Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Larian, please, make a full glossary (codex) on the game world in Divinity, icluded in the game

Greetings to the Larian Studio and all the participants of this forum!


- I would like to share my wish about adding a two certain features to the new Larian game, the absence of which in previous games (Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3) greatly harmed my immersion and, let's say, the general information content about lore and the game worlds. This problem haunts me, because it greatly harms my immersion in the universes that these games provide.

- Firstly, to put it bluntly, I would really like Larian to make a full–fledged game glossary (reference) in his next game on the game universe, events in past games, races, characters, etc., as in many other RPGs (Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Rogue Trader, Bioware games etc.).

- The second function is a video demonstration of skills and spells in the selection menu.



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- I will explain the essence of the problem - the fact is that, for example, I got acquainted with the Larian games starting with Divinity OS 2 and Baldur's Gate 3. I did not play either the previous Divinity series games or the previous parts of Baldur's Gate 1-2 from Bioware, and the fact is that since these games did not have any glossary I couldn't really read about the lore of these universes directly in the game, Larian is very far behind in this regard.

As a result, many meanings, terms, game concepts, laws of this game world and characters just pass me us.


- It would be nice to have a full-fledged and detailed game glossary inside the game, a codex that would tell us about the game world, characters (so that I would not guess who King Brakk is, but could read about it and understand the context directly in the game), factions, races, as in the screenshots I have given and the listed games, locations, important events etc.

- Moreover, I know that everything Larian does is done at a good level, and the glossary could be not only an informative set of text, but also decorated in the form of beautiful art or 3D models in general, if an event is described, then the help contains a footnote in which part of the Divinity series game the event took place.

- if races are described, then there may be not only a description of the race, but also a designation of their game characteristics, and not only in the character selection menu, which may be useful in the future and so on.


- You can also use the system from Avowed and Rogue Trader, when you can go directly from the dialog to the encyclopedia as a link if a certain term is mentioned in the game.



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- I also wish that, as in many other RPGs, in the spell and skill selection menu you could directly see on a separate video window how this spell or skill works - which will help players understand how this spell or skill works and other advantages before using it.



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- I hope I was able to convey my position as best I could, please comment and discuss!

Thank you all for your attention!

I mean I didnt need any intro into D&D in general or Forgotten Realms, and the BG3 Wiki did everything for me in regards to learning about D&D5.

But yeah it would be a nice feature to have.

Same here! Since I was familiar with the setting of BG3, I didn't miss it, but if you have to explore a whole new world, it's really helpful to have at least some common knowledge at hand.

I loved the lore system in Rogue Trader, it was so clever and seamless.

This idea is genuinely not bad, and I hesitate Swen will implement it just the way him and his team design their games.

You can tell they put a lot of effort and soul into creating storytelling and hidden Easter eggs. I feel like this is by design, and I feel like all these games (except BG3) were designed to keep me intrigued by feeling that my questions were not fully answered. That is probably why I spent 300+ hours in DOS, 500+ hours in DOS2 and beat Divine Divinity two times. Yet, sometimes I run across something I am confused about. I even asked AI these questions and AI didn't know the answer meaning that none of Divinity games can answer it. For example:

- Did Braccus control all races in Rivellon or only a human race? (AI doesn't know and I don't remember it was specified in any of their games)

It totally sucks to struggle in the game due to the artificial obstacles or lac of certain features and I hear you about having glossary and video demonstration of the skills. They probably are not bad, it is just that the first one is basically giving you the answer as opposed to you to be able to figure it out based on dialogues and random books/notes in the games, and I can tell you it is pretty satisfying to have this uncomfortable feeling of having unanswered question which finally you can find answers for after investing decent amount of hours (or using Wiki after giving up which is fair). As I said, the way Swen designs games, he want you to dive deep into this storytelling and you need to figure it out yourself. That is why I visited youtube a lot to find out more about the lore and items I missed.

My opinion could be biased because I was happy to beat Divine Divinity twice even though this game doesn't show any effect icons when you cast them onto your character or when you drink a potion to get an effect. I mean, if you really like Divinity, go check out older games so you may have some of your lore questions answered and see what kind of UI they had back then haha

Both things are not mutually exclusive.

You can have exploration AND a codex. You simply don't fill the codex completely from the beginning of the game.

If you start off with a basic codex full of stuff your character should know (It's always kind of silly that you play a character who lived in the region until adulthood but don't know the most basic things...) but further details must be uncovered before they are put in the codex.

I've played some games that did this, where the text pop-ups in chat simply said "????" until you had discovered through dialogues and lore notes about the faction in question (With the details shifting as you discovered more information over time)

Think of it more like a journal that your character is writing down details in as they discover them, rather than a meta-game codex full of all the answers from the get go. So it doesn't replace exploration, but simply allows you to refer back to things you've discovered (Whilst providing access to those unfamiliar with the base level lore from the start)