Divinity: Original Sin

[nipsen]

@ nipsen;

I'm sorry your hand wasn't hold out for you and big flashing arrows pointed you in the direction to go rather than go explore. I wonder how you would have done BG1, seeing how there are devestating encounters pretty much on the first map, only getting worse further you go.

Yeah, I know. It's more that I didn't expect it. Or couldn't have expected it. BG is more in the range of "hey, we're an inexperienced bunch of wannabe adventurers, so let's go to sleep in a forest that swarms over with goblins, since we're really tired from all that trekking to the very specific destination we're being told to work our ways carefully towards, while being wary of dangers! It'll be fine, because I have a 1d4 dagger with +1 damage! Imoen positiveness! Yay!". And then if you do that and die, you sort of understand what went wrong. It's not "yeah, you know - I /could/ tell you where to go, but I'm not gonna! But hey, I'll open the city gate for you now that you've reached [level 3] and pretend it's probably going to be fine! Have fun!".

 

Also, level is more a guideline... I left the 4's to when I was 6 because I found it difficult, but the lvl 6 orcs/cave I went at at 4 because I found it easier.

And since Beta they made it a lot easier to point out where to go once you're done in Cyseal. What with all guards pointing out you're too strong and only a single open gate being present. It's guiding... can't blame them for you not noticing :/

Well, yes. Because I found the guard captain - who makes no attempt to ridicule the weakling Source Seekers for seeking out THE MONASTERY before taking on the real Orcs (that happen to be five times as strong as the guys who landed on the other beach, 500m away.. like I said, why don't they level the city right now?). Or maybe suggesting that you should perhaps seek out some angry wizzard on the mountain to the east before heading to the old battlefields in the north, that sort of thing, to test your determination across the dry plains. Maybe any of the people you meet who have been outside the city could mention something about these areas, suggesting what might be there (gossip about Evelyn casually digging for corpses around somewhere specific)? Apprentices might send you to find specific ingredients in areas they themselves would have a hard time surviving alone, but which they would probably have braved anyway if they had to, since the undead are comparatively less dangerous than the Orcs? On top of that, you can argue with the captain and end up finding that the Undead are actually more dangerous than the orcs.. So when I go to the nearest gate and I'm told I'm probably not strong enough, I'm not going to try it anyway, just to show'em!

 

So all I'm seeing are three, for options for where to go. Where all the guards say the same thing. And the most difficult one (which is probably impossible to get past on even an even level/5-ish? footing without taking along the annoying hag (and I don't know if the adventure guild would send along anyone either - they were just too annoying) - that quest happens to be the direction the first quest is pointing you towards.

 

So yes, I understand there's a progression here, and that there's probably easier farming elsewhere. But the game doesn't actually tell you that... short of I guess hinting that the gate with the bars that can be lowered and the huge ballistae, rather than the closed wooden doors (that you only have to ask one guard to open) is the one you're intended to go randomly wander out first.

 

I mean, I don't mind difficult. But what it seems to me has happened here is that they've probably originally set up guidelines or intended guidelines - I don't know, maybe there were map coordinates in the beta? Specific areas opened up one after the other? Does it say something in the lore somewhere that hints to these areas being good for missions? And then all of those helpers have disappeared when the more readable dialogue was written, and the more "final" map mechanics were designed. Instead all you hear about are people who have tried to go out and kill the undead who have never returned in a recognisable form - while you could dispatch an orc with the wave of your finger in the intro.

 

1. Done... all the difficult bosses are progressively away from Cyseal in all directions. The easier foes being surrounding the city. That's one wish granted!

2. And how would you propose that. If you're over your head, you can flee, and that's a good indication to maybe try again later instead. Or give it another shot. You can easily win every battle in Cyseal's map at level 2 if you know what you're doing after all.

3. Examples, please.

4. I'm in agreement here.

 

Pretty sure you can't disable the tutorial popups on a new game. An option greatly asked/wished for surely.

If you're constantly wondering if you hit a bug, something went wrong, instead of simply going along with it... you're probably doing it wrong. It seems more worries of your own than actual impact on the game. Clear your mind of it. If you would open up a savegame editor after each little thing just to check if it's properly recorded that's a good way to go clinically insane. And what for I wonder...

Right.. can't do that. Way too much work. Pity the ones doing stuff like that  . 2 means making it narratively consistent, and that there's some sort of progression involved. You open areas you have a chance to survive (BG has you escape the city walls, for example, after you've gone through some training.. same thing. You have nodes you can get to, but you won't reach them until you've progressed through the ones ahead. You get equipment here and maybe complete a quest. After which you're supposed to be able to handle more difficult ones. Do you meet a helpful rogue who can teach you the basics of picking locks on the way? Perhaps. And perhaps now there's a door you can open with basic training, and there's another nearby that only experts can open. Etc. Fallout literally just kills you with a random encounter if you go too far. But the game also impresses on you, over and over again (even when it's not technically the case), that you will die from dehydration, Mutants will kill you, raiders will murder you, vault hunters will flay you for trophies, slavers will catch you, etc., etc. if you don't go to the nearby settlements first. In the first game you're also told specifically to go to either vault 15. And on the way you can ask directions to another settlement, so you're given the choice to get there instead. Either works, and you're able to become relatively comfortable with how the world works on those first couple of segments without the game guiding you by the ears.

 

What happened in my D:OS play was that I ended up combing the entire town for a key to a chest. Which I found in an unrelated area quest-wise. That the game knew was there, but that I wouldn't know about. In the same way, if I decided at the time that the location of the key was perhaps important - then the game had no way to use that later. Basically, I can't even hazard a guess as to where I'm supposed to be looking. All the while I also have been told I can run on quests, but I'm specifically discouraged to do so until I've ran around the city some more. So even if all the elements I need to progress are, of course in the game somehwhere, I find them by sheer luck when I'm just playing the game normally.

...

1. apparently the trip to the statue of fools, or something - the first and closest location after meeting with the guard-captain is not the easiest place to start, yes? ..you know..

 

3. all of them. Even within the city. Where's the morgue? It doesn't say until you get there. "I should check on Jakes body". You know, fine, I'll find the morgue... by combing the city's houses that all look exactly the same. For signs outside that don't read anything until you are near them. ..Leads to the next quest-flag are just.. not well written.

 

Welcome to RPG... where what you say has effect on the game. All "combat" options are super-duper clear. If not, well, seems the current generation of RPG where combat is totally flagged with icons and what-not and 'are you sure' etc. just clouded your judgment of what a RPG could use to be. One where you need to check your words, choices can have effects you may not like and all that good stuff of old we almost forgot existed in a RPG.

It makes me sad to hear this as con rather than big major freaking YAY. PoE definitely will build on this aswell as far as I hear...

Yes, agree with that. The actual combat mechanics are interesting and well done. Really like the area spells and the clouds and smoke and so on. That's really neat. Wind on fire - sweet. It's got huge potential. Hopefully we'll see more of that (played through an entire jrpg just because I could freeze the water with a spell, and then melt it again. Could combine fire and wind as well).

 

I also hate the "press X to roleplay" thing that developers seem to be so much in love with at the moment.

 

All of that doesn't help, is all, when the metagame is so convoluted. My character levels up, he's intending to be a fast rogue(with lots of action points) who use cheaper invisibility spells and magical smoke spells (over and over again, thanks to the speed he has. But the spells I want cost approximately 50.000 times the amount of gold I can get from stealing the foundation off one of the merchant's houses. So.. what do I do? Read a faq? Go spy the toolkit for hints?

 

And then it doesn't help by saying: yeah, but you were /supposed/ to go the opposite way and farm there.

 

...but yes. Was not disappointed with the combat mechanics or the visual UI design (though they have some.. weaknesses with the AI being too predictable and perfect, buttons not responding because of overlays, and masses of popup boxes that don't tile.. and things of that sort, but still..).

 

I was disappointed with the amount of "you should have known, don't give us a hard time. Keep clicking!".

 

Nope, it doesn't. There are other ways.

..pet talker and the underpants, yes? I like animals but I can't speak to them, and it didn't make sense to me that I should be able to learn it. What sort of animal talk are we thinking of anyway? Empathy, words, dog-language, universal "animal"?.... Again.. the game has at least one character who can shapeshift, and presumably speaking to animals is possible. So why can't I just ask someone to be an interpreter? Wizzards seem to be everywhere, just not the ones I want. Is there a guy hidden in another library who will join me and assist me with that..? You know, this kind of thing is frustrating when you're trying to actually play the game on it's terms.

Beats having each and every NPC just having a single line of dialogue repeated infinitive if clicked at. See; all modern RPG's, including some of my favorite like KOTOR2.

sort of.. What they've done here is the Bethesda approach, just with more custom details put in, though. I'm probably not guessing too far off if I'm saying it wouldn't have taken much more time to cull down the dialogue trees and write some custom lines for the few people that are walking around the town. Three screens of text before finding out that the guard definitely doesn't have anything new or useful to say, for example.. not really comfortable for me as a player.

A lot of people don't have this problem. Maybe if you try less to imagine everything as being pre-defined broken (for some reason) instead roll with it and experience... it's not that broken as you imagine. Seeing how you list something as 'required' while it's not required at all, some quests might be more complex than you think

 

But whatever floats everyone's boat, I'm not forcing you to like the game. Just noting that in most likelyhood all complains here will flow over into PoE, since it has the same old-school design. And I would suggest getting back with the old flow again rather than demanding handholding, streamlining and everything on a platter, or PoE will probably dissapoint you more than you can imagine. BG2 was far less forgiving than this game is. And I hope PoE doesn't throws that away... if it does we atleast got 1 good RPG still, but I'm not satisfied with just 1! XD

I can see where you're coming from of course. But it's not black and white here either. That either we get Dragon Age: Origins and .. no meaningful dialogue (which eventually becomes a blessing, since it doesn't matter if you skip past it in terms of choosing the answers quickly so you can get on with things). Or ME3, where you choose which colour you want on the ending. Where all abilities are cooldown skills similar to an mmo. Or you lose all tactical and planning aspects altogether for a whittle-down-the-healthbar minigame..

 

Or else that you end up on the other end of the spectrum with practically code-words stand between you and a game-over screen where you can't load up the previous save-game until you restart the game and load it from the casette over again, etc.

 

For example Josh has talked a lot about exactly that. On how people often complain about new mechanics that make sense, simply because they don't look like what used to be there. I mean, people are really put on the spot when they have to explain specifically what was so amazing about the formations in BG1&2, for example. Useful in certain situations, yes. But it's something that survives from a system intended for pens and notebooks with grids - that doesn't really translate into a system where the movement isn't restricted by grids any longer. So why does a game that doesn't rely on this need them? Why not something more dynamic where the wizzard can hang back nearby the shield-maidens with the huge knockers? Can you successfully avoid making that an in-game conversation (hung up in bad jokes about underpants, that lasts for a bioware hour), while still making that choice meaningful, outside a pure game-mechanical one? Of course! It's possible. But you have to design it consciously so you can make meaningful choices with the tools you have as a player.

 

And I think that with D:OS we're getting the reverse effect somehow. That since it sort of looks like the old games (hey, see the characters have circles around them), and they can be grouped around a bit, and so on. That suddenly is a brilliant thing, in spite of the mechanics not really making any sense. Take the intro into combat, for example - I have a group of two hanging back. And instead of retreating the other group when they were spotted, so I can pull the enemy into a trap -- I need to escape, or else walk up to the front with the other two... which was possible without spending action points.. And when I escape, I get to attack the encounter again from the same spot, since the AI instantly retreats.

 

So basically what you have is not formations, you have one group that moves into the combat spot, which stays where it is.

 

..the combat was fun otherwise, though. Like really, really fun, damnit.

[Llyranor]

I can't say I had too much trouble finding my way. I was just hanging around in Cyseal

investigating the murder

. Once I had enough clues and found the location of

Evelyn's hideout

, i just went out in that direction and encountered enemies of the appropriate level. From there I would just explore and branch out, mapping out more and more of the area as my party level increased.

[Hassat Hunter]

First official patch is out;

 

 

Hello everybody!

We just released the first official patch for Divinity:Original Sin which introduces the concept of AI personalities.

During character creation, you can now select a specific personality for your characters. When a personality is active the AI will automatically make dialogue choices (based on its personality) for the avatar that isn't selected.

In addition to this, we've made a lot of improvements as well as bug fixes and balancing changes.

You'll also notice that you can now publish to Steam Workshop using the Divinity Engine Toolkit.

Here's the full list of changes:

- Save games are packed and compressed now
- Fixed issues when saving to a network drive
- Fixed unique drops over multiple sessions
- Fixed several tooltips
- Optimized syncing of action states
- Fixed leadership critical chance (didn't work)
- Changed leadership icon
- Better savegame error handling + a lot of sanity checks
- Levelswap error handling for levelcache
- 5% instead of 10%/warriorlore for Weather The Storm talent
- Raged lowers your chance to hit by 25%, but you don't lose dexterity anymore.
- Fixed issue where characters could sometimes stay in a closed dialog
- Dialog banter filter in the combat log
- Fixed trade autobalancer
- Unlearning a skill will cancel it if you were casting it at the same time
- Fixed issue with inventory tabs, sometimes resulting in missing icons in the UI
- Fixed issue where certain henchman were free
- Cannot hire same henchman twice
- Henchman will start with the Staff of Magus skill now
- Added more AI personalities
- Fixed a lot of issues where players were crashing after a level swap or after loading of a savegame
- Added 5.1 Audio on cutscenes
- Added video volume slider
- Reduced cloud artefacts
- Play movies before loading
- Small fix for getting quality preset from settings
- Sort display modes correctly
- Use dropdown for V-sync options + vsync tripple buffered is on in default settings
- Fixed memory leak in character creation.
- Fixed combat and chat log settings not being saved when quiting the game through Alt+F4 or closing the game window
- Added close buttons to the combat and chat log windows
- You can now rotate your characters during character creation using the left and right arrow keys
- Fixed stuttering in the texture streamer
- Seriously limitted amount of traffic sent during player movement and when executing certain actions.
- Fixed crash when texture detail is set too low (only possible through editing config file)
- No skill casting while a skillstate is busy (causing double skill casting)
- Fixed wrong trait names in combat log
- Changed default value of stored dialog amount from 10 to 50
- Fixed loading of formations
- Check talent requirements in character creation
- No combine in trade UI
- Fixed issues with crafting
- Fixed double Quick-Save issue when spamming Quick-Save button
- Less jitter in following
- Fixed telekinesis beam showing when moving items from inventory to inventory
- Use, repair, identify and equip items in context menu in picked-up containers and backpacks
- Repair and identify in context menu in containers
- Fixed crash when level swapping when overhead text is showing
- Sort on item type in inventory
- Reenabled hints for German and French
- Fixed crash when sitting on an invalid item

Divinity Engine Toolkit
- Fixed stability issues in certain preview panels
- Fixed uploading to the Steam workshop
- Fixed issues when trying to mod the story files

Design
-Changed the name of the rock that moves away by pressing the secret button at the start of DAF_InnerSanctum from Hanneman's Axe to Rock. Also changed the stats of the rock because it was breakable from Gen_Stone_Indestructible to QUEST_Item.
-Changed the Enlightened Amulet object stat properties, set unique to 1 and also set the inventory override to MISC.
-Changed the voice of Mikhail Solomatin a trader in the Silverglen tavern from female to male
-Removed greeting voices from the wardens
-Created a new script for the Shrike (added on top of the rest with a higher priority) so the Shrike summons a higher level enemy (Shadows_Caster_B) when he's alone
-Void Dragon modified so the Void Dragon summons not level 10 but level 20 creatures
-Added Balberith to the IsNotMessingAround database
-Added Root Template Shadows_Caster_B, set Scale to 1.3
-Modified portrait for Root Templates Orc_Ghost_Female and Orc_Ghost_Male; those guys are summoned by Braogg Spiritchaser in the Dark Forest
-Set BloodSurfaceType to None for Orcs_Ghost_Female and Orcs_Ghost_Male, set HitFX to FX_GP_Hit_Jellyfish_A_Medium so it looks ghosty
-Modified portrait for Undead_FireSkeleton_Axeman, Undead_FireSkeleton_Warrior, Undead_FireSkeleton_Ranger
-Modified portrait for Template Animals_Cat_Slain
-Added Shadows_Grunt_B, to be summoned by the Void Dragon in HOM
-Replaced Goblin Tanks' Equipment to Goblins_Tank_A_Strong
-Changed equipment of elemental rock ice
-Renamed Raazen Ax'aroth to Raalzen Ax'aroth to match what's written in the story
-Set BloodSurfaceType for AnguishDemon_Slave_01-04 to None, set HitFX to FX_GP_Hit_Jellyfish_A_Medium
-Set Grutilda and DreadOrc_Grutilda to IsBoss
-Set level of landmines around Immaculate fort to 20, set Perception requirement to 11
-Dark Forest, rotated Cliff_Common_E_094 to fix display bug
-Dark Forest, fixed ground texture bug in Hunter's Edge inn
-Slightly decreased Shrike's walking speed
-Made Death Princess and the Shrike non-teleportable
-Moved LTS_Coal_Basket_F_076 and LTS_Coal_Basket_F_077 in Homestead to fix display bug (base of final flight of stairs right before the end fight in HOM)
-Increased level, Body Building, Will Power of Shadows_Caster_A_Strong & Shadows_Mage_A_Strong
-Increased HOM_Shrike's Body Building & Will Power to 10
-Set Sight Range of DAF_Orc_FemaleBossDouble to default instead of -4
-Gave DAF_RatKing_SlainCat a Constitution of 7 (instead of _Ghost's 4). Ingame, the cat now has CON 16 (instead of CON 9)
-Gave Norok 10 Will Power, 10 Body Building(removed all immunities)
Reverted Balberith's slaves' Dex back to _Ghost's base, increased Constitution to 6 (instead of _Ghost's 4). Ingame, slaves now have CON 15 (instead of CON 13)
-Gave Grutilda_Dread 15 Action Points at start, increased Speed to 8 (instead of base's 6)
-Decreased Constitution of HOM_Astarte and HOM_Astarte_SecondFight from 6 to 5, removed Vitality boost (130% > 100%)
-Increased DAF_Orc_Warrior's speed to 6, base initiative to 10
I-ncreased Sight Range of Cyseal_Council_Soldier_Helping_Arhu to 2 (overriding _Base's -2), otherwise sometimes they would not come to the player's aid in battle. Now has Sight Range 22.50, had before Sight Range 14.50
-Modified healthbar color of all Shield skills
-Boreas's tiny elemental rocks xp gain set to None
-Added Shadows_Grunt_A_Strong for the root template Shadows_Grunt_B, to be summoned by the Void Dragon in HOM
-Increased the level of _Shadows_Caster_A_Strong to 20
-Increased Action Points cost of _Goblins_Tank_A to 3
-Increased Action Points cost of _Goblins_Tank_A_Strong to 5
-Increased damage of _Cyseal_BC_CrabSummoner to 8
-Increased damage of _Undead_Skeleton_Grunt_Boss to 8
-Increased damage of _DAF_DemonBoss to 8, decreased attack's Action Point Cost to 4
-Increased damage of _DAF_Norok to 8
-Boreas's tiny elemental rocks now inflict proper secondary status
-DAF_PhantomForest_Ghost_Poacher_03 now has a proper character icon.
-Adjusted DAF_ImmaFort_Goblin_Boss's Equipment
-Added new spell, Summon_ShadowCasterEF (uses only old assets incl. name & spells)
-Set Phoenix Dive's DamageOnJump to Yes, Damage to 0
-Decreased Action Point cost of EnemyPoisonHailAttack from 7 to 5, increased cooldown from 2 to 3, increased damage from 5 to 6, dmg multiplier from 40 to 60
-Set Damage of Cone_Enemy_WaterSpit to 7, Multiplier to 100
-Set Damage of Cone_Enemy_WaterSpitSmaller to 5, Multiplier to 60
-Tweaked WellCraftedArrow's StatsDescriptionParams
-Set Damage of AttenberahKillingSpell to 12, Multiplier to 200, DamageType to None (otherwise people buff the Apprentice with a Water Shield and it absorbs the damage)
-Changed the way Zombie Jake behaves after Evelyn's fight to prevent any damage inflicted on him
-Force-remove the players from dialog before starting Astarte's last speech
-Changed the condition to enter the village, every amulet works now
-Change lock level of the door to the starstone in the trial dungeon to 99
-Added check for Grutilda's dialog before talking to her to prevent dialog overlap
-Remove wander of timfred in troll cave to prevent weird behavior, he used to end up relaxing with the trolls deep in the cave
-Added the achievment fixes even if the quest doesn't open or close while it's relevent
-Changed the alignment of Frederick from Good to Neutral to prevent him from joining every fight
-Changed blood cage so that it doesn't automatically place items inside itself if you have the Tenebrium ability. Also Brandon leaves the blood cage with you instead of taking it when the quest is complete
-Changed Bertia's attitude from +25 to -25 when you keep the sheep
-Fixed the timing at the goblin totem that could freeze the village due to disabling display text while winning the trial
-Gave treasure to Hunter's edge residence / made poker player one combat group
-Making sure the fabulous flag is on to prevent bug when turning the quest in
-Removed poison cloud from mushrooms to prevent permanent explosion
-Fixed Shrike fight setup restarting after savegame load
-Arhu attitude loop fix. To fix performance drop.
-Fixed elemental statue dialog issue
-Henchman trader fix for 2 players talking to him
-Added sound event for Cyseal Orc ship arrival on beach
-Added savegame fix for missing companion dialogs.
-Fixed no valid dialog node in HOM_Icara when talking to her after finding the hidden family but not accepting the druid quest yet.
-Made sure speaker boxes in source temple are called 'Trial Statue'
-Homestead guys don't respond to drawn weapons
-No speakergreeting for teller of secrets
-CharmedOrc in cyseal no greetingvoice
-Start Fun with Funghi quest if you find Maradino's spell
-Norok journal update only after he's killed
-Bugfix: Pincer had 2 diferent voices
-Fix Bicky Bomb Voice asserts
-Remove Bicky Bomb Voice asserts in Luculla Mines
-Cancel JAH_Truth if is Balberith killed
-Blocker fix: Parallel dungeon pendants
-Scale scraps can be crafted with Metal Armor
-Intestines can be crafted to create poison/poisoned food/poisoned arrowheads
-Strong sinews can be crafted to bowstrings
-Crafting scrolls now works with elemental essence like the cards say (e.g. fire essence + paper = blank fire scroll)
-The seller of secrets now only has 1 ability book and 1 stat book instead of regenerating those
-Summoned Skeleton now uses correct animation for his 2H sword
-Changed impact of Soulsap so that it doesn't lower Specializations anymore


Kickstarter
-Added missing people to credits.
-Fix for messages in a bottle not showing.
-Added missing kickstarter rewards.

Mac specific
- Black stripes fixed in Black Cove
- Fake fullscreen mouse dragging corruption is fixed

Nice list

[HoonDing]

The Chinese call it 神界：原罪. Interesting.

[Hassat Hunter]

@ Nipsen;

Nope... in the start you were just left out to dry. They added the gates (and the tutorial dungeon) to add some semblance of making people aware they are about to do stupid stuff.

If they don't listen; well... their loss.

They've made it a LOT newb-friendlier since the start... not less clear.

 

And it still sounds to me like you just want NPCs to give you a full walkthrough and massive handholding :/.

I don't recall BG2 doing any of the sort. After Irenicus dungeon you're free to go. Instantly to Imoen if you wanted and had the money even. No "unlocking stuff based on your level"... where did you get that from?

 

What chestkey? If you give examples, being vague doesn't help at all... :/

1. The "statue of fools" is on the other side of the map compared to Cyseal. So, ehm... First and closest?

 

 

3. all of them. Even within the city. Where's the morgue? It doesn't say until you get there. "I should check on Jakes body". You know, fine, I'll find the morgue... by combing the city's houses that all look exactly the same. For signs outside that don't read anything until you are near them. ..Leads to the next quest-flag are just.. not well written.

As soon as you enter a building it gives you the note. Just like in Baldur's Gate you need to explore before getting notes added on the map. What's "problematic" about visiting each location. Aren't you doing that in the first place. If not, why not?

Also, there are little plates infront of EACH house telling you exactly what to find inside as well. Also, there are direction arrows at various locations pointing you to several places within the city.

Not to mention it being the nearest building to the graveyard, for reasons I hope I don't need explaining.

And still you need more handholding? I seriously hope PoE wont be made like that :/

 

Also, sorry, but I don't want investigations to have "what to do next" questentries. Just look at Knights of the Old Republic II Onderon how bad that would be. Onderon's nicely build, but that MQ... worst KOTOR2 quest. Not how to make an investigative quest.

 

Can't really ask me about gold or vendors, really... I swim in gold. And I've seen many people talk how you have to get skill X, and you have to vendorscum for it... and I'm pretty much living on skillbooks I find, and do just *fine*... Of course I play normal, not hard (probably will switch since it really is too easy atm for me).

 

 

I was disappointed with the amount of "you should have known, don't give us a hard time. Keep clicking!".

Not quite sure what's your actual intention with this line, but I just want to say a good thing of most RPG systems, including Baldur's Gate II and IceWind Dale and such is that you learn. Sure, you might have an advantage knowing stuff, but the true intention is to actually learn by trying and playing and thus progress and learn. Unlike modern RPG's where dying is made near-impossible, and if you lost you just do the exact same thing again since there's really nothing to learn, adjust or vary. Especially with 'trick bosses'... thank you ARPG.

There's nothing wrong with failing, with not knowing something. You're expected to, unlike modern RPG's. If that's not your thing, if you want everything to go swell instantly well, this game will definitely not be for you. And I expect PoE wont either.

 

 

Again.. the game has at least one character who can shapeshift, and presumably speaking to animals is possible. So why can't I just ask someone to be an interpreter?

Imagine you are a powerful Wizard. Imagine you do everything in your power to stop evil from winning. Imagine you're being very busy. Would you just go out and translate a random unimportant dog then for some people instead of that?

 

Seems we agree on modern BioWare here

I have no idea what you exactly are saying with the combat example... so I can't really comment on that :/

D:OS' 'formations' are basically coming down to how characters will line up when combat starts. It's really nothing more or less than that. I'm not quite sure from your response if you expected more, or it being majorly different, or really what you expected of it.

 

Hopefully you can make that a bit clearer for me, that final part of your post... since I would love to discuss it and how it pertains to Josh' points (and potentially PoE) but I can't quite make head nor tails from it, sorry

[Virgility]

This game is still Steam's top selling game at n1... This is good for CRPG's in general. Hopefuly PoE will even do better.

[ShadySands]

I love the game and I will admit to looking up what to do next more than a couple times. I don't fault the game for this though as I just haven't had to pay attention or think about what to do next in a game like this in a long time

[Volourn]

"Sorophx I'm going to try to explain something to you because you seem to misunderstanding why people are criticizing you and you seem to feel you are the victim

 

There are people who have played DO:S for dozens of hours and really can comment on what's good and bad about the game. You formulated a dismissive view of the game based on a video. You can deny this or not but this is what is considered an uninformed view of something. When this was pointed out you become defensive.

 

The so called "fanboy" support of this game is from people who have an informed opinion of the game, you are not debating from this perspective. In life its good to sometimes admit you are wrong about a topic, it doesn't make you weak or make future comments less relevant. But your continued debating around this topic has just made you sound silly

 

End of the day you cannot really comment on the game and all its flaws until you have personally played it"
 

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Someone doesn't like a game I like. WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

 

 

And, no, you don't need to play a game for 20 horus to know if you hate it or like it or it's bad or good. In fact, I have the counter argument - if you play  agme for 20+ hours you obviously are enjoying.

 

It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to know whether a game is crap or not. In fact, EVERY SINGLE potential consumer  for any productmakes a 'quality determination' before  potentially buying a game. We all do. You are lying if you claim you don't.

 

Him hating the game should NOT effect your enjoyment.

[HoonDing]

You can't judge a game before you like it.

[Virgility]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/15/divinity-original-sin-review

 

IGN review. They gave it 9 on 10.

[Llyranor]

Ooooh, nice. 5 skillbars now, and r & f to switch between them. Cool, that was probably my biggest interface 'gripe'.

[Tigranes]

Let's move on from Alpha Protocol, deliberate provocation, etc., shall we? 

 

Character builds make a world of difference. First playthrough had a mage/one-handed warrior & a marksman/rogue. Of course if you put it like that it's pretty clear those are are very efficient, but I was going with whatever I felt like. Now I'm specialising with a two-hander and an elemental mage and things are a blast. Working out different combinations across the two characters is good fun even based on a fairly simple and limited character development system. Next time I'll try a pure marskman and a pure rogue, with little tanking or magic.

[Volourn]

Limited character system compared to what? Certainly no the IE games which most people (foolishly) compare it to.

[Helz]

It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to know whether a game is crap or not. In fact, EVERY SINGLE potential consumer  for any productmakes a 'quality determination' before  potentially buying a game. We all do. You are lying if you claim you don't.

 

I agree with you here.  Usually within an hour or two you'll know whether a game is for you.  Watching a video on youtube might even be enough for someone to make a decision, but to then start making a bunch of nitpicky gripes when you haven't even experienced it for yourself just makes you look like an attention-whore.

 

I haven't bought the game yet, so I actually appreciate hearing some criticism, but judgements from others who haven't played it are worthless.

 

edit; I wouldn't have bothered responding to this half-troll post if the person in question hadn't 'liked' it.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Helz

[Darji]

looks like the game is a huge sucess^^

 

- Sold a quarter of a million units.
- Sales curve is still rising because of word of mouth
- Production budget was 3 million euros, a third of which was made up by crowdsourcing
- They broke even 
- Industry has noticed the game's success; Swen has had offers to buy Larian
- They don't know yet what they are going to do yet for their next project, first a holiday

 

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/divinity-original-sin-has-sold-160-000-copies-already-approaching-profitability.92682/page-25#post-3387068

 

Really glad it works out for them can nto wait for their next project

[Sarex]

According to many people here the game selling 250k makes it a failure.

[sorophx]

it is a failure from a AAA point of view. it should've sold a million or so in its first week. the fact that it only cost 3 million Euro is what's interesting, that's pocket money by today's standards 

[Labadal]

The game was never meant as a triple A game.

[Hassat Hunter]

From what we were told it was 4 million (3 million of their own, and an additional 1m from KS).

So it seems the article is incorrect there.

 

And yes, DD (so no physical loss or stores inbetween) giving a bigger cut and the smaller budget do allow less sales to be needed to make even and get a profit...

[sorophx]

The game was never meant as a triple A game.

I didn't imply it was, just that today's perception and sales expectations are way above that number when publishers are involved 

[Sarex]

PoE also isn't meant to be a triple A game, but people are jumping in with numbers like 1 million or even more.

[pmp10]

TBH after 2 weeks of being the bestselling game on steam I expected a bit more than 250k.

[Labadal]

I think Larian are happy with sales, triple A numbers or not. They broke even within the first week and everything after that is profit.

 

This game would never sell a million units and I think most peope realized this.

 

I doubt Pillars of Eternity will see one million copies in its first weeks. As long as Obsidian gets decent profits, it will be a good start.

[sorophx]

I doubt PoE will sell at all, too few people want the IWD experience in a new setting

[Hassat Hunter]

I doubt PoE will sell at all, too few people want the IWD experience in a new setting