Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Interview with Producer @ Gamescom

Hey folks,
I had the chance to speak with Producer David Walgrave after the Gamescom presentation. Needless to say, I liked what I saw and heard - you can read the whole article here with all the details.
http://wccftech.com/divinity-original-sin-2-preview-interview-perfecting-an-already-great-game/

I hope you enjoy it! Cheers.

Now I'm thinking what about the couch mode with 2 controllers on 1 screen.

Super bummed there's no voice acting in OS2. Hopefully by the time it comes to PS4 they will have made an enhanced edition for it and added it in.

They could add some very limited voice acting. like it was in Neverwinter nights 1.

And definitely NOT for the Player Character.

No voice acting is fine, so I can read myself with different accents.

I dunno, voice acting is often a bit of a gamble: even within the Divinity series, in DD it wasn't great, in BD it was worse, in D2 it was excellent, in D:OS it was pretty good and in the EE not quite so good. It really makes games like the Mass Effect series, in FO4 it was great and it made Skyrim feel dull and charmless (well, to me, at least).

And without voice acting, Two Worlds would have perhaps been less memorable! Actually the voice acting in TW2 was certainly more professional, but it was also much more forgettable.

From my perspective, I tentatively hope it'll eventually be voiced; but there's always a risk I might hate it.

I think for this game VO would work for flavor when there are floating text remarks and cut-scenes, but I would leave it at that, especially if the average conversation is not written specifically with VO in mind from the start. That was really noticeable in the DOS:EE. The lines were too loquacious to be fully voiced and it worked much better reading than hearing.

I get their point, but this isn't how you build a larger market for your game. So for some that want the added dialog branches they are hopefully gaining meaningful choice differences that can be felt playing the game over and over. I'm still pretty sure a very large part of the populace never finished D:OS (normal), so then you got to wonder how many play multiple times.

I'm for VA, but I can see there can be a point you have gone too far with dialog that it gets tough.

Implement MS SAM as an option!

I would like to table this suggestion, I can tolerate reading more dialog when using the Nintendo method of delivery, where it just doesn't drop all the text on you at once. It writes itself out as you are reading. For some reason I've found that easier to do, especially on wordy text. If used, considered a slider to adjust the print speed of said text, so we can all find our sweet spot.

Shadowrun Dragonfall is imo one of the best recent examples of delivering a great story and keeping it "not wordy". I would also suggest that.

I like voice acting, but I feel that by including voice acting in Divinity: Original Sin, Larian had skipped an important first step.

There is a reason why voice acting is great in a game like Mass Effect but terrible in Skyrim, and it's not just a question of the acting quality.

There is a reason why classic games like Final Fantasy are great to play even though there is no voice acting at all.

In Mass Effect, the dialogue is short and snappy, and the characters express themselves through facial expressions and physical actions. There is a saying that body language is 55% of communication. Yet, when you look at a character in Skyrim, you find a complete lack of body language. There are plenty of games with bad voice acting, but when the characters move act in an expressive way, it's easy for us to overlook any problems with the acting.

It's easy for us to turn text into a voice in our head, but voice acting can never make up for a lack of body language. When you watch a character speaking without body language, it feels uncanny, and it creates a barrier to immersion.

Voice acting would be a great feature, but only after providing expressive body language.

Ever notice that characters in Divinity: Original Sin speak in paragraphs?

Basically almost everyone in the setting are windbags who won't shut up :P

I actually slightly assume that is... canonical and that the art of speech in this world is based on long strung about sentences in order to seem intelligent and dignified.

Have Larian actually stated that there will be no voice acting? As voice acting is quite expensive, I believe, it is likely to be one of the last features added, when all dialogue is finalised.

I was pleased with the different voices used in EE as I have heard enough of <hiss&spit> Received Pronunciation </hiss&spit> for one lifetime, if not two.

They haven't ruled it out entirely.

Yet yeah they said there isn't going to be voice acting.