Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - Flames of Vengeance D2:ED + FoV vs DKS?

Perhaps somebody else has asked the same question, but I browsed the forum and couldn't find the answer...

I was wondering, what is the difference of D2:ED + FoV compared to The Dragonknight Saga? (pc version)

I thought I read something about respawn, but I guess that was about the xbox version.

Hopefully someone knows... cos this is bothering me for some time now

Thanks in advance

Flames of Vengeance retroactively applies many changes which are introduced in DKS also to Ego Draconis. Most engine changes for instance are immediately present in Ego Draconis. To maintain compatibility with existing savegames however, there are a number of things which aren't changed when you install FOV. These are:

Enemy placement and balancing (massive overhaul)
Loot and set-items (complete overhaul)
Story and scripting changes (e.g. in DKS flying fortress gameplay is very different to ED)
Art changes in Ego Draconis (though you do get the advantage of better lighting & shading)

In general, if you played or finished Ego Draconis and don't want to start over again, get FOV.

If you don't mind starting over again, get DKS, in which the total gameplay experience is in my opinion much more stream-lined.

There's no big differences between the FOV content in DKS and the FOV content applied to ED.

Are D2:ED save compatible with or importable to DKS? Aside from possible issues with missed or reset loot/opponents, will you be able to load a save near the end of D2:ED to complete the FoV portion of DKS right away?

Will D2:ED DLC sets work in DKS?

Are the achievements for DKS separate, or the same as D2:ED plus any additional ones for FoV?

Thank you so much for your time to answer. You must be very busy and still you take the time to answer the question of a single customer.. I really appreciate this!!

The upgrades sound awesome, so I definitely want to buy TDKS. But I'm a bit disappointed that I have to buy the original game, in a different version ofcourse, twice... I'm just a poor student

Still, I'll buy it no doubt. Maybe when it is released, maybe when the price drops. I've never enjoyed a game more than this one, and the customer service is well... outstandig

I wish you and your team good fortune during the pressure of these times, just remember that your work is appreciated a lot

Thanks again

If I already have Ego Draconis already and want to install all new content/changes, is there an option to override this when running the Flames of Vengeance installer?



I don't mind starting over again, but am I understanding you correctly when you say that the expansion pack doesn't contain the following changes, only the "complete" or DKS edition?

• Enemy placement and balancing (massive overhaul)
• Loot and set-items (complete overhaul)
• Story and scripting changes (e.g. in DKS flying fortress gameplay is very different to ED)
• Art changes in Ego Draconis (though you do get the advantage of better lighting & shading)

I saw this on the FAQ:


Does D2:ED + patch + FoV = DKS?

I'd like to echo the comments by -Elena- and thank you for taking the time to answer your fans. It's always great to hear directly from the developers.

Please elaborate.

I'd like to know this as well... though I'd prefer to only have the art changes and not the "stream-lined" gameplay.

Ok, let's me try again - it's pretty clear when you play it but somehow I find it very hard to write it down:

The Dragon Knight Saga has been approached as if it were an entire new game from the point of view of the core item-fever & hack and slash parts of the gameplay as well as getting rid of those areas that we considered to be "boring" in Ego Draconis. We've upgraded the engine, upgrade the graphics, upgraded the audio, changed the levels, changed the balancing, modified several features and where possible applied those changes to both Ego Draconis and Flames Of Vengeance. Additionally, on the 360, we changed almost the entire interface, modified the levels and gameplay to increase performance, changed the camera system/controls, and made sure the 360 has its a different balancing than the PC version as both platforms play differently. If on PC it plays more "streamlined", on 360 it's almost as if it's a different (and better) game.

Since its a pretty big redesign of several parts of Ego Draconis, it's impossible to convert Ego Draconis in The Dragon Knight Saga with just a patch - for that there are too many changes - but those areas of the game that we can change, without affecting the existing savegames, we've tried to change through the upcoming patch. For instance, if you install FOV, you get a better-looking Ego Draconis, and also the engine improvements. A patch which would bring ED to DKS would consist of replacing almost every single file, and it's guarnateed that you wouldn't be able to play any of your previous saves.

So D2:ED + FoV (which includes patch) does not equal DKS, but it's as close as we can get it without destroying the save-games.

For people who don't buy FOV, we'll provide a D2:ED patch, but I need to add that it's up to the various publishers to release it.

The intended audience of DKS consists primarily of people who didn't buy D2:ED, but in the same breath I have to say that I think that all the changes done make the entire experience more fun and I wished we could've launched DKS as ED.

I hope you can still follow and this makes sense to you

Thank you for making this clear.

I think in this case I will buy the Dragon Knight Saga. Waiting another month for it is not really a biggie anyway.

I was hoping that installing FoV would do this, at least for the PC as having two install options could cover this.



Thank you for the clarification, but I have to admit that this is really disappointing. I pre-ordered the original game at full price and when I heard the expansion was coming out, I didn't feel like I would end up missing anything. Hearing that the only way to get the complete version (DKS) is to give away/sell/trade/ignore D2:ED and buy DKS just feels wrong. You're rewarding new buyers over those who bought the original and want to pickup the expansion.

I'm probably in the minority on that, and I may end up picking up DKS when its' on sale, but for now I'll just move on to other things.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my posts.

I wish you have told us about this decision sooner.

I can't help but feel little disappointed, since I already own Div ED and was expecting to have all the new features included within FoV, when I buy it.

I have no intention of getting the Dragon Knight Saga, so I guess I'll have to settle with ED + FoV.

I wish you, the Larian team, the best of luck and God's blessing!

Actually, I wouldn't mind if my savegames were destroyed, as long as ED&FoV would contain everything DKS has. I agree with deoren that if you've bought ED, and you want to have the complete version, ED is actually a waste.Ofcourse I enjoyed it this year, but buying DKS makes ED useless.

But I understand that you have to make choices, although I'd prefered a huge patch on FoV, or as a download, to make ED with FoV into DKS, even if the savegames would go lost.

So... first bioware, now Larian. Devs made theirs choice - consoles.
Guess, starting from 2012 it will be "console only gaming". Poor PC.

Somehow I knew that'd be your response. Some people are just very predictable.

Streamlining something isn't a bad thing. However, I agree that Mass Effect 2 was too streamlined for its own good. And Dragon Age probably wasn't streamlined enough for console SKU's.

I'm betting some people who bought D2:ED (Original) already are interested in DKS - b/c it contains additional ED Content and FOV. They probably want all the ED Remastered content AND the FOV Expansion. A lot of us gamers are completists, you know...

So, here's my next thought - why should I even buy the FOV Expansion? I'm betting DKS Edition probably will be ($50-60 USD), which probably won't be too much more than FOV Expansion alone (expansions usually retail for $30-40 USD). Basically - you guys are making DKS Edition the ONLY version of this thing worth getting.

I'll buy DKS sometime down the line, but it probably ain't gonna be anytime soon - since I already own ED. Likely, not until price-drops or sales occur, I'd bet...

Hi all,

I can understand the frustrations, and it wasn't the easiest decision to make, but then again, we didn't choose the easiest path for this either - Let me give you some more background and then offer a potential solution for those of you who want to play the DKS content and already own ED:

The obvious thing to do would've been to ship FOV, and then just bundle that with ED together with those patches that never got released. When we initially informed publishing partners that we actually wanted to do more than that, make some kind of Divinity 2.5 and actually invest quite a lot into it, they had a very hard time understanding why we'd even contemplate doing something like that. Nobody we talked to at the time wanted to fund it, and in general it was considered a strange thing to want to do. Our ratio however was pretty simple - got a wide range of ratings, going from very good to not enough - in most cases the not enough ones isolated specific issues which given the means we could fix, whereas the good ones didn't mind those issues and focussed on the good parts.

That left us with the feeling that the job was incomplete and often heard statement was "if only". So, we figured rather than saying "if only" we should just do it, and we spent the year between the original release of in Germany and now on upgrading/fixing/cutting/polishing as much as possible.

At some point we'd gone as far as we could without starting to change the content, and there were some parts in there which we really wanted to tackle - especially the entire hack & slash & item fever part as well as those flying fortresses which didn't materialize as originally envisioned. The biggest stumbling block was save-game compatibility where no realy good decision could be taken. Either we ditched it, either we didn't do the changes. We opted for doing the changes, and aim DKS at players who didn't buy ED, which would be in any case the same target audience as a bundle pack of ED and FOV.

Leaves us of course with all of you who already bought ED. FOV includes all engine optimizations and also upgrades the artwork and of course includes every fix that we've made ever since the last patch was released. It also modifies the gameplay as much as can be done by changing the engine and installing additional content, but what it can't do is replace content on which the existing savegames are dependent, which is something unique to DKS, because one of the features of FOV is that you can continue playing with your existing character from ED.

FOV really is for those who want to continue the story without having to restart from scratch. If we'd remove the feature that you can continue to play, then we could include the DKS content within FOV, but when we had to decide what to do, it was felt that that that would've been a big problem for a lot of people.

So, what we could do is the following - we can provide a FOVTODKS patch which will transform ED+FOV into DKS, though if you apply it, you will not be able to load any of your old savegames. If that's what you'd like to have, knowing that your ED savegames will not work anymore, we can try to figure something out to make that a reality. It's also going to be a pretty big patch because really a lot of assets change.

Thanks for the explanation.

@Lar_q:

You are still only talking PC version right?

What about the Xbox 360 version?

FoV-to-DKS patch sounds fair, for those who have already purchased DIV ED and plan to buy the expansion.

One of the features of role playing games is their re-playability, so for those diehard fans who love to role play the game several times (like myself), incompatibility with previous saves doesn't represent a major issue.

However, one man's opinion doesn't necessarily mean the "voice of the majority" ... so let the rest of the community speak for themselves.

All best to you Larin team

On 360, I'm afraid there's little we can do. An interesting read in this regard is: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-09-10-valve-xbox-game-patch-rules-a-train-wreck