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And how the Greeks are called in there?

And how the Greeks are called in there?

April 25, 2000 - April 29, 2000

Divinity Infobits
At Larian's Development Board, Divinity Project Leader Swen "Lar" Vincke unleashed a torrent of messages these last few days, and Marian stuck in a quick comment during it all:



Lar on lighting: Yep, works.

Inside houses, small area of light, outside houses and in dungeons, large area of light. Looks pretty good actually.

As for the darkness, that has a lot to do with settings Arhu. Normally it is pitchdark, but since most people complain about not being able to see anything on screenshots/mpegs, we severely increase brightness, giving you the impression you had.

more on lighting: Actually, Arhu your idea really made sense. We were way underusing Rat's light engine, so now it's like that that the light around the character changes depending on where you are. (Well, the option is built in now, only using it in a few instances right now) Different coloring of the light also makes it look nice, and creates more atmosphere which fits to where you are. Having different radii for light also helps for creating a feeling of "space", strange as it may sound. Modulating the light however I'm afraid would cause that epilipsy warning to be written in enormous capital letters.

RPG pet peeves: The Hack and Slash thing:

Yes, there is a fair amount of hack and slash. No, you don't hack and slash your way through the entire game. There's an entire army out there, and while technically speaking with a huge amount of patience, you might take out part of it, I don't think you'll ever succeed in killing all of them.

Our intention is and has always been to bring you a fun RPG with more role playing elements than something like Diablo, but which takes away all the annoying things of hard core RPGs have because of so called realism. (ducking for cover) Yes, that's right, most hard cor RPGs in my opinion are more about annoying the player with so called "realism" than anything else if you ask me.

Here's a small list of things which annoy me in RPGS:

I need to eat ? You mean, after twenty hours of playing and basically being a super hero, I could still die out there because I don't have any food ?

I need to sleep ? You mean ,leave this dungeon where I was enjoying myself to find a quiet spot, watch the sleeping screen for a few seconds, and then go back where I come from ?

I need to swim or even dive ? You mean, save the game, watch my screen become blueish, unsharp, hear the water sound loop, go up to get air, fail to be fast enough, so that I need to reload ?

I need to what to cast a spell ? Collect reagents all over the world stuffing my backpack, sleep several hours to rest, all to cast a meager 5 spells, after which I can go collect reagents again ?

I beg your pardon ? My food was rotten, so now after making sure that I've had enough food in my oh so tiny backpack so that I would have to go back to that village every time, you tell me the food I toke with me is rotten ? And I'm poisoned because of it ?

Excuse me ? I can't save, I can only save at certain points ? Do you mean I have to try for the 100th time to kill this monster which is way to powerful, and which is protected by 100 other monsters which I had just killed, at which point I wanted to save, only to hear that I can't ?

Hello ? No save game slots left ?

Are you completely daft ? Saving costs me experience points ?

So I get you right ? I can only have a hundred arrows with me, but if I take a hundred arrows, my inventory is cramped ? Ok, so where do I put the food ? Ah, I need to take less arrows with me ? But that monster, how strong is it ? Right, I need a hundred arrows to kill it. But it's a ten day trip to that monster ? Yes, I know I'll get hungry. Probably I'll be severely weakened by the time I arrive, so I'll only get one shot. Ahah. Yes, I know I won't be able to save.

Right. I see. I played approximately 100 hours to collect all of this stuff, but now you'll take it away from me, so that you're sure the end boss will be hard for me. Yes, I understand. Of course, game balancing. Why didn't I think of that. Good reason.

Hello...Tech support ? Yes, I have a problem. The game runs at 2 frames per second. Ah, it's because of all the realism. Yes, that snowstorm looks cool on the screenshots. As a matter of fact, that's why I bought it. Yes, yes, it's really cool. So how do I turn it off so I can play the game ? Ah, I slide the realism slider. Ok....Er, hello ? Yes, well, everything looks very blocky. Uhuh. It's because of the realism slider is it ? But if I put it at high again, it'll be so slow. Oh, I see. Whenever there is a snowstorm I should put the realism low...Yes, thank you.

Yes, it is cool that you don't have this totally unrealistic things like teleporters. I like to walk, really. But...You want me to get object A in town A on the north pole, then to get object B in town B on the south pole, I then need to go to town C which is in the centre of the world, all to go back to town A and town B again because I forgot to put a stamp on object A and object B. Ah yes, it's called a quest. I see.

And so forth...and so forth...and so forth...

Bottom line:

Realism is cool as long as it isn't annoying. The moment it is annoying, skip it, even if it severely deteriorates realism.

Buying arrows is annoying.

Reading 10000 lines of text without being able to really interact with the world, though the text talks about the world all the time, is annoying.

Looking for something that triggers an event in a game is annoying, because you are thinking of the trigger, not about the game.

Chores are annoying.

Eating is annoying. Heck even in real life it is annoying. Takes too much time.

Sleeping is annoying. Same comment as for eating.

Marian on the same topic: What´s the Problem? You CAN eat in Divinity but you don´t have to...

Except the swimming part i completly agree with my boss.

Lar on data: A huge part of is data driven. That means that most of the gameplay is not in the code, but coming from script files and the like. This goes from the looks of the user interace to little details like how long the visual effect of a magic spell takes to what happens if you break a certain object to what animations or behavior a npc has. So technically speaking, we could expose all of that for you, allowing you to customize the game and indeed create a new game. (And yes, you can also customize all the sounds, so Oink! for you Oink! haters is something that can be changed in a matter of seconds) That given you this power is the intention should be clear.

The issue is when we expose this ? We could do it for the single player release, but it makes more sense for multiplayer (which unfortunately will probably not make it for the initial release) I don't think a lot of people will actually bother to make new worlds for themselves. (Kinda misses the point doesn't it ?)

doors: The door thing:

Right now it's so that you can open/close them yourself, but if you use pathfinding or just walk through them, they open automatically. Helps in a fight.

lack of roofs: The roofs issue:

First of all, the engine supports roofs, and removal of them depending where you are standing. So it's not a technical issue as it is already IN. Actually, it was one of the first things to get in when designing the seamless object/world system.

Second, I agree with you. I also think roofs should be in, so I will not try to argue against, as that would be doggily dishonest (I was going to say intellectually but yeah...whatever...I'm the Oink! man) I could probably make the case for roofs better than what I've read here.

Third, flat roofs would not be a problem, but those suck visually. If we'd go for roofs, they'd have to be done good, like all the rest of the visuals. At least, that's what we try. I disagree with the idea of having lower quality visuals in a game just to introduce some extra feature. Lower quality visuals deteriorate all of the other visuals and work very anti-immersive. So if roofs, then good roofs.

Fourth, they are not a feature you put in overnight. If roofs, then severe artistic resources need to be allocated to them. That means, giving up something else, as that is how it works. The question then becomes what ? For good roofs really take a lot of time. And the other question is who ? Our artists have become specialized in certain things, because that's what they do costantly. That means that even though we might have some free artist time, that particulary artist needs to be experienced in the making of locations. Marian whom you all know for instance does only monsters and some characters, and has become extremely skilled in those. Asking him to do locations however is a bad idea, as it would take him a significant amount of time to reach the same level as the guys who have been doing this for a long time. Vice versa asking Piet for instance, who has been doing locations for a long time, to do a monster would also be a bad idea. Not because they wouldn't be able to, just because it would take them too much time to gather the experience.

Now the fact of the matter is that when I look at our tasklists/project plans, it turns out the location artists are overloaded whereas the monster/character artists look like they might have time to spare. This will rather result in more characters/monsters than in more locations or indeed roofs, as it would be a waste and loss of time to allocate someone specialized in monsters/characters to locations, for reasons mentioned above.

So, the answer might be of course obvious. Hire more location artists and have one of them do the roofs. Not so trivial. If it were that easy, then there wouldn't be a problem to move a character/monster artist to locations, as they are more than likely more experienced than any third party with making artwork for Divinity. We can't just bring in a new artist for a very specific task when we're already nine months in development.

Hence the only solution would be to ask the location artists to make the roofs for their own locations. But they are overloaded, and we cannot just simply scratch a location. Those things are planned well in advance, and removing one of them would disrupt the plotted storyline. Scratching a location in favour of a feature would in in extremis mean that we could end up making one and only one location and work on it until it reaches total perfection. That's a very real danger btw, as it's something we have to fight. But that would severely clash with the goal of making a large world.

[incongruities] It's a game Arhu. You are bound to have to incongruities. And I would disagree with the continuously part of your statement. We are trying very hard to remove as much of those as possible, but a full realistic world simulation, well, you'll have to wait another ten years or so. There will always be holes. As far as I know a lot of you guys liked the DSA series, and name it as your favourite games. Could I point out that in DSA3 or shadows over Riva, you didn't even see the npcs while walking through the world ? Talk about discontinuity. Yet you still played it and enjoyed yourselves.

When it comes to evaluating the world of Divinity, I hold the rule that I evaluate it against what other games are on the market, or what other games are coming to the market place. I'm rather critical of Divinity when doing that, and rather permissive to the other similar games. And yes, Divinity sucks when it comes to the roofs, but it still rules when I'm walking through it. Of course it's my game so even in trying I can't be totally objective, but I watch people come in our office playing it for the first time, and I notice with satisfaction that the magic grabs them, and I know that we're doing a good job. Of all those who played it, never one has ever mentioned the roofs, something which for the record I keep track off. Most didn't even notice the flipping trick we are using, until we ask them "And does the flipping bother you ?"

We can't make the perfect game. I don't think anybody can. We're just trying to make it as good as possible within our constraints. As it stands, I'm firmly convinced that it rises with head and shoulders above the competition, and that you will have tremendous fun playing it.

And yes, I know the roof thing sucks. Believe me, if there's a way to put them in as they should, we'll do it, but for the time being, I have to say there is no such way. Undoubtedly to be continued, and hopefully to be concluded with a topic "we have roofs", but for now, no.

more on roofs: As for the roofs, yeah, well, I know. It's a resource thing. But the last word hasn't been said on it. I agree with you it btw. It's something I'd like to have in it, but the amount of work involved in the roofs (because if we do them, we really have a lot of tileable roofs to be made considering the amount of locations) would mean hiring an artist just for that. So we'll see.

and more: As for roofs, well, you might be in luck. I just interviewed a new artist who might be up to it ;-) I'll let you know in a month.

a reader quoting an October message from Lar as aiming to finish the game in the second quarter of this year: Did I write that ? Did I ? I must've been [fill in at your own leisure] ;-) Blah, sometimes I don't know what I'm talking about...Ah yes, but now I remember. Yes, yes, that was Divinity pacman. Yes, yes, that one should've been ready then. Pity it was cancelled. Oh well, I sure got you, didn't I ;-)

And I wrote that in October ? Hmm, I did write that we didn't want to pin ourselves to it, didn't I ? Oh well, the story was like this: We only had cash until a certain date, so if we didn't make it by then, we thought we weren't going to make it all. So, that was some pep-talk. Then we figured that was no way to make a game, we would've had to rush it, so instead of focussing on "we have to make it in this time cause otherwise we'll run out of cash" we focussed on "we have to make sure we have enough cash so we can finish it like we want". Easier said than done of course, but we managed. Our range of other products is truely amazing ;-) Remember, we are doing this without publisher. Makes life a bit harder on the financial side, but we're managing rather well actually. Manging that took the stress away so now we have the time to really make Divinity shine, which is what we are trying to achieve. Still, we would like to finish it this year (I get a deja vu feeling here), and it does look like we're on track (the mpeg is maybe 5% of what we have, but we're not throwing everything to you at once, otherwise you'll say the forum gets boring again ;-))

an October release: Well, I'm quite confident about that deadline. As for world design, you'd be amazed how fast it goes. You see Corwin, you saw maybe 5% of the world, while the artists/designing teams are much farther. But you'll see.

The biggest problem is usually the coding part, and we've pretty much covered most of it by now. We still have some hard months to go, but it's getting there. October seems realistic, but then again, it might be November. I don't let it come to my heart. As they say, it's ready when it's ready.

dates: Coding started somewhere in the beginning of 1999, whereas artwork and all the rest started in august 1999. Considering that, we're actually moving really fast. I mean, if you think of it, we're always buggering the artists about catching up, but actually, they're doing an amazing job.

taking the time needed, as Blizzard appears to be doing with Diablo II: We are ;-) But I think I'm right in saying that for Blizzard the creation of Diablo II has been a nightmare. (At least the last year). Remember how many people left that team. If anything, that's the main reason for the delays.


Divinity, The Sword of Lies is from Belgium developer Larian Studios which was formerly associated with The Lady, The Mage & The Knight before moving on to its own project.