Please forgive the length of this. Like many posters I loved DD and have felt rather let down by BD. This is an attempt to first put it into perspective and then make an attempt at positive suggestions. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Hi all,
Like many others who've bought BD I've been somewhat disappointed with the game. Few, if any, of the changes from DD seem to be improvements. Frankly, compared to the feast that was DD this tastes like warmed up left overs. But perhaps, this is exactly what it is - a chance to try out some of the ideas that were rejected for DD? Larian have stressed that BD is not to be seen as DD2. I just hope that they are prepared to ditch some of the experiments that don't seem to have worked.
OK, it's easy to be critical, but I would certainly agree with many of the complaints I've seen here. The main voice-over for the game is a terrible mismatch; the skill system feels clumsy and unfriendly; the battlefields seem nothing more than an excuse to pad the game out with dreary repetitive auto-generated dross; the bug situation is embarrassing, and there are some seriously dull sections in the game. But how could it be improved?
It seems to me that the biggest fault with BD is the way it begins. Act 1 is a flop in many regards and it simply gets the game off on the wrong foot. It's common practice when writing books, plays, or indeed any other piece of writing to re-write the all-important beginning in the later stages of production. Indeed, the beginning is often the last thing that's written. Most work starts with a sort of 'place holder' beginning which is later replaced with something that has the right degree of pizazz and quality to set the mood and grab the interest.
BD feels like the re-write never happened. The opening dungeon scene has hackneyed and uninteresting artwork ("Oh gosh - yet another bloody dungeon with lots of overdone red lighting! Wow! Not."). The opening 'find and solve' stuff seems flat and unengaging. And the first time the Death Knight speaks is extraordinarily jarring and inappropriate. Perhaps the folks at Larian (not having English as a first language) didn't realise just how bad that first speech sounds? I read here that the demo had an even worse voice, but you can't praise someone for taking away a plate of bad fish if they only replace it with a rotten egg! The chance to set up a mood of anticipation, intrigue or excitement at the start of BD was blown on all fronts.
Unfortunately, an unimpressive start is then followed up with a pretty poor series of dull dungeons, ridiculous lever 'puzzles', and flat uninspiring quests and story elements. It can't seem to make its mind up whether it wants to be scary, funny, intriguing or suspenseful and so ends up being none of them.
So I escaped to the battlefields for a bit of light relief, and find..... miles of tedious repetitive boredom and .... Bugs, bugs and more bugs. (Deleted - LONG paragraph detailing numerous bugs) Ugh.... Woeful stuff.....
Fortunately, the whole game lifts tremendously in Act 2 - to the degree that it feels as if it was done by a completely different team (was it?). At last, there's some open play, engaging quests and characters, and even the Death Knight has settled into a sort of grumpy bad joke and the grating tone of his early efforts has worn off somewhat.
Please Larian, for future games:
Do try and give us original and interesting beginnings (the whole of BD Act 1 could be wiped with no real loss), please give us back the DD skills system, and please get rid of those dull generic battlefields (or at least give them a major rethink).
Obviously, please no more repeats of the poor work with the bugs, or the bad lead character stuff up. The whole good guy/evil guy thing wasn't very well done from the scripting or the acting point of view. Neither the writer or the actor seemed to be able to make their mind up just what sort of tone they were trying to set with the Death Knight.
And please give us more of the variety and beauty of all the different DD location settings and less dreary dungeons and burnt out wasteland type scenery.
Above all, could we please have games that give us more of what made DD1 so delightful.
BD has the unfortunate feel of a 'business plan' filler rather than a mainstream effort. In other words it feels like something that was cobbled together to keep the cash flow going while the work continued on the main effort - Divine Divinity 2. Judged that way, I guess it's not too bad - certainly I've felt more ripped off by other games that promised more and delivered less.
But, please Larian, stick with your winning formula of Divine Divinity for DD2.
Apologies if some of these comments sound arrogant but, at 57, I feel that I've have had a fair bit of experience in judging what works and what doesn't. I've been playing computer games for over 20 years, and have also written professionally for live theatre. So I do sympathise with the difficulties involved in getting all the elements to work well together. And I do wish Larian well, and sincerely hope that they can learn from what didn't work well in BD. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
