened at Larian when twitch.tv stopped last week and whether or not there will be more updates!  

 

 

Paypal still open

For those who still want to pledge and access Kickstarter exclusive goodness, the paypal pages will remain open until May 10th, 2013, 12:00pm PST.  

The Paypal counter is currently at 52935US$.

 

RPGCodex & RPGWatch- over 10K each!!!

RPGWatch & RPGCodex still have fundraisers for Divinity:Original Sin going and their counters are going completely bananas, not to mention the relevant comments (here and here) sections. We're going to organise the brainstorm that decides on the possible fates of  red imps & watchmen over the next couple of weeks and already it seems the office is heavily divided over who should get an unfair advantage. To be continued for sure...  

 

Gamespot discovers Divinity:Original Sin

Our secret weapon to ensure we'd reach the last stretch goal was a preview on Gamespot which we'd hoped was going to be released in the final days of the campaign. Alas, the gods of internet lag & code bugs conspired against us, and we never really managed to get the play session with Kevin VanOrd going the way we managed with Angry Joe, Jesse Cox or Total Biscuit. In despair we sent through a single-player version, but sadly that meant the preview was late for the end of the campaign.

 

Perhaps for the better, because we're not sure Swen would have managed to change the name on his passport while conducting the Kickstarter campaign

  

Confused by that last phrase ? Then check out the preview!

Edited May 3, 2013 by LordCrash

[Keyrock]

Sven almost dropping the cake. 

[Zoraptor]

RPGWatch & RPGCodex still have fundraisers for Divinity:Original Sin going and their counters are going completely bananas...

 

Doing a mouseover of those links gives me r00fles, wonder if it was deliberate. And no one seems to have noticed either.

[LordCrash]

 

RPGWatch & RPGCodex still have fundraisers for Divinity:Original Sin going and their counters are going completely bananas...

 

Doing a mouseover of those links gives me r00fles, wonder if it was deliberate. And no one seems to have noticed either.

 

 

LoL, I haven't noticed yet...

[Arsene Lupin]

Swen Vincke is just a great guy. If you liked him in the kickstarter videos, you should check out his blog. He talks about several aspects of game development (like the business aspect, and just how and why publishers suck) that most other people hardly address.

 

With regard to their campaign on Kickstarter... it was indeed great. Original Sin was the first game I donated to, and it was that first donation that gave me the courage--or the will--to also donate to InXile and Obsidian, despite my better judgment.

 

I'm particularly fond of the update music. I really hope they incorporate it into the game. Maybe only in the credits... only when they display all of their backers. Would be so cool. Love that music.

[LordCrash]

Swen published another interesting entry on his blog!

 

http://www.lar.net/2013/05/07/being-selective/

[LordCrash]

 

Update #39 : Introducing Bert the guru, Shout out, Blog update, Last days of Paypal

May 8, 2013

 

Introducing Bert the guru

In this moving pictures part of the update, Bert, our resident script guru, explains how it is possible to implement "generic behaviours" that affect all npcs in the game world, and thus increase the amount of reactions they have. He gives a bunch of examples of what you can do with Osiris, the scripting language used in Divinity: Original Sin, just to get you thinking of all the things you could be doing with it.

In other words - characters in Divinity: Original Sin react. Here's the man making the reactions talking about how he's doing it.

 

 

Also, in this particular movie, Thomas, our video boy, shows exactly how evil he is near the end of the movie. We're curious what Axel's revenge will be.

 Easter eggs inbound!

 

Paypal pledging to end soon 

Paypal pledging is still possible but will finish this weekend, meaning that in practice it'll stay open until monday morning GMT+1. Right now the counter is at $57.596,60. 

We will add the total number of backers via paypal to calculate the size of the lair beneath the phantom forest, and at that time we'll also take stock of the amount of Facebook likes to calculate the amount of Bellegar encounters Divinity:Original Sin will feature.

Pledge management

We've answered quite a lot of private messages and mails about how pledges are going to be managed, and in an effort to save our fingers a bit, here's an overview of how we envision things will work:

• All backers (Kickstarter+Paypal) will receive an account at The Larian Vault
• If we need information from you to send you your rewards, you'll be able to fill it in there
• You will be able to add extra add-ons to your reward tier via The Larian Vault too. Not all add-ons will be available, but there will be quite a few. You'll also be able to upgrade your reward.
•  

You don't have to use the Larian Vault system, but it's going to be the most user friendly. If you don't want to use it, you'll need to wait until the moment Divinity:Original Sin releases to collect your rewards, because we can only send out one Kickstarter survey.

The Larian Vault pledge management system isn't ready yet, but it will be soon enough (as in over the next couple of weeks). We'll inform you via a backer-only update when it's ready. 

 

Sending us messages

There are many ways people are reaching out to us, but we're a small team so we can't answer as fast as we'd want to on all channels, and sometimes it might take some time before you get a reply. 

If you want to send us a message, the best way of reaching us is via kickstarter@larian.com. That's where you'll get the fastest response.

 

New blog entry from Swen

Here's a quote we ripped from the internet that was written by Tom from Evolve-PR, our fabulous PR agency who helped us a lot during the Kickstarter campaign:

it's sometimes much easier to build word of mouth without involving the press; with Divinity: Original Sin, we spent a TON of time (and too much money) trying to get press to play the game... the coverage at many "top-tier" sites didn't actually yield much in terms of a return for their Kickstarter. It was only when we really dug in with the YouTube crowd that the KS campaign took off.

 

Swen blogged about the exact same thing, but not everybody agreed with what he had to say. 

If you're interested in his doubts about mainstream gaming media, why he thinks Angry Joe is superior to no-name the unnamed reviewer, and how this may impact his decision making, check it out and let him know what you think. 

 

Shout out!

Son of Nor – terraforming, combining elemental magic & telekinesis. Get them to their goal, then demand that they make it an Ultima Underworld style RPG featuring those awesome mechanics. We'll be drooling all over it! Cool stuff. Be sure to watch their entire movie.

 

In Closing

During the Kickstarter campaign, Thomas forced us to listen to

every single day. They have 16 million views. Our youtube channel has less. 

You will not let Thomas win, will you?

Edited May 8, 2013 by LordCrash

[melkathi]

Trying to enter the Larian Vault now that backers can (theoretically) manage their pledge. Must be a lot of traffic, because I'm going nowhere

[Gfted1]

Hmm, I had no problems logging in and linking my KS order to the Vault.

[melkathi]

High traffic. They are working on it. A lot of people having trouble. But its to be expected. And at least I am not in a hurry.

[Humanoid]

Only the people eligible for and wanting to grab the Dragon Commander beta have any reason to rush, really.

[melkathi]

Grabbed mine

[Labadal]

Ok... I did what it said but it didn't link my paypal account, it linked my kickstarter account.

[Gfted1]

When you click the "D:OS Kickstarter" button you don't see your order details?

[Labadal]

When you click the "D:OS Kickstarter" button you don't see your order details?

 

I get my kickstarter order that I cancelled. I'll take another look.

 

Now it works.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Labadal

[Gfted1]

w00t

[Keyrock]

Update 45: New Release Date

 

 

Welcome Back

 

It has now been exactly five months since we closed our Kickstarter campaign. Looking back, it was quite a ride, and one of the best parts was that all stretch goals were met! 

 

As we were integrating the stretch goals in the game in the last couple of months, we realised they affected a lot of the game systems and this would be more work than we thought. 

 

Deeper character creation (traits and talents) made us rethink the stats system, the inclusion of companions meant we had to have more party support, and the day and night schedules affected all the behaviours of  NPCs. And even the world they live in! Because where else would these people live and sleep? 

 

The following video has Swen & Axel explain what including the stretch goals meant for the development of the game, and features an example of how schedules for instance influenced the game world.  

 

Here's a spoiler:

 

"I wonder what that fire is on the first floor... And how do I get to the second floor?" - (fullscreen image)

 

Original Sin Set For February 2014

 

We are very determined to implement all the extra features gained through stretch goals the way they should be implemented, which essentially means  that we want to incorporate them in the story, the world and the gameplay mechanics. 

 

This is  taking us more time than we originally thought, and so, rather than cancelling a feature or a goal, we decided to move the release of Divinity: Original Sin from this fall (as originally announced) to this winter, specifically to February 28th 2014.

 

We realize this may be disappointing for some people who had hoped the game would still come out this year, but really, we think you'll have a much better RPG experience when everything we wanted to put in, is actually going to be in.

 

For backers that have Alpha access, expect to have the rough and rugged version of Original Sin by November. Beta should be your New Year's present in January! 

 

What are they thinking ?

 

For those interested in the details of the how and why, check out Swen's brand new blog entry, in which he explains his thoughts on postponing the release of Divinity: Original Sin.

 

Live QA on friday September 27h at 17:00 CET 

 

We can imagine a lot of you have questions because of the moving of the release date, and to answer those, we'll be doing a live QA session via the Larian Studios channel on Twitch TV tomorrow, september 27th, 17:00 CET.  Join in, and you'll be able to ask David or Swen pretty much anything you want about Divinity: Original Sin via the chat channel. They'll try to answer as many questions as they can, and perhaps even show a bit of the game. 

 

In closing: Fan day report

 

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! 

 

On August 9th, a wild horde of screaming fans descended upon the Larian Studios' offices, and hijacked what was to be the Dragon Commander release party. We made a video to mark the occasion, but we forgot to post it! So without further ado, here's the video report on Larian Studios' first ever fan day!

tl;dr - They are stuffing more goodness into the game, therefore the release date has been pushed back to Feb 28th 2014.  And when it does come out

Edited September 26, 2013 by Keyrock

[licketysplit]

Well if they have to postpone it, so be it. Larian is awesome and this is one of the few kickstarters I've backed.

[HoonDing]

This game won't be it, either.

[licketysplit]

This game won't be it, either.

 

This makes no sense...

[Oerwinde]

I really don't get the people who get upset with a couple month delay for Kickstarter projects "oh boo hoo, the millions of extra money they got made the game bigger and now I have to wait 2-3 months longer to play it" Every time a game comes out incomplete people whine they should have delayed it and fnished, but if they delay to finish its some sort of unprofessional betrayal.

[Augusta Corvina]

I really don't get the people who get upset with a couple month delay for Kickstarter projects "oh boo hoo, the millions of extra money they got made the game bigger and now I have to wait 2-3 months longer to play it" Every time a game comes out incomplete people whine they should have delayed it and fnished, but if they delay to finish its some sort of unprofessional betrayal.

You should probably avoid making the assumption that it is the exact same people complaining about both things when we're dealing groups in the thousands or more, even if there is some overlap between the two.

[Keyrock]

RPS Hands-on:

 

 

 

Preview events often involve around half an hour with a game, while carefully chaperoned through its corridors. I spent sixteen hours playing Divinity: Original Sin over two days in Belgium last week and nobody told me what I should or shouldn’t do. I spent two hours looking for a potato because I wanted to make some chips and Larian’s founder actively encouraged me in that mighty quest.

 

If I hadn’t had a flight to catch, I would have played for another sixteen hours over the next couple of days as well. There are more technically impressive fantasy RPGs coming out next year and there’s a great deal of work still to be done, but Larian’s latest is living up the early promise and is right near the top of my most wanted list.

 

 

There’s a sign on the wall in Larian’s studio, almost lost among the concept art (some cheesecake bikini armour is in evidence, but more on that later). It reads, and I’m paraphrasing both Larian and George Mallory here, “Why can the player move a flowerpot? Because it’s there.” To a small extent, those words summarise why Original Sin might well be the most interesting upcoming RPG for somebody like me – somebody who likes to push at the boundaries of a game’s systems, bending them until they crack.

 

Some of the time I spent with the game was productive, in a questing sort of sense, but I filled the majority of the hours with playful diversions, and one particularly absurd and drawn-out battle that took up most of an afternoon. I’ll talk more about that latter escapade and combat in general later on, but first let’s talk about flowerpots. By which I mean, I’m going to write about flowerpots and hopefully you’re not going to fall to sleep or start looking at pictures of cats instead of reading my wise words.

 

 

Like my love of CRPGs, Original Sin’s particular systemic design goes all the way back to Ultima VII. Farther still, actually, but that’s the most significant milestone. Before we even arrived at the studio, Larian founder Swen Vincke had politely admonished me for my claim, in this article, that Thief: The Dark Project was just ahead of Ultima VII as ‘most important thing ever’ in my personal gaming history. He also referred to me as a ‘relic’ because he doesn’t meet many games writers who have played Ultima VII.

 

In my new role as an admonished relic, which I play very well, I sat down to play. I’ve been hands-on with Original Sin before but this is the post-Kickstarter version of the game and I was keen to see how much content and interactivity months of extra work had allowed for. A massive amount, is the answer. It’s a large game but it’s the density of each area and interaction that delighted me. In all the time I played, I didn’t venture out of the first of four large areas and, yet, I could go back and play for another sixteen hours and find entirely different ways to progress. Or to not progress, I suppose.

 

Unexpectedly, the game begins by placing the players in the role of investigators. There’s a murder and a mystery to go along with it, and the first major quest involves discovering the perpetrator. There’s a spot of turn-based orc bashing beforehand, as the heroic duo of Source Hunters head into town, but it’s entirely possible to spend the first four or five hours playing detective. Conversations – mostly comical and well-written – contain clues and accusations, and the flow of the investigation subtly pushes the player into the sizable town’s several districts. It’s a clever way to introduce characters and the different ways of interacting with the world.

 

 

For example, to find a way into one suspect’s house, me and my partner found that we could pick the lock, teleport inside using arcane magicks, talk somebody into giving us the key, or murder the person carrying the key. Everyone in the game can be killed and Larian have ensured that every quest can be completed using alternate means if an essential NPC dies. Many of these backup solutions are intentionally obscure and/or challenging, but that they exist at all shows Larian’s strength of commitment to this particular brand of sandbox/open world.

 

It’s a simulated place, with basic but functional behaviours for all of its inhabitants. Even the creatures out in the wilds have been hand-placed rather than spawning randomly and it was during a test of the ways in which monsters interact with NPCs that I created a catastrophe. I just wanted to know if orcs would attack guards if a group were lured close enough to the town walls. I ended up with blood on my hands. And on my clothes and coagulating on the soles of my shoes where I’d stepped through the rivers of the stuff that had spilled from all of the dead people. The dead people that the orcs had killed.

 

I instigated a massacre.

 

Yes, it turns out, orcs absolutely will attack guards. They’ll attack citizens as well, and let’s not forget cows and, most heinous of all, other ITALICS orcs. Of all the deaths that I caused during my silly experiment, the first stung the most.

 

 

Just outside the town, along a beach, there’s a single orc crying, mourning his brother who died in a large battle against a gang of humans. He doesn’t want to fight anymore, just to grieve in peace, and when he mentions that his brother was buried close by, along with some fancy equipment, there’s a sidequest to follow up on. That could be the end of the story. He’s just a big lonely blubbering survivor of war and he doesn’t need to be dealt with in any way whatsoever. I had no desire to desecrate his brother’s grave so I carried on down the road.

 

It wasn’t long before I ran into an altogether nastier group of orcs. They were level 8, on average, and counted shaman and a giant crossbow-wielding bastard among their number. Me and my companion were level 2. No area of the game is off-limits and creatures don’t level up when the player does, so it’s entirely possible to wander into trouble. This area was only a few screens from the town and yet we found ourselves outnumbered and outclassed. We should have just fled, using a combination of our magical teleporting triangles and good old-fashioned sprinting, but I had other ideas.

 

“Why don’t we lead them back to town? Let the guards kill them. We might get loads of experience if we join in the fight.” Later, as it turns out, I realised that the players only receive experience if they strike the killing blow. I suggested letting the guards whittle the orcs down and then killing orc and guard alike, but my partner wasn’t too pleased by that plan. I suppose one of us had to make sure the other behaved.

 

But the initial plan? It was a great idea. We agreed to lure the orcs, using most of our action points each turn to flee far enough that we couldn’t be struck, and then using our various powers to create hazards between ourselves and the enemy. Elements play an important role in combat, far more interesting than the WATER COUNTERS FIRE kind of system you’re probably imagining. That comes into play as well, but spells also change scenery.

 

 

Rivers can be frozen, creating new paths. Rainstorms can be summoned to soak enemies, making them more vulnerable to electric bolts and lightning strikes. A cloud of poisonous gas might explode if a fireball passes through it and even pools of blood, created as enemies and allies fall, will freeze and become slippery hazards. And it’s slippery-slidey ice that turned the first part of the battle into farce.

 

We intended to slow the orcs down, so we could ensure they didn’t catch us before we reached town, but we hadn’t reckoned on how clumsy they are. As soon as they reached the small pond that I’d frozen over, they slipped, fell on their backsides and remained stunned for a couple of turns. Then, when they stood, they’d take a step, slip, fall on their backsides and remain stunned for a couple of turns.

 

“We really need the Benny Hill music here.” My co-op partner said. I think she was prepared to abandon the plan, happy to flee while we had the chance, but I was determined.

 

Eventually, they crossed the ice and there, right in front of them, was their grieving fellow-orc. They slaughtered him. Maybe they were in a bad mood because of the humiliating experience they’d just endured, or maybe they didn’t tolerate tears from their own kind, but their assault was swift and sure.

 

Sod Benny Hill, I remember thinking, we need some sort of requiem mass. I’d really grown fond of the big eejit. With revenge and fury on my mind, I continued to lead the orcs to their doom at the town gates, using a teleport spell to drag a shaman ahead of us, farther down the road, so that we could pummel him a little for good measure as we travelled in our bizarre conga line.

 

Of course, as you already know, it all went horribly wrong. Turns out the guards aren’t quite ready to face a mob of orcs and we had to lead them through the town, massacring as they went, to the barracks, where the final surviving guard managed to kill the last of them. It was a bloody disaster and a member of Larian’s team, watching over our shoulders, whistled through his teeth: “Nobody has ever done that before.”

 

 

That’s the brilliance of the game though. It was a daft thing to do and it took ages, but it was memorable in a way that only that sort of deviance from the ‘correct’ path can be. Original Sin is a heavily scripted game, with thousands of lines of dialogue, hundreds of quests and characters, and carefully constructed tactical encounters – but everything is built on flexible systems, starting with those flowerpots, and that means almost anything is possible within the very broad rules of the world.

 

With enough strength, a character can drag items of furniture, or just about anything else. A bowl could be thrown into a room to set off a trap, or a rat could be chased in to much the same effect (a worse effect from the rat’s perspective). Both of these events rely on rules set within the game’s logic – the bowl has weight prescribing how far it can be thrown and the rat has been programmed to run away from people. If a character were trying to lift a wooden chest, they may be told they needed to upgrade their strength. Empty it of its contents and the weight will change accordingly, however, and the problem might be resolved.

 

Every item and character in the game has rules governing its behaviour and the player characters (solo is possible but the co-op allows drop-in play and adds a huge amount to interactions and combat alike – more on that here) can tease and twist those rules as much as they like. It’s an enormous challenge for Larian to make sure everything functions as it should and at the moment, balance is as busted as the scales of the justice system, and odd discrepancies crop up frequently.

 

There’s plenty of work to do and a lot of it is the mathematics that will calibrate difficulty levels, loot drops, combat frustrations and levelling. The content is all there though, as is the language by which that content is understood, and my concerns about clumsy interactions and occasional placeholder text are more than outweighed by the sheer pleasure of tinkering with such a vast and bonkers playground.

 

 

Within four hours of playing with a total stranger, we’d both named our characters and were bickering over every minor decision. And we were laughing while we bickered. As we pursued the murder mystery, I declared that the game was fantasy noir, and that we were the squabbling heads of the land’s foremost detective agency. At the time, I was wearing a pumpkin on my head and wielding a scythe, and she was wearing a bucket and carrying the biggest staff I’ve ever seen.

 

Both of the characters, one male one female, can wear just about any combination of items. A stylish bucket or cooking pot can be combined with a full set of armour or a natty set of underwear. Although there’s (currently) no physical customisation of the body itself, there’s a Saints Row feel to the goofiness of the dress-up, and it’s good to see the new cover art, with two sets of sensible armour, pinned up on the wall alongside the original, with its single exposed midriff.

 

Along with the enormous spreadsheets full of possible items to create (cooking, tailoring, smithing, fletching, herbalism, alchemy and much more) and the tactical anarchy of the combat system, Larian have also made a world that’s joyful and inclusive. It’s a silly world, more Python than Tolkien, and it caters for earnest nobles, noble warriors, arrogant villains, neurotic shopkeepers and total strangers.

 

 

On the second day, after the mishap with the town massacre, we acquired a skill that allowed us to speak to animals and, rather than trying to save the world or solve a crime, decided to help a shabby tomcat win the heart of the elegant feline he loved. He required our assistance and, adjusting our headwear, we agreed to take on the Quest of the Missing Collar.

 

“What are your names, kind humans?” I imagine he asked.

 

“Pumpkin and Bucket, private investigators,” we nodded as we darted off into the wilderness. It was the role we had chosen to play.

 

Divinity: Original Sin is out early next year.

Oh man, that sounds awesome.  I imagine there will be a ton of potential exploits in this game, but you know what, I'm fine with that if it's entertaining.  I love games that allow you to "break" them and cause mass havoc and wacky situations.

[Tigranes]

So. ****ing. Glad. I backed this.