Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis Stunned...

First i want to say thank you to the german members for this very good news.


@ Kitiara

Don't be sorry for posting the news in the german forum, it was the good thing to do.
Alrik had the good idea to inform the english speaking people, he just forgot to translate your message.
Thanks to Ragon for the translation.



@ Ragon

You should know for a long time that communication is the worse ability of the Larian company.
I am not disappointed, i don't care.
I just hope Divinity 2 will be a great game.

Barta

Kitiara - I gotta say, your English looks pretty good to me

Es ist besser als mein Deutsch.

Although, to be fair, mein Deutsch ist sehr schlect. Es sollten besser wird, hinter drei Jahre Deutsch-Klasse.

Although, to be fair, I've barely passed every year.

And upon reading that, I am temped to destroy my forum account. Isn't being bad at a language fun you guys?

First the incident with the Belgian video - and now this!

With the news clip, Larian did not know it was going to air the same day, nor did they know a story about tax breaks would include so much game footage.

In this case, assuming they knew which issue the preview was in and when it would be available, they may have considered it rude to scoop the magazine that would be providing some publicity for the game. Whatever the reason they didn't at least post a cryptic message asking how many German speaking forum members were familiar with PC Games, we'll probably have to wait until monday to get an official response.

It's better than my English was when I started posting here. You don't need better English, you need better confidence, and the best way to get that confidence is starting to post in the English section. We don't bite.

Übereil

What harm would come from saying "Hey, guys! There will be a preview in this and that magazines next week!" ?

We would buy the magazines and that would be a good thing... it's not the preview or the info we want but just being told that there will be something new. And I think that's not very difficult to communicate. Nor is it harmful for the magazines.

Ok, ok, thanks a lot for your encouragement about my English. I try to use it now - heaven thanks for LEO . I love Enlish books and I understand a lot but to speake or to write in English...uiuiui.

Yes, you're right.
First, before I wrote the news about 2 I searched the forum about news from the Larians, but nothing. I was a little bit "stunned", because the artikle includes 1. the very new subtitle "Ego Draconis" and 2. you learn something about the main story.
It all worth a pretty news, anyway.

Kitiara

I'm still not quite sure if this marketing "strategy" will work for Larian or not, but I'm disappointed aswell that even this official forum isn't informed about the 2 news.

btw in former times there was plenty of action here in the forums, discussions with the developers about several game features and much more, I'm really missing this aswell...

Well, rather the opposite - because i´m around here for so long already, i know that they can do better
... a lot!
And because of your conclusion it is exactly them who should finally start caring a little bit.
For that reaction - indifference of potential customers towards "Divinity 2" - is certainly the opposite what they should be after.




Well, in a way i still have some understanding for the lack of information flow.
They´re thrown back onto themselves for financing the whole thing, hence no forseeable time table on hwo long the development will take - so you could fall for a philosophy of better staying mum completely until you have something to show or a perspective on a release.

But that´s not the point here.
Now that there seem to be facts, as the German previews seem to suggest, they should come out of the closet at this place first.


Still there´s something questionable about their radical turn in public communication:
They have been like a spearhead with that in the industry back in the times of their debut w/ - and they gave it away.

And it might turn back on them now, because time has not stood still since then.

Quite the opposite:
The others have, if not taken a direct example perhaps, but in any case they have improved their PR with fans significantly.
It is now the likes of Piranha Bytes (devs of Gothic if i have to mention this again) & more who `lead the pack´.
Just look at their
The Art of Piranha Bytes: Der Löcher-In-Den-Bauch-Fragen-Thread /
[English] The "Bug-Me" Thread #5: Your Questions Answered by Piranha Bytes
-Threads.

And still they are not in the situation to have reveal anything which might get them in trouble in terms of broken promises or disappointments on the fans´ part.
They´ve made a deal with the community that they only can talk about things that are already fixed and not go into much detail.
Therefore they spread untold lore and artworks about their previous titles, tell funny little anecdotes and give insight in the general aspects of their work.
Oh yes, and then there are those tutorials about it - modeling, texturing and even lately story/quest design.

That´s how you build and maintain a true following these days.
Maybe not to that extent (the Piranhas are well aware that they have to compensate quite some for their, image-wise, `disaster´ of Gothic 3 which cost them their `genetic´ IP and now are forced to build up a new one).
But doing nothing at all - that brings upon a once solid fan base breaking away.

"Stagnancy is death."





One open word on that?:
You should get the offical announcement of a new game from the developer/publisher - not through the preview of some magazine.

And yes, that barren form in the way you put it, would have kept people happy enought, i´m sure.



@Kitiara:
Btw. - does it say anything about a publisher in that article?
IIRC the Larian have been all on their own with their new baby so far and no announcement about a publisher up to now.
(ok, given what we´re discussing here, that probably shouldn´t mean anything at all, they might already have signed with one looong ago... )

By the time of an announcement from German publisher dtp about signing a Belgian studio there had been speculations that they were the publisher.
But no further leads, let alone a confirmation since then.


Cheers,
Ragon

@Ragon
Oh yes, you're right. They mentioned DTP as the Publisher.

Kitiara

"I knew it!
In knew i knew it!"



Ragon

P.S.: Just running the "The Crow" OST in my DVD!

At least the old guard is still here.

I am also a forum member who supports the larian games since a very long time.
I am not surprised by this lack of communication.
I remember the time when i used to translate in french all the interwiews of Swen Vincke about a new game called "Riftrunner".
One day, the divinity fans community was stunned learning that the name of the new game was not "Riftrunner" anymore but "Beyond Divinity".
Exactely the same story than today.
A few weeks later, everything was forgotten.

"... A day may come when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of
fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of woes and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down!
But it is not this day! This day we fight!..."



Ragon

"There is no good, no evil -- only decisions and consequences."

Dhurin from RPGWatch made an interesting remark on the way communicartion seems to work nowadays:

Hi Alrik and hi all *wink*!
Good to see the common names again...

Lar himself dropped in at the German section's RPG chat forum today with this encouraging news:

"... About the the information flow:

First and foremost, my apologies. For a variety of reasons we couldn't talk about our game yet, though I can assure you we wanted to. Considering how long we've been working on it, I guess you can imagine that was very frustrating. There's still a lot of stuff we can't talk about yet, but at least we can start communicating about it, which for me personally, is a big relief."

"We've still got some time before the game will be released, but I think you'll find that from now on we'll be a lot more active in these forums."

Sounding promising.