Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Can we eventually get a list of late features?

I'm sure there is a lot of stuff they are working on now that will be in a Day One Patch. Since the game is already boxed that patch is the only way to get the things they are working on now in the game. So you could say that the retail version (what's in the box) is incomplete, but the Day One Patch (that they are working on now) will fix that. Then they can take a much needed break, and come back to fix whatever problems/bugs come up after the initial install and patch.

At least I'm hoping that it works out that way. I agree that missing out on non-essential NPC's isn't fun, but I do imagine I'll be playing this game over and over again until DA:I comes out.

It's possible, but you would think that if a missing feature was going to be available in a day-one patch they'd simply say that (since that is essentially "in by launch" and fairly normal for games) rather than saying "shortly after launch".

I don't think at this point they even know what's going to be making launch or not. A few of the things they mentioned (AI personalities for example), might be in by launch or might not. I suspect that is a case of something that you can only take advantage of in a new game rather than a current one.

Which really bites. Suppose I want to start a game on July 1st and I have very specific personalities wanted for the two NPC's. If all I get is 'Random' and I start the game ... then a week later when I'm deep in the game they patch so that new games can choose a personality ... well that will suck.

I guess we'll know on July 1st when we start up the game and see if we can pick a personality. If we can't, then might as well just play around and not try to do anything significant until you can restart after the 'update' patch.

From Swen's Twitter:


Companions and AI Personalities?

Least we can be thankful they are being honest with us in whats going on, rather then just dishing out lies. Which is what most companies do.

Still super excited for the game. Just hope this does not mean the toolkit will be on delay also ._. then I will be crushed.

All of Larian doesn't need to take a vacation at the same time.
Because Larian can not guarantee that all additions and changes can be retroactively applied to all existing save versions, does not mean that there are guaranteed to be be such changes.

question: will henchmen be in at release? i dont speak about companions but about those history and storyless "mercenaries"? or are they already in the beta? if so, where?

A list of things to be patched in the future would be really handy. I definitely won't play the game until AI personalities are in as my first playthrough will be solo, but I would assume Larian would update us about this stuff at release.

Fortunately I'm the patient type (well fortunately for me) and I don't mind waiting however long it takes for the game to get all the features (assuming it doesn't take Duke Nukem Forever long or worse Grimoire amounts of time ;-) I'm assuming it'll be all good (and tuned from post-release patching) in a couple of months or three.

I tend to think it's best to wait for a few patches for all games (why rush to have a sub-optimal experience?) though I'll buy games at full-price for companies I want to support.

Actually, what is it about playing games at release that people go so bananas for anyway? Folks even preload games so they can start playing immediately. What's up with that?

In any production, there are always things that can go wrong and once you're close to release, the only tools left to get everything ready are removing or postponing. Normally you don't see this but because our development has been fairly open, this is now more visible.

Regardless of what makes it or not, we've never released a game that contained so much of the planned features as Divinity:Original Sin, including plenty of features that weren't planned as a result of Steam Early Access. Just to give you an example of how much stuff gets cut sometimes - check out the Div II documentary, hatching the dragon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Nq9_X68os . Contrast this with D:OS where I think more than 95% of what was planned is in.

It's of course a human trait to focus on loss instead of gain, so it's natural that everybody will quickly forget all the extras we added and focus on whatever may be missing. But this is already our biggest and most polished game ever, so it's better to consider anything that comes after release a bonus, not as something that has to be there to be able to play, because it's not. We're releasing a full game, not a part of a game, even if there may be additional things we might have wanted to add. If there are for instance only 3 Ai personalities instead of 5, and you never knew there were going to be 5, for all practical purposes, there always were 3 AI personalities.

We're hoping Divinity:Original Sin is going to be a big success and if it is, we'll add *a lot* of extras. My hope is that we can make this a live game that is continuously improved and expanded upon, with plenty of mods appearing, and we're setting ourselves up for that. Of course we'll only know if this is feasible after it releases, because the sales will determine how much resources we can put into this. But I wanted to mention it here so you know that we're not planning on having a *definite* version. If you do start playing, there will always be a chance that we'll add something while you're playing, but what you are playing will be a complete experience, and whatever we may or may not add will not make that much of a difference for that experience.

All of that said, you can rest assured that what will be there on day 1 will be already more than enough to keep you very busy as there's a very big adventure to be had. There's certainly a lot more there than I ever expected when we started developing D:OS.

Back to my cave.

Thanks for clarification Swen!Keep up,your really amazing studio,good luck and I wish you very big and satisfying finansial success with sales!

I travelled at the End of Time and found that Divinity Original Sin will be very well!!!

it was in the first place an ambitious project and I am glad you went soooo far in the development. I have no regrets supportign you guys and yespeople does not understand what it means developping game when you are a small company.
keep going this way and long live D:OS

That makes sense.


Also the latest status of the AI personalities:

Companions and AI Personalities 2?



If there are some AI personalities in, I can live a couple weeks with only the existing Companions. Still though, I hope there are much more than just three, even if some get added in later. I hope they've solved the bug where sometimes the personalities just don't kick in at all.

I've deliberately ignored the "tell me about your backstory" questions on Madora and Jahan.

Like I said from the start, I'm totally prepared to wait a little longer in order to have certain postponed features available in my playthrough. I only want to be able to make an informed decision about whether it's only a matter of delaying my playthrough for a few weeks to wait for a specific delayed feature, or to just go ahead and start playing on the 30th (because the delay might be months instead).

This. Personally I've just seen some talk (and speculation) on forums about things needing to be patched in and without details it's impossible to know if any of these things would matter enough to me personally to make me wait.

I would have been clearer if I'd said "Fortunately I'm the patient type (well fortunately for me) and I don't mind waiting however long it takes for the game to get all the features I want that are currently in production."

Can someone clarify if there are already 3 AI personalities in the game? I was under the impression that there was only the random one which doesn't appeal to me. The personalities are the only thing I'm aware of that would cause me to wait apart from my usual personally conservative approach to playing newly released games. I'd play it if there are already the 3 to choose from though I'd like to echo Stabbey in requesting more for the future if possible. To me they are one of the best features of the game and a highlight of the awesome and unique dialogue system.

A few extra companions being added later would only enhance a second playthrough and I'm not at all bothered by those. Are there any other significant delayed features or is it just the AI personalities and a couple more companions?

*

Personally, I am tremendously impressed by what Original Sin has become and consider it a very rich game. Really, games can't ever be literally full as you can always keep adding to them. That's especially so for RPGs and part of their beauty and charm. To read Swen talk about the potential for Original Sin to be continually enhanced with extras, expansions, mods and so on makes me more excited than I can allow myself to feel.

Thank you so much Swen and all the Larian team for this very special game!!! It looks so good that I'd be surprised if many people focus on the little that has been delayed. From what I can tell people are chomping at the bit to play the thing. I wish you all the best for a release that fulfils all our hopes and dreams

Wait, are you saying there will be no more wipes? Interesting... then I can start playing tomorrow, without worry that I will loose progress? I don't care about AI personalities or a missing companion or two. In worst case, I'll just start over with two different classes anyway later on.

After the release there will be no more wipes. Beta saves will not be compatible with the release version.

changed my mind. rather play through the game several times. just cant wait.

Sorry, must have misread it somewhere. This is going to be a loooong week...

I would also like to have the list of late features, and atleast a rough release schedule. It makes a rather large difference if we're talking days, weeks, or months. If the feature is almost ready to implement, than it would make sense that the feature would be pathced in a few days time.

If that would be the case, than I'd be happy to wait a week. However, if it takes weeks, or a month, than it would make sense to leave those features for the next playthrough. Kinda like DLC.

Of course we understand that such a list, as we are requesting, can not be given to us until closer to the release date. I assume that in this situation even mere days can mean the difference between having something implemented at launch, or being patched in post launch?

That said, such a list is required to be published at launch, so we can make an informend decision, whether to play or wait.

In my case. I can wait a week, but not weeks.