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I'm curious as how you feel about Skyrim ( as the most recent Elder Scrolls Solo game ). Skyrim was a nice experience out of the box, but the modding community added so many, many, MANY things, ranging from graphical improvements to gameplay improvements, to pure additions and total conversions, that the core game feels ... Kinda weak, now.

I believe in modding communities, even if, sometimes, the devs make it feel like they entirely rely on the communities doing their work. Neverwinter was an exception, as it actually relied a lot on the modding community from the start. Starbound is starting to feel like they are waiting for people to make mods so that they can add them to the game.

Something I quickly wondered was why, in a land as cold as Skyrim, there was no "survival" aspect to the game. Cold, especially. Makes no sense to be able to sustain terrible temperatures and weather wearing only a bikini, does it ? The answer is quite logic : it's just plain annoying. Some will like the features, some will hate it. It's just best not to put it into the game and let someone else mod it, so that people that want the feature will get the mod and play with it.

So, I won't be mad at Larian as long as the adventure will be long enough to keep my buddy and me busy for several hours, fun enough to keep us entertained all along, challenging enough to keep us focused. I won't hold them a grudge for not being "deep" enough or anything. D:OS has been advertising the modding tools all along, meaning they also plan on players keeping the game alive and well. They will probably throw some new campaigns here and there themselves.

And, really, when they said they wanted to go back to the roots, I fully expect them to mean Baldur's gate and such games, not the pen and paper RPGs. BG was a good game but extremely limited in what you could do. D:OS already has more depth to the gameplay and story than NG, imho...

Your whole post makes a lot of sense.

I think Skyrim was really really nice. Especially the freedom and exploration of it. However, I modded it to add more randomness to gathering. I had a project to make a lot of randomized skills, but couldn't figure out some coding issues, so I gave up after only creating and releasing one mining skill. Again, I wih there was more true gameplay improvments than shiny armor and weapons released by the modding community.

Cold issue, boring. Yes. I am having the exact same issue with Rigale (my mount and blade mod), and the exaustion feature I added. Many players don't like it. However, I think early restrictions have a purpose of helping the player improve, not only because he is more powerfull and hits faster, but also, because he can overcome these restrictions, and increase the number and efficiency of his interactions with the world. But this requires a random respawnable world to be effective and interesting, which DoS is not. In rigale, once you are a master in wandering, that you leraned the proper terrain lore, have a few master scouts in your party, get to know the area either through habit and/or a proper map, you can cross the terrain much faster than in the Native game. But it does require some dedication, and it took some thought to come upon this system.

Modders will probably "change" DoS, and I might be one of them, if I can understand anything. This is a big frustration, I have been waiting for this damn editor (like many others) since the first kickstarter day. And seeing the bugs pile is really worrying, because I was really ready to invest a lot of my free time into modding DoS.
I don't feel compelled that much anymore. Because of some stupid system conception failures I already talked about. We will see.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=488929&gonew=1#UNREAD

You are in a finite world, get used to that kind of disagreement.

I proposed we could gather some wood from breaking barricades or chests / barrels.

"OMG NO this is stupid, DOS is a finite world, it is already hard to solve the bugs, having a dead barrel drop some wood is way to complex and would possibly be shattering the whole finite world Balance..."

You know what ? My ass.

"OMG, you want the fishing nets to be interactable, and possibly give some fish when you interact with them? ARE YOU CRAZY, THE GAME IS PERFECT AS IT IS, WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD WE DO THAT, WHILE YOU CAN KILL EVERY NPCs AND STILL FINISH THE QUEST...
Beside, probably wayyyyyy to complex to code.

You know, world interactions, imagination, stuff like that...

Irony abounds

"This is a classless system , but let's make a way of the ranger, way of the warrior" talent.

Great Idea, and beside, this is not confusing. No it's not, people start with classes. But they are not supposed to be. But they do. Shut up. The game is great. Beside, Mr Perfect gave the idea, so it's great.

honesty and own limits knowledge.

Who is "Mr Perfect"? And what exactly do you hope to accomplish with this thread? It's almost like you despise the Larian team personally for some reason.

Killing hens to get feathers ? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THERE ARE BARRELS AND CRATES FOR THIS !!!

Just trying to point that some little easy details can make some difference, as people obviously don't get it.
Unless these kind of things are overwhelming, but nobody on earth will ever get me to believe that. Unless the engine is really worse than anything. And I don't want to believe it from Larian.

OK, you've made some points, many of which I actually agree with. I just don't understand why you insist on insulting the developers and assuming such a ridiculously arrogant tone. It's a video game. Relax.

I see where you went wrong. You bought the game on Early access without asking questions first. If you had gotten in during the last hours of the Kickstarter campaign, that would be understandable, but you have no such excuse.

You found this forum easily enough, you could find the Steam forums for the game, and you could have asked questions BEFORE you bought the game on Early Access.

First question: Do I get a discount for buying in Early Access? Answer: No, the price will be the same on release, so there's no rush buying the game, you have time to have your questions answered.

People would have been all too happy to answer your questions, at which point you would and should have said "I thought this would be Skyrim: The Sequel and not Divine Divinity: The Sequel. I can see this game is not for me so I will save my money and time and go away."

It was clear from early on that you were expecting a LOT from the game, more than the game could deliver. If that was so important that you consider the devs lazy thieves and liars, you probably should have asked the questions before you plunked down the money.

Now you, because you're such a goddamn special fucking snowflake, have made an entire thread about how you and only you are feeling wronged. Look at this shit. 28 replies.


You are the only one who would ideally like more reactions. You are the only one who wanted whatever it was you wanted from the day/night schedules and NPC reactions. (I'm not sure what it is you wanted as first you said they were a terrible waste of money and should be cut, then when they were cut you proclaimed it terrible that that was cut.)

You are the only one who would like to see the game improved. You are the only one who has suggestions for things they'd like to see changed. You are the only one with superior intellect and everyone else is just a drooling fanboy.


Your problem is that you bought a game you had no interest in, and your interest was conditionally dependent on complete freedom in every way and full interactivity on an absolutely crazy scale... and you didn't bother to ask any questions that would let you make an informed purchase.

Other people have disappointments and things they want improved with the game. Other people are not emotionally six years old and can refrain from calling the developers lazy, thieving liars. Other people don't say that because there has been two weeks without an update, they are going to steal future Larian games, and then proclaim the forum full of fanboys, and storm off in a huff vowing never to return. Other people don't do that then come back a couple weeks later and make posts in other threads which basically amount to "Larian sucks! Look at all the bugs! People don't like this mechanic! See, that proves Larian is terrible!"

Grow up, you child, you have no right at all to be calling other people jerks or whiners or anything at all.

Hello

To be honest, I have the impression that there are actually two different persons posting under cromcrom's name... The first one uses abusive language, insults everyone and throws a fit when something is amiss... The second one has all these great ideas for mods and can use polite and argumentative tone for a discussion... So, why couldn't we all just calm down and try to have a civilized discussion?

I am sorry to hear that D:OS does not match your expectations regarding world interactivity. The game has been designed as having non-respawn mechanics from the very beginning. I think it works quite well how it is designed and also many people who play it seem to like the game. Could it have been designed as a respawnable system with fishing, monsters, tree cutting and farming as you propose? Certainly, but in that case it should have been done from the very beginning and it would have been a completely different game - also targeting another kind of players. Is one or the other system better? It depends solely on the player's style.

As for balancing, bugs etc - the work is still going on. And bugs in the game does not mean that the editor is flawed

Anyway, again I am sorry that you mistook D:OS for a game which it has never pretended to be and that you bought steam ea due to this misconception. Nevertheless, you could maybe try to express your disappointment in a more polite way. Having said this, I am looking forward to any mods you might eventually make (What happened to the design of your new world mod by the way?)

You shall not tempt me to mock puerile argumentation again, foul devil! Begone!

Seriously, the almost psychotic intensity of the hostility in some of these posts is starting to get just a li'l bit disturbing. Hopefully it'll run its course, certain people will move on, and we can get back to the 99% of the forums that are actually pleasant and constructive.

Fact is, that a game cannot be perfect, and it will never fit to the expectations of all people. But it is not the main goal of the game, but to entertain. If people have fun with it, the devs reached their real goal.

You may be disappointed, in this case just let the game rest a while and check it again once it is released. Larian is still working a lot to make it better, and they really check on our feedback. So if you would like to help, you can still comment here on the forum, the game will be a bit better from every piece of feedback. But you already know that. ;-)

Critic is not bad in itself, it can help to make things better, even if many people don't like it and feel to be offended. But if critic turns to hate...
Sorry for my angry comment above, it had no sense to attack. Nice weekend!

You'd probably find your game in Runescape. You can cut trees, cook, fish, everything. It's also the most boring and lame game ever, but don't let that stop you, since it's got all the requirements right there.


I'm sure glad you wrote down the pillar points what makes a RPG a RPG. Tens of thousands of people over tens of thousands of topics and tens of thousands of discussion discussed with each other for what makes a RPG a RPG and when we can call something a RPG, while you here had the solution all along.
Now, let's see if this game meets the "RPG" standard.
* Crafting is in. Check.
* World interactions system. Ehm, what does that mean?
* Respawnable areas? Nope. And now all my favorite RPGs turn out not to be RPG's at all! Baldur's Gate (II), IceWind Dale, PlaneScape: Torment, Deus Ex, Knights of the Old Republic (II), Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Drakensang (II), The Witcher (II), Alpha Protocol, Divinity II. I always thought all of them to be RPG's, but surely now I know better. Thank you for opening my eyes to the light. Instead of seeing yourself that some things aren't automatically part of RPG's but are a choice for the developer wheter they should be in or not.

But, it gets even better...

Do I need to go over my list again which RPG's are no longer RPG's by this definition. How some don't even have intelligence or a mental attribute at all.
In that time you could answer me the question; what good is adding stats for the sake of more stats if they have no function? Heck, wisdom itself was even questioned in Dungeons & Dragons, the very place it came from.
But sure, if a gamedevelopment pre-planning was made and it was developed that these were the needed stats and no more obviously that's a horrible system failure. Surely if you would be there you would recitfy this grave misjustice, so we can enjoy the many uses of wisdom like...

Wait... what?
Yeah, I don't know either.
And it seems you don't realise PC's can lie upon a bed. Whats stopping you adding a fade-in/fade-out there and adding 'dragon dreams' as you so call them. Not Larian, only your (non-)existent modding skills.

I might be totally weird, but I always thought the point of modding was adding stuff in yourself, not having the developers making everything on a silver platter for modders, and NOT put that stuff in the main game, because of, why really? I don't know either...

Ehm, since when are quest otherwise. When did we start with "quests need to give special bonusses for people to play them as carrot"? Heck, even MODERN games haven't gotten so bad that they need to force people to play quests by adding permanent boosts to finishing each and every one of them.
'Why would I want to do quests... all I get is XP. I need improvements to my characters. I wont do quests without super-boon!'
Yes, this is DEFINITELY not the game you're looking for, if quests aren't their own reward and you need to be forced to do them.
Quests are more important than the whole 'doing stuff around the world' here. That's been pretty well known, and really hard to miss playing it.
The many ways to play, advance and finish them far outreach modern games. But apparently that's just boring without my 'reward for playing'...
Were was the time people didn't need ego-strokes every 10minutes during playing. Not in this old-school game, however much you want it.

I'm above all of this. I will be meditating in another thread if you need to call upon my wisdom.

Namaste

LOL

Definitely. Vox populi, vox dei.
But even not going as far as adding a bunch of crafting/gathering/interaction skills, because the topic of this RPG is, so far, just about being source hunters, why can't there be some more interactions ? I am not (anymore) asking for complete systems, but what about some little "realism" here and then ? Ok, I have to "craft" pillows to get feathers. i might be wrong, maybe they fixed it in the beta, but what about "gathering" feathres from killing a hen ? Wool from a sheep ? Is it that hard ? I can already randomly find them in crates, wouldn't it make sense to find them on a more logical and natural support ?
However, ok, DoS is not about this. But I am really upset that such obvious things are not in the game.
Crossing fingers. Game is made with the editor. Could be a hint...
Thanks. I have the whole bunch and systems ready on paper, but as I said, I am very basic on Lore and quest writing. So I will just set up the starting fort, add a few tribes and areas, and see how things grow, if I can mod anything and understand the coding langage, which I am very eager/anxious to check. Because if not, I will have wasted a huge amount of time waiting for this game.

Thanks, you too.
Its ok; I and other people have been much worse than you, and those are sound advices. Not hate, frustration. Wanting to shake people to wake them up, so they understand they are missing some obvious easy points so far, and that a fan club is not the best place to realize you might have some weaknesses. I beta tested some games for indie devs, as a fan boy. There was some stuff I thought were not quite good, but didn't tell them. I appeared those flaws made their ways into press critics. From then, I thought my way would not to be nice, but to be critical, even if blunt, but speak my mind, and try to be honest (in my own view of course, I am not the Truth Holder...)

Sure, you can call dragging an item on an other one crafting...Nuff said for me, fan boy...
check any of my mods for a more precise description.

You forgot random, this is important. You know, areas, like a forest, or wilderness ? When I go hiking, I never know what I might find. But if you like knowing precisely what you will find in the wilds, it's your fun, not mine. But indeed, there are no wild areas in DoS. You know, random respawn, like "But There was NO orc ambush here last time we came", or "Hey, get ready, this is the orc ambush coming..." So I am not asking ALL areas to be random respawn, but it could make sense for some... Well, not.
Absolutely no good. Then why giving talents the name of stats ? Why 5 physical and one mental attributes ? Can't player want to play a charismatic or wise source hunter ? Unless your only way is to play a fighter (very broad sense of someone who goes into fights, be it distance, roguish, magic, or whatever). Classless ? Fighting only.

Nothing, I just wished Larian would save me the pain of going over such an obvious feature. Of course, I can sit on benches to rest. Sigh. I will see what I can do, and hopefully will come with some solution I like.
As for my lack of modding skills, this is true, but I tried really hard many times, always with the same enthusiasm, and hopefully had some results.

You know, If I have to chose, I rather gain my animal speech through a quest than through putting a point in it because I gained a level. This is what I mean. I rather gain my 5th way of the whatever because I fulfilled a quest, than because I added a point in it. What is wrong with opening a new store/shopping opportunity because I saved/helped someone ? What I find boring is my reward for playing is just XP and gold.
Definitely not the game I am looking for, but until it is released, and my defeat is obvious, I will keep hoping this game could be great, not just good.

I have always been consistant in saying I thought NPC schedules were a terrible waste of time and money (NPC Wake up, goes to work, goes to the inn, goes to bed, Wake up, repeat ad nauseam...), and that Day/night cycles were really needed (night, dawn, day, dusk, with at least a sight value reduction at "night" for the effect). This is maybe not clear enough for you, but then this is hopeless.