Divinity II: FoV - Status Update

Dhruin

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Thanks to Alrik for pointing out this status update at the Larian forums, with studio head Swen Vincke saying Flames of Vengeance is done. Here's a partial sip from his lengthy post:
Quite a lot happened since last I gave a bit of a status update here: Divinity 2: Ego Draconis got released, and we’ve basically already completed Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance already, so the last you can accuse me of, is being present here too much
wink.gif

One of the reasons I’m idle is that for once and for the moment, everything seems to be running smoothly. This is probably the first time that my team is so relaxed before a major release (which Flames of Vengeance is to us) and the reason is very simple: the game is actually ready.

Over the last couple of days I played it through, with a big book in my hand and a fresh pencil, ready to be merciless, but at the end of the ride, I hadn’t even filled a single page with things that drop-dead-needed-to-be-done-now-or-we-can’t-ship. I jotted down some things about legal lines, installer texts, middleware logos, but actual gameplay things, almost none. Compare that with the release of Divinity 2 where the day we shipped I had almost a book full of things that I still wanted to be done but couldn’t as the pressure to release was so high. Very big difference and quite a nice feeling actually. But still strange – never happened before. Maybe we’re actually learning after all this time how to do this.
More information.
 
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At least they are admitting that Divinity 2 was shipped unfinished (the size of patch should make it obvious).

Hopefully expansion won't come with the fuckload of stuttering which almost ruined the vanilla for me.
 
I didn't even know about this. Is this an expansion?
 
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It is rather more than just an expension: It's quite an overhaul.
 
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It's a high level game though? It's a continuation rather than starting over with a new character? If that's the case, I'll probably skip it, though if it updates the original game it might be worth a buy if I ever feel the need to replay the original game. For me, the dragon bits just ruined a perfectly good crpg. I generally like the beginning areas of games best, when you're learning the system and are fairly weak. I almost never enjoy games where the characters are high level. For that reason, I really didn't mind starting over once I got the piece of property. The first part of the game was the best.
 
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I'm the other way around most of the time (not always!). Take NWN2 as an example - I really enjoy the final 2/3 of the game, and I love MotB, but getting through that first 1/3 is such a pain for me.

Div 2 is a bit of an exception though, where the start really did feel better than the end, especially since I kept waiting for the tower/dragon form and the "game to really begin" - then I found out it was about to end.

Oh well, still looking forward to the add-on. Hopefully I'll get to beat up a certain couple...
 
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FoV = Field of View......................... at least I was sure when I read the headline it was a patch to change the FoV.........
 
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FoV = Field of View……………………. at least I was sure when I read the headline it was a patch to change the FoV………
You think they chose the title to match their internal development code name :D?
 
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The discussion/thread containing that "status udate" has been updated once more. In another post Lar speaks (among other topics) about the mistakes they did while making Divinity 2.
 
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Let me save people time by posting the relevant section here. (This is Lar's post)

When we started out with the game, we had very big ambitions, and we were probably a bit over-ambituous for the means we had. This was to be our first real "next-gen" project and we immediately wanted to make a game where you could turn into a dragon at almost any point in the game, and we immediately wanted to bring it to console too, though the only experience we had was with PC games.On top of that, this was all to be done in a new engine. And… wer were going to do all of this with a fraction of the team that made Oblivion. In hindsight, that could've been a recipe for disaster, and it nearly was.
The major problems we had were dominantly technical, but there were also quite some process isues involved. Never before had we made a game where the assets where so complex, and the pipelines for getting something in game so long. Since the technology for putting it all together only came together at the end, it also took a very long time for us to get a real feeling for the game, and as a result we made many bad decisions.
Larian has always been a company that needed iteration to be able to deliver something compelling, and here we were faced with a process where iteration was turning out to be very difficult and in several cases, almost impossible. That forced us to re-invent ourselves multiple times, and that wasn’t good for the creative process. On top of that, the technical issues, especially the dreaded TRC’s on Xbox360 which is a list of requirements you need to meet to be able to publish on 360, drained most of our coding potential towards solving those issues, leaving little room for experimentation and iteration which is what usually leads to the coolest gameplay.
I often had pity with the artists and designers who had to deliver an enormous amount of content, using an incomplete toolset and an often failing engine. Not that you could blame the coders, they just had an enormous amount of work, building and maintaining not only the toolset but also the actual game and actually figuring out how to do everything that was required of them with the limited resources at their disposal. On top of that, they had to deal with quite a few setbacks, several of them not their fault, such as failing middleware or changing specifications. That they ultimately pulled it off is to their credit, and I can safely say that without some heroic development efforts in the last year before release, the game wouldn’t have made it. Take this against the background of a games industry in crisis, which created quite some stress among our publishing and distribution partners, and you can imagine the circumstances in which finished
divinity2.png
.
The long development pipelines, together with the technical difficulties, ultimately impacted design and we were forced to take several shortcuts, something which you, the players, inevitably felt while playing the game, and something for which I’m truly sorry, no matter what the attenuating circumstances.
Luckily, we got the chance to make FOV, which was originally called Flames of Retribution, referring to the fact that we saw this as our chance to set things right. There was an attitude in the studio that if we couldn’t get this one right, then we had no business making RPGs anymore, and it was something which was in the back of my mind all the time during development. That’s why when I finally got the chance to play FOV with everything integrated, and I found myself sitting all alone in the office late at night, still playing the thing, having started early in the morning, a big smile materialized – yes.
 
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Divine Divinity was awesome.... Div2 was a let down, to put it mildly.

Id REALLY like to see divdiv3 done 2D like divdiv1 with the option for some coop multiplayer in there too. I must have played baldurs gate 2 all the way through over 10 times but more modern ones like nwn2 i got bored of b4 the end.

is there REALLY no market for high quality 2D? I seem to only be buying indie games these days?

ps. hurry up Inquisitor!
 
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Id REALLY like to see divdiv3 done 2D like divdiv1

Sorry, but i heavily doubt this will ver happen.

[quote9is there REALLY no market for high quality 2D? I seem to only be buying indie games these days?[/QUOTE]

I really fear so, yes.

It once began with Somon The Sorcerer 3, which found actually no publisher until it was made in 3D - and what a crappy game t has become out of that ! And that was clearly he fault of the industry - which is anyway just too ignorant to see its fault - because they decided that everything HAD to be 3D.
And that was several years ago !
 
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There are 2D games, it's more on PC there isn't anymore AAA 2D games. But when it's about using pure 2D iso, it's 2D that mimics 3D and in this case not using 3D that mimics iso is a little strange but yet it could work.

2D iso has a huge disadvantage, it's to not adapt that well to various screen size. From few reading I've done about the subject, it seems that 2D iso cost a lot less than 3D that mimics iso because it is a lot faster to do, I'm quite surprised industry spite on cost reduction. I think the disappearance of 2D iso is coming too from sells numbers, ie "you and me".
 
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