My mom once cut open my pillow and sewed a religious icon meant to be placed on the bedsides of the terminally ill who are in need of spiritual healing while I was out of the house. . . so. . . yes?
Well, I did take it out. So maybe not.
Well, you didn’t die, so I think the sin of removal did not apply.
Wait… WHAT?
Not real Divinity: Original Sin 2. Just early access Divinity: Original Sin 2.
-Tom
Oh, okay. I knew I was out of the loop, but I didn’t think I was that far gone.
Sorry, I don’t have a date for a GOG release.
Brad is doing a live walkthrough of Sorcerer King: Rivals today.
That was great, thanks! The magic wielding Ogre that gigantified himself was both intriguing and terrifying!
Based on the spellbook screenshots, it looks like the rarity tags for spells (Common, Uncommon, etc.) and the school icon from which a spell comes have been dropped in Rivals. I don’t mind dropping the rarity (see below), but why drop the school icon?
“See below” starts here:
In SK, could someone please explain the logic behind the rarity tags and their coloring as opposed to the coloring of the spell’s target (City Enchantment, Heal, Map, etc.)? I can’t determine what the design criteria is for the rarity, and the coloring used for rarity and a spell’s target.
EDIT: I see the rarity tags and school icons are still there.
In this screenshot from Rivals, what’s the criteria for determining the rarity and the coloring of the text to the right of the school icon? For example:
“Common Strategic Heal” is green, yet “Common Tactical Map” is blue. Both are Common rarity, yet they’re different colors.
Both “Common Tactical Unit Enchantment” and “Common Strategic Unit Enchantment” are green, yet one’s a tactical spell and the other a strategic spell.
I await enlightenment!
It’s in the tooltip. (which isn’t displayed in the screenshot).
Also, here’s a walkthrough I made today:
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/479652/Elemental_Rivals_of_the_Sorcerer_Kinga_walkthrough
edit: heh. I see ID got there before me.
Brad does a 45m long Let’s Play of Rivals, looks like he’s going to pick Undead to play as (I only just started watching it).
Were you able to pick out anything that looks like an improvement over the original?
A few things, most notably the new UI looks very good and usable. Also, the undead faction seems interesting and largely unique - however, it is a little strange that they also use “food”. I haven’t seen any new spells or items for the like, but he only played for a few turns before loading into a later same game which is all the further I am in the video so far. Since I am enjoying a fine cigar in front of my iPad, I will watch the rest of it now.
Okay, @robc04 I did finish the video now and I saw what were (to me) some new spells, craftable items, and units I never saw before that looked great. There was some fun dialog changes with @Brad_Wardell playing as the undead, too. I didn’t see any quests or anything but I think mostly it’s just more content which is great. I can’t speak to how much more “4X” it will be now, you are still just trying to beat the Sorcerer King only you have another tool at your disposal (the Ascendancy) to do that - but the goal seems to remain the same (gather your own power with the shards, don’t let the SK destroy them, fight off his agents until you amass enough power to dominate through combat (old-school) or magic (that’s the new one). Near as I can tell, at least. I suspect if one enjoyed SK they will enjoy Rivals.
What we need now is a mode where you can optionally PLAY as the Sorcerer King. That would be fun, trying to build up power by destroying shards, getting more and more powerful units to deploy, having restrictions on when you can start employing your lieutenants and that sort of thing. Maybe if Rivals does well it could be something we see in a future expansion?
It definitely seems worth the $15 upgrade price, imo.
How, oh how, does Stardock always manage to get me to break my preorder promise to myself (admittedly, only with SK, SK:Rivals, GalCiv3, and, eventually, StarCon, but still)?
Thanks for the summary, Scott! Very helpful :-D
Maybe the magic victory will cut down on the slog. One of my main complaints about the first SK is the number of battles that need to be fought against the same SK units time after time. There wasn’t much variety. I enjoyed 3 games or so at launch and didn’t go back to it. I played probably 200 hours of Fallen Enchantress + Legendary Heroes. I thought that game was pretty darn good.
Brad was on the latest eXplorminate podcast. He talks about SK: Rivals, Ashes: Escalation and quite a few other things so it’s a great listen if you have time.
Here’s a Let’s Play from Brad on SK: Rivals that was posted over the weekend.
One of the general things we did with Rivals is greatly reduce the # of battles.
The basic problem I had with SK was replayability. This was a common issue. It was a 4X game with an RPG story which is fine the first few times you play through. But eventually, it gets pretty repetitive trying to march on his fortress.
With Rivals, you can become a god. So you have an incentive to build up your kingdom and try construct lots of ways to defend it via magic and outposts and such.
Tomorrow is my day off, but it comes out on Thursday? Why, Stardock? How am I expected to continue living in this nightmare hellscape?*
*a land without mo’ Sorcerer King -ed.
That does sound like an improvement Brad. Thanks.