Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis Just played it... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, LARIAN?

My friend got the German Version and applied the English fix.... so we've both had a chance to play (some) of it..... it's been uninstalled, with the intention of never installing it again.

Divine Divinity was one of the best RPG's I've ever played... the sheer amount of interaction was up there with any great RPG, and I'm thinking of the Infinity Engine games, which is very high praise indeed.. the setting and humour were FUN... and the music was sublime. Beyond was a bit of a let down in design terms.. but it was obviously an extension of the same game...... Now we come to D2.. WTF???

If you remove the names Aleroth and Rivellion this game has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the Divinity franchise.. it could have been called anything..... What I don't understand is the thought processes behind the person who said "Oh yeah.. those who like the first games are gonna love playing as a Dragon in a world populated only by humans"... sorry, WHAT now?

Gone is most of the overlying humour, in favour of 'supposedly' humourous asides.. which when playing just feels like tacked on attempts at humour... the questing seemed no where near as indepth or interesting.. music is generic but 'ok'.. (and just being 'ok' is kinda sad, considering the original game's soundtrack is still on my playlist)... and combat is PITIFUL!!!!!!!!!!

It all looks pretty enough.... but if I was the type of player who demanded 'pretty', then I probably wouldn't have been such an avid player of the original... so WHO exactly is this game aimed at.. certainly not the fans of the previous games.

Had the game bore an even PASSING RESEMBLANCE to the original franchise I would have bought it hand's down the first day the UK version was released.. but why the heck would I want this?... It's simply not 'Divinity' at all.

Larian... you have traded upon your fans' fervour for the original game to draw them to a completely unrelated product, all the while designing a game suited to the lowest common denominator in gaming hoping to maximise sales to people quite happy to play other genres. YOU FAIL.

Needless to say I have no intention of buying ANY further products from you unless a demo has been released...and this is sad.. because I had considered you a trust worthy developer of the type of games I enjoy.

"Larian... you have traded upon your fans' fervour"


With all due respect, you and your friend alone dont represent all of the fan base, so please dont say that "the fans think x,y,z".


Larian clearly tried the game to be more accessible and atractive to a larger crowd than the few thousand copies they managed to sell with D1 that you say was much better. Be it for financial reasons or just a change in pace, they did it in a way that A LOT of old fans still think the game is fun (just check this forums for a while for opinions), so in a way it was a success on that part.


You are entitled ofc not to like the new direction, but please dont bash on a company that had to make design decisions based on a market that evolved for almoust a decade. The same rules of market in D1 doesnt necessarily apply for D2, and i dont think they could live with another D1 rate of sales in 2009...

Actually.. I think it's pretty fair to judge a company on their past design.... especially when they have veared from the path so heavily, all the while trying to sell a completely unrelated product as an extension of the same franchise.

.. and no, you are correct.. myself and friend DO NOT count as the entire fan base.... but we are certainly not alone, the same things are being said by others mostly fans of the original, and you can CERTAINLY consider us collectively as being part of the fan base..

Face it.. it's not a 'Divinity' game.. the name has been traded upon to rope in fans of that franchise, NOT because it has any relation to the game.

Which is a great pity... and a bit of a con.

I have enjoyed (and still enjoying) Divinity 2 just as much as Divine. Sure, they're different, but believe me, if Divinity 2 had a similar gameplay to Divine I wouldn't have liked it. Such gameplay should only be pesent in 2D games. This is why I also think that NWN is crap. Oldschool stuff should be present in old games only. I always pick up new RPG titles hoping that I will relax without having to lose myself in stats, descriptions, quests etc. Those should stay in old RPG games.
It's my opinion though.

Yep.. I'll agree that it's not feasible to go the 2d route again, though I personally don't have a problem with 2D, but it just wouldn't have been economically justifiable.. but it's not just that it's changed perspective... the whole game seems 'lacking' when compared to it's namesake, less humour, less quest detail, less interaction, the music isn't as good, the world is far more generic and doesn't have the same flavour.. and all of the political background has been erradicated because we no longer get race interaction.. I mean come on.. as for combat.. well that's just plain shoddy.

'Divinity' has just become yet another generic, shallow, so-called 'RPG'... and that's worthy of a few tears from any RPG player.

Patrunjelu;
Stats, descriptions and quests are at the heart of RPGs.


Wibble;
The change in the control system was to accommodate human and dragon movement / combat in as similar a manner as possible. While I'm sure Larian would like to reach a broader audience than DD, I doubt any of the design decisions were motivated by the desire to dumb it down to the lowest common denominator.

I don't think you have played enough to be able to claim D2:ED is completely unrelated to DD, though you are certainly entitled to your opinion. The plot of DD, novella, BD, D2:ED backstory and game are all connected. I can not comment on the design or feel of D2:ED, but there was also some similar negative reaction to BD, much of it IMO simply due to people adverse to change, and not giving BD a chance (personally there were a lot of aspects I preferred in DD and some things were better in BD).

Going human only for NPCs does seem strange, though. Perhaps there will be addons to open up new (or old) locations, where there are elves and dwarves, etc.

The D2:ED quest system has a lot more depth than DD, though I have not played it yet, so can not comment on whether it starts off interesting or not.
I like the 2 soundtracks listed on the D2:ED website, at least (I also still listen to the DD music, which I burned to 2 CDs, and have the BD soundtrack CD from the fanpack).


Welcome to the forum.

Yes, I agree. But I want them to never cross the length limit of mine. Dialogues such as those that we can find in Planescape Torment are WAY too long for me. (just an example)

I can't argue about the reason for the control scheme... but what I will say is, why change it to something that is suitable (meaning intuitive and fun) for neither mode?

As for not having played enough to form a proper opinion, why would I have to slog through unappealing gameplay just to see if it gets better?... I haven't had to so far an any game that I've enjoyed, and if it IS the case that it gets better (and from my point of view it would have to get A LOT better) later on.. then maybe that is again Larian's fault for making such a pitiful and unconnected beginning to the game.. do Larian really expect us to persevere with such unappealing gameplay just to see if it gets any better.. speaking for myself, I have no desire at all to play something that I don't enjoy, and I certainly will neither complete it, nor give them the benefit of the doubt just on the off chance..

The lack of competing races also completely removes this game from the world of Rivellion..it's just too fundamental a change in the environment for it not to, and illustrates perfectly that this isn't really Rivellion at all.

Finally, again from my point of view, I thoroughly disagree with your opinion on the quality and flavour of the questing, maybe the poor representation of Rivellion, god-awful combat and the multitude of other baffling changes is just too much for me to get over to objectively consider the quests.... but I'd be surprised as I'm not usually that shallow.

This games just seems to have fallen in to the trap that most 3D 'RPG's' fall into these days.... looks over substance.. and that CAN CERTAINLY be laid squarely at the feet of the need to appeal to the console gamer.. who's expectations and needs for a game are fundamentally different from pc gamers.

..and thx for the welcome ... it's just a pity that my appearance on the board isn't more of a happy event.

Which is possibly more of a problem with your gaming needs rather than everyone elses?

Your problem with Divinity 2 is related to your gaming needs as well.

Not really... my problem with the game is that has no relation to the franchise it's being sold to me as, in story, environment or gameplay....

TBH had this game been HONESTLY classified, and given a name suitable to ITSELF, I would be more inclined to accept it as a new experience (still not one that I would want.. but I wouldn't be SO unhappy about it)... but I REALLY hate being led up the garden path when it comes to company hype and their need to mislead a market.

My uncle had a saying, which is very apt under these circumstances, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining"...

Sorry, my friend. Devs cannot always please everyone. One man's poison is another man's cure. I know the more I see of it in detail, the more excited I am.

I quite agree.. I just find it rather unfortunate that the Devs haven't appealled more to the the fans and previous loyal customers of their other ventures... rather than make a completely unrelated game to appeal to an ENTIRELY different audience and expect their previous players just to fall into line line and accept a demonstrably inferior playing experience.

This depends on who their fans actually are.

There are several factions among the fans :

- those who love the Ultima-related kind of gameplay in Divinity 1

- those who just love the hacking & slashing of Divinity 1

- those who love the free-roam possibility in Divinity 1

- those who love the environment of Divinity 1

This as the core.

Cheers, Alrik

you've just demonstrated my angst with this game quite admirably... because there isn't ONE feature you have mentioned that is even CLOSE to being fundimental in the gameplay of D2...

...so I guess 'most' fans have been sidelined

This is the result of the impact of Blizzards Hack & Slay games on the RPG genre, I think: More and more reduction of text ... Interaction reduced to very few options ... Gameplay totally reduced towards combat alone ...

People are even no more willing to read handbooks.

And repeatedly ask questions which could easily be solved by reading the handbooks.

These are dark times for some parts of the gaming audience.

(Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but the tendency is clear, I hope.)

Then play Starsiege. Or Dungeon Siege.

Which *I* would *hardly* call role-playing games.


@wibble: I'm not deep/far enough into the game, so I can't really say.

Or even the quest dialog/journal. :<

I totally agree with your post, real RPG'ing has been horribly mutilated over the years, and is now something only suitable for the A.D.D crowd.

I mourne the current definition of 'RPG', This one DEFINITIVELY included.

One problem might arise from the problem of the huge development costs.

Games *must sell* zu get the huge development costs back. This is a necessity !

But - this also demands for optimizing for a greater number of customers. Which means that games are partly changed towards those kinds of players who constitute the majority of all buyers.

My personal fear is, that this leads to some kind of monoculture in terms of gaming. Which is what I think I see on the PC platform right now.

Again, yeah.. I agree... I don't like it.. but I agree.

It's a shame that companies haven't realised that there is still a sizable market for HONEST RPG's and that the loss of a portion of the marketshare would be more than made up for by the reduction in production costs of a game that focused more on substance than shinies (which is where most of the horrible middleware licencing and development costs are spent.).

As for the homogonistic nature of todays gaming, blame 'Games for Windows' and the current insistance of turning the pc control scheme in to a console one, with all of the weaknesses and flaw inherent to the situation..... I mean GOOD GRIEF.. even RISEN has acomplishments, WTF???!!!?? :<