Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General The Recebt Interview

Umm I got two questions about that interview

1.''In the beginning of the game you'll discover that many books are written in a strange runic language. You'll curse because you won't know what they mean, especially because you'll suspect (and rightfully so) that there are clues in them. Being an intrepid adventurer, you'll quickly discover that you can read the strange language by collecting pieces of children's reading books. Before you know it, you'll be bursting into schools and browsing through the children's libraries looking for alphabet books.''

Is this a JOKE? (a.k.a WTF?)


2.''You are dragged away by a very unfriendly demon to its own universe. There, your adventure starts, and contrary to what you might expect, you'll find that it's very linked to Rivellon, the land where the first Divinity started.''


So we are not likely to see the exact same rivellon in RiftRunner? Does that also mean that we are not much likely to meet dwarven,orcish, human elven etc npcs which prefer living in rivellon?

To 1.: I hope, it's not a joke, I love deciphering.

Kiya rubbing her hands in glee

I hope Larian Studios will not forget to distribute those ''books'' to the countries to where they also plan to market Rift Runner.


Or just make that dechipering thing of yours a more common thing among people because not ALL the countries use the same kind of children books or alphabets or whatever. I really can't comment on it because I didn't understand what it really means? DO little children use different and runic alphabets? I hope this is a joke as it stands out very likely to be one or just a trick used by Larian Studios not to reveal actual fun quests? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

Glee?
isn't that some kind of jelly pudding? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

It seems fun to me. In my opinion the quest may be added
to the game if it hasn't done yet.
This mean that there are schools in the <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" />, something there wasn't
in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />.

"DO little children use different and runic alphabets?"

The ones in different universes do. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> I believe this is meant as a way to learn the written language in the demon dimension, and is probably an automatic translation once you have found enough books so your characters know the language adequately.

Indeed:
Like human children, demon children have book to learn the demon language. Like human adults, demon adults have no need for those books since they left demon school. You don't expect every demon book to have and included "learn Demonish in 5- minutes-per-day-while-eating-breakfast", do you?

I hope Lar was serious: like Kiya, I love to decrypt <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />).

Nice note about the customizability of the character! I mean w000t! I can play a kid! Maybe a small, pale, skinny kid with red eyes will do...

THe only thing which worries me is this:
I saw on some screens the characters were a bit pixelated but on the others, they were incredibly detailed just like their 2D brothers in DD. So I wonder, how detailed will be the characters on average resolution...

Hopefully demon adults can all speak english (german, etc.), or we will need to search for demon baby pop up picture books as well. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
The soul forge with a death knight could be used to explain the ability to communicate. Alternately, so could the teaching abilities of the mad imps. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Deeper connections between the demon realm and Rivellon were mentioned...

The pixelation may be due the compression used converting it to a jpeg file, especially if it was already a jpeg before they added their logo and re-saved.

I feel so good! I mean you can play a hulking character, as a skinny char, as a CHILD!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

Hem... Yeah but on the pictures the rest of the screenshot if clean except for the characters.

What I wonder:
Did Larian read our suggestions? Did the company though of adding the dual-weapons, the cape and such?

Also I wonder if having a low intel will change the game... Or if there are stupid dialogue options <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />.

I'm sure the Larian humour will show up <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
Kiya

Bravo....here here....nice interview
obviously lar is reading these boards.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> the waiting intensifies!!

oh and don't forget to vote... RiftruNNeR voting.. it's 9.56 average, and rising!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, so when you have a really low intelligence, that you speak like a complete idiot, like in Arcanum. In Arcanum were a lot of funny dialogues when you had a low intelligence or when you drunk too much.

How can you be sure? I mean it will take another dozen or more of audio files!

Eric Dallaire (working on Lionheart) had something interesting to say about stupid dialogue options. I'll just cut and paste:

"Dumb dialogue is really easy to do poorly. It`s much harder to do it right. It requires that you have an additional set of responses, repercussions, scripting, and solutions for dumb characters. Unless you just want a bunch of `Ugghs` and `Uhhhs` which then just degenerates into a running joke.
Fallout did it really well, but even that game didn`t make it totally realistic. If you think about it, someone with an intelligence of 1 or 2 is profoundly deficient in most mental faculties. That would affect your perception and comprehension, which you would expect to affect what you hear from other people. Yet when you play a character with a low intelligence in most games that support this, the player reads and understands the text, but has limited responses (like Ugg). But really, that character would probably not understand half of what was being said, especially the big words. You could come up with some pretty cool ways of reflecting this (like having a parallel script that substituted very big and arcane synonyms for words that would even confuse the player reading the script). But, wow, that would be a lot of work."

Now it sounds like Larian might already be doing something like this for the runic language. Wouldn't it be cool if they could also implement this sort of thing for the dialogue? Of course if character advancement works like in Divine Divinity every character (even wizard types) will start off as a complete meathead, so this isn't really an option.

Side note: In Divine Divinity, did you read the hilarious discriptions of the starting characters' mental and physical attributes? Man they cracked me up. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, that was great but there were some bugs, IMHO.

Well, I would've just liked this kind of stuff:

NPC: "Blablablablablabla...."
PC: "Ugh?!"
NPC: "BLABLABLA!!! BLablablablabla"
PC: "Me hungry"
NPC: "BLA!" (npc's reacton towards PC goes down by 10).
How difficult is that?

I like the idea of having clues in the runes. Because they're only clues, they're not a vital part of the game and are optional. The runes provided small hints in Divine Divinity, although nothing you couldn't work out in an instant. Perhaps if the treasure maps or secret areas were hidden by runes. You could even have a magical vault where you a told the word that opens it, but you have to spell it out in runes.

Some people want a bit more thinking in their RPGs, and this is an excellent way to implement it without putting off the hack-and-slashers.

Also, learning an alphabet for a game isn't too difficult. Riven and Exile had new alphabets and number systems as required puzzles and many people got through those games. Enough clues were provided to teach people the language.

I think the original Myst was published by "The Learning Company", which means the game NEED to teach you some language <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />.

But I really agree with the post. But Larian said that's what they will do <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.
Also since you can lock the camera on the character, the game is both for hack-and-slashers and for RPG gamers.

Personally, my first thought when Lar said that was of the Hero suddenly bursting into a preschool class and yelling out "Give me 'Barry and the letter B' or DIE!" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />

I think it's a nice idea, where there books out there that will teach you a letter (or a group of letters) in the Runic alphabet. Kinda like Final Fantasy 10's Al-Behd...

IGN is one of my fav game site & the questions they asked really give us better ideas on what to expect for RRR.

"Swen Vincke: We're trying to do a round of more generic Q&As for the moment so please don't kill us if we stay away from the game specific issues. We'll happily talk about those in a second round."

i think this interview is a 3-parter. next one should be on game mechanics & character development. but my guess is that it won't come out till next month.

regarding reading children's books to decipher certain books, it remind me of reading certain books in merchants guild which gives the player a level up in trader's tongue. very nice.

& as for demonic world which the player is dragged into, maybe it's a parallel world where the exact opposites of NPCs we all know & love/hate exist. nah, Larian must've better ways to present this.

"Swen Vincke: The core team working on Riftrunner is the same, but we have been strengthened by several new and very talented additions. As for Divinity 2, that's in an early stage."

i wonder who in the forum is/are hired by the Larians? anyone we know?

"Swen Vincke: The story itself is divided into four or five acts (we're still deciding how to cut it). Act 1 is pretty linear whereas the others are not."

linearity vs non-linearity in RPG or what does that mean? potential thread.

"Swen Vincke: For Divinity 2, everybody is expecting a big, real-time 3D and multiplayer game featuring everything they liked about Divinity 1, and that's exactly what we'll give them. It's expected to bring the Divinity experience to the masses, so to say, and I guess it'll do just that."

ends the speculation on what Larians will bring to the table for DD2. Lar has my admiration for being cool under fire & not give in to pressure which may lead to letting the cat out of the bag. i think the cat's still in the bag.

this is going to be an agonizing wait.

Well, I like ActionTrip's interviews more.
Still my favorite sites is TechTV.com and Games Domain (i forgot the link).