The forums were down this weekend, which is probably why there isn't a discussion on this topic here already (I'm aware there are some on the blog and elsewhere, however).

Personally, I'm really disappointed with losing this feature, as it's the sort of thing that greatly increases immersion for both I and the friends I play these types of games with. We were also looking forward to the advantages certain builds might have at night (rogues, for instance), certain creatures becoming more dangerous after the sun sets, and even just the cosmetic changes in a way an area looks at different times of the day.

However, I more than understand the amount of work involved and in no way fault the developers for having to remove this feature. I only wish they had more money and manpower to push ahead on this front, but sometimes that's just out of a developer's hands. I want to make it clear that I am thoroughly impressed with the amount of progress I see being made with each update; sadly, there are a lot of crowd-funded projects out there that seem to be standing still in comparison (and some of these projects have vastly superior funding and much larger development teams available). In many ways Larian Studios really puts a lot of other development studios to shame.

I guess my real disappointment is aimed at the amount of flexibility the game allows, which ultimately had a large hand in interfering with the implementation of day & night schedules. While I completely understand that being able to kill any NPC (including questgivers) and having absolute freedom is important to many players, that kind of chaotic, haphazardly (and even malicious) adventuring just isn't the style in which I or my friends play these types of role-playing games.

Thus, we've gained the playstyle flexibility that really benefits only some portion of the playerbase at the cost of losing day & night schedules, which is a feature that (whether you appreciated it or not) would have had an impact on the gameplay of *everyone*. And, to me, that's not a tradeoff I'm particularly thrilled about. Try to understand that I will never run around randomly killing townsfolk and questkillers, so having this level of freedom and flexibility is simply useless to folks like myself. The best enthusiasm I can muster on that end is saying "Hurray for you..", with "you" being the players that like to run around killing everyone for some reason I will never quite fathom.

At the same time (and again), I completely understand that this sort of gameplay freedom is extremely vital for some players. I'm just not sure I agree with the decision to support an option that impacts a portion of the playerbase over an option (day & night scheduling) that impacts everyone. However, that's a decision that needed to be made a long time ago, early in development, and not something that can be changed now. Obviously (at the time) Larian Studios was convinced they could pull off both - things just didn't work out that way in the end.

Ultimately, I just want to say this is a feature that will be missed. In the time leading up to the announcement I've seen several comments on the forums that implied some players didn't care about day & night scheduling, and I didn't want the developers to think that everyone felt that way; some of us were really looking forward to it. I hope Divinity: Original Sin is such a huge success that it's a feature that can be eventually added after launch. I would love to see day & night cycles added as simply a cosmetic change (even if it doesn't alter gameplay in any way), but I realize that's probably just wishful thinking.

I'm not upset really. I understand why it was done. It's something that can be patched in later. I would, however, love if they are able to get it in before physical copies ship. But, again, no major big really.

I understand, I wouldn't have minded even a purely cosmetic day/night system. It is unfortunate, and Larian probably shouldn't have promised things they couldn't deliver on (and hopefully they'll learn from this overreach).

But I have to disagree that it was just a simple matter of cutting out things like killable NPC's. Day/Night cycles are not an easy thing to do, never mind bug-test. We're talking potentially several thousand bugs just from that.

In the Twitch.tv Q&A, Swen didn't say whether it would be patched in or if it was completely scrapped, but from the tone, I don't think he's that optimistic about being able to get them in. He said that to get them in the way it was envisioned, it'd cost about 30-40% of what the whole game cost to make.

Personally, I don't think it's getting patched in. At best, we may see a cosmetic day/night thing, but even that could disrupt the atmosphere of some sections and ruin the mood.

I'm mainly going by the explanation given in Swen's blog:

"The freedom we give players, coupled with the fact that we are introducing a unique type of cooperative multiplayer, makes for a very complicated quality assurance experience. You just have to look at a few of the “Let’s Play” videos to see that the level of imagination of players apply to abusing our game is boundless.

..

But sometimes, when I’m really tired, I silently wonder… Maybe we should’ve gone for linear storytelling through fixed cut scenes with nice, easily manageable bottlenecks. And oh yeah, maybe we shouldn’t have allowed the player to kill everybody. Or steal quest items. Or do everything in whatever sequence they want to…

Life would be so much easier."

The gist of it seemed to be that all this freedom has created a disturbing (but completely understandable) amount of bugs that needs to be addressed - so many that there simply isn't time to fix them *and* implement day & night schedules, *and* then find and address all the bugs that would likely introduced by including that massive system (especially when coupled with the freedom Divinity:OS allows) on top of the existing game.

While I appreciate that the game offers the level of freedom that it does, most of it is lost on my style of play, and thus not worth the tradeoff (to me). On the other hand, for some players I'm sure it is more than worth it. There is no right or wrong way to want to play this game, but a system one person appreciates another may find pointless.



I would like to see it even as a cosmetic change, but it doesn't seem likely. In the blog it said:

"One alternative would’ve been to put in a day/night cycle without a lot of reactivity from the npcs, just for the sake of being able to say that we’ve done it, but that’s something we didn’t want to do. The vision driving Divinity:Original Sin has been that every feature which is in there has real gameplay value and isn’t a gimmick."

..which I understand. However, for someone who plays Divinity like I do, features like the freedom to kill any NPC/questgiver might as well be a novelty gimmick: it's neat to say the game has it, but in the end not anything I'll ever make use of. Day & night schedules, however, would have been a gameplay feature that impacted every single player. I almost wish a vote on which feature to implement had been put forward a year ago when the kickstarter campaign began. I'm struggling to believe there are just that many players out there that absolutely need to have the option of killing any and every NPC or doing other activities that would normally break most games (and are thus prohibited).

I think the main draw to the fact that you can kill any NPC is the added flexibility that implies the game has (head out of town immediately, and the game will be fine with encountering quest related NPCs, etc, without talking to the main quest giver first). Even if you never attack a friendly NPC, there are multiple quest paths that you can take, which adds to the replay value.

Like most people here I'm sure. I've "finished" the Alpha a number of times and have done everything I believe possible. Honestly, I don't miss Day & Night. To me it is a nice to have but I rather them focus on the mechanics, story, and flexibility. The update was pretty awesome. And I'm already itching to finish the Beta again.

You can either focus on the downside that day & night schedules may not be a full part of the game, or you can recognize the freedom given to players in this game. Obviously I wish the day & night schedules were in the released game, especially being a kickstarter backer. However, I imagine there are difficult decisions made at this stage of every major game. Swen has been straight up with us throughout this process. Until he proves otherwise, I will put my faith in his judgement.

I hope it is not very difficult to add a simple day/night cycle via a mod to the main story line/main game. But i am only talking about a simple transition from day to night to day etc. I do not mean to also add NPC reaction/schedules, i.e. NO NPC reaction or anything more - just a simple day/night cycle, i.e. like a graphical feature! Because to me a day/night cycle very much adds to immersion. I do not mind NPCs not reacting to the cycle or any other consequences to the cycle.
REALLY hope this can be done easily.

I suppose given the choice, I would've sooner lost the multiplayer component, but the schedules and day/night things were really just the icing on the cake: I'd sooner have the game without them than not at all!

I wonder if the framework will be there for NPC schedules even if the schedules themselves remain unimplemented? That way I could add some of my own if the fancy takes me. And probably break stuff in the process.

Well, I think I've touched on the freedom concept a number of times, so I certainly recognize it and understand how important it is to some players. You're making it sound like that's escaped me, and it hasn't.

At the same time, it's caused an enormous amount of work which has now resulted in (to me) a more desirable (and certainly wider reaching) feature being cut. And that's disappointing, because it's a level of freedom that I'm honestly not likely to ever require simply because of the way I play RPGs. Thus, my appreciation for all that freedom is minimal. To me it's expensive fluff, one the game could have done without. Where as to someone else it may mean everything.

I don't (for example) randomly kill NPCs when I play through Divinity: OS. I don't even start a fight with the drunk guards at the bridge checkpoint. I'm not that chaotic or aggressive in my playstyle or role-playing that I need to kill off half the town without breaking the game in the process. To me, these are unrealistic avenues that I have no intention of going down, and so the fact that those alternate paths exist will always be meaningless to me. However, the impact it's had on Larian Studio's workload (which has resulted in the removal of the scheduling feature I strongly desired) is not meaningless to me. It's gone from expensive fluff to irritatingly expensive and costly fluff.

Obviously everyone will prefer one design element over the other and disagree on which one a game needs to be closer to perfection. Keeping that in mind, I recognize that players have the freedom to play through this RPG more haphazardly. But I'm not exactly going to throw a party over it, because it's a feature that is of no benefit to me personally, and the cost (I feel) was too high. It's a feature that will only benefit some players (while being completely lost on others like myself), where as day & night scheduling would have touched *everyone*. Unlike all that freedom, it's not a feature you have to seek out, it's a feature that pushes itself to the front and center every moment you're playing the game as the NPCs around you are reacting to both the changes in time and weather.

Of course, if you're more interested in just killing all those NPCs.. then who cares about scheduling, because you're going to be more interested in having freedoms and optional ways to cause havoc.

You are right, however, in that it was a difficult decision (both cutting day & night schedules, and allowing players to have as much freedom as they do) - the developers have said as much themselves.

Hah! That pairs nicely with what I said here:


..as I would be completely heartbroken to lose multiplayer, and my interest in this game would be substantially lessened without it. Where as other players could probably care less about multiplayer support because they have no interest in co-op.

It's too bad that day/night schedules won't be in the game, given how much work has been done in that direction already - adding second floor to the buildings, going to bed animations etc. I hope this partially done feature won't be glaring at us in a bad way throughout the gameplay.
Can some minor things still be implemented though?
Like, if there are two-story buildings in the game and the owners won't be going up to the second floor to sleep, then at least put some loot in there for us, because otherwise second floors would just be a useless empty space.
Also, thinking back at how it was done in Skyrim, I think sleeping in beds should recover players health and give some temporary beneficial boost (in Skyrim it was XP gain as I recall). Also, in Skyrim you get a special boost when you sleep with a spouse, same thing may fit very well in D:OS for those protagonists, who managed to bond during the course of the game - sleeping in bed together will get them some extra boost. I'm suggesting all of this because that way second floors at the inns can become more interesting - you could rent a room there. And to make things simpler for occupied houses, just put a message there that you can't sleep on the owner's bed because it's occupied (the other way, of course would be to implement a script for the owner to run up and kick you out of the house, or call the guards, but it may be too much work). I know, it probably won't be done with time running short, but it's something to consider as a way to tie up some loose ends with that failed day/night cycle implementation.
P.S. Also, if the game sells well, can day/night schedules implementation become a possibility later on in a form of an addon, DLC or somesuch?

I'm sorry but by your post is painfully obvious that it has.
You are oversimplifying one of the manifestations of this freedom as "killing everybody without rhyme or reason " and it goes beyond that, freedom implies divers ways to approach a quest apart from clicking everyone until they stop moving. And just because one specific options is not particularly interesting to you doesn't mean that is not an important part of the whole framework of actions.

Swen mentioned in the stream how confusing a special indication for quest items could be because of the plethora of options that the players has to solve a quest. If original sin is going to be even half as complex as the games mentioned as inspiration for it; factors like spells, information gathered, factions, previous quest results and a lot of other things that aren't just an alive/dead check are going to make the implementation of elaborate schedules hard.

Saying that any of those factors are pointless to you because of your game style is ignoring the fact that is thanks to the freedom of the game that you can have a game style in it.

It is what it is; I'm not unhappy the schedules are not in the game and they did add the basic mechanics so people can mod them in. I much rather see more focus on humour and richness (little details; bigger mazes; more dungeons; ...) then see them do a long drawn out fight trying to get night/day schedules to work well. Just my 2ct; every 100 room dungeon is worth 10x day/night; so if they can squeeze in a few more twisty little mazes by not doing day/night then it will make my day

Have to disagree. The multiplayer component to me is HUGE. There are plenty of single player CRPGs out there. To me MP makes this game for me. The co-op aspect is fantastic and I doubt that I would have sold this game by word of mouth to three other friends if the MP were not available.

It's not about killing random NPCs. It is about the freedom of how you approach a problem. I can pinpoint the exact moment that my sister and I became obsessed with this game.

It was our first play through and we wanted to find lots of gold to buy some cool gear we saw. We decided to break into a house - NOT realizing it was the "main bad person's" house. And low and behold we found all these clues, which then led us to more investigations. We essentially did the quest backwards and to our surprise it did NOT break the quest line. Which to me is AWESOME.

In my oldish age I grow tired of being rail roaded by games. The fact that we could do this even accidently was amazing to us and from that point on we were hooked.

I wish they would retain a day/night cycle atmosphere even without the NPC schedules to go along with them. I do understand and agree with the decision not to put in the NPC schedules though, even as a Kickstarter supporter that upped my pledge at the end to see it happen. I hope they consider putting the day/night cycle back in environmentally though, even if it means minimal game play change.

same for me, I am disapointed, I think this feature would have added many interesting mechanisms and made the world more "real". But I understand that this single feature represent a shitload of work. I just hope that this feature will be added later in an update or a mod...

I can only assure you that it hasn't. As far as "freedoms" (in regards to this particular topic) go, I believe we can summarize them as:

1) Multiple ways to advance a quest, which includes makings sure there isn't a set order in which to approach a quest.

2) The ability to kill any NPC without breaking the game.

Of the two, the latter has the most significant impact on production. The two are certainly linked, but the latter extends beyond the first in other ways. Are you seeing anything beyond those which I'm missing? If not, then I'm not oversimplifying it (although I do try and describe them in ways that are simple just for the benefit of the post).

And before they're mentioned, while mechanics like a classless design and a variety of skills and talents to choose from are certainly another form of freedom, they're not relevant to this specific topic.

You said..


..and these are all factors that another game with day & night schedules had to deal with (Skyrim). However, Bethesda prevented many problems by not allowing players to kill critical NPCs. This is something Divinity intentionally allows other players to do (despite the number of issues it causes), all in the name of freedom. And if it's an option you appreciate having, then great. For those of us that don't walk into virtual towns with the intentional of killing NPCs for giggles.. meh. I would have preferred less work on this front and more time spent on day & night scheduling instead.

In the end, a feature that only a portion of the playerbase will appreciate having has caused enough design headaches that we've lost a feature that would have impacted the entire playerbase. To me, that was a bad tradeoff. Day & night schedules would have had an impact on the gameplay of everyone, period. On the other hand, you could remove a significant portion of the freedoms we're discussing in this thread and players like myself wouldn't even notice.

Unfortunately, we are long past a point where anything can be done about that now (beyond expressing our disappointment or otherwise). But even that can be useful if it's kept in mind for the next game and/or future updates to this one.

I definitely wouldn't count on that. This doesn't seem be a "We can do day & night schedules, or we can squeeze in a few more dungeons" scenario. It sounds more like a "We can do day & night scheduling, or we can avoid bankruptcy and also get the game out with less bugs" choice. They're not looking to add more work at this point (which is understandable due to the number of bugs they appear to have to resolve still).

Maybe if the game sells really well, though.

I must admit to never really understanding why that was ever a priority. I know it was a much-criticised feature in e.g. Oblivion, and I "get" why being warned that a character is invincible isn't necessarily a good thing, but being able to kill anyone you meet just seems to be a bit gratuitous to me.

You're not alone in that. I play Divinity: OS with a friend who describes this particular feature as "stupid", even though I try to be convincing when explaining that the option of killing anyone is important to some players.

And while highly amused by the video itself ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mnvuoLs2wY ), I was surprised by how many of the responding comments referred to killing questgivers as being a flaw in the design. Example:

"Ooh... I'm probably going to steer away from this game. I don't consider having the ability to easily kill quest-givers a gift, I consider it an annoyance."

The point being that it's not a feature that everyone is enamored with. Now, they didn't understand that Larian Studios has gone through great lengths to make sure this feature doesn't break gameplay, so there is certainly a fair share of ignorance tied to their reactions.

However, one of the comments struck a cord with me when they said:

"Yeah, I'm so anal I have to reload if I ever kill a good person, nevermind whether they're a questgiver!"

..because I have a similar point of view. If I find out I've accidentally killed the wrong NPC or a quest-giver, the completionist in me is going to force a reload. So, all this extra freedom ends up becoming an extra hassle.

I was also very disappointed when i read and later watched the news about cutting the day/night cycle and the "npc behaviours" to it. This was a killer feature for me and one that during the kickstarter i was really trying to push forward to.
I remember that i was very happy when swen announced that they overall reached the 1m stretch goal and that it would enable them to add this big immersive feature.

Thats all not to say that i am disappointed by how the rest of the game is turning out, and i am sure it will be alot of fun and worth the funding and the wait. However i would definitly be willing to wait another 6 months and add some further additional pleges/payments for this feature to be implemented. Even tho this might not be a financially feasable option for larian.

Gyson,

Considering my reputation on this forum, I am sorry I will have to globally agree with you. Lets dig the subject a bit. Day and night thingie is composed of two things, I think:
The cosmetic/some gameplay effects of having the day/light go from dawn to dusk, with the light changes, some game features, like zombies being stronger at night, trolls turning into stones during day, and so on. Nobody will tell me this is hard to do, and that it is time consuming for indie pro devs. Larian simply cant say that.
However, those cycles also imply NPC schedules. And this is unfeasable IMHO, and time consuming, for a very poor gameplay interest, as I mentionned a long time ago.
So stopping the schedules is great, but the day/night cycle is lame, really.
As for wasting a precious time and energy making sure some psycho can revel in killing every innocent in the city they are supposed to save is a terrible mistake. DOS is not GTA5.

However, I must admit this level of freedom is amazing, and would in itself be a formidable achievment even if I absolutely do not share the excitment.

Just seeing the devs faces, I cannot deny they are working really hard. But hearing "thousands of bugs"...

So to summary, in my usual asshole (but maybe not so wrong) unhelpful way:
No NPC schedules = good
No day/night = bad
Ability to kill everybody = devs wasting good time for spoiled brats that want to play GTA5OS
Proper craft = more important than killing everybody.
Proper world interaction (beside using a shovel) = more important than killing everybody for a realistic-free RPG.
Interesting character development (beside putting a point in a talent or trading skills at merchants) = more interesting than killing everybody.

I like the idea of day/night as much as the next guy. But in reality what does it really add anyhow to be honest. I think Larian made the absolute right call on this given the quoted expense. I definitely MUCH rather they spend 30% of their budget (that would have otherwise gone to cycles) on more variety of in-game features and polish.

It was a business decision - and it is the right one.

OMG LARIAN WHAT HAVE YOU DONE !
REMOVING SCHEDULES ?
Can you explain me why you are spending an awfull energy and time for what, 10% of the psychos that consider a RPG is complete after they have killed every children around, and you are cancelling the feature that would have allowed another 10% of players that revel in making sure the NPCs (every one of them, for replayability's sake) wash hands after peeing ...

No Larian, you can't, this is unforgivable.

Well, as mentioned in this thread day & night schedules can add several things to the game for everyone. Some examples include:

* Enhancements to realism for everyone - Beyond the obvious cosmetic changes in scenery, NPCs would react appropriately to changes both in the time of day, and also the weather (Larian gave an example of NPCs taking cover when it starts raining, rather than standing around oblivious in the middle of a downpour). I like the fact that in the evening hours I might find more of the town's population in the tavern (this was a behavior I was really fond of in Skyrim, actually).

* Enhancements to gameplay for certain classes or playstyles - it's easier to steal from market stalls during the dead of night, although extra security may be present. It's easier to rummage through homes and dwellings during the night when the population is sleeping, although doors that are normally open would likely be locked. Is there a period of time where most of the guards report to the messhall, leaving the training grounds more vulnerable to looting?

* Enhancements to combat for everyone - certain monsters or abilities may function worse or better depending on the time of day or changes in the weather. Fire-based mages would find themselves struggling during a rainstorm, undead may grow in strength at night, sneaking becomes more effective in a darker setting, extra encounters become available, etc.

If someone were to tell me a game has those features, I would personally be excited. On the other hand, if someone were to tell me the game provided me with the freedom to kill any NPC I wanted to, I would probably say "Huh.. ok. Sounds a bit gratuitous to me." (to steal a phrase from an earlier poster).

So, in reality (compared to day & night schedules), what does that level of freedom really add for me? Nothing. And yet, it had a big hand in costing us the day & night scheduling that I really wanted. So, bleh. I'd love to see a priority poll between these two features on the next game.

This is the day & night schedule video, by the way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtby4YGKlO8

And considering the freedom part of the demonstration (I am free to kill all innocent), am I free to NOT kill all skeletons and orcs ?
I would like to know. Because if I am NOT FREE to let them live, then this freedom to kill all innocent NPCs stuff is utterly stupid and basically wrong.
What if I want to play a peace lover protect all life monk ? So I can play a basic murderer and psychopath, but not a protector of life ?
Maybe I am wrong, and it is possible to sneak your way around the packs, but I doubt it.
Bring back the day/night cycles (not the NPC schedules), they make more sense. Less "freedom", more immersion and gameplay possibilities. Just making the vision reduced at night could make a difference...

So to summary, freedom to complete the game while killing everybody ? and freedom to complete the game while killing no one ?

I see why people might be annoyed, but to me the fact that they dropped this feature is not a bad thing nor was it a surprise. There was no way they were gonna create a vast world with schedules when even Bethesda half failed doing it properly in Oblivion with FAR less interactivity and that had a budget nearly 100 times higher. Let's not forget that schedules mean creating systems and functions to cope with interruptions and NPC deaths / attacks, or coping with players putting giant boxes in front of doors so the guards would be trapped Proper schedules would require a fully developed system and concept of towns and governance. Including fail-saves so that players can't kill an entire town and never be blamed for it. If there are actions without consequences in a game, then they are sandbox gameplay, not RPG gameplay.

When it comes down to it, I am neither a fan of killable quest-givers nor of day and night SCHEDULES. But I hope this does not mean the engine can't handle dynamic day and night cycles. For mods particular this is an important feature.

I just hope the AI personalities for the 2nd character are done PROPERLY. Because to me that is the biggest part of immersion in an RPG. If personalities develop properly depending on how we interact with them or if they are just "stupid scripts" basically a default setting for each choice, with no logic or individuality behind it.... I hope Larian realizes that this single feature makes up 33% of what I want out of this game. (The other 66% is good writing and proper crafting/character building).


It worries me greatly that literally not a single mention of this feature was made related to the beta. It IS in the beta, right?

The zombies, murderous orcs and evil cultists would apparently leave you alone... for some reason?




The AI personalities will not be in the first beta release, but they are coming.

Yes.

Thought you were supposed to have rage quit... welcome back. Good to see you are overreacting as per usual.

I think the wording of "freedom" is general. They are saying with the system in place you could possibly kill everyone but it not the sole reason of concentrating on said feature. They are not adding so much NPC redundancy to cater just to mass NPC murdering players.

It's about taking into account all possible scenarios and adding others to complete quests if you killed NPC or just ignored NPC all together and found/solved quest by happenstance.

Adding day/night cycles could break that and adding the feature, they might have to redo a lot of work already done and go over the entire system with a fine tooth comb and check everything is still working right.

They said they just don't have the resources to QA all of that.

Sounds reasonable enough. Yes, I am a bit disappointed it's not in myself but they said everything is in place for it to be put in so who knows. I'm hoping for an awesome surprise feature in an expansion pack myself!

1- maybe I am invisible, or sneaking, or disguised, or spell shapechanged. But this is not the point.
2- The point is it sounds as stupid to you as killing every cyseleans I am supposed to protect, and then whinning because I can't fulfill the quests sounds stupid to me.

So wasting to much time for either things is stupid.
On the other hand, day/night cycles are not stupid. They are part of any remotely realistic RPG.
Can you imagine Larian offers some players the possibility to kill every NPC around, and no D/N cycle ? And those players can take their time, because actually, they DO have all day !
Larian goes to some hyper realistic empty/fill you cup, and doesn't have D/N cycle ?
This is WRONG.
Just reducing the vision at night/adding some light effects could make a nice feature.

Unless, of course, there are two exacly opposites suns on this fantasy planet, so there are no day/nights... But that sounds a bit of an overstretched explanation.

So If I am wrong, I will be able to finish the game without killing anybody ?

Larian is having his eyes bigger than his belly on this one.


I did. Larian's honesty to shoot themselves in the foot brought me back. Thank you. I know you missed me (april's fool). And btw, it was a great break, I made some great coding/modding for mount and blade warband. I added a knowledge (90%done) and custom settlement features (70% done, it is a huge undertaking) for Rigale.

I don't see how adding this simple feature, that could have some simple effects, (just reducing everybody's sight during "night") could break quests. And gimme a break. We are in 2014, not in 1984. Everything has evolved, coding, ressources, management, project financing...

I agree with Gyson, going for utter time wasting for the "kill everybody" feature is a waste of time, compared to even a basic day/night cycle.

It is not about killing EVERYBODY in the game, but Larian want to give the opportunity to the player to deal with the quest the way they want, some players might want to kill a specific NPC, some others will have a disagrement with another NPC and will kill him and so on so on, the point is to give the players the opportunity to play the way they want with a complete freedom, you might want to kill some of the NPC and some players might want to keep him alive but kill another one.

I am speaking as someone who was a fan of the Day/Night cycles and NPC schedules. I was disappointed at the news that they were cancelled.

I think Larian should learn a lesson from this about biting off more than they can chew. I do not expect the schedules to be patched in, the best-case-scenario I see is a cosmetic day/night cycle, and I would like that (but I am not optimistic).




Uh, yeah they can.

Because Larian are the ones who are working on the game, they are the ones that know how many bugs already need squashing, they know what features are still in progress and need to be added, they know how much budget they have.

Who the heck are you, that you know all that stuff better than Larian does?

Well, for some people, it seems to be. The issue here is that Larian is wasting a terrible amount of energy for a few people, while some basic stuffs will be missing.

Yes, this is truly nice. No sarcasm inside. I really think this is great, especially in multiplayer (which I probably will not try, anyways...)

Here I don't agree. No night stalking assassin, obviously. No waiting for the night to try to sneak past the orcs ...Day stalking psychopath bully, for sure... So don't talk to me about complete freedom. This is a computer RPG utopy.

I like sunny days every minute... I don't like rain, dont like war-fog. dont like to wait until Shopskeepers wake up.

I'ts a game, not reality... so why I need rain or nigths? I need fun!

I actually don't know that stuff better than Larian does. But if they can't add something as simple as something that already exists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgrkKzEPfbE
(wait for the very end, the night is beautifull), and throw in a "is_night" variable of some sort, and dynamically change the vision ("sight"_variable) of creatures depending on some tags, well, I still think there is an issue here. Even more if you consider that after years of development, there are still thousands of bugs, then some things are wrong.
Again, I am not talking about complex NPC schedules, but really about a simple day/night cycle, with some basic effects.
If a studio can manage to find ways to finish the game while killing everybody, if they can make so that the melee can also set oil aflame with their flaming Swords, they should be able to make a basic day night cycle.

I think you are starting to need some Ibiza spring break

My bad, I did not stated my thought clearly. I meant you have a complete freedom in dealing with your quest by killing the NPC you want^^
I really like rogues sneaking around, hidden in the darkness of the night, and this is a real shame that Larian cannot come up with the night/day schedule (even with sneaking/fight bonus) and I really hope that it will be added (or modded) later. Bit for the time being, I don't diss the work Larian did on NPC's and quest because this is another interesting and complicated feature !!

What you are missing is that the second one is part of the first one, killing a NPC can be a way to progress a quest, can you really not picture any reason to kill somebody beyond a random act of violence? Describing as nonsensical havoc the full effect that a dead can have is oversimplifying the possible consequences of it

Please tell me that this is an aprils fools' joke, none of those factors have any meaningful impact in that game, in fact, I think that you can become the mega ultra archmage knowing only like 3 novice spells. Morrowind? I'll give you that, but Skyrim? That has to be one of the worst examples of player agency I can think of. If that's your frame of reference, I can see why you find pointless one of the options the player has, hell, I'm surprised that you don't find every option pointless based on skyrim.

You should really try the Ultima series, but if you have, and you can't see a difference between the ocean of possibilities in one and the binary (and that's being generous, unary is more fitting) approach of the other, I honestly don't know what to tell you.

Also Bethesda games are buggy as hell, is an awful counterexample in every possible way

Haha, that situation is very familiar to me!

How can I be missing that when I pointed it out myself? It was right before the line you quoted. I colored it this time for you, so you can't miss it:





Your obvious dislike for Bethesda games aside, you said "..factors like spells, information gathered, factions, previous quest results and a lot of other things that aren't just an alive/dead check are going to make the implementation of elaborate schedules hard.". I merely pointed out another game that tackled this same challenge. How you can debate those elements don't exist in Skyrim is beyond me.

Also, I was not arguing against your claim that it was "hard", only that Bethesda made things easier on themselves by making sure players couldn't accidentally kill critical quest NPCs (unless, of course, their deaths were part of the quest). Again, Larian Studios chose to take the more difficult path instead, and in the end it cost the game a major feature that at least some of us were looking forward to. Would you prefer I not express my disappointment in the hopes that a similar mistake isn't repeated the next time around?

They can. They chose not to, in order to focus on things that directly impact gameplay.

From the blog post Here we go:
"One alternative would’ve been to put in a day/night cycle without a lot of reactivity from the npcs, just for the sake of being able to say that we’ve done it, but that’s something we didn’t want to do. The vision driving Divinity:Original Sin has been that every feature which is in there has real gameplay value and isn’t a gimmick."

I can't really agree with that idea. Even a cosmetic-only day/night cycle can still add to immersion. Just because it has no gameplay value doesn't mean that it has no value at all.

However, I think it'd take a strong outcry to make Larian rethink that.

I agree with that. I don't, for example, view the character's ability to sit in a chair as a gimmick. It may not add anything to the gameplay, but it certainly adds to my enjoyment of the game by making the game feel more "real". Wouldn't a cosmetic day and night cycle (even if it's only that) do the same?

Of course they can.

I think the guys at Larian are really really tired, it shows on their faces. Especially David didn't look so well. I am sort of concerned about them. I guess they are closing those 24 hours a day schedules...
However.
And maybe this could mean opening another thread. But what are people expecting from a day/night cycle ? (Not NPC shcedules...)
What does Night/Darkness (for deep, ligthless dungeons...) change compared to Day ?
For me, I would reduce the vision variable. Alot. At least. Already a huge impact.
Then, make sure there is a proper lighting system at night, (either at night or in deep lightless dungeons, so this must exist already). You know, light spells, torch, night vision, Sense Life spells, whatever.
Just with these two things, you have gameplay/immersion impact on the game.
Then, Other night thingies would be a boon (various day/night bonus, night monsters, and so on...), but not required in the beginning.
Please do not tell me D/N doesn't have the potential to have a real gameplay value. Well, actually, it would have the gameplay value the devs give it (just like a charisma or intelligence or willpower stat, it is utterly useless if devs don't make it usefull, but this is another subject). Sometimes, I am confused with the logic behind DOS.
Or DOS is not a realistic RPG, it is an open choice freedom RPG, and I am mistaken. But then, so many things try to be realistic, that this would be really confusing.

Which may be part of the reason they decided not to do a cosmetic day/night cycle. There would likely be a bunch of people with a couple reasonable suggestions (or complaints) each, which would add up. Even just the basics of a day/night cycle is not a trivial amount of work.

Of course a day/night cycle would have gameplay value, even if it was purely cosmetic. I was a little iffy on NPC schedules from the start (good for immersion, possibly annoying if you want to trade/talk to a particular NPC and it happens to be past their bedtime), but was looking forward to the phases of the moon having an influence on magic, etc. Even much less ambitions day/night changes could have a nice impact on gameplay.

That's a lot more work than a cosmetic change, and at this point the developers seem ready to feature-lock.

Since work has been started on day & night schedules already, I'm assuming the passage of time and appropriate changes to light sources are already in place (and that controls for this are built into the editor to begin with). The same goes for weather. I don't think we can expect to receive anything beyond that cosmetic-only change, however: it gets dark, it gets light, it gets overcast and rains, etc. And, honestly, I have strong doubts even that would happen at this stage.

Without "schedules".. without NPCs of all types reacting to the changes in both time and weather, this particular system is going to be a pale shadow of what it could have been. But that's completely off the table at this point, and just seeing the game world (which is very nice looking graphically) in different stages of lighting based on the weather and time of day would be a treat.

For example, look at these two scenes:





Now, they're not the same location, but you can imagine they could be, just at different times of day. Even without schedules, I think it would be neat to see the lighting changing the scenery over time like this. It keeps things visually interesting and helps prevent treks across the same piece of landscape from getting stale over time.

I always assumed the game would include some sort of "rest" function that would allow time to pass at extremely accelerated rates. Particularly a game like this one that has finite content in each area and no respawning encounters to occupy players with - it would be silly to expect the player to sit around and twiddle his or her thumbs for 30 (made up number) real-life minutes waiting for the town to wake up so he could continue with playing the adventure.

Me too; that's what brought the theoretical inconvenience down to 'possibly annoying'.

That is a sweet night picture!

I just really hope they add some places that will turn to dusk, night and so on. An example when your out of Cyseal, where in some places it will turn to dusk. I really just hope somebody with allot of dedication can add the missing features. I also haven't used an editor before for a long time last time was from "Rage of Mages 2" I played allot of that game back than on LAN it's so much fun. So I'm gonna try to use the editor for this game when it's out and hopefully it's easy or manageable to add new features to the game.

Well you can already see some parts of the world are at different places. It looks like sunrise on the Cyseal beach, morning in Cyseal, a rainy afternoon on the west end, turning to night at the lighthouse, and night in the forsaken gardens as well.

Yes, which made me curious about what they planned to do back when their intentions were to add day & night schedules. The designers seem to be relying heavily on mood lighting and weather effects for the different areas in the game (e.g. night at the lighthouse, in other areas it's always raining - purely cosmetic rain, by the way, that doesn't seem to apply a "wet" status to anyone, making Larian's "gimmick" concern even more confusing because they're already doing the very thing they discussed avoiding).

If day & night schedules had been implemented, were they planning to display these locations under a variety of different lighting and weather conditions? Would some players get to the lighthouse battle and find darkness and thunderstorms, while others are posting screenshots of a sunny lighthouse encounter? My assumptions at the time was that this was going to happen.

"- Added environment/weather system"

!

I missed the news that day and night schedules are gone.

Terribly, terribly disappointing.

On a semi-related note, I just played Age of Wonders 3 and I find it amazing that it's basically the same game as Age of Wonders 1, only with prettier graphics. For example, the AI has not advanced at all in 10+ years. Similarly, the new X-com had to sacrifice random maps that we had in the original X-com, again roughly 10 years ago, and now, we all know that Ultima 7 had day and night schedules, and even reaction against weather and such and now that's gone.

I guess I'm just annoyed that everything these days seem to be about graphics, and similar advances in gameplay lag woefully behind...

Welcome to the modern world, where graphics are more important than gameplay or depth in many cases.

Yes, I dislike that too.

I dislike it too. I guess this loss of depth for some cosmetic stuff is what I have been raging against all along. Can't we have a nice and deep RPG ?

So no Day/Night cycle. Would´ve been nice.
But it´s ok. Get along with it folks....
The returning Glory of CRPG will be in broad Daylight!!! ;-)

You are describing it as two elements that interact, I'm trying to explain that the link goes a little beyond that, that player agency exceeds by far your definition of freedom


I didn't wrote that the game doesn't have spells or factions, I wrote that (in the context of freedom of the player) none of those factors have any meaningful impact in that game . Imaging a version of skyrim where you could kill the leader of one of the faction in the civil war, and it didn't just make the questline unavailable, but actually change how is developed, picture that factions are actually significant and if you allied to the contrary civil faction, the regicide has a heavy repercussion to them, maybe the first faction try a massive attack on the other faction in retribution, or at least add more soldiers to the patrols, but if you didn't align to anybody, they are just trying to found you, or if you are a member of the companions, they suffer the repercussions; and it doesn't necessary need to be just NPC being hostile to some others NPC, maybe you are a highly know Brotherhood member (tho' to be highly know assassin you have to be pretty bad at your job) and the news boost the number of jobs available, because, heck, if the brotherhood can kill that guy, they can kill anybody, is great publicity. Any of those would have an effect in the schedules, and it is not just because of the killing, a pacifist example could be that magic is actually meaningful, so you go to the leader, use charm and make him surrender, of course, the spell is only temporal and when he recover his senses, and if the universe has any consistent at all, he would dismiss his surrender and explain that he was charmed, but the fact that you can impact in such big way the world, opens a cornucopia of possibilities and makes the implementation of schedules really hard.

Emergent gameplay man, can you see how the original skyrim and the hypothetical game are fundamentally different? Emergent gameplay, skyrim virtually doesn't have it, sometimes one NPC come across another, and if one is hostile, the bump each other until one is dead and... yeah, it can happen again I guess, it can happen with important NPCs... but they are immortal so no consequence or emergent gameplay can branch from that, it could be a big deal if the number of enemies is finite and they killing each other has an impact in the total xp a player can have, but that's not the case... let me see... If the enemy got xp for every kill that could make really interesting encounters for the pla... Oh wait, most enemies autolevel with the player, silly me, expecting something to have impact in anything. If you think that the option to killing everybody is the only thing that skyrim lacked to implement schedules, you may want to look a little closer. But maybe those things are too much to ask tho', there no game that doesn't auto level enemies, has a finite number of them and let you kill essential NPC, of what game was this thread originally about?

And is not like I'm expecting Original Sin to be that hypothetical game, that obviously goes beyond the possibilities of the budget and development time, it probably goes beyond the possibilities of our technology, but if it offers even a slightly portion of that freedom, the schedules would probably not make it, unkillables NPCs or not, and that's kinda my problem because...


While not arguing about the difficulty on the implementation of schedules regardless of killable NPCs, you are definitely describing as the determining (even if not the only) factor for the lack of them, like if was the one thing that cost the feature, and if killing everybody wasn't in the game then it would have schedules. Like if they had to pick and they picked wrong.

I can see how someone could think that, killing NPC has been an example more than once about player freedom along with different approach to solve quest. And they definitely are ideal examples, in the sense that they are really easy to describe and understand. Trying to describe player agency and long lasting impact in the game world is harder, my example of skyrim is pretty long and that's assuming that you have a pretty good grasp of the game, for someone that doesn't know anything about it, it lacks a lot of contextual information. But Killing everybody is something that, even if you don't know much about the game, is easy to understand.
So someone, if he didn't have any knowledge of game design, could conceptualize this "freedom" thing as "solving quest and killing people" and with such simplistic concept, if they heard that schedules are off because of freedom, and seeing that there is this other game called skyrim that has (allegedly) different ways to solve quest and schedules but not the option of killing everybody then the logical conclusion is that killing NPCs is the determining factor. furthermore, if somebody else argue that freedom is more than that and it can include factors like the magic system, factions, crafting, etc., An (poorly critical) observation that skyrim has those things too would make the claim nonsensical. The logic is completely valid, is just that the hypothesis are wrong.

For example, just because a game has magic doesn't mean that is actually meaningful in the context of freedom of the player, in skyrim we have two main uses for magic, killing stuff and getting less killed by stuff (and considering that getting kill is pretty detrimental when trying to kill stuff, the second may be just an extension of the first), The first category branch into just killing stuff and being better at killing stuff. The first one are spells that change "is" to "was", basically all the destruction school, and it makes sense "destruction" and all, but I can't stop thinking that some of the spells may have, if the game allowed them, some practical uses. I'm not asking for a complex elemental interacting system like in original sin, is just that making fire with your freakin hands sounds like something that can have many other uses, it just doesn't in the game. Of the second kind, we can count all the buffs, and conjurations made for killing (every spell of the conjuration school), of course all the buff are only useful for combat and have no other use, unlike Morrowind that allowed you to fortify attributes, in fact it has a lot of practical spells, you could walk on water, float in the air and even lock doors with magic and boosting alchemy with magic and viceversa made all kind emergent options, you can find some crazy speedruns taking advantage of these options; man, skyrim doesn't even have attributes. and conjurations are so limited is not even funny, things to kill something or beings with the only use of killing it too. If you could hear all the creatives uses players found with summons in DnD, even in the beta of OS I just found an alternative use for the wolf, is a pretty good (or arguably bad) trap scout, an unfinished game has more player agency than skyrim.

Of the less killed category I was going to make a similar division between just getting less kill and making others worse at killing you, but apparently the game doesn't have the second kind, there are no debuff spells, I thought that I didn't remember them because the game was easy enough without them so I never bother to use them, but no, they just don't exist, only paralyze and maybe "calm" if you stretch the definition. Wow, I expect nothing and i'm still let down. the other kind is obviously the restoration school, and of course, you can't use those spells to save anybody that is scripted to die regardless of the context.

Of the few spells that don't enter in some of the categories, Detect Life, allow you to see enemies through walls and darkness, which is very useful strategic wise, Detect dead, that is pretty much the same with different enemies, Candlelight that makes you see better in the dark to detect enemies and Aura Whisper that let you see enem.... they are kinda samey in their own way. But there is ONE spell with emergent use, magelight. Is like Candlelight but on target instead of oneself, so is not especially unique, but is pretty practical to distract enemies, you can use it to avoid enemies or adjust them for backstab. There, emergent gameplay, and as minimal as that can be, the whole magic system doesn't elevate beyond that.

Similar findings can be made in every other aspect of skyrim, because the price of consistent (read, really buggy) schedules was way, waaaay more than having essential NPCS, the systems in skyrim are restrictive, they chain the player and give overall less freedom, no more. I'm not saying that you can't have both, but the extension of the freedom goes beyond the two aspect that you mentioned and there is a lot of things to consider making then.

So I'm not against you showing your disapproval, if I agree with the assumption that they had to pick between being able to kill everyone and schedules I would totally agree with you, but there is a lot more in freedom than that, and Larian didn't pick wrong, bethesda did.

Where can I read about the loss of day and night schedules? I've skimmed the Kickstarter updates and must have missed it, or is there somewhere else they post dev news?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin/posts/792142

"Due to time and budgetary constraints, we have chosen not to implement day/night cycles for the launch of Divinity: Original Sin.

This was no easy decision, but in the end, resources had to be allocated toward stability and bugfixing in order to release a content-heavy, technically smooth game (almost) on time.

We realize our fans and backers will be understandably bummed by this news, but we hope to make it up to you with a game that we are proud to release and you will feel proud to have supported.

If you'd like to read more about the reasoning behind the decision to forego day/night cycles, head over to Swen's blog for a more thorough explanation(http://www.lar.net/2014/03/28/here-we-go/)"

i agree. a cosmetic-only day/night cycle is better than none at all.

@larian: give us day and night, please ;-)

also dynamic rain

I just want to make sure you know I didn't ignore your post (as you obviously spent a lot of time typing it out). But I don't agree with your analysis of either game, which is undermining everything else that is being said. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.


When the beta patch notes said "- Added environment/weather system", I really thought we were getting dynamic weather. Now I'm confused and wondering what they meant by that change/addition that wasn't in the game already.

I've completed the very first alpha and now the current beta release of Divinity: Original Sin, so I think I can pretty much see the "delta" changes which have been done during these two versions of the game.
I have to admit, that I've tested most of the time only singleplayer, maybe like 2-3 hours the coop multiplayer.
Steam shows a total of 39 hours I've spent to the game, so I must clearly seem to love it

Why all the statistics/numbers?

The feedback I now give about the topic of lacking NPC schedules / realistic world simulation should not sound like a simple troll post: it's based on my long time expierence with the game (series) or RPGs in general. As some of you might know, I'm a huge classic Ultima series geek.

Back to the Original Sin.
I came to my own end-result that the world really doesn't seem to be realistic at all, if you spent a couple of hours into it. The NPCs are (obvious) "placed" into the world like "puppets". Assuredly, they have excellent dialoges and their stories / backgrounds feel like they're part of that simulated world. Except from "combat" stuff they don't react much to you. Do Cyseal's guards react if're you're busting doors in the city? Do they react if you cast rain on them? No. Yes, they do react on pickpocketing / stealing. And all this behaviour really depends on the npc(s) which is near the location you're acting (obvious). I wish this kind of stuff, which hasn't to do much which schedules should be fine-tuned till release.

What about their current behaviour towards the world? Let's look on one of the more complex ncps: the mayor (Minor spoiler warning!). The mayor moves from left (a book shelf) to the right (his desk). You can talk to him about the library, which is on the upper floor. He can show it to you and moves left (to the stairs) and "beams" to the upper floor. After you talked to him on the upper floor he moves back. He also reacts if you kill Victoria in the library and will walk to the place of her death. (On a side note: if you resurrect Victoria after killing her the mayor still reacts like she's dead). Why this is example?

This is currently the maximum we get. Most of the other npcs simple stand, the whole time, on one position and do nothing or patrolling from spot A to B.

Outside of the town, 95% of npcs you meet in the wildness are enemies. No traveling merchants for example, no (dynamic) "side-events".

The King Crab Tavern doesn't feel like a tavern for me. Nobody is eating / drinking / talking / sitting together. There should be also some kind of traditional bard, making music or telling stories. I mean basic roleplaying / adventure "stuff" which makes you to feel the world more realistic. Nitpicking? Maybe.

Another one: at one spot you can meet the npc Eglandaer. If you talk to him he asks you to meet him at the tavern. If you follow him to a special point he "beams" away, but you'll find him in his room later on the upper floor. Btw if you finish his quest he will also leave the floor and suddenly disappears.

The weather system, if I can call it like that, is there yes. But it doesn't work as I think it should work. For example if it's raining (non-casted) the rain should kill all the flames / fire. Snow (not in beta) for example should ice water / sea to a special point. And so on...

To (finally) come to the point: yes, I'll really miss the promised, 1 million stretch goal NPC schedules or a "working" simulated world feeling. And yes, I would be happy if Larian will delay the game again to implement this feature (because I highly doubt the editor will be able to allow us, the community such deep scripting, because this topic isn't on focus). Should fixing bugs on priority? Absolutely yes, but for me it feels only as an excuse to get the game early out of the door (to obviously save "some" money). Maybe it was an error to announce that stretch goal? But how many have backed because of that stretch goal? Hard to tell now. Personally I think it's not "clever" to handle the backers like that.

Larian, right now you have a rough, angularly, non-sharped diamond, with the NPC schedules + other simulated features (proper weather system for example) it would be a Cullinan diamond. Peace.

Thank you! No wonder I missed that, they really snuck it in there...

And, if this would have been a new Baldur's Gate, as the Press seems to position the game, then I guess that's not a big deal...

But since Larian themselves said that this was going to be a new Ultima 7, it's one hell of a big deal, so I thought that it at least would get its own headline.

Let's hope the sales will be good so there will be a Original Sin 2.0 that puts the cycles and schedules back in.

(PS. I'm not in favor of cosmetic day/night cycle if it doesn't have any impact on the gameplay.)

EDIT: Ah, it's mentioned in the video too. Well, fingers crossed for a version 2.0, because without it, it's simply not a spiritual sequel to Ultima 7, imo (which is what sold me on it).

PPS. Do the NPCs at least open and shut windows when it begins to rain?

+1, definitely
Just another RPG. So close to a great one :-(

First: I'm really enjoying D:OS. I love Larian's transparent and honest communication with players, and I completely understand they're working on an extremely tight budget/timeframe (considering the scope of the project and the size of their team).

Now that that's out of the way, I also have to admit I'm pretty disappointed in the lack of realism/interactivity with the world, especially for a game branding itself as the Next Ultima 7 over twenty years later. I'm not only talking about NPC schedules here. I mean some of the little things Nemisis Dragon mentioned (there's no bard or people sitting/eating/drinking in the tavern, quest NPCs simply disappear/walk through objects and walls when leaving the scene, etc.). NPCs in general have no reaction to the weather (or what limited weather there is), to you smashing or fireballing doors and containers right next to them (as long as the targets aren't marked as "owned"), to you sneaking about six inches behind their back (even with no points in the Sneaking ability) and robbing them blind as your party loiters a few feet away... you get the idea.

Unless some major changes are made before the release - and they almost definitely won't be, as we're already in beta - I guess we'll have to settle for a fun little game with good turn-based combat, with a fairly well-developed elemental system the only method of truly interacting with the game world. Again, I really like Larian, and I'm enjoying D:OS, but a true spiritual sequel to Ultima 7 it's not.

Anyway, back to Cyseal - got some more skulls to bash.