2) When I said that Divinity 2 is showing all the symptoms of a game released mainly for the german market, I didn't mean only Drakensang. I also meant Gothic, I also meant Loki.... I meant all the games of somewhat mediocre quality who become very popular in Germany but never gain big success overseas. No magazine outisde of Germany is speaking much about Divinity 2, which in my opinion is already a big sign that the game is as mediocre as the titles I have mentioned above. Seeing that the game is being delayed, and that no one really cares to speak about it apart german people, is making it all too obvious that Divinity 2 isn't as good a game as I hoped.
Asuming the quality of a game, on the market it is first released, is a downright stupendous thing to do. Games get released to select markets first all the time, first USA, or Japan, Europe... Same goes for moviesn Tv-Series, Music albums, books etc... Saying all those pieces of entertainment are mediocre is an outright lie or misinformed claim. There are many reasons this happens,
Distribution: as Larian works with different distributers arround the world, different Publishers... all these elements that get a game into the shelves near you don't just sit and wait on a game till they are bored of it to release it, they all have other products with their own shedules to be considered.
Localization: Just translating text is only a part of localizing games, and that alone is big load of work if you don't want to dissapoint your buyers with crappy translations. Again Larian isn't the only element in this localization thing, games need to get rated, approved by consumer boards etc... this is slightly to totally different in each region, only the really big developers and publishers have the contacts and resources to pull this off to get a game released simultatiously all over the world.
Getting a feel: might sound a bit dirty but it isn't, it is not a lazy trait to use a part of the targetted market to test your product on. Once your confident there aren't any major defects or blunders in it. Bugtesting costs money, people need to get payed, and you'll never get it done as fast as thousands of customers could. When games get released to new markets after it hit another one first. It's nearly always an improved version of it.
3) Time ago, I was assured by some staff member that Divinity 2 would get released before DA: O. It seems it wasn't true at all. I personally believe that the only chance that Divinity 2 had to sell a decent amount of copies, was to hit international release before the much bigger titles that will start being put on sale starting from this very month. But now, I predict Divinity 2 will sell very little copies.
If you still trust the word of developers on release dates... as I stated before, this isn't something developers fully control, even they can only estimate. And why is it a concern of yours how much the title sells? Divine Divinty wasn't the bestseller either, but it gave a small studio like Larian the resources to keep existing and even spend years on developing a sequel. Worse, with even the small number of sales it had (comperatively to bigger titles of much bigger studios) it still got many awards, more so than those better selling titles. Quantity != Quality.
Lar might have stated to the press a lot depends on this game, wether it sells good or not. But don't you go thinking they aren't realistic. They're not expecting to outsell say... Fallout 3, or Bioshock, or Diablo III. It's a game marketted towards RPG fans, who like story and depth, the resource put into it, and the expactions of the team behind it are within the limits of the targetted market. If they just wanted to sell a lot of games, more resource would have gone in hyping and advertising than in making a good game.
Wether or not D2 will sell enough, if it's good enough or not. Can't be predicted on a thing than what market it is first released to. I hope the best for D2, but am by no means a fanboy. If it ends up to be a horrid game after all, or mediocre I might not even play it. But I won't sit back while you or anyone else makes rediculous assumptions like you just did.
Rant over.
