Divinity Original Sin releases!

before i buy this im waiting for a decently priced physical copy version... so far theres a 96 dollar one at their website which is too much. I see one at amazon for 60 but its a UK import.

This game will be worth it to me when it goes down to around 40 dollars for the physical copy. im not gonna get a crappy digital version, may as well download a torrent of the game if i do that.

@uninspiredcup: Thanks I'll check it out.

Basically the game feels more like a living world rather than an adventure, which is the typical RPG norm. There are good handcrafted encounters out there, but the real strength of the game is the heavy ammount of interactivity in the world.

If you played the gold box games, the turn based combat and "high difficulty" should come natural to you. Those 2 are the most common complaints from the game's naysayers.

Turn based is probably better for them. Having played quite abit of Divinity 2, holy shit that combat is bad.

Sometimes it doesn't even register hotkeys being pressed. The fatality animaion is so long, that it's better just to basic melee lol. It's shambles.

They also wanted to do turn based games from the get go, but had to make it action because that is what the publisher wanted.

I've installed and uninstalled Divinity 2 3 times in the last week. I hate it but feel and obligation to play it.

It probably is better just to pretend the fucking thing doesn't exist.

Just skip it then.

This is the game Larian wanted to make all along, if they didnt have publishers pushing them because they wanted the game to enter more "profitable ground".

Is dragon commander worth playing?

The strategy bit is poor, but the game is hilarious making fun of liberals, conservatives, feminists, the religious right, and all sorts of other political affilations. Get it on a sale and play it for the decision making and humour, not for the RTS gameplay.

Edit: and marry the skeleton, that bit was hilarious.

God this game is amazing (glad to see Kevin is LOVING it on gamespot), have not played an rpg this good in atleast 5 years if not longer. It is hilarious, it has hands down the best combat in an rpg in ages, the gameworld is brilliant, it is brimming with content, Nice art design, Great dialogue, Usual Larian Humor, Interesting characters, this is the rpg I have been waiting years and years go what a breath of fresh air this game is with all the crappy action focused rpgs we get these days.

I know they are not the same but for me personally this game is alot more fun than say Skyrim, Dark Souls, ME or any rpgs of the last 5 years for that matter. Thank you Larian for not dumbing this game down and finally giving us a true rpg in an age when most gamers would rather just play action games discuised as rpgs. This is a much better crafted rpg aswell than many of the latest rpgs we have gotten. Hell, I loved Dragon Age Origins, but this game is leagues better in every way other than story.

Also the humor is great to and very typical of Larian, for those who think its to "funny" have you never played a Larian game before? There sense of humor is a great thing imo, who says rpgs can't have some humor? I suggest everyone gives this game a chance (and not just 45mins or 1 hour, some proper time).

Glad Kevin is enjoying it and Im glad its selling really well to! If you don't want a hard rpg or an rpg that doesnt hold you're hand then give this a try, it is a gem among the horrible and extremely overrated rpgs we have gotten lately. This is Larian in there prime and showing the gaming world that crpg's and turnbased combat is still alive and well. No rpg of the last few years even compares, PERIOD. While Divinity 2 was pretty average, this is Larian hitting on all cylinders.

Really the only weakness is the story, if it had shadowruns exansion level of story or Mask Of The Betrayer level story this would be even better and arguably perfect. But when it does everything else so extremely well its not a big deal (characters, combat, gameworld, art design, gameplay and music are all top of the line). Did you enjoy Ultima, Fallout1/2/Tactics, Icewind Dale, Baldurs Gate or Divine Divinity? If so check this game out, in an age where rpgs have crap combat and lack content, this game is a breath of fresh air and actually makes me think rpgs might be back on the right track finally.

Sure there has been some aspects done better in rpgs over the last while, but as a full package? Nothing is even close, 48 hours into this game and barely scratched the surface, god I hope we get more great turn based rpgs after this. THANK YOU LARIAN!

I really do have to try out banner saga, haven't gotten around to it yet.

I see what you mean about the writing quality being rather poor, there's also quite often repeated lines of dialog, there's a lot of text but it's just so completely bland that it's a chore to read through. I'm going to attempt to run a rogue and just steal everyone blind. That seems to be the preferred way to make it through the game according to most players.

Hopefully the writing picks up, I really do want to see what the fuss is about, but so far there's nothing standing out to me.

Its not so much that its funny as goofy. The tone of the game from what I played reminds me of Magika but without the tongue in cheek part. I'm not saying thats a bad thing, its just not something I personally enjoy, especially when a game is so focused on dialogue.

I haven't played any of the classic CRPG's you mentioned but the running around town trying to solve stuff reminds me of the first Witcher, which also had humour, but it had a very dark atmosphere that drew me in. Original Sin is very light hearted; the music is happy and vendors in the street make puns as you go past, but you are investigating a gruesome murder and the game tries to take itself seriously but I just cant. It seems well made and I wish I could get into it but after like 4-5 hours I just cant. Its too slow, I dont care about the story or any of the characters, the dialogue isn't interesting to me and I'm finding the lack of direction a bit frustrating. For example early on when you first investigate the room of the murder your journal says to check out the body, it took me like 20 minutes of running around talking to people before discovering I had to go to the graveyard (completely by accident), then I had to go find a shovel and the skill that lets me talk to animals which was another long boring runaround. I'm not saying I want quest markers, but some indication of how to achieve my next objective would be very helpful. I feel like the act of slowly running around the city looking for something very specific gave me a headache after a while.

I'm glad you are enjoying it though, it seems like a well made game and I do like the combat and art direction. Its just not for me.

Wut?

Divinity OS is turn base. You don't need to pause in Divinity because characters go in order. Baldur's Gate you had to pause. Makes me wonder if you really have played these games if you haven't notice or understand the difference.

This game should be something I really enjoy. I played BG and NWN for hundreds and hundreds of hours and loved them. But the killer here for me at least is turn-based combat. It just isn't fun and it isn't what the old school RPGs used in the majority of cases, they used RTWP. As much as I complain about the slow pace of combat in games like DA:O, it is still miles better than turn-based. The big problem with turn-based is that they have to overtune the fights by such a large amount to make them challenging they are simply not enjoyable. They very quickly get tedious and needlessly frustrating. It sucks that they went this way because the rest of the game seems great, the combo system, the story, the companions, the old-school stats and management. But the combat just isn't fun. I know why they did it - it is easier to code and balance than RTWP, they did it to save time and resources. But it ends up turning off old-school RPG fans like myself.

I am really disappointed that Torment decided to go the same way and if it turns out the same (read: tedious, frustrating, and boring) I am going to be really REALLY pissed that I donated (I already sold my Numenera corebook on eBay since it turned out not to be what Cook billed it as). Obsidian may be incompetent when it comes to play-testing their games, but at least Eternity is using RTWP for combat. The fact that both Divinity and Torment have decided to change the combat system to turn-based AFTER the funding has already cleared is seriously making me reconsider donating to these kind of campaigns in the future. Because after waiting 12+ months I am certainly not getting my money out of this game.

I felt EXACTLY the same way when I downloaded the beta for Original Sin. I didn't even make it out of the starting town. I just solved the mystery and then uninstalled.

lol... you could set baldurs gate to pause before every character automatically.... what was that about actually playing the game? perhaps you should brush up on it yourself.... or atleast try to be less of a twat.

considering you were blocked from leaving the starting town in the "beta".... that isnt much of an accomplishment.

Disagree about the turn based combat completely. Make your way past the base character builds and turn the difficulty up.

I like the fact as well you meld only two builds than 4-6. Rather than the typical tank/heal/dps/nuke type stuff it simply becomes two classes rifting off each other.

According to @SerOlmy the CRPG genre started with the Infinity Engine & NWN.

Ever heard of the D&D Gold Boxes, Wizardry, Ultima, Bards Tale, Might & Magic maybe ?

I thought you were an old school RPG fan, huh ?

Very good soundtrack. seems to be Basil Poledouris inspired.

Another "Waaaah its not RTwP, the true old school" comment?

You do realize RPGs were turn based 34 years before the release of your beloved Baldur's Gate, right? As a matter of fact, RPGs started out turn based, and were built around turn based combat much like FPS were built around the keyboard and mouse scheme. RPGs only started to adopt the whole RTwP during the late 90s because of the whole RTS trend going on at the time.

I honestly cant really call Baldur's Gate old school either, to me it is as old school of an RPG as Halo is an old school fps.

Funny because what you consider "tedious, frustrating, and boring" is what I consider "elegant, optimized for depth and when done right challenging" as opposed to the "tedious, frustrating, boring, easy to exploit, and ultimately a complete cluster**** and microhell if you try to add some slight depth to it".

Can I say GS is really a paid media these days? How can they miss such an extraordinary release, easily RPG of the year? There is no review, no news what so ever. Only AAA titles and editorial/advertorial contents. Its official release, not open beta or early access. Just because its a small budget game that there is no coverage? Metacritic has a lot of player reviews, which are players who already spend min 10 hours+ Not like those hyped kids giving 10s on release day for COD.

Mr Kevin has been playing it extensively. Seems logical to assume a review will be up at some point.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/fiddlecub

If you care about more even media coverage eurogamer is probably a better place to go too.

Kevin is playing and loving it, I am glad he is spending more than a few hours on a game before reviewing it.

Give him time, he probably wants to finish the game first (seeing as he is loving it).

I'm in the same boat. I've even taken on two additional NPCs but I just get murdered and I can't find anywhere to grind to improve my guys. I was getting ready to look for a strategy guide online.

-Byshop

Most likely you have to grind the lvl 5 mobs and hope the rng gods favor you so you don't get wrecked.

The reason for this is the turn-based combat. The fights are tuned so that you have ZERO margin for error or misjudgment. And FYI any game where you have to grind just to level your characters or get random loot just to be able to progress is piss poor balancing. The combat is not enjoyable at all.

@SerOlmy:

No, all the opponents that I have found since getting into the first town are just too strong. Prior to that, the combat was tough but fair, but it seems pretty clear that the opponents I'm facing now are just too high level for my character. I'm pretty sure there's something else I'm supposed to be doing instead of fighting these guys, but I haven't figured out what it is yet.

-Byshop

yup... there is literally nowhere i can go where mobs arent atleast 1 level higher than i am. i either missed something big, or this game is not balanced correctly in terms of XP rewards.

You should be able to take on mobs 1 or 2 levels higher than you without too much problems. Though I guess that also depends on your party.

uhhhhh... no.

1 level is a big difference. 2 levels is damn near impossible. you will have mobs hitting you for 50-60 damage at lvl 6, while you will be hitting them for 30 at the most. also, they will have 350HP, while your party will have max 280-300.

i dunno what kind of magic party you guys are running, but i suspect there is some tall tale shit going on in this thread. taking on a group of 6+ mobs (which you pretty much always face), 2 levels higher will spell death before you even kill one.

The key here is don't get it. My melee character doesnt charge into foes, I try to whittle them down and divide them as much as possible to make fights more manageable. Consumables help too. For ranged foes, taking full advantage of line of sight too puts you at an advantage (though no longer as big as it used to be).

Sounds like ppl are so used to Oblivion like level scaling where everything is a 'fair fight' and you never have to think about anything.

(besides following that quest compass and spamming that right click buttan)

Damn son, this game is hard. I heard it gets easier though.

I think ranged and warriors are too strong... while thiefs ect... ugh... a nusance getting past level 4 at the moment. because my female theif character is just week... amaing backstab damage... but so fragile... and they turn around if she misses.

Is it really their fault though? Or is the problem that they have been sheltered or coddled by the game designers.

RPGs with "tactical combat" are far too often nowdays designed around the concept of facetanking blows and any strategy really only came in the form of ability usage (most of which involved doing MOAR damage). I was genuinely suprised with an RPG I played last year where enemy the enemy not only outmanned you by about 2-3 to 1, but also outgunned you by quite a bit.

Haven't had any problems yet with difficulty. Might And Magic X was considerably harder.

I think I figured it out. How far did you get in the murder investigation? If you haven't done that, go back and try to complete that quest in the town. That will start to take you down another path...

-Byshop

Right now the game is at 9.2 average user score on MC . There are only two official reviews out there (MC shows one of them , from MMORPG.com) . MMORPG gave it 8.2 , Co-optimus gave it 5/5 .

Any ideas when we're going to see other reviews .?

After watching that review,I agree the COOP makes some good points.The game doesn't seem to bother telling you you buy skills through bantering or the basics of crafting.

The game doesn't really explain many of the mechanisms to tell you the truth. I figured out the skill combos pretty easily, but beyond that it is pretty obtuse. I can deal with that, Endless Space was like that too and I have played a bunch of that. But when the combat system isn't engaging and the story feels meh, not much desire to wade through all the crap to learn the other stuff.

So I finally broke down and redeemed my digital GOG version instead of waiting for the box copy (The GOG patches are buggy, be warned) and have a few impressions thus far.

For starters, the camera seems to bug out whenever there some foreground objects in the way, like giant doors or whatnot, and make it hard to see what's going on. There's something else about it I can't put my finger on that bugs me about it as well. The story seem very weak; I'm still not sure why my two characters are there or what the motivations are. Goofy story or no, I wish they had invested in a more compelling intro. The music is quite nice and different from standard fantasy fare, though I think the main menu theme doesn't fit there. That combat theme "Dance of Death" is really good.

The combat is fantastic and easily my favorite part of the game so far. I even sped through the tutorial just to try and find more combat to launch into. I do have some issues with the way AP is shown: I would have preferred numerics in addition to the green balls so I don't have to count manually how much is left. I greatly appreciate the difficulty; those first 3 orcs you fight actually made me quake a little when I saw how strong they were.

Items seem very expensive; it seems like they really want you to gather everything you come across and invest heavily in bartering. The bartering ui itself could do with some upgrades: I don't see why your 2 characters can't both pitch in items to barter for instance.

Aside from some UI annoyances and graphical glitches, the game seems fairly well polished. They made a respectable effort in making Cyseal look like a real living town, and it shows. That dual protag dialogue system seems interesting, even though they only yet included 2 automatic AI packages. So far I don't regret at all the $65 spent for two copies, and can't wait to start a co-op game with my gal. I believe Swen Vincke did say once he made this to play with his SO, after all. Has anyone yet had the chance to play co-op?

Nah It is quite doable to kill off enemies atleast 1 level higher then you, It becomes norm to be honest, and expect alot of bosses to be atleast a level or two higher.

It is just that the game is very tactical, a mage is not the one WHO throws fireballs and take cover while the fighter charges in.

The key to Victory is often to direct the flow of battle, and use the elements for your advantage. And buy a metric ton of skillbooks. It took a while for me to figure it out aswell. Best explanation to how I manage (I do play it Co-OP btw, not sure if it makes it easier or harder to do the tactics).

I have a Ranged Rogue, to initialte combat most of the time, fast, stealthy and more important has a wide array of arrows for each job. A good starter is to fire a poison cloud arrow at the general area of a mob, the undead don't care about poison, but it WILL react very violently at the lvl 4 small fireball my mage has, so it will double the explosion against them and usually set the Group on fire.

Teleport is also a needed spell in the way I do my fighting, you can teleport an enemy into another one, if the ground rings cross just a Little, doing massive damage to both of them.

Electrocuting Water puddles is also a must in order to keep the mobs at bay.

That is what my mage tends to do.

Lastly I have an NPC fighter and Cleric, both heavy damage soaker s and one healer (is a cleric afterall). They guard the two ranged combatants, they stand just a tad farwards, and will automatically deal incredible damage to anyone passing them.

In some cases Summons are also great, a fire elemental is a walking firebomb, easy to discard, quick to re-throw.

it is just that the typical way of fighting in RPGs don't really comply here. The Rogue is absolutely lethal in this game, The direct damage of a two handed weapon can often shave a quarter of the life of an enemy a level higher then you, and most magic spells have far more importand secondary effect then the active damage (electrocute Water so a lvl 6 Orc stays stunned, and have the fighter and Cleric Wail on him till he dies, unable to fight back. It will click on some point, and it is hard as nails till you begin to think in the games own logic.

Total War is a great example of a game with multiple mechanics and lairs explained in a fully comprehensible manner to the laymen without damaging or "dumbing down". A built in wiki and an optional adviser (that actually enhanced the game-play by adding character) have always worked great. Many complicated games regardless of genre could learn from Creative Assembly on easing the player in.

Might have a look at it at my friends house (he bought it at launch).

Shame it's turn based though, sort of puts me off.

I am excited about Pillars though, cause it basically Baldurs Gate from what I've seen. Big party, isometric, loads of story arcs, real time combat with pause. Yes please...

This pretty much is Baldurs Gate and (even with turn based movement) has combat very similar, since Baldurs Gate itself was a replication of dice rolls.

I've heard from several people the story has no real direction, no overarching villain or protagonist. That combined with the combat and other issues makes me question if it is really much like BG at all. I was really disinterested in Eternity because of Obsidian's terrible track record. But now I'm hoping they can make good on what they promised, because Divinity certainly didn't IMO.

Beautiful game, Hitting all the Nerves for me.

The art to understanding and then loving this game is patience. So refreshing to be able to play a game like this on an armchair whilst doing other 'real world' things. Combat helps here with it's turn based mechanics - it honestly feels like a beautifully constructed game of chess sometimes, highly recommend!

I remember a couple years back when i had an itch for a Baldur's Gate type game - I ended up installing Baldur's Gate 2 and played about 4 hours until I got bored. However this one has got me hooked, probably due to it's stunning depth and attention to detail. Sound/music also worthy of honorary mention. get this game, it's very very very good.

Thank you Larian Studios - love your ident animation to!

POP!

why are people put off by the turn based combat? honestly... combat plays out almost exactly like balders gate combat, you just basically pause before each attach. its not one side attacking, and then the other side attacking. its more like FFXs combat system where each character has a certain initiative and you might have 2 party members be able to act, and then an enemy, and then another party member, and then 3 enemies.... its pretty fast paced...

I'd put them well above Bioware.

Obsidian does good story telling for the most part, but every one of their games from KotOR2 through New Vegas have released as buggy and unplayable at launch. Obsidian seems either completely unable to bug test their games or for whatever reason release them way too early. The people who buy the game within a few months of launch end up paying to bug test it for them. And some games like Alpha Protocol and NWN2 either don't get fixed until the first expansion or have to be fixed by the community.

As to the turn-based combat some commented above, I dislike it so much because it is tedious, boring, and the pacing sucks. It is also overturned to the point of frustration. You don't see that with most RTwP combat systems. I find it very unsatisfying and not the least bit enjoyable.