Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks The Kickstarter, the expectations, and the result.

I was wondering about those who were with the KickStarter from the very beginning - did you originally expect more or less based on the final sum of $$$ money that was raised to create this game? AFAIK way more funds were raised than anticipated by the developers, but I could be wrong...

AFAIK several dungeons and places are not even present in the game because of schedule constraints. Now if people's funding did pay for that content, then can it be expected in forms on FREE DLC's??? I wonder how much was used to fund Baldur's Gate 2 because I did expect Divinity to be an EPIC journey. It took me months of 2-3hrs a day gaming to beat BG2 and that is with an occasional walk-through hint! BG2 was made in a way that side-quests, while optional, we actually needed to complete to gain enough EXP / levels to beat main-quest enemies. I hope Divinity it made the same way, but I will do as many quests as I possibly can.

D:OS offers at least 60 hours of gameplay if you don't rush.

60h / 2h/day = 30 days


No game will ever again be as big as BG2. These times are definitely over. But compared to other modern games D:OS offers a lot of content and I mean hand-crafted content made with passeion and heart and not genereic content like in Skyrim...

I'm 80+ hours in my first playthrough, and the end still not in sight.
I never expected a game this huge after playing the 1st early access versions.

Why is it that no game will ever be as big as BG2? Was it so big that it did something horrible that shouldn't be repeated? Planescape: Torment was also long and so were other classic RPG's of those years. I grew up on those RPG's, so Divinity for me is just a miracle come true. I got my co-op buddy hooked! I don't recall the last time when we would actually talk about a game outside of playing it, discussing plans, things we missed, things to try, etc.

Still, there is no reason why free content shouldn't be released for this game. It would add a few good hours.

Ended my first playthrough at 83 hours played, I got more than my money's worth several times over.

If anyone backed with the expectation of something resembling BG2 in scale I think they were being a bit naive, as LordCrash says that era of game development is gone.

No, quite the opposite. But BG2 was a pure work of passion from Bioware more or less out of their garage. The realities of the business have changed though. It's just no reasonable investment anymore to make a game that big. Even the old guys from Bioware and Black Isle admit that they were completely insane at that time with all the content for BG2.

You just can't finance a project of the size of BG2 anymore. Big publishers would never make such a big game (why should they if they can sell a much smaller game for the same price?) and even independent developers like Larian have to pay their own developers and artists and so on. If someone give them 10 million without wishing to have it back they would probably do so. But nobody is as crazy today to invest 10 million or more (which is my personal estimate to make an RPG as big as BG2 today) in such a game which only caters to a niche audience. That would be an incredibly high risk. Maybe someone will take it in the future, but I doubt it. Not even speaking about the risk that if the whole project financially failed the company would go out of market and every employee would lose their job...

Yet this game was meant to dive backwards in time and bring back the long gameplay goodness. BG2 wasn't insanely long, but just longer than this game and long enough to take a person on an unforgettable journey. Besides, they just re-mastered BG2 in HD and finally fixed an insane number of bugs, which I haven't even experienced during my original BG2 walkthrough.

No, that was PoE (And it remains to be seen whether THEY can manage) D:OS had a way too low budget to ever try something like that. Maybe if you gave Larian another $5m and a good fantasy writer they could make a BG2 alike.... but the current writers for Larian are not driving the story straight. They are making modern quips and references .... something like that could never work in a "hard" fantasy setting like Torment, or BG2...

And that is just as well

Spacehamsters....

I liked D:OS, but I didn't ADORE it like BG2 or Torment... but so what. It was a good RPG either way, and there's no abundance of those

How much money did Larian collect for this game? I thought they got MORE than expected, no? If yes, then why did they cut content out of it? If it was due to scheduling and delays, then why can't then add it back in patches or free DLC's???

Too many players seem to lack understanding when it comes to the psychology of nostalgia.

I remember getting a Sega Megadrive (Genesis for you americans) for my birthday and playing EA Hockey on it - the game was amazing! 10 years later I found it on an emulator and it was still great fun. I played Neverwinter Nights upon release and it was so amazing... but I tried it 2 years ago and it was so much worse, I tried to get my GF to play it for the first time and all she could say was "wow the graphics are horrible" to the point she couldn't last more than 5 minutes.

Trying to recapture a feeling from your youth is impossible - you can still enjoy revisiting the era, playing the same game from then, perhaps a similar one, but you'll never get the same feelings you did back then (some people will say they do, but they're really getting completely different feelings that evoke the original ones and that substitute is enough for them to make these claims).

Larian did a good job making a great game but in failing to contextualise it in your head, you are basically trying to love the past as if the present didn't exist, which is impossible without some form of amnesia/developmental disorder. Enjoy the game as a modern day game in the style of 15 years ago, but don't foolishly compare it to your childhood and ruin it in your own head.

Oh and don't forget if you loved Baldurs Gate 2 when it was released, chances are you're incredibly old now and not a child anymore. (disclaimer - it's possible you were not a teenager when BG2 was released, in which case you might still be under 25, and thus, still maturing.)

I like to think that being slightly above 25 is not incredibly old But of course nostalgia and experience play a role.

Yet graphics mean nothing, even today a good NWN 1 module is a good NWN 1 module, I don't play graphics and I don't remember graphics nor do I rate graphics /except Dwarf Fortress style graphics ,p). When I play RPG's, I only judge (and remember) them based on principle things -> Story (Lore+Quests) Companions and Combat

Companions/Characters/Story in D:OS are the absolute WEAKEST element. They have no real unique quests (though you can tell Larian wanted to do something with them, but stopped mid-way...), they are not well developed and do not develop in any meaningful way. They don't disagree with you (on a level like in BG2, where going against your party alignment could have severe consequences) nor are they memorable... Madora is a fighter and Jahan a mage.. wee. They have a bit story, but they are at no point memorable characters players empathize with. And the main plot does not give you proper driving force :aka: motivation.

D:OS was what I expected it to be, but when it comes down to it, PoE is what I am putting my hope in now....

My first playthrough of BG2 took me well over a month too. And after it I retried again and again with different class combos and dialog choices and paths (and mods, later on). And then it of course goes a lot quicker.

I liked D:OS and as I said, I got what I expected. I am happy But it does not fulfill that tickling urge for *hard fantasy* rpg's... PoE and Torment 2 seem to be about the only real contenders at this point.

Based on what the KS said I think the content is very good. It's a good game, it's just not a great RPG.. yet. (let's see what users can make once editor gets proper tutorials ,p)

Any by the way, my nostalgia does not stop me from absolutely adoring Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect (Yes all 3.. even the ending.. to an extent ,p) in the same way as BG2, NWN1 and TORMENT. And to an extend, the DKS saga (which I liked too ,p) this is not all RPG's i liked, but in my mind I compare games to BG2 and Dragon Age: Origins mostly ,)