Tags: Divinity: Original Sin; Larian Studios
IGN has put up a preview of Larian's upcoming turn-based co-op RPG Divinity: Original Sin that reveals a few new things about the game. In particular, there's some intriguing info about quest design:
The Divinity games have always been known for their kitchen-sink approach to player interaction and RPG goals. In fact, as Swen is happy to admit, “In Dragon Knight Saga there were quests that had twenty four different ways of completing them.” Which is all well and good, but when twenty of those are hidden from all players except those with a fanatic dedication to the game, that’s almost a waste of development time.
That kind of dedication and broad approach is working well here, judging by what was shown of Original Sin. Far from being obtuse and obstructed, the level of depth in both player interaction and (perhaps more importantly) the non player characters and how they notice what you’re doing was astonishing.
For example, you soon add a banjo stolen from a Wollock, giant orange troll monsters, to the stash of drugs spilling out of your pockets, and somehow these items combined lead a pair of bounty hunters to think that you're the drug dealer - because they were given a description of a Wollock carrying a banjo selling drugs, and two out of three really isn’t bad in the fantasy bounty hunter business.
If you didn’t have either of those items on your person, or just one, they might not have made that connection. “We have values that we’re tracking that trigger new events that happen in quests,” Swen explains. There are also counters for how you behave, too, whether you’re a psychopath, lawful goody two shoes or just all over the place, a chaotic force of Twoface-like proportions making decisions based on random luck rather than anything coherent.
As well as about the co-op dialogue system:
When I say that the game is cooperative, that doesn’t just mean that two players can be in the same game. Everything, from the combat to the loot to the quests themselves, is about two players working together, and this even extends to the dialogue system. When appropriate, your characters will hold a three way conversation, with an NPC making up the third pillar of the triumvirate.
Lines fall from the NPC, and then, where appropriate, either character can speak up, and you get to make the dialogue choices. It means that not only do you both feel involved, but you can disagree. Let that sink in for a moment. It means the great arguments over a D&D game have finally made it most of the way into our beloved digital medium. “Discussion creates gameplay.” Says Vincke. “It should be really engaging.”
The only slight disappointment is that currently if you do disagree, the game will resolve things by making a dice roll, pulling in charisma stats and maybe something more applicable to the current situation, like intelligence for tests of knowledge, or strength for intimidation.
I dunno, that doesn't really sound disappointing to me.
