Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General Well, that was that.

That's a very interesting question, and one that a lot of fans of 'traditional' RPGs would probably like to know the answer to.

Maybe we could try and get some discussion going in the general RPG section of the forum?

Are story based RPGs dying out?

Okay, actually finished act IV and the game. Spoilers alert.

<span class='standouttext'>Spoiler : </span><span class='spoiler'>Nice plot twist, and it makes Damian seem like an actually intelligent villain rather than the spoiled, personality-void brat he is in the novella. </span>

However, the storytelling is still very lacking, as is character development. The plot twist should have been truly shocking, even tragic; I should've felt at least a little bit betrayed -- kind of like the big plot twist in KotOR. However, due to the sheer fact that my character has jack-squat for personality, and there is precisely sod-all emotional value invested in the interaction between the DK and the protagonist, the plot twist just made me think "Oh, cool. Uh, is that all?"

Battlefield after the game: even worse than during the actual game itself. Now I don't even have a reason to level up and gather loot. Kind of counterproductive, I think. During the game, I gritted my teeth and forced myself through the BF to get loot and EXP needed to fight the bigger, badder monsters. Now there isn't much of a motivation, and the BF after the game is rather like Diablo, only with less polish and less incentive.

Well PT actually didn't do that well as you say, despite being a great game, it had huge localisation costs because of the word count. Consequently it's quite hard to get now, at least in the UK. I don't think Larian want to 'dumb down' their games, but I guess the reduced work count was something of an experiment and I hope they will rethink things for DD2. I think there is a happy medium between giving the audience too much to take in and simply conveying the most basic of information. Sorry you didn't like it WF, but after all your posts in here I was under no illusions that you would. I don't think it's entirely fair to compare it to KOTOR since Bioware had 1) A much bigger team all round, including writing, 2) A big franchise, 3) Much greater resources 4) A much longer dev time and 5)...they are generally a much bigger and longer established studio than Larian and these factors do make a difference difference.

Glad you found that manuscript Hakea that was one of my favourites <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Don't take me wrong. I genuinely liked the plot twist (props for a truly smart, manipulative villain!), but like many things in the game, I think it's wasted potential.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

There's no doubt that you're exactly right about the tremendous difficulty facing smaller developers trying to compete in a market where the big players have resources of money and experience that the small devs simply cannot match. Larian did an amazing job to break into the market with a game as good as Divine Divinity.

But the customer - whose money eventually pays the wages (or doesn't....) - pays a similar price for a game from the big guys like Bioware or Blizzard. So they feel entitled to compare them. I don't know how much people paid in other countries but we paid about 10% less for BD here than we did for most full price titles. And as far as the content and production went it certainly didn't deliver 90% of our expectations of a front line game.

I've spent a fair bit of my life running small businesses (including a partnership in a graphic design and photography business, and several small craft/manufacturing type enterprises where the quality of the creativity was the key ingredient). There is simply no way you can compete head on with the big players. You have to compete in a 'niche' way by providing something different. Words like 'individuality' 'charm' 'style' and 'character' come to mind.

Eventually, if things go well, you can expand and try and get a toehold further up the ladder. But the middle ground is incredibly tough territory. You lose a lot of the advantages of being small, flexible, and in more direct control of the detail, but you haven't yet got the advantages of the big horsepower.

Beyond Divinity came across as a pretty wobbly step, and one that tried too many different things too quickly, with very patchy results.

I really hope that they are taking some of the fans' disappointment to heart, and not just brushing off the comments.

I think that Bioware would have been a little taken aback by some very strong criticism of the first NWN release. Many fans thought that the campaign was rubbish, and a lot of BG fans didn't like the Aurora engine either. Comments like "generic fantasy drivel" appeared in some independent reviews, and on the forums the visuals were compared with chipboard veneer furniture and "Barbie Goes Fantasy", etc. But Bioware could have easily just dismissed it as whining, pointed to a lot of good reviews and huge sales, and ignored it.

Instead they tried very hard to gauge the mood of their fans and provide a positive response where possible. For instance, after initially saying that the camera angles were 'unchangeable' they relented and allowed the angles fans were asking for (and which one fan had quickly proved possible with a home made hack). The expansion packs improved many aspects that buyers had been disappointed with. They also worked on additional tile-sets, and put a lot of effort into promoting and supporting fan made content and general 'community' involvement.

The results speak for themselves. The hundreds of fan made add ons have now grown to thousands and the community that they've put time and PR effort into building has apparently now grown to over 2 million signed on members.

But more importantly, in my opinion, when they made KoToR they stayed true to the values and styles that made their early games so popular, and didn't drift off down some new lighter shooter type path. KoToR is widely praised, on these forums and elsewhere, as being a great game that delivers the style and story strength that many RPG fans look for.

I hope that Larian can also accurately gauge what we liked so much about DD1 and move forward without losing the charm and style that won us over in the first place. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I can't recall what I paid for BD exactly, but it wasn't much cheaper than, say, KotOR. Incidentally, where I live, it's pat-easy to get pirated copies. Ah, hindsight. (I'll tell you a secret: I bought a pirated copy of KotOR first, because I was very leery of a Bioware product at that point and the legitimate copies took a long time shipping where I live. I finished the game. Then I went out and bought a legitimate copy.)



Oh, yes. I was pretty disgusted with the NWN OC ("OMG Bioware u suck!11!!" -- you know, that kind of rabid outcry), and it took a lot of convincing and reading the opinions of people I generally trust for me to buy KotOR. (A purchase that is, I think, worth every cent and more.)

Did you mention Hong Kong in another post?

My brother recently retired back to Australia after many years living in HK and has some stories to tell of going into games shops that turned out to be pirate places. Things like doors suddenly slamming shut and customers and staff standing in the dark until the patrolling cop passed. And all the actual CDs being in a van parked in an alley for quick escape, while the customers chose from empty display sleeves in the shops. Apparently the authorities would close them down occasionally, but they'd pop up again a week or two later.

Despite my not being comfortable with the process, he'd still occasionally send me CDs. Usually they turned out to be something I already had but if not, like you, I'd treat them as 'demos' and buy a copy here if the game was any good. The last one he sent was the most recent Myst (Uru?) which I just stuck on a shelf and forgot about. Months later I decided to have a quick look before I threw it out and discovered that instead of a game CD it was 14 tracks of dire Chinese cat torturing pop music! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

well, hakea, at least u got some music to accompany u when facing kiya in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />

sorry, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" />

Hee. Yup, the police patrol and the shops suddenly shutting down -- they're commom occurrences enough. The contents of the CDs I buy have always matched with their covers, though.

[quote] Well you see, Belgium is a small and therefore unimportant country. Ask any (average) American to pinpoint Belgium on the map, i'll guarantee he won't know where it is. One of the most common response is; "Belgium? Isn't that the capital of Brussels? I think that people living in small (underdog?) countries are usualy quite patriotic (or chauvunistic) about their country so I was really proud when Larian released Divinity. I liked it and I would praise the game to other people, something I wouldn't do for any other game. However I would never engage in a flame war to protect it ofcourse. [/quote] Ahem...Who is a Belgian? Either a French, just less romantic or a Dutch, just less efficient. To my humble self, Belgium is very famous, especially for many great battlesites. Regrettably, none of them had the honour to be fought on by any Belgian armies.Jk (by the way, I think your inferior view on your country is rather pathetic--should American ignorance make any concern?) I am to buy-->to play Beyond Divinity dispite not a few complaints about it. I deem myself lucky by being able to enjoy the games that most people consider "lackluster" or "problematic.

First and foremost, I am proud Belgium can produce a title such as beyond divinity BUT I don't think belgium is a patriotic country. Quite the opposite in fact.
Maybe because of a short history, I don't know, but I can't imagine any of my friends or family feeling "proud to be a belgian". If anything, I feel flemish, but belgian? no. Patriotic feelings seem to be reserved for great sporting events (such as the current olympics), and not so important the rest of the year. If you compare the celebrations in the netherlands on queen's day and such events to our national holiday... And even in the sports, if they play the national anthem when belgium wins (not that that happens a lot <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ) the belgians are usually one of the only countries who don't actually know the text of the anthem (and neither do I, actually -> well I know a part of it...).



Just because we speak French or Dutch, doesn't mean we ARE French or Dutch. Americans or Austrialans aren't english just because they speak that language.
Furthermore, if you want to make the separation: French-speaking belgium: Wallony (inhabitatants: Walloons); Dutch-speaking belgium: Flanders (inhabitants: Flemish).
I for one am kind of offended by the notion of me being a less efficient Dutch...



Many great battlesites...
If you're talking of the battle of Waterloo, it's kind of impossible for a belgian army to have fought there, since the battle of waterloo was fought in 1815 and belgium was only founded in 1830 (fifteen years later).
As for the world wars, belgians did fight and die there alongside the french, the brits, the americans and other allied troups. Off course we didn't have as much soldiers as those other countries, since we are after all a small country with not that much inhabitants (now about 10.000.000 I believe)

But then again 11% of the Americans can't put USA on the map either... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Note that this is the Beyond Divinity (English) >> General forum.