Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Message for Larian

Greetings.

I'm very rarely post anything, but this time I decided to write a few words. Well, I'm not really mad or angry, but I rather quite sad and very disappointed with that entire situation with game launch. And I want to tell what I think about and what worried me the most:

1) At Kickstarter's Game FAQ-page there is statement "Will this have DRM? No. The box version will not have DRM." But according to last e-mail all discs by default will be with Steam-version and you must to reply to that letter during constrained period of time to receive DRM-FREE non-Steam version. I was shocked with that contradiction.

2) Overall mess with GOG-version for backers and it's non-availability for non-backers for a quite long period of time after release. Especially I was shocked when discovered that at Larian Vault my previous selection of GOG-version for Divinity: Original Sin Digital was forcedly changed to Steam without my will. What the hell? And I was not asking for any beta-key and of course not used it, but as I understand its addition for collector's edition somehow connected with appeared problems. I don't want anything to do with Steam at all.
Yesterday I have wrote to support about this situation, but day passed and there is still no reply and I can't change input at Larian Vault yet.

3) A bunch of other problems including missing localizations, not fully completed at a time collector's editions, many messages at forums about bugs, missing things, technical and other in-game issues.

4) And overall there was not enough communication from Larian (no updates of official website, late answers at forums) with many unclear and confusing things about the game changing constantly to the last moment of time and absolutely terrible communication from GOG.

So from my point of view the game was released in a big rush and was not properly prepared at all (well, except steam version it was absolutely unprepared), and last 10-days delay also shows that, even though Larian now performs as independent studio and it itself can manage release time. I think game should have been released at least 1-2 months later in a more solid state, or even later, but when it is really completed.
Though I'm sure that most issues will be solved sooner or later, but all of that leaves very bad impressions and many disappointments for me. I always respect Larian Studios and have all Divinity games multiple times in different versions, but such customer's treatment as it was provided with D:OS is really awful.

Best regards

There were a few posts and kickstarter comment updates where Larian explained why they went with Steam for the DVD version (fastest/easiest distribution method, would allow a day 1 patch to incorporate updates since the DVDs started production right up until release) and why they didn't consider it DRM (the game itself is DRM free). Those summaries are a little inaccurate, since they leave out details and nuance.

Availability to non-backers was a GOG issue, which they have since changed their mind about (and will release the game soon rather than wait for GOG Galaxy).

Larian wasn't trying to forcibly change anyone's keys to Steam. Most people wanted Steam keys. Rather than revoke all the keys as planned and re-issue the majority of keys as Steam, Larian decided it would be better to have the alpha/beta keys become the full version by default, and let people who wished revoke the keys to get GOG keys. Unfortunately, that meant the Vault website had to be updated to support that. I think Larian was hoping to get that done today, but it is getting a little late in Belgium...

Communication could have been handled better, but Larian was focused on finishing the game.

There is a limit on how many times, or how long, a game can be delayed.