In particular interesting as I read a interview some days ago with the creator and he commented how he somehow lost the vision in the sequels of the Divinity, where at first the intention was to do something very inspired in Ultima VII, his favorite game ever. He commented how he would fix it in the next game.
This one.
Divinity: Original Sin has been announced by Belgium’s Larian Studios. It’s an isometric RPG inspired by Ultima VII, having jettisoned the third person viewpoint of Divinity II: Ego Draconis. It’s closer in style to the studio’s first game, Divine Divinity: so close in fact that Original Sin will end where 2002′s Divine Divinity sets off. So close that Larian head Sven Vincke told me that he wanted to make Original Sin specifically to “address frustrations with Divine Divinity.”
But this is more than a remake. Divine Divinity looks like a much prettified version of top-down roleplayers like Neverwinter Nights, but Larian are adding some advancements: both modern, in a dedicated co-op story, and older, in turn-based combat.
Vincke, keen to have an RPG he could play alongside his girlfriend, has ensured that Original Sin was built for two players. […]
Functionally, conversations are built around two players. Responses are traded back and forth. Disagree on a punishment for a drug dealer, as in the example I was shown, and you’ll get a chance to agree with your partner. Disagree again and you’ll hand the choice over to your character sheets, charisma scores deciding your quest fate.
Combat, too, is built for partnership.
The fact that I wanted to pre-order it as soon as I read Ultima VII probably means that I’m too easily manipulated. Still, it sounds very promising, and definitely something to keep an eye on.
Wow. I wasn’t expecting the shift back to isometric, the introduction of turn-based combat for the first time in the franchise, or the coop. (And I really don’t understand how the coop is meant to intersect with the combat - supposedly your partner can just keep trucking along in real-time while you fight turn-based battles. Whut.) But all the same I like.
I am extremely curious about this. I loved me some Dragon Knight Saga.
I assume it can be played in singleplayer with AI controlling the second character.
While I love well-done turn-based RPG combat (someone Kickstarter a Temple of Elemental Evil sequel!), yeah, in DivDiv, it doesn’t exactly thrill me.
If you’re a U7 related game … U7 had real-time combat.
And I thought the Diablo’ish real-time combat worked quite well in DD.
Also, “forcing” a coop might not end up so well, but it’s too early to say I guess.
I wonder what people consider the good points of Ultima VII when they drop references to it.
Sometimes it seems they refer to the great interactivity (you could use everything, you could bake your bread!) or the life in the game (day/night system, and the AI scheduling would act in accord, working at day, going to sleep by night, etc).
Some remember the “polemic” real time combat.
But I think lots of people forget the human factor, I remember how every npc had his own unique name and a few unique lines, even the really secondary ones. And the quests were interesting and played well in that humanity factor. They were less “kill the Orc” or “collect 15 magical herbs” and more “investigate that shady new Order which is gaining power too fast”, “resolve the murder in Trinsic”, “see who is to blame in the drug dealings”, “solve the conflict between the village and the emps”, “find the thief causing problems”, etc. Apart from the more mystic part of the main quest.
Perhaps turn-based will be an option. Both Div 1 and 2 were great games, as they both had the “little things” put into it by the developers that separated it from just being a generic diablo-esque title (that diablo itself is) to something memorable.
The thing I remember from Diablo is the cutscenes.
The things I remember from Divine Divinity is the vendor trying to rip me off, but I kept on buying the stuff he sold hoping that something would work… even though the magic carpet didn’t work, nor the potions, nor the ring 4 short guys with hairy feet had sold to him… or the first time I found a hidden trap door, hidden under a bed, under a rug (after moving them out of the way), or when I discovered I had to check my player-stats constantly to see if there was some new text on it, like my Lightning resistance suddenly saying something like
“your resistance to lightning is so high you could stand in a pool of water wearing steel armor shouting ‘ALL GODS ARE BASTARDS!’ with impunity” or how the game taunted me for having so little endurance that it told me to hide under my mothers skirt, or something akin to that.
Cool cool news. I liked Ego Draconis, but the best bits were the bits Larian are best at, just plain traditional dungeon crawling and questing. I’d actually quite like to see another third person game, but I’m looking forward to Original Sins anyway, I still play DivDiv occasionally.
Still looks great and it always played well. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it stable in Win7. Random and too frequent crashes. No save corruption though, so if you’re insanely patient I guess it’s playable.
With all this really good Divinity news that’s exactly what I’m doing right now.
Playing the GOG version with the new widescreen options on Vista 64, so no crashes yet and looks really good in that older school isometric graphic design I love. Holding it’s own so far on the replay.
So looking forward to the new Divinity: Original Sins.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Angrycoder I need to go back and replay Div1. I loved that game. I wonder how it holds up.
Still looks great and it always played well. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it stable in Win7. Random and too frequent crashes. No save corruption though, so if you’re insanely patient I guess it’s playable.
I am currently playing the GoG version in Vista. I have had no crashes but there are some “little” issues, like the quick save won’t work and the info on the bottom of the screen disappears when I try to use some attributes. But I am enjoying the game. I also hate not having a decent manual to refer to when I can’t figure something out.
I played Ego Draconis first and enjoyed it and the expansion. But they are like playing two different games though.
Love the return to isometric, love the turn based combat and I’ll have to see whether my wife fancies playing through something a bit less massively multiplayer than our usual MMO’s with me. All in all, this sounds great and I’ll very likely buy it.
