Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General 4 hopes for DOS2

Currently enjoying DOS1:EE, nearing the end now. Here are my 4 simple hopes for DOS2

• NPCs that don't repeat themselves constantly in area chat (like vendors in Cyseal and hunters/orcs in Hunter's Edge). Add a proximity mechanic so they only talk when you are near them.
• Voice actors who speak faster. The English voice acting had painfully slow pauses in the dialogue like they learned acting from some Shakespearean class. Did not feel natural.
• Ability to jog faster out of combat
• Release on console less than 1.5 years after PC release (hint hint maybe kickstarter for that?)

That is all. Everything else great.

kthxbye

You don't like selling cheeses ;-)

Greetings,
Dark Flemish

Voice actors are not currently planned for D:OS 2 due to the vastly increased amount of dialogue that will be present in the game (race and origin specific as well as other tags)

Increased out of combat speed could be enjoyable, I never had an issue with it but I know others did. In the interim at least there are mods available to increase movement speed for those who wish it.

The console release will likely be similar to EE due to some of the features being added to D:OS 2, that being said they have a more reliable base to start from since they are building off of the EE engine which did see a console release.

No voice even for combat soundtypes?

Wow, somehow I missed this. That's a big change.

I expect them to at least have the bare minimum for things such as grunts, etc. Hopefully this will also include a set of voice packs for common actions (like you get in games like Baldur's Gate & XCOM).

Honestly, the extra voice acting in D:OS Enhanced Edition did not make me any more interested in the dialogue or story. The story generally tended to be told through talking-head dialogue. Even the opening cinematic is little more than a talking head monologue. This felt like a misstep to me.

Old-school JRPGs were great without any voice acting. The Final Fantasy series is a good example where there was zero voice acting but strong use of cinematic camera angles and visual storytelling. Even the old 2D JRPGs put a lot of effort into trying to tell their story by using visual cues as much as possible.

Look at them -- moving!!! Also having conversations instead of monologues. Love it.
Final Fantasy 8
Breath of Fire 3

Of course, voice acting is great, and I'm looking forward to playing the FF7 remake with actual voices, but it's definitely not going to be the most important part of the game.

The contrast with Divinity should be obvious, but here it is, Zixzax just staring blankly during a very one-sided conversation. Very little movement.
Zixzax

some of those wants are very realistic, and I couldn't agree more. however, the faster run/walk out of combat, is not a needed mechanic IMO.

The voie acting was great, it would be better if they had REAL conversations though, even if small things like a woman smacking her husband for being at the bar all night drinking or when he coo's a woman passing by she reacts etc.. the small stuff that fills amusement in a different sense.

wait wait, what ? Ahh friggin hell, thats not a good idea. Everyone I know goes around quoting things from D:OS , it's such a staple of the game. "sheep's cheese ?"

In D:OS classic, they had partial voice acting as added flavor for certain NPCs (if I'm not mistaken) the cheese vendor being one of them.

It is not inconceivable that they take the same approach for D:OS 2 as these lines would not be affected by the multitude of the players different choices. (They are independent of the tags system)

That being said no official word has gone into detail about flavor dialogue being voiced. (Shopkeeps yelling about cheese, fish etc)
The problem, as you can see by the original poster, is some people did not like that aspect of the game so there is no guarantee that it will remain in D:OS 2.

Reminds me of the situation with Drakensang and Drakensang River of Time. In D:RoT all dialogues were voiced, in Drakensang 1 only the first page of most characters. That was imho the best way as it gave a good impression of the character yet with less effort. And while the devs statet it was a lot more expensive in the second game, for me the ingame-gain was minimal.
So I'd be fine with partially voiced characters.

I still believe that combat voicesets should be selectable/allowed for modding, with lots of customization.

What I really want, however, is a much more serious story, toning down the silliness a LOT.
Of course, feel free to leave stuff like DKS "Maxos!", because that was brilliant.

The story on d:os EE felt unimpressive, I didn't really felt like the dragon, or the void was present and time itself was ending, instead I felt like dealing with a necro-cult of some sorts with Leandra always running from me over and over...

I was just tempted to watch this again. What struck me this time is how much time Zixzax seems to spend asking himself questions and talking to himself.


Worse, like 5 second later, just to rub it in, Zixzax tells you, "'Show, don't tell' I always say." After giving you a quick peek through his telescope, he then proceeds to talk at you for several more minutes. Look! The torches are alight! Look! The portal is open! Look! It's the Weaver of Time!

You're such a goddamn liar Zixzax.


I think that's fine. I don't think a story needs to be high-stakes to be good. The Witcher 3 starts out as a man looking for his girlfriend, then his daughter, and that's pretty awesome.

Obviously, D:OS2 can't be so character driven given that the main character is not pre-defined. There will need to be some high stakes in order to motivate a range of different characters. Generally speaking though, a good story does not need to be high-stakes.

I don't think Velvet was saying that the story has to be high stakes. But that in D:OS the story was high stakes if you read the text, it just wasn't really conveyed as such very well in-game.

Basically if you're going to have a high stakes world ending type story, you should be able to notice that. Divinity II and the DKS did that pretty well actually.

Indeed. Planescape Torment did not have a "save the world" thing. rather, you were looking to discover your real self. Haven't found a good enough replacement for that.