RPGWatch Feature - Divinity: Original Sin II Preview

Myrthos

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Last week I was in the offices of Larian Studios to learn more about Divinity: Oiginal Sin 2 and play the game as well. See the results of this part of the visit here.

Before we venture on, there is an important change in the game to pay attention to. From a 2 player co-op the game is now turned into a 4-player co-op game. However, unlike other games you can not only play cooperatively, but also competitively. You can, for example, prevent your fellow players from reaching their goals and even kill each other if you would like to do that, although that might not be very efficient. The story is made such that you need to cooperate in order to advance, but there will be plenty of room left to compete. Each playable character in the game will have a different origins story and because of that also different motivations and aspirations that might even be conflicting with each other. However they need each other, as they are all sorcerers on the run and Larian has made it such that you will not be able to do everything on your own.

Swen mentioned an example, which is not in the game, to clarify this. Suppose we need to go to the north to meet a general. One character wants to kill the general, the other wants the general to recognize him as his son, the third needs his help to defeat a legion of orcs and the fourth wants something else from him. We all need to go to the north, so we help each other to get there, but we do so for different reasons and sometimes conflicting reasons. You can't all get what you want in the end, so you need to compromise, or they just fight over it.
More information.
 
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Had a great time at Larian Studios checking out Original Sin 2. I had so much stuff, that I decided to do it in two articles. Tomorrow there is more.
 
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"The story is made such that you need to cooperate in order to advance, but there will be plenty of room left to compete"

Can you clarify this better? I'm only interested in playing as a single-player. Are you saying that the game is designed in a way that will prevent me to play it alone? Or is there a different story/campaign for single and multi-player?

I hope the single-player in this game won't be like playing an online RPG in an empty server.

Larian, don't ruin this franchise.

Also, is there any info about single player vs co-op in DOS1? I don't know why, but I got the idea that only a minority really played the game cooperatively.
 
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"The story is made such that you need to cooperate in order to advance, but there will be plenty of room left to compete"

Can you clarify this better? I'm only interested in playing as a single-player. Are you saying that the game is designed in a way that will prevent me to play it alone? Or is there a different story/campaign for single and multi-player?

I hope the single-player in this game won't be like playing an online RPG in an empty server.

Larian, don't ruin this franchise.

Also, is there any info about single player vs co-op in DOS1? I don't know why, but I got the idea that only a minority really played the game cooperatively.
You play the same game, in both multi-player and single player. With the competitive gameplay in action there is a tendency in multi-player that people take their characters on missions of their own and you find you are playing the game by yourself at some point. To make sure that you need to get together as a party again, the story will make sure that all characters will have to play as one team at certain points in the game as you can't achieve your goals otherwise. Also combat can be made for a party of four, for which you also need all four characters to play as one team.
The chances of this happening in single-player are not that big, unless you are really schizophrenic :)
 
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Competitive play is antithetical to the role-playing concept. The RPG was developed as a non-zero sum game system. This sounds more like Diplomacy.
 
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preview sounds pretty freaking awesome. If they can pull this all off I won't care about the multiplayer
 
After reading the review I'm not so sure. It seems primarily designed around the multi-player experience. I'll have to wait and see if it strikes a chord for me.
 
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Thanks Myrthos for the excellent Preview.

I really don't get how Larian will do the single player experience: will you control all 4 players as a team or just 1 and the others will follow and will have their own answers and opinions in dialogues ? During combat will you control the actions of all 4 heroes ?

I am also only interested in the Single Player but it seems Larian is focusing more on the co-op multiplayer experience.
 
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This sounds great. I loved D:OS and it sounds like Larian are going to continue to try new things with this, especially on the MP side. I only played D:OS in SP, but I wish I'd had a go at MP and this is sounding even more tempting. The only problem is finding on-line friends with whom it's possible to reliably coordinate availability for an 80hr playthrough...!
 
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This is great. Gonna be a long wait till this releases. Is there a place I can find the first picture somewhere in a larger size.?
 
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Thanks this article was a great read and made me want the game even more.
 
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To place the game in the Divinity timeline we were told that Original Sin 2 is set just after the events in Divine Divinity and just before what happened in Beyond Divinity…[skip]…Then there is The Black Ring who were being fought in Divine Divinity. However they have opened up now and are not the evil organization they used to be and have become an organization of the free people. They try to assemble all the sorcerers to prevent them from being purged.

Strange place to put the game. We can reduce that to somewhere between 1233 AD (when The Black Ring/Damian are defeated) and 1238 AD (when Beyond Divinity start).

I will never trust The Black Ring personally…

Going by when this is set, we might get to see Lucian The Divine (aka the Divine One), wouhou! (I like the Divine Divinity protagonist). Zandalor is a given, although going by his job and this game description, poor guy. Thinking about it, Original Sin basically happened because he was screwing two sisters so…what kind of stupid thing did he do this time?
 
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Thanks Myrthos for the excellent Preview.

I really don't get how Larian will do the single player experience: will you control all 4 players as a team or just 1 and the others will follow and will have their own answers and opinions in dialogues ? During combat will you control the actions of all 4 heroes ?

I am also only interested in the Single Player but it seems Larian is focusing more on the co-op multiplayer experience.
In SP, you control only 1 player, the other characters are managed by the AI. The do not necessarily follow you. It depends on their background story and based on that, the goals they have in that given situation/conversation/whatever.
During combat, I'm not sure how it works. Good question.

This is great. Gonna be a long wait till this releases. Is there a place I can find the first picture somewhere in a larger size.?
You clicked on the picture and the size was not big enough?
 
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In SP, you control only 1 player, the other characters are managed by the AI. The do not necessarily follow you. It depends on their background story and based on that, the goals they have in that given situation/conversation/whatever.
During combat, I'm not sure how it works. Good question.


You clicked on the picture and the size was not big enough?

You can't set the AI to "no AI" like you could in the first game and just control them yourself?

Is the game playable with only 1 char, ie if I hate my companions enough can I kill them all in the first town and still progress? Not sure how long I'll be able to put up with my "companions" actively working against me.

I'll give Larian some leeway though. I was worried about the SP in the first game also and although interactions between my two characters was a weak point, overall the game was awesome.
 
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In SP, you control only 1 player, the other characters are managed by the AI. The do not necessarily follow you. It depends on their background story and based on that, the goals they have in that given situation/conversation/whatever.
During combat, I'm not sure how it works. Good question.


You clicked on the picture and the size was not big enough?


I wanna use that picture as my background, however when trying to do so, it's really grainy due to the size.
 
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It sounds like it is very early, and things can change. I don't like the concept of AI controlled characters in a four character party doing what they want, and decisions being determined by the AI. For instance, on a quest, let's say I want to do it in a certain way, and as I will be playing solo, it would be very unappealing if the AI overrode my choice because the other 3 characters in the party ruled against me. That would suck. Hopefully they iron out this stuff, or there is an option to turn off the AI, and let the player take control completely somehow. Also, I like to control all party characters in combat, and not have AI do their own combat, which typically is pretty bad and they make dumb choices most of the time…

If the game's main focus is co-op multiplayer, and the single player experience is neglected, that would be an unfortunate design from my point of view. I play solo, and am not into multiple player games. The good things from the article is they finally are allowing other races in the party, and the games overall concept sounds like it's a more serious toned rpg, which I like and find more appealing.
 
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let's say I want to do it in a certain way, and as I will be playing solo, it would be very unappealing if the AI overrode my choice because the other 3 characters in the party ruled against me. That would suck.

Exactly. In the first game I was intrigued with the idea of an AI for my 2nd companion so I waited until they implemented that before I played. Within 30 mins of playing I got overridden twice (and not something small like go left vs right, we killed someone I didn't want to), said "screw that", started over with no AI (which made conversations weird) and played that way.
 
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You can't set the AI to "no AI" like you could in the first game and just control them yourself?

Is the game playable with only 1 char, ie if I hate my companions enough can I kill them all in the first town and still progress? Not sure how long I'll be able to put up with my "companions" actively working against me.

I'll give Larian some leeway though. I was worried about the SP in the first game also and although interactions between my two characters was a weak point, overall the game was awesome.
What they want to achieve with the background stories would be nullified if you could turn the AI off I think.
The game is not playable with 1 char I've been told. It would be extremely hard to finish the game.

I wanna use that picture as my background, however when trying to do so, it's really grainy due to the size.
Oh, now I see. The link has been removed for some reason. Restored the link on the image.
 
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What they want to achieve with the background stories would be nullified if you could turn the AI off I think.

Why? Reactions from NPCs would not change nor would quest/dialog options. And you could say the same thing about playing Co-op, there is no AI when all 4 are controlled by different people. I assume in co-op all players get to choose for their own character, how is it different if one person chooses for all? Unless you don't have a choice in certain situations based on your background but I find that hard to believe.
 
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Exactly. In the first game I was intrigued with the idea of an AI for my 2nd companion so I waited until they implemented that before I played. Within 30 mins of playing I got overridden twice (and not something small like go left vs right, we killed someone I didn't want to), said "screw that", started over with no AI (which made conversations weird) and played that way.

Yup, I will do the same thing. I'm waiting on the enhanced edition of OS 1, and that is how I will play the game too. I don't play rpgs to have some AI make the decisions, that is not to my taste at all. How the party does quests should be up to me, the player, that is how I see it.
 
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