RPGWatch Feature - Divinity: Original Sin Preview

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Since he is quoted as saying multi-player "was one of the very first things on the list"

This is worrisome…

It was for Divvinity 1 as well, he wrote ! Remember ?

Originally Posted by Raze
Why? Does being near the top of the list mean it is more important than anything else on the list?
What if a strong single player experience was also one of the first things on the list?

No, that is not what he said. You guys are missing the subtly in his wording (probably influenced by your optimism). Assuming his beliefs are in precise coordination with his wording. He said MP "was one of the very first things on the list". That means it could have been THE first thing on the list, higher priority than anything else. THAT is worrisome. In addition, he hasn't said whether anything else is "one of the first things on the list". That ups the concern level for me.You can choose to ignore the evidence, but this certainly brings some uncertainty re SP priority vs MP.!

Originally Posted by Thrasher
No, that is not what he said. You guys are missing the subtly in his wording (probably influenced by your optimism).

Maybe asking Larian about this directly might help…

Originally Posted by Thrasher
No, that is not what he said. You guys are missing the subtly in his wording (probably influenced by your optimism). Assuming his beliefs are in precise coordination with his wording. He said MP "was one of the very first things on the list". That means it could have been THE first thing on the list, higher priority than anything else. THAT is worrisome. In addition, he hasn't said whether anything else is "one of the first things on the list". That ups the concern level for me.You can choose to ignore the evidence, but this certainly brings some uncertainty re SP priority vs MP.!

I don't think it's about people missing anything in his wording as much as it's about people drawing their own conclusions prematurely.

Who is drawing conclusions? Worrying is not concluding. Not worrying is being oblivious.

If anyone can name a single developer that's ever said "Yeah we're putting an emphasis on multiplayer. If you like single player better, well, tough, you're screwed… and now get out of my face, kthx" I will give you a cookie .

Seriously, they all lie about this stuff. Of course they will tell us that SP and MP are equally viable but if the game was made with a strong focus on multiplayer then you will notice it to some extent. It doesn't necessarily have to ruin the SP but the SP will likely never be as good as it could have been if the game was made with purely SP in mind from the beginning.

For example, choice and consequence from dialogues can never be as elaborate as in a pure SP game because you don't want to enable player A to force player B into certain consequences or vice versa. You'll have to "dumb down" the consequences and make them rather mild to avoid massive frustration. The same goes for whether you make certain NPCs attackable or even killable or not and lots of other things. The moment you start walking down the MP road you need to analyze each feature very carefully to figure out whether an abusive player could wreck the game and you definitely need to make some compromises that you would not have to make if it was a pure SP game. There's no denying it, really. Everything else is just wishful thinking…

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Who is drawing conclusions? Worrying is not concluding. Not worrying is being oblivious.

Semantics.. but I guess I was expecting that by now. I think everyone just needs to just chill out and wait until we have more confirmed information.

I agree with that. I also think that MY concerns are well captured by Moriender. The effects of optimizing a game for MP are VERY far reaching.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Semantics.. but I guess I was expecting that by now. I think everyone just needs to just chill out and wait until we have more confirmed information.

Semantics is all about communicating CLEARLY. That is the whole point of discussion, right?

EDIT: Unless one's purpose is to troll, but I'll assume everyone had good intentions.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
For example, choice and consequence from dialogues can never be as elaborate as in a pure SP game because you don't want to enable player A to force player B into certain consequences or vice versa.

That's what will actually be possible, if I read the preview correctly.

All in all, I agree with guys in that games planned for MP may very well suffer (a bit) in the SP department. I found the Diablo games boring in SP, just like the original NWN campaign. But here's the thing (tm):

From what little I've seen, if that enables me to voice an opinion at all, Div:OS doesn't seem like a MP game to me, but rather like a classic party-based RPG. A party-based RPG with a smaller than usual party, two protagonists instead of only one (or none), with the incredible option of having a human player take over one of the protagonists for co-op action.

Yes, I believe the gameplay may likely cater to that setup, and so the SP experience may probably, by definition, be a bit different from what one usually expects from a SP game (even a party based one). But in that light I'm positively excited about the whole prospect.


That said, I little bit of reservation never hurts. Heck, it's only been announced, there'll be plenty of time to get excited after the demo is out or so, whenever that will be.

Like the first one. TB-Combat….fascinating

@Thrasher, not sure why you created two separate posts for that. Anyways, I don't think communicating clearly and semantics have anything to do with one another. This is already starting to feel redundant though so let's just move on.

Wut? Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "semantics". :/

communicating clearly vs. the study of what words mean….pretty close. I had to look it up

When used to describe a sentence, "sematics" refers to its meaning, as apposed to "syntax", which just refers to the symbols and structure/grammar and, I guess, spelling.

From a topic in the Larian forum:

Originally Posted by Macbeth
I can only corroborate what Swen said before: the single player experience is just as important to us as the multiplayer one.

In the RPGWatch topic Moriendor says:

Originally Posted by Moriendor
Seriously, they all lie about this stuff. Of course they will tell us that SP and MP are equally viable but if the game was made with a strong focus on multiplayer then you will notice it to some extent. It doesn't necessarily have to ruin the SP but the SP will likely never be as good as it could have been if the game was made with purely SP in mind from the beginning.

There probably are games to which this logic may apply, Moriendor, but we will most certainly do our very best to prove you wrong as far as Original Sin is concerned. And no, I'm not lying!

Originally Posted by Lar
Yeah, I've seen that which means we didn't communicate very well, but I think the debate is going to move away as we show more and more stuff. The cooperative mechanics translate very well to party mechanics in single player, and the system is much more complex than might be surmised from the little details we've shown so far. Rather than type essays about it, I think we'll address this in a future video under the motto show, don't tell

Originally Posted by Moriendor
If anyone can name a single developer that's ever said "Yeah we're putting an emphasis on multiplayer. If you like single player better, well, tough, you're screwed… and now get out of my face, kthx" I will give you a cookie .

In the end, it's what happened with ME3 (MP part) & newest work by Blizzard (SP acting as if it was MP, almost). Technically speaking, even SP of Sacred 2 was MP, I was told by one of the developers (?) at one past RPC. The engine of Sacred 2 is definitively MP, I was told, it's only that there is only 1 player there, in SP mode.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
because you don't want to enable player A to force player B into certain consequences or vice versa.

This was seemingly taken care of with Project E by these … negotiations. A direct choice must be agreed upon. It stands there within the text !

Originally Posted by Arhu
Div:OS doesn't seem like a MP game to me, but rather like a classic party-based RPG. A party-based RPG with a smaller than usual party, two protagonists instead of only one (or none), with the incredible option of having a human player take over one of the protagonists for co-op action.

This is more or less my impression, too.

For people wondering what Raze is posting exactly. Your little squabble about multiplayer vs single player reached the official D:OS forum.

Originally Posted by azarhal
For people wondering what Raze is posting exactly. Your little squabble about multiplayer vs single player reached the official D:OS forum.

That's good news we can get more clarification on the focus of the game. That's all we want. I agree with everything Moriendor said. I've been letdown with so many games I don't take words at face value anymore.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
There's no denying it, really.

Sure there is.

For example:

For example, choice and consequence from dialogues can never be as elaborate as in a pure SP game because you don't want to enable player A to force player B into certain consequences or vice versa. You'll have to "dumb down" the consequences and make them rather mild to avoid massive frustration.

Nothing wrong infusing co-op with an element of competitiveness at all.
The system can also be designed in a way that all 4 main attributes may have chance to influence the dice roll (depending on the nature/circumstances of choice) so that one of the protagonists doesn´t have significantly better chances to win most of the "dialogue battles", taking care of potential long term "frustrations".
Also, the existence of the system doesn´t mean it has to be applied to all dialogue choices in the game. Few bigger/crucial C&C could simply require mutual agreement of both protagonists for a quest to proceed and/or employ some more elaborate negotiation/bargaining system.

The moment you start walking down the MP road you need to analyze each feature very carefully to figure out whether an abusive player could wreck the game and you definitely need to make some compromises that you would not have to make if it was a pure SP game.

You need to design games to hold against an abusive player, MP component or not.
The level of player freedom is always on the plate.
If you allow the main quest giver to be killed before the quest is obtained, you need to provide alternate means to get the quest, etc.
Baldur´s Gate was playable co-op, right? I don´t remember any compromises that I would´ve found to be stemming from the game sporting the feature.

Plus, even though there may be some needed measures to address potential problems specific to MP, that doesn´t mean such measures need to exist in SP.

It doesn't necessarily have to ruin the SP but the SP will likely never be as good as it could have been if the game was made with purely SP in mind from the beginning.

On the other hand, in this particular case the co-op considerations might actually enhance SP positively - like party dynamics (for example, since the pool of responses exists for both protagonists, the game could pick the non-pc one´s responses randomly to some extent, to maintain unpredictability) or quest solutions (non combat, I mean) where player has to switch between the characters.
I could see how trying to come with fun co-op scenarios might infuse the design process with the kind of inspiration that wouldn´t occur if the game was designed as SP only.

Until more details are given, I honestly don´t see anything worrisome, quite the opposite actually since the only thing I´m personally rather sure about is that the existence of co-op will make the SP different, and different is, without other qualifiers, good in my book.