Divinity: Original Sin

[Stun]

The magic system in general is pretty darn cool.

[PrimeHydra]

I couldn't get into D:OS. Two protagonists in a single-player game was awkward, and the writing/dialog redundant and nowhere near the level of Pillars of Eternity. I'm sure the game has plenty to recommend it, based on what I've seen, but it's just not my cup of tea.

 

Also, insta-dying to some trap outside of town was frustrating...

[Volourn]

"nowhere near the level of Pillars of Eternity."

 

What's so special about PE's dialogue? NOTHING.

 

Farmer: Ogre is killin' muh  animuels.

 

PC: I shall stops him 4 yas!

 

Farmer: Is weward ya for its, matey!

 

 

IMPRESSIVE.

[prodigydancer]

Two protagonists in a single-player game was awkward

Yeah with their emphasis on co-op they could as well make it four.

 

the writing/dialog redundant and nowhere near the level of Pillars of Eternity.

Indeed. Still, D:OS is a reasonably good game and is totally worth playing. With better writing and with a bit more inspired art design it could've been epic though.

[Erez]

 

Immersion, Immersion, Immersion - There isn't any.

What?

 

It's Sunday morning. Let me report my weekend experience with D:OS.

 

OK. I have been given a rare 3 day weekend which began Friday. So, Friday morning I decided to browse Steam for a game to buy. Divinity: Original sin caught my eye. I had not been following its development so I spent about an hour researching it. I went to Metacritic. I came here. I looked at youtube etc. Everything pointed to the fact that I should be playing this game. So I bought it off Steam.

 

Then I began playing it. The hours passed. The entire world flew by me. I did not go to bed Friday night. And last night I was planning on watching the Mayweather vs. Maidona II fight on PPV. But I didn't do that either. Instead, I played D:OS. It is now Sunday morning. And this game has sucked me in thoroughly. I think I've gotten about 7 hours of sleep in the last 2 days, and I was playing rock-paper-scissors in my dreams for the majority of those 7 hours. lol If that's not immersion then I don't know what immersion is.

 

This game is fantastic. It scratches the itch. It fills the void. If a game of this quality and polish can be done with just $4 million, then I shudder at the bloat and utter financial incompentence from other companies who can't create a game with HALF the content and depth of D:OS even though they've got 10X the funding to work with.

 

Too many face slaps from the developers inside the game: 1) Grave next to cyceal healer which insta kill you with no common sense warning.

2) angry statue future forecast which kicks you subtitles - Even monkey island - a slap stick comedy game has more grace with its regular winks at its audience , after all the protagonist guybrush has constant conversations with the player.

3) The diablo 2 styled item system with normal, nightmare and hell difficulty levels all mixed together - in reality there is no difference between weapon level 1 and weapon level 10 - but for some reason there is in this game. a big difference which only reason to be there is to encourage you to go on a pointless loot hunting (witcher 2 only has this feature and its a bad immersion breaking feature ) 9 level bosses are weaker than 10 leveled mobs.

4) the world doesn't react to you and doesnt care about what you do, you can murder almost everyone or steal everything and no one will bat and eyelash.

5) Npcs are flat, carton papaer thick followers and so is your fellow npc source hunter on single player(just like in icewind dale.

 

I could go on and on. In general the immersion level in this game is very thin and after after you learn to understand the combat mechanics, it too becomes repetitive as the Ai in this game is very limited.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Erez

[prodigydancer]

@Erez

 

Most of what you're ranting about applies to any video game. It's just the way they are and have always been. Was D:OS your first?

Edited September 16, 2014 by prodigydancer

[marelooke]

 

 

Immersion, Immersion, Immersion - There isn't any.

What?

 

It's Sunday morning. Let me report my weekend experience with D:OS.

 

OK. I have been given a rare 3 day weekend which began Friday. So, Friday morning I decided to browse Steam for a game to buy. Divinity: Original sin caught my eye. I had not been following its development so I spent about an hour researching it. I went to Metacritic. I came here. I looked at youtube etc. Everything pointed to the fact that I should be playing this game. So I bought it off Steam.

 

Then I began playing it. The hours passed. The entire world flew by me. I did not go to bed Friday night. And last night I was planning on watching the Mayweather vs. Maidona II fight on PPV. But I didn't do that either. Instead, I played D:OS. It is now Sunday morning. And this game has sucked me in thoroughly. I think I've gotten about 7 hours of sleep in the last 2 days, and I was playing rock-paper-scissors in my dreams for the majority of those 7 hours. lol If that's not immersion then I don't know what immersion is.

 

This game is fantastic. It scratches the itch. It fills the void. If a game of this quality and polish can be done with just $4 million, then I shudder at the bloat and utter financial incompentence from other companies who can't create a game with HALF the content and depth of D:OS even though they've got 10X the funding to work with.

 

Too many face slaps from the developers inside the game: 1) Grave next to cyceal healer which insta kill you with no common sense warning.

 

I'm sorry, but I think you have to confirm three times that you really, Really, REALLY, want to dig up that grave. If that is not a big fat hint that digging it up might just not be a good idea then I dunno what is. (I quicksaved before just to find out what would happen, granted, I expected a boss level enemy to spawn over what happened, but still, I expected nasty **** to happen)

 

My main gripes so far are:

1. it doesn't run properly on my laptop (UI is horrendously sluggish for some reason) so I can't actually play it

2. inventory management

3. random nature of loot (and especially the fact that this also applies to ability tomes, if unlucky you could never see some abilities for your chosen class, which, if the forums are anything to go by, has actually happened to some people)

[Erez]

 

I'm sorry, but I think you have to confirm three times that you really, Really, REALLY, want to dig up that grave. If that is not a big fat hint that digging it up might just not be a good idea then I dunno what is. (I quicksaved before just to find out what would happen, granted, I expected a boss level enemy to spawn over what happened, but still, I expected nasty **** to happen)

 

My main gripes so far are:

1. it doesn't run properly on my laptop (UI is horrendously sluggish for some reason) so I can't actually play it

2. inventory management

3. random nature of loot (and especially the fact that this also applies to ability tomes, if unlucky you could never see some abilities for your chosen class, which, if the forums are anything to go by, has actually happened to some people)

 

 

If When a game really hint you on something in the meta level of things isn't an immersion breaking event than i don't know what is.

 

Spoiler alert - the grave is in the back yard of one of your suspects and you cant even question him about it- if you dig this suspicious looking grave you hand up with a dev **** on your face. Bad role playing development. Player shouldn't be punished for limited role playing mechanism.  

Original sin is one of the most linear games I played in recent years, Its almost as linear as skyrim take on quests without all the fluffy and fun walking simulator and jeremy soule wonderful enchanting music.

 

 

 

@Erez

 

Most of what you're ranting about applies to any video game. It's just the way they are and have always been. Was D:OS your first? 

Thats simply not true, there are many games whose my ranting do not apply to - bioware and obsidian create fantastic characters. I have seen many games with much better loot systems.  Original sin, was the first game among many where I experienced the end of a bad joke from the game developers, 

The game can still be fun for some people, but its very far down the line of immersive video games and for roleplaying games its a huge con.

 

Edited September 16, 2014 by Erez

[Stun]

^Aah. Finally. A false claim. So it is your stance that Bioware games don't do the "face slap" stuff you're complaining about from D:OS? Sure. Lets run down the list.

 

Too many face slaps from the developers inside the game: 1) Grave next to cyceal healer which insta kill you with no common sense warning.

Because the Baldurs Gate sames weren't the industry Paragons of the no-warning-insta-kills. Lets ignore the Cursed Potion of Invulnerability in Durlag's tower that Petrified its drinker. Lets ignore The entire Basilisk map, and lets forget Kangaxx. Oh and lets forget that Imp in watcher's keep who promises you "pain" if you get his riddle wrong, but instead inflicts you with imprisonment.

 

2) angry statue future forecast which kicks you subtitles - Even monkey island - a slap stick comedy game has more grace with its regular winks at its audience , after all the protagonist guybrush has constant conversations with the player.

BG1: Lord Forshadow...talks about Neverwinter Nights. Then we've got the talking chicken near Bereghost, and the Greatest dart thrower of the west. We've got the famous Kobold clan who's autograph you can ask for and get.. There's the giant miniature space hamster. Watcher's keep has a reference to a show that used to be on MTV at the time. And then we've got the Coup De Grace: Bonderai Reloads.

 

3) The diablo 2 styled item system with normal, nightmare and hell difficulty levels all mixed together - in reality there is no difference between weapon level 1 and weapon level 10 - but for some reason there is in this game. a big difference which only reason to be there is to encourage you to go on a pointless loot hunting (witcher 2 only has this feature and its a bad immersion breaking feature ) 9 level bosses are weaker than 10 leveled mobs.

Go play Dragon Age 2 then come back and hang your head in shame as you're forced to admit it does ALL of these things with its gear itemimization. <gag>

 

4) the world doesn't react to you and doesnt care about what you do, you can murder almost everyone or steal everything and no one will bat and eyelash.

Well this is false. In fact, D:OS uses a similar system to the BG games only instead of reputation tracking it uses "attitude". Go pick a fight with the legion guards and you'll see how quickly the city will turn hostile on you.

 

5) Npcs are flat, carton papaer thick followers and so is your fellow npc source hunter on single player(just like in icewind dale.)

And this stands in sharp contrast to Bioware's BG1, where NPCs are story-book deep, right? Wait a minute, you can't even engage in dialogue with your party members in BG1.

 

 

I could go on and on.

I'd love to see that. Anyone who cites lack of NPC depth as "immersion breaking" must have a whole barn yard of interesting arguments for us to behold. Do go on. Edited September 16, 2014 by Stun

[prodigydancer]

Thats simply not true, there are many games whose my ranting do not apply to - bioware and obsidian create fantastic characters. I have seen many games with much better loot systems.

I said "most", not "all". It's pretty obvious that writing and loot aren't the game's strong suits. But you're just too picky. Sure, there are some shaping-up-to-be-great RPGs on the horizon but that wave is coming after a long low tide. SRR and SR:D were nice but short. And what else noticeable did we have recently?

[rjshae]

Thus far it's been an enjoyable game that is reminiscent of Divine Divinity in a number of ways, and that's a good thing. The writing is a little campy in places, but I think that is deliberate. It's not meant to be ultra-serious drama; just some fun moments.

[Volourn]

Yes, it is. There is A LOT of serious parts to the game. Why do people lie?

[Hurlshort]

Larian Studios has always kept things tongue in cheek when it came to story and quests.  Their humor was part of the charm for Divine Divinity for me, and that was still present in D:OS

 

 

Heck, with a name like Divine Divinity, it better be funny.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Hurlshot

[Volourn]

Sure, there are funny parts, but large chunks of the game/story are deadly serious.

[Erez]

^Aah. Finally. A false claim. So it is your stance that Bioware games don't do the "face slap" stuff you're complaining about from D:OS? Sure. Lets run down the list.

 

Too many face slaps from the developers inside the game: 1) Grave next to cyceal healer which insta kill you with no common sense warning.

Because the Baldurs Gate sames weren't the industry Paragons of the no-warning-insta-kills. Lets ignore the Cursed Potion of Invulnerability in Durlag's tower that Petrified its drinker. Lets ignore The entire Basilisk map, and lets forget Kangaxx. Oh and lets forget that Imp in watcher's keep who promises you "pain" if you get his riddle wrong, but instead inflicts you with imprisonment.

 

2) angry statue future forecast which kicks you subtitles - Even monkey island - a slap stick comedy game has more grace with its regular winks at its audience , after all the protagonist guybrush has constant conversations with the player.

BG1: Lord Forshadow...talks about Neverwinter Nights. Then we've got the talking chicken near Bereghost, and the Greatest dart thrower of the west. We've got the famous Kobold clan who's autograph you can ask for and get.. There's the giant miniature space hamster. Watcher's keep has a reference to a show that used to be on MTV at the time. And then we've got the Coup De Grace: Bonderai Reloads.

 

3) The diablo 2 styled item system with normal, nightmare and hell difficulty levels all mixed together - in reality there is no difference between weapon level 1 and weapon level 10 - but for some reason there is in this game. a big difference which only reason to be there is to encourage you to go on a pointless loot hunting (witcher 2 only has this feature and its a bad immersion breaking feature ) 9 level bosses are weaker than 10 leveled mobs.

Go play Dragon Age 2 then come back and hang your head in shame as you're forced to admit it does ALL of these things with its gear itemimization. <gag>

 

4) the world doesn't react to you and doesnt care about what you do, you can murder almost everyone or steal everything and no one will bat and eyelash.

Well this is false. In fact, D:OS uses a similar system to the BG games only instead of reputation tracking it uses "attitude". Go pick a fight with the legion guards and you'll see how quickly the city will turn hostile on you.

 

5) Npcs are flat, carton papaer thick followers and so is your fellow npc source hunter on single player(just like in icewind dale.)

And this stands in sharp contrast to Bioware's BG1, where NPCs are story-book deep, right? Wait a minute, you can't even engage in dialogue with your party members in BG1.

 

 

I could go on and on.

I'd love to see that. Anyone who cites lack of NPC depth as "immersion breaking" must have a whole barn yard of interesting arguments for us to behold. Do go on.

 

 

You brought up some great points, luckily for me, at the time of playing the old bioware games I wasn't familiar with those outside references - I see no wrong in an animal giving you a autograph or being insta killed if its done right and suits the game (deus ex machina) There is no way to ignore the angry statue future forecast in original sin, its so jarring beyond belief. and while you had to take you points from bioware long gaming history, all we needed was one original sin to find all these examples in abundance.

 

Dragon age 2 was a terrible game claiming original sin is similar to dragon age 2 only goes further to prove my point. 

 

Baldurs  gate 1  characters didn't speak much, but at least when they did speak it was nice. And more important baldurs gate was more than 15 years ago, standards have changed for the better since then. Best example would be dragon age 1 origins where the characters, storytelling and immersion far surpass original sin.

 

Its important to remember that sharing bad points with other games doesn't make the game any better, games are suppose to improve over time not take pride in redistribution of bad parts of games of the past. 

[Erez]

 

Thats simply not true, there are many games whose my ranting do not apply to - bioware and obsidian create fantastic characters. I have seen many games with much better loot systems.

I said "most", not "all". It's pretty obvious that writing and loot aren't the game's strong suits. But you're just too picky. Sure, there are some shaping-up-to-be-great RPGs on the horizon but that wave is coming after a long low tide. SRR and SR:D were nice but short. And what else noticeable did we have recently?

 

 

There are always good finds of games you might have missed in the past, in the last 12 months I got around to finally playing deus ex, fallout 3 + New vegas, warhammer space marine, left4dead , tales of monkey island and a few more interesting games.   

[Stun]

Its important to remember that sharing bad points with other games doesn't make the game any better,

You claimed Bioware doesn't do the stuff that we see in D:OS, so I showed you examples where they do. And I disagree with the notion that this stuff is bad. A game that mixes some light-hearted writing/content with its serious stuff is doing things right. The alternative is what we're seeing from Bioware today: Soap Opera/Emo garbage that has to constantly dramatize everything otherwise the legions of ADD-riddled teens will lose interest.

 

games are suppose to improve over time not take pride in redistribution of bad parts of games of the past.

This was a kickstarter, yes? And like many other kickstarters, Nostalgia was the point. And the reason it was is because unlike you modern gamers, we old schoolers don't see this stuff as bad. We see it as the opposite. We see the RPG genre as an entity that has lost its way. Edited September 17, 2014 by Stun

[Volourn]

BIO games today have quite a bit of comedy. like all comedy though it's hit and miss. Minsc and Deekin are BIO's two biggest comedy messes (not misspelled!).

 

 

"This was a kickstarter, yes? And like many other kickstarters, Nostalgia was the point. And the reason it was is because unlike you modern gamers, we old schoolers don't see this stuff as bad. We see it as the opposite. We see the RPG genre as an entity that has lost its way."

 

DOS is NOT an old skool game. If you were a TRUE old skool gamer you'd know that.  Old skool is more than just turn base.

 

 

Any game that uses RPS as their dialogue system will NEVER be old skool.

Edited September 17, 2014 by Volourn

[Bryy]

Yes, it is. There is A LOT of serious parts to the game. Why do people lie?

It doesn't take itself seriously 100% of the time. It's like it knows it's a fantasy or something.

[Volourn]

Even the most heavy of drama has 'funny' bits. It proves nothing.

[Bryy]

Even the most heavy of drama has 'funny' bits. It proves nothing.

Those were all mistakes on Shakespeare's part. He sneezed one day and the entirety of his comedies came out.

[prodigydancer]

There are always good finds of games you might have missed in the past, in the last 12 months I got around to finally playing deus ex, fallout 3 + New vegas, warhammer space marine, left4dead , tales of monkey island and a few more interesting games.   

Sure. Before D:OS I played Dishonored (which I somehow completely failed to notice until I read about it in Thief reviews).

 

But in the context of this thread I meant specifically party-based CRPGs. Of the games you named, New Vegas is the closest match and it's a 4 years old game. Most fans of the genre have already played it repeatedly.

 

So it's all relative. Give me something that amounts to BG2 greatness every year and I, too, will have high standards. Sadly, it's not the case so far.

[Erez]

Comedy is a very welcome addition in every game or piece of literature, but if it doesn't come out as natural it will feel out of place. the devs at Larian weren't very sure what sort of game they were going to make and therefor a lot of the comedy stuff in original sin divinity felt out of place to me. The angry statue forecast broke any hopes of redeeming immersion with the game. The flat and linear nature of the game didn't help in redeeming the lost sense of immersion.

 

Prodigy, while I agree there are very few good party based crpg games, I would even go as far as 2009 to place the last one. The lack of good crpg games doesn't make original sin any better or even a worthwhile experience. I too bought the game with a friend due to our yearning for a good party crpg game, But original sin just wasn't it.

And when you lack good games in the genres you like its time to broaden your field of games or past time hobbies.

[Spider]

See, the problem you're having is that you're expecting Larian to produce something they traditionally don't do. Immersion has never been a great selling points in their games.

[Stun]

BIO games today have quite a bit of comedy. like all comedy though it's hit and miss. Minsc and Deekin are BIO's two biggest comedy messes (not misspelled!).

 

 

"This was a kickstarter, yes? And like many other kickstarters, Nostalgia was the point. And the reason it was is because unlike you modern gamers, we old schoolers don't see this stuff as bad. We see it as the opposite. We see the RPG genre as an entity that has lost its way."

 

DOS is NOT an old skool game. If you were a TRUE old skool gamer you'd know that.  Old skool is more than just turn base.

 

 

Any game that uses RPS as their dialogue system will NEVER be old skool.

Rock-paper-scissors is neither old school nor modern. It's its own little quirk.