Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Swen's blog: Original Sin and what comes next

For the full blog post go here:

http://www.lar.net/2014/09/12/thoughts-after-releasing-divinityoriginal-sin-and-what-comes-next/

Tears, this is exactly the right choices...

Our plan is to continue supporting D: OS for quite some time as this is the RPG framework on which we値l build our next games. We池e fooling around with controller support to see if a big screen version with cooperative play would work well, something I知 silently hoping for as I think it値l be a lot of fun, more so perhaps than playing coop in LAN with a friend sitting next to you. We池e also improving the engine itself as well as adding a bunch of extra features that not only make D: OS more fun and more friendly to players, but that will also improve whatever our next offering will be. We池e also adding extra content, like for instance the big companion patch, voiced et al, and I imagine that won稚 be the last of what we値l add.

Wish he brought up modding. I guess "We豎 e also improving the engine itself as well as adding a bunch of extra features that not only make D: OS more fun and more friendly to players, but that will also improve whatever our next offering will be" is supposed to account for modders. I assume he means, "improving the editor" because that is imperative if D:OS is to have a good modding community. Outsourcing content creation to dedicated modders is the single best way to ensure game longevity, and Swev hardly seemed to touch on that at all.

Otherwise, great post that's inspiring and explanatory alike.

I'm perpetually disappointed about modding.

It's been one long road downhill ... Quake/Unreal/NWN showed everyone how it should be done and apart from the occasional developer who gets it right most get it wrong, unfortunately including the people who really should be getting it right. After the NWN2 cluster**** how could a bloody developer doing a community funded game use Radtools again? It ****ing boggles the mind. The abstraction is all over the place too, so much stuff which should be scripted is hard coded.

A true moddable game this game will NEVER be, not any game they build on this engine either ... fail ...

I think the way you did kickstarter was perfect. You already had a product that was 80% or more completed. All you wanted to do was raise more money for the polish.

Yes, I'm currently unhappy with the existing patches, but I am still looking forward to this next big patch and starting over. I'm sure the next time you do kickstarter, things will fit in a lot better. I'm also glad your going to stick to this game engine, it works quite well. Has that nice modern retro feeling to it.

Most importantly, I can easily smash furniture when I get into fights in houses and stores. I've spent a few hours making excessive messes out of the market in Cyseal for no reason other then to make a mess.

Great interview, very good news. I was hoping for higher sale numbers, but I guess this game is still a niche game.

My only suggestion is to use Kickstarter again for your next project, even if at the end of the cycle. I respect your reasons for not wanting to do so, but having a vocal and invested community before you actually release the game is quite important. Do you remember when the user metacritic was at 9.2 / 9.3? That was your community making this game very visible for everyone else.

Thanks for the great game, it has been a long time I loved a game like I love DOS.

I tend to agree with you. Heck, if there was a another kickstarter I would clearly be pledging to one of higher tiers again. But I understand Swen's arguments and respect that.

Concerning the user metacritic I think you can get a lot of it via the Steam Early Access and doing a proper campaign around that as well.

When I think back to the Shroud of the Avatar (Richard Garriot's game) I think that was a cash grab. He had lots of money already and claimed that they needed Kickstarter for the community connection. I personally think that is bull. What take money from people just get connected with them? Giving out, say, free beta keys I think it is better.

We池e fooling around with controller support to see if a big screen version with cooperative play would work well, something I知 silently hoping for as I think it値l be a lot of fun, more so perhaps than playing coop in LAN with a friend sitting next to you. -- Swen

Sploosh...only with semen -- Ray from Archer

Screw kickstarter and steam, I'd rather just pre-order through their own site ... I understand using them any way for publicity, but I prefer cutting out the middlemen (kickstarter especially, I REALLY don't want to give those people money).