For everyone who wants to know how the game is before buying. Please leave your impressions.
I am waiting on Steam right now so i will give my impressions in a bit.

I'd mostly love to hear about the changes to the original areas so I can decide if I want to wait for the DKS retail version to pop up somewhere or just buy FoV as DLC on gamersgate.

As I stated in another thread, I would like to know if anti-aliasing works in DKS.

After playing it for about an hour, I can tell it will be rewarding. I maxed out all options, q9550, 280 gtx, and attempted to force AA but I wasn't able too. The gameplay is fun and there are a bunch of skills to choose from. The story seems interesting as this is my first Divinity game. Considering there are more than 100+ hours of gameplay for $40 I am pretty excited. But the graphics are definitely the lacking factor. They are a little weaker than Dragon Age, so not bad but no Crysis.

I played the original game and just bought the DKS. Must say there are some new things. First of all the graphics are better then they usedto be. They also have added several new armour sets in the starting area ucan also adjust the difficulty now which might come in handy for people who are having difficulties. Besides that, after you finished the original game the flames of vengeance addon automaticaly starts. The DKS is definately worth 30€ in my eyes. If you have any other questions about The Dragon Knight Saga just ask.

There was talk of "streamlined gameplay" and things like that... any dumbing-down that you have seen? My main worry is that the game has been simplified to appeal to reviewers who complained about harder aspects like tough enemies and such.

I want to know, definitively if enemies respawn in ED areas, it was mentioned as a feature, but no one has said if it is true in release.

Im loving the new Casual mode, it seems like Health auto-regenerates in it. Also battles seem alot faster and more fun in it, Im not sure about harder difficulties because I enjoy 'dumbed' down combat, I dont play RPGs to fuss over combat systems. All in all, so far it seems alot better then the base game.

^Health always regenerates, it's just that the health regeneration rate depends on strength.

I've been playing it for a few hours, so far gameplay has been the same as in Ego Draconis. But performance is better than in the ED (although FPS seems to be capped at 30). There is also no longer mouse lag in menus.

I noticed new dialogue options a couple of times, but perhaps this is maybe just me misremembering things.

It was just mentioned above, but the PC version is hard capped at 30 FPS.

This gives the game a very choppy and lagged feel even on an extremely high end system.

Ok, so far so good. A few requests to anyone thinks they can edit the game a little bit. I want to scroll the camera closer for more of a 3rd person feel. I want to decrease stuttering and want to enable using a controller. Any ideas?

is it possible for someone to mod out the FPS cap? This is really disappointing alot of people.

Ok, after a few more hours of enjoyment, I have found a personal fix for me. When putting settigns on Extreme and then dragging the distance rendering to low and turned on timeslice update. That more or less eliminates my stuttering, great game so far. Definitely recommended.

If it is hardcoded into the executable (and that is likely the case) then not really. For all games I know of you cannot legally modify or disassemble the executable.

There feels to be a lot of changes in DKS over the original and I often find myself thinking "that wasn't there or that didn't happen" the last time I played.
Overall, the original felt unfinished were as DKS feels complete.
I have no problems with the graphics, I find them beautiful and atmospheric, the shadows in particular are very believable.

There are barrow loads of games for sale that are not worth your time never mind your money, but DKS is not one of them. I feel DKS is worth every penny 10 times over and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a game they can get themselves lost in.

I to am loving the casual mode, being more into the story than bashing heads, and besides I want to feel powerful, I want to feel like a err.......... dragon slayer.

Ya im loving this two, just wish the 30 fps cap would go away, most gamers machines nowadays are capable of keeping this game at a locked 60fps, i dont care what scientists or anybody else say when youve been playing games locked at 60 fps then all the sudden play a game at 30fps locked it hurts the eyes and its very noticeable. My guess is they did this because of the xbox and ps3.
Please patch out this fps lock developers as this game is awesome and really want to beable to use the horsepower under our pc hoods.

That's not possible. They'd have to re-engineer a lot of the game to achieve a steady 60 frames per second, which requires a much larger budget, which the publisher is undoubtedly not going to provide based on a simple cost-benefit analysis. There is absolutely zero point in complaining or requesting that the developers simply "unlock" the frame rate. You can stop posting about it in every thread.

Right on sorry, didnt think it was a big deal. Just kind of weird as the original wasnt locked at 30 so though maybe something was wrong.

No need to apologize. I didn't mean to sound harsh or anything. Just saying: a steady 60 frames per second is a huge technical challenge that requires a lot of manpower, time, and other resources. That's why Insomniac, which was the leader in this performance category, ultimately discontinued the practice. They'd rather spend more time on other elements of their games than on this very tough hurdle that really only the very best software people can overcome and which very few consumers actually appreciate. If you want a game that runs at 60 frames per second, you have to start with that goal from the beginning.

Since this is the pc thread ill go ahead and post this in here, 6100x1080 works perfectly just like the original one did. So if anybody is doing eyefinity, or nvidia 2d surround this game is definately great with that set up. Also the sound is greatly improved weather running headphones or 5.1 the sound field is spot on and all the additional sounds added to interface are a nice touch.

Do you not find the footsteps a little overpowering? I find if you are anywhere that has a few soldiers pacing about you can't hear the conversation with a npc over the clunking of many feet.

For me on-line activation breaks even the very best game of all time.

Imarion

Do you not find the footsteps a little overpowering?

Can't you set the volume levels independently for voices, music, sound effects, etc?

Yes you can adjust the sound levels for those different sounds that might help, But since you mentioned it Paris, ya definately some loud footsteps, but half the time im focused on the music anyway.

I have turned the sound effects down and the music up a tad, it's not so bad at all now.

I love the humour in DKS, so many times it has had me laughing out loud, especially the conversations with the stupid guards.

My first impressions are that I want my money back. Unless Larian can find a way to allow me to at least TRY running the game without a 30 framerate cap then I have just thrown another £20 down the drain on a game I can't play.

We have a epic adventure with fantastic quests, dialogue, creatures and puzzles. The graphics are beautiful and the music hunting. It's not every day a game comes along with so much magic to offer. I'm sure we can forgive them for the lack of a few frames per second, after all this is a rpg and not a on-line shoot them in the foot.

Sorry, but I cant. Without motion blur or a higher frame rate the game hurts my eyes after the first minute or two. I guess I've posted enough about this around various places to the point I might end up banned :S

I will just leave the game alone and pray someone releases some kind of mod to get rid of the 30fps cap. Until then, good luck and I hope you all enjoy the game if you were unable to play it before.

I didn't play Eco Draconis, as I knew they were releasing expansion packs so i held back for a long time and finally decided i would purchased DKS to experience the whole thing all at once. So for me I don't know what the original game was like before this update. So for me it's all new and never seen before. 4 hrs into the game, I have had ZERO issues, i am enjoying the variety in the quests and the game runs super smooth on my PC (though the graphics aren't anything amazing, but they're good enough). No issues here. Also the game has an antialiasing option. (For the poster on page 1).

So your not going to play it just because there is an online activation? That is ridiculous, but your loss.

Remember, turn distance rendering to low to improve performance (it helped me the most with no visual difference)

I have the impression leveling up goes faster. When I reached Talana, I was 2 levels higher than in Ego Draconis... this makes the rest of the Broken Valley area easier when you first enter it.

So you have stuttering problems with DKS too? What's your PC specs?

i got stuttering too,if i turn grapics on high its less then when i turn all on low but i get stuttering no matter what.

amd 2,5ghz dual core
1 TB HDD
Ati HD3650 256MB (according to minium requirements i should be able to run it almost flawless.)
2 gb's Ram (cant run high textures sadly.)

so yea Larian,you better start working on a patch because this stuttering really demolishes the game.

Im sorry to say but this spec is really to a bare min I wouldnt expect a flawless experience on a game that was just released with that ...

Well I have
amd 6000+ 3.01ghz
2gb RAM
GF GTX460 1GB OC
WIN XP SP2
160GB HDD SATA

Will that run smoothly? It should because it met even recommended settings.

yes i know that,but following the minimum requirments i should be able to play flawless on low.
but my performance is the same on high as on low. (its just the annoying stuttering most of people have.) yes my rig isnt the best but it makes me able to play l4d2 on max,and lots of good other games on high settings. so its fine for me.

So far I'm only around level 4-5 in Broken Valley, but I've found leveling does seem to go faster. For example, after doing the quest for Locke, I gained two whole levels. Much higher than before.

The blacksmiths so far also have a LOT more magical/rare/heroic items on them; I was able to find a sword from the beginner blacksmith that pretty much one shots most things, but it's moving into 2-3 shot territory for enemies higher than 4. It's pretty nice because it looks like Larian has seen the threads about how broken valley is much tougher than it should be, so they gave us a bunch of powerful items to compensate.

Also, a LOT more set items. I can't go into a merchant's inventory without seeing a piece of a set there, and most of them are pretty powerful.

As for the graphics, I've never been one to need the very best graphics ever in order to enjoy a game, so I only see a very minor difference. The character and armor models, however, have been improved considerably. Light reflects off your armor and shines, just like metal armor should. No longer is everything dull looking.

Aside from that however I haven't found any gameplay changes. But that's probably just because I'm still in Broken Valley.

Levling definitely goes faster. In the original ED, I was always level 7 upon meeting Talana. Now I was level 9 when I met her, and I didn't do anything differently.

This makes beating the skeletons around Lovis' Tower very easy. There was no way I could beat them easily in the original ED. But of course, many of the skeletons enemies are ranged, and in DKS it is possible to dodge arrows, which is a big improvement.

That might apply to console games but on PC your computer decides what the game runs at, and my computer would run this at 60 or even higher without a problem. The cap has no purpose, it needs to be patched out.

Very disappointed to hear about them adding a cap. Will probably keep Ego Draconis and buy FoV as an add-on if it doesn't get patched out.

The systems were not always doing the frame rate correctly, so they have the program decided. However, it seems that when it was not locked then thread deadlocks occured. The reason it is 30 is because they did not what to raise the requirements.

Hrm, I've been interpreting the complaints about frame rate far too accurately. The "frame rate" issue at hand is about vsync and can be patched. According to Lar_q, Larian is looking at the problem.

Ok after seven hours, even if I HAVEN'T left farglow yet... I can see a few things.


First of all it's a major graphical improvement, and I can actually dodge things now, that's great! I think the game has a lot of promise. I just wish I could choose to have respawning enemies so I didn't have to spend seven hours in far glow, slow grinding to lvl 3. (I like to be able to powergind/max out -every- skill in a game, what can I say?)

that said, I have one question, why does all the starting armor offer only 1 type of protection. (Either Magic Ranged OR Melee.) Shouldn't armor protect against all, or at LEAST Ranged/Melee.

Overall though I have high hopes for the game, and can't wait to see what comes next.

Edited out mistakes I can't believe I missed.

I'm really impressed! I'm playing RPG since 1984 (lol, really old... 39) and it's a great game! I played almost every RPG for the PC in the last 26 years, and this game is a real gem.

I play at 2560X1600 with max settings (i7 920 at 4.0, Tri-Crossfire 5970+5870) and everything is buttery smooth. Load time are like 3 sec (SSD). After playing for 12 hours, I didn't crash/freeze a single time.

Fun and polish game. Congrats to the dev team! We need more RPG like this!

After tweaking the graphic settins, I'm now having fun playign the game.

I had bad stuttering even though fps meter says 30-- it was due to vsync. Turned off vsync and problem solved.

Then antialiasing was not working, turned off HDR and AA worked great.

My advice is to turn off vsync and HDR for better performance.

I think DKS is much improved over ED, also the faster leveling is much welcome, I struggled alot in the beginning in ED but Im having a much better time with better gear and the re adjusting leveling. Some people may not like that, and Im not sure if it changes on higher difficulties but it does improve the game alot, I think most people who complained about Ego will definatly enjoy DKS now.

Graphics wise it runs nicely, but I have a modern gaming PC, and I've not noticed problems or had to turn anything down.

I really dont understand people who think RPGs should have crazy difficult combat and that good equipment should be rare, RPGs are about storyline and immersion, if you strip that out and focus on combat all you have is a pseudo action RPG like Resident Evil or Gears of War or something, and I really dont understand stripping an RPG down to that, Im glad Larian listened to the reviews about this.

Im really enjoying DKS, in Ego I ended up burning out by the battle tower because it was just so boring banging my head against enemies with so much HP, it just dragged on and severely hampered my ability to enjoy and follow the really good storyline.

Some more impressions:

- I can't buy mana potions anywhere anymore. This makes playing a wizard before you get the battle tower much less fun.

- Being able to dodge arrows is useless, since stun/poison/explosive arrows still home in like missiles.

Have you checked with the priest that gives the quest Lovis's Loot? He had a lot in D2:ED.

I bought it yesterday and played for a few hours and so far I'm loving the game. I never played ED so everything about it is new to me. The quests are fun, the combat and skills are good, and I really like the mindreading feature. There are a few downsides like the controls/camera feeling a bit awkward (especially when you're in a small room trying to loot stuff) and the FPS cap is noticeable, but all in all it's a VERY fun game to play.

I've checked all merchants in the broken valley village: None of them sell potions anymore.

I suppose less potions but mega powerful weapons balance each other out.

Have you checked with the Doctor in the Tavern??? He sells a whole BUNCH of potions.

Also i'm up to level 22. Game is EPIC. Being a dragon ROCKS. Nowhere near finishing it anytime soon. 20 hrs in. Loving it.

My favourite things about the game:
-mini puzzles that aren't quests that result in skill points/stat points/items
-Mind reading
-Dragon form!!!!
-my creature!!!!


EDIT: also best leggings in the game were my paperthin leggings!!!! BUY THEM! DO IT!

I've made it past the first part, and after that I got the "West Valley" and "Lovis' Tower" shrines quickly (for enchanting and for good "waiting around to heal" music respectively)

I love the minor adjustment with the velocity of projectiles. They still seem really fast, but now they can now be dodged. The trick is that if you're using ranged weapons or spells, you can still get hit, so you need to time your attacks more carefully.

I'm sure that the experience rewards from quests are bigger than before. That's why I'm gaining levels faster. However, something odd seems to be happening with quest rewards. I see things like Potatoes and clutter items like Knives show up as a chooseable quest reward. I guess that's part of a system that generates random items that can be quest rewards. That should probably be restricted to things like formulae and equipment, because food and clutter items shouldn't be part of a quest rewards table.

Equipment has been MUCH better, I've already found pieces of 3 new low-level sets, and I've found much higher quality equipment from enemies. I even found a Legendary-quality bow at level 1. It wasn't a whole lot better that what I was using, but it's the principal of the thing. The thrill of seeking loot is back. Because of the new set items, I've been putting points into Lockpicking much earlier, I used to hold off before.

I'm wondering if they tweaked magic damage or enemy health, because I don't remember Rank 2 Magic Missile being so incredibly effective so early, it kills level 4 skeletons in one hit.

I've had to use a lot fewer health and mana potions, I'm mostly only using those for really desperate times.

I'm using Flames of Vengeance, not the DKS version, but the graphics update is very nice and very noticeable in the main Ego Draconis campaign. I decided to start over, at least for a while, and the game is just stunning to look at now, really good show Larian! With AA forced it is one of the best looking games out on the PC to my mind, especially in this genre.

Impressions Part 2.

In ED, if you were very prudent, and did nearly everything you could think of, you could be level 6, almost to level 7 by the time you met Talana. Then the difficulty curve spiked, as while levelss 1-6 weren't too bad, suddenly 1-3 enemies of Level 7 were incredibly dangerous, and since those were in every direction after reaching the new area, it was a bit of a challenge, and you had to be careful not to advance too boldly.

In DKS, I was level 7 or 8 by the time I reached Talana, and there wasn't a spike in difficulty. That spike has been moved up to level 10-11. 3+ level 11 enemies are a real challenge that I must be careful around. I tried entering the Temple of Doom at level 12, and the level 10 enemies in there seriously kicked my ass, and the groups of other Black Ring are really, really dangerous. But the difference in difficulty spikes was that I had a lot more breathing room, more places to level, more levels.

Even starting with the 3 complete sets isn't helping that much, I've had to sell 2 of them and I still don't have that much money.

I think that the bug with the 3 sleeping people has been fixed.

I'm not quite certain, but I think that the weird physics bug from running and jumping off a cliff has been fixed as well. EDIT: Nope.

In real life, if you run and jump out into space, your momentum keeps you moving horizontally forward until you hit the bottom. In ED, when you ran and jumped, your forward momentum went to zero really quickly, and you just fell straight down - this was especially irritating because you're SUPPOSED to jump off cliffs to change into dragon form, but when you, say jumped from beside the Grand Knight in the Fjords, you'd get "I haven't got enough room" because you were falling straight down beside the cliff. I just jumped off a bridge in DKS, and I kept moving forward! EDIT: I tried it more times elsewhere, and I was wrong, I keep losing forward momentum.

I sure hope they fixed the annoying last jump in Barnabus's "Sinster cave", where after you shout off the force field, you need to take dragon form... bu the problem is that the rock you're on is about 5 feet above the lava.

Status update: I'm now level 27 in the orobas fjords, still using the blood echelon sword you find in lovis' tower along with a mace that has about +70 magical damage. I switched from sword/shield using the blood echelon sword and shield with my average damage shown in the inventory screen being around 300+100 magical and 600+100 magical with battle rage to dual wielding the sword and mace, now I'm at 650+80 magical and 1200+80 magical with battle rage.

So yeah, I think I broke the game?

The only thing that saddens me is the old unique weapons you'd find in the game, like Brightblade, have been left relatively unchanged, meaning they're completely and utterly useless compared to +65 physical damage or +70 magical damage weapons =/

And Stabbey, I just did that one, and you can indeed become a dragon while standing safely on the platform

This game is awesome. I bought the original on release day from Steam and when I saw DKS for sale (and 33% off from Steam when you have the original) I jumped on it!

Don't regret it AT ALL even though I spent over 75$ for it (EG + DKS), the money goes to a great dev and I hope other games like this one see the light from you Larian!

Million thumbs up, enjoying the game so much. This got a lot of flavor compared to dimmed, gray NA RPGs we see.

Love it!

I want to echo the high praise for the game. Coming from a deep gaming background that includes a fair number of mainstream as well as lesser known titles, I am really impressed with this game. This really is a gem that has some interesting gameplay mechanics, like building your own battle companion and owning your own tower. It hits all the necessary notes, for a fun, engrossing rpg. And thank God the dialogue and voice acting are generally spot on. Very nice job all around.

RPG fans, if you are sitting on the fence, grab this version and you are sure to have many hours of fun with this one.

Cheers!

Mike

And what also makes a difference is that Larian care what you think and when somethings wrong, they're on it.

Nice one guys.

Not cool at all. That is more than my level 35 end-game character from Ego Draconis could do if I got level 10 damage upgrades at the enchanter (costing a Malachite Gem EACH) and used charms.

I agree.

Unlike in Ego Draconis, when you meet lower level enemies you can no longer breathe safely and waltz in with impunity (well, unless you use one of those uber weapons... which is probably why they were introduced in the first place). But I'm playing as a pure mage and I find that even enemies 5 levels below can still be dangerous. Meaning, you need to actively dodge magic missiles and arrows a lot.

Personally I've found breaking an entry into the Dragon Tower pretty challenging, unlike in ED.

I must say that the Fortresses are way, way better than in ED, with a nice new art design as well here and there.

Can't realy decide between being a ranger oriented build or mage... i even thought of a mix of battle mage warrior/magic but probably only works later on when mana leech :P


Game realy lets you free to explore in the map and character customization. I'm avoiding any game guide like the plague so that it doesnt spoil my fun combining builds and testing skills.


So far going with a more ranger build because i (think) mage on lower levels should be somewhat mana intensive, but hey still have to try it out

Yes, I know. The only way I could get out of there was repeatedly jumping and hitting the morph key until it worked.

Impressions Part 3.

I've now reached the Battle Tower, but I haven't taken possession just yet.

Even at level 13, the level 10 skeletons in Jagon’s temple were very dangerous. If it wasn’t for the +1 to Healing amulet I found, it would have been quite difficult.

Bellegar sent me flying across the valley, and right on top of the final Piece of the Aleroth Defenders set for warriors. It is awesome, it's a bit of a shame though, because I only had one level to use it before I could wear the Orobas set.

Soon after that, I was fighting the Black Ring gathering outside MAxos’ temple, I had to run away, I was almost dead and out of mana, with my very last bit of reserve and my cover, I killed off a scout and reached level 14, restoring me to full health and energy, and letting me put the full set together. Awesome.


Are the locations of some set items fixed or randomized? Because I have found part of the Bushman’s set in Jagon’s temple… in one of the chests next to the lava. Those chests are pretty much impossible to reach because the lava burns you. If that Bushman set is always there, sucks for them. And that's the chest which is CLOSEST to the lava, there are at least two more that require jumping and running to reach.

I found a definite annoying bug. Sometimes, the money bags which only appear if you spend XP to mind-read someone contain nothing at all! I mind-read Peavy in jail, and his sack was empty, and I mind-read Willy-DIEDIEDIE-The House Salesman’s mind and his sack was empty as well. That sucks.

Wow, this game seriously beefed up the Enchantments. In ED, a level 9 Damage enchantment gave you +24 damage. I disenchanted a +50 damage sword and discovered that it was only a level FIVE enchantment. Better enchantments are good, but that might be going a bit too far.

I think that either Magic Missile has been seriously buffed, or else enemy resistance or health has been lowered, because it's incredibly powerful, it feels much more powerful than it did in ED.

Maxos Temple was much easier than before, I think it's because I was a level higher this time. Sentinel island was MUCH, MUCH easier, the Dragon Elves weren't threatening at all. The boss fight in Laiken's Study was a bit easier, but the race up the hill to the tower was the same or harder.

More impressions after I do the Fjords and flying fortresses.

IMHO, you can tell where some content revamp "fixes" were skipped over, not that I played ED but that there were HUGE differences in game play and survivability, equipment is the worst, why use a sword with greater stats/damage when a mace will do double that that easy. The other issue I have is these towers that shoot at you in dragon form only and from so far away I cant even see them, retarded or no? These do way too much damage for that distance, but what do the devs know about shooting an arrow or ballista? there is no max range on items only on the player =DUMB. I dont know who you all have for play testers but you all need either listen to the feedback sooner or get playtesters that graduated highschool.

oh my god the lovis tower music sends shivers down my spine. Gorgeous piece of soundtrack, pleasure to play this game.

First time i got close and heard the music i was ... wow.

I've finished my first Fortress and it's way better than in Ego Draconis. Shorter, and far less grinding.

They are fixed (so yes that Wild Dweller one is pretty tricky ).


Sorry to hear that. I'll report this so it can be fixed.


Yes, the enchantments are a bit over the top now; we realise that and will take care of it.

Yep, enchantments are a little over the top, glad you already checked that. I found a couple of +30 magic damage weapons and i was dual wielding my mage with them and i was facerolling everything, eh eh...

For my personal enjoyment, i've put the game on hard mode, and gone to a "sword+shield" style (giving up on a +30magic enchantment).


I was a little unbalanced with +60magic damage, but i like the game so much that i can perfectly adjust and go away from something that seems a little broken.

1h + shield in a mage playstyle is just too much fun lol.

Hey, there's a new "Elder" quality of magic items, neat! Those seem to have 2 modifiers, 2 charm slots and 2 enchantment slots. Nice!



Two more mind-reading stashes turned up empty: Sejanus's stash in Champion Harbour, and Ragon's stash in the alchemist's cave also are empty. I suppose I could reload and see if that happens again, but I'm trying to avoid a lot of reloading for better loot.




Cutting the damage enchantments in half from +10 per rank to +5 should be fine. But just as importantly, there's a problem with the enchantments for Jewelry - there aren't any good ones except the Healing one.

I'll put together a larger post on the topic of enchantments later, but the problem with enchantments on rings and such is that you have 6 pieces of equipment which count as Jewelry, more than everything else combined, but there isn't anything worth putting on them except the healing auras. The unavoidable problem with the damage-dealing auras is that for some people, it's more fun to kill things yourself than to have them crushed by auras. If the aura's are too strong, enemies die fast without you lifting a finger, if it's too weak it's worthless.

Jewelry enchantments could be greatly improved if you could put the "Life Line" and "Increased Mana" enchantments on them.


@@@@@

Bug report: If you mind-read Arthur Gremory and go through all the conversation options, at the end after you click the "end conversation" option, sometimes a loading screen pops up, and it never ends, ever, so you need to alt-tab out and close the game from the task manager. This was in Ego Draconis as well. And I had just found a nice Elder warhammer, too...

Typo: When sending a runner out for ores, there's a typo - "Fossils" is spelled "Fossile".

Absolutely loving it!! Put like 6hrs in first day I bought it. I'm not even sure where to start, but well, the loot is awesome for one thing. Lots of variety and I definately have never felt overpowered. I love that there are named Armor/Weapon sets, and especially like that the bonuses for owning more then one piece are a mystery until you collect and put them on.

I really enjoy the combat. Playing a ranger-type toon, but having the 3 weapon combo slots you can rotate thru at any time makes for a lot of fun, because you can switch to melee weaps in a heartbeat. Its nice that the monsters you fight against use the same abilities/spells as a player character. It offers a real challenge, and I can't really take any encounter for granted. Also the spell effects are really good. With fireballs and other things flying an encounter looks as good as it plays.

Enjoying the story and the cutscenes. Also loving the Mindreading, which adds a cool depth to gameplay. The world is really well fleshed out with NPCs. Loved the guy doing magic tricks in the pub in the starter village.

The quests are actually really cool and varied, and you see a change in both NPCs reaction to you and physically in the game world in certain cases. Like when I kicked ruffians out of the pub, the next time I visited it was full of locals and even some guys who i rescued from robbers earlier. They all have passing comments for you when you do something for them, like in LOTRO.

Theres tons of stuff to like here, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes actiony combat, Diablo like loot system, and a story that guides the game along but doesnt get in the way of the fun. I am 16hrs in, level 17, and already looking forward to my next platthru.

I also am playing a Ranger build and love it

Earlier on I raised my disappointment regarding the DRM and mainly limited activation.
This has been answered here: http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=424677#Post424677

Now on for the game.

Well everything has been said.
What I liked the most is that this game could lead me to a real interest in exploration.
Fallout 3 and Fallout NV and Oblivion did not give me this will of exploration, except for few occasions.

But in DKS there is always something to discover, a dungeon to explore (and it is really interesting to do it), an NPC to talk to.
It was the case in the games I mention and other games, but I feel it is much better done and really interesting in DKS. I want to explore every foot of terrain in this game much more than I ever wanted in any other games I played.

Additionally I like the way things are not easily done or received.
For example: you do not get the battle tower just like that. You arrive in an area to explore, quests to do, etc ...

Larian gave me one more reason to be proud of being Belgian

Imarion

Divinity 2-Ego Draconis,Flames of vengeance(I played only the german version but with 0 german language skill...u can imagine that...1 hour was enough :P),Dragon Knight Saga is one of the best RPG games what I ever played!
-Exciting gameplay-detalied spells,abilities,gears,combat,...
-Exceptional Lore-all books are fascinating and combined u can learn all about the people of the game History of the Deamned Part 1,2,... Hystory of the Dragon Knights/Slayer 1,2,...
-Wonderful places and landscapes all around world-personaly I like Broken Valley(before invasion) and the place in Maxos temple where u can see the statue of the Dragon Mage Maxos.
-The Music is very very impressive,marvelous,beautiful and much more-I like the music in Lovis Tower(exterior),Maxos Temple at maze(same as at Lovis temple),Sentinel island,the music which starts on taking my dragon form,the music when i have to fight with the 5 Dragon Slayers on orobas fjords where orobas died imprisoned and the best after Lovis Tower at Raze in flying fortress,but I like all
-A lot of choice-All decisions are my own in the game,I can kill someone,or let him run or even can be friends you can do anything you want I like it but sometimes 1 decision can cost me a good vendor or a quest giver or even a set item or epic

I played a lot this game I have on saved games 9 different characters(mage,priest,warrior,ranger,warrior mage,warrior priest,warrior ranger,and another 2 warriors) 7 is in Divinity 2-Ego Draconis and 2 in Dragon Knight Saga.
Now let me talk about the few negativ things what I observerd in Dragon Knight Saga:
-As you can see I like the warrior class I tryed all but the warrior is the closest to my heart(after the game ofc:P)and I see the major changes at flyng fortresses like the most annoying the Archers on the wall...yeay...in divinity 2 ego draconis the number of acrchers around the game was low on number,but in Dragon knight saga the number of archers in game has been tripled,yes really no problem here but charge have 5 sec Cd and I cannot instant kill them only in easy mode... and they all still run,I dont know where but they always run,is not hard but is very irritating after broken valley,stone fortress and kali I no longer hunted them Down I destroyed everything what I could in dragon form and then go to the boss,I lost a lot of Exp but my nerves are still healthy for ranger and mage easy but for warrior(and I dont like to swith weapons)
-I like to fall ,,I cannot take my dragon form here'' I am in the middle of poison but he cannot take his dragon form need more space...Little dragon but he have need a very big space I died a few times...but np
-After the halls of echoes in Dragon knight saga I dont know what happened to the music but is not like in Ego Draconis There is a lack of music which maked me to want to play more more and more,this is the reason why I have only 2 characters in DKS and the time ofc
-I like the City,nice,lovely,and designed for minotaurs not for dragons...It's Like a labyrint the Streets and the houses,I had a lot of quests and I only walked areound the city entered in every house and what I found I killed or Helped...I finished the main quest as fast I can and then the game
-The ending quest in DGS is very well done I like it very much when I need to help the Zeppelin in attack the citadel,the voices who talk to me and all is very well done,I think this is the best part of whole DKS after the first part of the game(Ego Draconis)
-Where is Damian?I fighted Ygerna who becomed a pretty roast meat but Damian is nowhere :(( I already wanted to kill him ever since I first saw the shiny bald head after Talana's dead,but I am happy also I sent her back in the Halls Of Echoes
-Madame Eve's Inn the most exciting place what I ever seen in a Video Game,the music and her voice ahhhhhhh Congratulations to her Voice actor and to Kirill Pokrovsky
-The funniest part of the game is when I comfront Amdusias MAXOS!!

Sorry guys/girls I cannot finish this post because this game is the greatest creations of the 21st century and would not be enough either 1 life every hour of that list.

GOOD WORK LARIAN STUDIOS GOOD KEEP IT UP!!!Thank you for this fantastic game I look forward to the next gigantic RPG game Divnity 3 where whit a bit of luck I can kill Damian at last


P.S:Sry for bad english :P

I wonder, is the "faraway place" Ursula mentions perhaps a hint at the setting for the next Larian RPG?

Anyway, the expansion content is fantastic. Good job! I particularly liked the returning of Kevin and others from Broken Valley.

Also, telling the dying soldier to tell "Maxos!" to Amdusias if they should meet in the Hall of Echoes, was hilarious.

Totally! Great piece. Reminded me of some old Sega Master System game I used to play. Anyway! Great music, very evocative of... something. Erm. Fantasy?

Very nice songs I like them all
And I like the Emotes,Faces ingame both male and female are very lovely sweetie and nice:for example at the end of DKS the Divine smile to the Dragon knight very nice smile he have and the faces also

Yes, Festival of Immortals (Lovis's tower music) is my favorite music in the game as well. I only wish that Kirill had released the "Battle Large" (Gauntlet music for the Temple of Doom, the race to the Battle Tower, and other places) music with his pack as well. There's a lot of great music in this game that isn't in that pack.

@@@

Impressions part 3:

I found my first random Epic drop in Stone’s Flying Fortress. Before, you could only find Epics in Ba’al’s lair treasure chest, or the Hall of Echoes arena (5 seconds before the game ends).

The Barrier by the goblins has been removed, which is fine, because you could go to Aleroth before removing it, which was strange.

The Flying Fortresses have been seriously beefed up, they’re really dangerous now. I entered at level 26, facing level 26 enemies and it’s a real struggle. I’m finally needing to use health potions.

The “Firewall” skill is pretty useless because it requires me to get far too close to enemies, and I can’t afford to let them come close or else they’ll Rush Attack me and kick my ass really fast. That’s exciting.

Before, this same fortress wasn’t very threatening. I can kill a lot of things really fast, but they can do the same to me! It was brutally hard, on the other hand, I gained experience incredibly fast. I was only a little way past 26, but reached 27 after clearing out the first area, with lots more of the fortress remaining. I eventually reached level 30.4, so that ONE flying Fortress gained me 4 and a bit levels. Pretty impressive.

It was really exciting playing as a mage, I didn’t even have time to aim, I just had to rapidly hit multiple keys. Magic Missile, Magic Blast, Magic Missile, healing, Invisibility, Healing, Potion… All that while dodging and running away, playing hide and seek. The Demon was a great distraction, but if it ran too far ahead of me, trying to stick too close would have gotten me killed.

But the best part was afterward, I went back to kill some regular enemies left behind. There were a bunch of level 23, 22, 21, even level 20 enemies, and they could still hurt me! Yay! The lower level ones didn’t hurt too much, but they could still hurt me, which is a huge improvement.

I finished up most of the remaining the Fjords quests. The Dragon Terror Patrol was actually incredibly dangerous this time, despite that I was 7 levels higher than them. I went to Aleroth, and noticed the new teleporter shrine near the entrance, and a new hatch. Awesome. The fight in the ministry was a bit harder this time as I was a magic user, after that I went to fight Raze in his flying fortress.

Even 4-6 levels above the enemy there, they were still no slouch. I put 2 more points into Healing. I made it up to the teleporter at the top, and stopped. I had built my character decently well, but it wasn’t the best yet. I was level 32, with my Intelligence at 75 or so, my Strength and Dexterity at 16 each, and a healthy amount of points in both spirit and vitality (Each in the mid 600’s).

My skills were in need of tweaking:

Unused – 1
Magic Blast - 11
Magic Missile 10
Mana Efficiency – 6
Summon Demon – 6
Lockpick – 5
Destruction – 5
Way of the Battlemage – 5
Healing – 3
Firewall – 3
Life Tap - 2
Mana Leech – 1
Fireball – 1
Evade – 1
Hide in Shadows – 1

The bolded skills were just not useful anymore. I needed something else to do while waiting for Magic Blast to recharge, and Firewall involves getting close to enemies, too dangerous to do. My mana regenerated so fast that I had no need for Life Tap or Mana Leech anymore, so I respecced and got rid of all those skills and put them into Fireball instead, and that helped. Raze was really annoying, but I managed to beat him, though.

I went back and finished the “Seeds” quests and got the second-last piece of the Archmage set. I had on my "+4 Wisdom" gear, and I was 9 levels higher than that lone goblin, and he hurt me a lot. One more piece of the Archmage set to go!

Well you now have the option of playing the game on casual, which makes it alot easier. Ofcourse this is your choice Normal is still a bit of a challenge at some points, for me. That being said they haven't dumbed-down the gameplay its a better game then ever now:) Hope this answers your question and sorry about the delay