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Larian Studios - Swen Vincke Talks The Long Road Of Larian Studios

GameInformer interviewed Swen Vincke about the long road of Larian Studios.

Quote:

How were you even surviving at this point?

Work-for-hire allowed us to survive to the point to look for a publishing deal, but we hated it. We really didn't like it because we were making really stupid things. Such as these things go, it's a vicious spiral. We started doing work-for-hire again, and we were lucky. We convinced a major broadcaster in Belgium to give us a lot of money for what the broadcaster thought was going to be a website, but was actually going to be an online game for kids. It had a unique format, sort of like an American Idol for kids. Kids could make movies, animations, cartoons, and dances in the 3D world, send it to the broadcaster, and then the broadcaster showed it on TV. It was innovative back in the day, and we won awards for it, sold it to the BBC, and sold it to several other broadcasters.

We said, "Why don't we do a big RPG, but this time we fund it ourselves or as much as we can so that we retain control of the IP?" We didn't have enough money to do all of it. We needed a publisher. We entered into what is known as a cool publishing deal, except I was still naïve back then. We tried to make a game about a dragon that could fly anywhere and land anywhere. We struggled through that and we found another publisher to help us publish this game. We signed it in 2007. It was supposed to come out in 2008. And then the [financial] crisis hits. This publisher suddenly found itself in incredible financial stress, because they had to make all of their money with games like My Little Pony. All that stuff didn't sell so they were taking tremendous financial hits. They did what a publisher does in those circumstances; they release a game too early. When [Divinity II: Ego Draconis] came to market it wasn't ready. It got s--- reviews. Almost killed us. Really dark period for the studio.

[…]

More information.

Seems kind of a rehash of an old story. Mind you i think they are happy where they are now and hopefully they are keeping extra $$ in the bank in case of a raining day…

Most of the time when you ask somebody about history, you get repeated data. That only makes sense. I agree it isn't interesting, but I'm no longer a Larian fan. Well, not a fan of their current stuff. Still a fan of DivDiv 1 and 2 of course.

Quote:

Originally Posted by crpgnut (Post 1061586511)

Yeah I totally agree. It is cool that Sven is happy and lots of people like Original Sin 1 and 2, but (he would never admit this) Divine Divinity even in it's incomplete state is still easily their best game ever AND their most original. One of the best RPGs ever made. Definitely the best ARPG- over D2.

But we will never see that type of game again from them. A remastered and completed Divine Divinity would be awesome. I even prefer Divinity II to OS:1 and OS:2. Just cant get that excited about BG3. I actually dont think those games have really aged that well to be honest.

Well, this is new to me but I don’t usually follow these types of articles. I found it pretty interesting though.

From the article seems they weren’t all that pleased divdiv and the D:OS games are more what they wanted to make.

Personally I didn’t like the divinity games, not a fan of the combat at all. I like D:OS games much more but couldn’t finish either due to the endless overuse of the elemental attacks. There’s a good foundation there though if they can tone that down.

I’m hopeful for BG3 but cautious.l hope they keep the effects and humor in check and don’t take too many creative liberties with the source material.

I prefer the D:OS games a lot more. Sure, I would prefer a more serious tone, but the gameplay is solid and that's the most important.

Previous games combat was mediocre, which stopped me from enjoying it. I won't fall again for the myth that the story is the most important factor on a CRG.

I like both DD and D:OS {1,2} and i find all three games very different. There was a lot of uniqueness to DD exploration which i did not find in D:OS. D:OS had so so exploration and weak story compared to DD (imho); but the combat was alot more solid. D:OS-2 took the combat a bit too far (imho) but the story delivery was a step up from D:OS (but still a bit on the non-sense side). DD really grabs you at the start of the game with that initial dungeon which really gets the ball rolling. Also it has a much more diverse skill system (but then again it isn't party base like the D:OS games).
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There was a rumour the were going to redo DD with a D:OS like engine and I think that would be an interesting game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gwendo (Post 1061586554)

Give us finally some real BG3 info please.

My love for the D:OS games mostly centers around their take on cooperative gameplay.

They're among the very, very, VERY few games that genuinely feel like they've been designed from the ground up - with true cooperative options in mind.

D:OS 2 was extremely enjoyable to play with my brother and our mutual friend. We each had our assigned roles (brother was support/magic, friend was healer/talker and I was DPS) - and we responded differently to a variety of quests and challenges, but usually we're on the same wavelength - so there wasn't too much in the way of conflict.

That said, I do have a number of serious issues with the mechanics of D:OS. First of all, I don't enjoy their approach to combat encounters - because 9 out of 10 fights revolve around responding to environmental effects - including fire, poison and so forth. While I do see how it can be fun with unpredictable scenarios like that - I prefer the ratio to be more in the reverse.

I enjoy proper combat, with intelligent AI - where you're rewarded for fighting smart and building your characters wisely.

Another big problem is that the character system curtails builds by encouraging focus on certain stats. Finesse for Rogues, Intelligence for Mages - and so forth, because of gear requirements - and you also need to focus on a single stat for maximum damage output.

That means that magic/physical combinations will almost always be subpar in terms of damage output - which is such a shame, and seems to work against their original design concept.

Lastly, while it wasn't a huge deal for me, I ultimately didn't care for the artificial approach to magic and armor defenses. I prefer a more "realistic" take - where armor doesn't degrade - and where you're not forced to circumvent defenses by cheesing the system.