Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) General Divine Divinity new version coming up

Smicallion;
I do understand your frustration, and I see your point.

Without knowing how much work had to be done to support higher resolutions, it could be argued either way whether the result was more of a patch or remastered version (with the change list certainly looking more like that of a patch). However, people that have been following the forum for years are less likely to assume that Larian has suddenly become a bunch of greedy bastards. Without some evidence or pattern of behaviour to the contrary, we would be more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it is legitimately a remastered version, or that they have some valid reason not to release a patch. Or at least more likely to figure US$5 or 6 is not that big a deal for an updated version, even if (in someone's opinion) it should have been a patch.



Flixerflax;
Making a patch wouldn't require massive resources, but given the fact that there was one person working on the remastered version, the additional resources it would take may not be considered worth it. I would guess the reason for not releasing a patch was less likely technical (or financial), though, than political or other.

Well, I really have nothing else to add here. All the excuses and assumptions can be made on behalf of Larian, fact of the matter is old customers aren't being supported apparently.

To me this seems more like a case of them forcing people into investing more money into an old game just for a simple update everyone should be getting that owns the game.

Creating a patch for all language versions and all different released versions is actually a lot more work than you would think. Most work would go into finding the differences between the new version and all the versions out there, then creating the patch executables (one for every language), and then lots of testing.

So if we do this for English, we'll have to do it for German and French too, and there's lots more than just those three languages who would come here and ask for their fix too.

At the moment, we don't have time or resources to put into that.

Putting together a GOG version as one big download is much easier than updating existing versions on people's machines. GOG is one big setup, not a patch. And GOG is English only. Creating a GOG version was actually less work than it would be creating patches out of it for all versions out there.

We are not forcing people who already have the game into buying this. That was entirely not the idea of releasing on GOG. We have Div 2 out, or it will be out in the near future for US. That might make some people want to play Div 1. Plus, Div has been a pain to get hold of for the last couple of years, so we wanted to reach people who didn't or couldn't pick it up the first time.

Let me repeat the my question (which I think was lost in the above debate; is the version on GOG the 'remastered' version with improved/updated graphics ?

Graphics are not updated or improved or changed or touched Only code has changed. You can play it at higher resolutions now. List of updates:

General:
- Feature: Allow more resolutions
- Feature: Recreated config tool
- Fixed: numerous crashes and freezes
- Fixed: encumbrance could make items disappear
- Feature: Tooltips of damage stats on stat screen improved

Skills
- Fixed: Spellbooks no longer ignore level requirements
- Fixed: All weapon expertise skills give percentile bonuses instead of static bonuses
- Fixed: True Sight damage is now actually used
- Fixed: Bow and crossbow expertise bonuses are now actually used
- Fixed: Divine Eye removes the fog of war
- Fixed: Deadly Gift's Scorpion Trap is less powerful
- Fixed: Resurrected enemies die after region swap

Well if it isn't possible due to resources, then I digress. What I had been saying is only how the situation appeared to me. I thought Larian had grown by now, especially with the release of Divinity 2 being multi-platform and all.

As for the availability of Divinity 1, there are actually two different versions you can buy off Amazon new. One is jewel case only and other boxed. Both of them are under $15 too.

shouldn't the fix list read "True Shot damage" in lieu of True Sight?

Divinity is a 7 (?) year old game that wasnt touched for a longgggg time. Do you realy think a company will give support for a product for 7+ years? Not even the giant Microsoft gives support for older windows versions (windows XP will follow soon).

D1 is the same. They decided to release an updated version for people who are curious about a previous work the company did, and they did it at a very low price, its not that the original product ceased to work completely, they just wanted to re-release it again in a diferent channel.

You honestly cannot ask for a company to give support for a product forever. Look at antivirus that have 1-2 years payed updates for example.

What you are saying makes no sense. You are saying "listen, i bought a 7 year old stuff and i want it upgraded now for free because i'm entitled forever for updates ". Yes, you payed for the product at that time, and it worked.

Dont wanna be pushy in my speach here, but i'm quite baffled as to why people are arguing about € 10,00 on a game that is 7 years old and its not even obligatory to have in order to play, its not like your product "broke" or something and you want to activate the garentee...

Plenty of devs still support older games, read my previous examples. Better yet, here:

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=15443288961



I made perfect sense. Patches and game updates should always be free, and this remastered edition is basically a patched version. Expansion packs and DLC are what should have price tags. Anyway, why drag it up again? One of the Larian people posted since then explaining lack of resources and I figured this was over. Move along and don't drag things back up please.

No, Raze already answered your question. Every downloadable version of Divinity is the remastered version.

So this is not the remastered version ?

Yes. It is. How many times are you going to keep asking that? There is no "improved/updated graphics" unless you count playing at higher resolutions. If you can download it (from GOG, Impulse, etc.) it is the new 1.4 remastered version.

Since the game is available on download already.
it's a bit pointless to mention, But here it comes

There was a problem with the "sword of stone". if you take it out of the grave, and leave.
the ghost would kill al the major NPC in that entire area.
And you miss some important quests!

Also i remember that the camp of like 30 soldiers got possessed by that evil Imp wizard
And you could kill them all of for the experience, or leave the camp.
but if you kill the imp later on, that spell is still on the soldiers!

Herm, from what I remember, you never kill that imp... he just changes his mind about the Black Ring.

You got a warning not to take the sword from the stone if you walked/ran away, but not if you teleported. No essential NPCs would get killed.

I'm pretty sure the mind control spell was broken after you completed the imp council member quest.

Why are you so much hanging on to "improved graphics" ? Do you think you can't live without great graphics in games ?

I purchased the game when it first came out and the one thing that annoyed me were the graphics. I often found that I missed hidden things due to the graphics. Having played bg 2, ice wind dale and other games of similar rendering; this was not an issue. Sure it would be nice if they were improved but functionally they did not interfere with play as it does for DD. I had sort of hoped that when the game was 'remastered' there would be an improvement in this area and was a bit confused by the gog release as to whether it was the full remastered version or a stop-gap addressing other issues.
--
Note that bg 2 (unlike bg) had a key to high-light objects (bg I had a problem similar to DD). ice wind dale the graphics were improve somewhat and this was not an issue (I don't remember if it had a similar key because I didn't need to use it in that game).
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Please don't equate 'improve graphics' with modern 10 zillion polygons graphics as your post insultingly implies.

I never had a problem missing things due to the graphics.
Switch the darkness setting in the graphics options to 50 to increase the size of the light radius around your character, and bump the gamma up a bit to lighten the screen in dark areas (though you don't want it too bright above ground).

You can hit the Alt key in DD to highlight doors and loot, etc, though this will also set the inventory/stats of nearby chests/NPCs/equipment.

My thoughts exactly. I really, really wish for these 2 things, as I already own the boxed game.

I'm sorry I have to remark out loud that your post was a very stupid thing to say to people. How the heck can you judge people based on some money criteria? The game is not meant to be sold only in the European Union and so if somebody from a country with a very disadvantaging currency parity made a huge effort to buy the game, then it would be another huge effort to buy it again. You really needed to have this explained to you like little children?

I'm generally lazy and therefore I will just fully acknowledge Smicallion's thoughts on this matter, after I have read through this thread from beginning to end. Developers fixing their own software should obviously release the fixes for free. I also love DD but I'm more realistic about it and thinking about this matter ethically (no matter the amount it's gonna cost, the fact is, it costs us *something* for their own mistakes).