Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Day and night cycles NPC

Hi,
So when you say that the NPC day and night cycles have been axed does this mean it will be stuck on eternal daylight? No nighttime adventuring? Or will you have just day and night cycles and the NPCS schedule are not affected by the changes.

Cheers,

It seems that areas will be stuck on certain times of day. Some places it's sunrise, some places it's a sunny afternoon, some places it's raining, some places it's a cold fog at night.

No NPC schedules.

Darn. Thats going to be crap. I would prefer day and night cycles and just have the NPCS going about their business 24/7.


In a "ultima" interact with everything type of world this is a must.

Even if they cant get it going for the official release at least bring out a patch which includes this.

I think this game will certainly be more amazing than 99.99999999% of the games coming out this year which is still a stunning achievement given then limited budget Larian's been working with. I very much hope to see Original Sin sell very well once fully released and hopefully Larian get a well deserved healthy profit so we'll be able to look forward to their next game(s) and who knows, maybe even an Original Sin expansion with full day/night cycles and all.

It certainly makes more sense for an expansion than a free patch.

Seeing the technical difficulties it will pose (Read: It costs a LOT of money).

Yes, and one I'd gladly pay for.

maybe a (paid for) DLC (not a full blown expansion) would also do the trick.
i certainly would get it

i think it's enough stuff to justify a DLC AND it wouldn't take as long as an expansion

I'm still a little confused. I understand that there are no day/night schedules and that therefore there won't be NPCs going about their days and then sleeping at night, etc.

But there are other references in the latest video blog to NPC schedules. Does that mean: (a) there are still NPC schedules for all NPCs in the game, just not day/night schedules - i.e. they do certain activities for a period of time, then move to something else, or move locations; or (b) there are some NPC schedules in, but for cost reasons they will not be comprehensive or involve every NPC; or (c) there are a handful of instances where NPCs have scripts, but only in connection with specific plot or quest points; or (d) NPCs are completely static. The world is essentially a wax museum waiting for player input.

I was under the impression that we paid for this in kickstarter. Was that not the case?

The 1 mil mark was reached and therefore what Larian asked for to implement this was achieved, the problem is that they miscalculated how much time and money would be needed to fully implement day/night schedules in the game so they can't do it. This is quite understandable given that most AAA games these days operate on budgets of tens of millions while Larian can do so much and such an amazing game(even without the day/night schedules) with a far more limited budget.

I think without schedules, NPC behaviour is entirely scripted.

One of my big concerns is how developers outside of this game (who also make use of crowd-funding) will look upon everyone's "it's ok, we understand and we're fine with this" reaction.

I don't want crowd-funding on major titles to turn into a practice where developers promise the moon to pull in the cash, while telling themselves internally that their stretch goals are actually very flexible and open to dismissal.

It's ok for a player to look at a list of stretch goals and think "there's no way they're going to make half of these" (not naming any project names......). It's not ok for a developer to do it while taking donations.

Larian Studios did great, and I'm totally pleased with what they've accomplished. I really wish they got schedules in, even if it meant changing other parts of the game that I feel were less critical. That said, I worry about the precedent being set here, and how it will impact future crowd-funded projects from other developers.

At least they didn't sell out to Facebook.

But we ALREADY paid for that in the Kickstarter.

Larian underestimated how much it would cost - by a very large amount, apparently. That is completely their fault for putting that idea out there, but it is what it is.

I think its a poor excuse from their part. If you promise something then you should deliver it. If you loose a little cash on it then you will learn for next time to calculate things better....

I would prefer they loose another feature than loosing this. This is what makes a world come alive. Something Richard Garriot was famous for doing in his Ultima series. Elder Scrolls also did it very well.

I don't think they had many options, the only feature that I think they could reasonably cut to make room for day/night cycles is the coop but it's too late in development, all the time and resources have already been placed into it. Overall, seeing how the game is coming together I don't mind the loss of the day/night cycles and I understand the need to cut them. Nonetheless I personally would have preferred if there was no coop instead, we can only hope Larian understand that any and all forms of multiplayer are only diseases in the game industry and only ever result in greatly diminished games and will never do it again.

I don't think it sets a precedent at all. It is a case by case situation. Many kickstarts produce garbage; some produce great games; some take a few extra years; some charge more and produce less. How are we to judge. Are we please with the results given how much we paid ? I think that is the only reasonable way to judge. It does not surprise me that they dropped night/day cycles. I was more surprise they offered it in the first place given the $$ for the stretch goal. I think they really wanted to offer it but in the end it was not realistic. I'm not upset; I do not expect it as a patch and i don't think it hurts the game that much (btw the last game I played with day night events was dragon age ii). Do I think D:OS will be the best game ever - no - but I do hope it is polished and fun and has interesting (memorable) moments like DKS.
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I will say (not that it is relevant to this kickstart) that there are at least two kickstarts I funded that I'm horribly disappointed with the results. Sure they implemented their 'stretch' goals but the games (IMHO) are utter garbage not worth the diskspace they consume.

They would not have cut CO-OP for any other feature. It is clear that was a singular unique feature for this game from the start. Mind you I have no interest in the COOP; wish they didn't include it and rather had other features and larger world but I also recognize that it was a personal pet objective for this game and not negotiable.

Although I understand (and to an extent share) the disappointment, I think we all need to keep in mind that KS stretch goals shouldn't be taken as "guarantees." The key to me is whether the project leads are honest and open in communicating the background and reasons for any changes. Larian probably could have been even more clear about how much work (and risk) day/night schedules would entail, but it seems like they honestly didn't expect it to take so much work in the first place, and are now in a very tight money situation. But I'm hoping and expecting D:OS will be a success, which may mean more funding/polish for the sequel (hint hint).



My thoughts exactly.

Yeah that's a popular view. I get we all have an opinion, but this is really narrow, even if you don't like it, you cannot see how others can? The most popular games are MP.

Day/Night. Duel Wielding, while I'm not against, to me are secondary features in terms of overall payoff to the player. Features that fall under "grass is greener" when you don't have them, but the game isn't all that much different without.

Coop-Turn Base fwiw is the reason I purchased this. There are nearly ZERO of these ever made and to me it should have always been a large genre since it takes Table Top straight to the PC and has it do all the calcs, while we play coop-turn.