I'm pretty nervous - tomorrow we're showing project D to a journalist for the very first time, and I have absolutely no idea how it will go. If this were E, I wouldn't be stressed, because that one hits all the right notes (I think), but D, well, it's different. At this point, I'm full of doubts, and constantly need remind myself that ever since I saw the first prototype, my thoughts about D have been "you think it's fun - someone else will also think it's fun - you just need to be able to communicate clearly about it." But at this point, I'm already going to be happy if he tells me "looks interesting". What I don't have any doubts about is that he'll say it's ambitious

Anyway, it said small status update, so that means really short

Events of interest -

-We're getting our first distribution deals in place
-We're having a big steam number one party this week at an undisclosed location
-We know what our booth at GC is going to look like and what we'll be showing
-Working with David Freeman is a blessing and a curse because it caused a lot of extra work (but for a good cause)
-Farhang, our lead designer, is going to give an excellent presentation tomorrow Go Farhang !
-We're all going on a holiday (well almost all) real soon

Cheers

I always knew Game Industry should have reestablished slavery long ago... good holiday, for those who go !

And I also hope tomorrow will be fine.

I wish you good luck, don't forget to tell us how it was.

Good luck!

You can always trust us to say it "hears interesting"

Best of luck lar and rest of the team.

Thumbs up for Farhang and the whole Larian Team !!

And a nice holyday for all of you ...

Yeah and post some screens of the game!

I wish everyone of the team a good and healthy vacation !

And good luck with everything !

Bribe him. With cheap cookies.
Then if he writes a bad review tell everyone that you never spoke with him. Abandon project and send everyone that worked on it into gulag camps.

WELL it's an option, you don't have to include all those steps (though gulag camp part seems reasonable)...

Nah, I'm just kidding... cheap cookies will never pass. You'll need cash to 'convince' him.

Does that "showing a journalist" will mean we'll get new information as well soonish... or is he under some "You can look at it but not tell most of the stuff you see"-clause?

Bit late for good luck now; more hope it went well for you. As Silverdragon said, do we get to see any info now such as screens or even a name for the title or do we have to wait till August?

Awww....
I hope with this show-off some info (and may be even first screenshots!) will be revealed. I want to see project D live so bad!

Good luck guys, really.

So I think it went well. He didn't run out screaming out of the office yelling "madmen, I'm surrounded by madmen !!!!", and actually asked quite some intelligent questions - I guess we got lucky

There was some surprise, he was not expecting something that deviated, at least at first sight, so much from what we usually do, but when he got the complete picture, I think he liked it. We'll only know when the article runs of course, but I think we should be ok.

It was in any case an excellent trial run for GC, as we could see what parts of our presentation communicated the ideas clearly, and what parts didn't work at all, the latter evidenced by the fact that those were the parts he had the most questions about, just trying to exactly understand how it works. Those were of course the parts we already take for granted given our previous work, but clearly, we need to make sure that when we announce the game, we don't forget to mention them.

<grin>

Reading the above paragraph again I realize that it must read like complete nonsense given that you have no idea what I'm talking about. I'd really like to tell you what the game is, as well as what project E is, but I need to give the scoop to the press so that hopefully they'll be willing to write about us. They should btw. It's a cool game.

At least I can tell you what it's not, at the risk of ruining some expectations. In case I hadn't mentioned it before, Project D is not Divinity 3 - I've been reading some posts from people who think it is, but it's not. it's even a different style of game, though for sure you'll recognize many things that we put in our previous games.

It's not some casual game either, on the contrary, some would say it's pretty hard-core. It features several things I've always wanted to do, and I'm glad that given our past success (yes, there are a quite a lot of Divinities out there) we now finally have the chance to do them, because it's not something I could ever have convinced a publisher of funding.

Heck, probably the best thing about it, from a geeky developer point of view, was that our journalist couldn't figure out what genre it was

The origin of Project D is a simple mechanic, stumbled upon almost by accident, but one that works so well and has so much depth that it deserved a full-blown game to be built around it. It could become our biggest success ever or our biggest failure, but each day I'm getting more convinced that if we don't ruin it, I'll have tremendous fun with this one once it's done. Time will tell and am extremely curious as to what the reactions here will be. If you'll all hate it, at least I know most of you'll still like E

Well, I have feeling that Project D is not aRPG. Maybe its more of RTS.

Maybe the game is build around managing your Battle tower. You rule there, you hire henchmen, send them on quests, create items and creatures, build defense, help to rebuild nearby town and defend both your tower and town. So its hybrid RTS + RPG. Maybe there is even an construction of zeppelins as ingame element, so there is even some kind of arcade simulator, if you can fly with them.

Or instead of Battle tower you rule in some small town.

Am I close to the truth?

----
Project E - basically action adventure/RPG with dragons/monsters (dragons fighting on air and land).

From what gaming site or magazine was this journalist? I would like to know where to look for this article.

Something like King's Bounty/Disciples III would be very nice.

If I remember it correctly, project D would also expand dragon gameplay from Divinity 2. Maybe there will be dragon parts as the "arcade simulator" thing.

You make me very very curious Lar_q !!

I hope to know more about D (and E !!) soon

So, when can you start talking about it? Maybe do an interview here or there.

I am honestly more interested in project E [isometric sequel to the divine divinity :P]
but still, I'm sure that project D will rock because it is made by Larian [Yes, I'm a fanboy :P.

Aha, my mistake. I interchanged both projects.

Project D - (camera similar to DKS) could be basically action adventure/RPG with dragons/monsters. Dragons fight on land and air (some kind of arcade simulator). Maybe you have to care about the dragon, so there are strategic elements too.


Project E - it could be isometric aRPG Divinity spin-off.

Or this:

So as I suspected project D is not the sequel as I originally thought it would be. Guess project E is the 'Divinity 3' that continues the Divinity story - I assume it will be set around the Divine going after Damien and his remaining troops.

As for D, well I know it will feature the dragon thing from Divinity 2 but I can't wait to see what this new genre is. I think it could be some sort of 3D RTS / 3rd person arcade hybrid set in the Divinity universe but not necessarily in the same time or same continent as the previous games. It could even be a prequel set many years before the games when dragon knights were plentiful in the world.

I too would like to know who this guy came from so I can keep an eye on the news reports on the gaming sites.

Hmmm, if D is a Dragon simulator I hope it's more fun than being a Dragon in DKS. And they didn't listen to all the people about Zagan and the FoV escort, because then it's a casual cakewalk.

Kind of getting tired of RTS too. Give me one 3D RTS which is fun to play, I know none. They can't beat AoE2, or Red Alert (1)...

So... really interested to know more, but I rather hope the rumours aren't true.

RTS, actually, will be quite disappointing for me but oh well... as Lar said: there is always project E

We can only "guess" which kind of game project D can be ... maybe not RTS, not RPG or MMOPRG, not adventure, not shooter, not puzzle, not ... but something totally different, something that's never seen before !?

But I still Hope it's some kind of 'RPG' game ... or at least have some RPG features !

RTS RPG would be good.

However, if it can't be viewed as an RPG then I think Project E will be better.

but, hum, Lar_q, you're still making a rpg somewhere right?

Project E is an RPG, with a top down camera view. Project D has a camera similar to DKS, involves dragons, and is apparently not in a standard game category. Both were said to be scheduled for release next year.

Is Project D in the Divinity universe? I think Lar confirmed it was before. He claims it contains features from Larian's previous games, so we've got the Dragon flying from DKS and there's probably going to be features from Divine Divinity in it if it's hardcore. However, I'm guessing that other features other than RPG elements play a LARGER role which is why the guy watching couldn't work out what genre it was. Larian also developed an RTS before, so it could have RTS elements where you control an army? Who knows?

It sounds interesting and I'm curious of what it could be and what the features of it are now. I'm thinking it's going to have ALOT of different elements in it maybe. It was confirmed that it explores the dragon theme more, so perhaps we spend more time flying about.

That's something that is not clear; if the game is set in the Divinity universe or not. For all we know it could be something entirley new. Can someone at Larian answer this query?

I guess you'll have to wait until the Games Com takes place ? (*joking*)

I hope we get a detailed look of the booth at GC?
With my advanced age (seems like yesterday I was 18 and playing Divine Divinity :'( ) and job a trip to Cologne is very unlikely.

So, I guess it is time to bump this thread again.

Project F when?