i just read your "visions" on the game
Some i agree eon but others i don't.
here is my conclusion:
1- In combat, the enemy characters drop weapons and money implying that the hero should collect objects and items to use in the game and build a fortune. Now this concept is agreeable for a survival thief but absolutely intolerable for a divine mage or a divine warrior with ethics
What do you want? That if you select a mage, enemies
wouldn’t drop some money or charms or potions? That’s pretty dull in my opinion. Even a mage need money or items to buy spell books and armour!
who would not even think of lock picking or investigating inside a house without permission. Yet we find that the story line forces the main character to join the thieves’ guild to get the holy dagger from Rob’s book!
If you have high ethics, and want to play the game with a pure mind (which I can understand). Think of this: You don’t have to for fill
ALL the quest in the game. If you find out that the quest of the holy “items” means you have to burgle you way into someone’s house. Than
don’t. That’s very simple.
Just by arguing that the game offers you this possibility it’s a design fault?
I think You wanted the developers to eliminate this factor and prefix all the quest without doing something evil?.
My opinion is that I like this game because you have to make choices! Like in the real life you can be a pure person, but you won’t get everything you wanted to have. But if you would “cheat” =stealing or being corrupt, you would probably get it too <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />
2- The randomisation of the charm quality and the extra abilities associated with item-identification is a very bad feature because I ended up with a sword of chaos that was much better than the holy sword called the Nobleman’s sword.
There are some discussions going about the “level” of randomisation of items.
Or that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> should have some fixt stats for some items (like the dragon armour)
But the holy sword isn’t the best item you will find in the game.
In the history of <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> there were a lot of magical influences. So there would be more then 1 magical item. Enchanted items like we would say 
The sword of chaos is also one of these magical items. Why should the holy sword be the most powerful? In divinity you find about 5 very good swords with about the same statistics.(some times this vary)
3- It is quite illogical to build a character of a divine thief that seeks a holy grail and saves people from evil.
Is it more logically then to see your country ripped to pieces by chaos, and demons raged around the country side killing and destroying everything?
A man has to protect his “potential” goodies you know! No life = no money
Sometimes people have to have a vision. Maybe the “thief” (but I call him survivor <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> )
saw the purpose of his life and wanted to fight for that purpose.
Look it this way : lot’s of politicians want to help out the people and they are the biggest thief’s among us <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
4- There is no good reason for separating the mage from the warrior because the mage must fight and the warrior must cast spells, thus the sole option should have been the choice between male or female battle- mage while the thief character could have been a companion of the divine one.
On the first part i agree. You can hardly make a mage character without fighting some melee. That would be almost impossible. I played with a warrior and I had to invest in some magic to survive the first 15 levels or so. And I didn’t like it.
The second part see quote on nr 3
5- If it was decided for the game to build the quality of the divine one from scratch, then the design strategy should have divided the game several stages in which the main character begins with a specific weapon and armour set while seeking a specific better set to be able to advance to the higher stage while gaining experience.
Soo , what part did I miss in the game?
6- Solving riddles should automatically increase intelligence not only experience points and eating food should increase strength. The mileage the character walks should increase stamina accordingly and proportionally while running and combat increases the value of agility.
I have some doubts concerning the experience points. With you can give to strength or dextery..
This could be more of a fine tuning.
The part of running more gets more stamina I do like. But as an extra way of getting you stamina up.
Eating foods? You already get temporal strength / manna etc. by eating food and potions. Wy would you get permanent strength by eating this stuff?
And the system of doing more things of that type gets better result in this skill. It has potential
7- Smashing skeletons with a hammer is quite imaginable but killing a skeleton with a dagger is ridiculous.
Killing a skeleton
is ridiculous <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
8- Weapons could have been set up to be appropriate to each stage. In Aleroth dungeons
a war hammer is most agreeable while an axe is perfect for killing Orcs.
it has potential
10- Imps are best hunted by a ranged weapon with high destructive enhancements such as poison and fire or explosives but the holy weapon is restricted to being a sword or a dagger!
I killed the imps bare handed until they vanished to dust.
But there are other weapons in the game then the holy item
Why the larians chooses sword/dagger/amulet I don’t’ know. But I don’t dislike it…
12- Many quests are unfounded and corrupt the story line.
No you can FIND all the quest you want. In the beginning there were some “questbreakers” quest you couldn’t finished if you made a mistake. But these were fixt in the patch. But corrupt the story line? I don’t think so.
13- Levers and keys are quite randomly distributed and no clever hints are given to look for them in logically placed locations or information related quests.
I has that problem also in the beginning you find a key but didn’t know were it fits. At the end I had a bunch of keys.
But later I founded out that you have to find in the neighbour hood of the key. You will find a chest or some house with a keyhole.
14- The Larian armour is a cute idea but very amateurish and spoils the quality of the game.
it would be better if you found a wizard in that cave who enchanted your silver armor , yes.
But the easteregg area wasn’t that bad, except for linking it with the armour quest.
15- The story should have been about the building of a character or developing a divine knight in shining armour. Thus, the main character could have started out as an apprentice of alchemy as a boy or girl, then develop that character by a critical even that forces it to work as a helper in repairing weapons and during such a time listen and learn the tongue of traders. A key event later in the story forces the hero to behave as a defender that is being watched by the gods who decide to mark the hero for divinity service. Next the training of using melee weapons should begin under the guidance of a tutor with alternative training and testing by missions. When the missions are complete, the hero ends up with better armour and weapons for a higher stage. An Elvin companion could be the ranged weapon tutor at such a stage, and when the initiation is complete a senior mage comes in the story to set the hero for the greater quests.
Nice idea, some other people and I have some of the same ideas.
Like more guilds were you can evolve your character in.
16- The armour of the dragon is the most fabulous idea in the game while the treasure hunt is quite unfounded. The armour of the dragon should be preset with the highest armour value and it should be a must before facing the Lord of Lies.
I think a fixt stat would be nice (like a set item in diablo2)
17- The hero was forced to cheat his Elvin beloved by forging a copy of the amulet rather than finding the real one and the forged amulet does not look anything like the picture given!
Soo you married a blonde elf ?
18- The transportation pyramids are some kind of cure to the very bad story line because the hero is forced to occupy a house by force and use it as a store for stolen items and dropped money as well as a place to sleep to restore health and manna.
I don’t agree on the very bad story line
As I read your criticism, I didn’t find much weight to support your claims…
19- The cumbersome and unfounded travelling between cities, forests and towns is not a fabulous feature at all. From his home town to the farmlands to Verdisitis then to the black forest and finally to the mountains might have been a much better stage development in the game story.
When you going trough the lands of rivellon. Some parts of the land are mutch more difficult then others. So normaly you would end up in verdistis first and then visiting the dark forrest.
20- The Stormfist castle episode is the most humiliating and ridiculous task that could fall on a hero forcedly. That particular part of the story is the worst part of all.
this has you learned how powerfull you may be , your only human.
I didn’t like the dictating manners of that little brat janus also.. but it was a nice touch of the larians to make you hate the lord of chaos even more <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
22- This is a “Dungeons And Dragons” strategy game that should be designed on riddles and combat and keeping it simple as a line that escalates in difficulty but this was not a successful accomplishment within Devine Divinity game. Adventure gamers should be tested for reflexes in combat and wit in solving riddles, and that is how the customer enjoys the game. The hero should never be forcedly humiliated because the gamer is psychologically identified with that hero.
Yes I was angry too , especially with the dishwashing quest.
But then again , thinking we are god isn’t a good thing also isn’t?
The game is huge. To be perfect is impossible. There were ofcours a lot of things to consider. But that didn’t change the fact it was a Major achievement for the Larians to make a title that could stand besides the great RPG’s.
Even a greater achievement if you know the staff was not that big ! and the game didn’t get more devellop time from CDV
And with the proper feedback on the forum, the larians will l develop there next generation games to fine tune it to the fans.
But saying that the game designer is totally incompetent tsss….
