Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Will there be Non-pregenerated character Origins?

I understand the point of origins; I asked what you through it was since you replied that it removed the entire point that writing for non-specific characters would put restrictions on how that could be done.
However, you don't want specific origins for arbitrary characters; what you want are origins flexible enough that every origin related dialogue, quest, interaction, relationship, etc, can have 10 different variations, and the appropriate data substituted in when you choose the gender and race.



Even after the examples given, ie with Gwen being a unique character and the heiress tag and related quest not being available to any other character? The fact that there were unique interactions to specific characters was a selling point (for replayability and world interactivity and immersion).




How many dialogues, quests and NPC relationships were dependent on the origins?

I'm not arguing that it can't be done. Either there are restrictions on how it is done, or it is 10 times the work doing it in all possible combinations of race and gender.

I remember Neverwinter Nights dealt with dialogues with a system that adapted to your player character's race/gender/class/etc. with systems like [bitch|bastard], [he|she], [him|her], [class], [race], etc. that you inserted into the dialogue and would automatically change the dialogue based on these things.

Substituting in the correct race/gender is significantly different than treating different races and/or genders differently.

Ok oddly enough I can deal with part 1 and 3 of your response the same way:

Not every piece of dialog needs to be changed in order to accommodate every single possible origin. In fact even the origins we already have do not do that.

"The Red Prince" even doesn't respond to every single NPC and dialog as "The Red Prince" or as a "Noble" or even as "A Lizardkin". As well even conversations he responds to as "Lizardkin" are shared by other "Lizardkin" regardless if they are The Red Prince or not. Meaning the effect of origins can intersect at points.

Or rather... The game currently does not have all conversations multiplied 5x (or 10x) to accommodate all the current origins as it is. That isn't how the origin system functions.

Any origin you select would only have to be relevant... when it is relevant. If "Son of a Merchant" was a origin you could select, it would only need to pop up when that part of your origin pops up.

There doesn't need to be a scene where your character blurts out "I am the son of a Merchant" to a band of Orcs.

Currently every origin gets its own unique tag (outside generic), two additional tags (that Generic can chose from as well). Then you get a tag for race and possibly gender.

As for the 2nd: I can create a topic right now asking people what "they" thought Larian Studios meant when they were talking about Origins. Whether they meant pre-generated characters OR if they meant custom characters with attached origins.

We can just settle it that way. In fact I have no idea why you thought it was pregenerated characters personally.

Edit: UGGGGGGHHHH! There is no way to rewrite the 2nd part to be nicer and less confrontational... >_< sorry Raze. I am not taking this conversation personal and I REALLY hope I haven't antagonized you into it... I apologize for how I written it at least.

Wait, origin stories are pregenerated characters?

Currently yes.

"Generic" is a origin story you can take, but they have no origin story (it is the point. They are blank slates)

The entire point of this topic is to get a response from the Devs to answer whether or not Origin stories are only going to be pregenerated characters...

OR if there will be some origins that aren't.

Correct. That's why I specified origin related dialogues (and quests, relationships, etc).



Because that was what was shown during the Kickstarter, and allowing fully customizable characters means restrictions on the content or about 10 times the work per origin (not all situations would necessarily depend on race and gender).
Also, that design would limit the types of origins available, to things which could be applied to all races pretty much equally, but the game world is not based on a society of equal opportunity. Using specific characters allows unique, and potentially more interesting, origins.

I'm not taking this personally, either. I can see the appeal of having an origin that adapts to character customization, even with the (possibly minor) limits that still places on the design. However, personally I don't value character customization enough to say 1 adaptable origin is worth the amount of work to (I'm going to guess) create another 3 or 4 extra unique origins for specific characters.

-Ok checking a VERY recent Eurogamer preview-

The current origins are not as strict as I thought they were.

Here is what chosing the current origins lock you in as.

1) You are locked into a race
2) You are locked into a gender

You can customize everything else. Even their appearance and even their name... Though it is likely, at least for some of them, that they will call you by your origin (though for The Red Prince it makes sense it is a title)

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This is a loooooooooooooooot more tolerable then what I was thinking.

I still wish there was more then playing the 4 companions you can recruit...

But I'd take a "Meh" version of a feature.

As stated before, this problem has already been addressed in many other games including Bioware & Bethesda. I even remember a voiced line in one of the Bioware games -- the text had the character's name, but the voicejust said "Bhaalspawn" or something. Even if it can never be said verbally, I still like being allowed to choose.

(On the other hand, in a game like Witcher or Final Fantasy, I actually prefer not choosing, because the characters are already very strongly defined.)

Localisation is tricky, but you definitely wouldn't be the first ones to face this challenge.

Also why even mention voices? Larian already said the game will NOT be fully voiced.

So outside the "Pre-gen character" voices... all they would need is a few quips from every race type... Which they would have to do anyway because "Generic" is still an option.

Since obviously there is no reason why a Merchant SHOULD speak differently (and before you say "upper class" I should state that "noble" is one of the options for Generic as is "Jester" AND you can pick both under generic)

There are only two compelling reasons to not let you name your character:
1. The dialogue is fully voiced (though Mass Effect had this and still let you choose your first name).

2. You're telling a story about very specific characters (and even then, Final Fantasy did this and often let you name your characters).

Add 1 + 2 and you've got a very strong reason to have a fixed name (like Geralt from Witcher).

It's kind of a pointless argument though. It doesn't appear there are any limitations on character names.

Of course the generic background will never get unique quests, NPCs, locations, or intrigue. Those things require specifics. How do you imagine that a generic could get specific dialogue written for them?





So what you're asking for is more fully-fleshed out origins. More origins sounds like a good idea, although that does require time, energy and resources.

If you want "child of a merchant", but unrestricted by race (you want to visit the shop), then that means that you don't just have to create just one set of parents, but five - at least one for each race. But wait, there's more. You could be of a different race if you were adopted, but then the dialogue would have to take that into account too. And then there's the Undead. What if you are Undead but your parents are not? And then being Undead means you could be Undead for one of 4 races.

So that can lead to an origin like "Adopted Undead Dwarf Child of Elf Merchants".

Or "Adopted Undead Dwarf Child of Undead Lizard Merchants".

And that's just one f***ing possibility. Each and every possibility needs someone to write the dialogue, put that in the database, program in the different responses, and bug-test it. And we're not even getting into the "Unique Special Snowflake Quests and Locations" you want.

Do you really think that there's enough time and money to make each and every option for "Child of a Merchant" as deep and well-written as a preset character?

Sorry, but the Holodeck is on Deck 10.

Yeah, that's an absurd amount of work for not much payoff - I'm okay with just selecting tags [Thief][Noble], and having the environment react to those items instead of having my own custom quests and locations.

No it isn't... It was just described exactly 5-10 different dialogs IF you were adopted... and 5 different character models.

You people seem to have a really unrealistic idea of how game design works... or how... the game works.

I mean... OHH NO!!! Larian might have to create 10 different appearances for a generic "I am your father/mother" character.

Where is this "Absurd amount of work"? You guys seem to think writing 5 additional pieces of dialog as too much.



Ohh man... Writing 5 throw away lines and maybe 5 fluff texts about their childhood... Is soo much work.

Why do you have this assumption? Even the current game doesn't have this for the 4 origins that are already there.

Hello Mr. Pot. I am Mr. Kettle.

"No, You are!" :P

But fine you know what... Lets just deal with it. Lets just show you what you need.



-Resources: 5 sets of parents. Models do not have to be unique.



-Resource: 5 sets of models for parents
-10 paragraphs of dialog



-Resource: 5 sets of models for parents
-10 paragraphs of dialog
-1 paragraph of dialog



-Resource: 5 sets of models for parents
-10 paragraphs of dialog
-1 paragraph of dialog



-Resource: 5 sets of models for parents
-10 paragraphs of dialog
-1 paragraph of dialog



-Resource: 5 sets of models for parents
-10 paragraphs of dialog
-1 paragraph of dialog
-Half-work that goes into a single origin as it is

So there you go... The Sheer obscene amount of work required to make "Child of Merchant" assuming that they could be one of 5 different races AND that you could be adopted into any of them.

My pardon, good sir. How long have you worked in the gaming industry? Any titles I'd recognize?




No... that's not at all the extent of your request. You're missing some things. Did you forget what you, personally, wrote in this very thread?



You want NPC's who have heard of your story or suffered a similar fate, old friends or enemies from the past, a rich deep narrative... for a character that you create and modify.


And later you said:



That's 1-2 NPC's, for between 5 to 10 models for the parents. You're forgetting "people who know you who would have names and influence, you would have connections based on being a merchant". That's additional people and additional dialogue. There's a new location. There are specific quests goals and rewards based on the origin.

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Do not say bull like:



Implying that that's totally easy and not at all work, especially when what you ACTUALLY MEAN is not that at all, but:

-Resource: 5 sets of models for parents
-10 paragraphs of generic "hello parent(s)" dialog per NPC
-1 paragraph of "hey I'm an undead now" dialog per NPC
-Additional supporting NPC's tied specifically to your past
-Additional dialogue for said supporting NPC's
-Unique location (possibly more than one)
-Specific quests
-Specific goals
-Specific rewards

And by the way, do not forget that all that is for ONE Generic origin. I presume that you'd like more than one. Multiply all the work which goes into the above by 1.5 times for each additional generic origin (and it's being generous thinking it would only be 1.5 times as much work).

How many other generic origins should there be? Bounty Hunter? Clergyman? Sea Captain?

All that work would go into creating origins which are much less fleshed out and much less interesting than the preset origins.

Per NPC?

Why would your best friend need to chime in that he is best friends with a Lizardkin? He is your best friend, keep the dialog natural.

As well I intentionally left out ANYTHING that wasn't part of a typical origin as it is. Since we are talking about "additional work"



Yet 10 times more interesting and worthwhile then "Generic". As well as giving people who do not want to play a specific person an option other then "Blank Slate"

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Now lets talk about how Origins work as far as ordinary dialog works

Currently there are tags of Race, Gender, and Character

Generic Backgrounds get Race and Gender
Preset NPC backgrounds get Character

Whenever the game fishes for Race/Gender Tags it will substitute a Character tag if it finds none (or prioritizes them, either way same result) and fishes up the dialog for that.

Assuming of course there is race/gender/character specific dialog and there often isn't.

Now for Non-specific Origins you would get an additional tag: "Origin"

Adding a fourth to the pile.

Non-specific origins though do not replace Race/Gender tags. So most of the dialog in the game would be the same.

Meaning immediately they are less work then "The Red Prince" by a significant Margin.

I like this game, lets take random statements from other people, and attach ENTIRELY RANDOM figures to them, claiming that that's the amount of work required.

So.. what you're saying is that LITERALLY all you want is a origin story that says you're from a merchant family, and allows you to visit your parents merchantile, where you can have an entirely random, (but apparently limited a few paragraphs) conversation with them?

I think it is you, sir - who does not properly understand the way game development works.

See. the problem is, if they do something like you're suggesting, they wouldn't want to do it "Half-Assed", they would want to do it the RIGHT way, go for "Minimum Lovable Product", not "Minimum Viable Product".

Which means they would want your character to have several quests relating to his origin, with interchanging dialog based on gender, race, and other tags, not to mention they would want the origin story to affect more than just those few quests, which means changing A TON OF DIALOGUE throughout the game.

THEN they have to test it, which means testing with EVERY Combination of other tags, races, genders. to make sure that no dialogs clash together.

So you're right -It's not that hard, It _only_ requires them to comb through all of the hundreds of thousands (possibly in the millions) of lines of code they already have, locating and adding every single line of dialog for this new origin, plus the new lines of dialog for the quests related to it, the new lines of dialog for the OTHER TAGS within these quests. AND THEN requires someone to play through all of the sections of changed code (basically the entire game) once for each combination of Tag/Race/Gender.

Now, if i've done my math right, assuming 2 genders, 5 races, and 4 tags - that's 330 different combinations they would have to test for (Assuming they can only have 1 gender, 1 race, and 2 tags per character)

If we assume they have a team of 4 QA testers working on these, they are Agile, and use 60% of their time for construction, ("Two days" are actually only going to be roughly 10 hours of work), and each combination would take two days to fully test, you're looking at 165 working days, AND THEN they have to test them as a playable companion, instead of a player.

All of that, probably more than 165 working days at least. just for ONE of your custom origins.