First of all: GRAGT visited us today. Question him. His name in Flemish means "ditch". He did not speak Flemish. He was talking French, and very fast as well. We gave him one sandwich and a couple of non-alcoholic beverages.
Second, disclaimers, of course: the game is very much still work in progress. Anything I say here, may or not may not be in the final version. If I give opinions, they are mine, and not necessarily Larian's. There are many things here that can change very easily (e.g. stats, formulas, balancing...) without too much effort on our side, and we're experimenting a lot. Other things may or may not happen, depends on lots of factors (i.e. there are things that have high priority and if they take longer to get right, the low priority "nice to have" things may fall).
Third: I can handle forums. The only problem is that I am connected to Larian, so I probably have to play nice so as not to stain Larian's image. So I'll probably just ignore.
...Bold is a quote from somewhere in this thread.
Someone needs to interview Larian about this ASAP. Any volunteers?
If you still want this, PM me
Is it class based?
No. Just like all other Divinity games, it's classless.
Party based? (since it's turnbased, one would assume so)
Party size should've been larger than just 2 people
You control at least two characters (the two main heroes of the story), but they can each hire a henchman. You fully control the henchmen as well (stats, equipment, skills). The party can grow up to six by summoning elementals.
It is recommended to build a "balanced" party (henchmen come in flavours) but if you tackle the fights by yourself or as a party of two or three, and you survive, you (currently) get more xp. (Could be that it goes the other way, I mean, that the current balancing is made for a party of 2+summons, and if you suck, you should get henchmen. We're still playing around with combat a lot. Especially since programmers recently decided they could probably make items react to things like fire and ice.)
So what were you guys saying about no market for real RPGs and Wasteland 2 being the last dying breath of the genre?
When we started on this game in 2010, we decided to do what we wanted to do, and not dance to anyone's song. I dunno if Wastelands 2 was announced already, but a lot of Larian guys like TB RPGs.
Divinity turned into a h&s game because the publisher thought that it should be, what with Diablo's success and all. Beyond was a TB game until like half a year before going gold, cause the publisher said TB wouldn't sell. Div2 had to be on console because the publisher said PC was a dying platform.
Believe it or not, a lot of people at Larian are pretty oldschool in what they play. So is Swen. So am I. We had come up with dual dialogs, so a party made sense. And if you have a party, TB combat makes sense. Even if it turns out that this is suicide, at least we died trying. We have always tried to make what we would like to play ourselves. I'm not saying we were always successful, but that is what drives us: we don't make games because "there is a demand", but because we are looking at ourselves. And if there are enough guys at Larian that would play it, then why would that be a bad market analysis? 90% of our employees are RPG fans. As good an analysis as any.
Interactive treasure inventory icons
Well at least we would like the container interface to reflect what you have opened. Yes, like in Ultima. Might be something we regret, because we can flag anything as "IsContainer", so before you know it, designers are making anything "open-able" and lootable... HEY LOOK A CAT!
Turn based, hexagons, like fallout
Well, yeah, kinda, except for the fact that we don't have hexagons or any visible grid. We work in, I guess, centimeters. Or inches. If we would do a grid, the designers and artists creating the environment would be limited in where/how they can place objects. And seen as environment plays a role, we wanted to keep the world (and editing it) as free as possible.
Looking a tad bit too playful
Before we started D:OS, we actually had two art directors have a bit of a concept battle, gave each one a team, and told them to come up with the artstyle for this game. The best / most votes would win. They both ended up using very similar ideas and styles, so no one actually won, and we asked them to mix up both.
You may wonder where this style came from. I think that after Div2, most artists were tired of the type of stuff they had been making for the last couple of years. I may be wrong here, you should ask them personally. I believe they started finding more "artistic reward" in painting this type of texture and modeling that type of shape; going all out without having to refer to a scientifical anatomy study of a rabbit, or something.
I like it. Well obviously I do, but there are scenes in the game that sometimes make it look like a board game come to life, so that's why.
Beyond Divinity
I don't think you can compare this to Beyond. Mind you, I worked on Beyond, and I have fond memories of that period in my life. It is one thing to bash a game, it is another to bluntly tell people that their work sucks while they did try their best and put lots of time in it. I'm not trying to make excuses, but we made Beyond with a very very small team, in very (very) little time. For that, I am still proud of what we achieved. Yes, it is not a perfect game. But without Beyond, Larian wouldn't be here.
In Beyond, we wanted to tell a story which involved two characters, and initially, it was also meant as a TB multiplayer game so that made sense. In hindsight, yeah, that was ambitious. We also wanted to achieve a "combine spells to create your own skills" thing, and we had summoning dolls, and a "neverending dungeon crawler" which was the Battlefields at the end of the game. I do believe that, given time, Beyond could have become a better game.
With the team, the philosophy and the technology behind Original Sin, however, I do believe we have a much better game in our hands. But I work at Larian, so I may be biased.
Cooldown
Currently, magic requires action points, spends mana, and has cooldown. Yep, I also believe that that is too much, and that we can balance it with mana (and AP) alone. If a spell needs cooldown in such a system, the spell is either overpowered, or is not using enough mana. However, this is a point of internal discussion atm, but these things are quite easily changed, because the code that handles it, is very data-driven, i.e. it's easy for the designers to toy around with the values. There are currently things in the game, that may not be in the final game. I hope cooldown is one of them.
there appears to be no voice acting
It is currently planned that NPCs will have voice.
They're probably trying to have really low system requirements in order to increase the potential audience.
The goal is that it runs on laptops. Not netbooks with an Intel GMA950, but laptops. Not necessarily for audience, but because of the coop. Most families have only one desktop, but have a laptop lying around as well. Or: most people have laptops nowadays and no desktops anymore...
If you're a gamer and you have a laptop: what do you play on your laptop? Right. Stuff that came out years ago. Not a bad thing, but if a new title does come out that you're interested in, wouldn't it be nice to be able to take that game along with you?
looks like Gamebryo... hope I'm wrong.
You're wrong. It's our own engine. Also being used in Dragon Commander, so it's pretty powerful actually.
predefined characters / char creation
There is a character creation screen where you'll have to create one man and one woman. Their backstory now is much less detailed than it used to be. You will find out things about their past, but that will not limit you in any way in how you roleplay or develop them. At char creation, you choose starting stats and starting skills.
I also think we'll have portraits, hair colour and hair style.
hoping the highly interactive environment means different and creative ways to solve quests
That is our goal. We were never fans of "fetch me my axe" and "kill 5 of those". I do believe that there are limited "quest templates", but the way such templates are filled in matters. A good designer can make a good fetch quest. A good fetch quest is NOT "I have lost my axe in the woods, go and get it for me and I will give you XP".
If I want you to fetch me an axe, my story should be good. "Losing" an axe is silly. It was eaten by a mountain troll or something, and I'm scared shitless. So you can ignore me, kill me, tell me to go and get it myself, talk me out of wanting that axe, get and keep the axe for yourself, turn me in for asking for illegal weapons, sell my axe, talk to the troll, fight the troll, go and buy another axe ffs, story-specific choices, etc. And the choice that you make, must have an impact. If not immediate, then later on in the game: didn't bring me my axe? I'll die because you didn't provide me with a weapon. Or I will have changed my evil lumberjack ways and turned to adventuring and bug you all the time. Or if you do give it back, I'll end up in jail for killing a murderer that was let go for lack of evidence, please jailbreak me, this is all your fault. Stuff like that, and hopefully not too black and white, and hopefully a bit unpredictable.
(Note: I am not a writer or a designer, I'm just trying to explain our design team's credo. Axe quest not in game.)
Now I know this sounds cool. But of course, it takes time to implement, and more time to test all the outcomes, especially when intertwined with other quests. And to be honest, this type of stuff is lost on most of your players: they just go and kill the troll and get the man's axe. Sad but true. Or other gamers think of a solution that you didn't implement and nag about that... So we have to be realistic. This is 50% wishful thinking. We support stuff like this as often as we can, and try to solve most of it cleverly, but we're still a small studio. So the above is an ideal quest. I'm not saying everything in D:OS will be like this. But we strive for it, cause we believe this is how an RPG should be. We already had stuff like this in Div, Beyond and Div2, and a lot of players didn't even seem to realize it.
I just need to know more about the rule system
Wow, there's lots to say... But I like stats and shit, so here's some stuff.
At the moment (!) there are these stats:
STR
DEX
CON
INT
SPEED
PERCEPTION
Currently, you start with 5 in everything, and at char creation you get five free points to spend. You cannot go below five. You get one point per level up. We want one point to feel important. (Same with skills.)
Enemies/NPCs use the same stats, and you should use that knowledge. (The more you fight types of enemies, the more you'll learn about them. If you invest in INT/PERC, the more you'll know immediately.) Enemies will have behaviours/reactions that you'll have to learn and anticipate and react to yourself. There are 7 different damage types atm and you also need to take that into account.
They define multiple secondary stats, but most importantly:
STR = bonus with melee weapons, how much you carry, how far you throw stuff, what you can pick up...
DEX = bonus with ranged weapons and dagger-types
CON = extra vitality, resistance against poison
INT = bonus to magic, defines amount of mana
SPEED = chance of evading/dodging + more distance with one AP
PERC = chance of successful hit + bonus to sight/hearing
You also have action points. You can gain AP by items (maybe) or by story. (Still playing around with this. May get bonus for every x speed, or from a skill...)
At the moment, HP and mana don't regen. That may become a skill at high levels, but now you'll have to eat, use medkit, find a doctor, make or buy or find potions, or rest. (Food doesn't always just give you health though. E.g. meat makes you slow for a while. Fish makes you smarter for a while instead of healing you.)
Currently, there are items (weapons, armor...) that have no requirements, or low/medium/high requirements on STR, or on DEX or on INT. And there are enough weapon types to allow for different builds. E.g. 2 handed axe requires most STR I think, does most damage, has higher chance to crit, but costs more APs than for instance a sword, you cannot wear a shield, and you won't have a lot of points in the other stats. Same for armor. It should allow you to build all kinds of characters.
In combat, there are things like aoo, backstab, flanking, knockdown, stun, etc. Skills either go the magic way (earth wind fire water that interact together/against each other like you'd expect + impact items/environment) or they go the ranger/fighter/... way (passive/active/buff/debuff/dmg/...).
There are also stats used in dialogues. Our current formulas use a base "persuasion" stat, and that is added up to (atm) one main stat that makes sense when trying to use intimidation, insight or logic. This is then compared to the other guy's numbers. So it is a good idea to, for instance, use logic on a fighter, even if your own INT is not that high, if only because HIS INT is not gonna be high. The current system kinda works like the THAC0 system in old D&D. But we're still playing around with it. Not only do the formulas and the game need to be balance-able, they also need to make sense.
Stats and balancing is the type of thing everyone has intellingent remarks about, and the type of thing that can be torn apart by everyone, but again, it's just data driven, and the balancing is quickly changed. We are still playing around with this. It's not our first stat system for DOS and it may not be the final one.
PCs at Gamescom
Was not a PR stunt. It actually messed up us trying to look for news and previews about our games. In the end, I think the guys that were setting up the booth next to us the night before Gamescom, ran off with it and had no idea what was on them, they were just interested in the sell/hardware.
Player disagreeing system in dialogues and friendly fire?
Also: loot drops on the floor, so the first to pick it up, gets it. (Sometimes even enemies will pick it up.) Gold is party shared atm, but I am a fan of changing that.
box art
Might still change. DC box art is at iteration 4 or 5 today.
And exclamation points on quest-giving NPCs are in
Hell no. Maybe in a demo they were. They're out. Maybe main quest guys. MAYBE. But certainly not quest givers. My favorite type of quest giver is a quest giver that doesn't even know he gave you a quest. I mean: mentioning something like "If only I could see my wife again" is completely something else than "Bring me my wife, I will mark her location on your map and give you XP".
no shitty d20 OGL system in sight
We did think about it. We thought it'd be a good thing for modders.
It's not a sandbox rpg
We are getting more systemic stuff in the world that makes it feel more sandbox-y. 90% of the journalists that got a hands-on presentation didn't bother too much with the actual dialogues and quests and such (mainly because we don't have a questlog yet), and were just fiddling around with behaviours and reactions...
both main characters are the only "magicians" left in the world
Well kind of. The magic the heroes are using, was once "forbidden", because of its potential. Now it has become the downfall of the Council, and ironically, it's up to the two heroes to go out and learn as much about it as possible (fight fire with fire). So the bad guys know similar (elemental) spells.
Or he meant the appearance is not customizable?
Visuals change depending on what you are wearing. Strangely enough, none of the girl's armours are in, so she's hopping around in bikini a lot.
How common or rare are magic items?
Swen and I fight over this. He's all for item fever, I'm a fan of Dragonlance (where magic is uncommon and you piss your pants over a +1 sword, and yes, hence Lord Soth).
ATM, you don't find a lot of magical stuff in the beginning. Well, you don't actually find a lot at the beginning, hence the buckets on the heads (adds one armor, but sight gravely diminishes). Or the shields that are actually self-made from the lid of a barrel + rope.
However, I do already "feel" item fever because I'm trying to find food and clothes and such, so if there is 1% chance of a magical item dropping (in a somewhat logical spot), I'd still piss my pants.
So yeah. Maybe it'll be somewhere in the middle. For higher class levels, I think it makes sense, cause by then, you need other tradeoffs to choose between.
I saw that you could summon elementals. What else can you summon? Demons? Monsters?
ATM only elementals.
What races are available for play? Are the races of your premade characters fixed?
ATM only humans.
What about companions...any non humans?
When I last checked, there was only one non-human. The problem here is that "monsters" are limited. I mean, they cannot "carry" every weapon type, or every armor type (visually I mean), or do not have every animation for every spell, and some spells are monster-specific. It is easy to make monsters henchmen, but it is another thing to have those equip/behave/develop like the player would expect them to.
Their iconic image for Dragon Commander is the topless reflection of a skeleton woman.
It is one of the princesses you can marry. Each princess has a story arc. The skeleton princess can actually become alive again, if you choose certain paths. This is her mirror image, what she dreams of when she looks in the mirror. I think there's more behind it than "TITS!" but maybe I'm too much of a romantic.
We have images for each princess and the different outcomes. This was picked by marketing. I wonder why.
ForkTong, you guys have horrible handwriting!
I know. My name looks like D~~~~|
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