Howdy!

When Divinity 2 came out in January, I ended up buying a retail copy. Since then, partly because of the DRM on Divinity 2, I have turned away from buying games in a retail store.

Will the FoV expansion pack on steam be able to interact with the Divinity 2 game installed on my computer already in any scenario?

IE: If I buy FoV on steam, would I have to buy the original D2 on steam as well. If I would, would my saves be able to transfer?

Thanks and Gig'em

The DRM on the retail PC version of D2:ED is just a disk check...

I have not seen any mention of compatibility between disk and download versions of the game and add-on. Presumably Steam will list the requirements when they add an entry for FoV, or Larian may comment before then.

Saved games are very likely compatible between disk and download versions. Before the 1.03 patch several people were able to get around a problem with the game locking up on the new game window by using a save from someone else, though they were not specifying whether they had the disk or download versions.
I'm not sure about compatibility with the Dragon Knight Saga, though. Since the remastered version includes a fair amount of changes (not a lot of details yet), that might cause issues with D2:ED saves. From the topic Another status update, about DKS:

While I can't seem to find the old ED first aid thread, I recall them describing some "fun surprises" they had for people who tried to crack the DRM on the game.

I also remember experiencing some of these "fun surprises" when playing, disk in and all.

(and, btw, Steam is disk free...)

Some of those 'fun surprises' if the disk was not detected were an error (code 42) when trying to save, a high level Rich Bandit attacking early in the game, and a couple thousand extra skill points given upon reaching level 15.

Did you try contacting Securom? They have a utility to remove / update / reinstall their drivers, and if you have more than one optical drive I've seen the lowest drive letter one recommended for use, with comments that Securom can be picky about that.


Steam's DRM is certainly more appealing than some of the things done in recent games (limited installs, constant internet connection required for a single player game, etc), but digital distribution is not without potential problems.
I prefer having a physical disk and manual, but for new releases (after I get around to building a new computer) I intend to start paying attention to the DRM used. The only problem in the past I have had with DRM was a minor annoyance, which was later removed in a patch.

I believe the difference was only a disk check with the Retail version. With the stream it was a limited install which is why I bought the disk. You can make a back up copy of the game and by the time you'd want to re-install it on a new computer (few years down the road) there will probably be a patch to remove DRM by Larian similar to what they did for Beyond.

Hopefully the stream version of the expansion has unlimited installs so I don't have to buy another disk version.

I prefer retail of any games. I want a disc anyway.

Which means I'm sorry for all of the Indies of which I'm not buying their (sometuimes really great, like Aquaria) games because I prefer discs.

I would like to suupport them via buying their games (I honestly do), but I want something that lasts, like disc, like a printed book, not just a cloud of bits & bytes residing on my HD until the magnetism gets worn off or the servers are taken off line.

Sorry, but I fear that I'm too conservative in that respect for the younger generations.

I did end up reinstalling it a few times, and I might have used the top one sometimes and the bottom the last or something like that. (The disk didn't leave the drive until I finished the game.

I might go back and see if that is what was giving me problems.

It is a known fact that disks such as CD and DVD do have a finite life span of about 10 years. Usually they last longer, but there are times when they will break down. However, you can always burn the digital copy to a disk, lable it and put it away as a back up.

I've seen HDD's last about 20 years and have seen them crap out right out of the wrapper as a computer technician. I've also seen the same with compact disks, though they usually do last longer. Best to have multiple back ups.

The question in both cases is storage.

With the *right* storage, *both* mediums are able to last at least 20 years.

However, magnetism might wear itself off some time, just look at floppies. CDs don't have this - unless they get scratches.

I have here a closed box ccontaining backups I made around 2001/2002. These rewritables are still readable.

But they use material that might not last that long. The material the laser "writes" upon. So to say.

In manufactured CDs, the only material that can be deterogare throughout time is the plastic itself.

But in the end ... you would have to hammer everything into stone to last. And neither sandstone, nor limestone.

And even stone isn't forever.

not forever sure ,but some stones are more then 4 mrd years old ...here on earth ...anywhere in the great void are maybe some,that are mutch older....but anywhere are no CD's/DVD's...hm..a problem...lets talk about

It isn't the plastic but the backing that will deteriorate in CD's.

I remember floppies, they were often thrown like Chinese Stars when they stopped being read. Imagine installing Windows 7 using floppies. Be a long installation process.

Now you got something with the rock idea. If we can get someone to chisel billions of 1' and 0's then it might just work as the perfect back up. We can call it a Digital-Granite copy!

There are a couple archival optical disks that use much more stable materials (M-DISC and DiamonDisc), which I found searching for a link for micro-etched nickel storage (pictures), that is used, for example, in the Rosetta Project. The optical disks supposedly have a lifespan in the hundred to thousand year range, while the Rosetta Disk (and the Long Now Foundation in general) is intended to last 10,000 years.

I bought a game out of a bargain bin before getting my first computer (Win 95, which came with 3 boxes of floppies, so the computer could make 30 recovery disks the first time it booted), and actually checked it out a few months back when I was doing some organizing. It came on floppies, which were fine, and had a 10 minute intro on a VHS tape, which was a little grainy, but (other than the first few seconds) was also fine. I didn't mind the graphics, but it had a 'look up a word in the manual' copy protection system that got triggered too often, and the screen flickered when moving around, so it only lasted a couple minutes.

I wonder if an optical disk wouldnt last indefinitely if stored under a vacuum or in an inert gas.

I was helping my local church clear out junk from a back room a while back and stumbled across a pre-windows 3.1 pc with a whole box of 5.25 floppies, man...it brought back memories. When I had time I plugged it in and it still booted up...was even able to fire up an old word processor using a few of the 5.25's.

Too bad all the computers i use dont last that long, although i still use a 10 year old laptop every day. Theres just something about xp that i like more than vista or 7.

I still do have a 5 1/4 floppy drive in my current PC - although not electrically attached right now.
I had some problems with putting the the wire through the PC (floppy port too far away), so I left it unattached.

At one time computers, like everything else, was made to last. Real craftsmanship was put in them, in this case it was the use of a soldering iron. In the 90's it became cheaper to junk the old main board and get a new one. At one time you had to get a technically trained person to rework the rollers and gears in a floppy drive that went bad, rather then spend $350 on it.

Now the way things are so mass produced it is much cheaper to get a new one. With old software the original programmers were worried about size. These days they are not so efficiency is thrown out the window. They would rather you get a .dll that has 10k lines of code then to write the 200 lines of code and test to make sure it works when they know the .dll works just fine.

Everyone likes to over-use graphics. Unless your playing a game or making some sort of movie or presentation. You don't need shadows under the mouse or fading menus and sliding browsers or a 3D graphical representation of your files in a folder.

XP had that crap and you were able to disable it all and it ran like a dwarf does when he hears "The pub is on fire, save the beer!" I'd rather use XP then 7 with all the fancy rubbish. There is no excuse for their OS to require about 4x the requirements as XP. An OS is suppose to be basic communication between user(s) and hardware.

Um... wow...

I hope Google crushes M$...?

What was this topic originally on?

I think the original post was about steam or something...

Steam usually lasts several centuries.

Unless someone blows it away, that is.

I thought I asked you to never bring that up again. That happened back in 2002 for the love of God!

*dae slowly backs away*

Is there an answer on this?

I have the retail (dvd) Divinity 2, will there be a physical release for FoV?

If not will I be able to install the expansion from a download?

There will be a physical release of FoV for PC, but not Xbox. There will also likely (I assume) be a download releases on PC, but FoV is too large for DLC on the Xbox.
Both platforms will get a physical release of DKS, the combined D2:ED (remastered, with changes to the flying fortresses the main difference mentioned so far) and FoV.

Larian may need to wait until distributors have been announced to determine / answer whether FoV requires a similar distribution of D2:ED. I don't have Steam (etc), so I'm not sure if download add-ons in general are compatible with retail versions of games, as the original poster was asking about.

dont the rosetta project indend for a more advanced race to find it eventually and use a primer to unlock deeperlayers?

true archival materials are much harder and burned written at a very slow speed for accuracy

the gold masters used in disc printing should last a very long time as well