(I wanted to send directly to the team, but, didn't knew what email I should use, so... yeah)
After Original Sin successful Kickstarter campaign, I started investigating about the Divinity franchise, and found out Divinity Anthology Collectors Edition, that included, a really well written and very informative, Developer Diary (also, very cool to look at, the pages were great).
After playing some Divine Divinity, I started reading the entire Diary, and for my surprise, it was an awesome read.
There was one main thing that was very noticeable throughout my reading (aside from the constant delays of the games), the passion that you guys have to create your vision is something that nowadays is rarely seen, even if some developers have passion to create their games, they have much more resources than some independent studios like Larian, and the idea of - do other comissioned work, to fund and raise money to do a game - is a real stretch! I mean, why "waste" the money of your comissioned work into a game, if you could just be doing comissioned work and be much more stable, (and much more sane, because, those release date days, were very crazy, for Divine Divinity save game issues, and the CD printing of Beyond Divinity).
This kinda proves that, you guys are really giving your best, sometimes, against all the odds. It's a real fight to release such massive games, with limited resources, but, somehow, you made that feat, and after Divine Divinity, Larian Studios has basically raised from the ashes.
I don't know if many other developers would be willing to fix bad game save files manually.
Anyway, let's be a little realistic here, it's nice that you are ambitious and want to make the best game possible, but, don't forget that, there is always room for a sequel (and expansions), one thing that doesn't get featured in one game, can be a feature in another game (you guys have been doing this by now anyway).
It was a very good read, honestly, and you're gonna join my prized studios list, that include - Larian Studios and CD Projekt RED. Because, even if the money helps, passion is always the most important thing, and you guys have tons of it (maybe too much).
If you guys have any Comic on the pipeline (something small, just depicting a small episode of something), please, let me animate it. I've been doing Motion-Comics for a year now, and love animating them. Here it is an example that the guys from Revolution Studios helped me doing it (by giving me the original files) - Broken Sword - Motion Comic -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ2wvcgV6JYor the guys at FunCom with The Secret World -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPWC36MvyV4Well, and that's it, you got a new fan, and I already have the DOS CE pre-ordered and paid. Can't wait to actually play it =) it seems like it'll be an awesome adventure!
Very nice diary Swen, it feels like, each Divinity game it's a victory for Larian Studios. Good job! Now it would be great if you guys used the map editor from DOS and created LMK for free as a side project (or work with some fans), and released it on steam workshop =) I can do Motion-Comic cutscenes (maybe for once I use layered photoshop images, yeah, because, all of my animations were manually layered, that's why they kinda seem slow sometimes).
